as yet more so when she spoke playfully to him of
his going soon to be a married man. He could answer to that in a smiling
negative, playing round the question, until she perceived that he really
desired to have his feeling for the odd dark girl who had recently shot
across their horizon touched, if only it were led to by the muffled ways
of innuendo.

As a dog, that cannot ask you verbally to scratch his head, but wishes
it, will again and again thrust his head into your hand, petitioning
mutely that affection may divine him, so:--but we deal with a
sentimentalist, and the simile is too gross to be exact. For no
sooner was Wilfrid's head scratched, than the operation stuck him as
humiliating; in other words, the moment he felt his sisters fingers
in the ticklish part, he flew to another theme, then returned, and so
backward and forward--mystifying her not slightly, and making her think,
"Then he has no heart." She by no means intended to encourage love for
Emilia, but she hoped for his sake, that the sentiment he had indulged
was sincere. By-and-by he said, that though he had no particular
affection for Lady Charlotte, he should probably marry her.

"Without loving her, Wilfrid? It is unfair to her; it is unfair to
yourself."

Wilfrid understood perfectly who it was for whom she pleaded thus
vehemently. He let her continue: and when she had dwelt on the horrors
of marriages without love, and the supreme duty of espousing one who has
our 'heart's loyalty,' he said, "You may be right. A man must not play
with a girl. He must consider that he owes a duty to one who is more
dependent;"--implying that a woman s duty was distinct and different in
such a case.

Cornelia could not rise and plead for her sex. Had she pushed forth the
'woman,' she must have stood for her.

This is the game of Fine Shades and Nice Feelings, under whose empire
you see this family, and from which they are to emerge considerably
shorn, but purified--examples of One present passage of our
civilization.

"At least, dear, if" (Cornelia desperately breathed the name) "--if
Emilia were forced to give her hand...loving...you...we should be right
in pitying her?"

The snare was almost too palpable. Wilfrid fell into it, from the
simple passion that the name inspired; and now his hand tightened. "Poor
child!" he moaned.

She praised his kind heart: "You cannot be unjust and harsh, I know
that. You could not see her--me--any of us miserable. Women