n Walderhurst did not wish to
go out to dinner or disdained a ball, she should stay at home. Far from
it. She simply rejoiced with Lady Agatha, who was twenty-two marrying
twenty-eight.

"You are not like me," she explained further. "I have had to work so
hard and contrive so closely that _everything_ will be a pleasure to me.
Just to know that I _never_ need starve to death or go into the
workhouse is such a relief that--"

"Oh!" exclaimed Lady Agatha, quickly and involuntarily laying a hand on
hers, startled by the fact that she spoke as if referring to a wholly
matter-of-fact possibility.

Emily smiled, realising her feeling.

"Perhaps I ought not to have said that. I forgot. But such things are
possible when one is too old to work and has nothing to depend on. You
could scarcely understand. When one is very poor one is frightened,
because occasionally one cannot help thinking of it."

"But now--now! Oh! how different!" exclaimed Agatha, with heartfelt
earnestness.

"Yes. Now I need never be afraid. It makes me so grateful to--Lord
Walderhurst."

Her neck grew pink as she said it, just as Lady Maria had seen it grow
pink on previous occasions. Moderate as the words were, they expressed
ardour.

Lord Walderhurst came in half an hour later and found her standing
smiling by the window.

"You look particularly well, Emily. It's that white frock, I suppose.
You ought to wear a good deal of white," he said.

"I will," Emily answered. He observed that she wore the nice flush and
the soft appealing look, as well as the white frock. "I wish--"

Here she stopped, feeling a little foolish.

"What do you wish?"

"I wish I could do more to please you than wear white--or black--when
you like."

He gazed at her, always through the single eyeglass. Even the vaguest
approach to emotion or sentiment invariably made him feel stiff and shy.
Realising this, he did not quite understand why he rather liked it in
the case of Emily Fox-Seton, though he only liked it remotely and felt
his own inaptness a shade absurd.

"Wear yellow or pink occasionally," he said with a brief, awkward laugh.

What large, honest eyes the creature had, like a fine retriever's or
those of some nice animal one saw in the Zoo!

"I will wear anything you like," she said, the nice eyes meeting his,
not the least stupidly, he reflected, though women who were affectionate
often looked stupid. "I will do anything you like; you don't know what
you