ve taken a place near her village for a month. She
promised to dine and sleep here, if she returned in time. What is your
news?'

'Nothing; the world wags on.'

'You have nothing special to tell her?'

'Nothing'; he hummed; 'nothing, I fancy, that she does not know.'

'You said you were disappointed.'

'It's always a pleasure to see her.'

'Even in her worst moods, I find it so.'

'Oh! moods!' quoth Redworth.

'My friend, they are to be reckoned, with women.'

'Certainly; what I meant was, that I don't count them against women.'

'Good: but my meaning was... I think I remember your once comparing
them and the weather; and you spoke of the "one point more variable
in women." You may forestall your storms. There is no calculating the
effect of a few little words at a wrong season.'

'With women! I suppose not. I have no pretension to a knowledge of the
sex.'

Emma imagined she had spoken plainly enough, if he had immediate
designs; and she was not sure of that, and wished rather to shun his
confidences while Tony was in her young widowhood, revelling in her joy
of liberty. By and by, was her thought: perhaps next year. She dreaded
Tony's refusal of the yoke, and her iron-hardness to the dearest of men
proposing it; and moreover, her further to be apprehended holding to the
refusal, for the sake of consistency, if it was once uttered. For her
own sake, she shrank from hearing intentions, that distressing the
good man, she would have to discountenance. His candour in confessing
disappointment, and his open face, his excellent sense too, gave her
some assurance of his not being foolishly impetuous. After he had read
to her for an hour, as his habit was on evenings and wet days, their
discussion of this and that in the book lulled any doubts she had of his
prudence, enough to render it even a dubious point whether she might be
speculating upon a wealthy bachelor in the old-fashioned ultra-feminine
manner; the which she so abhorred that she rejected the idea.
Consequently, Redworth's proposal to walk down to the valley for Diana,
and bring her back, struck her as natural when a shaft of western
sunshine from a whitened edge of raincloud struck her windows. She
let him go without an intimated monition or a thought of one; thinking
simply that her Tony would be more likely to come, having him for
escort. Those are silly women who are always imagining designs and
intrigues and future palpitations in the commonest a