ds. There was frank candor, graceful
innocence, bright open-hearted truth in every look and every word. It
was impossible to doubt her; and Sir Philip cast the suspicion from him,
but, alas! not for ever. They would return from time to time to grieve
and perplex him; and he would often brood for hours over his daughter's
character, puzzling himself more and more. Yet he would not say a
word--he blamed himself for even thinking of the matter; and he would
not show a suspicion. Yet he continued to think and to doubt, while poor
unconscious Emily would have been ready, if asked, to solve the whole
mystery in a moment. She had been silent from an unwillingness to begin
a painful subject herself; and though she had yielded no assent to Mrs.
Hazleton's arguments, they had made her doubt whether she ought to
mention, unquestioned, John Ayliffe's proposal and conduct. She had made
up her mind to tell all, if her father showed the slightest desire to
know any thing regarding her late visit; but there was something in the
effects which that visit had produced on her mind, which she could not
explain to herself.

Why did she love Mrs. Hazleton less? Why had she lost so greatly her
esteem for her? What had that lady done or said which justified so great
a change of feeling towards her? Emily could not tell. She could fix
upon no word, no act, she could entirely blame--but yet there had been a
general tone in her whole demeanor which had opened the poor girl's eyes
too much. She puzzled herself sadly with her own thoughts; and probably
would have fallen into more than one of her deep self-absorbed reveries,
had not sweet new feelings, Marlow's frequent presence, kept her awake
to a brighter, happier world of thought.

She was indeed very happy; and, could she have seen her mother look
brighter and smile upon her, she would have been perfectly so. Her
father's occasional moodiness she did not heed; for he often seemed
gloomy merely from intense thought. Emily had got a key to such dark
reveries in her own heart, and she knew well that they were no true
indications either of discontent or grief, for very often when to the
eyes of others she seemed the most dull and melancholy, she was enjoying
intense delight in the activity of her own mind. She judged her father
from herself, and held not the slightest idea that any word, deed or
thought of hers had given him the slightest uneasiness.

Notwithstanding the various contending feeling