impossible. Neither to her father nor to any
one could she lie either in word or action. And all these lines and
points of duty were well known to her, though she knew not, and had
never asked herself, whence the lesson had come. Will it be too much
to say, that they had formed a part of her breeding, and had been
given to her with her blood? She understood well that from her, as
heiress of the House of Humblethwaite, a double obedience was due
to her father,--the obedience of a child added to that which was
now required from her as the future transmitter of honours of the
house. And yet no word had been said to her of the honours of the
house; nor, indeed, had many words ever been said as to that other
obedience. These lessons, when they have been well learned, have ever
come without direct teaching.

But she knew more than this, and the knowledge had reached her in the
same manner. Though she owed a great duty to her father, there was
a limit to that duty, of which, unconsciously, she was well aware.
When her mother told her that Lord Alfred was coming, having been
instructed to do so by Sir Harry; and hinted, with a caress and a
kiss, and a soft whisper, that Lord Alfred was one of whom Sir Harry
approved greatly, and that if further approval could be bestowed Sir
Harry would not be displeased, Emily as she returned her mother's
embrace, felt that she had a possession of her own with which neither
father nor mother might be allowed to interfere. It was for them, or
rather for him, to say that a hand so weighted as was hers should not
be given here or there; but it was not for them, not even for him, to
say that her heart was to be given here, or to be given there. Let
them put upon her what weight they might of family honours, and of
family responsibility, that was her own property;--if not, perhaps,
to be bestowed at her own pleasure, because of the pressure of that
weight, still her own, and absolutely beyond the bestowal of any
other.

Nevertheless, she declared to herself, and whispered to her mother,
that she would be glad to welcome Lord Alfred. She had known him well
when she was a child of twelve years old and he was already a young
man in Parliament. Since those days she had met him more than once in
London. She was now turned twenty, and he was something more than ten
years her senior; but there was nothing against him, at any rate, on
the score of age. Lord Alfred was admitted on every side to be still