aughter?

EMILIA.

Guess, dear mother, guess: I thought I should have sunk into the earth.
Himself!

CLAUDIA.

Whom do you mean?

EMILIA.

The Prince!

CLAUDIA.

The Prince! Blest be your father's impatience! He was here just now,
and would not stay till you returned.

EMILIA.

My father here--and not stay till I returned!

CLAUDIA.

If, in the midst of your confusion, you had told him too.

EMILIA.

Well, dear mother--could he have found anything in my conduct deserving
of censure?

CLAUDIA.

No--as little as in mine. And yet, yet--you do not know your father.
When enraged, he would have mistaken the innocent for the guilty--in
his anger he would have fancied me the cause of what I could neither
prevent nor foresee. But proceed, my daughter, proceed. When you
recognised the Prince, I trust that you were sufficiently composed to
convince him by your looks, of the contempt which he deserved.

EMILIA.

That I was not. After the glance by which I recognised him, I had not
courage to cast a second. I fled.

CLAUDIA.

And the Prince followed you?

EMILIA.

I did not know it till I had reached the porch, where I felt my hand
seized--by him. Shame compelled me to stop; as an effort to extricate
myself would have attracted the attention of every one who was passing.
This was the only reflection of which I was capable, or which I at
present remember. He spoke, and I replied--but what he said, or what I
replied, I know not.--Should I recollect it, my dear mother, you shall
hear it. At present I remember nothing further. My senses had forsaken
me.--In vain do I endeavour to recollect how I got away from him, and
escaped from the porch. I found myself in the street--I heard his steps
behind me--I heard him follow me into the house, and pursue me up the
stairs----

CLAUDIA.

Fear has its peculiar faculty, my daughter. Never shall I forget the
look with which you rushed into this room!--No. He dared not follow you
so far.--Heavens! had your father known this!--How angry was he when I
merely told him that the Prince had latel