o say. "I
suppose, dear, you could hardly fail to notice how matters were going.
This calling at once, and his bringing the children too; and his wish
to find out my opinions, and tell me his own on various subjects."

Silence on the part of the hostess.

"I could almost have wished, dear Emily, that you had not----"

She paused. "Had not what?" asked Emily.

Miss Fairbairn remembered that she was Mrs. Walker's guest, and that it
behoved her not to offend her hostess, because she wanted to stay in
that house as long as possible. She would like to have finished her
speech thus: "that you had not engrossed the children so completely;"
but she said instead, with a little smile meant to look conscious, "I
believe I meant, dear, that I should have been very glad to talk to the
children myself."

She felt that this reply fell rather flat, but she knew that Emily must
immediately be made aware of what she now hoped was really the state of
the case, and must also be made to help her.

No surprise was expressed, but Mrs. Walker did not make any reply
whatever, so she continued,--

"You look surprised, dear, but surely what I have hinted at cannot be a
new thought to you," and as it did not suit her to drop the subject yet,
she proceeded. "No, I see by your smile that it is not. I confess I
should have liked to talk to them, for," she added, with a sigh of
contentment, "the task, I see very plainly before me, is always a
difficult one to undertake."

Still Emily was silent; she seemed lost in thought; indeed, she was
considering among other things that it was little more than a year since
she and John had discussed Justina together; was there, could there
really be, anything between them now?

Justina watched her, and wished she could know what effect these hints
had taken. Emily had always behaved in such a high-minded, noble way to
her lovers, and been so generous to other women, that Justina depended
on her now. The lower nature paid homage to the higher, even to the
point of believing in a sense of honour quite alien to its own
experience. There was not the least reason to suppose that Emily cared
about John Mortimer, but she wanted her to stand aside lest he should
take it into his head to begin to care for her. So many men had been
infatuated about Emily, but Emily had never wished to rob another woman
for the mere vanity of spoliation, and Justina's opinion of her actually
was that if she could be made to believ