It gave her, therefore, quite a painful shock to discover suddenly one fine day that she was beginning to care a great deal about a man who was not even distantly connected with a baronetcy. Emma made this discovery some time after Sebastian Shepley had been presented to her; but she put the thought aside at first as quite unworthy. To confirm herself in dismissing such an idea, she spoke with some sharpness to Charlotte about the spectral bridegroom. ‘I wish you would in truth present me to a baronet, Charlotte, instead of speaking so frequently of doing so,’ she said. Charlotte was a little nettled by the remark, probably because she knew no baronet whom she could present to her sister, yet was unwilling to acknowledge the fact. ‘I take good care to present no man to you whom I do not consider suitable to be your husband,’ she said coldly. ‘I may get tired of waiting,’ said pretty Emma. This was all she said then, but some months later, in a burst of girlish despair, she confided to Lady Mallow what she feared was her hopeless passion for Dr. Sebastian Shepley. ‘I should not care for fifty baronets now,’ she concluded, burying her face on Charlotte’s not very sympathetic breast. ‘Tush! Emma,’ said her Ladyship; ‘you should look higher——’ She could think of no more weighty argument. But Emma could not listen even to this. She sobbed and sobbed, and prayed Charlotte, if she loved her, to try to help her. For a long time Charlotte resisted these entreaties, then she determined to tell her father the state of the case. ‘So this is what ails Emma?’ he said. ‘Gad! but I’ll make short work with it. Shepley is a fine man—no finer surgeon have I come across this many a year. If he will take Emma he shall have her, and welcome.’ So not very many days later, Dr. Barrington, as you have heard, approached Shepley on the subject of marriage. At first it seemed as if nothing were to come of the conversation; then quite suddenly Shepley came one day to announce to Dr. Barrington that Emma had agreed to marry him. ‘My blessings on you for a sensible man,’ said Barrington. ‘You were so long about it I half feared you would not take my counsel at all.’ ‘I took it so well that I did not hurry in the matter,’ laughed Sebastian. He laughed himself down-stairs, laughed his adieus to Emma, and swaggered off down the street with his fine swinging gait, as gay and hearty a man as you might see in all England. But oh, inscrutable heart of man! what were these curious old words that so rang in his ears? He seemed to be walking to the tune of them. ‘_If I forget thee_,’ said the voice of the heart that speaks ever whitest truth,—‘_If I forget thee, let my right hand forget its cunning._’ And he shook his head and smiled, and looked down at his clever right hand. CHAPTER XI