“Yes, my lady, I was in Italy and at Vienna with him. I was three years abroad, and then, when he returned again to Italy ... (he paused)—I felt I was too old to begin again; I thought some younger servant would suit my lord better, and I begged leave to come home; and though certainly it was not my place, yet I tried hard to persuade my lord to come home too; for I own I thought little good would come of living so much out of one’s own country—people get a love for rambling, never can settle, and learn bad foreign ways——.” And again he stopped short, as if he feared he might already have said too much. Emmeline longed to hear more, and yet she also thought perhaps she had allowed him to go too far; and making no comment on what he had said, she hastily ejaculated—”Oh! I remember now what I rang for. I want to know where that man of the name of Rawlins now lives, who wrote me this petition, and if you know any thing about him, and what can be done for him.” “Rawlins whose mill was burnt? Oh yes! my lady, I know him very well, but all that is settled. My lord, to whom he also applied, wrote to me to find him employment, and to give him and his family, for the present, a cottage that chanced to be vacant, and he also desired me to give the wife some allowance weekly till they had a little recovered themselves, and till he could see what more could be done for them, for they are honest industrious people, and my lord is so good. I have his letter somewhere about me, if your ladyship would like to see it,” added Reynolds, searching in a large pocket-book, in which among heaps of bills and papers he at last found it, and gave it to Emmeline. Her heart overflowed towards her husband. “How good! how kind he is!” thought she, and she almost added, “kind to every one but me.” The letter said nothing more than what Reynolds had repeated; but still, even to see his hand-writing was agreeable. She was just going to return it to him, when on the other side of the page, a postscript and her own name caught her eye, and with a beating heart, she continued:— “I hope you have attended to those alterations in the greenhouse which Lady Fitzhenry wished to have made—and desire the groom to exercise her horse properly for her before her return, for when I last rode him he was much too spirited.” Emmeline read and re-read these few words expressive of care and thought for her, till she exaggerated their meaning far beyond their original import, and on them built many a visionary castle of future happiness. She mounted her horse, and many an additional caress and kind word she addressed to the animal, now that it was connected in her mind with Fitzhenry, and with the first expression of interest about herself that had ever escaped him. She found the Rawlins family overflowing with gratitude, and offering up prayers for her husband, in which it cannot be doubted she most heartily joined.