Some of the county neighbours, with whom Lady Saville was previously acquainted, joined the party, and the house was quite full. This, Emmeline plainly saw was now Fitzhenry’s plan of life when forced to be at Arlingford; and she was compelled with a sigh to own it was the best for them both; for in so numerous a society of course they were necessarily apart, and any coldness was little remarked. She could not help being aware that the distance between them, and the awkwardness of their manner, had rather encreased than worn off. And could it be otherwise? Two people no way connected can live under the same roof mutually cold and careless, and still be perfectly good friends, for the one will think so little about the other, that, when thrown together by chance, their manners will wear the ease of indifference. But between Fitzhenry and Emmeline, this was impossible. Both entirely engrossed by one feeling, which was to be concealed from the other, they had no _point de reunion_, no neutral ground on which to meet; and the more poor Emmeline’s affections became engaged, the more—and she felt conscious of it herself—the more timid and cold her manner grew towards her husband, and that of course reacted on Fitzhenry’s. He evidently too was now much out of spirits, and looked ill. Mr. Moore’s gaiety seemed too much for him; he rallied him too much on his gravity, and on his lately acquired married importance, as he called it, appearing to Emmeline purposely to take pleasure in tormenting him. Mr. Pelham seemed the friend he preferred, and yet, after their being long together, Fitzhenry always appeared more than usually abstracted and dejected. Mr. Pelham too was the person who seemed to pay the most attention, and to take the greatest interest in herself. She fancied, indeed, that he watched them both; but it was always with such a kind, compassionate, benignant look, that she did not, as with Mr. Moore, shrink from his scrutiny. The winter was now far advanced; hunting and shooting kept the gentlemen almost entirely out of doors, and Emmeline and her female companions were generally all the morning left to themselves. One rainy day, on which it was impossible for them to leave the house, and when Lady Saville had run through or yawned over every novel and review in the drawing-room, she proposed, for the sake of exercise, to go all over the house. “I have never yet even been admitted into your sanctum sanctorum, Lady Fitzhenry, pray let me go.” “Oh! pray do,” echoed a young lady, starting up from a table at which she had been seated the whole morning, with most laudable industry engaged in working a purse, and endeavouring to make a hearts-ease out of invisible blue and yellow beads. “Do let us go; it will get us through this dull morning so nicely; and really without Mr. Moore and the battledoor and shuttlecock, one don’t know what to do with oneself.” Emmeline, always wishing to be obliging, led the way to her apartment.