Dinner at length came to his relief; he then was attention itself, but the repast could not last for ever; and, when the servants had left the room, Lord Fitzhenry’s embarrassment returned worse than before. Emmeline had lived so little in society, and, consequently, had so little the habit of general conversation—and the six years during which she and her husband had been separated, had so entirely broken off the first intimacy which had existed between them when children, that, timid in his company, and now unassisted and unencouraged by him, she felt it impossible to keep up any thing like conversation. It was, therefore, no small relief when, after an awkwardly protracted silence, she saw him leave the room. As the door closed upon him, Emmeline involuntarily fell into a reverie not of the most pleasing nature. “This is all very strange!” thought she; and over her usually gay countenance a sadness crept. She sighed, she hardly knew why; and, when her thoughts wandered back to her former happy home, her parents, and their doating fondness, some “natural tears” stole down her cheek, and she felt herself, as in a dream, neglected and deserted. But Emmeline was not _in love_; and her husband’s behaviour, though it astonished her, and though she felt it was not what it ought to be, did not wound her heart as it otherwise would have done. Emmeline was very young, even for her age. With a most superior mind and character, with tender, even romantic feelings, her innocence and simplicity of heart were so great, and all her qualities had as yet lain so dormant, that her character was scarcely known even to herself; and, to common observers, she passed for a mere gay, good-humoured, pleasing girl. She was, however, no common character, nor what one would have supposed the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Benson to have been. Nature sometimes seems to amuse herself with playing such fanciful tricks; and Emmeline’s natural superiority made it appear as if she had been thrown into a sphere totally different from that for which she had been originally designed, and that she now was only restored to her own proper station, when raised, by her marriage, to be the companion of Fitzhenry. To explain how such a being came to be thus passively united to a man who seemed already to have repented the step he had taken, it will be necessary to go back a little in our narrative. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER II. Do I entice you? do I speak you fair? Or rather, do I not in plainest truth Tell you—I do not, nor I cannot love you? MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM.