Frank's visit and interview with Hermione had this advantage for the latter, that it took away some of the embarrassment which her first meeting with Emma, after the revelations of the night before, had necessarily occasioned. She had breakfasted in her own room, feeling that it would be impossible for her to meet her sister's eye, but having been led into giving such proof of her preference for Mr. Etheridge, and the extent of his influence over her, there could of course be no further question of Dr. Sellick, or any need for explanations between herself and Emma regarding a past thus shown to be no longer of vital interest to her. When, therefore, she came in from the garden and saw Emma waiting for her at the side-door, she blushed, but that was all, in memory of the past night; and murmuring some petty commonplace, sought to pass her and enter again the house which she had not left before in a full year. But Emma, who was bright with a hope she had not felt in months, stopped her with a word. "There is an old man waiting in the parlor who says he wants to see us. He sent in this card--it has Dr. Ruthven's name on it--and Doris says he seemed very eager and anxious. Can you guess who he can be?" "No," rejoined Hermione, wondering. "But we can soon see. Our visitors are not so numerous that we can afford to slight one." And tripping by Emma, she led the way into the parlor. A slight, meagre, eager-eyed man, clad in black and wearing a propitiatory smile on very thin lips, rose as she entered, and bowed with an awkward politeness that yet had something of the breeding of a gentleman in it. Hermione did not like his looks, but she advanced cordially enough, perhaps because her heart was lighter than usual, and her mind less under the strain of one horrible fixed idea than it had been in months. "How do you do?" said she, and looked at him inquiringly. Huckins, with another bow, this time in recognition of her unexpected beauty and grace, shambled uneasily forward, and said in a hard, strained voice which was even more disagreeable than his face: "I am sure you are very good to receive me, Miss Cavanagh. I--I had a great desire to come. Your father----" She drew back with a gasp. "My father----" she repeated. "Was an old friend of mine," he went on, in a wheedling tone, in seeming oblivion of the effect his words had had upon her. "Did you never hear him speak of Hope, Seth Hope?" "Never," cried Hermione, panting, and looking appealingly at Emma, who had just entered the room. "Yet we were friends for years," declared the dissimulator, folding his hands with a dreary shake of his head. "For years?" repeated Emma, advancing and surveying him earnestly. "Our father was a much older man than you, Mr.--Mr. Hope." "Perhaps, perhaps, I never saw him. But we corresponded for years. Have you not come across letters signed by my name, in looking over his effects?"