“Well, my dear young lady—for I shall call you my young lady until I see some signs of middle age come over you—my dear young lady, have your own way! You can do just as you please with me! And why not, seeing how heavenly good you have been to me! I’ll stay, ma’am, and very glad to stay, I don’t deny it,” said Susan with a sigh of satisfaction as she sank back comfortably in the most luxurious arm-chair she had ever sat in during her life. “Draw your chair near me, little namesake, so that I can hold your hand in mine while I talk,” said Emolyn, as she turned a glance full of tenderness on Em.’s sympathetic face. The young girl did as she was requested, and then, with Em.’s hand clasped closely in hers upon her lap, Emolyn began the story of her exile. “I say, after I had passed through that fiery trial my guardian took me out of the city secretly and hid me at Dranesville, an obscure hamlet, where I remained in my room at the quiet little hotel, unknown, until the arrival of Pony with my trunk. Then my guardian wished to take me home with him to Blackville. But I could not bear the thought of remaining in my native country, or seeing any one whom I had ever known before.” “I don’t wonder, my dear! I don’t wonder, indeed!” sighed Susan Palmer, half weeping. “My guardian was very tolerant of my weakness—very tender of my suffering. He had retired from the practice of law, and having no family but his aged sisters, he found it easy to go abroad. So after a little delay necessary to the arrangement of his affairs he took me to New York and thence to Liverpool. We were attended only by my nurse, Pony, and his man-servant, Prince, who, coming from Blackville, knew nothing of the ordeal through which I had just passed.” Here Emolyn’s glance falling on the upturned face of Em., she said: “You are looking at me with eyes full of wonder and pity, my child! Well, let it be so for awhile. You are too young even to _hear_ the horrors through which I _had to pass_ when I was younger than you are now. Yet I feel sure, Em., that some day I shall tell you all.” A convulsive clasp of her hand by the girl’s fingers was her only answer. The lady resumed her story. “It was near the last of July when we landed in Liverpool. It was perhaps the very best season in which to see England. Better even than the spring, for midsummer is never intolerably hot and dry there as it is here. Well, we spent two months in traveling through England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. In the latter part of September we went to France, where we also spent two months in traveling. We did not stop in the cities nor enter any society. Early in December we went to Italy, spent six weeks in traveling through that loveliest of lands, and then we settled down in Rome for the winter.” “Oh! Oh! And did you see the Pope? And does he really wear three crowns on his head, one upon top of the other?” eagerly interrupted Susan Palmer.