The boys scrambled off to fetch the playthings, while Harrington went to his own apartments. The kite and the top put in order, Captain Fisher volunteered to mount guard over Antony if Harrington wanted to go out; and availing himself of this offer, the young man posted off to the fencing-school, and after an hour’s vigorous exercise, returned. Wentworth had called in his absence, and had left word that he was going out of town for the day, but wanted to see Harrington for something special to-morrow. Disturbed at this message—he knew not why—and feeling his strange trepidation stronger than ever, Harrington, who, like Goethe, always sought relief from cares and troubles in intense application to his books, immured himself for a long day’s study, dreading to see Wentworth, dreading to see Emily, dreading, above all, to see Muriel, and yet he knew not why. CHAPTER XXIII. THE BLOOMING OF THE LILY. Muriel, in the meantime, had returned from her walk, and had a tender and happy hour with Emily. Emily was glorious that morning in her beauty, for the Valley of Humiliation had burst and flamed into roses of life and love, and the Valley of the Shadow lay far withdrawn in radiance upon the verge of life. There were soft showers still in the summer of her sky, but those were tears of contrite gratitude to Muriel. There were mellow thunders rolling in the summer of her sky, but those were words of rich anger and scorn for Witherlee. Muriel had guessed aright. The good Fernando had poisoned Emily’s mind against Wentworth, and the deed was done on the evening he had spent with her after her parting with her lover. It would not have appeared at all surprising to a Court of Love that Emily, in blaming Wentworth for his supposed desertion of her, never imputed that desertion to her treatment of him. Quite overlooking her own conduct, she had taken his as proof of Witherlee’s assertions regarding him. But now the films had dropped from her eyes, and in her talk with Wentworth the night before, which had lasted late and long, she had awakened to the perception of the game that had been played upon her by the good Fernando. How she raved at him! But Muriel laughed her angers down as they rose, till what might have been sheeting bursts were only momentary jets of flame. For Muriel was optimist and socialist, and, referring the faults of people to mal-organization, mis-education, and the play of adverse influences upon them, her golden charity spread even over Witherlee.