When Emmeline was in the solitude of her own chamber, however, and when all she had promised, all she was about to perform, came upon her mind like a dream--she was moved deeply. Dangers, difficulties, she thought of little; but the strange newness of all that was before her alarmed and agitated her. The very thought of quitting the wild lonely scenes round Ale, quitting them perhaps for ever, produced a very melancholy impression on her mind. There was not a rock or hill, a towering cliff, an indentation of the coast--hardly a tree all around--that she did not know as a familiar friend. They had been the companions of her youth and of her infancy; she had held more communings with them than with human beings; she had peopled them with her thoughts; they had linked themselves to her heart by the strong ties of association; they had been as brothers and sisters to her in the solitude of her own meditations; and, in the absence of other objects of affection, she had clung to them as if they had been living things. Love must be very powerful, to break through all such bonds, and to make the heart yield up, with no other portion of regret than a passing melancholy, all that we have attached ourselves to for many years. Emmeline was going to quit them all, as she thought--to quit them all in a few days, and it was not to be expected that she should do so without some grief; but love had by this time the full mastery, and she did not and would not repent of the promise she had given. Its fulfilment, however, was far more distant than she anticipated; and, before nightfall of that same day, the relation of almost all things round her had been changed. CHAPTER XIX. Sir John Newark was in a peculiarly gay and lively mood when his noble guest descended to breakfast. He ventured upon a jest or two--a thing rare with him--and discoursed fluently upon matters of literature and affairs of state; not very profoundly, indeed, yet speciously and well. After the meal, he asked Smeaton when he would like to ride over to Mount Place, and the young nobleman replied-- "In a day or two." Sir John seemed surprised and a little mortified. "I understood your Lordship," he said, in a cold tone, "that you would go to-day, when we were talking of this matter yesterday; and, judging that it might be as well, that Mount Place should be free of any unpleasant guests, I sent intimation to Sir James this morning that such would be the case. True, I should not have meddled. Busybodies are always doing mischief." "It matters not," rejoined Smeaton, good-humouredly; for his heart was opened by its own happiness. "I can ride over to-day as well as to-morrow; and, as you have sent, I will do so." "Pray do not put yourself to any inconvenience," said Sir John Newark, with all his urbanity restored. "I only feared it might mortify the good old man." "Nay, I will not do that," answered his guest. "I will set off immediately."