"I will try," answered Emmeline, gravely; "though I know not how I shall succeed, for I have never yet been proved. I have no experience in the art of concealment--and yet," she continued, "I fear I have not been altogether so frank as you imagine. I cannot tell why, but there is something in my good guardian--kind and careful of me as he is--which prevents me from telling him all I think--from speaking my wishes or my thoughts upon important things. Any ordinary favour--any common gratification--I could ask, without fear of refusal; but yet the questions I most long to ask I dare not put; the thoughts that are most strong an most busy in my brain I do not venture to pour forth." "It is an instinct," said Smeaton. "You must, however, try to attain the discretion to which I have alluded; and, perhaps, it may be better for me to say no more till you are more certain of yourself." "Oh, no, no," said Emmeline. "Do not keep me in long suspense. I will be very prudent, indeed." "Well, then, first let me ask you a few questions," said her companion; "but pray speak in a low voice; for the men are coming near, and no caution can be too great. Can you recollect anything of your very early years?" Emmeline shook her head. "Very little," she replied, "and that little, indistinct and vague. Things appear, indeed, to memory; but they look like the ships I have seen sailing over the sea in a thick mist. I catch a cloudy outline--a strange ill-defined form--for one brief instant, flitting by; and then it passes into the fog again, and I see it no more." "Let us try if we cannot render these images more distinct," said Smeaton. "Do you recollect ever having lived in other places, different from the scenes around you?" "No," answered Emmeline, at once. "The old house, and the wood, and the hamlet, and the stream, and Ale Head, and the bright bay, are amongst the earliest things that I remember. I do not think I ever lived anywhere else; for I can recollect little things of no consequence happening at the Manor when I must have been quite a child. I remember well crying over a broken puppet in a room that was then called the nursery. I must have been very young then; and memory goes no farther back." Smeaton mused. "I think it is very likely you are right," he said. "I do not know that you ever lived elsewhere; but you must have been surrounded in Ale Manor by other people than those who now dwell in it." "Oh, yes," cried Emmeline. "Of that I am quite sure; for memories come across me, and trouble me like figures in a dream." "Do you recollect a lady," asked her companion, "tall and graceful, with a smile peculiarly sweet, and a silvery voice?" Emmeline gazed down thoughtfully.