When the ladies retired Kenelm found himself seated next to Mr. Emlyn, who astounded him by a complimentary quotation from one of his own Latin prize poems at the university, hoped he would make some stay at Moleswich, told him of the principal places in the neighbourhood worth visiting, and offered him the run of his library, which he flattered himself was rather rich, both in the best editions of Greek and Latin classics and in early English literature. Kenelm was much pleased with the scholarly vicar, especially when Mr. Emlyn began to speak about Mrs. Cameron and Lily. Of the first he said, “She is one of those women in whom quiet is so predominant that it is long before one can know what undercurrents of good feeling flow beneath the unruffled surface. I wish, however, she was a little more active in the management and education of her niece,--a girl in whom I feel a very anxious interest, and whom I doubt if Mrs. Cameron understands. Perhaps, however, only a poet, and a very peculiar sort of poet, can understand her: Lily Mordaunt is herself a poem.” “I like your definition of her,” said Kenelm. “There is certainly something about her which differs much from the prose of common life.” “You probably know Wordsworth’s lines: “‘... and she shall lean her ear In many a secret place Where rivulets dance their wayward round, And beauty, born of murmuring sound, Shall pass into her face.’ “They are lines that many critics have found unintelligible; but Lily seems like the living key to them.” Kenelm’s dark face lighted up, but he made no answer. “Only,” continued Mr. Emlyn, “how a girl of that sort, left wholly to herself, untrained, undisciplined, is to grow up into the practical uses of womanhood, is a question that perplexes and saddens me.” “Any more wine?” asked the host, closing a conversation on commercial matters with Sir Thomas. “No?--shall we join the ladies?” CHAPTER VII. THE drawing-room was deserted; the ladies were in the garden. As Kenelm and Mr. Emlyn walked side by side towards the group (Sir Thomas and Mr. Braefield following at a little distance), the former asked, somewhat abruptly, “What sort of man is Miss Cameron’s guardian, Mr. Melville?” “I can scarcely answer that question. I see little of him when he comes here. Formerly, he used to run down pretty often with a harum-scarum set of young fellows, quartered at Cromwell Lodge,--Grasmere had no accommodation for them,--students in the Academy, I suppose. For some years he has not brought those persons, and when he does come himself it is but for a few days. He has the reputation of being very wild.”