There was a slight unconscious tone of suspicion in this which was very flattering to the young man. ‘She wanted to avoid me--yes,’ said Leo. ‘She knows that I don’t love to have her in my house. She is an old friend,’ he added, ‘I am not sure what--but a sort of relation of my mother.’ ‘Oh,’ said Emmy. This very English exclamation, which is so often laughed at, has, according to the intention--or sometimes contrary to the intention--of the speaker, a wonderful deal of meaning in it. In the present case it meant surprise, mingled with a sort of disapproval, and almost reproof. An old friend, a relation, and yet you don’t like to have her in your house! This was all expressed in Emmy’s tone. She would not--I need scarcely say--have put such a sentiment in words for the world, and had not the least intention of expressing it even in her astonished ‘Oh!’ ‘You think that strange?’ said Leo. ‘Oh--no,’ said Emmy, hesitating slightly. ‘I--don’t know any of the circumstances,’ she added hastily, with a sudden blush. ‘Please, don’t think for a moment, if I knew them all, that I would set up myself for a judge.’ ‘Why not?’ he said. ‘You are as well qualified to judge as any one I know; and even your surprise throws a little new light for me on the situation. It is always good to see a thing through another pair of eyes. However, what I want to find this lady for, is to prevent a wrong thing being done--which she could set right, but I fear does not want to set right. So I must find her.’ ‘Certainly in that case----’ said Emmy. She added, ‘I wonder if I could help you--if there was any place here where you think she might have gone!’ ‘She may, perhaps,’ said Leo, with a laugh, ‘have doubled like a hare, and got safely into my mother’s room after all, while I have been hunting her here.’ ‘Into--your----!’ Emmy was so bewildered that she could not keep in these astonished words, which were out of her mouth before she felt that here was some complicated matter with which she had no right to interfere. ‘Oh, never mind,’ she cried, ‘never mind! I did not mean to be so impertinent as to make any remark.’ ‘Well,’ said Leo, ‘perhaps I did not mean to say so much: but I must tell you now, Miss Plowden----’ ‘Oh, nothing, nothing, please,’ said Emmy in distress. ‘That my mother and I don’t look on the matter in the same light. She takes one view, I another. We need not enter into the question, but that is the fact. It is permitted to a man to differ with his mother in judgment when he is as old as I am.’ ‘One cannot help it sometimes,’ said Emmy, in a low tone, with a slight bowing of her head. ‘It is very painful, but I suppose God never meant that we were not to exercise the faculties. He has given us. We may keep the commandment all the same. It says “honour.” It does not say always agree. The Bible is always so reasonable, don’t you think?’ ‘Oh! I don’t know that I have very much considered that question, Miss Plowden.’