The letter that she wrote was so melancholy and repentant, that it gave great pain to her kind friend, who thought illness alone could account for the dejection apparent in the general tone of all her expressions. In answer, she sent a very affectionate consoling letter, begging Lily to think no more of the matter; and though she had too much regard for truth to say that she had not been grieved by the loss of Emma’s writing, she added that Lily’s distress gave her far more pain, and that her copy would have great value in her eyes. The beginning of June now arrived, and brought with it the time for the return of Claude and Lord Rotherwood. The Marquis’s carriage met him at Raynham, and he set down Claude at New Court, on his way to Hetherington, just coming in to exchange a hurried greeting with the young ladies. Their attention was principally taken up by their brother. ‘Claude, how well you look! How fat you are!’ was their exclamation. ‘Is not he?’ said Lord Rotherwood. ‘I am quite proud of him. Not one headache since he went. He will have no excuse for not dancing the polka.’ ‘I do not return the compliment to you, Lily,’ said Claude, looking anxiously at his sister. ‘What is the matter with you? Have you been ill?’ ‘Oh, no! not at all!’ said Lily, smiling. ‘I am sure there is enough to make any one ill,’ said Emily, in her deplorable tone; ‘I thought this poor parish had had its share of illness, with the scarlet fever, and now it has turned to a horrible typhus fever.’ ‘Indeed!’ said Claude. ‘Where? Who?’ ‘Oh! the Naylors, and the Rays, and the Walls. John Ray died this morning, and they do not think that Tom Naylor will live.’ ‘Well,’ interrupted Lord Rotherwood, ‘I shall not stop to hear any more of this chapter of accidents. I am off, but mind, remember the 30th, and do not any of you frighten yourselves into the fever.’ He went, and Lily now spoke. ‘There is one thing in all this, Claude, that is matter of joy, Tom Naylor has sent for Robert.’ ‘Then, Lily, I do most heartily congratulate you.’ ‘I hope things may go better,’ said Lily, with tears in her eyes. ‘The poor baby is with its grandmother. Mrs. Naylor is ill too, and every one is so afraid of the fever that nobody goes near them but Robert, and Mrs. Eden, and old Dame Martin. Robert says Naylor is in a satisfactory frame—determined on having the baby christened—but, oh! I am afraid the christening is to be bought by something terrible.’ ‘I do not think those fevers are often very infectious,’ said Claude. ‘So papa says,’ replied Emily; ‘but Robert looks very ill. He is wearing himself out with sitting up. Making himself nurse as well as everything else.’