I bowed, but did not utter my guess. He seemed to think I had done so, notwithstanding; for he hurried on, delighted. "Of course it is, 'Katy darling,' as we always call you! I never knew your penetration out of the way. It _is_ Emma Holly! It couldn't be anybody but Emma Holly!" Then he told me that she had begged hard for leave to tell me outright, what she thought she had hinted plainly enough, about their hopes; but her father was afraid that to have them get abroad would hurt her prospects in other quarters, and made silence towards all others a condition of her correspondence with Jim. Mr. Holly was "aristocratic," and in hopes Emma would change her mind, Jim supposed; but all danger was over now. He could maintain her like the lady she was; and their long year's probation was ended. Then he told me in what agonies he had passed several evenings a fortnight before, (when I must have wondered why he did not come and read,) from hearing of her illness. The doctors were right for once, to be sure, as it proved, in thinking it only the measles; but it might just as well have been spotted fever, or small-pox, or anything fatal, for all they knew. And then I rather think there must have been a pause, which I did not fill properly, because my head was aching with a peculiar sensation which I had never known before, though I have sometimes since.--It is like the very hand of Death, laid with a strong grasp on the joint and meeting-point of soul and body, and makes one feel, for the time being, as Dr. Livingstone says he did when the lion shook him,--a merciful indifference as to anything to come after.--And Jim was asking me, in a disappointed tone, what the matter was, and if I did not feel interested. "Yes," I said, "Mr. Johnson--" "Mr. Johnson!" interrupted he, "How cold! I thought it would be _Jim_ at least, to-day, if you can't say _dear_ Jim." "Yes, 'dear Jim,'" I repeated; and my voice sounded so strangely quiet in my own ears, that I did not wonder that he called me cold. "Indeed, I am interested. I don't know when I have heard anything that has interested me so much. I pray God to bless you and Emma. But the reason I came from school so early to-day was, that I had a headache; and now I think perhaps the sun is not good for it, and I had better go in."