Mrs. Hamilton silently embraced and left her, with a heart swelling with fond emotion, as she thought on the gentle yet decided character of her child, who from her infancy had scarcely ever caused her pain, still less anxiety. Now indeed solicitude was hers, for it was evident, alas! too evident, that Emmeline's affections were unalterably engaged; that this was not the mere fervour of the moment, a passion that would pass away with the object, but one that Mrs. Hamilton felt forebodingly would still continue to exist. Emmeline's was not a disposition to throw off feelings such as these lightly and easily. Often had her mother inwardly trembled when she thought of such a sentiment influencing her Emmeline, and now the dreaded moment had come. How was she to act? She could not consent to an union such as this would be. Few mothers possessed less ambition than Mrs. Hamilton, few were so indulgent, so devoted to her children, but to comply with the poor girl's feverish wishes would be indeed but folly. Arthur had engaged himself to remain with Lord Louis Lyle during the period of his residence in Germany, which was at that time arranged to be three years. The future to young Myrvin must, she knew, be a blank; years would in all probability elapse ere he could obtain an advantageous living and means adequate to support a wife and family; and would it not be greater cruelty to bid Emmeline live on in lingering and sickening hope, than at once to appeal to her reason, and entreat her, by the affection she bore her parents, to achieve this painful conquest of herself, as their consent could not be given. They felt sad, indeed, thus to add to the suffering of their afflicted child, yet it was the better way, for had they promised to consent that when he could support her she should be his own, it might indeed bring relief for the moment, but it would be but the commencement of a life of misery; her youth would fade away in that sickening anguish of hope deferred, more bitter because more lingering than the absolute infliction of brief though certain suffering. The hearts of both parents grieved as they thought on all she had endured, and for a brief period must still endure, but their path of duty once made clear, they swerved not from it, however it might pain themselves.