"You cannot permit his attentions!--did anyone ever hear the like! Well, let me tell you, Miss Emma, you _must_ permit them--You should be only too thankful he should _wish_ to pay them, when you are just nothing!--you are all of you beggars!" Emma covered her face with her hands. "There, Emma--I did not mean to make you cry." * * * * * * On the evening on which Mrs. Burton and Captain Conway were expected, Augusta was laid up with a feverish cold, and Emma steadily refused to leave her bedside. Jane was at first angry, but, seeing the child's flushed cheeks, was obliged to give way and send for the apothecary, who prescribed a soothing draught. A few days later, however, Captain Conway called again, and as on this occasion Emma happened to be in the drawing-room with her sister, she was obliged to submit to his company; but she remained almost as silent as before, and would scarcely raise her eyes. On his departure, Jane again turned on her and vowed that she would soon bring her to her senses by writing to Robert. "He will send you such a message as you will be bound to obey," she said. "We have done all that could be thought of to fix one of you, and now when there is a chance of your getting settled you are all for throwing it away! You put me quite out of patience with you!" Robert answered the letter in person; and, to Jane's amazement, declared positively that he was not going to have Emma thrown away on any half-pay officer; and that he had so much information against Captain Conway, he would hunt him out of the neighbourhood. On the following morning, however, when he drove into A----, he found that that gentleman, having caught sight of him on the stage coach the previous afternoon, had hastily cleared out, taking Mrs. Burton along with him. It then transpired that the two had been in collusion; and that Mrs. Burton, believing Emma to be the heiress of her aunt, had introduced Captain Conway to her, on the understanding that she was to receive a substantial sum on the consummation of his marriage with her. Jane was deeply mortified at having allowed herself to be mixed up with such people; and it was in a very chastened frame of mind that Robert left her, on his return to Croydon, promising to come back in August for a fortnight's holiday. CHAPTER XII Mr. Howard had been but a short time with the Osbornes when he was obliged to confess that he had made a mistake in coming. A man of singular charm of manner, eminently gifted for social success, he had as little vanity as well might be; and his devotion to literature engendered in him a sort of absent-mindedness which rendered him unconscious of things which were sufficiently obvious to others.