hope that it would “do her good,” gave him a little consolation in his reading, such as it was. And how difficult it was to read with the sun shining outside, and little puffs of soft delicious air coming in at his open window, and laying hands upon him, who shall say? He was comforted to think that next door to him, Lottie, with her basket of clothes to mend, patching and darning, must be very much disturbed too; but it would have been hard upon Law had he known that she had escaped from all this, and was meanly and treacherously enjoying herself in private gardens of fancy. He had his Emma to be sure--but of her and the very well-known scenes that enclosed her, and all the matter-of-fact circumstances around, he felt no inclination to dream. He liked to have her by him, and for her sake submitted to the chatter of the workroom (which, on the whole, rather amused him in itself), and was quite willing to read the _Family Herald_ aloud; but he did not dream of Emma as Lottie did of the incident which had happened in her career. It was true there was this fundamental difference between them, that Lottie’s romance alone had any margin of the unknown and mysterious in it. About Emma there was nothing that was mysterious or unknown. It was not likely, however, that these two young people in their two different rooms, Law gaping over his Virgil, and feeling his eyes wander after every fly that lighted on his book, and every bird that chirped in the deep foliage round the window; and Lottie with her needle and her scissors, thinking of everything in the world except what she was doing or what had just been told her, should be left undisturbed for long in these virtuous occupations. Very soon Law was stopped in the middle of a bigger yawn than usual by the sound of a step coming up the stairs, which distracted his not very seriously fixed attention--and Lottie woke up from the very middle of an imaginary conversation, to hear a mellow round voice calling her, as it came slowly panting upstairs. “Are you there then, Lottie, me honey? You’d never let me mount up to the top of the house, without telling me, if ye weren’t there?” Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, like many of her country-folks, was half aware of the bull she was uttering, and there was a sound of laughter in her voice. Lottie, however, sat still, making no sign, holding her needle suspended in her fingers, reluctant to have her pleasant thoughts disturbed by any arrival. But while the brother and sister, each behind a closed door, thus paused and listened, the Captain (audibly) coming home from morning service, stepped in after Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, and addressed the new-comer. “Lottie is in the drawing-room,” he said, “though she does not answer. I am just going out again when I’ve fetched something--but I must first see you upstairs;” and then there was an interval of talking on the stairs and the little landing-place. Lottie made no movement for her part.