something of me if he saw me now!"

Her mother's lamentations reached that vocal pitch at last which Emilia
could not endure, and the little lady was despatched to her home under
charge of a servant.

Emilia feasted on the looking-glass when alone. Had Merthyr, in
restoring her to health, given her an overdose of the poison?

"Countess Branciani made the Austrian Governor her slave," she uttered,
planting one foot upon a stool to lend herself height. "He told her who
were suspected, and who would be imprisoned, and gave her all the State
secrets. Beauty can do more than music. I wonder whether Merthyr loved
her? He loves me!"

Emilia was smitten with a fear that he would speak of it when she next
saw him. "Oh! I hope he will be just the same as he has been," she
sighed; and with much melancholy shook her head at her fair reflection,
and began to undress. It had not struck her with surprise that two men
should be loving her, until, standing away from the purple folds, she
seemed to grow smaller and smaller, as a fire-log robbed of its flame,
and felt insufficient and weak. This was a new sensation. She depended
no more on her own vital sincerity. It was in her nature, doubtless, to
crave constantly for approval, but in the service of personal beauty
instead of divine Art, she found herself utterly unwound without it:
victim of a sense of most uncomfortable hollowness. She was glad to
extinguish the candle and be covered up dark in the circle of her warmth.
Then her young blood sang to her again.

An hour before breakfast every morning she read with Merthyr. Now, this