expressed so simply.

"Why, what other feeling can I have?" said he unsuspiciously.

"No, dear Merthyr," she replied; and only by her tone he read the guilty
little rejoicing in her heart, marvelling at jealousy that could twist so
straight a stem as his sister's spirit. This had taught her, who knew
nothing of love, that a man loving does not pity in such a ease."

"I hope you will find her here:" Georgiana hurried her steps. "Say
anything to comfort her. I will have her with me, and try and teach her
what self-control means, and how it is to be won. If ever she can act on
the stage as she spoke to-night, she will be a great dramatic genius.
She was transformed. She uses strange forcible expressions that one does
not hear in every-day life. She crushed Charlotte as if she had taken
her up in one hand, and without any display at all: no gesture, or spasm.
I noticed, as they stood together, that there is such a contrast between
animal courage and imaginative fire."

"Charlotte could meet a great occasion, I should think," said Merthyr;
and, taking his sister by the elbow: "You speak as if you had observed
very coolly. Did Emilia leave you so cold? Did she seem to speak from
head, not from heart?"

"No; she moved me--poor child! Only, how humiliating to hear her beg for
love!--before us."

Merthyr smiled: "I thought it must be the woman's feeling that would
interfere to stop a natural emotion. Is it true--or did I not see that
certain eyes were red just now?"