from her mind.  Emily herself moved about, the image of joy and innocence.  If Denbigh were near her, she was happy; if absent, she suffered no uneasiness.  Her feelings were so ardent, and yet so pure, that jealousy had no admission.  Perhaps no circumstances existed to excite this usual attendant of the passion; but as the heart of Emily was more enchained than her imagination, her affections were not of the restless nature of ordinary attachments, though more dangerous to her peace of mind in the event of an unfortunate issue.  With Denbigh she never walked or rode alone.  He had never made the request, and her delicacy would have shrunk from such an open manifestation of her preference; but he read to her and her aunt; he accompanied them in their little excursions; and once or twice John noticed that she took the offered hand of Denbigh to assist her over any little impediment in their course, instead of her usual unobtrusive custom of taking his arm on such occasions.  “Well, Miss Emily,” thought John, “you appear to have chosen another favorite,” on her doing this three times in succession in one of their walks.  “How strange it is women will quit their natural friends for a face they have hardly seen.”  John forgot his own—­“There is no danger, dear Grace,” when his sister was almost dead with apprehension.  But John loved Emily too well to witness her preference of another with satisfaction, even though Denbigh was the favorite; a feeling which soon wore away, however, by dint of custom and reflection.  Mr. Benfield had taken it into his head that if the wedding of Emily could be solemnized while the family was at the lodge, it would render him the happiest of men; and how to compass this object, was the occupation of a whole morning’s contemplation.  Happily for Emily’s blushes, the old gentleman harbored the most fastidious notions of female delicacy, and never in conversation made the most distant allusion to the expected connexion.  He, therefore, in conformity with these feelings, could do nothing openly; all must be the effect of management; and as he thought Peter one of the best contrivers in the world, to his ingenuity he determined to refer the arrangement.

The bell rang—­“Send Johnson to me, David.”

In a few minutes, the drab coat and blue yarn stockings entered his dressing-room with the body of Mr. Peter Johnson snugly cased within them.

“Peter,” commenced Mr. Benfield, pointing kindly to a chair, which the steward respectfully declined, “I suppose you know that Mr. Denbigh, the grandson of General Denbigh, who was in parliament with me, is about to marry my little Emmy?”

Peter smiled, as he bowed an assent.

“Now, Peter, a wedding would, of all things, make me most happy; that is, to have it here in the lodge.  It would remind me so much of the marriage of Lord Gosford, and the bridemaids.  I wish your opinion how to bring it about before they leave us.  Sir Edward and Anne decline interfering, and Mrs. Wilson I am afraid to speak to on the subject.”