“Yes,” he answered, looking round him with a sigh.

Emily felt that he might well look grave and sad; it was no common friend that he had lost.  “How is John?” she asked.

“Why, he was very dull; very dull indeed, when I left him this morning; and natural enough he should be.”

“Yes, most natural.”

Then he said, after a little more conversation on their recent loss, “Emily, I came to tell you something very important—­to me at least,” here the shamefaced look came back.  “Oh, no,” he exclaimed, as a flash of amazement leaped out of her eyes; “nothing of that sort.”

“I am glad to hear it,” she answered, not able to forbear smiling; “but sit down then, you great, long-legged fellow, you put me out of conceit with this room; you make the ceiling look too low.”

“Oh, do I?” said Valentine, and he sat down in a comfortable chair, and thought he could have been very happy with Emily, and did not know how to begin to tell her.

“I must say I admire your taste, Emily,” he then said, looking about him, and shirking the great subject.

Emily was a little surprised at his holding off in this way, so she in her turn took the opportunity to say something fresh; something that she thought he might as well hear.

“And so John’s dull, is he?  Poor John!  Do you know, Val, the last time I saw him he was very cross.”

“Indeed! why was he cross?”

“It was about a month ago.  He laughed, but I know he was cross.  St. George and I went over at his breakfast-time to get the key of this house, which had been left with him; and, while I ran up-stairs to see the children, he told St. George how, drawing up his blind to shave that morning, he had seen you chasing Barbara and Miss Green (that little temporary governess of theirs) about the garden.  Barbara threw some snowballs at you, but you caught her and kissed her.”

“She is a kind of cousin,” Valentine murmured; “besides, she is a mere child.”

“But she is a very tall child,” said Emily.  “She is within two inches as tall as I am.  Miss Green is certainly no child.”

Valentine did not wish to enter on that side of the question.  “I’m sure I don’t know how one can find out when to leave off kissing one’s cousins,” he observed.

“Oh!  I can give you an easy rule for that,” said Emily; “leave off the moment you begin to care to do it:  they will probably help you by beginning, just about the same time, to think they have bestowed kisses enough.”

“It all arose out of my kindness,” said Valentine.  “John had already begun to be anxious about the dear old man, so I went over that morning before breakfast, and sent him up a message.  His father was decidedly better; and as he had to take a journey that day, I thought he should know it as soon as possible.  But Emily——­”

“Yes, dear boy?”

“I really did come to say something important.”  And instantly as he spoke he felt what a tragical circumstance this was for some one else, and that such would be Emily’s first thought and view of it.