escaped that blunting of fine perceptions which is the all but inevitable result of endeavouring to express them.  Not to speak of mere vulgarity such as Jessie Cartwright exhibited, Emily’s instinct shrank from things which usage has, for most people, made matters of course; the public ceremony of marriage, for instance, she deemed a barbarism.  As a sacrament, the holiest of all, its celebration should, she felt, be in the strictest privacy; as for its aspect as a legal contract, let that concession to human misery be made with the smallest, not the greatest, violation of religious feeling.  Thinking thus, it was natural that she should avail herself of every motive for delay.  And in that very wretchedness of her home which her marriage would, she trusted, in a great measure alleviate, she found one of the strongest.  The atmosphere of sordid suffering depressed her; it was only by an effort that she shook off the influences which assailed her sadder nature; at times her fears were wrought upon, and it almost exceeded her power to believe in the future Wilfrid had created for her.  The change from the beautiful home in Surrey to the sad dreariness of Banbrigg had followed too suddenly upon the revelation of her blessedness.  It indisposed her to make known what was so dreamlike.  For the past became more dreadful viewed from the ground of hope.  Emily came to contemplate it as some hideous beast, which, though she seemed to be escaping its reach, might even yet spring upon her.  How had she borne that past so lightly?  Her fear of all its misery was at moments excessive.  Looking at her unhappy parents, she felt that their lot would crush her with pity did she not see the relief approaching.  She saw it, yet too often trembled with the most baseless fears.  She tried to assure herself that she had acted rightly in resisting Wilfrid’s proposal of an immediate marriage, yet she often wished her conscience had not spoken against it.  Wilfrid’s own words, though merely prompted by his eagerness, ceaselessly came back to her—­that it is ill to refuse a kindness offered by fate, so seldom kind.  The words were true enough, and their truth answered to that melancholy which, when her will was in abeyance, coloured her views of life.

But here at length was a letter from Wilfrid, a glad, encouraging letter.  His father had concluded that he was staying behind in England to be married, and evidently would not have disturbed himself greatly even if such had been the case.  All was going well.  Nothing of the past should be sacrificed, and the future was their own.

CHAPTER VIII

A STERNER WOOING