The anticipation of the ball at Penarvon Castle had kindled very little curiosity in Emilia’s bosom.  She seemed to herself a machine; “one of the rest;” and looked more to see that she was still coveted by Merthyr’s eyes than at the glitter of the humming saloons.  A touch of her old gladness made her smile when Captain Gambier unexpectedly appeared and walked across the dancers to sit beside her.  She asked him why he had come from London:  to which he replied, with a most expressive gaze under her eyelids, that he had come for one object.  “To see me?” thought Emilia, wondering, and reddening as she ceased to wonder.  She had thought as a child, and the neat instant felt as a woman.  He finished Merthyr’s work for him.  Emilia now thought:  “Then I must be worth something.”  And with “I am,” she ended her meditation, glowing.  He might have said that she had all beauty ever showered upon woman:  she would have been led to believe him at that moment of her revival.

Now, Lady Charlotte had written to Georgiana, telling her that Captain Gambier was soon to be expected in her neighbourhood, and adding that it would be as well if she looked closely after her charge.  When Georgiana saw him go over to Emilia she did not remember this warning:  but when she perceived the sudden brilliancy and softness in Emilia’s face after the first words had fallen on her ears, she grew alarmed, knowing his reputation, and executed some diversions, which separated them.  The captain made no effort to perplex her tactics, merely saying that he should call in a day or two.  Merthyr took to himself all the credit of the visible bloom that had come upon Emilia, and pacing with her between the dances, said:  “Now you will come to Italy, I think.”

She paused before answering, “Now?” and feverishly continued:  “Yes; at once.  I will go.  I have almost felt my voice again to-night.”

“That’s well.  I shall write to Marini to-morrow.  You will soon find your voice if you will not fret for it.  Touch Italy!”

“Yes; but you must be near me,” said Emilia.

Georgiana heard this, and could not conceive other than that Emilia was growing to be one of those cormorant creatures who feed alike on the homage of noble and ignoble.  She was critical, too, of that very assured pose of Emilia’s head and firm planting of her feet as the girl paraded the room after the dances in which she could not join.  Previous to this evening, Georgiana had seen nothing of the sort in her; but, on the contrary, a doubtful droop of the shoulders and an unwilling gaze, as of a soul submerged in internal hesitations.  “I earnestly trust that this is a romantic folly of Merthyr’s, and no more,” thought Georgiana, who would have had that view concerning his love for Italy likewise, if recollection of her own share of adventure there had not softly interposed.