“Is Mr. Pericles near us now?” said Emilia quickly.

“We will come to him,” Laura resumed, with the complacency of one who saw a goodly portion of the festival she was enjoying still before her.  “I was going to say, Mr. Pericles had poor Mr. Pole in his power; has him, would be the correcter tense.  And Wilfrid, as you may have heard, had really grossly insulted him, even to the extent of maltreating him—­a poor foreigner—­rich foreigner, if you like! but not capable of standing against a strong young man in wrath.  However, now there can be little doubt that Wilfrid repents.  He had been trying ever since to see Mr. Pericles; and the very morning of that day, I believe, he saw him and humbled himself to make an apology.  This had put Mr. Pole in good spirits, and in the evening—­he and Mrs. Chump were very fond of their wine after dinner—­he was heard that very evening to name a day for his union with her; for that had been quite understood, and he had asked his daughters and got their consent.  The sight of Sir Purcell’s corpse, and the cries of Cornelia, must have turned him childish.  I cannot conceive a situation so harrowing as that of those poor children hearing their father declare himself an impostor! a beggar! a peculator!  He cried, poor unhappy man, real tears!  The truth was that his nerves suddenly gave way.  For, just before—­only just before, he was smiling and talking largely.  He wished to go on his knees to every one of them, and kept telling them of his love—­the servants all awake and listening! and more gossiping servants than the Poles always, by the most extraordinary inadvertence, managed to get, you never heard of!  Nothing would stop him from humiliating himself!  No one paid any attention to Mrs. Chump until she started from her chair.  They say that some of the servants who were crying outside, positively were compelled to laugh when they heard her first outbursts.  And poor Mr. Pole confessed that he had touched her money.  He could not tell her how much.  Fancy such a scene, with a dead man in the house!  Imagination almost refuses to conjure it up!  Not to dwell on it too long—­for, I have never endured such a shock as it has given me—­Mrs. Chump left the house, and the next thing received from her was a lawyer’s letter.  Business men say she is not to blame:  women may cherish their own opinion.  But, oh, Miss Belloni! is it not terrible?  You are pale.”

Emilia behind what she felt for her friends, had a dim comprehension of the meaning of their old disgust at Laura, during this narration.  But, hearing the word of pity, she did not stop to be critical.  “Can you do nothing for them?” she said abruptly.

The thought in Laura’s shocked grey eyes was, “They have done little enough for you,” i.e., toward making you a lady.  “Oh!” she cried; “I can you teach me what to do?  I must be extremely delicate, and calculate upon what they would accept from me.  For—­so I hear—­they used to—­and may still—­nourish a—­what I called—­silly—­though not in unkindness—­ hostility to our family—­me.  And perhaps now natural delicacy may render it difficult for them to...”