On the day but one after the scene narrated¹ in the last chapter Sir Harry² went to London, and Lady Elizabeth and Emily were left alone together in the great house at Humblethwaite. Emily loved her mother dearly. The proper relations of life were reversed between them, and the younger domineered over the elder. But the love which the daughter felt was probably the stronger on this account. Lady Elizabeth never scolded, never snubbed, never made herself disagreeable, was never cross; and Emily, with her strong perceptions and keen intelligence, knew all her mother's excellence³, and loved it the better because of her mother's weakness. She preferred her father's company, but no one could say she neglected her mother for the sake of her father.

Hitherto she had said very little to Lady Elizabeth as to her lover. She had, in the first place, told her mother, and then had received from her mother, second-hand⁴, her father's disapproval⁵. At that time she had only said that it was "too late." Poor Lady Elizabeth had been able to make no useful answer to this. It certainly was too late. The evil should have been avoided by refusing admittance to Cousin George both in London and at Humblethwaite. It certainly was too late;—too late, that is, to avoid the evil altogether. The girl had been asked for her heart, and had given it. It was very much too late. But evils such as that do admit of remedy. It is not every girl that can marry the man whom she first confesses that she loves. Lady Elizabeth had some idea that her child, being nobler born and of more importance than other people's children, ought to have been allowed by fate to do so,—as there certainly is a something withdrawn⁶ from the delicate aroma⁷ of a first-class young woman by any transfer of affections;—but if it might not be so, even an Emily Hotspur must submit to a lot not uncommon

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