CHAPTER VIII.

A NEW COMPETITOR.

EMMA ASHTON had brought Hester's flowers, and though she was tired with her journey, had taken a great deal of interest in Hester's dress. When she came in to show herself to the old people in her white robes before her ball, the stranger had surveyed her with attention. She had kissed her slowly and deliberately when introduced to her.

"Roland told me a great deal about you," she said. "I suppose we are cousins too. You look very nice. I hope you will enjoy yourself." She was a very deliberate, measured talker, doing everything steadily. When Hester was gone, she resumed her seat beside her grandmother.

"Roland admires her very much. She is pretty, but I should think she had a great deal of temper," Emma said.

"Temper is scarcely the word.

She is a great

favourite with your grandfather-and with me too-

with me too."

"Roland told me," said Emma.

"When I say

temper I don't mean any harm. She would do much

better for Roland if she had a good deal of temper. That is what he wants to keep him straight: for a man ought not to flirt after he is married, and he will, unless she keeps him in order."

"Married! but is he likely to marry? I did not hear anything of it."

"When a man can keep a sister he can keep a wife," said Emma, announcing this fact as if it were an oracle. "He has a house, and everything that is necessary. And of course I shall not stand in his way. I can go back to Elinor, where I am a sort of head nurse, and cheap enough at the money; or I can be a governess. That touches his pride-he does not like that."

Here the old captain came back, who had been putting his favourite carefully into the fly.

"Why has she not her mother with her?" he said. "I like a girl to have her mother with her. It is pretty, it is natural. I do not like those newfashioned, independent ways."

"But they are much more convenient, grandpapa,' said Emma. "Think how I should have been situated had a girl always wanted her mother with her. Elinor, with her family, cannot always be going out; and when she goes she likes to amuse herself, she does not go for me. A girl going out with her mother means a devoted sort of old lady like the mothers in books. Such nonsense, you know-for

a girl's mother, when she is eighteen or so, is rarely more than forty, and people of forty like amusement just as much as we do. It is better, on the whole, I think, when every one is for herself."

“Well, that is not my opinion," said the old captain, shortly.

He was accustomed to do most of the talking himself, and it startled him to have it thus taken out of his hand.

"I suppose an invitation will come for me," said Emma calmly, "as soon as they know I am here; and then Hester and I can go together. Roland said there was no dancing, but I think it always safest to bring a ball-dress. It is not heavy, though it takes up a good deal of room; and then you can always take one box into the carriage, and the railway only charges by weight."

"Roland is very busy, I suppose, my dear. You only see him in the evening?"

"I don't always see him in the evening. He has his own friends, and I am getting a few acquaintances too. If he gives me my living and very little to do I ought to be grateful to him, but I would not let him give up his own amusements for me. That wouldn't be fair. Oh, yes, he is very busy. He has found so many new people to do business for down here."

"I hope to goodness he won't speculate with their money and ruin them," Captain Morgan said.

"Ruin! oh, I hope not. But Roland says there is nothing so exciting as to be on the verge of ruin. He says it is better than a play: for instead of looking on at the acting, the acting is going on inside of you. But it is his trade to speculate, isn't it, grandpapa? That is what he is there for, and he is very good at it they say. I suppose this girl has not any money? When they are pretty and nice they seldom have."

"What girl?" said Captain Morgan, almost haughtily -as haughtily and harshly as the old gentleman could persuade himself to speak.

"Doesn't he know, grandmamma?" said Emma, "the girl Roland admired so much: and she would just do for him, if she had some money: but so nice looking as he is, and so well established in business, I don't think, unless there is money, he should throw himself away."

"Is it Hester Vernon that you mean?" asked the captain in an angry voice.

"She does not mean any harm, Rowley. Don't you see Hester is just to her an abstract person, not the dear girl she is to you and me, And Emma," said the old lady almost with timidity, "I fear your ball-dress will not be of much use. Mrs. Merridew

will not think of inviting you—she will not perhaps know you are here."

"Roland met her, grandmamma," said Emma calmly. "He told me: we are all cousins, I believe. She will be sure to invite me, or if not, you will be able to get me an invitation. People always exert themselves to get invitations for girls. It is like helping young men on in business. We cannot go and make acquaintances for ourselves as young men go and set up offices, but we must have our chance, you know, as well. Of course," said Emma in her deliberate way, "it is for everybody's advantage that we should have our chance as well as the men."

"And what do you call your chance?" said Captain Morgan. He planted himself in the front of the fireplace with his legs very wide apart, which, as his wife well understood, meant war.

"My old man," she said, "what do you know about the talk of girls? They have one way of thinking, and we have another. They are young, and we

are old."

"Hester is younger than she is," said the captain, "let her alone. She is as ready to talk as there is any need to be."

"My chance, grandpapa?" said Emma with a slow little laugh. "It is not necessary, is it, to explain? a girl's chance is in making-friends. If one goes for a governess one's family does not like it. They would

Hester, 11,

IQ