"Fordyce's /Advice to Young Married Women/, I suppose. Sly jade!
However, I must not have her against me."
He approached; still Mrs. Templeton did not note him; nor was it till he stood facing her that he himself observed that her tears were falling fast over the page.
He was a little embarrassed, and, turning towards the window, affected to cough, and then said, without looking at Mrs. Templeton, "I fear I have disturbed you."
"No," answered the same low, stifled voice that had before replied to Lumley's vain attempts to provoke conversation; "it was a melancholy employment, and perhaps it is not right to indulge in it."
"May I inquire what author so affected you."
"It is but a volume of poems, and I am no judge of poetry; but it contains thoughts which—which—" Mrs. Templeton paused abruptly, and Lumley quietly took up the book.
"Ah!" said he, turning to the title-page—"my friend ought to be much flattered."
"Your friend?"
"Yes: this, I see, is by Ernest Maltravers, a very intimate ally of mine."
"I should like to see him," cried Mrs. Templeton, almost with animation. "I read but little; it was by chance that I met with one of his books, and they are as if I heard a dear friend speaking to me. Ah! I should like to see him!"