“By no means the same sort; but the love of man for woman.”
“And he saw me when I was that wretched heap? And he knows everything! and loves me. He has never kissed me.”
“Does that miserable test—?” Georgiana was asking.
“Pardon, pardon,” said Emilia penitently; “I know that is almost nothing, now. I am not a child. I spoke from a sudden feeling. For if he loves me, how—! Oh, Merthyr! what a little creature I seem. I cannot understand it. I lose a brother. And he was such a certainty to me. What did he love—what did he love, that night he found me on the pier? I looked like a creature picked off a mud-bank. I felt like a worm, and miserably abandoned, I was a shameful sight. Oh! how can I look on Merthyr's face again?”
In these interjections Georgiana did not observe the proper humility and abject gratitude of a young person who had heard that she was selected by a prince of the earth. A sort of 'Eastern handmaid' prostration, with joined hands, and, above all things, a closed mouth, the lady desired. She half regretted the revelation she had made; and to be sure at once that she had reaped some practical good, she said: “I need scarce ask you whether you have come to a right decision upon that other question.”
“To see Wilfrid?” said Emilia. She appeared to pause musingly, and then turned to Georgiana, showing happy features; “Yes: I shall see him. I must see him. Let him know he is to come immediately.”
“That is your decision.”
“Yes.”
“After what I have told you?”
“Oh, yes; yes! Write the letter.”