"Ah, dear Jane," said Margaret, "you know how I like being with you, but indeed I cannot tear myself from sweet Emma immediately."
"Saturday!" cried Elizabeth; "you surely do not think of leaving us on Saturday! That will be only three days—only half a visit; you promised us a week."
"Did I?—no, sure I could not have done so: you know I cannot be so long from my little girl, and she would break her heart without me."
"I wish you could have brought her," said Elizabeth.
"Quite impossible, my dear child, for I never like to take her out without her own maid, and I know you could not give her a room to herself as she has been used to. I am excessively particular about her," she continued, turning to Emma, "too particular, perhaps, but it was the way we were brought up—so you must not blame me."
"Of course not," replied Emma; "for doing what you think right, who could?"
"I am sure," continued this anxious mother, in a tone of great complacency, "I don't know how the poor little darling will get on without me; she almost cried her eyes out when she found she was not coming in the chaise, and I was obliged to pretend I was only going to church, and should be home again very soon."
"Oh, sweet little darling!" cried Margaret; "I do so dote on that child—little angel!"
Just at this moment, the brother entered the room.
"I say, Jane," cried he, "that confounded band-box of yours is squeezed as flat as a pancake, and your new trunk is too wide to go up these wretched narrow stairs; so what you are to do I am sure I don't know—dress in the hall, I suppose."