what longer than usual in her own apartment, despite of divers summonings down stairs, when, what was her surprise, on entering the room, to see her aunt, Mrs. Clarke, and Mr. Boyne Sillery, seated, in apparently high good-humour, round the tea-table. Mrs. Clarke immediately bustled up, and left room for Emily between herself and the gentleman, whom she introduced as her brother; and, taking it for granted that the young people must make themselves agreeable to each other, forthwith directed her conversation entirely to Mrs. Arundel.
The young people, however, were not quite so agreeable as one of the party, at least, could have wished. Emily's coldness was neither to be animated by news nor softened by flattery: since Mrs. Danvers's ball, her taste had been sufficiently cultivated to see through the pretensions of affectation: moreover, she was past the season of innocent entire belief; and the thought would cross her mind, that the heiress of Arundel Hall was a more important person in Mr. Boyne Sillery's eyes than Lady Alicia's pretty protegée.
The evening passed heavily, and Emily extinguished her candle that night in the conviction that an equal extinguisher had been put
