instantly caught his ear, and he turned to meet her with eagerness.

"Ha! Miss Watson," cried he, "I hoped to see you here; how's your father, hey—not very bad. I hope."

"Indeed he is," replied Emma, with tears in her eyes.

"Indeed, I am sorry—upon my honour—I'm grieved to hear that," looking quite compassionately at her. "Poor old gentleman—what a pity—I dare say he is a monstrous good fellow—but don't fret—I shall be quite unhappy if I think you are fretting."

Emma scarcely attended to what he was saying.

"How came you here, Lord Osborne?" exclaimed she. "Had you anything to do with Dr. Denham?"

"I'll tell you how it was," replied he, taking hold of her hand, and drawing her towards the parlour door, "only don't stand here in the cold, that's so uncomfortable. There now, sit down there, and let me sit down beside you—and I'll tell you. We know Dr. Denham very well, he's a great friend of my sister's, and she's a great favorite of his—so when she heard your father was ill, she wrote him a note, and sent me with it, to ask him as a great favour to visit Mr. Watson, for her sake—you know—and I fetched him in the carriage, so it's only the drive, and he's to take no fee, you see—he just comes from friendship to Rosa, that's all."

"I am sure we are exceedingly obliged to you all," said Emma, colouring from a variety of feelings; "it was very kind of Miss Osborne to think of it, and of you to take so much trouble."

"Do you know it gave me a great deal of pleasure—a very great deal; I don't know when ever I was happier than just while I was thinking of obliging you—I did not mind the trouble in the least."

His eyes were fixed on Emma with a far more eloquent expression than was at all usual with them, and he really seemed to think as he spoke, and to feel particularly happy.

To what extremes of eloquence his new-found felicity might have led him there is now no means of knowing; he was interrupted before he had committed himself by any very pointed declaration, by the sound of the physician's return, which startled Emma into a sudden recollection that to be found by him, sitting tête-à-tête and side by side on the sofa with the young nobleman, might perhaps not unreasonably surprise him. She therefore told him she should be wanted in the sick room, and quietly withdrew; when he, his 

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