 health
was greatly amended, he intended soon to visit those parts of France
with which he was yet unacquainted; and should pass some time in the
Northern Provinces, from whence he entreated her to allow him to come
only for a few days to England to see her--an indulgence which he said
would enable him to bear with more tranquillity the remaining months of
his exile.

Tho' now accustomed to consider him as her husband, Emmeline resolutely
refused to consent to this breach of his engagement to his father. She
had lately seen in her friends, Mrs. Stafford and Lady Adelina, two
melancholy instances of the frequent unhappiness of very early
marriages; and she had no inclination to hazard her own happiness in
hopes of proving an exception. She wished, therefore, rather to delay
her union with Delamere two or three years; but to him she never dared
hint at such a delay. A clandestine interview it was, however, in her
power to decline; and she answered his request by entreating him not to
think of such a journey; and represented to him that he could not expect
Lord Montreville would finally adhere to _his_ promises, if he himself
was careless of fulfilling the conditions on which his Lordship had
insisted. Having thus, as she supposed, prevented Delamere from
offending his father, and without any immediate uneasiness on her own
account, she gave up her mind to the solicitude she could not help
feeling for Lady Adelina. This occupied almost all her time when she
was alone; and gave her, when in company, an air of absence and reserve.

Tho' Mrs. Ashwood so much encouraged the attention of James Crofts, she
had not forgotten Fitz-Edward, whom she had vainly sought at Lady
Montreville's, in hopes of renewing an acquaintance which had in it's
commencement offered her so much satisfaction. Fitz-Edward had been
amused with her absurdity at the moment, but had never thought of her
afterwards; nor would he then have bestowed so much time on a woman to
him entirely indifferent, had not he been thrown in her way by his
desire to befriend Delamere with Emmeline, on one of those days when
Lady Adelina insisted on his leaving her, to avoid the appearance of his
passing with her all his time. Happy in successful love, his gaiety then
knew no bounds; and his agreeable flattery, his lively conversation, his
fashionable manners, and his handsome person, had not since been absent
from the memory of Mrs. Ashwood. His being sometimes at the house he had
borrowed of Delamere, near Woodfield, was one of the principal
