Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: the distinguished guests at different foreign Courts, and she has been presented in London. Would any reasonable being talk about antecedents after that V Mr. Crosbie goes on with his leading article. CHAPTER IIL ONLY DONKEYS. The lovers that are to be saunter slowly, meanwhile, along the High Street of Spa, Emma's heart as full of sunshine as the sky above her head, Rawdon in as little lover-like a frame of mind as can well be imagined. He knows perfectly well that before the day is over it is incumbent upon him to make a proposal of marriage to poor expectant Emma. He hopes that, somehow or another, he will be able to pull through it. But he is not elated. Of course he will get accustomed in time to being engaged, and even married. But the proposal—what is he to say, what can he say that Emmy does not very well know already ? Why is it not the custom for people to become engaged off-hand without going through any ridiculous preliminary form of proposal and acceptance at all ? When Emma Marsland, an orphan at seven years of age, was first left to Mr. Crosbie's guardianship, nothing could be more admirable, more disinterested, than the sentiments given forth to the world by Mrs. Crosbie. She might, indeed, have wished that this additional responsibility, this sacred charge, had been spared her. She might have wished, for her Rawdon's sake, that the unexpected addition to her cares had been a boy, in which case the children could have pursued their studies together. Still, a trust was a trust—a duty a duty. Under heaven's blessing, Mrs. Crosbie would bring up poor little Emmy with as much care, as much love, as though she were indeed her Rawdon's sister. And faithfully, it must be added, was the promise carried out . Few girls in Chalkshire had had a better educatio...