And yet she inwardly shrank from the part assigned to her with so much appa rent concern. Women less delicately nurtured, and who have been early accustomed to go about alone, can hardly understand how, to a girl brought up as are the Lady Emilies of this world, it would seem an ordeal of no com mon magnitude to go alone to an hotel, even for the purpose of rescuing a misguided bro ther from the common harpies among whom lie had fallen. But Emily felt that, at any cost, the knowledge of her darling’s mis deeds must be kept from Lady Netherwood, so, telling the Countess that she had some business to do in the town, she started about five o’clock in her pony carriage, with only a servant in attendance. She had still about half a mile to drive when she overtook Herman, who was lei surely walking in the same direction, and by his advice the carriage was left at an unfre quented inn just outside the town, and escorted by the tutor, in the sight of all the townspeople, to whom both she and Herman were well known, she went on foot to the principal hotel at which her idiotic young brother was to give his grand entertainment that night. On her arrival she was shown obtrusively into a private sitting-room, which had been ordered for her by Herman, and painfully conscious of having made a sensation, and of being stared at, she went up-stairs to to take possession of it, and to await the arrival of her brother. About an hour later the passengers by the afternoon express from London drove up to the hotel, and among them Sir Everard Wilmot, on his way to Netherwood ; as he waited in the coffee-room for a carriage to take him on, he saw Herman leave the hotel, cross the street, look up into one of the first-floor windows, and take off his hat with a jaunty air to some person of course unseen by Sir Everard. ‘ What the devil is he up to now ?’ thought Wilmot, in whom a very unusual feeling of curiosity was suddenly aroused. ‘Has Mr Herman, Lord Netherwood’s tutor, any friends staying here ?’ he asked the waiter, carelessly, who came to tell him that the carriage was ready. 