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98 are brought, who does not feel disappointed to find there are none for them? and why, when opening the epistle would set the question at rest, do we persevere in looking at the direction, the seal, the shape, as if from them alone we could guess the contents? What a love of mystery and of vague expectance there is in the human heart! In the mean time, Emily sat picking to pieces a rosebud, from the first deep crimson leaf to the delicate pink inside. Oh! that organ of destructiveness! She had gathered it only an hour ago—a single solitary flower, where the shrubbery had run into too luxuriant a vegetation for much bloom—the very Una of roses among the green leaves, and now she was destroying it. Suddenly Lord Mandeville, who had been lost in the columns of the Times, exclaimed, "Why, the Lauristons' villa at Twickenham is for sale. What can have induced them to part with it?" "The Morning Post explains the mystery. Do let me read you the announcement of Lady Adelaide Merton's marriage."