ARAM'S DEPARTURE.--MADELINE.--EXAGGERATION OF SENTIMENT
NATURAL IN LOVE.--MADELINE'S LETTER.--WALTER'S.--THE WALK.--
TWO VERY DIFFERENT PERSONS, YET BOTH INMATES OF THE SAME
COUNTRY VILLAGE.--THE HUMOURS OF LIFE, AND ITS DARK PASSIONS,
ARE FOUND IN JUXTA-POSITION EVERYWHERE.
Her thoughts as pure as the chaste morning's breath,
When from the Night's cold arms it creeps away,
Were clothed in words.
--Sir J. Suckling--Detraction Execrated
"You positively leave us then to-day, Eugene?" said the Squire.
"Indeed," answered Aram, "I hear from my creditor, (now no longer so,
thanks to you,) that my relation is so dangerously ill, that if I have
any wish to see her alive, I have not an hour to lose. It is the last
surviving relative I have in the world."
"I can say no more, then," rejoined the Squire shrugging his shoulders:
"When do you expect to return?"
"At least, ere the day fixed for the wedding," answered Aram, with a
grave and melancholy smile.
"Well, can you find time, think you, to call at the lodging in which my
nephew proposed to take up his abode,--my old lodging;--I will give you
the address,--and inquire if Walter has been heard of there: I confess
that I feel considerable alarm on his account. Since that short and
hurried letter which I read to you, I have heard nothing of him."
"You may rely on my seeing him if in London, and faithfully reporting to
you all that I can learn towards removing your anxiety."
"I do not doubt it; no heart is so kind as yours, Eugene. You will not
depart without receiving the additional sum you are entitled to claim
from me, since you think it may be useful to you in London, should you
find a favourable opportunity of increasing your annuity. And now I will
no longer detain you from taking your leave of Madeline."
The plausible story which Aram had invented of the illness and
approaching death of his last living relation, was readily believed by
the simple family to whom it was told; and Madeline herself checked her
tears that she might not, for his sake, sadden a departure that seemed
inevitable. Aram accordingly repaired to London that day,--the one that
followed the night which witnessed his fearful visit to the "Devil's
Crag."
It is precisely at this part of my history that I love to pause for a
moment; a sort of breathing interval between the cloud that has been long
gathering, and the storm that is about to burst. And this interval is not
without its fleeting gleam of quiet and holy sunshine.
It was Madeline's first absence from her lover since their vows had
plighted them to each other; and that first absence, when softened by so
many hopes as smiled upon her, is perhaps one of the most touching
passages in the history of a woman's love. It is marvellous how many
things, unheeded before, suddenly become dear. She then feels what a
power of consecration there was in the mere presence of the one beloved;
the spot he touched, the book he read, have become a part of him--are no
longer inanimate--are inspired, and have a being and a voice. And the
heart, too, soothed in discovering so many new treasures, and opening so
delightful a world of memory, is not yet acquainted with that weariness--
that sense of exhaustion and solitude which are the true pains of
absence, and belong to the absence not of hope but regret.
"You are cheerful, dear Madeline," said Ellinor, "though you did not
think it possible, and he not here!"
"I am occupied," replied Madeline, "in discovering how much I loved him."
We do wrong when we censure a certain exaggeration in the sentiments of
those who love. True passion is necessarily heightened by its very ardour
to an elevation that seems extravagant only to those who cannot feel it.
The lofty language of a hero is a part of his character; without that
largeness of idea he had not been a hero. With love, it is the same as
with glory: what common minds would call natural in sentiment, merely
because it is homely, is not natural, except to tamed affections. That is
a very poor, nay, a very coarse, love, in which the imagination makes not
the greater part. And the Frenchman, who censured the love of his
mistress because it was so mixed with the imagination, quarrelled with
the body, for the soul which inspired and preserved it.
Yet we do not say that Madeline was so possessed by the confidence of her
love, that she did not admit the intrusion of a single doubt or fear;
when she recalled the frequent gloom and moody fitfulness of her lover--
his strange and mysterious communings with self--the sorrow which, at
times, as on that Sabbath eve when he wept upon her bosom, appeared
suddenly to come upon a nature so calm and stately, and without a visible
cause; when she recalled all these symptoms of a heart not now at rest,
it was not possible for her to reject altogether a certain vague and
dreary apprehension. Nor did she herself, although to Ellinor she so
affected, ascribe this cloudiness and caprice of mood merely to the
result of a solitary and meditative life; she attributed them to the
influence of an early grief, perhaps linked with the affections, and did
not doubt but that one day or another she should learn its secret. As for
remorse--the memory of any former sin--a life so austerely blameless, a
disposition so prompt to the activity of good, and so enamoured of its
beauty--a mind so cultivated, a temper so gentle, and a heart so easily
moved--all would have forbidden, to natures far more suspicious than
Madeline's, the conception of such a thought. And so, with a patient
gladness, though not without some mixture of anxiety, she suffered
herself to glide onward to a future, which, come cloud, come shine, was,
she believed at least, to be shared with him.
On looking over the various papers from which I have woven this tale, I
find a letter from Madeline to Aram, dated at this time. The characters,
traced in the delicate and fair Italian hand coveted at that period, are
fading, and, in one part, wholly obliterated by time; but there seems to
me so much of what is genuine in the heart's beautiful romance in this
effusion, that I will lay it before the reader without adding or altering
a word.
"Thank you, thank you, dearest Eugene! I have received, then, the first
letter you ever wrote me. I cannot tell you how strange it seemed to me,
and how agitated I felt on seeing it, more so, I think, than if it had
been yourself who had returned. However, when the first delight of
reading it faded away, I found that it had not made me so happy as it
ought to have done--as I thought at first it had done. You seem sad and
melancholy; a certain nameless gloom appears to me to hang over your
whole letter. It affects my spirits--why I know not--and my tears fall
even while I read the assurances of your unaltered, unalterable love--and
yet this assurance your Madeline--vain girl!--never for a moment
disbelieves. I have often read and often heard of the distrust and
jealousy that accompany love; but I think that such a love must be a
vulgar and low sentiment. To me there seems a religion in love, and its
very foundation is in faith. You say, dearest, that the noise and stir of
the great city oppress and weary you even more than you had expected. You
say those harsh faces, in which business, and care, and avarice, and
ambition write their lineaments, are wholly unfamiliar to you;--you turn
aside to avoid them,--you wrap yourself up in your solitary feelings of
aversion to those you see, and you call upon those not present--upon your
Madeline! and would that your Madeline were with you! It seems to me--
perhaps you will smile when I say this--that I alone can understand you--
I alone can read your heart and your emotions;--and oh! dearest Eugene,
that I could read also enough of your past history to know all that has
cast so habitual a shadow over that lofty heart and that calm and
profound nature! You smile when I ask you--but sometimes you sigh,--and
the sigh pleases and soothes me better than the smile.
"We have heard nothing more of Walter, and my father begins at times to
be seriously alarmed about him. Your account, too, corroborates that
alarm. It is strange that he has not yet visited London, and that you can
obtain no clue of him. He is evidently still in search of his lost
parent, and following some obscure and uncertain track. Poor Walter! God
speed him! The singular fate of his father, and the many conjectures
respecting him, have, I believe, preyed on Walter's mind more than he
acknowledged. Ellinor found a paper in his closet, where we had occasion
to search the other day for something belonging to my father, which was
scribbled with all the various fragments of guess or information
concerning my uncle, obtained from time to time, and interspersed with
some remarks by Walter himself, that affected me strangely. It seems to
have been from early childhood the one desire of my cousin to discover
his father's fate. Perhaps the discovery may be already made;--perhaps my
long-lost uncle may yet be present at our wedding.
"You ask me, Eugene, if I still pursue my botanical researches. Sometimes
I do; but the flower now has no fragrance--and the herb no secret, that I
care for; and astronomy, which you had just begun to teach me, pleases me
more;--the flowers charm me when you are present; but the stars speak to
me of you in absence. Perhaps it would not be so, had I loved a being
less exalted than you. Every one, even my father, even Ellinor, smile
when they observe how incessantly I think of you--how utterly you have
become all in all to me. I could not tell this to you, though I write it:
is it not strange that letters should be more faithful than the tongue?
And even your letter, mournful as it is, seems to me kinder, and dearer,
and more full of yourself, than with all the magic of your language, and
the silver sweetness of your voice, your spoken words are. I walked by
your house yesterday; the windows were closed--there was a strange air of
lifelessness and dejection about it. Do you remember the evening in which
I first entered that house? Do you--or rather is there one hour in which
it is not present to you? For me, I live in the past,--it is the present-
-(which is without you,) in which I have no life. I passed into the
little garden, that with your own hands you have planted for me, and
filled with flowers. Ellinor was with me, and she saw my lips move. She
asked me what I was saying to myself. I would not tell her--I was praying
for you, my kind, my beloved Eugene. I was praying for the happiness of
your future years--praying that I might requite your love. Whenever I
feel the most, I am the most inclined to prayer. Sorrow, joy, tenderness,
all emotion, lift up my heart to God. And what a delicious overflow of
the heart is prayer! When I am with you--and I feel that you love me--my
happiness would be painful, if there were no God whom I might bless for
its excess. Do those, who believe not, love?--have they deep emotions?--
can they feel truly--devotedly? Why, when I talk thus to you--do you
always answer me with that chilling and mournful smile? You would make
religion only the creation of reason--as well might you make love the
same--what is either, unless you let it spring also from the feelings?
"When--when--when will you return? I think I love you now more than ever.
I think I have more courage to tell you so. So many things I have to say-
-so many events to relate. For what is not an event to US? the least
incident that has happened to either--the very fading of a flower, if you
have worn it, is a whole history to me.
"Adieu, God bless you--God reward you--God keep your heart with Him,
dearest, dearest Eugene. And may you every day know better and better how
utterly you are loved by your
"Madeline."
The epistle to which Lester referred as received from Walter, was one
written on the day of his escape from Mr. Pertinax Fillgrave, a short
note, rather than letter, which ran as follows.
"My dear Uncle,
"I have met with an accident which confined me to my bed;--a rencontre,
indeed, with the Knights of the Road--nothing serious, (so do not be
alarmed!) though the Doctor would fain have made it so. I am just about
to recommence my journey, but not towards London; on the contrary,
northward.
"I have, partly through the information of your old friend Mr. Courtland,
partly by accident, found what I hope may prove a clue to the fate of my
father. I am now departing to put this hope to the issue. More I would
fain say; but lest the expectation should prove fallacious, I will not
dwell on circumstances which would in that case only create in you a
disappointment similar to my own. Only this take with you, that my
father's proverbial good luck seems to have visited him since your latest
news of his fate; a legacy, though not a large one, awaited his return to
England from India; but see if I am not growing prolix already--I must
break off in order to reserve you the pleasure (may it be so!) of a full
surprise!
"God bless you, my dear Uncle! I write in spirits and hope; kindest love
to all at home.
"Walter Lester.
"P. S. Tell Ellinor that my bitterest misfortune in the adventure I have
referred to, was to be robbed of her purse. Will she knit me another? By
the way, I encountered Sir Peter Hales; such an open-hearted, generous
fellow as you said! 'thereby hangs a tale.'"
This letter, which provoked all the curiosity of our little circle, made
them anxiously look forward to every post for additional explanation, but
that explanation came not. And they were forced to console themselves
with the evident exhilaration under which Walter wrote, and the probable
supposition that he delayed farther information until it could be ample
and satisfactory.--"Knights of the Road," quoth Lester one day, "I wonder
if they were any of the gang that have just visited us. Well, but poor
boy! he does not say whether he has any money left; yet if he were short
of the gold, he would be very unlike his father, (or his uncle for that
matter,) had he forgotten to enlarge on that subject, however brief upon
others."
"Probably," said Ellinor, "the Corporal carried the main sum about him in
those well-stuffed saddle-bags, and it was only the purse that Walter had
about his person that was stolen; and it is probable that the Corporal
might have escaped, as he mentions nothing about that excellent
personage."
"A shrewd guess, Nell: but pray, why should Walter carry the purse about
him so carefully? Ah, you blush: well, will you knit him another?"
"Pshaw, Papa! Good b'ye, I am going to gather you a nosegay."
But Ellinor was seized with a sudden fit of industry, and somehow or
other she grew fonder of knitting than ever.
The neighbourhood was now tranquil and at peace; the nightly depredators
that had infested the green valleys of Grassdale were heard of no more;
it seemed a sudden incursion of fraud and crime, which was too unnatural
to the character of the spot invaded to do more than to terrify and to
disappear. The truditur dies die; the serene steps of one calm day
chasing another returned, and the past alarm was only remembered as a
tempting subject of gossip to the villagers, and (at the Hall) a theme of
eulogium on the courage of Eugene Aram.
"It is a lovely day," said Lester to his daughters, as they sate at the
window; "come, girls, get your bonnets, and let us take a walk into the
village."
"And meet the postman," said Ellinor, archly.
"Yes," rejoined Madeline in the same vein, but in a whisper that Lester
might not hear, "for who knows but that we may have a letter from
Walter?"
How prettily sounds such raillery on virgin lips. No, no; nothing on
earth is so lovely as the confidence between two happy sisters, who have
no secrets but those of a guileless love to reveal!
As they strolled into the village, they were met by Peter Dealtry, who
was slowly riding home on a large ass which carried himself and his
panniers to the neighbouring market in a more quiet and luxurious
indolence of action than would the harsher motions of the equine species.
"A fine day, Peter: and what news at market?" said Lester.
"Corn high,--hay dear, your honour," replied the clerk.
"Ah, I suppose so; a good time to sell ours, Peter;--we must see about it
on Saturday. But, pray, have you heard any thing from the Corporal since
his departure?"
"Not I, your honour, not I; though I think as he might have given us a
line, if it was only to thank me for my care of his cat, but--
'Them as comes to go to roam,
Thinks slight of they as stays at home.'"
"A notable distich, Peter; your own composition, I warrant."
"Mine! Lord love your honour, I has no genus, but I has memory; and when
them ere beautiful lines of poetry-like comes into my head, they stays
there, and stays till they pops out at my tongue like a bottle of ginger-
beer. I do loves poetry, Sir, 'specially the sacred."
"We know it,--we know it."
"For there be summut in it," continued the clerk, "which smooths a man's
heart like a clothes-brush, wipes away the dust and dirt, and sets all
the nap right; and I thinks as how 'tis what a clerk of the parish ought
to study, your honour."
"Nothing better; you speak like an oracle."
"Now, Sir, there be the Corporal, honest man, what thinks himself mighty
clever,--but he has no soul for varse. Lord love ye, to see the faces he
makes when I tells him a hymn or so; 'tis quite wicked, your honour,--for
that's what the heathen did, as you well know, Sir.
"'And when I does discourse of things
Most holy, to their tribe;
What does they do?--they mocks at me,
And makes my harp a gibe.'
"'Tis not what I calls pretty, Miss Ellinor."
"Certainly not, Peter; I wonder, with your talents for verse, you never
indulge in a little satire against such perverse taste."
"Satire! what's that? Oh, I knows; what they writes in elections. Why,
Miss, mayhap--" here Peter paused, and winked significantly--"but the
Corporal's a passionate man, you knows: but I could so sting him--Aha!
we'll see, we'll see.--Do you know, your honour," here Peter altered his
air to one of serious importance, as if about to impart a most sagacious
conjecture, "I thinks there be one reason why the Corporal has not
written to me."
"And what's that, Peter?"
"Cause, your honour, he's ashamed of his writing: I fancy as how his
spelling is no better than it should be--but mum's the word. You sees,
your honour, the Corporal's got a tarn for conversation-like--he be a
mighty fine talker surely! but he be shy of the pen--'tis not every man
what talks biggest what's the best schollard at bottom. Why, there's the
newspaper I saw in the market, (for I always sees the newspaper once a
week,) says as how some of them great speakers in the Parliament House,
are no better than ninnies when they gets upon paper; and that's the
Corporal's case, I sispect: I suppose as how they can't spell all them
ere long words they make use on. For my part, I thinks there be mortal
desate (deceit) like in that ere public speaking; for I knows how far a
loud voice and a bold face goes, even in buying a cow, your honour; and
I'm afraid the country's greatly bubbled in that ere partiklar; for if a
man can't write down clearly what he means for to say, I does not thinks
as how he knows what he means when he goes for to speak!"
This speech--quite a moral exposition from Peter, and, doubtless,
inspired by his visit to market--for what wisdom cannot come from
intercourse?--our good publican delivered with especial solemnity,
giving a huge thump on the sides of his ass as he concluded.
"Upon my word, Peter," said Lester, laughing, "you have grown quite a
Solomon; and, instead of a clerk, you ought to be a Justice of Peace, at
the least: and, indeed, I must say that I think you shine more in the
capacity of a lecturer than in that of a soldier."
"'Tis not for a clerk of the parish to have too great a knack at the
weapons of the flesh," said Peter, sanctimoniously, and turning aside to
conceal a slight confusion at the unlucky reminiscence of his warlike
exploits; "But lauk, Sir, even as to that, why we has frightened all the
robbers away. What would you have us do more?"
"Upon my word, Peter, you say right; and now, good day. Your wife's well,
I hope? and Jacobina--is not that the cat's name?--in high health and
favour."
"Hem, hem!--why, to be sure, the cat's a good cat; but she steals Goody
Truman's cream as she sets for butter reg'larly every night."
"Oh! you must cure her of that," said Lester, smiling, "I hope that's the
worst fault."
"Why, your gardiner do say," replied Peter, reluctantly, "as how she goes
arter the pheasants in Copse-hole."
"The deuce!" cried the Squire; "that will never do: she must be shot,
Peter, she must be shot. My pheasants! my best preserves! and poor Goody
Truman's cream, too! a perfect devil. Look to it, Peter; if I hear any
complaints again, Jacobina is done for--What are you laughing at, Nell?"
"Well, go thy ways, Peter, for a shrewd man and a clever man; it is not
every one who could so suddenly have elicited my father's compassion for
Goody Truman's cream."
"Pooh!" said the Squire, "a pheasant's a serious thing, child; but you
women don't understand matters."
They had now crossed through the village into the fields, and were slowly
sauntering by
"Hedge-row elms on hillocks green,"
when, seated under a stunted pollard, they came suddenly on the ill-
favoured person of Dame Darkmans: she sat bent (with her elbows on her
knees, and her hands supporting her chin,) looking up to the clear
autumnal sky; and as they approached, she did not stir, or testify by
sign or glance that she even perceived them.
There is a certain kind-hearted sociality of temper that you see
sometimes among country gentlemen, especially not of the highest rank,
who knowing, and looked up to by, every one immediately around them,
acquire the habit of accosting all they meet--a habit as painful for them
to break, as it was painful for poor Rousseau to be asked 'how he did' by
an applewoman. And the kind old Squire could not pass even Goody
Darkmans, (coming thus abruptly upon her,) without a salutation.
"All alone, Dame, enjoying the fine weather--that's right--And how fares
it with you?"
The old woman turned round her dark and bleared eyes, but without moving
limb or posture. "'Tis well-nigh winter now: 'tis not easy for poor folks
to fare well at this time o' year. Where be we to get the firewood, and
the clothing, and the dry bread, carse it! and the drop o' stuff that's
to keep out the cold. Ah, it's fine for you to ask how we does, and the
days shortening, and the air sharpening."
"Well, Dame, shall I send to--for a warm cloak for you?" said Madeline.
"Ho! thankye, young leddy--thankye kindly, and I'll wear it at your
widding, for they says you be going to git married to the larned man
yander. Wish ye well, ma'am, wish ye well."
And the old hag grinned as she uttered this benediction, that sounded on
her lips like the Lord's Prayer on a witch's; which converts the devotion
to a crime, and the prayer to a curse.
"Ye're very winsome, young lady," she continued, eyeing Madeline's tall
and rounded figure from head to foot. "Yes, very--but I was as bonny as
you once, and if you lives--mind that--fair and happy as you stand now,
you'll be as withered, and foul-faced, and wretched as me--ha! ha! I
loves to look on young folk, and think o' that. But mayhap ye won't live
to be old--more's the pity, for ye might be a widow and childless, and a
lone 'oman, as I be; if you were to see sixty: an' wouldn't that be
nice?--ha! ha!--much pleasure ye'd have in the fine weather then, and in
people's fine speeches, eh?"
"Come, Dame," said Lester, with a cloud on his benign brow, "this talk is
ungrateful to me, and disrespectful to Miss Lester; it is not the way to-
-" "Hout!" interrupted the old woman; "I begs pardon, Sir, if I offended-
-I begs pardon, young lady, 'tis my way, poor old soul that I be. And you
meant me kindly, and I would not be uncivil, now you are a-going to give
me a bonny cloak,--and what colour shall it be?"
"Why, what colour would you like best, Dame--red?"
"Red!--no!--like a gypsy-quean, indeed! Besides, they all has red cloaks
in the village, yonder. No; a handsome dark grey--or a gay, cheersome
black, an' then I'll dance in mourning at your wedding, young lady; and
that's what ye'll like. But what ha'ye done with the merry bridegroom,
Ma'am? Gone away, I hear. Ah, ye'll have a happy life on it, with a
gentleman like him. I never seed him laugh once. Why does not ye hire me
as your sarvant--would not I be a favourite thin! I'd stand on the
thrishold, and give ye good morrow every day. Oh! it does me a deal of
good to say a blessing to them as be younger and gayer than me. Madge
Darkman's blessing!--Och! what a thing to wish for!"
"Well, good day, mother," said Lester, moving on.
"Stay a bit, stay a bit, Sir;--has ye any commands, Miss, yonder, at
Master Aram's? His old 'oman's a gossip of mine--we were young togither--
and the lads did not know which to like the best. So we often meets, and
talks of the old times. I be going up there now.--Och! I hope I shall be
asked to the widding. And what a nice month to wid in; Novimber--
Novimber, that's the merry month for me! But 'tis cold--bitter cold, too.
Well, good day--good day. Ay," continued the hag, as Lester and the
sisters moved on, "ye all goes and throws niver a look behind. Ye
despises the poor in your hearts. But the poor will have their day. Och!
an' I wish ye were dead--dead--dead, an' I dancing in my bonny black
cloak about your graves;--for an't all mine dead--cold--cold--rotting,
and one kind and rich man might ha' saved them all."
Thus mumbling, the wretched creature looked after the father and his
daughters, as they wound onward, till her dim eyes caught them no longer;
and then, drawing her rags round her, she rose, and struck into the
opposite path that led to Aram's house.
"I hope that hag will be no constant visitor at your future residence,
Madeline," said the younger sister; "it would be like a blight on the
air."
"And if we could remove her from the parish," said Lester, "it would be a
happy day for the village. Yet, strange as it may seem, so great is her
power over them all, that there is never a marriage, nor a christening in
the village, from which she is absent--they dread her spite and foul
tongue enough, to make them even ask humbly for her presence."
"And the hag seems to know that her bad qualities are a good policy, and
obtain more respect than amiability would do," said Ellinor. "I think
there is some design in all she utters."
"I don't know how it is, but the words and sight of that woman have
struck a damp into my heart," said Madeline, musingly.
"It would be wonderful if they had not, child," said Lester, soothingly;
and he changed the conversation to other topics.
As concluding their walk, they re-entered the village, they encountered
that most welcome of all visitants to a country village, the postman--a
tall, thin pedestrian, famous for swiftness of foot, with a cheerful
face, a swinging gait, and Lester's bag slung over his shoulder. Our
little party quickened their pace--one letter--for Madeline--Aram's
handwriting. Happy blush--bright smile! Ah! no meeting ever gives the
delight that a letter can inspire in the short absences of a first love
"And none for me," said Lester, in a disappointed tone, and Ellinor's
hand hung more heavily on his arm, and her step moved slower. "It is very
strange in Walter; but I am more angry than alarmed."
"Be sure," said Ellinor, after a pause, "that it is not his fault.
Something may have happened to him. Good Heavens! if he has been attacked
again--those fearful highwaymen!"
"Nay," said Lester, "the most probable supposition after all is, that he
will not write until his expectations are realized or destroyed. Natural
enough, too; it is what I should have done, if I had been in his place."
"Natural," said Ellinor, who now attacked where she before defended--
"Natural not to give us one line, to say he is well and safe--natural; I
could not have been so remiss!"
"Ay, child, you women are so fond of writing,--'tis not so with us,
especially when we are moving about: it is always--'Well, I must write
to-morrow--well, I must write when this is settled--well, I must write
when I arrive at such a place;'--and, meanwhile, time slips on, till
perhaps we get ashamed of writing at all. I heard a great man say once,
that 'Men must have something effeminate about them to be good
correspondents;' and 'faith, I think it's true enough on the whole."
"I wonder if Madeline thinks so?" said Ellinor, enviously glancing at her
sister's absorption, as, lingering a little behind, she devoured the
contents of her letter.
"He is coming home immediately, dear father; perhaps he may be here to-
morrow," cried Madeline abruptly; "think of that, Ellinor! Ah! and he
writes in spirits!"--and the poor girl clapped her hands delightedly, as
the colour danced joyously over her cheek and neck.
"I am glad to hear it," quoth Lester; "we shall have him at last beat
even Ellinor in gaiety!"
"That may easily be," sighed Ellinor to herself, as she glided past them
into the house, and sought her own chamber.