entively observing the fluctuation of Ellen's countenance; but now
her tone was such as to check the forced smile with which her niece had
tried to reply to Mr. Hamilton's suggestion of becoming old and
irritable, and bring the painfully-checked tears back to her eyes, too
powerfully to be restrained. She tried to retain her calmness, but the
effort was vain, and springing from her seat, she flew to the couch
where her aunt sat, and kneeling by her side, buried her face on her
shoulder, and murmured, almost inaudibly,--

"Oh, do not, do not bid me leave you, I am happy here; but elsewhere,
oh, I should be so very, very wretched. I own Mr. Lacy is all that I
could wish for in a husband; precious, indeed, would be his love to any
girl who could return it, but not to me; oh, not to one who can give him
nothing in return."

She paused abruptly; the crimson had mounted to both cheek and brow,
and the choking sob prevented farther utterance.

Mrs. Hamilton pressed her lips to Ellen's heated brow in silence, while
her husband looked at his niece in silent amazement.

"Are your affections then given to another, my dear child?" he said,
gently and tenderly; "but why this overwhelming grief, my Ellen? Surely,
you do not believe we could thwart the happiness of one so dear to us,
by refusing our consent to the man of your choice, if he be worthy of
you? Speak, then, my dear girl, without reserve; who has so secretly
gained your young affections, that for his sake every other offer is
rejected?"

Ellen raised her head and looked mournfully in her uncle's face. She
tried to obey, but voice for the moment failed.

"_My love is given to the dead_" she murmured at length, clasping her
aunt's hands in hers, the words slowly falling from her parched lips;
then added, hurriedly, "oh, do not reprove my weakness, I thought my
secret never would have passed my lips in life, but wherefore should I
hide it now? It is no sin to love the dead, though had he lived, never
would I have ceased to struggle till this wild pang was conquered, till
calmly I could have beheld him happy with the wife of his choice, of his
love. Oh, condemn me not for loving one who never thought of me save as
a sister; one whom I knew from his boyhood loved another. None on earth
can tell how I have struggled to subdue myself. I knew not my own heart
till it was too late to school it into apathy. He has gone, but while
my heart still clings to Herbert only, oh, can