I give my hand unto
another?"

"Herbert!" burst from Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton at the same instant, and
Ellen, turning from their glance, hid her flushing and paling cheek in
her hands; for a moment there was silence, and then Mrs. Hamilton drew
the agitated girl closer to her, and murmuring, in a tone of intense
feeling, "my poor, poor Ellen!" mingled a mother's tears with those of
her niece. Mr. Hamilton looked on them both with extreme emotion; his
mind's eye rapidly glanced over the past, and in an instant he saw what
a heavy load of suffering must have been his niece's portion from the
first moment she awoke to the consciousness of her ill-fated love; and
how had she borne it? so uncomplainingly, so cheerfully, that no one
could suspect that inward sorrow. When cheering himself and his wife
under their deep affliction, it was with her own heart breaking all the
while. When inciting Herbert to exertion, during that painful trial
occasioned by his Mary's letter, when doing everything in her power to
secure his happiness, what must have been her own feelings? Yes, in very
truth she had loved, loved with all the purity, the self-devotedness of
woman; and Mr. Hamilton felt that which at the moment he could not
speak. He raised his niece from the ground, where she still knelt beside
her aunt, folded her to his bosom, kissed her tearful cheek, and placing
her in Mrs. Hamilton's arms, hastily left the room.

The same thoughts had likewise occupied the mind of her aunt, as Ellen
still seemed to cling to her for support and comfort; but they were
mingled with a sensation almost amounting to self-reproach at her own
blindness in not earlier discovering the truth. Why not imagine Ellen's
affections fixed on Herbert as on Arthur Myrvin? both were equally
probable. She could now well understand Ellen's agitation when Herbert's
engagement with Mary was published, when he performed the marriage
ceremony for Arthur and Emmeline; and when Mrs. Hamilton recalled how
completely Ellen had appeared to forget herself, in devotedness to her;
how, instead of weakly sinking beneath her severe trials, she had borne
up through all, had suppressed her own suffering to alleviate those of
others, was it strange, that admiration and respect should mingle with
the love she bore her? that from that hour Ellen appeared dearer to her
aunt than she had ever done before? Nor was it only on this account her
affection increased. For the sake of her beloved