respectfully returned--she had
seen the error of her former estimation of my character.

When Helen was divested of her lugubrious bonnet and veil, her heavy
winter cloak, &c., she looked so like herself that I knew not how to bear
it. I was particularly glad to see her beautiful black hair, unstinted
still, and unconcealed in its glossy luxuriance.

'Mamma has left off her widow's cap in honour of uncle's marriage,'
observed Arthur, reading my looks with a child's mingled simplicity and
quickness of observation. Mamma looked grave and Mrs. Maxwell shook her
head. 'And aunt Maxwell is never going to leave off hers,' persisted the
naughty boy; but when he saw that his pertness was seriously displeasing
and painful to his aunt, he went and silently put his arm round her neck,
kissed her cheek, and withdrew to the recess of one of the great
bay-windows, where he quietly amused himself with his dog, while Mrs.
Maxwell gravely discussed with me the interesting topics of the weather,
the season, and the roads. I considered her presence very useful as a
check upon my natural impulses--an antidote to those emotions of
tumultuous excitement which would otherwise have carried me away against
my reason and my will; but just then I felt the restraint almost
intolerable, and I had the greatest difficulty in forcing myself to
attend to her remarks and answer them with ordinary politeness; for I was
sensible that Helen was standing within a few feet of me beside the fire.
I dared not look at her, but I felt her eye was upon me, and from one
hasty, furtive glance, I thought her cheek was slightly flushed, and that
her fingers, as she played with her watch-chain, were agitated with that
restless, trembling motion which betokens high excitement.

'Tell me,' said she, availing herself of the first pause in the attempted
conversation between her aunt and me, and speaking fast and low, with her
eyes bent on the gold chain--for I now ventured another glance--'Tell me
how you all are at Linden-hope--has nothing happened since I left you?'

'I believe not.'

'Nobody dead? nobody married?'

'No.'

'Or--or expecting to marry?--No old ties dissolved or new ones formed? no
old friends forgotten or supplanted?'

She dropped her voice so low in the last sentence that no one could have
caught the concluding words but myself, and at the same time turned her
eyes upon me with a dawning smile, most sweetly melancholy, and a look of
timid th