er to
him (in which she expressed the hope that when in London,
where we were going in three months' time, she should see
Alice, whom she was prepared to receive and to love as a
sister) I scaled it, and gave it to the servant who was just
setting off for the post town. She wrote a few lines also to
Mrs. Tracy, in which she expressed, in severe terms, her sense
of the impropriety, if not of the guilt of her conduct with
respect to her own grandchild, as well as with regard to a
family, whose indignation she could not but feel that she had
justly incurred. Her letter to her father she did not
communicate to me. Mr. Middleton took little notice of the
whole affair. One day that his wife was beginning to discuss
the subject before him, he said, "My dear Mary, there are
persons and things about which the less is said the better,
and your brother and his marriage are of that number." Another
time, when she remarked to him that I was looking much better,
he observed, "I am glad that she has come to her senses." Now
and then there came letters from Henry to Mrs. Middleton, but
she never showed them to me. When I made any inquiries about
them, she told me such facts as that he had taken a small
house in--street; that he had been with his father once or
twice, but that he still refused to see Alice. When I asked if
Henry seemed happy, or at least contented, she answered that
it had always been difficult to make out his state of mind
from what he wrote, and now more so than ever; and then she
would abruptly change the subject. My intense curiosity, my
still more intense anxiety to hear about them, seemed to give
her the idea, that, though my pride had been wounded, I still
cared for him. Indeed so much of my future peace of mind
turned upon the direction which his feelings would take, that
my manner was probably well calculated to give this
impression. In despair of overcoming it, unable to speak out,
too proud to repeat what I saw she did not believe, I shut
myself up in that resolute silence, in that systematic
reserve, which had now become habitual to me; but I looked
forward to our journey to London with nervous anxiety, and saw
the time for its approach with a mixture of hope and fear.

CHAPTER IX.

"Dans le sein du bonheur que son ame desire,
Pres d'an amant qu'elle aime et qui brule a ses pieds,
Ses yeux remplis d'amour, de larmes sont noyes."
.................................
"Vous me desesperez