elham," said Ellen, "since your return to town."

"I have been very ill," I answered, and I felt my voice falter. Ellen
looked up anxiously at my face; I could not brook those large, deep,
tender eyes, and it now became my turn to occupy myself with the prints.

"You do look pale," she said, in a low voice. I did not trust myself
with a further remark--dissimulator as I was to others, I was like a
guilty child before the woman I loved. There was another pause--at last
Ellen said, "How do you think my brother looks?"

I started; yes, he was her brother, and I was once more myself at that
thought. I answered so coldly and almost haughtily, that Ellen coloured,
and said, with some dignity, that she should join Lady Roseville. I
bowed slightly, and she withdrew to the countess. I seized my hat and
departed--but not utterly alone--I had managed to secrete the book which
Ellen's hand had marked; through many a bitter day and sleepless night,
that book has been my only companion; I have it before me now, and it is
open at a page which is yet blistered with the traces of former tears.

CHAPTER LXVIII.

Our mistress is a little given to philosophy: what disputations shall we
have here by and by!--Gil Blas.

It was now but seldom that I met Ellen, for I went little into general
society, and grew every day more engrossed in political affairs.
Sometimes, however, when, wearied of myself, and my graver occupations,
I yielded to my mother's solicitations, and went to one of the nightly
haunts of the goddess we term Pleasure, and the Greeks, Moria, the game
of dissipation (to use a Spanish proverb) shuffled us together. It
was then that I had the most difficult task of my life to learn and to
perform; to check the lip--the eye--the soul--to heap curb on curb, upon
the gushings of the heart, which daily and hourly yearned to overflow;
and to feel, that while the mighty and restless tides of passion
were thus fettered and restrained, all within was a parched and arid
wilderness, that wasted itself, for want of very moisture, away. Yet
there was something grateful in the sadness with which I watched her
form in the dance, or listened to her voice in the song; and I felt
soothed, and even happy, when my fancy flattered itself, that her step
never now seemed so light, as it was wont to be when in harmony with
mine, nor the songs that pleased her most, so gay as those that were
formerly her choice.

Distant and unobserved, I lo