ible disgrace that might befall the family with which he thought of
allying himself haunted him with the tenacity and also with the
exaggeration of a nightmare, whenever he had overworked himself in his
search after available and profitable knowledge, or had a fit of
indigestion after the exquisite dinners he was learning so well to
appreciate.

Christmas was, of course, to be devoted to his own family; it was an
unavoidable necessity, as he told Ellinor, while, in reality, he was
beginning to find absence from his betrothed something of a relief. Yet
the wranglings and folly of his home, even blessed by the presence of a
Lady Maria, made him look forward to Easter at Ford Bank with something
of the old pleasure.

Ellinor, with the fine tact which love gives, had discovered his
annoyance at various little incongruities in the household at the time of
his second visit in the previous autumn, and had laboured to make all as
perfect as she could before his return. But she had much to struggle
against. For the first time in her life there was a great want of ready
money; she could scarcely obtain the servants' wages; and the bill for
the spring seeds was a heavy weight on her conscience. For Miss Monro's
methodical habits had taught her pupil great exactitude as to all money
matters.

Then her father's temper had become very uncertain. He avoided being
alone with her whenever he possibly could; and the consciousness of this,
and of the terrible mutual secret which was the cause of this
estrangement, were the reasons why Ellinor never recovered her pretty
youthful bloom after her illness. Of course it was to this that the
outside world attributed her changed appearance. They would shake their
heads and say, "Ah, poor Miss Wilkins! What a lovely creature she was
before that fever!"

But youth is youth, and will assert itself in a certain elasticity of
body and spirits; and at times Ellinor forgot that fearful night for
several hours together. Even when her father's averted eye brought it
all once more before her, she had learnt to form excuses and palliations,
and to regard Mr. Dunster's death as only the consequence of an
unfortunate accident. But she tried to put the miserable remembrance
entirely out of her mind; to go on from day to day thinking only of the
day, and how to arrange it so as to cause the least irritation to her
father. She would so gladly have spoken to him on the one subject which
overshado