I know exactly how she will say it--'If Elinor had
listened to me----'"

"Elinor," said poor Mrs. Dennistoun, "I cannot contradict you, dear. It
will be so--but none of them are cruel, not even Mary Dale. They will
make their remarks--who could help it? we should ourselves if it were
some one else's case: but they will not be cruel--don't think so--they
will be full of sympathy----"

"Which is a great deal worse," Elinor said, in her unreason; "the one
might be borne, but the other I will not endure. Sympathy, yes! They
will all be sorry for me--they will say they knew how it would be. Oh, I
know I have not profited as I ought by what has happened to me. I am
unsubdued. I am as impatient and as proud as ever. It is quite true, but
it cannot be mended. It is more than I can bear."

"My darling," said her mother, again. "We all say that in our trouble,
and yet we know that we have got to bear it all the same. It is
intolerable--one says that a thousand times--and yet it has to be put up
with. All the time that we have been flattering ourselves that nobody
took any notice it has been a delusion, Elinor. How could it be
otherwise? We must set our faces----"

"Not I, mamma!" she said. "Not I! I must go away----"

"Go away? Elinor!"

"Among strangers; where nobody has heard of me before--where nobody can
make any remark. To live like this, among a crowd of people who think
they ought to know everything that one is doing--who are nothing to you,
and yet whom you stand in awe of and must explain everything to!--it is
this that is intolerable. I cannot, cannot bear it. Mother, I will take
my baby, and I will go away----"

"Where?" said Mrs. Dennistoun, with all the colour fading out of her
face. What panic had taken her I cannot tell. She grew pale to her lips,
and the words were almost inaudible which she breathed forth. I think
she thought for a moment that Elinor's heart had turned, that she was
going back to her husband to find refuge with him from the strife of
tongues which she could not encounter alone. All the blood went back
upon the mother's heart--yet she set herself to suppress all emotion,
and if this should be so, not to oppose it--for was it not the thing of
all others to be desired--the thing which everybody would approve, the
reuniting of those whom God had put together? Though it might be death
to her, not a word of opposition would she say.

"Where? how can I tell where--anywhere, anywhere out of the