breeze of the spring night, on what would be asked of her.
Oh, no doubt, it would be cleverly done! She would be asked if she
remembered his visit, and why she remembered it. She would be led on
carefully to tell the story of the calendar in the hall, and of how it
was but ten days before her marriage--the last hurried, unexpected visit
of the lover before he came as a bridegroom to take her away. It would
be all true, every word, and yet it would be a lie. And standing up
there in that public place, she would be made to repeat it, as she had
done in the flowery garden, in the sunshine, twenty years ago--then
dazed and bewildered, not knowing what she did, and with something of
the blind confidence of youth and love in saying what she was told to
say; but now with clearer insight, with a horrible certainty of the
falsehood of that true story, and the object with which it was required
of her. Happily for herself, Elinor did not think of the ordeal of
cross-examination through which witnesses have to pass. She would not,
I think, have feared that if the instinct of combativeness had been
roused in her: her quick wit and ready spirit would not have failed in
defending herself, and in maintaining the accuracy of the fact to which
she had to bear witness. It was herself, and not an opposing counsel,
that was alarming to Elinor. But I have promised that the reader should
not be compelled to go through all the trouble and torment of her
thoughts.

Dinner, with the respect which is necessary for the servant who waits,
whether that may be a solemn butler with his myrmidons, or a little
maid--always makes a pause in household communications; but when the
ladies were established afterwards by the pleasant fireside which had
been their centre of life for so many years, and with the cheerful lamp
on the table between them which had lighted so many cheerful talks,
readings, discussions, and consultations, the new subject of anxiety and
interest immediately came forth again. It was Mrs. Dennistoun who spoke
first. She had grown older, as we all do; she wore spectacles as she
worked, and often a white shawl on her shoulders, and was--as sometimes
her daughter felt, with shame of herself to remark it--a little slower
in speech, a little more pertinacious and insistent, not perhaps
perceiving with such quick sympathy the changes and fluctuations of
other minds, and whether it was advisable or not to follow a subject to
the bitter end. Sh