"Oh, dear, no!" said the widow.
"Don't deny it," said Elsie, who never scrupled to make sport of her most intimate friends, and with all her fondness for Mrs. Harrington was always leading her on to do and say the most absurd things.
Elsie was in the most extravagant spirits, and had been ever since her brother's return. She flitted about the house like a beautiful elf, and Elizabeth could see that Mellen watched her every movement, his face kindling with affection and each look a caress.
"He has not changed," she thought, sadly; "all his tender words to me came only from the first pleasure of finding himself at home."
Then she began to shudder, as she often did now when the icy chill of some stern thought crept over her.
"Better so," she muttered; "what should I do with love and affection—what right have I to expect them from him or any one on earth. Is not my whole life a lie."
But she banished these reflections quickly, determined to have at least a few days of perfect freedom from anxieties, a little season of peace and rest, in which her tired soul might restore its strength, like a seabird reposing on the sunlit bosom of some inland lake after the exhaustion of a long and perilous flight amid storms and tempests.
Mellen, too, had laid by the suspicions which the strange circumstances connected with his return had caused, and appeared, as he could always, when so disposed, the most charming host possible.
Elizabeth sunned her heart in the smile which lighted up his face whenever their eyes met, and kept the dark shadows resolutely aloof from her mind. She was determined to be happy in spite of fate.
"Peace and rest!" she murmured. "I need them so much. I will have them at any cost."