“Pardon me,” said Aram, “I must leave you now. As to the ladies,” he added, with a faint smile, half in melancholy, half in scorn, “I am not one whom they could miss;—forgive me if I seem unceremonious. Adieu.”
Lester at first felt a little offended, but when he recalled the peculiar habits of the Scholar, he saw that the only way to hope for a continuance of that society which had so pleased him, was to indulge Aram at first in his unsocial inclinations, rather than annoy him by a troublesome hospitality; he therefore, without further discourse, shook hands with him, and they parted.
When Lester regained the little parlour, he found his nephew sitting, silent and discontented, by the window. Madeline had taken up a book, and Ellinor, in an opposite corner, was plying her needle with an air of earnestness and quiet, very unlike her usual playful and cheerful vivacity. There was evidently a cloud over the groupe; the good Lester regarded them with a searching, yet kindly eye.
“And what has happened?” said he, “something of mighty import, I am sure, or I should have heard my pretty Ellinor’s merry laugh long before I crossed the threshold.”
Ellinor coloured and sighed, and worked faster than ever. Walter threw open the window, and whistled a favourite air quite out of tune. Lester smiled, and seated himself by his nephew.
“Well, Walter,” said he, “I feel, for the first time in these ten years, I have a right to scold you. What on earth could make you so inhospitable to your uncle’s guest? You eyed the poor student, as if you wished him among the books of Alexandria!”
“I would he were burnt with them!” answered Walter, sharply. “He seems to have added the black art to his other accomplishments, and bewitched my fair cousins here into a forgetfulness of all but himself.”
“Not me!” said Ellinor eagerly, and looking up.
“No, not you, that’s true enough; you are too just, too kind;—it is a pity that Madeline is not more like you.”
“My dear Walter,” said Madeline, “what is the matter? You accuse me of what? being attentive to a man whom it is impossible to hear without attention!”