“Oh, give it to me! Let me hear of her——let me feel beside her once again!” cried Nelly. And with bursting eagerness she tore open the envelope, from which two or three sealed notes fell out. “This is from Lady 'Hester,” said she; “and this a hand I do not know, but addressed to you; and here are bills or money-orders for a large sum. What can all this mean?”
“Can't you read what she says?” said Dalton, reddening, and suddenly remembering that Nelly was not aware of his having written to Kate. “Give it to me; I 'll read it myself.” And he snatched the letter from her fingers. “There's Frank's for you.”
“Oh, father, father!” cried Nelly, in a burst of grief, as she tore open Lady Hester's letter; “it is as I feared. Kate is about to be married—if she be not already married.”
“Without my leave—without asking my consent!” cried Dalton, passionately. “Am I nobody at all? Am I the head of the family, or am I not? Is this the way to treat her father? May I never see light, if I won't have him 'out,' if he was a Prince of the Blood! Oh, the ungrateful girl! Leave off crying there, and tell me all about it. Read me her own letter, I say——if God will give me patience to listen to it.”
With a bosom almost bursting, and a lip quivering with emotion, Ellen began,—
“La Rocca, Lake of Como.
Dearest Father and Sister,—Oh that I could throw myself at
your feet, and poor out all that my heart is full of——
tell you what I feel and hope and fear, and ask your counsel
and your blessing. I know not if the last few days be real;
my poor head is turning amid the scenes I 've passed through
and the emotions I have felt. I had no friend but Lady
Hester—no adviser but she! She has been a mother to me—not
as you would have been, Nelly—not to warn and restrain,
when perhaps both were needed, but to encourage and feed my
hopes. I yielded to her counsels—”
“I don't understand one word of this,” cried Dalton, impatiently. “What did she do?”
Nelly's eyes ran rapidly over the lines without speaking; and then, in a low but distinct voice, she said,—-
“It is as I said; she is betrothed to this great Russian Prince.”
“That fellow, they say, owns half Moscow. Fogles told us about him.”