“No, Aunt,” he said coldly. “Nurse Elisia will stay here as long as my father desires to have her at his side.”
“Oh, very well,” said Aunt Anne, rustling her dress; “it is just as your father likes. You are a terribly headstrong race, you Elthornes.”
“Including yourself, Aunt?”
“Oh, no, my dear. I take after my mother’s family. But it is nothing to me. I am not going to interfere. All I say is that I hope everything is for the best.”
“And I hope the same, Aunt,” said Neil cheerfully. “It’s all self-denial through life, eh?”
“Always, my dear. Then you will dress to-night, and come?”
“Oh, yes, Aunt; I’ll come.”
“Then we shall have a decent dinner,” thought Aunt Anne, as she went back to the drawing room. “I’m sorry that woman is not going, but I’m glad she is not going up with Neil. Now suppose, after all, he is giving her up! Oh, if I could only get poor Alison to be as sensible, instead of growing more infatuated by that creature every day!”
Neil settled down to his books at once, seeking in study for the cure of his mental pains, but he had hardly begun to forget the events of the morning in an abstruse theory of muscular disease, when there was another tap on the panel, and in obedience to the cry, “Come in!” Isabel hurriedly entered and closed the door.
“Ah, my dear!” he said; and she looked at him wonderingly, his tone and manner were so different to their wont. This gave her encouragement, and begat her confidence, so that she ran to him, sank on her knees by his chair, and took his hands.