"Can you not imagine it possible that I should wish to see you again?" answered Miss Monroe—for she was Mr. Greenwood's visitor upon the present occasion.
"But why so much mystery, Ellen? why refuse to give the servant your name? why adopt a course which cannot fail to render your visit a matter of suspicion to my household?" said Greenwood, somewhat impatiently.
"Forgive me—forgive me, if I have done wrong," exclaimed Ellen, the tears gushing to her eyes. "Alas! misfortunes have rendered me so suspicious of human nature, that I feared—I feared lest you should refuse to see me—that you would consider me importunate—"
"Well—well, Ellen: do not cry—that is foolish! I am not angry now; so cheer up, and tell me in what I can serve thee?"
As Greenwood uttered these words, he seated himself upon the sofa by the side of the young lady, and took her hand. We cannot say that her tears had moved him—for his was a heart that was moved by nothing regarding another: but she had looked pretty as she wept, and as her eyes glanced through their tears towards him; and the apparent kindness of his manner was the mechanical impulse of the libertine.
"Oh! if you would only smile thus upon me—now and then—" murmured Ellen, gazing tenderly upon him,—"how much of the sorrow of this life would disappear from before my eyes."
"How can one gifted with such charms as you be unhappy?" exclaimed Greenwood.
"What! do you imagine that beauty constitutes felicity?" cried Ellen, in an impassioned tone. "Are not the loveliest flowers exposed to the nipping frosts, as well as the rank and poisonous weeds? Do not clouds obscure the brightest stars, as well as those of a pale and sickly lustre? You ask me if I can be unhappy? Alas! it is now long—long since I knew what perfect happiness was! I need not tell you—you—how my father's fortune was swept away;—but I may detail to you the miseries which the loss of it raised up around him and me—and chiefly me!"
"But why dwell upon so sad a theme, Ellen? Did you come hither to divert me with a narrative of sorrows which must now be past, since—according to what I have heard—your father and yourself have found an asylum—"
"At Markham Place!" added Miss Monroe, emphatically. "Yes—we have found an asylum there—there, in the house of the individual whom my father's speculations and your agency—"