"I really do wish you were not quite so penetrating, dearest Mrs. Hamilton; there is no hiding a single feeling or fancy from you," answered Miss Harcourt, slightly confused, but laughing at the same time. "What with your memory, and your quick observation, and your determined notice of little things, you really are a most dangerous person to live with; and if you were not more kind, and indulgent, and true than any body else, we should all be frightened to come near you."
"I am glad I have some saving qualities," replied Mrs. Hamilton, laughing also; "it would be rather hard to be isolated because I can read other people's thoughts. However, we have entered into a compact," she continued, rather more seriously; "you will never show that you doubt Ellen, and in any difficult matter, come at once to me," and Miss Harcourt willingly assented.
The day passed much more happily than the morning could have anticipated. Emmeline's nursing was so affectionate and successful, that Ellen was quite able to join them at dinner, and her aunt had selected such a very interesting story to read aloud, in which one character was a young sailor, that the hours seemed to fly; and then they had a long talk about poor Alice Seaton and her brother, whether it would be possible for Mr. Hamilton to place young Seaton in a situation that he liked better, and that his health was more fitted for. Ellen said she should like to see and know Alice so much, for her trial must be such a very hard one, that her aunt promised her she should in the midsummer holidays, for Alice should then come and spend a week with them. It seemed as if not to be able to wish Edward good-night, and kiss him, brought back some of the pain again; but she found that thinking about poor Alice, and fancying how miserable she must be, if she loved her aunt as dearly as she did Mrs. Hamilton, to be obliged to part from her as well as her brother, and live at a school, made her pain seem less absorbing; as if to help Alice would do more toward curing it than any thing. And though, of course, every day, for a little while, she seemed to miss Edward more and more, still her aunt's affection and her own efforts, prepared her to see her uncle and cousins return, and listen to all they could tell her about him, without any increase of pain.
PART III.
SIN AND SUFFERING.
CHAPTER I.
ADVANCE AND RETROSPECT.
Our readers must imagine that two years and four months have elapsed since our last visit to the inmates of Oakwood. It was the first week in March that Edward Fortescue (only wanting ten days for the completion of his fourteenth year) quitted a home, which was happier than any he had ever known, to enter the world as a sailor; and it is the 7th of June, two years later, the day on which Ellen Fortescue completes her fifteenth year, that we recommence our narrative.