There was no rejoinder to these kind and playful words. Ellen did indeed put aside her drawing, but instead of taking a seat near her aunt, which in former days she would have been only too happy to do, she walked to the farthest window, and ensconcing herself in its deep recess, seemed determined to hold communion with no one. Miss Harcourt was so indignant as scarcely to be able to contain its expression. Caroline looked astonished and provoked. Emmeline was much too busy in flying from window to window, to think of any thing else but her brothers. Mrs. Hamilton was more grieved and hurt than Ellen had scarcely ever made her feel. Several times before, in the last month, she had fancied there was something unusual in her manner; but the many anxieties and thoughts which had engrossed her since her husband's summons and his departure, had prevented any thing, till that evening, but momentary surprise. Emmeline's exclamation that she was quite sure she heard the trampling of horses, and that it must be Percy, by the headlong way he rode, prevented any remark, and brought them all to the window; and she was right, for in a few minutes a horseman emerged from some distant trees, urging his horse to its utmost speed, waving his cap in all sorts of mirthful gesticulations over his head, long before he could be quite sure that there was any body to see him. Another minute, and he had flung the reins to Robert, with a laughing greeting, and springing up the long flight of steps in two bounds, was in the sitting-room and in the arms of his mother, before either of his family imagined he could have had even time to dismount.
"Herbert?" was the first word Mrs. Hamilton's quivering lip could speak.
"Is quite well, my dearest mother, and not five minutes' ride behind me. The villagers would flock round us, with such an hurrah, I thought you must have heard it here; so I left Bertie to play the agreeable, and promised to see them to-morrow, and galloped on here, for you know the day we left, I vowed that the firstborn of my mother should have her first kiss."
"Still the same, Percy—not sobered yet, my boy?" said his mother, looking at him with a proud smile; for while the tone and manner were still the eager, fresh-feeling boy, the face and figure were that of the fine-growing, noble-looking man.
"Sobered! why, mother, I never intend to be," he answered, joyously, as he alternately embraced his sisters, Miss Harcourt, and Ellen, who, fearing to attract notice, had emerged from her hiding-place; "if the venerable towers of that most wise and learned town, Oxford, and all the grave lectures and long faces of sage professors have failed to tame me, there can be no hope for my sobriety; but here comes Herbert, actually going it almost as fast as I did. Well done, my boy! Mother, that is all your doing; he feels your influence at this distance. Why, all the Oxonians would fancy the colleges must be tumbling about their ears, if they saw the gentle, studious, steady Herbert Hamilton riding at such a rate." He entered almost as his brother spoke; and though less boisterous, the intense delight it was to him to look in his mother's face again, to be surrounded by all he loved, was as visible as Percy's; and deep was the thankfulness of Mrs. Hamilton's ever anxious heart, as she saw him looking so well—so much stronger than in his boyhood. The joy of that evening, and of very many succeeding days, was, indeed, great; though many to whom the sanctity and bliss of domestic affection are unknown, might fancy there was little to call for it; but to the inmates of Oakwood it was real happiness to hear Percy's wild laugh and his inexhaustible stories, calling forth the same mirth from his hearers—the very sound of his ever-bounding step, and his boisterous career from room to room, to visit, he declared, and rouse all the bogies and spirits that must have slept while he was away: Herbert's quieter but equal interest in all that had been done, studied, read, even thought and felt, in his absence: the pride and delight of both in the accounts of Edward, Percy insisting that to have such a gallant fellow of a brother, ought to make Ellen as lively and happy as Emmeline, who was blessed nearly in the same measure—looking so excessively mischievous as he spoke, that, though his sister did not at first understand the inference, it was speedily discovered, and called for a laughing attack on his outrageous self-conceit. Herbert more earnestly regretted to see Ellen looking as sad and pale as when she was quite a little girl, and took upon himself gently to reproach her for not being, or, at least, trying to make herself more cheerful, when she had so many blessings around her, and was so superlatively happy in having such a brave and noble-hearted brother. If he did not understand her manner as he spoke, both he and the less observant Percy were destined to be still more puzzled and grieved as a few weeks passed, and they at first fancied and then were quite sure that she was completely altered, even in her manner to their mother. Instead of being so gentle, so submissive, so quietly happy to deserve the smallest sign of approval from Mrs. Hamilton, she now seemed completely to shrink from her, either in fear, or that she no longer cared either to please or to obey her. By imperceptible, but sure degrees, this painful conviction pressed itself on the minds of the whole party, even to the light-hearted, unsuspicious Emmeline, to whom it was so utterly incomprehensible, that she declared it must be all fancy, and that they were all so happy that their heads must be a little turned.
"Even mamma's!" observed Caroline, dryly.
"No; but she is the only sensible person among us, for she has not said any thing about it, and, therefore, I dare say does not even see that which we are making such a wonder about."
"I do not agree with you, for I rather think she has both seen and felt it before either of us, and that because it so grieves and perplexes her, she can not speculate or even speak about it as we do. Time will explain it, I suppose, but it is very disagreeable."
It was, indeed, no fancy; but little could these young observers or even Mrs. Hamilton suspect that which was matter of speculation or grief to them, was almost madness in its agony of torture to Ellen; who, as weeks passed, and but very trifling returns for her trinkets were made her by Mrs. Langford, felt as if her brain must fail before she could indeed accomplish her still ardently desired plan, and give back the missing sum to Robert, without calling suspicion on herself. She felt to herself as changed as she appeared to those that observed her; a black impenetrable pall seemed to have enveloped her heart and mind, closing up both, even from those affections, those pursuits, so dear to her before. She longed for some change from the dense impenetrable fog, even if it were some heavy blow—tangible suffering of the fiercest kind was prayed for, rather than the stagnation which caused her to move, act, and speak as if under some fatal spell, and look with such terror on the relation she had so loved, that even to be banished from her presence she imagined would be less agony, than to associate with her, as the miserable, guilty being she had become.
Mrs. Hamilton watched and was anxious, but she kept both her observations and anxiety to herself, for she would not throw even a temporary cloud over the happiness of her children. A fortnight after the young men's arrival, letters came most unexpectedly from Mr. Hamilton, dated twelve days after he had left, and brought by a Scottish trader whom they had encountered near the Shetland Isles, and who had faithfully forwarded them from Edinburgh, as he had promised. The voyage had been most delightful, and they hoped to reach Feroe in another week. He wrote in the highest terms of Morton; the comfort of such companionship, and the intrinsic worth of his character, which could never be known, until so closely thrown together.