"What! that we must be all famished? I assure you, we are, and the loss of your society sharpened the pangs of hunger I owe Morris a grudge, and will certainly serve him out one day, for detaining you so long when I wanted you."
"It was not Morris that detained me," answered Mrs. Hamilton, somewhat hurriedly. "I had done with him by six o'clock; but come, tell me something about your excursion," she added, evidently anxious to elude farther remark, and perceiving at once that Miss Harcourt and Herbert both looked at her very anxiously. "How did your boat go, and how did Caroline's voice and your flute sound on the water, Percy? Herbert, I see, has found poetry, as usual, and made Miss Harcourt his companion; you must tell me what verses our beautiful river recalled this afternoon; and you, Emmy, have you any more sketches to fill up?"
Her children eagerly entered on their day's enjoyment—Herbert conquering his anxiety, to emulate his mother's calmness, but Miss Harcourt had been too painfully startled by the unusual expression of forcibly-controlled suffering on her friend's face, to do so with any success. Nearly an hour, however, passed animatedly as usual; each found so much to tell, and Percy was in such wild spirits, that it was utterly impossible for there to be any thing like a pause. Tea had always been a favorite meal at Oakwood, as bringing all the family together after the various business of the day, and it continued to be so. They had lingered over it as usual, when Caroline suddenly exclaimed—
"What has become of Ellen? I had quite forgotten her till this moment; how neglectful she will think us! Do ring the bell, Percy, that we may send and let her know."
"If she has no recollection of meal-time, I really think we need not trouble ourselves about her," was Percy's half-jesting, half-earnest reply, for Ellen's changed manner to his mother had made him more angry with her, and for a longer time together, than he had ever been with any body, especially a woman, in his life. He stretched out his hand, however, to ring the bell, but Mrs. Hamilton stopped him.
"You need not, Percy; your cousin will not wish to join us," she said; and her tone was now so expressive of almost anguish, that every one of that happy party startled and looked at her with the most unfeigned alarm, and Percy, every thought of jest and joyousness checked, threw his arms round her, exclaiming—
"Mother dearest! what has happened?—that unhappy girl again! I am sure it is. Why do you not cast her off from your heart at once; she will bring you nothing but sorrow for all your love."
"Percy, how can you be so harsh?—how unlike you!" exclaimed Emmeline, indignantly, as Mrs. Hamilton's head, for a few minutes of natural weakness, sunk on her son's encircling arm. "We have all given mamma trouble and pain enough one time or other, and what would have become of us if she had cast us off? and Ellen has no mother, too—for shame!"
"Hush!" answered Percy, almost sternly, for there were times when he could quite throw off the boy. "This is no light or common matter, to affect my mother thus. Shall we send for Mr. Howard, mother?" he continued, fondly; "in my father's absence he is your ablest friend—we can only feel, not counsel."
But there are times when feeling can aid in bringing back control and strength, when counsel alone would seem so harsh and cold, we can only weep before it; and the fond affection of her children, the unusual assumption of protecting manliness in Percy, so touchingly united with the deep respect that prevented the least intrusive question as to the cause of her distress till she chose to reveal it, gave her power to send back the tears that had escaped at first so hot and fast, and though still holding his hand, as if its very pressure was support, she was enabled calmly to relate the fatal discovery of that evening. Its effect was, in truth, as if a thunderbolt had fallen in the midst of them. An execration, forcibly checked, but passionate as his nature, burst from the lips of Percy, as he clamped his arm close round his mother, as thus to protect her from the misery he felt himself. Herbert, with a low cry of pain, buried his face in his hands. Caroline, shocked and bewildered, but her first thought for her mother, could only look at, and feel for her, quite forgetting that her every prejudice against Ellen did indeed seem fulfilled. Emmeline at first looked stunned, then sinking down at Mrs. Hamilton's feet, hid her face on her lap, and sobbed with such uncontrolled violence, that it might have seemed as if she herself, not Ellen, were the guilty cause of all this misery. Miss Harcourt, like Caroline, could only think and feel for Mrs. Hamilton; for she knew so well all the hope, interest, and love which Ellen had excited, and what must be the bitter suffering of this fearful disappointment.