"Oh, I dare not indulge in one half the bright visions, the fond hopes that will intrude themselves upon my mind for him," exclaimed Ellen, with involuntary energy.
"Why, Ellen, are you sometimes a victim to the freaks of imagination as well as myself?" asked her cousin, laughing.
"I have frequently compelled myself to seek active employment," answered Ellen, "lest those hopes should be indeed but fading visions, and my disappointment more painfully bitter."
"You do your brother injustice in even fancying disappointment," said her aunt, playfully, "and I must act as defendant for the absent. I believe, say, and protest my firm belief, that the name of Edward Fortescue will stand one of the highest in naval fame, both as a commander and a man. The naval honour of my family will, I feel assured, have a worthy representative in my noble nephew, and I will not have one word breathed in doubt or mistrust on the subject."
"If you think so, then I may hope indeed," Ellen said with earnestness.
"And the recollection of the past"—
"Must heighten anticipations for the future, my dear girl, or I must sentence them to perpetual banishment. Condemn them never to be recalled," interrupted Mrs. Hamilton, still more playfully, and then added—
"Emmeline, have you no wish to know how the object of your kind sympathy, poor Lilla, parted from her father and me to day?"
"I quite forgot all about it, mamma; this Oakwood hour has made me so selfish. I thought of no one but ourselves," replied Emmeline. "Gratify my curiosity now. Did Lady Helen evince any sorrow at the separation?"
"Not so much as, for Lilla's sake, I could have wished. She has been so unfortunately prejudiced against her both by Annie and Miss Malison, that although I am convinced she loves her child, she never will evince any proof of it; and Lilla's unhappy temperament has, of course, increased this prejudice, which I fear will require years to remove, unless Annie be soon married, and Miss Malison removed from Lady Helen's establishment. Then Lilla's really excellent qualities will quickly be made evident."
"Mr. Grahame is already convinced she is a very different girl to that she has been represented, is he not?" asked Ellen.