"Can I do otherwise, my own Ellen? Where can I find a nurse so tender, affectionate, and attentive as you are? Who would know so well how to cheer and soothe me as the child whose smallest action proves how much she loves me?"
Tears glistened in the eyes of Ellen as her aunt spoke, for if she had wanted fresh incentive for exertion, those simple words would have given it. Oh, how much encouragement may be given in one sentence from those we love; how is every effort to please lightened by the consciousness it is appreciated; how is every duty sweetened when we feel we are beloved.
Mrs. Hamilton knew not how that expression of her feelings had fallen on the torn heart of her niece; she guessed not one-half Ellen endured in secret for her sake, but she felt, and showed she felt, the full value of the unremitting affectionate attentions she received.
Days, weeks passed by; at length, Mrs. Hamilton's extreme debility began to give place to the more restless weariness of convalescence. It was comparatively an easy task to sit in continued silence by the couch, actively yet quietly to anticipate her faintest wish, and attend to all the duties of nurse, which demanded no exertion in the way of talking, and other efforts at amusement; there were then very many hours that Ellen's saddened thoughts could dwell on the painful past.
She struggled to behold heaven's mercy in affliction, and rapidly, more rapidly than she was herself aware of, was this young and gentle girl progressing in the paths of grace. Had Herbert and Mary both lived and been united, Ellen would, in all probability, have at length so conquered her feelings, as to have been happy in the marriage state, and though she could not have bestowed the first freshness of young affection, she would ever have so felt and acted as to be in very truth, as Lord St. Eval had said, a treasure to any man who had the felicity to call her his. Had her cousin indeed married, Ellen might have felt it incumbent on her as an actual duty so to conquer herself; but now that he was dead she felt it no sin to love, in devoting herself to his parents in their advancing age, partly for his sake, in associating him with all she did for them, and for all whom he loved; there was no sin now in all this, but she felt it would be a crime to give her hand to another, when her whole heart was thus devoted to the dead. There was something peculiarly soothing to the grateful and affectionate feelings with which she regarded her aunt and uncle; that she perhaps would be the only one of all those who had—
"Played
Beneath the same green tree,
Whose voices mingled as they prayed
Around one parent knee"—
would remain with nothing to divert her attention from the pleasing task of soothing and cheering their advancing years, and her every effort was now turned towards making her single life, indeed, one of blessedness, by works of good and thoughts of love towards all with whom she might associate; but in these visions her brother had ever intimately mingled. She had pictured herself beholding and rejoicing in his happiness, loving his children as her own, being to them a second mother. She had fancied herself ever received with joy, a welcome inmate of her Edward's home, and so strongly had her imagination become impressed with this idea, that its annihilation appeared to heighten the anguish with which the news of his untimely fate had overwhelmed her. He was gone; and it seemed as if she had never, never felt so utterly desolate before; as if advancing years had entirely lost the soft and gentle colouring with which they had so lately been invested. It seemed but a very short interval since she had seen him, the lovely, playful child, his mother's pet, the admiration of all who looked on him; then he stood before her, the handsome, manly boy she had parted with, when he first left the sheltering roof of Oakwood, to become a sailor. Then, shuddering, she recalled him when they had met again, after a lapse of suffering in the young life of each; and her too sensitive fancy conjured up the thought that her fault had not yet been sufficiently chastised, that he was taken from her because she had loved him too well; because her deep intense affection for him had caused her once to forget the mandate of her God. In the deep agony of that thought, it seemed as if she lived over again those months of suffering, which in a former pages we have endeavoured to describe.
Humbled to the dust, she recognised the chastising hand of her Maker, and as if it had only now been committed, she acknowledged and repented the transgression a moment's powerful temptation had forced her to commit. Had there been one to whom she could have confessed these feelings, whose soothing friendship would have whispered it was needless and uncalled-for to enhance the suffering of Edward's fate by such self-reproach, Ellen's young heart would have been relieved; but from that beloved relative who might have consoled and alleviated her grief, this bitter trial she must still conceal. Mr. Hamilton dared not encourage the hope which he had never felt but his bosom swelled with love and almost veneration for the gentle being, to whose care Mr. Maitland had assured him the recovery of his beloved wife was, under Providence, greatly owing. He longed to speak of comfort; but, alas! what could he say? he would have praised, encouraged, but there was that about his niece that utterly forbade it; for it silently yet impressively told whence that sustaining strength arose.
It was when Mrs. Hamilton was beginning to recover, that still more active exertions on the part of Ellen were demanded. Every effort was now made to prevent her relapsing into that despondency which convalescence so often engenders, however we may strive to resist it. She was ready at a minute's notice to comply with and often to anticipate her aunt's most faintly-hinted wishes; she would read to her, sing her favourite airs, or by a thousand little winning arts unconsciously entice the interest of her aunt to her various pursuits, as had been her wont in former days. There was no appearance of effort on her part, and Mrs. Hamilton insensibly, at first, but surely felt that with her strength her habitual cheerfulness was returning, and fervently she blessed her God for this abundant mercy. No exertion on her side was wanting to become to her husband and household as she had been before the death of her beloved son; she felt the beauteous flower was transplanted above; the hand of the reaper had laid it low, though the eye of faith beheld it in perfect undying loveliness, and though the mother's heart yet sorrowed, 'twas a sorrow now in which no pain was mingled.
One evening they had been speaking, among other subjects, of Lilla Grahame, whose letters, Mrs. Hamilton had observed, were not written in her usual style. Too well did Ellen guess the reason; once only the poor girl had alluded to Edward's supposed fate, but that once had more than sufficiently betrayed to Ellen's quickly-excited sympathy the true nature of her feelings towards him. As Lilla had not, however, written in perfect confidence, but still as if she feared to write too much on emotions she scarcely understood herself, Ellen had not answered her as she would otherwise have done. That her sympathy was Lilla's was very clearly evident, but as the secrecy preserved towards Mrs. Hamilton had been made known to her by Emmeline, she had not written again on the subject, but yet Ellen was not deceived; in every letter she received she could easily penetrate where Lilla's anxious thoughts were wandering. Of Cecil Grahame there were still no tidings, and, all circumstances considered, it did not seem strange she should often be sorrowful and anxious. On dismissing this subject, Mrs. Hamilton had asked Ellen to sing to her, and selected, as a very old favourite, "The Graves of the Household." She had always forgotten it, she said, before, when Ellen wished her to select one she preferred. She was surprised that Ellen had not reminded her of it, as it had once been an equal favourite with her. For a moment Ellen hesitated, and then hastened to the piano. In a low, sweet, yet unfaltering voice, she complied with her aunt's request; once only her lip quivered, for she could not sing that verse without the thought of Edward.