'Yes,' replied Ellinor, kissing her sister, perhaps to hide her own face.
'Has he asked you to be his wife?'
The look of unrest—sorrowful unrest—she had detected more than once in Ellinor's face crept over it now. The latter cast her sweet eyes down and made no reply, as in this important matter she was as yet tongue-tied.
'Be wary—be wary, pet Ellinor, for it has been truly said that common-sense and honesty bear so small a proportion to folly and knavery that human life at least is but a paltry province.'
'Is this out of one of Dr. Wodrow's sermons?' asked Ellinor, with some annoyance. 'Surely I am the best judge of what is for my own happiness.'
'Perhaps; but remember the proverb,' said Mary, thinking of the absent Colville and fading hopes. 'Happiness is like an echo which answers to the call, but does not come.'
'What an old croaker it is!' said Ellinor, as she laughingly kissed her sister again and slipped away from her.
She re-read Sir Redmond Sleath's letter—the first love-letter she had ever received, if we except the sorrowful and upbraiding epistle from Robert Wodrow. It seemed orthodox enough, as it began 'My darling,' but had no genuine signature, and there was very little devotion expressed in it, and was brief and curt.
Perhaps Sir Redmond disliked letter-writing—most men do; but there seemed something wanting in this letter—something she could not define, and the lack of which she felt and sighed over. Were Mary's words of warning affecting her? It almost seemed so; but she put the document carefully away in the most secret recess of her desk, and hastened to hold the meeting it solicited—and like the Gretchen of Goethe hastening to meet Faust, took her way to the trysting-place near the Linn, and long after in Ellinor's mind was the sound of the May, as it poured over the steep cascade, associated with this meeting and all the pain it caused her.
When she arrived, Sir Redmond was not there, and was ungallantly late in keeping his appointment; but he and Lord Dunkeld had lately betaken themselves to wiling away the evenings at écarté, though the baronet had a way of turning a king that would have made the fortune of anyone compelled to pluck wealthy pigeons. He came just when Ellinor was very much disposed to pout, and framed the most humble of apologies, as he was resolved to lose no time in carrying out his nefarious plans in absence of the Guardsman, who seemed to have—he knew not why, unless for evil schemes of his own—a mysterious interest in these two girls, of one of whom he stood somehow rather in awe.