"If she is to die, it cannot save her; if she is to live, why rob her of one tress?"
Thus was her long fair hair spared. But, oh! to have seen her wan face!—to have seen her wasted white arm!—it would have made a faithless lover start to have beheld the wreck of loveliness his perjury had wrought. This was the mere ghost of the beautiful Ellen in her ball-dress!
When the patient became stronger, the first words she whispered to her father were:—
"Where is the ring?"
"It is safe, sweet; I have it."
"I thank you."
These words were few, but very significant. The blow that had caused all was still swelling,—the wound that had unstrung her mind still unforgotten. Time, the restorer, gave back her beauty; and if her cheek was paler, her features more fined down, her bloom more shadowy and more frail—she seemed still lovelier; her beauty seemed to have less of earth—to be of a higher, more heavenly tint! Time, the restorer, gave back her health; but Time, restorer though he be, had not given back her peace of mind; her heart ached yet; the void of lost love was an "aching void" still. But another and greater change had passed over Ellen Ravensworth,—her character was softened down, all was now persuasion, softness, kindness, gentleness. Gone the haughty usurpation of authority, gone the love of rule and command, gone the pride of personal charms. Her pride had had a rude rebuff; the lesson to be learned was not lost; she had passed through the furnace of sorrow, and had come out thoroughly refined and purified.
She was able ere long to come down stairs, and to set again to her duties; and these she now did with an alacrity,—an earnestness she had never done them with before. No castle-building now!—her greatest castle had fallen, and great was the fall of it! and she would not again lay one stone. Of course, by mutual desire and consent, no allusion was made to the past,—no lip framed the "once familiar word;" and when her father saw how diligently she attended to her duties, and the smile that now and then came back, bright as if glad to be renewed on a face it had so long ceased to lighten,—when he saw all this he fancied the bitterness of woe was passed, the first poignancy dulled, and that she would yet forget. Ah! how little he knew Ellen; she might wish to die—but forget, even wish to forget, she could not. The wound was still unhealed; every thought tore it open to bleed afresh: she hugged the grief to her heart; and though it stung her, she pressed it the closer! But there was another change this disappointment and illness had wrought. Ellen's mother had been a pious mother, and, while she was spared to Ellen, had piously brought her up. The bread cast on the waters was found after many days; the good seed, sown by a praying hand in early years, was still quick,—still full of vitality. It had been sadly choked by the pomps and pleasures of this life; but fire,—the flames of sorrow,—had consumed the thorns and briers, and now it sprung up! Ellen was more attentive in her devotions; more constant and devout at church; more frequently was her Bible a companion to her in her hours of loneliness; and this taught her that it was wrong to brood over affliction,—wrong to give way to sorrow; the trial had been sent for her good, and it was her duty to bear it, and profit by it. She would try and bear it,—try and carry her heavy cross, without murmuring! Think not from this love had died. Oh, no,—
"on hallowed ground
The idol of man's heart was found."
Still the idol of her affections was reared in her heart; still she offered him silent devotion and secret incense; but it was no longer the all-absorbing passion; chastened down, subdued, brought under—it was now a sad necessity, no longer a joyous freewill offering!