CHAPTER XI.
THE DECISION.
Mr. Wallace stayed that night at Colonel Melville's. We had the next morning just assembled around the breakfast-table, when there was a ring at the door-bell, so loud and so hurried, that, surprised and startled, each one turned towards the door to watch for the entrance of the ringer. The servant had probably been as much startled as we, for she moved with unusual quickness, and scarce a minute passed from the ring to the entrance into the breakfast parlor of Ellen Leslie, flushed, breathless, and evidently agitated. Without speaking to, almost without looking at any one else, she walked up to Mr. Wallace, and holding out her hand, said, "I have come to tell you, sir, that I will go with you."
"I am very glad to hear it, my dear; but sit down, get your breath, and then we will talk about it."
"I don't want to talk about it," said Ellen, in an impatient tone; "I want to go. How soon can we go, sir?"
"This afternoon at five o'clock, if you can be ready so soon."
"I am ready now," Ellen began, but Mrs. Melville, who had risen from the table on her coming in, now approached her, and taking off her bonnet, insisted that she should sit down, and take some breakfast before she said any thing more about going. Ellen looked at the breakfast-table, and seemed to find some attraction in it, for she drew nearer to it, then suddenly turning to Mrs. Melville, said, "But Mary does not know. I must go and tell Mary."
"I will send for Mary. Anna, go over to Mrs. Maclean's, and tell Mary she must come and take her breakfast with us."
"Thank you, Mrs. Melville," said Ellen; "I am sure I am much obliged to you, for Mrs. Maclean would not give me any breakfast this morning, and poor Mary felt so badly about it, that I dare say she has not eaten any."