"Yes, I believe so," was her reply. "Why?"
"Because I don't think you look well."
A soft colour, like the pink on a sea-shell, stole over her face as Richard said this. But she kept silence.
"You know, Ellen, we agreed to be as brother and sister. I wish to take care of you as such: to shield you from all ill as far as I possibly can. Are you happy here?"
A moment's pause, and then Ellen took courage to say that she was not happy.
"I should like to go elsewhere," she said. "Oh, Richard, if it could only be managed!"
"But it cannot," he answered.
"I have sufficient money, Richard."
"My dear, it is not that. Of course you have sufficient. I fancy, by sundry signs, that you will be a very rich young lady," he added, slightly laughing. "But you have no near friends in England, and we could not entrust you to strangers."
"If I could go for a time into some clergyman's family, or something of that sort."