A thousand indistinct ideas passed through Elinor's mind with the rapidity of lightning, while her aunt was speaking; illness of some absent friend suggested itself—yet who could it be? Not Harry, surely, for he had gone over to Upper Lewiston that morning—yet her fears instinctively centred upon Hazlehurst.
"It is something relating to Harry, I am sure," she said. "Is he ill?—is he in trouble?" she asked in a faint voice, while a prayer for resignation sprang from her heart, with the words.
"You are right," replied Miss Wyllys, in a faltering voice; and seating herself by her niece, she continued, "He is well. If he is in trouble, it is from his own choice. Have you no suspicions, my dearest child, of what has happened?"
"Suspicions!"—exclaimed Elinor, in astonishment, "what is there for me to suspect? My dearest Aunt, I am more and more perplexed—explain it all yourself—who is it you are concerned for?"
"My only concern is for you, dearest; my only regret, that trouble should have been brought on you by those dear to you—by your grandfather, by myself, by your cousins."
"By you!—by my cousins—what cousins?"
"Harry—Jane—Have you remarked nothing?"
"Harry! what can he have done?"
"You must forget him," said Miss Wyllys; and as Elinor looked eagerly in her aunt's eyes, she read there all that Miss Agnes had not courage to tell in words.
Half starting from her seat, she exclaimed, "Harry!—and Jane too!" and as a deadly paleness came over her face, she fell back, unconscious, on the sofa. Her faintness lasted but a moment; too short a time, indeed, to allow the impression of what she had heard to pass from her mind. She burst into tears. "Oh, Aunt Agnes!—Is it really true?—Can Harry have changed? can he have been so unkind to me?—And Jane, too!" she exclaimed at intervals.