AT GLANOG.
"For something that abode endued
With temple-like repose, an air
Of life's kind purposes pursued
With order'd freedom sweet and fair,
A tent pitched in a world not right
It seem'd, whose inmates, every one,
On tranquil faces, bore the light
Of duties beautifully done."
How did the days pass after that? In restless anxiety, with Eleanor; in miserable uncertainty and remorse and sorrow. She counted the hours till her despatch could be in Mr. Carlisle's hands; then she figured to herself the pain it would cause him; then she doubted fearfully what the immediate effect would be. It might be, to bring him down to Plassy with the utmost speed of post-horses; and again Eleanor reckoned the stages and estimated the speed at which Mr. Carlisle's postillions could be made to travel, and the time when it would be possible for this storm to burst upon Plassy. That day Eleanor begged the pony and went out. She wandered for hours, among unnumbered, and almost unheeded, beauties of mountain and vale; came home at a late hour, and crept in by a back entrance. No stranger had come; the storm had not burst yet; and Mrs. Caxton was moved to pity all the supper time and hours of the evening, at the state of fear and constraint in which Eleanor evidently dwelt.
"My dear, did you like this man?" she said when they were bidding each other good night.
"Mr. Carlisle?—yes, very well; if only he had not wanted me to marry him."
"But you fear him, Eleanor."
"Because, aunt Caxton, he always had a way of making me do just what he wished."
"Are you so easily governed, Eleanor, by one whom you do not love? I should not have thought it."
"I do not know how it was, aunty. I had begun wrong, in the first place; I was in a false position;—and lately Mr. Carlisle has taken it into his head, very unnecessarily, to be jealous; and I could not move a step without subjecting myself to a false imputation."
"Good night, my dear," said her aunt. "If he comes, I will take all imputations on myself."