"But who is it from?" said Ellen.
"Your mother."
"A letter from Mamma, and not to me!" said Ellen, with changing colour. She took it quick from her aunt's hand. But her colour changed more as her eye fell upon the first words, "My dear Ellen," and turning the paper, she saw upon the back, "Miss Ellen Montgomery." Her next look was to her aunt's face, with her eye fired, and her cheek paled with anger, and when she spoke her voice was not the same.
"This is my letter," she said, trembling; "who opened it?"
Miss Fortune's conscience must have troubled her a little, for her eye wavered uneasily. Only for a second, though.
"Who opened it?" she answered; "I opened it. I should like to know who has a better right. And I shall open every one that comes, to serve you for looking so; that you may depend upon."
The look, and the words, and the injury together, fairly put Ellen beside herself. She dashed the letter to the ground, and livid and trembling with various feelings, rage was not the only one, she ran from her aunt's presence. She did not shed any tears now; she could not; they were absolutely burnt up by passion. She walked her room with trembling steps, clasping and wringing her hands now and then, wildly thinking what could she do to get out of this dreadful state of things, and unable to see anything but misery before her. She walked, for she could not sit down; but presently she felt that she could not breathe the air of the house; and taking her bonnet, she went down, passed through the kitchen, and went out. Miss Fortune asked where she was going, and bade her stay within doors, but Ellen paid no attention to her.
She stood still a moment outside the little gate. She might have stood long to look. The mellow light of an Indian summer afternoon lay upon the meadow and the old barn and chip-yard; there was beauty in them all under its smile. Not a breath was stirring. The rays of the sun struggled through a blue haze, which hung upon the hills and softened every distant object; and the silence of nature all around was absolute, made more noticeable by the far-off voice of somebody, it might be Mr. Van Brunt calling to his oxen, very far off and not to be seen; the sound came softly to her ear through the stillness. "Peace," was the whisper of nature to her troubled child; but Ellen's heart was in a whirl; she could not hear the whisper. It was a relief, however, to be out of the house and in the sweet open air. Ellen breathed more freely, and pausing a moment there, and clasping her hands together once more in sorrow, she went down the road, and out at the gate, and exchanging her quick, broken step for a slow, measured one, she took the way towards Thirlwall. Little regarding the loveliness which that day was upon every slope and roadside, Ellen presently quitted the Thirlwall road, and, half unconsciously, turned into a path on the left which she had never taken before perhaps for that reason. It was not much travelled, evidently; the grass grew green on both sides, and even in the middle of the way, though here and there the track of wheels could be seen. Ellen did not care about where she was going; she only found it pleasant to walk on, and get further from home. The road or lane led towards a mountain somewhat to the northward of Miss Fortune's; the same which Mr. Van Brunt had once named to Ellen as "The Nose." After three-quarters of an hour, the road began gently to ascend the mountain, rising towards the north. About one-third of the way from the bottom, Ellen came to a little footpath on the left, which allured her by its promise of prettiness, and she forsook the lane for it. The promise was abundantly fulfilled; it was a most lovely, wild, woodway path; but withal not a little steep and rocky. Ellen began to grow weary. The lane went on towards the north; the path rather led off towards the southern edge of the mountain, rising all the while; but before she reached that, Ellen came to what she thought a good resting-place, where the path opened upon a small level platform or ledge of the hill. The mountain rose steep behind her, and sank very steep immediately before her, leaving a very superb view of the open country from the north-east to the south-east. Carpeted with moss, and furnished with fallen stones and pieces of rock, this was a fine resting-place for the wayfarer, or loitering-place for the lover of nature. Ellen seated herself on one of the stones, and looked sadly and wearily towards the east, at first very careless of the exceeding beauty of what she beheld there.
For miles and miles, on every side but the west, lay stretched before her a beautifully broken country. The November haze hung over it now like a thin veil, giving great sweetness and softness to the scene. Far in the distance a range of low hills showed like a misty cloud; near by, at the mountain's foot, the fields and farmhouses and roads lay, a pictured map. About a mile and a half to the south, rose the mountain where Nancy Vawse lived, craggy and bare; but the leafless trees, and stern, jagged rocks were wrapped in the haze; and through this the sun, now near the setting, threw his mellowing rays, touching every slope and ridge with a rich, warm glow.
Poor Ellen did not heed the picturesque effect of all this, yet the sweet influences of nature reached her, and softened while they increased her sorrow. She felt her own heart sadly out of tune with the peace and loveliness of all she saw. Her eye sought those distant hills how very far off they were! and yet all that wide tract of country was but a little piece of what lay between her and her mother. Her eye sought those hills but her mind overpassed them, and went far beyond, over many such a tract, till it reached the loved one at last. "But, oh! how much between! I cannot reach her she cannot reach me!" thought poor Ellen. Her eyes had been filling and dropping tears for some time, but now came the rush of the pent-up storm, and the floods of grief were kept back no longer.