"It is only sorrow for you, dear Ellie."
"But why?" said Ellen, in some alarm; "why are you sorry for me? I don't care if it don't trouble you, indeed I don't? Never mind me; is it something that troubles you, dear Alice?"
"No, except for the effect it may have on others."
"Then I can bear it," said Ellen; "you need not be afraid to tell me, dear Alice; what is it? don't be sorry for me!"
But the expression of Alice's face was such that she could not help being afraid to hear: she anxiously repeated, "what is it?"
Alice fondly smoothed back the hair from her brow, looking herself somewhat anxiously and somewhat sadly upon the uplifted face.
"Suppose Ellie," she, said at length, "that you and I were taking a journey together a troublesome, dangerous journey and that I had a way of getting at once safe to the end of it; would you be willing to let me go, and you do without me for the rest of the way?"
"I would rather you should take me with you," said Ellen, in a kind of maze of wonder and fear; "why, where are you going, Alice?"
"I think I am going home, Ellie before you."
"Home?" said Ellen.