"Did she give you any cause of displeasure?"
"No; though I can see she has strong passions. But she is the first child I ever saw, that I think I could not get angry with."
"Mother's heart half misgave her, I believe," said Lady Keith, laughing; "she sat there looking at her for an hour."
"She seems to me perfectly gentle and submissive," said Mr.
Lindsay.
"Yes, but don't trust too much to appearances," said his sister. "If she is not a true Lindsay, after all, I am mistaken. Did you see her colour once or twice this morning when something was said that did not please her?"
"You can judge nothing from that," said Mr. Lindsay; "she colours at everything. You should have seen her to-day when I told her I would take her to Bannockburn."
"Ah, she has got the right side of you, brother; you will be able to discern no faults in her presently."
"She has used no arts for it, sister; she is a straightforward little hussy, and that is one thing I like about her; though I was as near as possible being provoked with her once or twice to-day. There is only one thing I wish was altered she has her head filled with strange notions absurd for a child of her age I don't know what I shall do to get rid of them."
After some more conversation, it was decided that school would be the best thing for this end, and half decided that Ellen should go.
But this half-decision Mr. Lindsay found it very difficult to keep to, and circumstances soon destroyed it entirely. Company was constantly coming and going at "the Braes," and much of it a kind that Ellen exceedingly liked to see and hear; intelligent, cultivated, well-informed people, whose conversation was highly agreeable and always useful to her. Ellen had nothing to do with the talking, so she made good use of her ears.