"Is it one of the things you want to do because it is right, whether it is convenient or not?" he asked, smiling. Ellen could not smile.
"O, father," she whispered, putting her face close to his, "if you would only get grandmother to let me do it!"
The words were spoken with a sob, and Mr. Lindsay felt her warm tears upon his neck. He had, however, far too much respect for his mother to say anything against her proceedings while Ellen was present; he simply answered that she must do whatever her grandmother said. But when Ellen had left the room, which she did immediately, he took the matter up. Mrs. Lindsay explained, and insisted that Ellen was spoiling herself for life and the world by a set of dull religious notions that were utterly unfit for a child; that she would very soon get over thinking about her habit of morning prayer, and would then do much better. Mr. Lindsay looked grave; but with Ellen's tears yet wet upon his cheek, he could not dismiss the matter so lightly, and persisted in desiring that his mother should give up the point, which she utterly refused to do.
Ellen, meanwhile, had fled to her own room. The moonlight was quietly streaming in through the casement; it looked to her like an old friend. She threw herself down on the floor, close by the glass, and after some tears, which she could not help shedding, she raised her head and looked thoughtfully out. It was very seldom now that she had a chance of the kind; she was rarely alone but when she was busy.
"I wonder if that same moon is this minute shining in at the glass door at home? no, to be sure it can't this minute what am I thinking of? but it was there, or will be there let me see east west it was there some time this morning, I suppose, looking right into our sitting-room. Oh, moon, I wish I was in your place for once, to look in there too! But it is all empty now there's nobody there Mr. Humphreys would be in his study how lonely, how lonely he must be! Oh, I wish I was back there with him! John isn't there, though no matter, he will be and I could do so much for Mr. Humphreys in the meanwhile. He must miss me. I wonder where John is nobody writes to me; I should think some one might; I wonder if I am ever to see them again. Oh, he will come to see me surely before he goes home! but then he will have to go away without me again I am fast now, fast enough but oh! am I to be separated from them for ever! Well! I shall see them in heaven!"
It was a "well" of bitter acquiescence, and washed down with bitter tears.
"Is it my bonny Miss Ellen?" said the voice of the housekeeper, coming softly in; "is my bairn sitting a' her lane i' the dark? Why are ye no wi' the rest o' the folk, Miss Ellen?"
"I like to be alone, Mrs. Allen, and the moon shines in here nicely."
"Greeting!" exclaimed the old lady, drawing nearer, "I ken it by the sound of your voice; greeting eenow! Are ye no weel, Miss Ellen? What vexes my bairn? Oh, but your father would be vexed an he kenned it!"
"Never mind, Mrs. Allen," said Ellen; "I shall get over it directly; don't say anything about it."