“Not if her wishes lead her to remain with us, my husband,” replied Mrs. Hamilton, impressively.  She had not spoken before, for she had been too attentively observing the fluctuation of Ellen’s countenance; but now her tone was such as to check the forced smile with which her niece had tried to reply to Mr. Hamilton’s suggestion of becoming old and irritable, and bring the painfully-checked tears back to her eyes, too powerfully to be restrained.  She tried to retain her calmness, but the effort was vain, and springing from her seat, she flew to the couch where her aunt sat, and kneeling by her side, buried her face on her shoulder, and murmured, almost inaudibly,—­

“Oh, do not, do not bid me leave you, I am happy here; but elsewhere, oh, I should be so very, very wretched.  I own Mr. Lacy is all that I could wish for in a husband; precious, indeed, would be his love to any girl who could return it, but not to me; oh, not to one who can give him nothing in return.”

She paused abruptly; the crimson had mounted to both cheek and brow, and the choking sob prevented farther utterance.

Mrs. Hamilton pressed her lips to Ellen’s heated brow in silence, while her husband looked at his niece in silent amazement.

“Are your affections then given to another, my dear child?” he said, gently and tenderly; “but why this overwhelming grief, my Ellen?  Surely, you do not believe we could thwart the happiness of one so dear to us, by refusing our consent to the man of your choice, if he be worthy of you?  Speak, then, my dear girl, without reserve; who has so secretly gained your young affections, that for his sake every other offer is rejected?”

Ellen raised her head and looked mournfully in her uncle’s face.  She tried to obey, but voice for the moment failed.

“My love is given to the dead” she murmured at length, clasping her aunt’s hands in hers, the words slowly falling from her parched lips; then added, hurriedly, “oh, do not reprove my weakness, I thought my secret never would have passed my lips in life, but wherefore should I hide it now?  It is no sin to love the dead, though had he lived, never would I have ceased to struggle till this wild pang was conquered, till calmly I could have beheld him happy with the wife of his choice, of his love.  Oh, condemn me not for loving one who never thought of me save as a sister; one whom I knew from his boyhood loved another.  None on earth can tell how I have struggled to subdue myself.  I knew not my own heart till it was too late to school it into apathy.  He has gone, but while my heart still clings to Herbert only, oh, can I give my hand unto another?”