“Herbert!” burst from Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton at the same instant, and Ellen, turning from their glance, hid her flushing and paling cheek in her hands; for a moment there was silence, and then Mrs. Hamilton drew the agitated girl closer to her, and murmuring, in a tone of intense feeling, “my poor, poor Ellen!” mingled a mother’s tears with those of her niece.  Mr. Hamilton looked on them both with extreme emotion; his mind’s eye rapidly glanced over the past, and in an instant he saw what a heavy load of suffering must have been his niece’s portion from the first moment she awoke to the consciousness of her ill-fated love; and how had she borne it? so uncomplainingly, so cheerfully, that no one could suspect that inward sorrow.  When cheering himself and his wife under their deep affliction, it was with her own heart breaking all the while.  When inciting Herbert to exertion, during that painful trial occasioned by his Mary’s letter, when doing everything in her power to secure his happiness, what must have been her own feelings?  Yes, in very truth she had loved, loved with all the purity, the self-devotedness of woman; and Mr. Hamilton felt that which at the moment he could not speak.  He raised his niece from the ground, where she still knelt beside her aunt, folded her to his bosom, kissed her tearful cheek, and placing her in Mrs. Hamilton’s arms, hastily left the room.

The same thoughts had likewise occupied the mind of her aunt, as Ellen still seemed to cling to her for support and comfort; but they were mingled with a sensation almost amounting to self-reproach at her own blindness in not earlier discovering the truth.  Why not imagine Ellen’s affections fixed on Herbert as on Arthur Myrvin? both were equally probable.  She could now well understand Ellen’s agitation when Herbert’s engagement with Mary was published, when he performed the marriage ceremony for Arthur and Emmeline; and when Mrs. Hamilton recalled how completely Ellen had appeared to forget herself, in devotedness to her; how, instead of weakly sinking beneath her severe trials, she had borne up through all, had suppressed her own suffering to alleviate those of others, was it strange, that admiration and respect should mingle with the love she bore her? that from that hour Ellen appeared dearer to her aunt than she had ever done before?  Nor was it only on this account her affection increased.  For the sake of her beloved son it was that her niece refused to marry; for love of him, even though he had departed, her heart rejected every other love; and the fond mother unconsciously felt soothed, consoled.  It seemed a tribute to the memory of her sainted boy, that he was thus beloved, and she who had thus loved him—­oh, was there not some new and precious link between them?