Aunt Ellen

“ Elsmere, what do you think of Aunt Ellen?’
Elsmere started, and could not help smiling into the young girl’s beautiful eyes, which were radiant with fun.
‘A most estimable person,’ he said. ‘Are you on good terms with her, Miss Rose?’
‘Oh dear, no!’ she said, with a little face. ‘I’m not a Leyburn; I wear aesthetic dresses, and Aunt Ellen has “special leadings of the spirit” to the effect that the violin is a soul-destroying instrument. ”

“ Ellen was silent and shook her head.
"Christ pleased not Himself, and went about doing good; and He said, 'If any man serve Me, let him follow Me.' Remember that. Perhaps your aunt is unreasonable and unkind; see with how much patience and perfect sweetness of temper you can bear and forbear; see if you cannot win her over by untiring gentleness, obedience, and meekness. Is there no improvement to be made here?"
"Oh me, yes!" answered Ellen, with a sigh.
"Then your old grandmother. Can you do nothing to cheer her life in her old age and helplessness? ”

“ Seeing that Ellen blushed at the last hint, she added,—"Nay, you need not blush, though I like to see you can: for I promise you, it was observing the probability of such an event that did more to reconcile me to you than all your beauty and merit could have done; so take care of yourself, and don't disappoint me; and now, my dear, kiss me, and call me aunt whenever you please." ”

“ Then, with her aunt's consent, she asked the poor woman to come in and get some luncheon.
The poor woman gladly accepted the invitation; and Ellen soon had her seated by a nice fire in the kitchen, chatting and laughing with the maids as merrily as if she had no care in the world.
"Have I made you happy?" asked Ellen. "That you have, you darling," said the poor woman, with a tear in her eye. "And so you have made me happy," replied Ellen. Yes, she had found that Aunt Alice was in the right. "The best way to cheer yourself is to cheer another." ”

“ The weather-beaten gauntness of Uncle Eneas and Uncle Hector was in Aunt Ellen much exaggerated, although an aquiline nose preserved her from being what she otherwise certainly would have been, a grotesque of English womanhood, or rather, what English people would like to consider a grotesque of English womanhood; Jasmine, however, with many years' experience of English tourists landing at Sirene after a rough voyage across the Bay of Naples, considered Aunt Ellen to be typically English. She had acquired that masculine look which falls to so many women who have produced a number of sons. ”

“ Ellen hesitated, cast down her eyes, blushing crimson, but presently exclaimed, "I will tell her; I feel so much happier already, now that you know it! Oh, aunt," throwing her arms about the lady's neck. "I do mean to try to be good! If I thought I could ever be like Mary!—It seems so easy for her to do right."
She drew a low stool to her aunt's feet, and there in her own impulsive manner gave an account of her temptation and of her sin,—how one lie led to many others until she found herself entangled in difficulties from which she saw no way of escape. ”

“ Annette was sobbing. My face was badly cut—I still wear the scar—and the mirror was shattered in its frame.
"Maw!" I struggled to get up. "She...."
"I know," said Aunt Ellen in just the thread of a voice unused for years as her plump white hands continued to apply the compress. "I understand."
When Uncle Bill arrived next morning there was a great to-do and the neighbors organized a search of the surrounding woods and the creek bottom. Of course they found nothing. I knew they wouldn't. Annette and Aunt Ellen knew they wouldn't. ”

“ Tell me, dearest, what can I do to make you more happy, more at home?"
"Oh, nothing, nothing!" replied Ellen, struggling with her tears. "Indeed I am happier than I ever thought I could be; I must be very ungrateful to make you think I am unhappy, when you are so good and so kind. My head ached to-day, and that always makes me feel a wish to cry; but indeed I am not unhappy, and never when you kiss me and call me your Ellen, whatever I may feel when you are not by;" and, as if frightened at her own confession, she hid her face in her aunt's dress. ”

“ As soon as he had gone, Aunt Ellen's treatment of her niece became something like a persecution. She forbade the youngest boys to play with her; she took a delight in making the most cruel remarks to her before Edmund and Edgar; she was rude to her in front of the servants. Jasmine was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and she was by now so passionately anxious to leave Silchester that she was actually on the verge of writing to Aunt May to ask if she could not come back to London. ”

“ Julia Cloud smiled.
“I don’t know what it is, dear, unless it is that some people have different ideals and standards from other people, and they can’t find their pleasure the same way. Your Aunt Ellen always wanted to have a lot of people around, and liked to go to tea-parties and dress a great deal; and she never cared for reading or study or music. But I think you’re mistaken about their not having had a good time. They appreciated your trying to do things for them, I know, for Aunt Ellen said to me that you were a very thoughtful girl. ”

“ You always were so fond of Aunt Ellen's maple sugar, you know."
The tone carried conviction. Of course I must have been fond of it; indeed, upon reflection, I felt that I had been. By the time the man was back with a parallelogram of the maple sugar in his hand, I was convinced that he had spoken the truth.
"Aunt Ellen certainly is a dear," he went on. "I run down to see her every time I get a chance. Same old rain-barrel! Same old beehives! Same old well-sweep! Wouldn't trade them for any others in the world. I like everything about the place—like the 'Old Man' that grows by the gate ”

“ The great, smiling wax doll had ridden between Jim and Eva in the buggy, Eva had held the pink cup and saucer with a kind of mechanical carefulness, and Ellen herself clutched the pinks in one little hand, though she crushed them against her aunt's bosom as she sat in her lap. Ellen's grandmother and aunt had glanced at these treasures with momentary astonishment, and so had her mother, but curiosity was in abeyance for both of them for the time; rapture at the sight of the beloved child at whose loss they had suffered such agonies was the one emotion of their souls. ”

“ Hamilton's manner was so kind, so soothing, so calculated to support and strengthen, that Ellen more than once wondered whether her aunt had indeed discovered her secret; but she could not speak of it. She could not even to the being she loved best on earth, with the exception of one, thus lay bare her aching heart. Often and often she longed to throw herself in the arms of her aunt and weep, but she controlled the impulse, and bore on in silence and outward cheerfulness; strengthened in her efforts by the conviction that Herbert knew not, imagined not the truth. ”

“ I’ll be wild and woolly, and I’ll grow my own wool.”
“Octavia!” Aunt Ellen condensed into the one word all the protests she was unable to utter.
“Don’t say a word, auntie. I’m going. I’ll see the sky at night fit down on the world like a big butter-dish cover, and I’ll make friends again with the stars that I haven’t had a chat with since I was a wee child. I wish to go. I’m tired of all this. I’m glad I haven’t any money. I could bless Colonel Beaupree for that ranch, and forgive him for all his bubbles. What if the life will be rough and lonely! ”

“ 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? ”

“ The look and the words and the injury together, fairly put Ellen beside herself. She dashed the letter to the ground, and livid and trembling with various feelings—rage was not the only one—she ran from her aunt's presence. She did not shed any tears now; she could not: they were absolutely burnt up by passion. ”

“ At last I found my way unobserved into the drawing-room, and sat there, or paced up and down for a length of time, till at last the door opened, and my uncle came in.
He walked up to me, laid his hand on my shoulder, and said, in a voice of subdued emotion "You are now our only child, Ellen."
I suppose my countenance bore a very wild expression at that moment, for he looked at me with surprise, and then added in a still more soothing manner, "Go to your aunt, my dear Ellen; she will not feel herself childless while you are spared to us." ”

“ Now, his aunt thought all the world of those pictures, and Ellen had felt quite concerned, for it doesn't do for a young gentleman to put himself wrong with a kind aunt.
"Oh, sir," she had exclaimed in dismay, "whatever are you doing?" And even now she could almost hear his merry voice, as he had answered, "I am doing my duty, fair Helen"—he had always called her "fair Helen" when no one was listening. "How can I draw ordinary animals when I see these half-human monsters staring at me all the time I am having my breakfast, my lunch, and my dinner?" ”

“ One of her dark merinos was affectionately put on; her single pair of white stockings; shoes, ruffle, cape Ellen saw that all was faultlessly neat, just as her mother used to have it; and the nice blue hood lay upon the bed ready to be put on the last thing, when she heard her aunt's voice calling
"Ellen! come down and do your ironing right away, now! the irons are hot."
For one moment Ellen stood still in dismay; then slowly undressed, dressed again, and went down stairs.
"Come! you've been an age," said Miss Fortune; "now make haste; there ain't but a handful; and I want to mop up." ”

“ Ellen rose from the table when she had finished, and stood a few minutes thoughtfully by the fire.
"Aunt Fortune," she said at length timidly, "if you've no objection, I should like to go and take a good look all about."
"Oh yes," said Miss Fortune, "go where you like; I'll give you a week to do what you please with yourself."
"Thank you, ma'am," said Ellen, as she ran off for her bonnet; "a week's a long time. I suppose," thought she, "I shall go to school at the end of that." ”

“ By no one we do not mean her aunt, for Mrs. Hamilton could now trace every feeling of that young and sorrowing heart, and she saw with regret, that in her niece's present state of health, even that pleasure must be denied her, for the very exertion attendant on it was too much. Ellen never expressed regret, nor did she ever breathe even to her aunt how often, how very often, she longed once again to enjoy the fresh air of Oakwood, for London to her possessed not even the few attractions it did to Emmeline. ”

“ As day by day passed, she drew nearer to the grave. Her eye grew sunken, but an unnatural lustre gleamed from its depths—the hectic flush blazed on her cheek—and that dry hacking cough, which so tortures the consumptive, while it snaps chord after chord of life, hourly grew worse.
At an early period of Ellen’s illness, Mrs. Neville, who had been to the orphan girl a second mother, divined the secret of her niece’s malady. She did not, however, urge her confidence on her charge, but Ellen soon saw that her aunt knew all. ”

“ Although there is little doubt that her age is approximately what she claims, 'Aunt' Ellen is remarkably well preserved, physically and mentally. Her activity and industry would not be inappropriate to a woman a score of years younger. Unlike many persons of her years she does not constantly look forward to her time of departure, but takes life as it comes—caring more for today than for tomorrow. ”

“ Poor Ellen! In the heart is the spring of action; and she found it so this morning.
Her aunt and Mr. Van Brunt were already at the table. Ellen took her place in silence, for one look at her aunt's face told her that no "good morning" would be accepted. Miss Fortune was in a particularly bad humour, owing, among other things, to Mr. Van Brunt's having refused to eat his breakfast unless Ellen were called. An unlucky piece of kindness. She neither spoke to Ellen nor looked at her; Mr. Van Brunt did what in him lay to make amends. ”

“ It wasn't of my choosing, Ellen, but he deserves it if ever pony did. He's a very cunning little fellow. Where do you go, Ellen? To Thirlwall?"
"To church, ma'am? I don't go anywhere." [Pg 156]
"Doesn't your aunt go to church?"
"She hasn't since I have been here."
"What do you do with yourself on Sunday?"
"Nothing, ma'am; I don't know what to do with myself all the day long. I get tired of being in the house, and I go out of doors, and then I get tired of being out of doors and come in again. I wanted a kitten dreadfully, but Mr. Van Brunt said Aunt Fortune would not let me keep one." ”

“ Aunt Ellen smiled at her with loving pride, and yet wistfully, too. Nellie had called for her many times, just to walk home together, but never because aunt Ellen might be tired. The infection of age was in the air, and Nellie Lake had caught it.
"Come in, Nellie," she said. "No, I don't feel specially tired, but maybe I'll go along in a minute."
"Want to come to an old folks' party?" called Isabel, who was reading all these thoughts as swiftly as if they were signals to herself alone. "Want to dress up, an' flour your hair, an' put on spe'tacles, an' come an' play with us old folks?" ”