Elly

“ He, who was so much older than his age, felt now what a young, helpless, impotent being he was before all that force of opposition and good sense and fact. ‘I wish,’ he cried, looking at her with a certain fond impatience, ‘that you were only a girl as you used to be, with your hair waving upon your shoulders—I wish you had put off growing up for a few years, Elly! You are a woman now, and as good as a queen. ”

“ They had not met during these years which tell for so much in a young man’s life, and probably even tell for more in the experience of a girl. How she had grown up, or whether she had grown up at all, was a question which John did not discuss with himself. He was very fond of Elly, no one had ever taken her place in his mind. He still thought of her under the pear-tree with her algebra, as if during all this time there had been no further development either of herself or her studies. ”

“ Elly was the only creature in the world at whom the old Indian ever smiled, indeed almost the only thing in the house which those absent old eyes ever seemed to see. Marise remembered that Touclé had smiled when she first took the baby Elly in her arms.
A little murmur of talk arose now, from the assembled neighbors. They stood up, moved about, exchanged a few laconic greetings, and began putting their wraps on. Marise remembered that Mr. Welles had seemed tired and as soon as possible set her party in motion. ”

“ He was asked again and again, and continued to be asked until the time when Elly should come of age, and then she was determined to take her own way.
‘I am disappointed in papa,’ she wrote to John, ‘but it is not out of his heart he does it. He has not a word to say for himself. ”

“ Elly is really very serious for so young a girl. I shouldn't care to be married like that, when you're married for the first time. But, on the other hand, what's the use of all that fuss, as Lot says? The relations and friends don't really care. And it runs into money. ”

“ Ellys now devoted himself to antiquarian research and amassed at Nocton a fine library. On 24 June 1742 an account of this library and some curiosities lately added thereto formed the day's transactions of the Gentlemen's Society at Spalding, of which Ellys had been elected a member on 12 March 1729. Ellys held strong religious opinions. ”

“ Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch Hall, in Somersetshire, was a man who, for his own amusement, never took up any book but the Baronetage; there he found occupation for an idle hour, and consolation in a distressed one; ”

“ Little Ellie sits alone,
And the smile she softly useth
Fills the silence like a speech:
While she thinks what shall be done,
And the sweetest pleasure chooseth
For her future, within reach.
Little Ellie in her smile
Chooseth—'I will have a lover,
Riding on a steed of steeds!
He shall love me without guile;
And to him I will discover
That swan's nest among the reeds.
'And the steed it shall be red-roan,
And the lover shall be noble,
With an eye that takes the breath,
And the lute he plays upon
Shall strike ladies into trouble,
As his sword strikes men to death. ”

“ Let us try to love our God better, Ellie, the less we have left to love in this world; that is His meaning let sorrow but bring us closer to him. Dear Alice is well she is well, and if we are made to suffer, we know and we love the hand that has done it; do we not, Ellen? ”

“ Lulu sat with eyes cast down and cheeks hotly flushing, her countenance expressing anger and stubborn resolve.
Elsie sighed involuntarily.
"Lulu, my dear child," she said, "do not try this contest with my father. I warn you that to do so will only bring you trouble and sorrow; he is a most determined man, and because he feels that he has right on his side in this thing, you will find him unconquerable."
"I think that is what he will find me, Grandma Elsie," replied the determinately self-willed little girl. ”

“ After all, parting is such sweet sorrow. Goodbye, Mrs. Clive, you will weep for me when I am gone. Ta-ta, Ely, we shall meet at Philippi--I leave you--yes, you three!--perchance to wrangle, in very truth thinking angry thoughts--in such an air of discord, too! While I--I go under the shadow of the trees, where love lies dreaming--and waiting perhaps for me. If I meet Miss Truscott, Ely--and I shall under the trysting tree--I will tell her that if you had been a fighting man you certainly would have murdered me."
CHAPTER XIII THE LOVER GREETS THE LADY ”

“ The sorrowing child neither knew nor cared what she meant, but a mute caress answered the spirit of Alice's words.
"Look up, Ellie look out again. Lovely, lovely! all that is; but I know heaven is a great deal more lovely. Feasted as our eyes are with beauty, I believe that eye has not seen nor heart imagined the things that God has prepared for them that love him. You believe that, Ellie; you must not be so very sorry that I have gone to see it a little before you."
Ellen could say nothing. ”

“ The eyes of Elinor were wild and fierce, her complexion was livid, [Pg 159] her countenance was become haggard; and, while she talked of triumph, and fancied it was what she felt, every feature exhibited the most tortured marks of impetuous sorrow, and ungoverned disappointment.
She took from her bureau the shagreen case which she had so fondly caressed, and which Ellis concluded to contain some portrait, or cherished keep-sake of Harleigh; and hurried down stairs. Ellis fearfully followed her. ”

“ Ellery, if you think you are a man, a sensible man, who won't go to pieces like a ten-year-old youngster, I'll—I'll let you sit here for a while.”
“Doctor?”
“You sit still. No, I'm not going to tell you anything. You sit where you are and maybe the news'll come to you. If you move it won't. Going to obey orders? Good! I'll see you by and by, Mr. Ellery.”
He walked out of the room. It seemed to Ellery that he sat in that chair for ten thousand years before the door again opened. And then—
—“Grace!” he cried. “O Grace! you—you've come back.” ”

“ No hesitation!'
'Miss Joddrel,' answered Ellis, solemnly, 'I have neither the hope, nor the fear, that belongs to what might be called sacrifice relative to either of them: I earnestly desire to preserve the esteem of Mr Harleigh; and the urbanity—I can call it by no other name—of Lord Melbury; but I am as free from the thought as from the presumption, of expecting, or coveting, to engage any personal, or particular regard, from either.'
Elinor, appeased, said, 'You are such a compound of mystery, that one extraordinary thing is not more difficult to credit in you, than another. ”

“ Ellen could say nothing.
"After all, Ellie, it is not beautiful things nor a beautiful world that make people happy—it is loving and being loved; and that is the reason why I am happy in the thought of heaven. I shall, if He receives me—I shall be with my Saviour; I shall see Him and know Him, without any of the clouds that come between here. I am often forgetting and displeasing Him now—never serving Him well nor loving Him right. I shall be glad to find myself where all that will be done with for ever. I shall be like Him! Why do you cry so, Ellie?" said Alice tenderly. ”

“ A man of fine presence, his face pale with profound emotion, conducted the daughter to her parents, and then asked them to give her back to him as his future wife,—his other self. The old beeches saw him take his young love in his arms, and receive the blessing of her agitated parents. They saw the mother's face, smiling through tears, raised gratefully to Heaven, and little Ernst shaking the canary's cage, that he might awaken that sleepy songster and announce to him, with great solemnity, that Elsie was betrothed. ”

“ She had no covering on her head, but, like Eva, her wealth of luxuriant tresses, as fine as the golden floss on the ripening corn, flowed down and over her shapely shoulders.
"We are in the hands of God," said her father, reverently, as he drew his elbow closer to his side, so as to press the hand of his daughter with it; "I waited as long as I dared, and had I not made the pledge I would have gone forward to Fred's assistance." ”

“ Ely took a cab into the city. On the road he stopped to buy a ring. He was the kind of man whose determination is intensified by opposition. He had been half in love with Miss Truscott before he met his German friend; now, in his own peculiar way, he was quite. Miss Ruth Rosenbaum was the youngest and most prepossessing of the six, and that there had been certain passages between them he was well aware. But in any case her father's attempt to force his daughter down his throat would have had the effect of making him fly off at a tangent in quite another direction. ”

“ Ellis hastened to the house; but her weeping eyes, and disordered state of mind, unfitted her for an immediate encounter with Elinor, and she went straight to her own chamber; where, in severe meditation upon her position, her duties, and her calls for exertion, she "communed with her own heart." ”

“ Ellerey felt the magic of her influence, and his eyes looked unflinchingly into hers for a moment; the woman in her understood what manner of man he was in whom she trusted. "If I read you aright, Captain Ellerey," she said, with a radiant smile, "it is not your nature to be frivolous, to catch pleasure as it flies and play with it while the bubble lasts; yet must you school yourself to do so. The light-hearted cavalier and careless lover will not be suspected of any deep design, and it would be well that that should seem your character at Court. ”

“ She was only a girl: and it is a charming characteristic of the better sort of girls that they will do foolish things at times.
But there was very little of the girl about her when Mr. Ely came; she was the stateliest of young ladies then. The air of having just come out of a bandbox was more apparent about Mr. Ely in the country even than in town. He was one of those very few men who are never seen out of a frock-coat. Throgmorton Street or a Devonshire lane it was the same to him. ”

“ Oh, Marie mère de Dieu!" she exclaimed, while the tears fell over her pale face; "I have this day been elected Superior of the Ursulines. Go—go, Monsieur Oliver; for Heaven's sake leave me. We must meet no more; and better had it been for us that we had never met. You have won your epaulettes; fortune favours you, and I rejoice at it. Go on thus, my friend—my dear friend, and prosper."
"Thanks, dear Eulalie."
"In the path you must pursue in life Eulalie will soon be forgotten; but never, while pulsation and human charity remain in her heart, will she forget to pray for you. ”

“ Hearts are the same. And you love—"
"I came not to talk of him. The Medicine is his friend, and for his sake Burning Cloud would save you. Let her get up and come with me."
"Where?"
"If she doubts, she may follow her own trail. If she trusts, she may come."
Too weak to contend, even if she had been disposed to do so, Olive arose and accompanied her to the spot where the renegade, Parsons, was lying, bound hand and foot, and loudly cursing the one that had made him so.
"Little Raven," he said, as soon as the squaw came in sight, "what does this mean?" ”

“ First time ever I hear anyone say old Ellis were any use for any purpose. I should ’a thought you know’d better than that yourself, Master Reginald. What do you suppose old Ellis can tell you better’n what I can about Betton Wood, and what call have he got to be put afore me, I should like to know. His father warn’t woodman on the place: he were ploughman—that’s what he was, and so anyone could tell you what knows ”

“ Ellis, unable to conjecture in what frame of mind she might wake, did not dare leave her. She sat watchfully by her side, amazed to see, that, with such energy of character, such quickness of parts, such strength of comprehension, she not only gave way to all her impulses like a child, but, like a child, also, when over-fatigued, could suddenly lose her sufferings and her remembrance in a sort of spontaneous slumber.
But the balmy rest of even spirits, and a composed mind, was far from Elinor; exhausted nature claimed some respite from frantic exertion, and obtained it ”

“ The good cheer of the Lamb was then, it seems quite evident, a matter of conventional belief rather than of actual existence.
It has been already said that nothing distracts the attention of the traveller on approaching the city. Ely, indeed, is nearly all Cathedral, and very little of that which is not can claim any interest. It is true that six thousand five hundred people live in Ely, but the figures are surprising. Where do these thousands hide themselves? The streets are not so many, and even at that are all emptiness, slumber, and yawns. ”

“ John "
"What Ellie?"
"I do sometimes seek His face very much when I cannot find it."
She hid her face in the sofa cushion. He was silent a few minutes, and then stopped his walk.
"There is something wrong, then, with you, Ellie," he said, gently. "How has it been through the week? If you can let day after day pass without remembering your best Friend, it may be that when you feel the want you will not readily find Him. How is it daily, Ellie? is seeking his face your first concern? do you give sufficient time faithfully to your Bible and prayer?"
Ellen shook her head ”

“ He looked palpably disconcerted; while Ellis, hastily raising her head, exclaimed, 'Upon me, Madam? no, indeed! I am completely and every way out of the question.'
'Of you,' said Elinor, with severity, 'I mean not to make any enquiry! You are an adept in the occult sciences; and such I venture not to encounter. But you, Harleigh, will you, also, practise disguise? and fall so in love with mystery, as to lose your nobler nature, in a blind, infatuated admiration of the marvellous and obscure?'
Ellis resentfully reddened; but her cheeks were pale to those of Harleigh. ”