"Not a word of that trite class!" cried Elinor, with sudden severity, "if you would not again work all my passions into inflammation involve me no more in doubt! Fear nothing else. I am no where else vulnerable. Set aside, then, all childish calculations, of giving me an inch or two more, or an inch or two less of pain,—and be brief and true!"

Ellis could not utter a word: every phrase she could suggest seemed to teem with danger; yet she felt that her silence could not but indicate the truth which it sought to hide; she hung her head, and sighed in disturbed perplexity. Elinor looked at her for some time with an examining eye, and then, hastily rising, emphatically exclaimed, "You are mute?—I see, then, my doom! And I shall meet it with glory!"

Smiles triumphant, but wild, now played about her face. "Ellis," she cried, "go to your work, or whatever you were about, and take no manner of