Emmeline sought her, however, and tried by kisses to recall the truant rose, the banished smile, but Mrs.Hamilton did not come to wish her good night, and Ellen's heart was heavy.
Some few days passed, and Mrs.Hamilton accepted three several invitations without again expressing her wishes, but though the subject was not resumed, equal perplexity existed in the minds of both aunt and niece.

Ellen did not accuse Mrs.Hamilton of unkindness, but she could not fail to perceive that she no longer retained her confidence, and that knowledge painfully distressed the orphan's easily excited feelings.

Another circumstance gave additional pain; her strange and apparently capricious behaviour had been casually mentioned to Herbert, and he, aware that his advice was always acceptable to Ellen, ventured to remonstrate with her, and playfully to reason her out of what he termed her extraordinary fancy for seclusion.

Some indefinable sensation ever prevented Ellen from speaking or writing to Herbert as she would have done to any other member of the family, but she answered him, acknowledging she deserved his hinted reproach, but owning that she could not change her conduct, even in compliance with his request; nevertheless, it grieved her much to know that he, whose approbation she unconsciously but ardently wished to gain, should believe her the capricious, unaccountable being it was evident he did: still she persevered.

These, and whatever more she might have to endure, were but petty trials, to which her secretly chastened mind might bend but should not weakly bow.