My every care, my every energy shall be employed to soften that deep anguish which--" She could not complete the sentence, but quickly added, "the deep debt of gratitude I owe her, not a whole life can repay.

Long have I felt it, long wished to devote myself to her and to my uncle, and this charge has confirmed me in my resolution.

Yes, dearest Herbert, while Ellen lives, never, never shall my beloved aunt be lonely." Herbert understood not the entire signification of his cousin's words; he knew not, that simple as they were to his ears, to her they were a vow sacred and irrevocable.

She knew she could never, never love another, and there was something strangely soothing in the thought, that it was his last request that consecrated her to his mother, to her benefactress.

To feel that, in endeavouring to repay the dept of gratitude she owed, she could associate Herbert intimately with her every action, so to perform his last charge, that could he look down from heaven it would be to bless her.
Herbert knew not the intensity of Ellen's feelings, still less did he imagine he was the object of her ill-fated affection.