The impression had been made on the yielding wax, and now it could not be effaced.

Many circumstances contributed to strengthen this impression, as in the first portion of this history we have seen.

Adversity had made Ellen as she was, and self-control had become her second nature, long before she knew the meaning of the word.
The intelligence of Herbert's death, though deferred till St.Eval thought his wife enabled to bear it with some composure, had, however, so completely thrown her back, that she was quite unequal to travel to England, as her wishes had instantly dictated, and her husband was compelled to keep up a constant system of deception with regard to her mother's illness, lest she should insist, weak as she was, on immediately flying to her aid.

As soon as sufficient strength returned for Mrs.Hamilton to express her wishes, she entreated Percy to rejoin his sister, that all alarm on her account might subside.

The thought of her child was still uppermost in the mother's mind, though her excessive debility compelled her to lie motionless for hours on her couch, scarcely sensible of anything passing around her, or that her husband and Ellen hardly for one moment left her side.