There was a sense of something wrong in the Ford Bank
household for many weeks about this time. Mr. Wilkins was not like
himself, and his cheerful ways and careless genial speeches were missed,
even on the days when he was not irritable, and evidently uneasy with
himself and all about him. The spring was late in coming, and cold rain
and sleet made any kind of out-door exercise a trouble and discomfort
rather than a bright natural event in the course of the day. All sound
of winter gaieties, of assemblies and meets, and jovial dinners, had died
away, and the summer pleasures were as yet unthought of. Still Ellinor
had a secret perennial source of sunshine in her heart; whenever she
thought of Ralph she could not feel much oppression from the present
unspoken and indistinct gloom. He loved her; and oh, how she loved him!
and perhaps this very next autumn--but that depended on his own success
in his profession. After all, if it was not this autumn it would be the
next; and with the letters that she received weekly, and the occasional
visits that her lover ran down to Hamley to pay Mr. Ness, Ellinor felt as
if she would almost prefer the delay of the time when she must leave her
father's for a husband's roof.
CHAPTER VI.
At Easter--just when the heavens and earth were looking their dreariest,
for Easter fell very early this year--Mr.
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