The kind governess placed her pupil on the sofa, covered her
feet up warmly, darkened the room, and then stole out on tiptoe, fancying
that Ellinor would sleep. Her eyes were, indeed, shut; but try as much
as she would to be quiet, she was up in less than five minutes after Miss
Monro had left the room, and walking up and down in all the restless
agony of body that arises from an overstrained mind. But soon Miss Monro
reappeared, bringing with her a dose of soothing medicine of her own
concocting, for she was great in domestic quackery. What the medicine
was Ellinor did not care to know; she drank it without any sign of her
usual merry resistance to physic of Miss Monro's ordering; and as the
latter took up a book, and showed a set purpose of remaining with her
patient, Ellinor was compelled to lie still, and presently fell asleep.
She awakened late in the afternoon with a start. Her father was standing
over her, listening to Miss Monro's account of her indisposition. She
only caught one glimpse of his strangely altered countenance, and hid her
head in the cushions--hid it from memory, not from him. For in an
instant she must have conjectured the interpretation he was likely to put
upon her shrinking action, and she had turned towards him, and had thrown
her arms round his neck, and was kissing his cold, passive face.
Pages:
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109