Was Ellinor aware of her father's state? Of that Mr.
Corbet could not be sure. She looked up with grave sad eyes as they came
into the room, but with no apparent sensation of surprise, annoyance, or
shame. When her glance met her father's, Mr. Corbet noticed that it
seemed to sober the latter immediately. He sat down near the open
window, and did not speak, but sighed heavily from time to time. Miss
Monro took up a book, in order to leave the young people to themselves;
and after a little low murmured conversation, Ellinor went upstairs to
put on her things for a stroll through the meadows by the river-side.
They were sometimes sauntering along in the lovely summer twilight, now
resting on some grassy hedge-row bank, or standing still, looking at the
great barges, with their crimson sails, lazily floating down the river,
making ripples on the glassy opal surface of the water. They did not
talk very much; Ellinor seemed disinclined for the exertion; and her
lover was thinking over Mr. Wilkins's behaviour, with some surprise and
distaste of the habit so evidently growing upon him.
They came home, looking serious and tired: yet they could not account for
their fatigue by the length of their walk, and Miss Monro, forgetting
Autolycus's song, kept fidgeting about Ellinor, and wondering how it was
she looked so pale, if she had only been as far as the Ash Meadow.
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