"No, no!" added Mellen; "I think one such exploit is quite enough." Elsie seized Tom's hand, and said with real feeling: "Tom, I do thank you--I can't tell you how much." "Don't, don't!" he pleaded. "If you say another word I'll run off and never show my face again." Elsie began to laugh once more, and the lingering trace of seriousness died quite out of her face. "Tom is good at a catastrophe," said she, "but he can't carry on the blank verse proper to the after situation." "Blank enough it would be," rejoined Tom, and then he was so much astonished to find that he had made a sort of joke, that the idea covered him with fresh confusion. Elsie's disaster passed off without dangerous consequences to the reckless girl, and she had half forgotten the occurrence long before Mellen recovered composure enough to thank, with sufficient fervor, the noble-hearted man who had saved her life. From that day Tom Fuller took a place in Mellen's esteem which he had never held before; his gratitude was unbounded, and as he learned to know and appreciate the young man, he found a thousand noble qualities to admire under that rugged exterior. And as Elsie softened into gentler earnestness, and drew closer to him day by day, Tom became so completely engrossed in his happy love-dream that he had not a single thought beyond it. In her loneliness and her anxieties which separated her so completely from those three hearts, Elizabeth Mellen watched, sighed sometimes, whispering to herself: "She has taken even Tom from me. I have nothing left--husband--relative--all, all abandon me for her." CHAPTER XXXVIII. A HALF UNDERSTANDING. Elsie was twenty now, but looking younger from her fragile form and the extreme delicacy of her complexion. The reader knows how winsome and playful her manners were; how she was loved and cherished by her brother, and it seemed hard that a creature like her, so innocent and winsome, should have even a knowledge of the secret which oppressed Elizabeth. It seemed to prove more depth of character than one would have expected, that she was in any way able or willing to help her sister-in-law to bear her secret burthen, let that burthen be what it might. The vague thoughts which had troubled Grantley Mellen on the night of his arrival, had died out. On calm reflection he could understand that it was quite in keeping with the restrained intensity of Elizabeth's nature, that the very violence of the storm should have forced her into it. That the sudden sound of his voice and step should have brought on the nervous weakness to which she so seldom gave way, was equally natural after so much excitement. Then Elsie came back so blithe and blooming, brought so much sunshine into the house, and drew them both so much into her amusements, that the first days of Mellen's return were pleasant indeed.