There was no embargo on the correspondence with my sister, and letters full of description came regularly, but how unlike they were to our journal. They were clear, intelligent, with a certain liveliness, but no ring of youthful joy, no echo of the heart, always as if under restraint. Griff was much disappointed. He had been on his good behaviour for two months, and expected his reward, and I could not here repeat all that he said about her parents when he found she was absent. Yet, after all, he got more pity and sympathy from Parson Frank than from any one else. That good man actually sent a message for him, when Emily was on honour to do no such thing. Poor Emily suffered much in consequence, when she would neither afford Griff a blank corner of her paper, nor write even a veiled message; while as to the letters she received and gave to him, ‘what was the use,’ he said, ‘of giving him what might have been read aloud by the town-crier?’ ‘You don’t understand, Griff; it is all dear Ellen’s conscientiousness—’ ‘Oh, deliver me from such con-sci-en-tious-ness,’ he answered, in a tone of bitter mimicry, and flung out of the room leaving Emily in tears. He could not appreciate the nobleness of Ellen’s self-command and the obedience which was the security of future happiness, but was hurt at what he thought weak alienation. One note of sympathy would have done much for Griff just then. I have often thought it over since, and come to the conclusion that Mrs. Fordyce was justified in the entire separation she brought about. No one can judge of the strength with which ‘true love’ has mastered any individual, nor how far change may be possible; and, on the other hand, unless there were full appreciation of Ellen’s character, she might only have been looked on as— ‘Puppet to a father’s threat, Servile to a shrewish tongue.’ Yet, after all, Frank Fordyce was very kind to Griff, making himself as much of a medium of communication as he could consistently with his conscience, but of course not satisfying one who believed that the strength of love was to be proved not by obedience but disobedience.