He paused in vain for a reply. If the fate of the universe had depended on my speaking, I could have uttered nothing intelligible. I suppose, however, the pleader began to conceive good hopes of his cause; for a certain degree of saucy exultation mingled with the tones of entreaty, as he said, 'Speak to me, dearest Ellen--only one word. Tell me that I may one day hope to hear you own, that friendship, or habit, or call it what you will, has made me necessary to your happiness.' I would have given the world for some expression that should convey decent security to the worthy heart of Graham, without quite betraying the weakness of my own. 'I cannot promise,' said I, without daring to look up, 'that ever you will bring me to actual confession.' 'Nay, Ellen,' said the unreasonable creature, 'think you this little coquettish answer will content a man who asks his whole happiness from you?' 'I am sure I do not mean to coquet. Tell me what you wish me--what I ought to say, and I will say it,--if I can.' 'My own, my bewitching Ellen--' said Graham. But hold! I will not tell what he said. If Henry Graham for once spoke nonsense, it would ill become me to record it. Nor will I relate my answer; because, in truth, I know not what it was. But Graham understood it to mean, that I was no longer the arrogant girl whose understanding, dazzled by prosperity, was blind to his merit; whose heart, hardened by vanity, was insensible to his love; no longer the thoughtless being whose hopes and wishes were engrossed by the most substantial of all the cheats that delude us in this world of shadows;--but a humbled creature, thankful to find, in his sound mind and steady principle, a support for her acknowledged weakness;--a traveller to a better country, pleased to meet a fellow-pilgrim, who, animating her diligence, and checking her wanderings, might soothe the toils of her journey, and rejoice with her for ever in its blessed termination. I have now been many years a wife; and, in all that time, have never left, nor wished to leave, Glen Eredine. Graham is still a kind of lover; and though I retain a little of the coquettish sauciness of Ellen Percy, I here confess that he is, if it be possible, dearer to me than when he first folded his bride to his heart, and whispered, 'Mine for ever.' We are still the guests of our venerable father; and within this hour he told me, that his heart makes no difference between me and his own Charlotte. Some misses lately arrived from a boarding-school, have begun to call my sister an old maid; yet I do not perceive that this cabalistic term has produced any ill effect on Charlotte's temper, or on her happiness.