Miss Harcourt was not an acute physiognomist; she could only read in Ellen's face hardihood and recklessness. We rather think Mrs. Hamilton would have read something very different; but she was very much engaged with Edward, and if she did think Ellen looked much more out of spirits, she attributed it to natural feeling at the rapid approach of the day of separation. For her brother's sake, to prove to him she could enter into his joy, she tried very hard not to evince the least symptom of depression, and never to cry before him at least; though every night, that told her another day had gone, and brought before her all sorts of vague feelings and fancies of dread, she either cried herself to sleep, or laid awake, still more unhappy. The suspicion attached to her seemed to double the severity of the trial of parting. Edward was her own; Edward must love her, with all her faults; but even her aunt, her kind, dear, good aunt, must cease to have any affection for her, if so constantly believed guilty of a sin so terrible as falsehood. And she seemed to love her brother still more than ever, every day that brought the hour of parting nearer--sometimes as if she _could not_ bear the pain of not being able to look at his bright face, and listen to his glad laugh and dear voice for three, perhaps six long years. Her aunt's gentle kindness seemed to increase her unhappiness, for though she knew she was innocent, still she felt, if Miss Harcourt had told Mrs. Hamilton, she could not be so caressed and cared for and she was receiving that which she was believed to have forfeited. Miss Harcourt's face certainly seemed to ask her as distinctly as words, how she could be so artful--so deceitful--as to permit her aunt to take such notice of her; and so she often shrunk away, when she most longed to sit by and listen to her. Edward's spirits never sobered, except now and then, when he thought of leaving Mrs. Hamilton, to whom he had given the same love he had lavished on his mother, perhaps to a still greater extent, for reverence was largely mingled with it. Mr Howard, too, was another whom he grieved to leave, and Mrs. Hamilton so trusted in these apparently strong affections and his good disposition, as to feel but little anxiety; merely sorrow that she was to lose him for a profession of danger. She did not know, nor did Mr. Howard, nor Edward himself, that he was one who would be guided more by the influence of those with whom he was intimately thrown, than by any memory of the absent, or judgment of his own.