"But give me your letter before we go out, Ellen, I am only waiting for it, to close mine to Sir Edward. Why, my dear, have you forgotten I told you it must be ready by to-day?" her uncle added, surprised at her exclamation that she had not finished it. "It must be done and sent to T--, before four to-day, so I do hope your head will allow you to write, for Edward will be woefully disappointed if there be not a line from you, especially as, from his ship cruising about, it may be several weeks before he can hear again. I must leave my letter with you, to inclose Edward's and seal up, and pray see that it goes in time." Ellen tried to promise that it should, but her tongue actually clove to the roof of her mouth; but all the party dispersing at the moment, her silence was unnoticed. Mr. Hamilton gave her his letter, and in half an hour afterward she was alone. She sat for nearly an hour in her own room, with her desk before her, her face buried in her hands, and her whole frame shaking as with an ague. "It must be," she said at length, and unlocking a drawer, took thence a small cross, and one or two other trinkets, put them up, and taking off her watch, looked at it with such an expression of suffering, that it seemed as if she could not go on, carefully folded it up with the other trinkets, and murmuring, "If nurse Langford will but take these, and lend me the twenty pounds till she can dispose of them, I may save him yet--and if she betray me--if she tell my aunt afterward, at least only I shall suffer; they will not suspect him. But oh--to lose--to be doubted, hated, which I must be at last. Oh, mother! mother! Why may I not tell my aunt? she would not disgrace him." And again she crouched down, cowed by that fearful struggle to the very earth. After a few minutes, it passed, and deliberately putting on her bonnet and shawl, she took up her trinkets, and set off to the widow's cottage, her limbs so trembling, that she knew not how she should accomplish even that short walk.