There was no rejoinder to these kind and playful words. Ellen did indeed put aside her drawing, but instead of taking a seat near her aunt, which in former days she would have been only too happy to do, she walked to the farthest window, and ensconcing herself in its deep recess, seemed determined to hold communion with no one. Miss Harcourt was so indignant as scarcely to be able to contain its expression. Caroline looked astonished and provoked. Emmeline was much too busy in flying from window to window, to think of any thing else but her brothers. Mrs. Hamilton was more grieved and hurt than Ellen had scarcely ever made her feel. Several times before, in the last month, she had fancied there was something unusual in her manner; but the many anxieties and thoughts which had engrossed her since her husband's summons and his departure, had prevented any thing, till that evening, but momentary surprise. Emmeline's exclamation that she was quite sure she heard the trampling of horses, and that it must be Percy, by the headlong way he rode, prevented any remark, and brought them all to the window; and she was right, for in a few minutes a horseman emerged from some distant trees, urging his horse to its utmost speed, waving his cap in all sorts of mirthful gesticulations over his head, long before he could be quite sure that there was any body to see him. Another minute, and he had flung the reins to Robert, with a laughing greeting, and springing up the long flight of steps in two bounds, was in the sitting-room and in the arms of his mother, before either of his family imagined he could have had even time to dismount. "Herbert?" was the first word Mrs. Hamilton's quivering lip could speak. "Is quite well, my dearest mother, and not five minutes' ride behind me. The villagers would flock round us, with such an hurrah, I thought you must have heard it here; so I left Bertie to play the agreeable, and promised to see them to-morrow, and galloped on here, for you know the day we left, I vowed that the firstborn of my mother should have her first kiss." "Still the same, Percy--not sobered yet, my boy?" said his mother, looking at him with a proud smile; for while the tone and manner were still the eager, fresh-feeling boy, the face and figure were that of the fine-growing, noble-looking man.