"Sobered! why, mother, I never intend to be," he answered, joyously, as he alternately embraced his sisters, Miss Harcourt, and Ellen, who, fearing to attract notice, had emerged from her hiding-place; "if the venerable towers of that most wise and learned town, Oxford, and all the grave lectures and long faces of sage professors have failed to tame me, there can be no hope for my sobriety; but here comes Herbert, actually going it almost as fast as I did. Well done, my boy! Mother, that is all your doing; he feels your influence at this distance. Why, all the Oxonians would fancy the colleges must be tumbling about their ears, if they saw the gentle, studious, steady Herbert Hamilton riding at such a rate." He entered almost as his brother spoke; and though less boisterous, the intense delight it was to him to look in his mother's face again, to be surrounded by all he loved, was as visible as Percy's; and deep was the thankfulness of Mrs. Hamilton's ever anxious heart, as she saw him looking so well--so much stronger than in his boyhood. The joy of that evening, and of very many succeeding days, was, indeed, great; though many to whom the sanctity and bliss of domestic affection are unknown, might fancy there was little to call for it; but to the inmates of Oakwood it was real happiness to hear Percy's wild laugh and his inexhaustible stories, calling forth the same mirth from his hearers--the very sound of his ever-bounding step, and his boisterous career from room to room, to visit, he declared, and rouse all the bogies and spirits that must have slept while he was away: Herbert's quieter but equal interest in all that had been done, studied, read, even thought and felt, in his absence: the pride and delight of both in the accounts of Edward, Percy insisting that to have such a gallant fellow of a brother, ought to make Ellen as lively and happy as Emmeline, who was blessed nearly in the same measure--looking so excessively mischievous as he spoke, that, though his sister did not at first understand the inference, it was speedily discovered, and called for a laughing attack on his outrageous self-conceit. Herbert more earnestly regretted to see Ellen looking as sad and pale as when she was quite a little girl, and took upon himself gently to reproach her for not being, or, at least, trying to make herself more cheerful, when she had so many blessings around her, and was so superlatively happy in having such a brave and noble-hearted brother. If he did not understand her manner as he spoke, both he and the less observant Percy were destined to be still more puzzled and grieved as a few weeks passed, and they at first fancied and then were quite sure that she was completely altered, even in her manner to their mother. Instead of being so gentle, so submissive, so quietly happy to deserve the smallest sign of approval from Mrs. Hamilton, she now seemed completely to shrink from her, either