Great, indeed, was the amount of childish suffering which this selfish decision, on the part of her mother, occasioned Ellen. We do not mean the pain of constant languor itself, though that in its full amount our happy healthful young readers can not have the least idea of: they, perhaps, think it almost a pleasant change, the care, and petting, and presents so often lavished on a brief decided illness: but that is a very different thing to that kind of suffering which only so affects them as to be dull and heavy, they do not know why, and to make it such a very difficult task to learn the lessons others find so easy; and such a pain sometimes to move, that they are thought slow and unwilling, and perhaps even idle, when they would gladly run, and help, and work as others; and so weak sometimes, that tears start at the first harsh or unkind word, and they are thought cross, when they do not in the least feel so; and this, not for a few weeks, but, with few exceptions, the trial of months and even years. And this was Ellen's--which not even the tenderest and most unfailing care of her aunt could entirely guard her from. It is a most difficult thing for those who are strong and healthy themselves to understand and always bear with physical suffering in others. Miss Harcourt, though in general free from any thing like prejudice, and ardently desirous to follow up her own and Mrs. Hamilton's ideas of right and wrong, could not so govern her affections as to feel the same toward Ellen as she did toward Edward and the children she had lived with and taught so long. Her task with Ellen required more patience and forbearance and care than with either of the others, and sometimes she could not help believing and acting toward her as if it were willful idleness and carelessness, not the languor of disease.