When he was silent, she said: "Tell me, Mr. Mordaunt, am I mistaken in supposing you out of spirits to-day? I fear my father's rough manner has vexed you."--"No, Ellen, not that." "Then there is something, I am sure." "And do you already know me so well?" said Mordaunt. "I am ashamed to confess how unreasonable I am when you are so good and so confiding: but it is true--your father dropt a hint which alarmed me. He spoke of Charles Ross in terms that--forgive me, Ellen--that led me to fear, whatever might now be the case, he had not always been indifferent to you." Ellen blushed a little, and said, with a calm smile, "It is certainly true, that Charles Ross professed a great attachment to me; and I believe his friends and my father earnestly wished we should at some time or other be married. Joanna, in particular, was very anxious, and has within a few months been quite uneasy on this subject, and indeed made me so too--for it was impossible----" She paused: then added, "I certainly felt the regard of a sister for Charles, but never more. If I had not--if you had never----" She hesitated, blushed, and said, with some warmth, "I never could have loved him enough to marry him." Charmed, and with every suspicion laid at rest by this frank avowal, Mordaunt now was truly happy--for, till now, though hardly known to himself, a lurking doubt of Charles had at times hung about him. Mordaunt's former knowledge of the world had had the effect upon his heart, which it too often has, of repressing its confidence, and making it distrustful and suspicious. Great indeed had been his reasons for hardly believing the existence of real virtue, till he knew Ellen: her perfect innocence, her sweet simplicity, blended with the tenderest sensibility and acutest discernment, had once more restored his faith, and he now hoped and believed no future jealousies would cross his path. Yet surely he was venturing on doubtful ground. Great indeed must have been his risk in transplanting so fair a flower from the wildest part of Wales into the polished interior of England, and, probably, into a situation widely different from that she had hitherto filled! What could have implanted in the mind of a man so prone to jealousy as Mordaunt certainly was, so perfect a confidence in Ellen's veracity and virtue? It was, that he had observed in her an exalted, though not enthusiastic _piety_. Mordaunt, though a man of the world, was also a religious man; and in conversing, as he had done, frequently with Ellen on the subject of religion, he found her principles so fixed, and her mind so decidedly made up, and on such reasonable grounds, that he hesitated not in pronouncing her a Christian upon principle, and as such entitled to the firm confidence he felt in her sincerity and virtue.