"If you love me, papa, tell this to no one; let me bear my misery alone," she said, as her father left the room. Sorrow had crushed her; her nerves were strung to the utmost stretch; another strain and her mind would have given way! The excitement of the first blow sustained her wonderfully; still, her grief was too deep for tears--and, tearless in the midst of her anguish, she was able to go through all the duties of the evening, as if nothing unusual had happened: the freezing air, the quick-drawn breath, the frequent start, told only how deep was her sorrow. She heard her little sister repeat her evening hymn--she saw her laid down; but she heard as though she heard not, she saw as though she did not see; and when she left her asleep, how she envied the heart that could sleep! She then retired herself to rest--not to sleep, not even to hope for sleep. As she bade her father good-night, he pressed her hand, and with tears in his eyes commended her to God's keeping. "God bless you, my afflicted child, and make all work together for your good!" Ellen's mind whispered "Amen!" When she was first alone, all the horror of her condition came back with crushing, overwhelming agony,--she first began to believe its reality. She threw herself on her couch;--what was it glistened by her? Something fell,--it was her ring. It had fallen off her finger, and now lay on the carpet. Oh! fatal amulet! prime cause of all this misery! Ellen's mind, as we have already said, was tinged with romance and superstition; in this she was not unlike many of her countrymen. This accident, this falling off of her only remembrance, was too strange a coincidence to escape her. It seemed emblematical of her condition,--forsaken by him she loved so well, and now forsaken by his gift. The ring, as it lay there, seemed to say "the last link is broken!" She picked it up; for one moment she thought the precious stones clouded in her gaze--this was doubtless fancy; but what was not fancy was this,--the golden hoop was cracked--broken through, and this was the cause of its slipping off her finger. "My last friend forsakes me!" said the unhappy girl; "I am truly most miserable!" For a moment, too, the thought entered her mind of burning this relic now of faithlessness; the words "Hope on" seemed to mock her woe. The fire was there; what prevented her burning it? what stayed her hand from committing it to the flames? "No," she said, "I won't destroy it; broken as it is--fit emblem of my heart--I will keep it. I may live to see him--I may live to show it to him! he may yet return--may yet live to bind the heart he has broken! Till then I will keep thee, broken as thou art; when my heart is re-united, so shall be thy circlet!" With these words she placed the gaud in her bosom, and some good angel whispered "Hope on!"