"Gracious heavens!" exclaimed Ellen, with a start; "do not pretend ignorance, his marriage with--with Lady Alice Claremont." "My goodness, Ellen! Wentworth marry Lady Alice! Do you not know Alice's age? why she is barely fourteen years old. Then you too saw that absurd paragraph, and did you not see its refutation? But what is the matter? Are you ill?" There was reason for the Marchioness's question; pale as alabaster Ellen clasped together her hands, and looking to the sky faltered: "I thank thee, my God! I thank thee,--then it was untrue; he may be faithful still; how could I doubt him?" and apparently overcome with the intenseness of her feelings she sank back on the seat exhausted. "What is untrue?--who may be faithful still?--whom did you doubt?" were the lady's hurried questions. "This is a riddle, Ellen--tell me what it all means? Do, dearest, do.--There, is not that pleasant?" pouring some Eau-de-Cologne on her broidered kerchief which she held to Ellen as a restorative,--"you feel better now? Ah, your colour is coming back--don't be in a hurry, but tell me as you can what all this means,--hide nothing." After a few minutes, Ellen was sufficiently recovered to relate the whole history of her attachment to Lord Wentworth,--how he had given her the ring inscribed with the words "Hope on," and how, reading the fatal paragraph, and fancying him false, had so wrought on her mind as to bring on the dreadful fever, from whose ravages she was not yet wholly recovered. "This passes fiction,--this is the romance of true, real life," said the Marchioness, stooping down and kissing her friend--"and he did give you the ring which so wonderfully snapt?" "He did, he did!" exclaimed Ellen--"and here it is," drawing out a small packet, and giving it to Lady Arranmore. "Then be sure my brother is too noble to raise hopes only to quench them,--and I admire his choice in choosing you, my own dear, beautiful Ellen! and let it be my task to have this little ring re-united. Give it me, Ellen, till it is again fit to circle your finger. But, Ellen, whilst I now regard you as a sister, and bid you follow its invitation and 'Hope on,' let me caution you not to be too sanguine yet. I mean do not be impatient, dearest,"--for the Marchioness began to think she was raising her friend's hopes too high, ere she was herself assured of their certainty;--"have patience, wait, and all will turn out right. I know Wentworth well; he will do nothing in a hurry; he will wait till he knows your character; and now all depends on you; at least, Ellen, he will now know he has a faithful love! But what puzzles me not a little, is how the denial of that foolish report, which no one can guess the origin of, did not reach you, and how the kind letters of inquiry my brother sent, did not reassure you? I thought then he certainly stretched a point in polite solicitude; now I know the reason why."