The child's
statement of the facts that had led to my interference, was
totally false; for an instant I felt inclined to follow her,
in order to contradict it, but the bane of my nature, _pride_,
which always made me hate an explanation or a justification,
restrained the impulse, and I then caught the sound of Mrs.
Middleton's voice; she was speaking in a low earnest manner to
her husband.

"This cannot last," she was saying; "it cannot be suffered to
last; these children must be separated, and the sooner the
better."

"But what can be done?" was the reply; "Ellen has no home but
this."

I listened breathlessly for the answer. It seemed to me, at
that moment, as if my life depended upon it; my breath seemed
to stop, and my whole frame to quiver.

"She might go to some good school for a year or two," was the
answer: "it would be painful to decide on such a step; but
nothing can signify to us in comparison with Julia's health."
I did not hear any more, but, snatching up my bonnet, I rushed
along the verandah till I came to its farthest extremity. I
knelt, and leant my head against the stones of the parapet.
Every vein in my brow seemed swelled to bursting, and I felt
as if I had waked from a happy dream to a state of things
which my understanding could scarcely master.

Was it indeed my aunt? was it Mrs. Middleton? who had spoken
of sending me away from her--away from Elmsley? Was it she
that had said I was _nothing_ to her in comparison with the
selfish child whom, for her sake alone, I had endured? It was
even so--I was _nothing_ to her; I felt convinced of it at
once; and it seemed to me in that moment as if a sudden chill
struck to my heart, and crept through my whole frame. I have
often wondered whether the sensation of moral suffering is as
nearly allied to physical pain in every one else as in myself.
The expression of an _aching_ heart has always appeared to me
to have a literal as well as a figurative sense; there is a
sort of positive pain that accompanies certain kinds of mental
sufferings, different in its nature from the feeling of grief,
even in its highest degree; and disappointment in its various
forms is perhaps the species of suffering which generally
produces it.

I was, at the moment I have described, experiencing this kind
of pain in its acutest shape. I felt reluctant to move from
where I stood; the sound of my own quick breathing was
oppressive to me. My eyes were closed, that the light