shall not be missed. So say nothing--Nelly's
tongue is tied--fear not her. Be patient, beloved one, till you hear
from me: bright days are coming, Ruth, and we do not part for long."

Here she wept, oh, so bitterly, I thought she would die. Amazed and
trembling, I ventured to ask if she loved Mr. Thomas Erminstoun better
than me, for jealousy rankled, and at fourteen I knew nothing of _love_.

"Love _him_!" she cried vehemently, clasping her hands wildly; "I love
only you on earth, my Ruth, my sister. He is a fool; and I marry him to
save you and myself from degradation and misery. He buys me with his
wealth. I am little more than sixteen"--she hung down her lovely head,
poor thing--"but I am old in sorrow; I am hardened in sin, for I am
about to commit a great sin. I vow to love, where I despise; to obey,
when I mean to rule; and to honor, when I hold the imbecile youth in
utter contempt!"

Vain were supplications and prayers to wait. Gabrielle led me away to
the meadows, where a fly was in waiting, which conveyed us to the
church. I saw her married; I signed something in a great book; I felt
her warm tears and embraces, and I knew that Mr. Thomas Erminstoun
kissed me too, as he disappeared with Gabrielle, and the clerk placed me
in the fly alone, which put me down in the same place, in the quiet
meadows by the shining water. I sat down and wept till I became
exhausted. Was this all a dream? Had Gabrielle really gone? My
child-sister married? Become rich and great? But I treasured her words,
hurried home, and put on my old dark dress; and Nelly said not a word.
Mr. Thomas Erminstoun's gold had secured her silence; and she was to
"know nothing," but to take care of me for the present.

Ere my father retired to rest that night, a letter was brought addressed
to him. I never knew the contents, but it was from Gabrielle and
Gabrielle's husband. I did not see him again for some days, and then he
never looked at me; and strange, strange it seemed, Gabrielle had
disappeared like a snow wreath, in silence, in mystery; and I exclaimed
in agony, "Was there ever any thing like this in the world before?"

My father made himself acquainted with the position of the young man
whom his daughter had gone off with, and also of the legality of their
marriage; that ascertained satisfactorily, he sank into the same
hopeless slothfulness and indolence as heretofore, dozing life away, and
considering he had achieved a prodigious labor i