ever, quite so easily
satisfied. Ellen had been latterly so open with her, that anything like
concealment in her conduct gave her some little uneasiness; but she
could not withstand the imploring look of her niece, as she entreated
her not to think her capricious and wilful; she was sure Mrs. Hamilton
would approve of her reason, did she confess it.

"I am not quite so sure of that," was her aunt's smiling reply; "but,
however, I will trust you, though I do not like mysteries," and the
subject was dismissed.

The manners and conversation of Arthur Myrvin were such as to prepossess
both Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton very much in his favour, and strengthened the
opinion they had already formed concerning him, on the word of their
son. The respectful deference with which he ever treated Caroline and
Emmeline often caused a laugh at his expense from Percy, but gratified
Mrs. Hamilton; Percy declared he stood as much in awe of his sisters as
if they were the highest ladies in the land. Arthur bore his raillery
with unruffled temper, but he felt the distance that fortune placed
between him and those fair girls, and he hoped, by reserve, to lessen
the danger that might in their society attack his peace. Emmeline
mistook this cautious reserve for coldness and distaste towards women,
and, with the arts of a playful child, she frequently endeavoured to
draw him from his abstraction, and render him a more agreeable
companion.

There was still so very much of the child in Emmeline, though now
rapidly approaching her eighteenth birthday, she was still so very young
in manners and appearance, that the penetration of Mrs. Hamilton must
not be too severely criticised, if it failed in discovering that
intimately mingled with this childlike manner--the warm enthusiasm of a
kind nature--was a fund of deep reflection, and feelings quite equal to
her age. Mrs. Hamilton fancied the realities of life were still to her a
dream. Had any one spoken to her of the marriage of Emmeline as soon
taking place, she would have started at the idea, as a thing for some
years impossible; and that her affections might become engaged--that the
childlike, innocent, joyous Emmeline, whose gayest pleasures still
consisted in chasing with wild glee the butterflies as they sported on
the summer flowers, or tying garlands of the fairest buds to adorn her
own or her sister's hair, or plucking the apples from the trees and
throwing them to the village children as they sa