his, the girl ran up to her brother, and stood leaning
against his shoulder, with a playful caress, while he looked down at her
with such entire love and trust in his face, that Elizabeth crept
quietly away, and left them together.

The few days left to Mellen passed in a tumult of preparation. Sad
doubts were at his heart, vague and so formless that he could not have
expressed them in words, but painful as proven realities.

Elizabeth was greatly disturbed also; her fine color had almost entirely
disappeared. She trembled at the slightest shock, and her very lips
would turn white when she spoke of her husband's departure. She seemed
stricken with a mortal terror of his going, yet made no effort to detain
him. She, too, had presentiments of evil that shocked her whole system,
and made her brightest smile something mournful to look upon.

But the husband and wife had little opportunity to observe or understand
the feelings that tortured them both. Elsie's cries, and tears, and
hysterical spasms, kept the whole household in commotion. She should
never see her brother again--never, never. Elizabeth might not be good
to her. Sisters-in-law and school-friends were different creatures; she
had found that out already. If she could only have died with her mother!

These cries broke out vehemently on the night before Mellen's departure.
The spoiled child would not allow her brother to spend one moment from
her side. So all that night Elizabeth, pale, still, and bowed down by a
terrible heart-ache, watched with her husband by the azure couch which
Elsie preferred to her bed. It was a sad, mournful night to them both.

At daylight, Elsie's egotism was exhausted, and she fell asleep. The
first sunshine came stealing up from its silvery play on the water, and
shimmering through the lace curtains, fell on the young girl as she
slept. There was trouble on that sweet face--genuine trouble; for Elsie
loved her brother dearly, and his departure agitated her more deeply
than he had ever known her moved before.

How lovely she looked with the drops trembling on those long, golden
lashes, and staining the warm flush of her cheeks! One arm, from which
the muslin sleeve had fallen back, lay under her head, half-buried in a
tangle of curls; sobs broke at intervals through her parted lips, ending
in long, troubled sighs.

Mellen was deeply touched. Elizabeth bent her head against the end of
the couch, and wept unheeded drops of anguish. T