fair everything was; but she soon forgot to think about it at
all. They were now in a wide part of the river, and the shore
towards which she was looking was low and distant, and offered
nothing to interest her. She ceased to look at it, and
presently lost all sense of everything around and before her,
for her thoughts went home. She remembered that sweet moment,
last night, when she lay in her mother's arms, after she had
stopped singing — could it be only last night? — it seemed a
long, long time ago. She went over again, in imagination, her
shocked waking up that very morning — how cruel that was! —
her hurried dressing — the miserable parting — and those last
words of her mother, that seemed to ring in her ears yet —
"That home where parting cannot be." "Oh!" thought Ellen, "how
shall I ever get there? Who is there to teach me now? Oh! what
shall I do without you? Oh, Mamma! how much I want you
already!"

While poor Ellen was thinking these things over and over, her
little face had a deep sadness of expression it was sorrowful
to see. She was perfectly calm — her violent excitement had
all left her — her lip quivered a very little, sometimes, but
that was all; and one or two tears rolled slowly down the side
of her face. Her eyes were fixed upon the dancing water, but
it was very plain her thoughts were not, nor on anything else
before her; and there was a forlorn look of hopeless sorrow on
her lip, and cheek, and brow, enough to move anybody whose
heart was not very hard. She was noticed, and with a feeling
of compassion, by several people; but they all thought it was
none of their business to speak to her, or they didn't know
how. At length a gentleman, who had been for some time walking