which I never shall forgive you. Go at once from my presence, with
the mean-spirited creature who has dared to suppose that I would
acknowledge as my daughter one who has corrupted and robbed me of my
son. Go! We are mother and son no longer. I dissolve the tie. Go!"

And the mother, whose assumed calmness had given way to a highly
excited manner, waved her hand imperatively towards the door.

Ellen, who had started up at the moment Mrs. Linden appeared, now
came forward, and, throwing herself at her feet, clasped her hands
together, and lifted her sweet pale face and tearful eyes. For an
instant the mother's face grew dark with passion; then she made a
movement as if she were about to spurn the supplicant indignantly,
when Charles sprang before her, and lifting Ellen in his arms, bore
her from the house, and placed her half fainting in the carriage
that still stood at the door. A hurried direction was given to the
driver, who mounted his box and drove off to a hotel, where they
passed the night, and, on the next morning, returned home to the
city they had left on the previous day.

It was long before a smile lighted the countenance of the young
bride. In silence she upbraided herself for having been the cause of
estranging from each other mother and son.

"It was wrong," she said, in a sad tone, when, after the passage of
a month, the subject was conversed about between them with more than
usual calmness. "You should, first of all, have written to your
mother, and asked her consent."

"But I knew she would not give it. I knew her peculiar prejudices