"Do you feel, Ellen, that you have made too great a sacrifice in
leaving home and friends for me?"

"O, no," answered Ellen, raising to his her love-lit countenance,
"no sacrifice could be too great to make for you; but do you not
know I have left all I had to love before I loved you? And they will
miss me too at home, and will think of me, how often, too, when I
shall be thinking of you only! Think it not strange that I weep."

Nevertheless, Mr. Gorton did think it strange. He had no idea of the
tender associations clustering around one's home. He had no idea of
the depth and richness and sweetness of a mother's love, of a
sister's yearning fondness, for they ever had been denied him;
consequently the emotions that thrilled the heart of his bride could
find no response and met with no sympathy in his own. It was rather
with wonder, than with any other sensation, that he regarded her
sorrow. Was she not entering upon a newer and higher sphere of life?
Was she not to be the mistress of a splendid mansion? Was she not to
be the envied of many and many a one who had feigned every
attraction and exerted every effort for the station, she was to
assume; and should she weep with this in view?

Thus Mr. Gorton thought--as man often reasons.

After having proceeded a little distance, they came within view of
an humble cottage, when Ellen said,

"I must stop here, Mr. Gorton, and see Grandma Nichols (she was an
elderly member of the church of which Ellen was a member), and when
I was last to see her, she said, as she should not be able to walk