to to see me married, I must call on her, or she should think me
proud. I will stop for a moment--just a moment," she added, after a
pause, observing he did not answer.

They were just opposite the cottage at that moment, yet he gave no
orders to stop. With a fresh burst of tears, Ellen exclaimed,

"Please, Mr. Gorton, let me see her. I may never see her again, and
she will think I did not care to bid her a last farewell."

But Mr. Gorton said,

"Really, Ellen, I am very much surprised at the apparent necessity
of trifles to make your happiness. You went to see your aunt after I
had assured you there was not time. I wish you to remember that your
little wishes and whims, however important they may scene to you,
cannot seem of such importance to me as to interfere with my
arrangements. What matters it if my bride do not say farewell to an
old woman whom I never heard of, and shall never think of again, and
who will soon probably die and cease to remember that you slighted
her?"

And he laid Ellen's head upon his shoulder, and wiping the tears
from her face, wondered of what nature incomprehensible she was.

But, it _did_ matter to her in more respects than one, that she was
not permitted to call at the cottage. A mind so sensitive as Ellen's
feels the least neglect and the slightest reproof, and is equally
pained by giving cause for pain, as receiving. Besides, how much was
expressed in that last sentence of Mr. Gorton's, accompanying the