Page:Aunt Phillis's Cabin.djvu/183

 her through a long passage into a room, lighted only by the rays that found entrance through a broken shutter. "Only see this," she continued, laying her hand on a crib burdened with a small mattress and pillow; "here too," and she pointed to a little child's hat that hung over it, from which drooped three small plumes. "Whose can they be?"

"Come out o' here, children," said the nurse, who had been seeking them. "Your aunt told me not to let you come into this part of the house; this was her nursery once, and her only child died here."

The children followed their nurse, and ever afterward the thought of death was connected with that part of the house. Often as they looked in their aunt's face they remembered the empty crib and the drooping plumes.

Time does not always fly with youth; yet it passed along until Ellen had attained her sixteenth year, and William his eighteenth year. Ellen shared all her brother's studies, and their excellent tutor stored their minds with useful information. Their uncle superintended their education, with the determination that it should be a thorough one. William did not intend studying a profession; his father's will allowed him to decide between this, or assuming, at an early age, the care of his large estate, with suitable advisers.

Ellen made excellent progress in all her studies. Her aunt was anxious she should learn music, and wished her to go to Richmond or to Alexandria for that purpose, but Ellen begged off; she thought of the old piano and its cracked keys, and desired not to be separated from her brother, professing her dislike to any music, but her old nurse's Methodist hymns.

William was tall and athletic for his age, passionate when roused by harshness or injustice, but otherwise affectionate in his disposition, idolizing his sister. His uncle looked at him with surprise when he saw him assume the