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Rh suggested her journey to Hellingford, in order that she might be of all the comfort she could to Ellinor. She did not at first let out that he had accompanied her to Hellingford; she was a little afraid of Ellinor’s displeasure at his being there; Ellinor had always objected so much to any advance towards intimacy with him that Miss Monro had wished to make. But Ellinor was different now.

“How white you are, Nelly!” said Miss Monro. “You have been travelling too much and too fast, my child.”

“My head aches!” said Ellinor, wearily. “But I must go to the castle, and tell my poor Dixon that he is reprieved,—I am so tired! Will you ask Mr. Johnson to get me leave to see him? He will know all about it.”

She threw herself down on the bed in the spare room; the bed with the heavy blue curtains. After an unheeded remonstrance, Miss Monro went to do her bidding. But it was now late afternoon, and Mr. Johnson said that it would be impossible for him to get permission from the sheriff that night.

“Besides,” said he, courteously, “one scarcely knows whether Miss Wilkins may not give the old man false hopes,—whether she has not been excited to have false hopes herself; it might be a cruel kind-