Page:The Wanderer (1814 Volume 1).pdf/443

 Harleigh breathed hard, yet kept his face in an opposite direction, and endeavoured to look as if he did not understand her meaning. Ellis commanded her features to remain unmoved; but her complexion was not under the same controul: frequent blushes crossed her cheeks, which, though they died away almost as soon as they were born, vanished only to re-appear; evincing all the consciousness that she struggled to suppress.

A pause ensued, to Harleigh unspeakably painful, and to Ellis indescribably distressing; during which Elinor fell into a profound reverie, from which, after a few minutes, wildly starting, "Harleigh," she cried, "is your wedding-day fixed?"

"My wedding-day?" he repeated, with a forced smile, "Must not my wedding itself be fixed first?"

"And it is not fixed?—Does it depend upon Ellis?"

He looked palpably disconcerted;