Chapter 6 - Page 2

face.

"Well, be it so. And now sit down, doctor; for the hot cakes are cooling
fast. I suppose you will say they are not so good as those Ellen made
yesterday morning. I know not how you will bear to part with her, though
the thing must soon be."

"It will be a sore trial, doubtless," replied Dr. Melmoth,--"like tearing
away a branch that is grafted on an old tree. And yet there will be a
satisfaction in delivering her safe into her father's hands."

"A satisfaction for which you may thank me, doctor," observed the lady.
"If there had been none but you to look after the poor thing's doings, she
would have been enticed away long ere this, for the sake of her money."

Dr. Melmoth's prudence could scarcely restrain a smile at the thought that
an elopement, as he had reason to believe, had been plotted, and partly
carried into execution, while Ellen was under the sole care of his lady,
and had been frustrated only by his own despised agency. He was not
accustomed, however,--nor was this an eligible occasion,--to dispute any
of Mrs. Melmoth's claims to superior wisdom.

The breakfast proceeded in silence, or, at least, without any conversation
material to the tale. At its conclusion, Mrs. Melmoth was again meditating
on the propriety of entering Ellen's chamber; but she was now prevented by
an incident that always excited much interest both in herself and her
husband.

This was the entrance of the servant, bearing the letters and newspaper,
with which, once a fortnight, the mail-carrier journeyed up the valley.
Dr. Melmoth's situation at the head of a respectable seminary, and his
character as a scholar, had procured him an extensive correspondence among
the learned men of his own country; and he had even exchanged epistles
with one or two of the most distinguished dissenting clergymen of Great
Britain. But, unless when some fond mother enclosed a one-pound note to
defray the private expenses of her son at college, it was frequently the
case that the packets addressed to the doctor were the sole contents of
the mail-bag. In the present instance, his letters were very numerous,
and, to judge from the one he chanced first to open, of an unconscionable
length. While he was engaged in their perusal, Mrs. Melmoth amused herself
with the newspaper,--a little sheet of about twelve inches square, which
had but one rival in the country. Commencing with the title, she labored
on through advertisements old and new, through poetry lamentably deficient
in rhythm and rhymes, through essays, the ideas of which had been trite
since the first week of the creation, till she finally arrived at the
department that, a fortnight before, had contained the latest news from