hated me, I refrained. I wish she had died,
at peace with me.

April the fourteenth.— I came home to
Ferndell the day after Mrs. Clay's funeral.
I was reluctant to stay for several reasons.
Herbert was not at his ease with me, and
then the will— such a will! Mrs. Frank
Clay said she considered it infamous. It is
difficult to understand how a dislike to me
could have carried her the lengths it has
done. Mr. Clay left his wife sole guardian
and executrix when he died, with unlimited
power over every farthing of his invested
property, over Meadowlands, and even over the
mill and capital embarked in it. Neither
Herbert nor Emily possessed a single shilling
independently of her. She had taken
advantage of the confidence reposed in her
by her husband to devise the property in
the following way. Herbert and Emily to
share equally in the invested property,
Herbert to have Meadowlands and the
business; but (and this is put in the strongest
and clearest terms), but should Herbert Clay
marry Eleanor Clare, he is instantly to forfeit
every interest of every nature in the estate,
and his share to be equally divided betwixt
Herbert and Eleanor Cameron, whose rights
are to be vested in trustees, duly named
and appointed. Thus, if Herbert Clay
desired to return to me he would have to do
it as a penniless man. His mother knew
her son's pride well when she dictated this
clause of her will!

I was glad, then— O! very glad— to escape
from Ashby where he was; but I cannot—
no, I cannot yet forgive that miserable dead
woman for pursuing me with her malignity,
even beyond her grave! Herbert and I
love each other still— never shall we— never
shall I, at least, let any other affection
usurp the place of the first! Now, if I had
been the portionless girl at Burnbank, I
might have been a happy woman — wife and
mother— as other women are, but as heiress
of Ferndell, there is a great gulf fixed
between my love and me. I should not write
this. I would not even confess it to
myself, but that in those few mournful days
at Ashby, though we were both so silent—
both so constrained, I knew— I felt— all the
time that Herbert was thinking only of me
as I thought of him. Nobody named the
will to me but Mrs. Frank, and she
could not restrain her anger. Mrs. Clay
ruled her children despotically enough,
while she was alive. Surely the yoke should
have been broken from off their necks at
her death! It is too much!— too much!
To feel that Herbert loves me as fondly
as ever he did; that now we had met— and
his position rises to what the most fastidious
and worldly could have desired for
me— this frightful bar must be put up
between us. I wish I could know that he
regrets it as bitterly as I do! I have told
Grannie, and she said, " My dear love! if
it is to be, it will be!" but that does not
console me.

April the twenty-fourth.— I have had Mrs.
Frank Clay over to see me. She says that
Herbert is bent on giving up all at
Stockbridge, taking the few hundreds he has laid
by since a seventh share of the business has
been in his hands (and which he may truly
consider his own as he would have done, had his
father been alive), and going to New Zealand.

She says he declared, in the homely, west-
country phrase: " If Eleanor Clare would
come to me in her smock, then I would take
her and be the most contented, poor man in
the three kingdoms; but marry the rich
heiress of Ferndell— myself almost destitute
—I never will; so help me God!"

Why does he not come and tell me that
to my face ? Does he think I love Ferndell
as I love him? Does he think I should be
happier in this great, dreary house, fading
into old maidenhood alone, pining and
unsatisfied, than I should be with him in that
little rustic cottage he used to fancy when we
were scarcely more than boy and girl— the
dear wife of his heart, the mother of his children.
He ought to have the courage to come
and speak to me honestly, as I would speak to
him were I Herbert Clay and he Eleanor Clare.
O! he knows— he must know— I love him;
and if he understands at all what a true
woman is, he must know, too, that she will
set no wealth, no rank, in competition with
her love. Why does he not dare to speak to
me? Can he have conceived some false idea
of me since we have been so long apart?
Can he think I would scorn him? I
would honour him if he could make the
vast sacrifice which his mother has attached
as the penalty of our marriage. It would be
noble— it would be grand! Then would I
know how much he loved me; and I would
give up Ferndell to Jane's and Henry's
children. It should be sold, and they should all
share in it alike. O, what an infatuated
fool I am, feeding my heart on dreams, as if
this could ever be! .

May the sixth.— I have not been out of
Ferndell since I returned from Ashby; I
think I am losing heart, losing health! I
know I shall never live if I am to be miserable
like this. Emily Cameron writes me
almost daily about her brother. What can I
do? Is it for me to beseech him to stay? I
cannot, I will not do it! If he love me let
him come and tell me so, and I will forgive
him all the rest— all his doubts, all the pain
I have had to suffer for him— and keep him
here. If he is proud, I am proud, too; but
it is easier for him to bend than for me. He
can come to me, and say, " Eleanor, we two
love each other; thus much must I sacrifice
to obtain you, but I count it nothing in
comparison with my love— " I do not think
men's hearts are like ours. I begin to fear
that the time has come when Herbert has
ceased to care for me. That is a miserable