Page:Aunt Phillis's Cabin.djvu/202

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

you are to return to your uncle's, and you must not learn to love the great world too much."

"Perhaps," said Mr. Barbour, who was much depressed at the approaching parting, "Miss Ellen may not mean to return to her uncle's. A young lady with good looks, and a heavy purse, will be found out in Washington. She will just suit a great many there--clerks with small salaries, army and navy men with expensive habits; and foreign attachés, who, being nothing in their own country, turn our young ladies' heads when they come here."

"So you think I am destined for no other fate than to pay a fortune-hunter's debts. Thank you, Mr. Barbour!"

"The fact is, Mr. Barbour wants you himself, Ellen, and he is afraid somebody will carry you off. He will pay us a visit this winter, I expect," said Mrs. Weston.

"Well," said Ellen laughingly, "I'd rather take up with him than to go back to my old life, now that I see you are all so happy here."

"But your aunt and uncle," said Miss Janet, "you must not feel unkindly toward them."

"No, indeed," said Ellen, "they are both good and kind in their way, but uncle is reserved, and often low-spirited. Aunt is always talking of the necessity of self-control, and the discipline of life. She is an accomplished teaze. Why, do you know," continued Ellen, laughingly, as she removed Miss Janet's hand from her mouth, the old lady thus playfully endeavoring to check her, "after I had accepted Mrs. Weston's kind invitation, and mammy and I were busy packing, aunt said I must not be too sanguine, disappointments were good for young people, and that something might occur which would prevent my going. I believe I should have died outright, if it had turned out so."

"And so," said Mr. Barbour, "to get rid of a dull home, you are determined to fly in the face of fate, and are going to Washington after a husband. Ah! Miss Ellen, beware of these young men that have nothing but