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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;
