Baffled and sad, she stood leaning her elbows on the
window-sill, looking out on the grass-plat that lay before the
door, and the little gate that opened on the lane, and the
smooth meadow and rich broken country beyond. It was a very
fair and pleasant scene in the soft sunlight of the last of
October; but the charm of it was gone for Ellen; it was
dreary. She looked without caring to look, or knowing what she
was looking at; she felt the tears rising to her eyes, and,
sick of the window, turned away. Her eye fell on her trunk;
her next thought was of her desk inside of it; and suddenly
her heart sprang — "I will write to Mamma!" No sooner said
than done. The trunk was quickly open, and hasty hands pulled
out one thing after another till the desk was reached.
"But what shall I do?" thought she — "there isn't a sign of a
table. Oh, what a place! I'll shut my trunk and put it on
that. But here are all these things to put back first."
They were eagerly stowed away; and then kneeling by the side
of the trunk, with loving hands Ellen opened her desk. A sheet
of paper was drawn from her store, and properly placed before
her; the pen dipped in the ink, and at first with a hurried,
then with a trembling hand, she wrote, "My dear Mamma." But
Ellen's heart had been swelling and swelling with every letter
of those three words, and scarcely was the last "a" finished,
when the pen was dashed down, and flinging away from the desk,
she threw herself on the floor in a passion of grief.
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