When he speaks, The air, a charter'd libertine, is still, And the mute wonder lurketh in mens' ears, To steal his sweet and honey'd sentences!
The following evening, when Mordaunt arrived at the Parsonage, he was met in the little garden before it by Joanna and Ellen. He glanced his eyes over the countenances of both, and found that of Joanna, which he had hitherto seen full of smiling vivacity, overspread with gloom: her eyes were excessively red, and when he spoke to her, they filled with tears. Ellen also looked as if she had been weeping, but on Mordaunt's approach, a bright smile gleamed over her face, and a soft blush restored its animation.
As Mordaunt looked inquiringly at Joanna (dissembling as well as he could the pleasure Ellen's blush and smile had given him), she turned her head aside, and the tears ran down her cheeks: "Don't look at her, don't speak to her, Mr. Mordaunt," said Ellen in a low voice, drawing him a little on one side: "her brother has left home this morning, and Joanna has been crying all day." Her voice trembled, and a tear started in her own eye. Mordaunt softly drew her arm through his; and as Joanna turned into another walk to hide her distress, he said, "And you too, Ellen, have been weeping." He had never called her Ellen before, and felt half ashamed of having done so now, so much respect her native modesty had inspired; but she, who was always accustomed to be called Ellen, nor imagined she had any pretension to a higher title, saw nothing in it extraordinary, and answered in the most unaffected manner, yet with some tenderness of voice and accent, "It is very true, I also feel for Charles a sister's affection." "Is he then _very_ amiable, this happy Charles?" asked Mordaunt. "He is very amiable, that is, very _good_, very _sensible_," said Ellen: "but why do you call him happy?"--"Can he be otherwise than happy, rich in the affection of _two_ such charming _sisters_?" "You are very obliging but just now Charles is not very happy; he is very much grieved at quitting his father, his mother, and Joanna, and--and--me." Ellen hesitated a little. "But in the profession he has chosen," said Mordaunt, "he must expect to be frequently absent from those he loves; and a sailor in general, though he feels acutely for the moment, soon whistles care away." "Very true," answered Ellen; "and I never before knew Charles give way to his feelings as he has done to-day and yesterday, and that indeed is what has overcome Joanna so much: he has taken strange fancies into his head, either that he shall never return, or that _we_, I mean that _I_, shall have forgotten him if he does." "But why does he fancy this _just now_?" said Mordaunt, fixing his sparkling eyes upon her. "Oh, I cannot tell you," answered Ellen, blushing crimson, "half the strange things he has been saying; but we see so few strangers here, that I believe, that I fancy Charles supposes,--I mean, he thinks we have suddenly become very intimate with _you_, and we have said so much respecting books and subjects rather above what we usually meet with, that Charles, who is a little rough, and not very fond of reading, says we are growing such fine ladies, and so much wiser than he is, that he is sure we shall not be at all sorry he is going."