“On the young imagination of Elinor, this scene was indelibly written. Amid the magnificence of Mortimer Castle, it had never been effaced or
obscured, and now she tried to make herself in love with the sounds and
the scene that had so deeply touched her infant heart. “Resolute in her purposes, she spared no pains to excite this
reminiscence of religion,--it was her last resource. Like the wife of
Phineas, she struggled to bear an heir of the soul, even while she named
him _Ichabod_,--and felt the glory was departed. She went to the narrow
apartment,--she seated herself in the very chair that venerable man
occupied when he was torn from it, and his departure appeared to her
like that of an ascending prophet. She would _then_ have caught the
folds of his mantle, and mounted with him, even though his flight had
led to prison and to death. She tried, by repeating his last words, to
produce the same effect they had once had on her heart, and wept in
indescribable agony at feeling those words had no meaning now for her. When life and passion have thus rejected us, the backward steps we are
compelled to tread towards the path we have wandered from, are ten
thousand times more torturing and arduous than those we have exhausted
in their pursuit. Hope then supported our hands every step we took. Remorse and disappointment scourge us back, and every step is tinged
with tears or with blood; and well it is for the pilgrim if that blood
is drained from his heart, for then--his pilgrimage will be sooner
terminated. * * * * * *

“At times Elinor, who had forgotten neither the language or habits of
her former existence, would speak in a manner that gave her Puritanic
relative hopes that, according to the language of the times, “the root
of the matter was in her,”--and when the old lady, in confidence of her
returning orthodoxy, discussed long and learnedly on the election and
perseverance of the saints, the listener would startle her by a burst of
feeling, that seemed to her aunt more like the ravings of a demoniac,
than the language of a human being,--especially one who had from her
youth known the Scriptures. She would say, “Dearest aunt, I am not
insensible of what you say; from a child, (thanks to your care), I have
known the holy scriptures. I _have_ felt the power of religion. At a
latter period I have experienced all the enjoyments of an intellectual
existence. Surrounded by splendour, I have conversed with enlarged
minds,--I have seen all that life can shew me,--I have lived with the
mean and the rich,--the spiritual in their poverty, and the
worldly-minded in their grandeur,--I have deeply drank of the cup which
both modes of existence held to my lip,--and at this moment I swear to
you,--_one moment of heart_,--one dream such as once I dreamed, (and
thought I should never awake from), is worth all the existence that the
earthly-minded lavish on this world, and those who mystify expend on the
next!”--“Unfortunate wretch! and undone for everlasting!” cried the
terrified Calvinist, lifting up her hands,--“Cease, cease,” said Elinor
with that dignity which grief alone can give,--“If I have indeed devoted
to an earthly love that which is due to God alone, is not my punishment
certain in a future state? Has it not already commenced here? May not
then all reproaches be spared when we are suffering more than human
enmity can wish us,--when our very existence is a bitterer reproach to
us than malignity can utter?”--As she spoke, she added, wiping a cold
tear from her wasted cheek, “My stroke is heavier than my groaning!”

“At other times she appeared to listen to the language of the Puritan
preachers (for all were preachers who frequented the house) with some
appearance of attention, and then, rushing from them without any
conviction but that of despair, exclaimed in her haste, “All men are
liars!” Thus it fares with those who wish to make an instant transition
from one world to another,--it is impossible,--the cold wave
interposes--for ever interposes, between the wilderness and the land of
promise--and we may as soon expect to tread the threshold which parts
life and death without pain, as to cross the interval which separates
two modes of existence so distinct as those of passion and religion,
without struggles of the soul inexpressible--without groanings which
cannot be uttered. “To these struggles there was soon to be an addition. Letters at this
period circulated very slowly, and were written only on important
occasions. Within a very short period, Elinor received two letters
by express from Mortimer Castle, written by her cousin Margaret. The first announced the arrival of John Sandal at the Castle,--the
second, the death of Mrs Ann,--the postscriptums of both contained
certain mysterious hints relative to the interruption of the
marriage,--intimations that the cause was known only to the writer,
to Sandal and to his mother,--and entreaties that Elinor would return
to the Castle, and partake of the _sisterly_ love with which Margaret
and John Sandal would be glad to receive her. The letters dropt from
her hand as she received them,--of John Sandal she had never ceased to
think, but she had never ceased to wish not to think,--and his name
even now gave her a pang which she could neither utter or suppress, and
which burst forth in an involuntary shriek, that seemed like the last
string that breaks in the exquisite and too-highly strung instrument of
the human heart. “Over the account of Mrs Ann’s death, she lingered with that fearful
feeling that a young adventurer experiences, who sees a noble vessel set
out before him on a voyage of discovery, and wishes, while lingering in
harbour himself, that he was already at the shore where _it_ has
arrived, and tasted of its repose, and participated in its treasures. “Mrs Ann’s death had not been unworthy of that life of magnanimity and
high heroic feeling which had marked every hour of her mortal
existence--she had espoused the cause of the rejected Elinor, and sworn
in the chapel of Mortimer Castle, while Margaret knelt beside, never to
admit within its walls the deserter of his betrothed bride. “On a dim autumnal evening, when Mrs Ann, with fading sight but
undiminished feeling, was poring over some of Lady Russel’s letters in
manuscript, and, to relieve her eyes, sometimes glanced on the
manuscript of Nelson’s Fasts and Festivals of the Church of England,--it
was announced to her that a Cavalier (the servants well knew the charm
of that name to the ear of the ancient loyalist) had crossed the
draw-bridge, entered the hall, and was advancing to the apartment where
she sat. “Let him be admitted,” was her answer, and rising from her
chair, which was so lofty and so spacious, that as she lifted herself
from it to greet the stranger with a courtly reception, her form
appeared like a spectre rising from an ancient monument,--she stood
facing the entrance--at that entrance appeared John Sandal.