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We do not know how often of late she had stolen down again, from these sisterly duties, after our senses were locked in sleep; or if our eyes and ears had ever been open to the fact, we could never have suspected the minister to be guilty of such a plot against our peace! That name was associated, in our minds, with all that was superhuman. The gray-haired pastor, who had gone to his grave six months previous, had sat as frequently on that same oaken arm-chair, and talked with us. We had loved him as a father and friend, and had almost worshipped him as the embodiment of all attainable goodness. And when Mr. Neville came among us, with his high, pale forehead, and soul-kindled eye, we had thought his face also “the face of an angel”–too glorious for the print of mortal passion! Especially after, in answer to an urgent call from the people among whom he was labouring, he had frankly told them that his purpose was not to remain among them, or anywhere on his native shore; that he only waited the guidance of Providence to a home in a foreign clime. After this much–bewailed disclosure of his plans, we placed our favourite preacher on a higher pinnacle of saintship!

But sister Ellen was to be married–and married to Mr. Neville. And then–“Oh, sister, you are not going away, to India!” burst from our lips, with a fresh gush of sobs.

I was the first to look up into Ellen’s troubled face. It was heaving with emotions that ruffled its calmness, as the tide-waves ruffle the sea. Her lips were firmly compressed; her eyes were fixed on some distant dream, glassed with two tears, that stood still in their chalices, forbidden to fall. I almost trembled as I caught her glance.

“Sister! Agnes–Emily!” she exclaimed, in a husky whisper. “Hush! be calm! Don’t break my heart! Do I love home less than–“

The effort was too much; the words died on her lips. We lifted her to bed, frightened into forgetfulness of her own grief. We soothed her until she, too, wept freely and passionately, and, in weeping, grew strong for the sacrifice to which she had pledged her heart.

We never spoke another word of remonstrance to her tender heart, though often, in the few months that flitted by us together, we used to choke with sobbing, in some speech that hinted of the coming separation, and hurry from her presence to cry alone.

Our mother has told us the tidings with white lips that quivered tenderly and sadly. No love is so uniformly unselfish as a mother’s, surely; for though she leaned on Ellen as the strong staff of her declining years, she sorrowed not as we did, that she was going. She, to, was happy in the thought that her child had found that “pearl of price” in a cold and evil world–a true, noble, loving heart to guide and protect her.

Father sat silently in the chimney-corner, reading in the family Bible. He was looking farther than any of us–to the perils that would environ his dearest daughter, and the privations that might come upon her young life, in that unhealthy, uncivilized corner of the globe, whither she was going. Both our parents had dedicated their children to God; and they would not cast even a shadow on the path of self-sacrifice and duty their darling had chosen.

To come down to the unromantic little details of wedding preparations; how we stitched and trimmed, packed and prepared–stoned raisins with tears in our eyes, and seasoned the wedding cake with sighs. But there is little use in thinking over these things. Ellen was first and foremost in all, as she had always been in every emergency, great or small. Nothing could be made without her. Even the bride’s cake was taken from the oven by her own fair hands, because no one–servant, sister, or even mother–was willing to run the risk of burning sister Ellen’s bride’s cake; and “she knew just how to bake it.”