There was no embargo on the correspondence with my sister, and
letters full of description came regularly, but how unlike they were
to our journal. They were clear, intelligent, with a certain
liveliness, but no ring of youthful joy, no echo of the heart,
always as if under restraint. Griff was much disappointed. He had
been on his good behaviour for two months, and expected his reward,
and I could not here repeat all that he said about her parents when
he found she was absent. Yet, after all, he got more pity and
sympathy from Parson Frank than from any one else. That good man
actually sent a message for him, when Emily was on honour to do no
such thing. Poor Emily suffered much in consequence, when she would
neither afford Griff a blank corner of her paper, nor write even a
veiled message; while as to the letters she received and gave to
him, 'what was the use,' he said, 'of giving him what might have
been read aloud by the town-crier?'
'You don't understand, Griff; it is all dear Ellen's
conscientiousness--'
'Oh, deliver me from such con-sci-en-tious-ness,' he answered, in a
tone of bitter mimicry, and flung out of the room leaving Emily in
tears.
He could not appreciate the nobleness of Ellen's self-command and
the obedience which was the security of future happiness, but was
hurt at what he thought weak alienation.
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