Moreover,
Mrs. Fordyce had had a brother who had, under the famous cowhouse
cure, recovered enough to return home, and be killed by the
upsetting of a stage coach.
Mrs. Fordyce took her daughter to Lyme, and waited there till her
husband had found a curate and made all arrangements. It must have
been very inconvenient not to come home; but, no doubt, she wanted
to prevent any more partings. Then they went abroad, travelling
slowly, and seeing all the sights that came in their way, to
distract Ellen's thoughts. She was not allowed to hear what ailed
her; but believed her languor and want of interest in everything to
be the effect of the blow she had received, struggling to exert
herself, and to enter gratefully into the enjoyments provided for
her. She was not prevented from writing to Emily; indeed, no one
liked to hinder anything she wished, but they were guide-book
letters, describing all she saw as a kind of duty, but scarcely
concealing the trouble it was to look. Such sentences would slip
out as 'This is a nice quiet place, and I am happy to say there is
nothing that one ought to see.' Or, 'I sat in the cathedral at
Lucerne while the others were going round. The organ was playing,
and it was such rest!' Or, again, after a day on the Lago di Como,
'It was glorious, and if you and Edward were here, perhaps the
beauty would penetrate my sluggish soul!'
Ellen's sluggish soul!--when we remembered her keen ecstasy at the
Valley of Rocks.
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