"East Lynne was not, take it for all in all, a pleasant home to you, but it seems you changed for the worse when you left." "Not a pleasant home ?" she echoed, its reminiscences appearing delightful in that moment, for it must be remembered that all things are estimated by comparison.

"Indeed it was; I may never have so pleasant a one again.

Mr.Carlyle, do not disparage East Lynne to me! Would I could awake and find the last few months but a hideous dream!--that I could find my dear father alive again!--that we were still living peacefully at East Lynne.

It would be a very Eden to me now." What was Mr.Carlyle about to say?
What emotion was it that agitated his countenance, impeded his breath, and dyed his face blood-red?
His better genius was surely not watching over him, or those words had never been spoken.
"There is but one way," he began, taking her hand and nervously playing with it, probably unconscious that he did so; "only one way in which you could return to East Lynne.

And that way--I may not presume, perhaps, to point it out." She looked at him and waited for an explanation.
"If my words offend you, Lady Isabel, check them, as their presumption deserves, and pardon me.