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Title: The Day of Small Things

Author: Anne Manning

Release date: May 25, 2020 [eBook #62219]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by MWS and the Online Distributed Proofreading
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THE DAY OF SMALL THINGS.




                                   THE
                          DAY OF SMALL THINGS.

                                   BY
                      THE AUTHOR OF “MARY POWELL.”

                Young and old all brought their troubles,
                Small and great, for me to hear:
                I have often bless’d my sorrow,
                That drew others’ grief so near.
                                        ADELAIDE PROCTER.

                                 LONDON:
                       ARTHUR HALL, VIRTUE & CO.,
                          25, PATERNOSTER ROW.
                                  1860.

                                 LONDON:
                       PRINTED BY JAMES S. VIRTUE,
                               CITY ROAD.




DEDICATED TO MY TWO DEAR NIECES, FLORENCE AND ELLEN.




THE DAY OF SMALL THINGS.


“I think I have been laid up nearly two years on this sofa, Phillis?”
said I.

“Two years, come the 6th of October,” said Phillis.

“And, during that time, what mercies I have received! what alleviations,
what blessings!”

“What sea-kale and early spare-o’-grass! what baskets of grapes and
pottles of strawberries!” said Phillis.

“What songs in the night, what in-pourings of strength!” said I.

“So many pheasants, too, and partridges!” said Phillis. “Teal, woodcocks,
and wild ducks!”

“David might well say, the Lord maketh our bed in our sickness, Phillis,”
said I.

“Such a pretty bed as it is, too!” said Phillis. “So white, sweet, and
clean! Russia sheets and Marseilles quilt, bleached on a heath common,
close by a sweetbriar hedge!”

“Not only that—” said I.

“Not only that,” said Phillis, “but such pretty daisy-fringe to the
curtains, and a clean tarletan blind to the window.”

“Such a lovely view from the window!” said I.

  “‘Ever charming, ever new.’”

“You see everything that goes by,” said Phillis.

“Yes, Phillis. And then the hill! I scarcely ever look at it without
saying to myself, ‘I will look unto the hill from whence cometh my help.’”

“The doctor lives the other way, though,” said Phillis.

“I am never weary of watching the continually varying effects of light
and shade on it. And yet, how loath I was to settle in this place! But,
directly I saw that hill, with its steep, chalky sides, its patches
of short turf, its fringe of beeches at the top, and its kilns and
lime-burners’ cottages at the base, with the steep bridle-roads and
sheep-tracks winding up it, I felt, ‘That hill is my fate: there must
be a fresh air blowing over it, a fine view from it; and, with God’s
blessing, it may make me wiser, healthier, and happier than I am now.’”

“It hasn’t made you healthier, though,” said Phillis.

“O yes, Phillis, it did. For a long while after I came here, I used to
walk to it, and at length up it, every day. At first, I was surprised to
find how steep and long the road was, even to its foot.”

“Oh, it’s a goodish step,” said Phillis.

“But I thought nothing of it afterwards,” said I. “At first I used
to call it (to myself), the Hill Difficulty. After that, the Hill of
Conquered Wishes.”

“Because you couldn’t get to the top,” suggested Phillis.

“Not only that. There were a good many things I wished altered—things
that I could not alter for myself, and that I did not feel quite sure it
would be right to pray to God to alter.”

“Such as puddles and miry bits of road,” said Phillis.

“No, not things of that sort. And so I used to think them over, as
I walked up that hill, and struggle with myself to take them kindly,
humbly, and submissively, as they were, such seeming to be God’s will;
and at length I succeeded.”

“That was a good job,” said Phillis.

“At the top of the hill, there was a steep patch of turf, on which, as it
seemed to me, grew every wild-flower that I knew. I used to call it (to
myself), the Garden of the Lord.”

“Wasn’t that rather wicked?” said Phillis.

“Why, whose else was it, Phillis? Man had nothing to do with it.”

“A woman had, you mean,” said Phillis.

“No, I don’t.”

“Why, wasn’t you a woman?—leastways, a lady?”

“But I had not had the planting of it.”

“Oh, I didn’t know it was planted,” said Phillis. “You said the things
growed wild.”

“Well, so they did—the Lord planted them. I used to stand there, looking
at them, and smelling them, and inhaling the sweet, fresh air, till He
seemed nearer to me there than anywhere else.”

“La!” said Phillis.

“Then, if I felt very strong, I used to go on yet further, and climb
quite up to the trees at the top. I used to call that (to myself), the
Wood of the Holy Spirit.”

“I wonder you wasn’t afraid,” said Phillis.

“No, ‘the voice of the Lord’ seemed walking in the garden, and took away
all fear. Of what should I be afraid?”

“Tramps,” said Phillis.

“I never met any.”

“That was a wonder, then,” said Phillis, “for they mostly come right away
over that hill, to and from the Fox’s Hole.”

“Stay a minute, Phillis, and I will explain to you why I never was
afraid.”

“Dear me! and I’ve been awaiting and awaiting all this time,” cried
Phillis, “to baste the chicken! I only stepped away from it for a moment,
to give you your medicine!”

“Go, baste the chicken, then, Phillis. I beg your pardon for detaining
you. I forgot how many things you have to do, and to think of. Go,
Phillis, and baste the chicken.”

This is just the way she goes on from day to day. It is certainly very
discouraging. An invalid finds it particularly hard to be without a
sympathizer; or, at any rate, a companion that can understand one. As to
calling me “ma’am,” she does not—and will not—once a week. But a Norway
deal won’t take the polish of mahogany; and a rough, stout, country
servant, will not convert into a Mrs. Flounce or a Mrs. Mincing. It is
surprising what work she can get through—what weights she can lift. I am
sure she could lift _me_.

       *       *       *       *       *

The way I came to have Phillis was this. My nice maid, Hannah, married;
and Jane, her successor, did not suit me at all. My energetic neighbour,
Miss Burt, who is almost too bustling and busy for her friends, came in
one day when I was very ill, and told me she had found me a “sterling
creature,” who would suit me exactly. I had never empowered her to look
out. And when I heard that this sterling creature had only lived in a
farm, and afterwards with an old single gentleman, I did not feel very
desirous to enter into treaty with her. Miss Burt, however, told me she
had told her “there could be no harm in calling,” in which I did not
quite coincide; and she enlarged so much on her fidelity, sobriety,
honesty, cleanliness, and general proficiency, that I was somewhat
overpowered, and agreed to see the young person when she called, if I
were well enough. “Young! oh, she won’t see thirty again!” cried Miss
Burt, as she swung out of the room; and indeed I believe several more
years had been numbered by this “daughter of the plough.” But Phillis
is exceeding sensitive on the subject. “My age is my own,” says she,
shortly; “my age, and my name.” The latter, however, she told me one
day, in an uncommon fit of good humour, had been given her by her father
because it was in a favourite old song of his. “And when parson,” pursued
Phillis, “objected that it wasn’t a _Christian_ name, father said he
should like to know whose business it was to choose the name, his or the
parson’s. So there,” added Phillis, triumphantly, “I fancy father had the
best on’t!”

I thought of Crabbe:

  “‘Why Lonicera wilt thou name thy child?’
  I asked the gardener’s wife, in accents mild.
  ‘We have a right,’ replied the sturdy dame:
  And Lonicera was the infant’s name.”

Rather against the grain, I engaged Phillis. I was too ill to lose time,
and too ill to superintend her first start, consequently she fell into
her own way of doing things, and will not now adopt any improvement on
them without more exertion of authority on my part than I often feel
inclined for. I put up with her—and, perhaps, she puts up with me.

       *       *       *       *       *

After living many of my earlier years neither in town nor country, but
in one of the western suburbs of London, I cannot express the pleasure
with which I hailed the novelty of a real country life. To exchange a
house in a row for a detached dwelling, in the midst of hills, copses,
and cow-pastures, was so delightful as to afford some compensation for
removing far away from many whom I dearly loved. Seven years my good
husband and I shared in tranquil married happiness; and, as he had
previously been a busy man in the city, the country was as new to him as
to me.

It is a good thing for leisurely people, of whatever age, to acquire the
habit of noting down what they observe of interest, in a new position.
To such a habit, we owe the rich storehouse of John Evelyn’s “Journal,”
and White’s “Natural History of Selborne;” two books which, perhaps, no
country but England could have produced. On going to Nutfield, I resolved
to observe everything, try many an experiment, keep a note-book, and ask
many questions.

We obtained possession of our house at Christmas; but did not go down to
it till the middle of February. In that month (as I failed not to enter
in my journal) the white wagtail re-appears, the woodlark, thrush, and
chaffinch begin to sing, rooks and partridges to pair, and geese to lay.
Mr. Cheerlove told me that the clamorous rook, the cheerful cuckoo, the
swift-darting marten, and the lively, sociable little red-breast, had
been called the birds of the four seasons. We arrived at Nutfield in the
rooks’ honeymoon.

The first thing that struck us was the air. How cold, but how fresh it
was! How clear and free from smoke the atmosphere! A thin blue mist rose
from the ground, but it was but the ghost of a London fog. Then again, as
Mr. Cheerlove remarked, the dirt, plentiful as it was, merely consisted
of earth and water mixed together, without any abominable additions,
and, compared with London mire, might even be called _clean_ dirt. The
leafless condition of the trees gave us the opportunity of admiring the
forms of their branches—the gradual and beautiful decrease of size and
increase of delicacy between the sturdy trunks and the smallest twigs.
The landscape was not destitute of green: the grass, though scanty
and coarse, still retained its colour, and much of the growing wood
was coated with fine moss; while the glossy laurel and cheerful holly
contrasted with the sober laurustinus. Here and there, in the garden, we
found a snowdrop, a hepatica, a yellow aconite, a Christmas rose, and a
few sweet-scented blossoms of the alpine coltsfoot.

When we began to explore the neighbourhood, we found scarcely any
wild-flowers, save now and then a daisy or sprig of gorse, or that
common-looking nettle that bears the splendid name of white archangel.
But we could say “a good time is coming!” and cheerfully await it.
Meanwhile the horse-chestnut, hazel, and honeysuckle were budding, and
the chickweed was putting forth its small white flowers; while the robin,
sparrow, wren, and thrush sang blithely among the bushes, and the lark
poured forth a short but lively song over our heads.

Mr. Cheerlove had accumulated a great many books, which, on wet days, it
was his delight to arrange. We had two country maids and a boy, who found
enough to do, but were not overworked. The first year we made scarcely
any acquaintances; but my sister Eugenia, many years younger than myself
(now, alas! no more), was frequently with us; and, after our loved
mother’s death, lived with us entirely. Before she did so, Mr. Cheerlove
and I used frequently to take little journeys in our one-horse carriage,
jogging on from one place to another, putting-up, when it suited us, at
some neat inn, and there spending a day, half-day, or two or three days,
according to the attractions of the neighbourhood. In this way we strayed
through many counties, and made acquaintance with many rivers, towns,
villages, churches, cathedrals, old castles, and abbeys.

At the end of seven years, my good husband died. He was several years my
senior, but I loved him—oh so dearly! and respected him so deeply! He was
not what is called a shining man, but with the kindest heart, an equable
temper, well-stored mind, a deliberate manner that gave great impression
to what he said or read, without being in the least tedious, and a habit
of employing himself beyond all praise.

He was gone; and the sunshine of my life was gone too! It seemed to me
as though I had never valued him enough while he was alive—might have
expressed more demonstrative affection. We never had an unkind word.

Dear man! how I love to think of him! The memory of his dear, placid
face, his harmonious voice, his gentle touch, and tread, and tone, makes
my heart swell!

Eugenia and I were then left together. She had nothing; I was not rich;
and we quitted Nutfield, and went into a country town. We had once been
members of a large, cheerful family, but death had mown them all down,
and reserved his keenest, most relentless edge for the last. After a few
uneventful years, Eugenia became fatally ill. She died; and I was left
alone! And then I came here.

People were very kind to me. Miss Burt was my first acquaintance, and I
must say she did me good service; never resting till she had fixed me
under this roof. Indeed, she is seldom happier than when doing something
for somebody; her only faults, that I know of, being a love of vexatious,
petty domination, and a great impatience of check. Having nailed me here,
as she called it, she next took me round to a few poor people under the
hill, whom she put, as it were, under my charge; saying her own hands
were full enough, and too full already, and the superintendence would
rouse me, and do me good. I shall never forget her tone and attitude
when, on entering one of these cottages, and espying a small grease-spot
on the floor, she stood transfixed, and tragically exclaimed—

“What’s _that_ I see?”

The poor woman looked cowed; and I am sure I felt so.

When we came out, Miss Burt said to me, complacently and with a little
authority, “That’s the way you must do things.” She had looked into every
corner, turned up the basins and tea-cups, detected a black-beetle, which
scudded away with a very reasonable instinct of self-preservation, and
removed the match-box, which she said was too near the fire.

It might be her way, but I could never make it mine. I could not defy the
_Lares_ and _Lemures_ of a rustic hearth in that fashion; and never could
make myself more at home in a poor person’s dwelling than its owner. But
perhaps Miss Burt did most good.

Time had its healing effect. I had practically learnt that here we
have no “continuing city,” and the impression of the lesson was perhaps
weakening, when I was laid low by a prostrating and painful illness, that
at first threatened my life, and then left me in a state of weakness and
incapacity that has confined me two years to this sofa.

Thus, the story of my life is comprised in few words. And yet I retain
the habit of jotting down its nothings. As a favourite writer of mine in
_Fraser’s Magazine_ has said, “There is a richness about the life of a
person who keeps a diary, unknown to others. A million more little links
and ties must bind him to the members of his family circle, and to all
among whom he lives. Life, to him, is surrounded, intertwined, entangled
with thousands of slight incidents, which give it beauty, kindliness,
reality.”

       *       *       *       *       *

I wish Harry Prout would leave off writing poetry. He might do something
good in prose, but he has a taste, which he mistakes for a talent, for
verse. There are many books of the day which he might translate well, if
he would but seize the passing moments as they fly.

Harry looked in this evening, and gladly remained to drink tea with me.
There was a small iced plum-cake on the tea-table, a present from Mrs.
Secker; and I was pleased to see the lad pay his respects to it pretty
handsomely. We got quite cozy and confidential over our little meal. He
looked about him with satisfaction, and said, “Everything is so trig and
tidy here! I wish we were in your easy circumstances, Mrs. Cheerlove.”

I laughed, and said, “My circumstances are very narrow, however easy I
may make them—or take them.”

“They may be comparatively easy, though, if not absolutely, I think,
ma’am.”

“Yes, there are comparative and absolute values.”

“Compared, for instance, with those of a straitened family like ours.”

“Ah, Harry, there are so many of you! Your father has a larger income
than mine, but there is not so much to spend per head. But soon, my dear
boy, some of you will be able to increase it; and, meanwhile, comfort
yourself with the reflection that the real or imagined necessary expenses
of those who have large means, are greater than those of persons who have
only small ones.”

“I can’t make the reflection, ma’am, because I don’t believe it.”

“It is so, though, I assure you. Take the case of a number of persons
(I quote Archbishop Whately) of each amount of income, from a hundred a
year to a hundred thousand, and you will find the preponderance of those
who are in pecuniary difficulties constantly augmenting as you proceed
upwards.”

“If the _fact_ be so, ma’am, of course I cannot controvert it; but I
cannot see how it should be so.”

“And when you come to sovereign states, whose revenues are reckoned by
millions, you will scarcely find one of them that is not involved in
debt.”

“Ah, they have so many public expenses.”

“And private people have so many private expenses. The temptation to
spend increases faster than the wealth.”

“Well, it seems to me, that if I had but competence, I could keep within
my income.”

“At first you would; but your ideas of competence would alter. At least,
it is the common tendency of people to go beyond their means. I feel it
in myself.”

“_You?_” incredulously.

“Yes, indeed, Harry. Perhaps I think how shabby and faded the crimson
window-curtain begins to look, and I find I can afford to buy a new one.
Then I consider that the new window-curtain will make the old carpet look
very bad, and I find I cannot have that without pinching. Besides, the
new carpet would entail the expense of a new rug; and then the fluted
silk of the cabinet piano must be renewed; and, after all, how little
it would add to the expense to have new chintz for the sofa and chairs!
Thus, expenses mount up—expenses I cannot afford.”

“I see.”

“So it ends in my not incurring any of them.”

“Your curtain looks very nice, though, Mrs. Cheerlove.”

“Ah, I had it dipped and embossed.”

“Your chintz, too.”

“That was washed and callendered.”

“Well, I thought only such persons as mamma did those things.”

“There is no need they should be obtruded, Harry.”

“No, that’s what I’m always so afraid of.”

“Nor, if they happen to become known, is there any need to be ashamed.”

“Ah, I can’t help that.”

“Not always, I dare say, being young and thin-skinned; but the less you
annoy yourself that way, the better. So you think I am better off than
_you_?”

“O yes, with this nice quiet room. You may smile, Mrs. Cheerlove, but
really it’s no joke, when a fellow wants to do a bit of writing, to have
a parcel of children swarming about him, making all sorts of noises. It
has such an effect sometimes on _me_, I know, that I am ready to declare
the supreme good to be, a quiet room and leisure to use it.”

“To write poetry in it—hey, Harry?”

“Well—perhaps—yes.”

“Meanwhile, the high stool in the office—”

“May better be filled by some one else, ma’am.”

“While you—

  “‘Invoke the Muses, and improve your vein.’

Do you admire Coleridge?”

“Oh immensely! Did he make that line?”

“Ah, Harry, you betray your ignorance of your favourite craft! No; the
line is Waller’s.”

Harry blushed, and said, “You laid a trap for me.”

“Not intentionally, I assure you. But my transition was rather abrupt.
I was going to direct your attention to a favourite passage of mine in
Coleridge’s works.”

“Pray do,” said Harry, rising alertly and going to the book-case.

“Bring me the second of those two small volumes, lettered ‘Biographia
Literaria.’”

“Oh, it’s in prose!” said Harry, in disappointment.

“Prose by a poet, however—which, by-the-way, was the name of a pretty,
though not very shining, little work by James Montgomery, that has now
dropped out of sight. Here is the passage: it begins—‘Never pursue
literature as a trade. With one exception’ (I think he means Southey)
‘I have never known an individual healthy or happy without some regular
employment which does not depend on the will of the moment—’”

“Bah!” muttered Harry.

“‘But can be carried on so far mechanically that an average quantum of
health, spirit, and intellectual exertion are requisite for its faithful
discharge.’”

“I’m surprised Coleridge should say that.”

“Well, Harry, he was one of the many people who preach better than they
practise. Hear me to the end—‘Three hours of leisure, unalloyed by
any alien anxiety, and looked forward to with delight as a change and
recreation, will suffice to realize in literature a larger product of
what is truly _genial_ than weeks of compulsion.’”

“Ay, I never write but when the fit is on me,” murmured Harry.

“‘Money and immediate reputation form only an arbitrary and accidental
end of literary labour. The _hope_ of them may often prove a stimulant to
industry, but the _necessity_ of acquiring them will, in all works of
genius, convert a stimulant into a narcotic.’

“It did in Sir Walter Scott’s case,” I observed.

“‘Motives, by excess, reverse their very nature; and, instead of
exciting, stun and stupify the mind. For it is one contradistinction of
genius from talent, that its predominant end is always comprised in the
means; and this is one of the many points of likeness between genius and
virtue.’”

“Then I’ve a genius,” cried Harry, laughing, “for I always write verses
for the pleasure of writing, and not for money!”

“Stop, my dear boy, hear him out—‘My dear young friend, I would say to
every one who feels the genial power working within him, suppose yourself
established in any honourable occupation. From the counting-house, the
law-courts, or from visiting your last patient, you return at evening
to your family, prepared for its social enjoyments; with the very
countenances of your wife and children brightened by the knowledge that,
as far as they are concerned, you have satisfied the demands of the day.
Then, when you retire into your study—’”

“I wish I had one!” sighed Harry.

“‘You revisit in your books so many venerable friends with whom you can
converse. But why should I say _retire_? The habits of active life will
tend to give you such self-command that the presence of your family will
be no interruption. Nay, the social silence, or undisturbing voices of
a wife or sister, will be like a restorative atmosphere, or soft music,
which moulds a dream without becoming its object.’”

“What beautiful English he writes,” said Harry.

       *       *       *       *       *

I was interrupted where I last left off by the entrance of the three
young Pevenseys, with their governess, Mademoiselle Foularde, whom I
had supposed still at the sea-side. But it appears that an epidemic
had broken out at Hardsand, which occasioned their immediate return to
the Stone House. I was very glad to see them all; they seemed to bring
sunshine into my shady little room; and I had a toy railway-engine for
the amusement of my little friends, which delighted the two young ones
exceedingly. Arabella, or, as they frightfully abbreviate her name,
Arbell, has grown quite tall and womanly, for a girl of fourteen. She
has her mother’s good profile, but is dark, like her father, and the
expression of her face is rather stern and repelling. Mademoiselle was
charming; but I do not think she and her eldest pupil go on comfortably
together. Whenever I addressed a remark to Arbell, Mademoiselle answered
it, and went on speaking so as to detain my attention; this occurred
three times, and I could observe Arbell look annoyed. As for Flora and
Rosaline, they had a regular boxing-match, when they thought I was not
looking. I caught Rosaline’s hand in mine, with the little fist doubled
up, and said, “Why, Rosaline! you quite surprise me! I did not know you
were a pugilist!”

She opened her large blue eyes, as if amazed at my interference, and then
seemed disposed to laugh; but I said quite gravely—“No, no, we have no
fighting here. If it is allowed at the Stone House, I don’t allow it in
my parlour.”

“It is not allowed at the Stone House, but they do it for all that!”
burst forth Arbell, and then shut herself up again in rigid silence.
Mademoiselle Foularde darted an indignant look at her, and then drew
Flora towards her, fondling her, and saying—

“_Ah, fi donc, Rosaline! Bonne petite Fleurette! comme je l’aime!_ I
never saw her fight before, did I?”

“How _can_ you say so!” muttered Arbell, and then sighed, and began to
play with her little dog Shock.

After this, the conversation rather flagged; but I showed the little ones
some prints I was meaning to paste into a nursery picture-book; and when
I had quite won their good-will, kissed them, and said, “You won’t fight
again, will you?” Both said “No” very cordially; and Mademoiselle and I
exchanged looks and smiled, and then I said, “I am sure you remember that
pretty verse:

  “‘But, children, you should never let
  Such angry passions rise;
  Your little hands were never made
  To tear each other’s eyes!’

What _were_ they made for, hey?”

Both gave me a quick look, but seemed at fault.

“Why, to work, and to write, and to draw, and to paint pictures, and hold
knives and forks, and spoons, and slices of plum-cake, and to give pence
and sixpences to poor people, and a thousand other good and pleasant
things. Will you remember?”

Both smiled, and said “Yes;” and then I produced slices of the iced
plum-cake Harry Prout had cut up, and told them to hand the plate first
to Mademoiselle and Arbell, and then to help themselves. This produced
general good humour and sociability, and, after the cake had been duly
honoured, Mademoiselle rose to take leave, saying she feared they had
stayed too long, but that it was so difficult to get away from _me_, I
so charmingly blended instruction with entertainment, &c. &c. &c., which
I might have liked better if I had not thought it rather exaggerated and
insincere.

I said to Arbell at parting, “I have seen and heard too little of you.
What a treat it would be if you would spend a morning with me, and help
me to make this picture-book.”

Her face brightened directly, and she exclaimed, “Ah! I only wish I
might!” But Mademoiselle interposed with something about Mrs. Pevensey’s
wish that the school-room routine should suffer no interruption, with a
little smile and shrug to me, as much as to say, “So, of course, we must
obey;” and Arbell went away, looking as rigid and uncomfortable as at
first, carrying Shock under her arm.

In the afternoon, to my surprise, Mrs. Pevensey’s elegant carriage
stopped at my little garden-gate, and Mrs. Pevensey herself came in.
She was charming with smiles and good-nature; and, in her delicate
silver-grey silk, rich velvet, and blush roses, looked so youthful, that
one could hardly suppose her the mother of seven children. She has a
well-stored mind, ready wit, or rather, playfulness, good judgment, and
everything that contributes to make a delightful companion. As a wife
she is admirable, living on the most affectionate terms with a husband
who is considered by most people rather hard to please; she has formed
extensive plans for ameliorating the condition of the poor, which she
is carrying out with great success; and, as a neighbour, she is most
thoughtful and kind—as I have good reason to know.

She brought her own entertainment with her; for her conversation was an
almost uninterrupted flow of what she had done, whom she had seen, where
she had been, interspersed with remarks full of good feeling and good
sense. I must say that, to an invalid, this continuous flow is sometimes
more fatiguing than if the communications were more reciprocal and broken
up. The mind is kept on the full stretch; the eyes gaze on the speaker
till they ache, and even the bodily posture becomes wearisome; yet I am
sure the kind friend always goes away thinking, in the goodness of her
heart, “Well, I have amused her nicely, and given her a good many things
to think about,” which is true, too, though they have been purchased
rather dearly.

It was only after Mrs. Pevensey had told me a multiplicity of things, and
was going away, that I found the opportunity of telling her how glad
I had been to see her children quite recovered from the effects of the
measles.

“Yes,” said she, with a motherly smile, “they all look well—all, at
least, except poor Arbell; and _she_—” (Here she gave a little shrug,
like Mademoiselle, as much as to say, “Something is not quite straight in
that quarter.”)

“I told Arbell I wished she might be permitted to spend an hour or two
with me some morning,” said I. “If I have more than one companion at a
time, I can hardly do them or myself justice.”

“I am sure I wish she would come,” said Mrs. Pevensey, smiling sweetly.

“With your permission, I think she will,” said I. “May I claim it?”

“Ah, I shall be too happy,” said she; “but you don’t know Arbell.”

“Suppose, then, we say to-morrow,” said I, pertinaciously.

“To-morrow the hair-cutter is coming. Any other day.”

“The day after to-morrow, then?”

“With all my heart, if—I don’t know what Mademoiselle will say.”

“Mademoiselle seemed to think the same of _you_.”

“Of _me_? Oh, I’ve no voice in the matter! Mademoiselle has unlimited
sway in the school-room. Mademoiselle is a most excellent creature.
I have unbounded confidence in her. She is quite superior to her
position—came to me from the Comtesse de St. Velay—has written an
admirable essay on education—her brother is professor of foreign
literature at Tarbes.”

“Perhaps Mademoiselle uses your name as a kind of authority.”

“Very likely,” laughing sweetly; “_Mamma’s_ name is probably made free
use of, in the school-room and nursery. I remember when, ‘I’ll tell your
Mamma!’ was a terror to myself. Oh, we all go through these things in
our turn. Poor, dear Arbell! there is excellent promise in her; but at
present she is under a cloud. She lives in a world of her own, is proud
and stubborn, and Mademoiselle says her spirit must be broken. It may be
so, but I don’t wish to stand by and witness the operation.”

“I am sorry to hear you say that,” cried I, anxiously, “for I think the
operation so extremely hazardous, that it ought only to take place under
the mother’s eye.”

“It would affect me more,” answered she, very seriously, “than a surgical
case.”

“I can quite believe it,” replied I, with equal seriousness; “but
possibly your sagacity and maternal affection united would enable you to
discern that no such painful course was needed. If Arbell were a little
more under your eye—”

“My dear friend,” interrupted she, “Arbell is constantly under my eye
already. Do you imagine I shut myself up from my children? No, no! that
would indeed be neglecting a mother’s first duty. Dry recapitulation
of lessons, indeed, and endless practising, fall exclusively to the
superintendence of the governess; but Arbell always _learns_ her lessons
and writes her exercises in the room with me, for hours every morning.”

“I am heartily glad to hear it,” said I, with a sense of relief.

“We lunch together—that is, they have their early dinner when we lunch,”
pursued Mrs. Pevensey; “always except when we have friends. And though my
afternoons are generally engaged in drives, and the children of course do
not appear at the late dinner, they may always do so at dessert, and the
younger ones always _do_. In the evenings, it is very much at Arbell’s
option, or, at least, at Mademoiselle’s, whether they appear or not.
Sometimes Arbell has lessons to prepare; sometimes she is engaged in her
own devices; and really, I think they are more healthful and suitable for
a young girl than large mixed parties, when silly people too often say
silly things to children, so that frequently I am not sorry to miss her
from the drawing-room. And now, good-by! I have paid an unconscionable
visit; but there is no getting away from _you_. I am so glad you are—I
_think_ you are better?”

“Thank you, yes. Then I shall see Arbell the day after to-morrow?”

“Undoubtedly, if she will come. At what hour? They dine at two.”

“Shall I say eleven?”

“Yes, do; and I will send for her at half-past one, because it is nearly
half-an-hour’s walk. Good-by, good-by! I must make peace as I can with
Mademoiselle.”

And she left me with an engaging smile.

       *       *       *       *       *

Arbell has been, and gone. She came in rather before eleven, carrying her
little white lap-dog, who had a new scarlet ribbon round his neck. I saw
directly that the cloud was gone,—she looked as fresh as a rose, and as
cheerful as a lark.

“Good girl, for being so punctual,” said I.

“Punctual!” said she. “Why, I hope I’m more than that, or Shock and I
have raced in vain! I would not let old John come with me more than half
way, and then we took to our heels and ran—didn’t we, Shock?”

“I feel the compliment,” said I, very sincerely. “Perhaps, though, you
would as soon have run in any other direction.”

“No, I shouldn’t,” said she, with a bright look, as she untied the blue
strings of her large straw hat, and threw it on the ground. The next
minute she picked it up, and put it, with her gloves and visite, on a
side-table.

“Why did you do that?” said I, curiously.

“Because you are not Mademoiselle. She says I never can be tidy, but you
see I can.”

“What people can be, they ought to be,” said I.

“What people can be at some times they can’t be at others,” said Arbell.
“Is it not so, Mrs. Cheerlove?”

“Yes, my love, sometimes.”

“Thank you for calling me ‘my love.’”

“By-the-by, why do they abbreviate your name into Arbell?”

“Because an ugly name is good enough for an ugly girl,” said Arbell,
quickly; and then, with a little self-reproach for so captious a speech,
“No, the real reason is, because it is the abbreviation by which the
celebrated Lady Arabella Stuart was called by her grandmother, the old
Countess of Shrewsbury. Mamma read about her in Miss Strickland’s
“Queens,” I believe, and so took a fancy to call me Arbell.”

“Though you do not like it.”

“I like whatever mamma likes, almost.”

“I am very glad to hear you say so, my love. Are you hungry?”

She looked at me artlessly, and said, “I should like a slice of
bread-and-butter.”

“Or jam?” said I.

“No, bread-and-butter. I should only have dry bread in the
school-room—and scarcely that, because Mademoiselle says we ought not to
be hungry before an early dinner.”

“But you have had a walk,” said I, ringing the bell; “and persons who
have left off growing sometimes forget how hungry they were when they
were not full-grown.”

“_You_ don’t.”

“Ah,” said I, “young people only come to me by way of a treat—to me and
to themselves. If you were with me much, I’m afraid I should spoil you.”

“What _is_ spoiling, Mrs. Cheerlove?”

“Can you ask?”

“I know what it is in the common acceptation of the word—it is what
Mademoiselle does to Flora: she spoils her by letting her have her own
way; but she spoils me by _never_ letting me have mine!”

“It is easy to see, Arbell, that you are not very fond of Mademoiselle.”

“How _can_ I be?”

“(Some bread-and-butter, Phillis.) My dear, I cannot reply to your
question, except by asking others; and I do not feel it quite right to
seek a confidence which you do not repose in your own mother.”

“I wish she would let me,” said Arbell, with filling eyes.

“Why, my dear, you spend your mornings together.”

“But how? Dear mamma is always preoccupied—by papa, by the housekeeper,
by the gardener, by the nurses, by her own maid. She must always see
poor little Arthur’s spine rubbed herself” (here Phillis brought in the
bread-and-butter, and went out), “and baby is cutting her teeth; and she
has to give orders about her Italian garden, and dinner, and relief for
the poor, and the children’s new dresses and her own, and to send baskets
and hampers of things to grandpapa. Then, when all this is over, if I
venture to begin with ‘Mamma!’ she says, ‘My dear, I am writing a note.’”

A tear dropped on Shock’s white coat, and she turned her head away.
“Nobody has so small a share of her as I,” said she; “and I love her so
much!”

“My dear Arbell,” said I, after a pause, “I cannot help thinking what
an inestimable advantage it may be to you in after-life, to have had
this training, this by-play, this insight, as a bystander, into your
mother’s life. You may yourself be placed at the head of an equally large
establishment: many girls, so placed, after a life exclusively devoted
to their own studies and amusements, are completely at sea. They have no
practical knowledge, no taste even, for the daily duties which it is a
woman’s greatest honour and pleasure to discharge well; they are complete
babies. They meet every emergency with a helpless, ‘Well, I’m sure I
can’t tell what is to be done!’ and everything is at a stand-still, or
goes the wrong way.”

Arbell seemed struck. “That never occurred to me,” said she.

“In spite of the elegancies by which your mother is surrounded, hers is,
in reality, what many would pronounce, and find to be, a very hard life.
Her cheerfulness, presence of mind, sound judgment, and love of order,
enable her to get through its cares gracefully and successfully; so that
those who only see the _face_ of the enamelled watch, and not all its
interior works and springs, little guess that her head, and even her
hands, have more to do, in their own peculiar department, than those of
some of her dependents.”

“That may be true,” said Arbell, reflectively. Then, after a short
silence, “What would you do in my place?”

“Ah, my love, I should probably not do better in your place than you do,
if as well.”

“Oh, Mrs. Cheerlove!”

“The question is not what I, or any other person might do, but what
_should be done_. A very able and excellent author—well known to your
mother—John Foster, has said, ‘There is some one state of character, and
plan of action, _the very best possible_, under all the circumstances
of your age, measure of mental faculties, and means within your reach;
the _one plan_ that will please God the most, and that will be the most
pleasing to look back upon at the hour of death.’ Now, should not you
aspire to ascertain what is that best possible course, and then most
zealously devote yourself to its execution? I believe you to be capable
of it.”

Arbell looked full of high and generous resolve. “If mamma had said this
to me,” exclaimed she, at length, “I should have been capable of it long
ago.”

“Perhaps you have never spoken to her on the subject with the openness
with which you have now spoken to me.”

“I have never had the opportunity. However, I will not dwell any more on
that. What is the one best course now for me?”

“There need be no marked change in outward performances: only in their
spirit. Your mother loves you dearly, but she is too busy to attend
to all your little troubles. Do you be too busy for them too! Take
an intelligent interest in whatever you are about, be it French, or
German, or anything else; and if interrupted in it, and your attention
distracted by what is being said to nurse, housekeeper, or gardener,—take
an intelligent interest in that too! Think, ‘Ha, here is something worth
remembering!’ treasure it, note it, commit it to memory, bear it in mind,
lay it to heart; and then return with fresh eagerness to the matter in
hand.”

“It sounds well,” said Arbell, thoughtfully; “I’ll try.”

“And if you cannot get others to sympathize with you, why, sympathize
with _them_. It is easy to say, ‘I can’t; their tastes and feelings
are so different.’ So are yours from theirs, and yet you expect them
to sympathize with _you_. Don’t get into the way of feeling isolated.
Robinson Crusoe really _was_ so, and did not find it very comfortable,
in spite of his pretty plantations and snug cave. If you plant yourself
on a little island, and break down the bridge to it, you must not expect
people to be at the trouble of fetching a boat. Besides, you perhaps
seek sympathy at unseasonable times. Your father, in the midst of some
profound calculation, would hardly like your mother to come in and claim
his attention to some sentimental sorrow: she thought he had looked
coldly at her on such and such an occasion; or could hardly have been
aware, such another time, that she felt low and unwell.”

“No, indeed,” said Arbell, laughing.

“Nor must you expect Mrs. Pevensey to have leisure or relish for such
ill-timed appeals from yourself. Be intent on forming a noble character;
and you will be sure to find that character appreciated in after-life.”

“Ha!”

“You will try, will you not?”

“I will! if only Mademoiselle——”

“Ah, let us look on Mademoiselle as some one placed in close relation to
you by our heavenly Father for wise purposes of His own, which He does
not think it necessary to communicate to her or to you. And now eat your
bread and butter.”

She did so, having first given me a hearty kiss.

I am always glad when fine, bright weather on a Sunday morning favours
the church-goers, though I am debarred by bodily infirmities from joining
the multitude on their way to the house of God, and swelling the voice
of praise and thanksgiving among such as keep holy-day. And though my
eyes have sometimes swelled with tears, and my heart yearned with vain
longings, as I have seen the scattered parties trooping past my gate, yet
more often, far more often, I have silently bidden them good speed, and
mentally repeated that sweet and soothing sonnet of Mrs. Hemans—

  “How many blessed groups this hour are bending
  Through England’s primrose-meadow paths their way!
  Toward spire and tower, ’mid shadowy elms ascending,
  Whence the sweet chimes proclaim the hallowed day!
  The halls, from old heroic ages grey,
  Pour their fair children forth; and hamlets low,
  With whose thick orchard-blooms the soft winds play,
  Send out their inmates in a happy flow,
  Like a freed vernal stream. _I_ may not tread
  With them these pathways; to the feverish bed
  Of sickness bound. Yet, oh my God! I bless
  Thy mercy, that with Sabbath peace hath filled
  My chastened heart, and all its throbbings stilled
  To one deep calm of lowliest thankfulness.”

And, since I have been no longer bound to the sick-bed, but only to the
house, my thankfulness has deepened under a cheerful sense of alleviated
pains and added blessings; so that I may sincerely say my home-kept
Sabbaths have generally been very calm and sweet.

I have made out a little routine for myself, which I adhere to pretty
closely. Having early in life acquired the habit of rising betimes, I
have no temptation to curtail the Sunday by lying in bed; nor is Phillis
so overworked as to need, or even to wish for, an extra hour’s sleep. I
therefore hear her stirring as soon as the clock strikes six; and, till
she comes to afford me a little assistance at seven, I lie tranquilly
cogitating on God’s mercies, lifting up my heart to Him, and almost
invariably repeating that hymn of Hugh White’s, which so fitly opens the
invalid’s Sunday.

  “Let me put on my fair attire,
    My Sabbath robes of richest dress,
  And tune my consecrated lyre,
    Lord of the Sabbath! thee to bless.

  “Oh, may no spot of sin to-day
    My raiment, clean and white, defile!
  And while I tune my heartfelt lay,
    Bend down on me thy gracious smile.

  “Let holy feelings, heavenly themes,
    Raise, and refresh, and fill my mind;
  And earth’s low vanities and schemes
    No place nor entertainment find!

  “The looks, the thoughts, the sweet employ
    Of saints, whose treasure is above,
  Be mine to-day! their zeal, their joy,
    Their peace, and purity, and love.

  “My spirit may with theirs unite,
    My humble notes with theirs may blend,
  Although denied the pure delight
    Thy sacred courts with them to attend.

  “The faith and patience of the saints,
    These I may exercise each hour—
  When, weak with pain, the body faints,
    I best may exercise their power.

  “O Saviour! with completion crown
    Desires thou wakenest not in vain;
  Stoop to thy lowly temple down,
    Bring all these graces in thy train!

  “This is thy day of bounty, Lord!
    I ask no small, no stinted boon,
  But showers, rich showers of blessing, poured
    On me, though worthless and alone.

  “If the weak tendril round thee twine,
    It ne’er is hidden from thine eye:
  I cling to thee, life-giving Vine,
    Strength, verdure, fruitfulness supply!”

Hugh White, himself on the bed of sickness, used to send Mrs. Hemans
beautiful flowers in her last illness; and perhaps he may have sent her
this pretty hymn too. I should like to know that he did, and that it
comforted her with the comfort wherewith he himself was comforted: one
Christian poet should fitly thus console another.

Having chewed the cud awhile on this sweet hymn, and possibly on one or
two others, I begin my toilette with great deliberation. It is indeed
always a lengthy process; not on account of any special self-decoration
(of course, the “Sabbath robes of richest dress,” in the hymn, have a
purely figurative meaning, though I think respect for the day may be
shown in the outward garb too), not because I delight in braiding of the
hair and costly array; but on account of downright bodily weakness, which
necessitates frequent little rests and intermissions: and as I have no
one to hurry for, why should I hurry?

However, by eight o’clock I find my way to my sofa in the adjoining room,
with the little breakfast table set near the fire in winter, and near
the open window in summer. I read a psalm, collect, and the epistle
and gospel of the day, to myself, while I recover myself a little. I
have no voice for reading aloud before breakfast. My breakfast is no
great matter; it does not take long, neither do I hurry it; but when
one has nothing to do but to eat and drink, it cannot be a very tedious
occupation. Phillis clears the table, brings in her Bible, we read a
portion, verse and verse alternately, and then I offer a prayer, and she
then goes to her breakfast. Then I lie and meditate a little.

I have put secular books, newspapers, work-baskets, &c., out of the way
overnight; so that the room has an orderly, Sabbath-like appearance. The
large Bible and little Prayer-book are on the small table beside me: some
other book also at hand, in the course of Sunday reading. My canary-bird
must be attended to, Sunday as well as week-day. I give him my attention
as soon as I am a little rested; and perhaps remain at the window a
little, looking at the flowers in the garden-borders, the little children
from the hill trooping to the school with their cold dinners in their
bags, and the hill itself, girdling in the prospect, and ever calling to
mind the verse, “I will look unto the hill from whence cometh my help.”

A widow woman, who nursed me during part of my illness, always comes to
cook my dinner, and take care of me while Phillis goes to church. She
gets her dinner for her pains, and sits placidly reading while the meat
is roasting, now and then with an eye to the spit. Afterwards, she goes
to afternoon service. She is too infirm, and too far from the church to
be able to go more than once in the day.

Of course, I always have a few pleasant words with Mrs. Goodey; and
sometimes she tells me of some case of distress among the cottagers,
which I make it my business to relieve, or get some one to look into,
the first opportunity. But punctually, as the clock strikes eleven, I
commence my solitary prayer service, feeling it a special pleasure, as
well as duty, to offer prayer and praise at the same time that my fellow
Christians pray and praise.

Now, as I do not slavishly go through those portions (they are but few),
which can only be appropriately used collectively (St. Chrysostom’s
prayer, for instance), one would think I should arrive at the end of
the morning service a good deal sooner than they do in church. Sooner,
certainly, but not so much so as one might suppose. For, when thoughts
wander, (and, alas! who is there among mortal men, who, in this respect,
sometimes sinneth not?) I feel it incumbent on me to go over the ground
again. Thus, if I repeat a clause in the litany mechanically, I feel that
the least I can do is to repeat it with more attention, and something of
contrition. Even the wicked king in “Hamlet” said:

  “My words fly up—my thoughts remain below:
  Words, without thoughts, never to heaven go!”

Thus, of course, the more I detect inattention, the more I lengthen
the service. And then again, in the lessons, I frequently read the
consecutive chapters, perhaps two or three. So that, sometimes, Mrs.
Goodey comes in, to my surprise, to lay the cloth, before I have
finished. But, more generally, I have done earlier, and lain back on
my sofa-cushion, and taken a good rest, gazing on my Sunday nosegay,
and on my dear father’s portrait on the wall. I have no likeness of my
mother—not even a _silhouette_; she never would have one taken: but her
face is indelibly stamped on my memory and heart.

Then Phillis bustles in with the one hot dish; and generally has brought
home some scrap of news, which she is in haste to impart.

“Master Frank preached to-day.” (The Rev. Francis Sidney is always, with
her, Master Frank). “How well he do speak up, to be sure! The deafest
in church might hear ’un. Well, I can’t justly mind what ’twas about,
but ’twas charity, I think, or else hope. No, ’twas charity; because he
brought in, ‘But the greatest of these is charity.’ Yes, I know he did.
Yes, yes—’twas on charity.”

Then she adds that Mrs. Stowe’s twins are going to be christened in
the afternoon, by the names of Esau and Jacob. And then I observe that
Esau and Jacob indeed were twins, but that I hope the little Stowes
will love one another more than they did; adding that, as if to show
the universal sinfulness of the human heart, a remarkable instance
was given us in them, that even the proverbial love of twins for one
another was insufficient to prevent one from over-reaching the other. To
which Phillis, with a grunt, rejoins, “The young Stowes ha’n’t got no
birthright.”

In the afternoon Phillis generally comes in, and we read the prayers,
psalms, and lessons together; but sometimes Miss Secker drops in, and
then Phillis and I defer our reading till the evening, unless she goes to
church. Miss Secker brings a sermon with her, and sometimes I speculate
a little, beforehand, whether it will be by Barrow, or Bishop Wilson, or
Jeremy Taylor, or by Douglas Forsyth, or Melville, or Henry Vaughan of
Crickhowel. We generally talk it over afterwards, and though our remarks
may not be very original or deep, they refresh and animate me, being my
only intellectual intercourse during the day.

Often our remarks make us turn to our Bibles to verify and illustrate
them; which sometimes unexpectedly opens up a new subject fertile in
interest. Thus, last Sunday, we lighted on that wonderful statistical
account of the ancient glory and wealth of Tyre, as vivid and minute as
if the details were of yesterday:—how that its famous merchant-ships,
the instruments of its mighty commerce, were built of deal from Senir,
_i. e._ Mount Hermon, and their masts were of cedar from Lebanon, their
oars of oak from Bashan, their benches of ivory from Chittim, their sails
manufactured in Egypt, their awnings from the isles of Elishah; how that
the mariners of these ships were from Sidon, their pilots picked men of
Tyre, their caulkers the men of Gebal; and then the details of their
armies, their merchants, their great fairs and markets, and the endless
variety of merchandize brought to them from all parts of the civilised
world. It gave us a great deal to think of:—and very likely it seemed as
incredible to the Tyrians, that their proud city should ever become a
mere desolate rock, on which the lonely fisherman should dry his nets, as
it would to us that London should be reduced to its condition before the
days of Julius Cæsar, when old King Lud changed its name from Trinovant
to Lud-town.

Another time, finding that Nathanael was by some eminent scholars
supposed to be the same with the apostle Bartholomew, we hunted up
all we could on the question; and came to the conclusion that, as he
was supposed to be the son of Tholomai, or Ptolemy, Bartholomew, or
Bartholomai, might be the surname given him by our Lord to signify the
son of Tholomai; in like manner as he called Peter, Bar-jona, or the son
of Jona. Questions of this sort will continually arise to interested
readers of the Scriptures; for the more we search them, the more do
little twinkling lights disclose themselves to us, reflecting light on
one another.

I happened, unguardedly, to drop something about these pleasant readings
to Miss Burt, when she put me into a sad fright by exclaiming, “Oh,
_I’ll_ come and read to you some day!” for I did not like her reading,
which is too much of the denunciatory sort. However, happily for me,
she found it would not consist with her more important engagements; she
therefore not only refrained, but took some pains to prevent Miss Secker
from coming to me too, telling her that if she had any time to abstract
from her own devotional exercises between morning and evening services,
she thought she might just as well devote it to some of the poor, who
could neither read nor write, as on a friend who could do both, and had
every comfort around her. However, Miss Secker did not see it exactly in
the same light, and therefore has continued to drop in once every two or
three weeks, to my great comfort and obligation. She rarely stays more
than an hour; and when she does not come, Phillis and I have our little
service together, and then I read or meditate in quiet till tea.

Mary Cole, a great favourite of Phillis’s, then drops in to have tea in
the kitchen, and take charge of the house while Phillis goes to church.
I can’t say Mary is quite as great a favourite of mine as she is of
Phillis’s; but that is no great matter, as she comes to see Phillis, not
me. Thus, Phillis has a companion at both her Sabbath meals: it makes a
little change for her, and prevents her hankering for more holidays than
I can grant. And the visitors, neither of whom are capable of walking a
second time to the distant church, get their meal and a little variety
in return for their charge. People of their rank are seldom much of
readers, and it is well to give them a little sober intercourse in lieu
of their falling asleep with their heads on the kitchen-table. To whom
little is given, of them will less be required than of others more
favoured.

Mary Cole, though a heavy girl, is gifted with a sweet voice and correct
ear for music; and as she sits all alone, she beguiles the evening
hours by singing hymns, often to my solace and delight. Sometimes it
is my favourite “Wiltshire,” sometimes “St. David’s,” another time the
plaintive penitential psalm,

  “From lowest depths of woe,”

to the rare old tune called Irish, which fills my eyes with quiet tears.

       *       *       *       *       *

In that twilight hour known as “blind man’s holiday,” I lay this evening
mentally colouring a picture of what I had just been reading, till it
became distinct and real.

A desert place, all sand and stones, with scattered tombs hewn here and
there in the rocks, or mere cairns heaped rudely over human remains,
gleaming white and ghastly in the fitful moonlight. A single living
figure, making night hideous by leaping among these tombs—wildly
shrieking as the moon drifts through the clouds and casts strange
shadows—yelling in ecstasy of fear, to the dismay of far-off travellers,
who hasten on their journey in dread of they know not what. Can anything
be more forlorn than the state of this poor wretch? His fellow men,
at a loss how to treat him, bound him with strong chains, which he
snapped in their faces, and then he fled. And now, unless indeed, some
fellow-sufferer be glaring at him, silent and unseen, from among those
tombs, he is alone—alone with his tormentors, for he feels possessed by
myriads of evil spirits, whom he can no more cast out of his loathing
_self_, than he can tear out his brain. If he can frame a connected
thought, it is of despair.

But three little boats are crossing that surging lake, in the darkness
of night. When they quitted the opposite shore, early in the evening,
the waters of that lake were still. The chief of the little company
lay down wearily to rest, and fell asleep, with his head on a pillow.
The others toiled at their oars, and looked anxiously about, as clouds
gathered, winds rose, and the waves became high and rough, and threatened
to engulf their little barks. The night wore on, and became more and more
tempestuous; they were, seemingly, in great jeopardy: and all this peril
and distress were being incurred that the Son of God might, unsought, go
and heal that one poor man.

He recognises the Lord at once. “Oh!” he says, in anguish, “have you come
to torment me before the time?” Torment you, poor man! oh, how little you
know! You are possessed, you say, by a legion. Well, that legion shall,
if you will, take visible possession of those two thousand swine feeding
on the mountains—swine, which, they who keep shall deservedly lose,
seeing that their own law prohibits them as unclean. There!—the real
Master of those swine has driven them all, impetuously, into the sea:
and _you_—_feel_ yourself delivered. Ah, well you may fall at His feet,
and look up to Him so meekly, gratefully, and lovingly; well you may
suffer yourself to be clothed by His compassionate disciples; and, while
they who have lost their swine roughly desire Him to depart out of their
coasts, well may you, fearing the evil ones may return unto you in His
absence, and make you seven-fold worse, beseech Him to let you ever abide
with Him. No safety, no sweetness, like that of being ever with Jesus.

But he mildly forbids, and charges you rather to go and declare to others
what great things He has done for you; and you cheerfully, implicitly
obey. Strange things have you to relate to those wondering friends and
kinsfolk, who lately thought the best thing they could do, was to bind
you with chains!

       *       *       *       *       *

I have often thought how capitally I invested five shillings a few years
ago, in two apple-trees, which I gave to two poor women living under the
hill. One of the trees produced twelve fine apples the second year; the
year following, its owner sold a couple of bushels of the fruit. In a
cottage full of hungry children, where meat is only tasted on Sundays,
a good apple-pudding is no despicable hot dish on the noon-day board.
Blackberries, of the children’s gathering, sometimes make a savoury
addition to it.

When my cook Hannah married and settled in a cottage of her own, I gave
her a few roots of Myatt’s Victoria rhubarb, and some round, white,
American early potatoes, with enough onion-seed for a nice little square
bed; a quart of peas, a quart of beans, a few early horn carrots, and
a little parsley-seed; also pennyworths of canariensis, nasturtium,
escolzia Californica, sweet-pea, candytuft, and red and white malope. Her
husband immediately dug, raked, and planted the ground, and at once took
to gardening after his day’s work. I need not say they are a respectable
couple. He cannot read; but she reads _The Leisure Hour_ and _Sunday at
Home_ to him.

Though we had a February of almost unprecedented warmth, I am told the
primrose is shyly and charily putting forth its blossoms. But soon
the warm banks will be gay with them, while the sweet wood-violet will
betray itself by its fragrant breath at the roots of old trees. Among
the earliest wayside productions is Jack-in-the-hedge, or sauce-alone;
as ugly a Jack as one need wish to see, breathing odiously of garlic.
Somewhat later, and rarer, is the perfoliate shepherd’s-purse, with its
miniature pouches, that remind one of the scrip wherein a young shepherd,
who lived to be a king, put five smooth pebbles from the brook. Its
leaves, as I lately showed the little Prouts, are perfoliate, that is
to say, they look as though the stem runs _through_ them—a very nice
and singular distinction, never to be forgotten after being once seen.
A fortnight hence I expect to hear the yellow celandine has made its
appearance. Wordsworth, who has immortalized it, as much as a poet can
immortalize a flower, says, at first his unaccustomed eye saw it nowhere;
afterwards, he saw it everywhere.

If the month be genial, we shall, towards its close, see “God’s
hand-writing on the wall” of our gardens, in the opening buds and
blossoms of our cherry-trees. Sheep are already turned out on the fresh
pasture-land: their bleatings and tinkling bells sound prettily. Here and
there may be seen a bee, a small fly, a gnat: how soon shall we see the
first butterfly?

Toads are curious creatures: there was one that used to sit watching Mr.
Cheerlove at his gardening with its beautiful eyes, and sometimes climb a
little way up the paling to have a better view. I suppose it varied the
monotony of its life. ’Tis of no use to cart them away in a flower-pot;
they will return from a considerable distance to their old quarters.
If you hurt them, they will look at you very viciously—and why should
they not? We have no call to molest the poor wretches; the world is wide
enough for us all. Efts and newts are objectionable: they haunt old
drains, dust-holes, and any damp, unaired corners. Moles loosen the soil,
and make sad work sometimes with the roots of one’s flowers; but yet, on
the whole, they are found to do more good than harm. They make themselves
subterranean galleries, and are very methodical, taking their walks at
stated times. Hence it is very easy to trap them; but if you take one,
you may take two, for they are so affectionate that the mate is sure
to follow the leader. Hence I always felt a sort of pang in having them
destroyed, especially as they have such human-like little hands for paws;
and I was glad to be told that the cruelty was unnecessary, and that
their loosening the soil did it good, though it might injure particular
plants. In moving a stack of firewood at Nutfield, we found underneath it
a rat’s nest, containing fifteen partridges’ eggs. How did the rat convey
them there? Did he roll them, or carry them on his fore-paws, walking on
his hind legs?

The starry heavens are now very glorious. Jupiter, bright, untwinkling
planet, is splendid to behold. There are many more stars to be seen to
the east than to the north; no human being knows why. The naked eye
beholds what are called stars of the sixth magnitude, whose light left
their surfaces a hundred and forty years ago. It is very singular that
numerous stars, beyond the range of any but a very powerful telescope,
prove to be placed in _couples_: they are called _binary_ stars. Before
Sir William Herschell’s death, he had completed a list of three thousand
three hundred double stars. His sister Caroline shared his watchings, and
took down the result of his observations in writing.

My dear father gave me a taste for astronomy very early in life; and in
later years I have found star-gazing to have a strangely calming effect
under the pressure of great trouble. I have looked out on the star-lit
sky during Eugenia’s last illness, and after her death, till I felt every
grief silenced, if not allayed, and every feeling steeped in submission.
The stars make us feel so little! our lives so fleeting to a better
world! our souls so near to God! O Cassiopeia, Andromeda, and Perseus, I
owe to you many a consoling and elevating thought of your Maker!

       *       *       *       *       *

My chimney does not smoke once in six months; but to-day, as ill-luck
would have it, an unfortunate little puff came out in the presence of
Miss Burt, who immediately declared that my chimney wanted sweeping
shockingly; and that if I did not immediately put the chimney-sweeper’s
services in requisition, I should not only be endangering my own
life,—which I had no right to throw away,—but that of my servant, who
would not particularly relish being burnt in her bed.

In vain I assured her that the chimney had not long been swept. Miss Burt
talked me down, utterly deaf to the reminder that, being on the ground
floor, we could easily walk out of the house in case of any disaster.

“As if _you_ could walk out of the house!” cried Miss Burt, indignantly;
and just then, Phillis coming in with coals, “Phillis,” cried she, “have
you any mind to be burnt in your bed?”

“I should think not, Miss Burt,” replies Phillis, brisking up, and
looking secure of some very entertaining rejoinder.

“You hear,” says Miss Burt, nodding triumphantly at me.

“You may go, Phillis,” said I, softly, which she did with some
reluctance.

I was in nervous expectation of a fresh puff, when Miss Burt luckily
found herself a new subject.

“There goes Miss Sidney!” said she. “How she does poke to be sure. Any
one can see she has never had dancing-lessons. I think Mr. Sidney much to
blame. By the way, Frank gave us an excellent sermon on Sunday. I wish
you could have heard him.”

“I wish I could,” said I.

“Oh, I don’t suppose you care much about it, as you had Miss Secker to
read Jeremy Taylor. Doesn’t she read through her nose?”

“Dear me, no!”

“Well, I should have expected it. Young people waste hours on their music
now-a-days, but—commend me to a good reader.”

“Then,” said I, laughing, “I really can commend you to Miss Secker, or at
any rate, honestly commend her to _you_; for her reading is neither too
fast nor too slow, too loud nor too low; her voice is pleasant and her
manner reverent.”

“Ah, I like something _earnest_.”

“She is earnest too. What a favourite word that is now.”

“Is it? Then I’ll drop it! I hate words that are used up:—suggestive,
sensuous, subjective, objective. Bad as Shakspere, taste, and the musical
glasses!”

She started up, and was going to take leave, when she stopped short and
said—

“What do you think that absurd man, Mr. Hitchin, has done? Painted his
cypher on his wheel-barrow!”

“Well,” said I, amused, “I cannot emulate him very closely, as I have no
wheel-barrow, but I can put my crest on my watering-pot!”

She laughed rather grudgingly, and said, “I suppose you don’t remember
the tax on armorial bearings.”

The chimney-sweeper has just called!—Miss Burt met him, and told him
there would be no harm in his just looking in, to know if he were wanted!

       *       *       *       *       *

Can April indeed be here? Yes, the blackbird wakes me at six o’clock, and
the nightingale sings long after the sun has set.

The hedges are beginning to sprout, and the banks are decked with
primroses and celandine.

  “Scant along the ridgy land,
  The beans their new-born ranks expand;
  The fresh-turned soil, with tender blades
  Thinly the sprouting barley shades.”

So sings the sweet rural poet, Thomas Warton; of whom I suspect Harry
Prout knows as little as of Waller.

       *       *       *       *       *

Poor Mr. Prout is dead! the father of eight children. Yesterday morning,
while it was yet dark, the turnpike-man heard a horse galloping furiously
down the hill. On going down, he found the horse stopping at the gate,
with Mr. Prout’s foot dangling in the stirrup, and his bleeding body
on the ground. His skull was fractured, and he was quite dead. He was
praising his new, showy, chestnut horse to me only a few days ago, and
saying it was well worth a hundred guineas. It would have been worth a
good many hundred guineas to his family had he not bought it. Poor Mr.
Prout!

The turnpike-man’s wife, it seems, immediately got up, assisted her
husband to carry him in and lay him on their bed, and then washed his
wounds; while the man, leading the vicious creature he was afraid to
mount, came into the town to tell the news and get assistance. Poor Mrs.
Prout and Harry were soon on the spot; Mr. Cecil soon followed. He and
Mr. Prout were rivals, and rather cool to one another; but he looked very
sorry as he hastened up the hill.

I cannot help constantly thinking of them all. Last night, I dreamt I
saw Mr. Prout galloping up the hill, all in the dark, along the edge of
that frightful chalk-pit, to the poor woman for whom he had been sent;
and then coming home, thinking of his snug house and warm bed, when—off
dashed the horse!

I have lost a kind doctor and friend; rich and poor deplore him, for he
was sociable, kind, and humane. Often in money difficulties, poor man;
though I believe his good wife made every shilling go twice as far as
most could. She always kept up appearances, too, so nicely! No finery,
no waste; but everything (whatever poor Harry might think) suitable and
appropriate.

Every one I have yet seen—not many, to be sure, but every one I _have_
seen—expresses regret, and is eager to show sympathy, and wonders what
the widow and children will do. Something for themselves, that is
certain—except the little ones, who cannot. Mrs. Prout is hardly capable,
I am afraid, of undertaking a school; or that would keep them all nicely
together. Therefore, Emily and Margaret must go out as governesses or
teachers; Harry must get a place in some office; something must be found
for James; Edward must be put to school; and Fanny must make herself her
mamma’s little factotum, and look after the two youngest.

Easy to _say_ “must” to all this!

What a change a few hours have made!

       *       *       *       *       *

Harry has spent more than an hour with me this evening. I never saw a
poor lad so overwhelmed with grief. He, the rosy-cheeked fellow! who
would have you believe—in his verses—that his tears were his meat day and
night, is now positively ashamed of crying bitterly over an irreparable
loss. I honour him for so deeply lamenting a good father; it raises him
in the scale of human being—as genuine, well-placed affection always
does. He will now have to exchange imaginary woes for stern realities.

He came quite at dusk. I did not think, at first, it was his voice,
asking if he might come in, it was so subdued. I said, “Ah, Harry!” and
held out my hand. He grasped it in his, and then sat down and sobbed. I
waited a little while in silence; then, when his emotion had somewhat
spent itself, I said—

“I thank you very much for coming—it is very kind of you, for I was
longing to hear many things that no one else could so well tell.”

“Oh!” said he, drying his eyes, “the kindness is to myself—I could not
stand it at home any longer!”

“How does your dear mother bear up?”

“Wonderfully!”—crying again. “But she quite broke down this evening: so
my sisters persuaded her to go to bed; and as they are sitting with her,
I was quite alone, and thought I would steal out to you for a little
while. What a shocking thing it is!”

I knew to what he referred, and said, “It is indeed, my dear Harry. For
your comfort, you must reflect that our heavenly Father is _peculiarly_
the God of the widow and orphan. He makes them his _special_ charge.”

“I can’t think what we shall do!”

“Do your best, my dear boy, and you will be sure to do well.”

“Uncle John will come to the funeral. And Uncle John will very likely
provide for James, and take him into his business, which is that of a
wholesale druggist; but what is to become of _me_, I can’t think!”

“Should you be glad if your uncle took you instead of James?”

“Why no, not glad; because it is not a line of business that suits my
taste. You know, Mrs. Cheerlove,” said the poor boy, faltering, “I
always aspired to be something of a gentleman.”

“And is not your uncle one?”

“Hardly. But I would be anything just now, to be of service to mamma—my
_mother_!”

“That’s right. Perhaps you would like to be in a surveyor’s office.”

“That would be better—only, who is to place me in one?”

“Or should you like to be a medical man, like your father?”

“Ah, Mrs. Cheerlove, his was a hard life! And those hospitals! But have
you heard of Mr. Pevensey’s kindness?” cried he, suddenly brightening.

“No!—in what?”

“Directly he heard of what had happened, he sent my mother a note, to
say how sorry he was; and that as he was sure she would be glad to part
with the horse that had occasioned such a terrible calamity, and he heard
my father valued it at a hundred guineas, he inclosed a cheque for that
amount, and would take it off her hands.”

“Excellent!” said I. “So opportune! so kindly thought of! And this is the
man whom so many think churlish!”

“Ah, he’s anything but that,” said Harry; “and quite the gentleman. Of
course mamma—my mother, I mean—was glad to get rid of the brute, and
would have been so for half the money. How strange it seems! Only three
days ago, my father was patting and praising that animal, and calling him
‘Hotspur,’ little thinking he should so soon be laid low! What an awful
thing sudden death is, Mrs. Cheerlove!—_here_ one minute, and the next in
the presence of God!”

“Are we not in His presence _now_, Harry? We cannot see Him, but He sees
and hears us. If a person is well prepared, a sudden death is, in my
opinion, a great mercy.”

“Oh, how _can_ you think so!”

“Well, I do. The shock is very great, doubtless, to the survivors; but
the sufferer is mercifully spared a great deal of painful discipline: and
if he be but about his Master’s work, ‘Blessed is that servant whom his
Lord, when He cometh, shall find so doing.’”

“My father was about his Master’s work, Mrs. Cheerlove.”

“Certainly he was. He was visiting the sick and needy, in the exercise
of his profession. It could never have been without self-denial that
he turned out of his bed into the dark, cold night, on such an errand,
whether to rich or poor.”

Harry seemed to dwell on the reflection with comfort; and I rang for tea,
and gave him a cup that was both hot and strong, which I knew to be good
for his poor aching head. We had a long talk afterwards, and he left me
in a composed and chastened frame of mind. Certainly, a sudden death,
like Mr. Prout’s, may be called a leap in the dark; but the believer
_leaps into his Saviour’s arms_.

       *       *       *       *       *

This morning, to my great surprise and pleasure, Mrs. Pevensey came in,
bright with smiles, and said, “The weather is most lovely! and you know
you always promised that I should take you your first drive. It shall be
as short as you like; but, if you feel equal to the effort, you cannot
have a better opportunity. And as I am just going on to inquire after
poor Mrs. Prout, I will take you up on my return, which will give you
time to get ready without hurry.”

I felt quite bewildered, for I had not been out for more than two years!
If I had had time, I believe I should have said “No,” but as I had not,
I said “Yes,” and very thankfully too. All my nervous misgivings about
over-exertion and painful consequences were lost sight of in the thought,
how delightful it would be to breathe once more the sweet, sweet open air!

Phillis _did_ stare when she heard of the projected attempt. I think her
surprise vented itself in the ejaculation—

“Well, I’m sure!——”

But there was no time to say more, for there was a grand hunt to make
for carriage-boots, and warm shawls, and gloves, and a certain bonnet
that would unquestionably require all Mrs. Pevensey’s self-command not to
laugh at—it was so sadly out of date. She _did_ give it one amused look,
but that was all; for she is kindness itself, and has too much real wit
to depend for it on personal ridicules. She knew she had taken me by
surprise, and must make allowances. So, having triumphantly got me into
her most easy of close carriages—

“Where shall we go?” said she.

“Oh,” said I, “the turnpike will be _quite_ far enough.”

“Very well. Then, to the turnpike, George,” said she, as the footman shut
us in. But the roguish woman must have glanced, I am sure, to the left
instead of to the right, as she spoke; for the coachman, doubtless taking
his instructions from George, drove us to the farthest turnpike instead
of the nearest.

Well, it was very pleasant! I had been so long pent up, that

  “The common air, the earth, the skies,
  To me were opening Paradise.”

We are nearly through April; and the hedges are quite green, though the
oaks, ashes, and beeches are still leafless, and the meadows are not yet
sprinkled with buttercups. But the blackthorn is in full flower. Besides,
a great many alterations had been effected since I was last out, which I
noticed with surprise and interest; for though hearing of alterations is
one thing, seeing them is quite another. My old favourite promenade, the
elm-tree walk (sometimes called the Queen’s Walk, though the queen’s name
I never could ascertain), was as yet unharmed amid the rage for letting
ground on building leases to freehold-land societies; but, beyond it, new
houses had sprung up in various directions. When I first came to live in
the neighbourhood of Elmsford, there were only four houses between me
and the town; and having for some few years been accustomed to live in a
street, I used occasionally, on dark nights, to feel rather unprotected.
If a dog barked at the moon, I used to think of thieves, and remember
that some suspicious-looking man had begged at the door; or I thought of
fire, and ruefully considered the scarcity of water. Besides, where were
we to get help?—Why, in _heaven_, where I may ask for it at once, thought
I, and for freedom from all disquieting alarms. So I used to seek it, and
then yield to the quiet, dreamless sleep that was _sent_.

Now, in place of four houses, I saw a dozen, with stone porticoes to
the doors and heavy architraves to the windows, and very little green
about them higher than three-foot laurels, which the cows had evidently
nibbled, as they do mine, on their way to and from milking.

At one of these houses we stopped, while the footman carried a beautiful
basket of hothouse flowers to the door, and delivered a message. While we
waited, I heard the sound of a harp, and listened to it with pleasure.

“How pretty!” said I.

“Ah, you may well say so,” said Mrs. Pevensey, with a sigh. “The player
is soothing a much afflicted father, who, in his day, was an accomplished
musician, and a man of fine intellectual taste. I shall take her a
drive to-morrow; it will make a little change for her, which is better
than none. ‘He that contemneth small things shall fall by little and
little.’”[1]

A door or two off, we left a little flat round basket, containing about
two dozen large hothouse strawberries—scarlet, ripe, and tempting, as
they peered out of their coverlet of dark green leaves. Several such
little baskets had, during two or three springs, found their way to _me_.

“That is for poor Miss Peach, who is dying of consumption,” said Mrs.
Pevensey. “Arbell set them out so nicely. My dear Mrs. Cheerlove,
whatever you said to Arbell the other day, has had magic effect! She has
been quite a different girl ever since!”

“That is more to her praise than mine,” said I. “What I said was very
little.”

“All the better, perhaps, since it was to the purpose. She is now brisk,
pleasant, and active—has found her way out of dreamland into the affairs
of daily life. Mademoiselle is highly satisfied with her; and Mr.
Pevensey, finding she was writing a little summary of Italian middle-age
history for her own amusement, was so pleased at it, that he told her
he would give her five sovereigns, if she did it well by Christmas. So
she is carrying it on with double spirit, ransacking the library for
materials about the Guelfs and Ghibelins, the Neri and Bianchi, instead
of moping; and is glad to refresh herself afterwards with a good
wholesome game of play with Rosaline and Floretta.”

“Ah, a golden spur sometimes pricks the best,” said I. “Small premiums
for small achievements are better than competitions for a prize, which
_must_ disappoint one or many. A rivalry with one’s self is the only safe
rivalry.”

“I think so too. And five pounds is nothing, you know, to Mr. Pevensey.”

“No, but a hundred pounds may be more so. Harry Prout gratefully told me
of his buying the horse.”

“Mr. Prout had over-estimated it,” said she, quietly smiling.

“I guessed as much.”

“In fact, if it cannot be thoroughly broken, by Rarey’s means or others,
Mr. Pevensey will have it shot; for he says it is better a showy horse
should be killed, than another father of a family.”

“Surely.”

“And the money, you see, won’t be wasted, because it was useful where it
was sent. There is some thought of quietly getting up a subscription,
under the name of a testimonial. Mr. Secker, the suggestor, will
acquaint Mrs. Prout with it, and ask whether she would like a silver
cup or the money; and of course she will prefer the latter. Only
half-sovereigns will be asked, but those who like to give more may do so
unknown to all but Mr. Secker, as there will be no published subscription
list.”

“All the better,” said I. “There are too few who—

  “‘Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.’”

“More than you think, though, perhaps. There!—now you get a glimpse of
the church. Your next wish will be to be in it; but you must not attempt
too much at first. In a little while, I hope you may manage it.”

Having nearly reached the turnpike, we turned about on our homeward
course. And thus ended my pleasant drive. Had I had my choice, my frame
of mind would have been serious; as it was, it was cheerful. I felt tired
and shaken, but less so than I expected. On saying so to Phillis, she
remarked—

“Said so—didn’t I? My ’pinion is, if you’d gone afore, it never would
have hurted ye.”

Kind words cost little: and I had _had_ a good many. I could not help
thinking, had Eugenia been alive, how she would have sped me forth
with fond solicitude, and tenderly hailed my return!—with some word
of thankfulness, too, to Him in whose hand are the issues of life and
death—some cheery gratulation that we were to be spared yet a little
longer to each other.

But I called to mind the substance of a nice little tract called “The
Scales Adjusted.” Things are often equalized by roughs and smooths being
set against one another. And, though snubbed by my maid, I felt that in
this instance my good things predominated.

       *       *       *       *       *

“So you’ve been and seen them big stone houses at last!” said Phillis, as
she wheeled my little tea-table up to my easy-chair. “They _do_ make ours
look small, don’t they?”

Now this was a very disagreeable view of the subject. Of course, a little
house _does_ look smaller than a large one, turn it which way you will;
but mine—Whiterose Cottage—was quite large enough for me, and could
not be turned in a prettier direction. As we lost sight of the tall,
shapeless stone houses, and came first to the graceful elm avenue, and
then to—

  “Where my cottage-chimney smokes,
  Fast between two aged oaks,”

I could not help thinking how snug and suitable for its mistress it
looked.

True, it has only one sitting-room, save a little snuggery eight feet
by ten; true, it is all built on one floor, and that on the ground:
every room in it, but the first and last, opening into a narrow matted
passage, or gallery. But to me this seems the very prettiest, most
convenient plan, for a single woman with one servant, that could possibly
be desired; and my only wonder is, that instead of there not being such
another, perhaps, in England, there are not dozens, or hundreds. How many
a rich man, now, might run up a little place like this, on some corner
of his estate, for a widowed aunt, or old maiden sister or cousin, where
she might be as happy as the day is long, and live on next to nothing,
quite respectably; and, when she dropped off, like a ripe acorn from
the oak, and almost as noiselessly, the “Old Maid’s Home” might revert
in perpetuity to a succession of decayed gentlewomen, whose simple, yet
genteel tastes would thereby be met by their modest means.

Not that I would have them _called_ old maids’ homes, for that would
stamp them at once, like a workhouse woollen waistcoat, or a charity
cloth cloak. No; they should be Sweet Homes, or have other such pretty
significatives; giving them rank with the best Rose Cottages, Myrtle
Cottages, and Laurel Cottages, in the land. They might prettily be
called after their fair owners—Julia’s Cottage, Maria’s Cottage, Helen’s
Cottage, and so forth. Mine is Whiterose Cottage. It has not an exterior
like a long, narrow knife-tray, or candle-box: on the contrary, though
its rooms lie parallel, they are not of an uniform width or length;
consequently, the walls have what Mary Russell Mitford called “a charming
in-and-outness;” and there is not a straight line or “coign of vantage,”
that is not draped by some gay or graceful climbing plant—rose,
jessamine, lophospermum scandens, morandia Barclayana, ecremocarpus,
nasturtium, and callistegia, or Romeo’s ladder.

The dwelling was built by a retired tradesman of good taste, and some
originality as well as education. He was a widower, without children,
determined to have everything comfortable for his old housekeeper as
well as himself—consequently, the kitchen, though small, is as complete
in all its appointments, as can possibly be wished; with water laid
on, and a little oven in the kitchen-range—in which, as the furnishing
ironmonger triumphantly says, you may bake a pie, a pudding, and a pig.
Phillis, I believe, enjoys her kitchen quite as much as I do my parlour.
Kitchen and parlour stand sentries, as it were, at each end of the house.
There is hardly a hall worth speaking of—only a little vestibule built
on, that will just hold a mat, a flower-stand, a hall-chair, and an
umbrella-stand. Over the threshold, the quaint old man has carved “PARVA,
SED APTA,” which, I am sure, is true enough. And on one of the panes of
the high lattice-window, with its eight compartments, in the parlour, is
written with a diamond ring—

  “True happiness is of a retired nature, and an enemy to pomp and noise.”

On another, “Know Thyself.” The good man, though much respected, was
accounted rather crotchety—and, perhaps, I am so too; for, certainly, I
no sooner saw these little whimseys, than I took a fancy to the place,
and was quite thankful to find the rent within my means. It was not till
I had taken it, that I remembered (towards night) the possibility of
alarms from thieves and sturdy beggars. A kind friend suggested a fierce
dog; but, to confess the truth, I am also much afraid of fierce dogs.
So then, the same kind friend suggested a kennel without the dog, a
man’s hat hung up in the hall, and a large bell—adding, that, with these
defences, I must be safe. I trusted I might be so, even without them. So
here I am thus far in safety. And often, as I lean back to rest towards
sunset, letting harmless fancies have their course, I picture to myself
the old recluse, seated, like brave Miles Standish, with his Cæsar’s
“Commentaries,” at the lattice, poring over some huge old book—Bunyan’s
“Holy War,” suppose—

  “Turning the well-worn leaves, where thumb-marks, thick on the margin,
  Like the trample of feet, proclaimed where the battle was hottest.”

       *       *       *       *       *

“As well be out of the world as out of the fashion,” said our amusing
friend Captain Pinkney; and, accordingly, I sent this morning for little
Miss Campanelle, to hold counsel with her about a new bonnet. Mrs.
Pevensey took me by surprise, and therefore made allowances; but she will
not take me by surprise next time, and therefore I must not expect her
to make allowances again. We owe it to our richer friends not to neglect
appearances consistent with our means; on the other hand, the rich do
us more harm than they perhaps are aware of, when they avow a contempt
for such moderate efforts to keep pace with the times as we ought not to
exceed.

My bonnet was decidedly behind the times.

“Dear me, ma’am,” said Miss Campanelle, primming up her little rosebud
mouth, which showed a strong inclination to expand into a laugh, “there
is enough in this bonnet for _two_. Only, the shape is so completely out
of date, that it won’t bear altering: otherwise the materials are quite
fresh.”

“They may well be,” said I, “for they were nearly new when I put them
away two years ago. However, I mean to have a new bonnet; and I dare say
I shall find some one who will be glad to have this.”

“Dear me, yes, ma’am; it will be quite a nice present,” said Miss
Campanelle, hastily. “There are many people who would be glad to
modernize it for themselves.”

Then, thought I to myself, why could not you modernize it for _me_?
Perhaps she read my thought in my face, for she added—

“There are some people who do not at all mind style, if they are but
respectable. Now, respectability depends upon the material; but style on
the making it up. And it’s style that shows the lady.”

“Yes,” said I; “one style shows the old lady, and one the young lady; one
the fashionable lady, and one the lady who does not care for the fashion.
It does not seem to me so very many years ago since bonnets were worn so
large that it was considered a very severe, but not extravagant, remark,
when some one said of another,

  “‘And all her soul is in her hat—
  Quite large enough to hold it.’”

“Ah,” said Miss Campanelle, “that must have been before my time.” And,
as she still seemed inclined to ruminate on the future of my bonnet, I
nearly committed the unpardonable folly of asking her whether she could
make any use of it herself. Instead of which, I very fortunately began by
asking her whether she knew of any one who would be glad of it.

“Why, since you are kind enough to ask me, ma’am,” said she, quickly,
“I _do_ happen to know of some one for whom it would be the very thing.
Some one _very_ respectable, and very poorly off,—a widow, but no longer
wearing widow’s mourning; only black, ma’am, like you,—who seems quite
overlooked, because she’s below the genteel, and yet no one can class her
among the poor—her manners are above that; but yet I do assure you, she
often dines on bread-and-butter.”

It appeared she was the widow of a pianoforte-tuner, who lodged with
Miss Campanelle; and as I feared it might hurt her to receive the bonnet
from myself, I gave it to Miss Campanelle to give it in her own person
to her, which she was quite pleased to do. And she went away with the
_Illustrated News_ and some black-currant jam for herself.

       *       *       *       *       *

The funeral is over. The house is re-opened, and the little mourners go
about the streets; while their widowed mother must do many things besides
sit at home and weep, for she has to provide for their future and her
own. Mr. John Prout is going to take James, and get Edward into Christ’s
Hospital. How strange the little flaxen-headed fellow will look in his
blue gown and yellow stockings! I hope his round cheeks will not lose
their fresh, rosy colour in London. The subscription will enable Mrs.
Prout to article Harry, and leave her something over. How much better
than spending it on a silver cup or vase, for which she would have no
use! She hopes some one will buy the good-will of her husband’s business,
and take the house, and perhaps furniture, off her hands; otherwise
there must be a sale. At any rate, she must find cheaper quarters. Mr.
John Prout proposed her going to live cheaply in Yorkshire, with little
Arthur and Alice, while the two elder girls went into situations; but she
naturally shrank from going so far from them. Mr. Prout insured his life
for a small sum, so that she is not utterly destitute. I understand there
is a pretty little row of houses called Constantine Place, newly built at
the other end of the town, and that one is still vacant, and thought to
be just the size that will now suit Mrs. Prout.

Well—I have been to church once more!—on a week-day, not on a Sunday;
but I am deeply thankful for it. I went slowly crawling along in the
donkey-chair, the wheels of which would have creaked less had they
received a not very expensive greasing with a little dripping. The ride
shook me a good deal, and the boy kept worrying the donkey with a little
stick that did no good, and only made it obstinate. They who would
quicken a donkey’s paces must observe the law of judicious kindness.
I felt rather bewildered and scant of breath when I was in church:
there were not a dozen persons in it, and the few voices sounded faint
and hollow. I was hardly capable of more than a general emotion of
thankfulness; but the service was very short; and by waiting till every
one else had left the church, I escaped salutations.

——Miss Burt has just looked in.

“_I_ saw you!” said she. “You need not think to creep into any corner
where _I_ shall not spy you out! Well, I congratulate you with all my
heart; and I hope that now you have once begun, you will keep it up.
Nothing worth doing, is to be done without a little effort; and if _I_
were never to go out but when I felt inclined, I might stay at home all
my life. Of course you saw the memorial window?”

“No, I did not look about—”

“Not see the window! Why, it was immediately in front of you! You could
not have helped seeing it!”

“Then of course I did see it; but I did not observe it.”

“My mother taught me at a very early age,” said Miss Burt dryly, “to
observe _everything_. So that now I never go into a church, or room, or
pantry, without seeing everything in it at a glance—and remembering it
too. It is a faculty that may be acquired: and therefore should be. This
was the way in which Robert Houdin taught his son to exhibit what passed
for second-sight. He used to take the child up to a shop-window—the next
minute take him away. ‘Now, Robert, what did you see?’—‘Two work-baskets,
ten penwipers, six whizzgigs.’—‘No, you didn’t.’—‘Yes, I did.’—They go
back again. The child proves right. The boy, by cultivating the faculty,
had become quicker than his father. He took in at a glance the whole
contents of a shop. And applied this habit so dextrously before a crowded
audience, that things which they did not believe he saw, or had seen,
he described accurately. The consequence was, that his father realized
immense profits.”

She paused to take breath.

“I think, however,” said I, “that there are times when such a faculty may
be supposed to lie dormant.”

“No, never. It becomes intuition.”

“I think there are times when feeling takes the place of observation.”

“Oh, if you’re getting metaphysical, I’ve done with you! Never _would_
dabble in metaphysics! When people begin to talk of their feelings—”

“I was not going to talk of my feelings,” said I, with a tear in my eye.

“Fine feeling and I shook hands long ago,” said Miss Burt, rapidly. “Deep
feeling is quite another thing; and does not betray itself in words.
Deep feeling leads to action—fine feeling to inaction; deep feeling is
excited for others—fine feeling thinks of itself; deep feeling says,

  “‘Life is real, life is earnest’—

fine feeling is ready to lie down and die; deep feeling is a fine, manly
fellow—fine feeling is a poor, puling creature.”

“Very good,” said I, hardly knowing whether to laugh or cry; for it
really was clever, only I knew it was all meant for a hit at myself.

“Very good, only you won’t let it do you good, hey?” said Miss Burt.
“‘Excellent soup for the poor.’ You think the cap would fit Mrs. A. or
Mrs. B. very well.”

“No, I was not thinking of Mrs. A., B., or C.”

“You were not, were you, _Mrs. C._?” laughing. “No; that’s just what I
thought.

  “‘General observation,
  Without self-application,’

does little good that I know of. _My_ plan always is to take a thing
home.”

“But, my dear Miss Burt, I laid no claim to deep feeling, that I can
remember; and surely you have hardly cause to charge me so _very_
plainly with fine feeling.”

“Now don’t get warm! There’s nothing that hurts me so much as to see
anything I have meant kindly, taken quite amiss. _Do_ keep your temper. I
assure you I came into this house prepared for nothing but kind words.”

“And I am sure I have spoken no unkind ones,” said I, the tears rolling
down my cheeks.

“Now you’ve upset yourself. This church-going has been too much for you.
Why didn’t you lie down the minute you came in?”

“I was going to do so, but——”

“Why didn’t you lie down? You should have lain down directly. Phillis
should have _made_ you do so, and then have brought you a glass of jelly,
or a little good broth. Phillis was to blame for not having it all ready
for you against your return, without your knowing anything about it. I
shall speak to her.”

“Oh, pray don’t! Phillis’s place is to obey orders, and not to prepare
surprises. Surely I can direct her what I shall like her to prepare,
myself.”

“You are now making a matter of temper of it. I shall say not a word. I
am quite calm, but I feel I’d better go. If anything _does_ make me feel
irritable, it is to see.... Well, well, I will look in another time, when
I hope we shall be in better tune. I’m sure I had not an idea!—Good-by;
good-by!”

As soon as I heard the little gate slam, I had a hearty cry. Mr.
Cheerlove used to speak of people making a storm in a saucer, and surely
this had been one, if ever there was such a thing.

On first coming in, my intention had been to lie down and rest quietly
till Phillis brought me a little arrow-root; but I had scarcely untied
my bonnet-strings when Miss Burt came in. _Had_ I had time to recover
myself, I should not have been so weak as to let her upset me; but, as
the matter stood, she had done so completely, and I felt utterly unable
to resist shedding tears.

“Don’t come in, Phillis,” said I, hastily, as she opened the door; for I
thought I should have some observations, silent ones at any rate, on my
red eyes.

“Here’s Mr. Sidney,” said Phillis.

I looked up, quite ashamed. Kind Mr. Sidney it was, who had, like Miss
Burt, seen me in church, but who had come to congratulate me in a very
different manner.

“I am afraid you have done rather too much this morning,” said he, very
kindly. “I am not at all surprised to see you rather overcome. It is a
good way from this house to the church; and I dare say the donkey-chair
shook you a good deal. I wish there were an easier one to be had. My aunt
uses it sometimes, and says it shakes her to pieces. Well, but my dear
Mrs. Cheerlove, this is a great step gained. I am sure we all have great
reason to be thankful that it has pleased the Lord to restore you to
us. You have a great deal of ground yet to gain, I can readily believe,
before you are quite one of _us_; but still, every step in advance is a
mercy.”

He appeared not to notice my tears, and, though they still forced their
way, they had lost their bitterness.

“I went home,” continued he, “and said to my wife, ‘Mrs. Cheerlove was
in church this morning; I shall step down and wish her joy:’ and I put
this little book in my pocket to read you a few lines, which I thought
you would enter into. What I like myself, I can’t help expecting others
to like;—others, I mean, in whom exists some similarity of taste and
feeling. You know I have known what it is to be brought very close to
an unseen world, and to have been raised up again quite contrary to all
expectation; and, therefore, I can sympathise very truly with you.”

“You had so many things to make life dear,” said I, dejectedly, “and so
many depending on you in your family and parish, that your death would
have been a very heavy misfortune; but I have not one near tie left! My
work, which was never very important, seems done; and I am, in fact,
little more now than a cumberer of the ground. I therefore cannot feel
quite as thankful perhaps, for recovery as I ought.”

“That proceeds,” replied he, quietly, “from rather a morbid state of
feeling, which is not at all natural to you, and which will in a great
measure pass off with your present exhaustion. But nevertheless, I can
quite understand that a Christian believer, brought very close to the
threshold of God’s kingdom,—so as almost to hear the voices on the other
side the door, and very sincerely desirous to enter His awful presence,
under the assured protection of the Redeemer,—_may_ feel a kind of
disappointment at being sent back again into this wilderness-world—just
as the Israelites were when they were on the very confines of the
promised land. But all we have to do in such case is _to submit_, and _to
trust_; and I think this little hymn very experimentally teaches us our
duty.” Then, in a very feeling, calming voice, he read:—

  “‘It is thy will, my Lord, my God!—
  And I, whose feet so lately trod
    The margin of the tomb,
  Must now retrace my weary way,
  And in this land of exile stay,
    Far from my heavenly home.

  “‘It is thy will!—And this, to me,
  A check to every thought shall be,
    Which each might dare rebel.
  Those sacred words contain a balm,
  Each sad regret to soothe and calm,
    Each murmuring thought to quell.

  “‘It is thy will!—And now anew,
  Let me my earthly path pursue,
    With one determined aim;
  To thee to consecrate each power,
  To thee to dedicate each hour,
    And glorify thy name.

  “‘It is thy will!—I ask no more;
  Yet, if I cast toward that bright shore
    A longing, tearful eye,
  It is because, when landed there,
  Sin will no more my heart ensnare,
    Nor Satan e’er draw nigh.’[2]

Do you like it?”

“Oh yes! very much.”

“Carry shall copy it for you then. This little volume is my _vade mecum_.
You may always find my Bible in my right pocket, and this in my left. It
is rather too dear for the poor, which I regret; but its circulation is
already very extensive.”

I found that it was the “Invalid’s Hymn-book,” and that my favourite
Sabbath hymn, which I had erroneously attributed to Hugh White, was, as
well as this, by Miss Elliott.

“Will you let me offer you a glass of wine?” said I.

“Thank you, I shall like a glass of wine-and-water and a biscuit very
much, if you will have the same.”

“I will, then.”

I believe it was partly on my account he had it. As we partook of our
refreshment, he spoke so pleasantly and interestingly, that I was
completely lured away from all my sad thoughts; and, after offering up a
short, fervent prayer, which was full of tempered thanksgiving for life,
and faith in the life to come, he left me quite composed and cheerful.
And here have I been living the happy half-hour over again.

I must just note down something else that he said to me.

“I sometimes hear people,” said he, “deplore their living in vain. No one
lives in vain who does or bears the will of God. Where there is little
or nothing to perform, there may be something to endure. A baby can do
nothing, and is only the object of solicitude to others, but I suppose
no one with any sense or feeling will say that babies live in vain.
Even if they answer no other purpose, they are highly useful in creating
sympathy, watchfulness, and unselfishness in others. A paralyzed person,
a person shut up in a dark cell, may, by patient endurance, eminently
glorify God. And, as long as He thinks it worth while we should live, we
may always find it worth while to fulfil the purposes of living in things
however small. Only the bad, the slothful, the selfish, live in vain.
We may have our good and evil tempers without speaking a word. We may
nourish holy or unholy wishes, contented or discontented dispositions,
without stirring from our place. ‘Since trifles make the sum of human
things,’ even a bit of liquorice given to a servant-girl with an
irritable throat, going out in a cutting wind, shall not be in vain.

“No one can say, my dear Mrs. Cheerlove, that that good and great man,
Sir Isambard Brunel, lived in vain. Towards the close of his life,
however, days of weakness and helplessness supervened, when he was drawn
about his son’s garden in a Bath chair, on sunshiny mornings. Well, Lady
Brunel told me that on those occasions he would often bid them bring him
one of his favourite blue and white minor convolvuluses, and he would
then examine it with his magnifying glass, till he espied the minute
black insect which he was sure to find in it, soon or late. ‘See here,’
he would exclaim, ‘this little creature is so small as scarcely to be
discernible, and yet the Almighty has thought it worth while to give it
every function requisite for life and happiness.’ He did not think it
lived in vain.”

       *       *       *       *       *

Harry has had tea with me for the last time, though he does not go to
London till the day after to-morrow. We have promised to correspond,
which, I saw, pleased him; for, poor boy, he feels very homesick, now
that he is actually going, and will be glad of any little glimpse of his
family that I can give. I said, “How is it that you, who thought anything
better than your monotonous life, are now sorry to leave home?”

“Ah! what can be more monotonous than a solitary lodging will be!” cried
Harry.

“But the romping of noisy children—the crying baby—”

“Don’t name them, please! I see now, they are not worthy to be named.”

—“Are destructive of the repose needful for literary composition,” said
I, rather mischievously. “Then, Margaret’s daily practising—the surgery
bell—”

“Will be sounds by distance made more sweet,” interrupted he. “Pray, Mrs.
Cheerlove, have you ever taken the trouble to—ever found leisure to—dip
into the little manuscript volume of poems I placed in your hands before
our unhappy loss?”

Instead of giving him a straightforward answer, I opened a small book
beside me, and read:—

  “‘In broad daylight and at noon,
  Yesterday I saw the moon
  Sailing high, but faint and white
  As a schoolboy’s paper kite.

  “‘In broad daylight yesterday
  I read a poet’s mystic lay;
  And it seemed to me, at most,
  As a phantom or a ghost.’”

“Oh horrible, horrible!” cried Harry. “So then you think my verses poor
and unreal? Not fire enough? or what—what is it?”

“Pause, and hear me,” continued I, reading on:—

  “‘But, at length, the feverish day
  Like a passion passed away;
  And the night, serene and pale,
  Fell on village, hill, and vale.

  “‘Then the moon, in all her pride,
  Like a spirit glorified,
  Filled and overflowed the night
  With revelations of her light.

  “‘And the poet’s song again
  Passed like music through my brain:
  Night interpreted to me
  All its grace and mystery.’”

“Did it?—did it?” cried he.

“Well, in some degree it did. I read them by daylight, when I confess I
thought your time might have been better spent in almost any harmless
thing than in writing them. After tea I remembered how many of my
own young attempts, of one sort and another, had demanded far more
indulgence. So then I read them again, and not only liked them better,
but liked some of them very well—very much. I do not think, however, that
your verses will _sell_. Here, now, is a stanza you must explain to me:—

  “‘Overcome with trouble deep,
  Rest, too restless to be sleep,
  While these sorrows did combine,
  An angel’s face looked into mine.’

Now, what did you mean by that?”

“That I shall never divulge,” said Harry, folding his arms.

“Oh, very well, then. If you only half confide to me and to the public a
secret that is never to be divulged, we may as well know nothing about
it.”

“There is a very solemn meaning underneath,” said he, gravely.

“There _may_ be,” said I, after pondering over it a little. And a vision
floated before me of poor orphaned Harry crying himself almost to sleep,
and then suddenly becoming aware that his mother was bending over him
with looks of love. “The next verse,” said I, “I tell you frankly, Harry,
I like very much:—

  “‘Oh! if my griefs their hold forsook,
  But at an angel’s passing look,
  Saviour, how great the joy must be,
  Always of beholding thee!’

Yes, Harry, that is very sweet—very nicely thought and worded. Go on
amusing yourself, my dear boy, at leisure moments, only don’t let
it interfere with the real business of life. Sir Walter Scott said,
‘Literature was a good stick, but a bad staff.’ Remember that our four
greatest poets, Chaucer, Shakspere, Spenser, and Milton, were all
practical men; and would never have written in their masterly way if
they had been otherwise. And don’t get into the way, Harry, of writing
far into the night; it robs the morrow—nay, it robs many morrows. There
are young men who like the reputation of being great readers, writers,
and thinkers, who boast of keeping themselves awake to study by drinking
strong coffee, tying wet towels round their heads, and other silly
things. In the first place, I do not quite believe them; in the second,
I always feel a little contempt for boasters: and even supposing they
neither boast nor exaggerate, they burn the candle at both ends, and it
wastes all the faster. Rise as early as you will, it does no harm to the
health nor the head; but remember Sir Walter Scott. As long as he rose at
five, lighted his own fire, and wrote before breakfast, he could devote
the chief part of the day to his other affairs, and the whole evening to
relaxation in his family. As long as he did that, all went well with him.
But when, with a laudable desire to pay off debts,—which, after all, he
could not pay,—he wrote, hour after hour, all day long, and by gas-light,
nearly all night too, human nature could not stand it; his mind, already
overwrought by heavy afflictions and perplexing difficulties, gave way
under the too great pressure he put upon it in its state of extreme
tension. The consequence was, his powers of usefulness ceased—his
magician’s wand was broken!”

“Poor man!” said Harry, after a little pause. “No, I’ll never overdo
myself like that; and yet, Mrs. Cheerlove, there’s something grand, too,
in dying at one’s post.”

“Very grand and very glorious in many cases; only, if you exhaust
yourself at the beginning of the race, you won’t reach the goal, or win
the prize, which otherwise you might have reasonable hopes of. And, to be
_useful_, you must not despise commonly prudent precautions. By the way,
would you like an admission to the reading-room in the British Museum?”

“Oh, very much! You know I shall be quite near it.”

“Well, I think I can get you one. Perhaps you would like to know a nice
old lady and her daughter, who live in a quiet street hard by?”

“Dear me, yes—exceedingly! You know, I don’t know a soul.”

“Their name is Welsh. They are not smart people, but the mother is
very kind, and the daughter, who is some years older than yourself,
intelligent and intellectual. If you like one another (which I see no
reason to doubt), I think your dropping in on them now and then, just as
you drop in here, to tea, would be taken kindly.”

“I am sure it would be a kindness to myself,” said Harry, brightening.
And he took down their address in a little pocket-book, that his sister
Emily had given him as a keep-sake; and I promised to write to Mrs.
Welsh, and prepare her to expect him.

“I know a clever artist, too,” said I; “a sensible, friendly man, with a
nice little wife. They, also, are quiet people; but yet they sometimes
receive, beneath their unassuming roof, noteworthy persons, whom one
would like to have a glimpse of.”

“Why, Mrs. Cheerlove, that promises still better than the other! Will you
write to them too?”

“I will, Harry. And now I believe you know the extent of what little I
can do for you.”

“I call it much, not little,” said he, gratefully; and the rest of our
conversation was very cheerful.

       *       *       *       *       *

I have had a small tea-party, of very small people—their ages ranging
from five to twelve. Two Hopes, two Bretts, and three Honeys. I took
Mary Brett into my confidence, and gave her half-a-crown to lay out to
the best advantage for the tea-table; and it was astonishing to see the
variety of little paper bags she brought back. This having been _her_
treat, Louisa Hope’s was that of being tea-maker, in which she acquitted
herself admirably. All talked at once; and, as I had expected as much, I
was very glad no grown-up person was present to compel a check to it, for
it was not of the smallest annoyance to myself.

After tea, I proposed that Mary Brett should be blindfolded, and put in
the corner, while Phillis cleared the table, and then, still blindfolded,
come forth and tell us a fable of her own making. The idea was applauded;
and the fable was a very fair one, to this effect:—

“A cuckoo, observing a thrush busy making her nest, contemptuously
remarked—‘It is easy enough to stick a few bits of wool and straw
together in that way.’—‘It may be very easy for you to _say_ so,’ replied
the thrush, after dropping a dead leaf from her beak, ‘but if you were
industrious enough to try yourself, instead of using other people’s
nests, you would find the difference.’

“‘_Moral._—People who have never made a book, a fable, or shirt, or
anything, don’t know how hard it is till they have tried.’”

Helen Brett, fired with the desire of emulation, immediately declared
_she_ would make the next; but I made them all file in silence round
Mary, who, touched by each in turn, said—“Not you,”—“Not you,”—“Not you;”
and at length—“_You_ shall be the next,” catching little Gertrude by the
wrist.

Gertrude’s effusion was about as witless as might have been expected. “A
bear—no, a tiger,—no, a bear met a lion one day, and said—‘What are you
going to have for dinner?’ The lion said—the lion said—O dear, I don’t
know what he said!”

This produced shouts of derisive laughter, and Gertrude was doomed to
forfeit. Then the others took their turns, with various success; after
which, the forfeits were cried. Then we had “The Knight of the Whistle.”
I produced a penny whistle, and, blowing a pretty shrill blast, put Willy
Hope in the middle of the room, and told him he was to find out who blew
the whistle. The children ran round him, blowing the whistle, he running
sometimes after one, sometimes after another, never able to find it;—for
a very good reason, because very early in the game, it had been pinned by
a long string to the back of his own little tunic.

Then I reclaimed the whistle, and again blowing a loud blast, said to
Willy, “See if you can do like that;” but dropped it on the carpet, and
affecting to pick it up, produced another, which, the moment he blew it
with all his might, sprinkled his face all over with flour.

Of course, these tricks did not bear being repeated. Moreover, I could
perceive Louisa Hope was thinking—“All this may not be too childish for
_you_, but it is for _me_.” So I said—“Now then, Louisa, write something
on a piece of paper, and take care I do not see what you write.” She
looked surprised, but immediately complied. “Fold it up very small,”
said I. “Hold it to the right,—what are you afraid of? Stretch your
arm straight out, it won’t hurt you! Now to the left. Now towards the
ceiling. Now towards the floor. Now put it _on_ the floor, and place on
it a candlestick, a box, or _anything_ that will completely cover it.”
All this took up some time; and she became a little excited, while the
younger ones were intensely interested.

“Nay,” said I, “stand upon it, so as completely to cover it. I will tell
you what is on the paper all the same.”

“What?” said she, with her eyes very wide open. After a moment’s silence,
I coolly said, “_You_ are upon it.” On which ensued shouts of laughter
from the little ones; while she, springing away from the paper, cried—“Is
_that_ all?” but could not help laughing too.

I had one more trick for her in store. I took six pieces of paper, placed
three of them on the back of my hand, and then, as a preliminary, blew
them away with an air of great mystery—informing my audience, at the same
time, that they were going to see something they did not expect. Then,
placing the other three pieces in my hand, I said—

“Which of these three pieces do you desire shall remain on my hand, when
I blow on them?” The children drew round. Louisa looked keenly at me,
and then, with decision, selected her piece. I immediately placed my
forefinger on it, and blew the others away; while the children laughed
and clapped their hands; and Louisa exclaimed, with anger at herself for
having been deceived into expecting anything better—“Oh, Mrs. Cheerlove,
anybody could do that!”

Sponge-cakes and roast apples concluded the evening.

       *       *       *       *       *

Two dozen rosy little country children and more came to my door this
morning, with their little nosegays of cowslips, primroses, blue-bells,
and cuckoo-flowers, tied at the top of small peeled wands, chanting their
artless rhyme of

  “Please to remember the first of May,
  For ’tis the ladies’ garland-day;”

which Mr. Sidney thinks a variation from

  “For ’tis _Our Lady’s_ garland-day.”

However that may be, who can refrain from giving halfpence and biscuits
to the pretty little rogues? The white-headed milkman is carrying quite
a beau-pot of garden and hothouse flowers, on the inverted lid of his
milk-pail, from house to house, this afternoon, hoping for a sixpence or
shilling here and there, which may meetly be granted to his grey hairs
and laborious life. For, in hot afternoons, along the shadeless road, and
long before dawn, on inhospitable winter mornings, in face of hail, snow,
rain, or ice, this old man punctually fulfils his vocation, which none
should heedlessly call light. He is one of our country worthies. Another
is the postman, who brings our letters at six in the morning, and calls
for those we wish to post at seven in the evening; a stalwart, Robinson
Crusoe-like looking man, with cheery voice and intrepid mien, who wears
a brigand-like high-crowned hat, enormously thick boots, and a leathern
belt, and padlocked bag. I know his swift, steady tramp from afar, and
like to hear his blithe “good-night” to Phillis.

This man’s name is Love. Phillis did not know him or his name when she
first came here, and finding such a formidable-looking personage at the
door about dusk, asked him somewhat bluntly—“Who are you?”—“Love,” said
he, with equal curtness. “Nonsense!” said Phillis. On which he burst
out laughing, and assured her it was his true-born surname, and that
he had no other, except that which was given him by his godfathers and
godmothers. Whereupon Phillis, as she averred afterwards, was ready to
bite her tongue off for speaking such a foolish word, and for a long
time she hated to answer the door to him; but gradually they have become
cronies (I believe he is equally civil to all the servants along the
road), and she even sometimes asks after his wife.

       *       *       *       *       *

Emily Prout came to me this morning, all smiles, to show me Harry’s first
letter. I could not help observing how much older she looked in mourning;
sorrow and fore-thought have laid their fingers on her young brow; while
her manners are remarkably lady-like and self-possessed. Harry, after
warm-hearted inquiries for all at home, went on to say that his first
lodging was horrid—its evils were beyond description. However, in the
course of a few days, he had called on Mrs. and Miss Welsh, who, to
his surprise, had received him as kindly as if he had been the son of
an old friend. It was very encouraging. And they had invited him to tea
that very evening, and everything was as snug and cosy as at dear Mrs.
Cheerlove’s; and Mrs. Welsh quite pitied him about his lodging, and said
she knew a very much better one, _and cheaper_, in her own street; and he
had already moved into it, and was as comfortable as possible. The few
inconveniences that _might_ be named, he would not; they would do him
good:

  “Lives of great men all remind us,
  We may make our lives sublime!”

which he meant to do. And Miss Welsh was a delightful companion, and had
promised (“to take him” scratched out) he should take her to the National
Gallery, British Museum, and all the gratis sights, little by little,
till he had seen them all. And he was always to go to church with them,
morning and evening (“which you know will save the expense of tipping
the pew opener, and be more sociable too.”) And Mr. and Mrs. Whitgrave,
also, were very nice people. He had found an Italian patriot there, who
spoke of unhappy Orsini; and had known that glorious Garibaldi, and
related how Madame Garibaldi swam across a river, holding on by her
horse’s tail. And he did not mind the office life at all; he had so many
pleasant things to think of. James and Ned and he should see one another
sometimes. James had a tail coat, and did not look bad.

Poor, good, brave boy! For there _was_ bravery in thus meeting
insurmountable evils in a great, untried world. I loved him for dwelling
so on the cheerful side; and a tear started into my eye, when Emily,
in her affectionate way, kissed me, and said, “All _this_, dear Mrs.
Cheerlove, is owing to _you_.”

       *       *       *       *       *

“_Il se répand quelquefois de faux bruits._” And the corollary ought to
be, “Do not help to spread them.” Small country towns are proverbially
rife with false reports, often to the serious detriment of their
subjects, even when the reports themselves are not ill-natured.

I have known so many groundless reports heedlessly spread, that my custom
is to say, “Oh! indeed,” and let the matter drop, unless there should be
anything of a noxious tendency in it; and then I not only forbear to pass
it on, but endeavour to make the reporter admit at least the possibility
that it may be untrue or exaggerated. This may sometimes lessen the
rapidity and virulence with which it spreads; at any rate, I have been
found a non-conductor, and my house “no thoroughfare.” When Mrs. Brett
asked me mysteriously if I had heard the dreadful news that Mr. Hope was
going out of his mind, I not only replied in the negative, but gave my
reasons for supposing it untrue: and so it has proved. Again, when Miss
Secker told me that the Holdsworths were such adepts in table-turning,
that the tables flew about the room like mad, _especially after
unbelievers_, I plainly told her I must hear it confirmed by more than
one credible witness before I could believe it; and some weeks afterwards
I had an opportunity of quietly inquiring about it of Mrs. Holdsworth’s
aunt, who assured me it was all nonsense, and that a mere Christmas
waggery had been distorted into a scandal, greatly to the annoyance of
Mr. and Mrs. Holdsworth. That report, too, of old Mrs. Ball’s sudden
death, and their holding a glass over her mouth to see if she breathed,
actually had not a shadow of foundation, and would never have been
traced, had not some one accidentally opened a letter that was intended
for somebody else.

This morning, Miss Burt told me what I should be very sorry to hear, were
I assured of its truth, although I have no personal acquaintance with
the parties. But though Mr. and Mrs. Ringwood may have had some little
differences, I cannot think that they will separate. His companionable
qualities are such, that they lead him too much into society; and, as the
editor of a somewhat influential local paper, he has a certain literary
reputation. This may (though it need not) make him less domestic and more
dissatisfied with cold mutton at home than one could wish, especially
if the cold meat be accompanied with cold looks, and the only tart is a
tart reply. Nor is it impossible that Mrs. Ringwood may be a bit of a
worry, and revenge herself for lonely evenings by morning confidences of
how she is used, and what she has suffered. I think she looks a little
querulous and self-conceited. But this report I believe to be idle.

       *       *       *       *       *

Mrs. Pevensey has again taken me a drive. This time, it was through the
town, along the north road, and all round Hutchley Heath, which looked
lovely. As we passed Mrs. Prout’s, it was melancholy to see the sale
going on:—old stair-carpets hanging out of the windows, shabby-looking
chairs and glasses on the door-step and in the hall, with business-like
brokers looking at them in a disparaging way. The surgeon, who has
purchased the business, has been glad to take the house, but not the
furniture; so Mrs. Prout is selling off all she does not want, and
removing the rest into No. 2, Constantine Terrace, where everything is so
fresh and clean, that Mrs. Pevensey thinks she will find herself far more
comfortably situated than in her large, old house.

“Well,” said Mrs. Pevensey, smiling, “we are going to have a great loss
in our family. We are going to lose Mademoiselle Foularde!”

“Indeed!” said I.

“Yes; she is going to leave us at Midsummer, and settle in Germany. She
is engaged to be married to a Professor Bautte.”

“Professor of what?”

“Gymnastics.—I knew you would smile; but you _would_ ask.”

“Oh, I only smiled because I was surprised. I concluded he was a
professor of metaphysics, at least; or something prodigiously learned,
that I did not understand.”

“Gymnastics are safer than German metaphysics. The one can but break your
neck, the other may turn your head.”

“So you will have to look out again.”

“Yes, but at my leisure. I think of taking all the children to the
sea-side for the holidays; and as the younger ones are rather beyond the
nurse, and require to be kept a little in order, I have been thinking
of offering to take Emily Prout with us, if she would undertake their
charge.”

“Dear me! what a very nice thing!”

“You do not think she would object to it, then?”

“Oh no! I am persuaded she would like it exceedingly. She is so very
anxious not to be burthensome to her mother! And she is much more womanly
than she was. Her manners are so quiet and pleasant, that I feel sure you
will like her.”

“Well, it may be that if I found her enough of a governess for Rosaline
and Flora, we may make a permanent engagement; but I shall prefer seeing
what is in her first, which I can very well do during the holidays. She
is very young, I believe.”

“Barely seventeen. Too young for Arbell.”

“Oh, I am not thinking of Arbell. Arbell is getting on very well at
present; the chief danger is of her doing too much. She is growing fast,
and I shall not be sorry to slacken her lessons a little for some months.
If I find I can leave the children quite comfortably with Miss Prout,
at Hardsand, Mr. Pevensey and I shall probably take Arbell with us on a
tour of some extent. It will open her mind, and give her something to
remember with pleasure, all the rest of her life.”

“It will, indeed, be a great treat to her; and it is such an advantage to
young people to see new and interesting places with their parents. Is she
sorry Mademoiselle is going away?”

“Not sorry; but she behaves to her very pleasantly, and is busy in my
room, at every spare moment, working a present for her. Arbell is very
clever at her needle.”

“That is a good thing, for every woman ought to be so, whatever her
condition. How it beguiled the captivity of Mary Queen of Scots! Queen
Caroline, the wife of George II., used to do great quantities of
knotting. And think how Marie Antoinette, Madame Elizabeth, and Madame
Royale, used to mend their own clothes and those of the poor king, in
the tower of the Temple. No doubt it, in some measure, diverted their
thoughts from their sad fate. The tranquillizing effect of needle-work is
what our impulsive, excitable sex cannot be too grateful for.”

“My mother knew an old Scotch countess,” said Mrs. Pevensey, “who, in
her latter days, used often to exclaim, piteously, ‘Oh, that I could
sew!’”

After a pause she resumed:—“I have sometimes puzzled myself about the
much-vexed question, ‘Should we try to do good in the world at large,
before we have done all the good that needs to be done at home?’ There is
a great cry got up against Mrs. Jellaby, and other pseudo-representatives
of a class whose sympathies are widely engaged; and so much has been said
about ‘charity beginning at home, and charity that ends there,’ that one
gets rather perplexed. The Bishop of Oxford has, I think, lately settled
the question. He said, ‘Our Saviour foresaw and provided against it, by
dispersing His disciples far and wide, while yet much remained to be done
in Jerusalem.’ Here is a guide, then, for us: we may do all the good we
can, far and wide, even though we should be disappointed nearer home, or
even _in_ our homes, of doing all the good we _wish_.”

After this, we fell into a very interesting conversation, which I only
hope was as profitable to her as I felt it to be to me. I have been
stupid and sluggish of late, but this interchange of thought, feeling,
and experience quite roused me.

Christian and Hopeful were approaching the end of their journey when they
came to the drowsy land called the Enchanted Ground; and the way they
kept themselves awake was, by conversing freely on their past experiences
of God’s mercies and providences.

       *       *       *       *       *

This morning, I have had rather a painful little adventure.

Though the wind was southerly, and the clouds portended rain, yet Phillis
was sure it would blow off. In fact, she had set her mind upon certain
cleaning, which I believe she preferred doing in my absence; and as
I took a hopeful view of the weather, I went to the week-day morning
service at church.

On returning, as usual, in the rear of the little congregation, I was
slowly drawling along Church Row, and thinking what a pity it was that
such good houses should be so falling out of repair, when down came the
rain very heavily. I had just passed Mrs. Ringwood’s, and noticed that
the parlour-blind wanted mending, and that Mrs. Ringwood, with a baby
in her arms, was idly looking over it. I began to spread my shawl more
completely over me, and was putting up my umbrella, when some one from
behind called, “Mrs. Cheerlove! Mrs. Cheerlove!”

The boy stopped the donkey, and said, “There’s Mrs. Ringwood a calling of
you.”

I looked round, and saw her, without her baby, standing on her door-step,
with her light curling hair blowing in the wind, while she eagerly looked
after me.

“Do come in, ma’am,” cried she, with great good-nature, and colouring as
she spoke. “It is raining quite fast! I am sure you ought not to be out
in it.”

The boy, at the same moment, took the matter into his own hands, by
turning the donkey round, so that I was before her door the next minute.

“I don’t think it will come to much,” said I, bowing and smiling. “I’m
extremely obliged to you. _Pray_ don’t come into the rain.”

“Oh, it won’t hurt me,” said she, now at my side, “and it _will_ hurt
you. Do come in till it is over.”

It was very good-natured of her. I made no more resistance, but alighted
as quickly as my infirmities would permit, and entered the house just as
the rain became a violent shower.

I was turning round to speak to the boy, when I saw him drive off,
at a good deal quicker pace than he drove _me_; and Mrs. Ringwood
said, laughing, “I told him to come for you when the shower was over;
otherwise, the chair would have been quite wet, and unfit for your use.”

So I followed her into the parlour, where she had put the baby down on a
sofa, in order that she might run out to me.

“It was very lucky,” said she, “that I was looking over the blind.”

My heart smote me for having called her, even to myself, idle; and I
thanked her very gratefully for her kindness. She answered with a smile,
and then left me for a moment or two alone with the baby. It was a long
while since I had been alone with a baby; I looked at it with interest,
and amused myself by making it smile.

A casual glance round the room disappointed my expectations of its
comforts and capabilities. It was smaller than I should have supposed it,
and inelegantly contrived. No fitting up could have concealed this; but
the fitting up was not very good. The carpet was showy and shabby, and
did not harmonize with the paper. The room wanted papering and painting;
but the window-curtains were conspicuously new, and made the rest of
the furniture look still more worn. On the table lay _Punch_ and the
_Athenæum_, and a smart cap in the process of making.

Mrs. Ringwood came back, looking rather discomfited. “Dear me,” said she,
“I can’t find my keys—Oh, here they are!” And carrying them off, and her
cap at the same time, she presently returned with a glass of wine and a
biscuit, saying, “You really must take this.”

In vain I assured her I was a water-drinker; I saw I should hurt her if I
declined, and therefore took the glass, and put it to my lips, though I
knew it would do me no good.

“I don’t know what I should do without a glass of wine sometimes,” said
she. “I hope baby has not been troublesome.”

“O no! What a nice little fellow he is! How old is he?”

So then ensued some baby-talk, which seemed to make us much better
acquainted.

“He must be a great resource to you,” said I.

“Well, children are plagues as well as pleasures, sometimes,” said Mrs.
Ringwood. “I often think people who have no families have no idea of what
mothers go through.”

“That is true enough, I dare say,” said I. “But the maternal instinct
is implanted to make us insensible to those troubles—or, at least,
indifferent to them.”

“Oh, nobody can be indifferent to them, Mrs. Cheerlove! Duty is duty, and
pleasure is pleasure; but they don’t amount to the same thing, for all
that.”

This was said with an asperity which seemed to place us miles apart
again. The next moment she added, “At least, time was—when I was very
young, you know, and fresh married—when I believe I really did think them
one and the same thing.” She gave a little laugh, to hide a tear.

“I don’t know how it may be with you,” said I, twining the baby’s little
fingers round mine, “but I think in most people’s lives there are times
when, all at once, they seem to break down under their burthens, and to
need a friendly arm to set them up again.”

“Some have not that friendly arm,” said she, her mouth twitching. “I only
wish I had. Oh my goodness, Mrs. Cheerlove!”—suddenly becoming familiar
and voluble—“you’ve no idea what a life mine is! These four walls, if
they had tongues, could tell strange stories!”

“Ah! what walls could not?” said I, hastening from particulars to
generals. “We were not sent into this world to be happy——”

“Well, _I_ think we _were_,” interrupted she; “and yours must be a
strange, gloomy religion if it makes you think otherwise.”

“At any rate, we cannot depend on being happy,” said I, “as long as our
happiness is founded on anything in this world.”

“Ah! there I agree with you,” said she, sighing profoundly; “there’s no
trusting to anything, or any one, whether servant, friend, or husband—you
find them all out at last.”

She fixed her eyes on mine.

“My lot,” said I, “was, I know, a favoured one; but I never found out
anything of Mr. Cheerlove, but that he was a great deal better and wiser
than myself.”

She raised her eyebrows a little.

“Some think that all men are superior to all women,” said she, rocking
the baby to and fro, “but I can’t subscribe to that opinion. I think we
have our rights and our feelings as well as our duties; and our rights
and our feelings have some little claim to attention. When a man makes
invidious remarks—”

“Or a woman either,” said I, laughing a little.

“—Which are felt to be meant for personal application,” pursued she,
“one’s spirit rises.”

“Certainly, it is best to speak out,” said I, “or else be silent.”

“Oh, let them speak out! If it’s in them, I’d rather it came out of them.
I detest your innuendoes!”

“However,” said I, “we can never make the crooked tree straight. We must
take people as we find them.”

“Or _leave_ them!” said she. Then, suddenly pausing, she pressed me,
quite in an altered tone, to take a little more wine. “You have scarcely
tasted it—perhaps you prefer some other sort.”

“Oh no, thank you. The fact is, I have so long been a water-drinker, that
even a little sip makes my mouth feel all on fire.”

“Ah! then that can’t be pleasant, I’m sure,” said she, cordially. “I
won’t press you to have any more. I only wish I knew what you _would_
like.”

“I like looking at you and your baby,” said I, smiling.

“Do you think him like me?”

“Yes.”

“Ah! you said that, I fear, to please me. I own I laid myself out for
it. But now, tell me, Mrs. Cheerlove, don’t you think that we have
pleasing things said rather too often to us before marriage, and too
seldom afterwards?”

“Yes, I think that is sometimes the case.”

“Oh, and how it depresses one, not to know if you please!—nay, to be
pretty sure you don’t! I’m sure, I could do anything, almost, to give
satisfaction—take down a bed, lift a box!—”

“You would be like the French crossing the Alps when the trumpet sounded.”

“Just so; I lose all sense of fatigue and crossness.”

“Can’t you hear a _mental_ trumpet?”

“What?”

“Something _within_, that shall cheer you along your path.”

“Ah! I fear I can’t.”

And the poor little woman, gushing into grief, told me, the acquaintance
of an hour, such a tale of woe, that my tears flowed with hers. She was
comforted by my sympathy, and said, clasping her hands—

“Oh that I could see my path clear!”

“I think you will,” said I, though my hope was not very sanguine.

“Sometimes I think I’ll write to mamma. I sit down and write her such
long letters, and after all, don’t send them.”

“Excellent!” said I.

She looked surprised.

“Your plan is excellent,” I pursued. “By pouring out your griefs to your
dearest and earliest friend, you relieve your own mind; and, by not
sending your letter, you give no pain to hers.”

“But it is merely from irresolution,” said she.

“Never mind what it is from. The plan is excellent. Continue to write
to her—write often—pour out your whole heart—and then put the letter
carefully away till the next day; enjoy the comfort of finding what a
strong case you made out—and, having done so, burn it!”

“Are you joking?” said she.

“No, as serious as possible. It is no joking matter.”

“Well, I thought you were too kind to do so. And, dear me! I feel a
great deal better for this talk. Things don’t look so dark; and yet they
have not in the least altered.”

“Only a different hue is thrown over them. That makes all the difference
sometimes;—and answers as well as if the things _were_ altered; as long
as we can make the hue last.”

“Only,” said she, beginning to chafe a little, again, “one cannot bear to
be put upon.”

“Ah,” said I, gently putting my hand on her arm, “_the Christian will
even bear to be put upon_, be it ever so much, and, for his Master’s
sake, bear it patiently; and when he _has_ so far subdued his feelings as
to be able so to do, how glorious the triumph, the happiness, and peace
that will take possession of his heart!”[3]

“Oh!” said she, after a moment’s deep pause, “what a cordial! How _could_
you say it? What a mind you must have!”

“Not at all,” stammered I, feeling dreadfully stupid and humiliated.

“_Could_ you say it all over again? I have such a poor head, and would
so gladly retain it. You can’t, I suppose. Ah! well—‘the Christian can
bear to be put upon,’—that was the text—that’s enough. It will bring all
the rest to mind—the general effect, that is.”

“And you’ll try to _act_ upon it?”

“Yes. I really will. I give you my word. Only it isn’t at all fair all
the effort should be on one side. But I’ll try, though I’m sure I shall
break down.”

“Oh no! I hope better things of you!”

“Ah, you don’t know me—I’m such a poor, weak creature. I don’t like
_him_ to say so, though,” she added, laughing, with one of those sudden
transitions which seemed natural to her.

“Here comes the donkey-chair. I thank you _very_ much for your great
kindness.”

“Mine? oh, don’t name it. It has been all on the other side! What is the
line of poetry about ‘An angel unawares——’”

“In the Bible,” suggested I, provoked at being tempted to smile.

“Oh yes! (what a shame!) ‘thereby entertained,’ and so on. Which is just
what I’ve done, you know. Oh, I’m so sorry you’ll go. Do look in again
some day. I have very few friends; for some people look down on me, and
I look down on some other people. And so I get no society at all. Baby
wants you to kiss him. ‘Ta, ta, Mrs. Cheerlove.’ Pretty fellow!” (kissing
him rapturously). “Mind you don’t get the hem of your dress draggled as
you go down the steps. There now, the scraper has torn your braid! Mind
your foot does not catch in it, and throw you on your face. I’ll have
that scraper mended against you come next. Mr. Ringwood has spoken of it
several times. You’ve done me so much good, you can’t think! more than a
glass of wine!”

Poor little woman! I’m afraid her head is rather empty. But if her
intellect has not been much cultivated, she has genuine affections—with
a good deal of _étourderie_, wilfulness, and self-appreciation. How they
will get on together I cannot conjecture. A chance word of mine made a
transient impression; but “the next cloud that veils the skies” will
sweep it all away.

We must not, on that account, however, relax our humble endeavours, nor
despise the day of small things. Line upon line, precept on precept, here
a little and there a little, effect something at last. Grains of sand
buried the Sphinx.

       *       *       *       *       *

Directly I saw Phillis, I perceived a very queer expression on her face.
“Ah,” thought I, “she remembers what she said about the weather, and is
rather ashamed of my having been caught in the rain. I shall charge her
with it, and hear what excuses she can make. She is a capital hand at
self-defence.”

But, at that moment, my ears were struck by a loud, harsh, jarring sound,
that absolutely petrified me—the piercing scream of a cockatoo!

“Where in the world is that bird!” cried I, in dismay.

“In our kitchen, ma’am,” said Phillis, demurely. “’Tis a present from
Miss Burt. I guess she thought you was fond of birds.”

“Fond of them? Why, I’m so fond of them that I can’t bear to see them in
cages.”

“But this here thing’s on a stand!”

“Or anywhere but in their native woods,” continued I, rapidly. “I have
been offered canaries and bullfinches again and again, and always
refused. The sweetest melody could not reconcile me to their captivity.
And a cockatoo, of all birds in the world! Why, it will drive me
distracted!”

“Well, there, _I_ says ’tis a nasty beast,” says Phillis, with a groan,
“and has made a precious mess on my clean floor already, scattering and
spirting its untidy messes of food all about, and screeching till one
can’t hear one’s self speak. ‘Do be quiet, then!’ I’ve bawled to it a
dozen times, and it answered me quite pert with, ‘_cockatoo!_’”

I could not help laughing. “Really,” said I, “it is too bad of Miss
Burt—she might have given me warning.”

“Oh, I suppose she thought ’twould be an agreeable surprise,” said
Phillis, with a grim smile. “There’s a note for you along with it.”

“Pray give it me.”

This was the note:—

                            “5, Chickweed Place, Elmsford, June 10.

    “My dear Mrs. Cheerlove,

    “I’m off this afternoon to Canterbury, to spend a month; and,
    meanwhile, have sent you my cockatoo to amuse you. Perhaps
    you did not know I had one. It only arrived yesterday, as a
    present from Lady Almeria Fitzhenry. So you see it is quite
    an aristocratic bird; and it will look extremely well on your
    lawn in fine weather, and, on wet days, afford you company.
    Mrs. Grove is dying to have one, so you may consider yourself
    favoured. If you get attached to it, you shall have it all the
    winter. I am sure it will be a pet with Phillis.

                    “Your affectionate friend,

                                                   “CORNELIA BURT.”

    “P.S. Please send me back the directions for making the magic
    ruff.”

“Phillis,” said I, “Miss Burt thinks you will make the cockatoo quite a
pet.”

“It’s a great deal more likely to put me into a pet,” said she. (Screech,
screech, went the cockatoo.)

“He knows you are talking of him,” said I, “and does not like to be
spoken ill of behind his back.”

“Then he’ll hear no good of himself from me,” says Phillis.

“The donkey-boy is waiting to be paid,” said I, “and Miss Burt wants
something sent back. I will send it by him, and write her a line about
the bird.”

“Suppose he takes it back,” cried Phillis.

“No, that would hardly do.”

“Well, ’twould look queer-like, that big stand in the donkey-chair!” and
she went off laughing.

I hastily wrote:—

                             “Whiterose Cottage, Wednesday morning.

    “My dear friend,

    “On returning from church, I found your kind note and your bird
    awaiting me, and I am sorry your maid was obliged to return
    without the directions for knitting the ruff, which I inclose.
    You are very good to provide an amusement for me in your
    absence; but if Mrs. Grove really wishes for the cockatoo, I
    hope you will let me transfer it to her, for its loud voice is
    too much for me, and I understand nothing of the management of
    birds. Wishing you a pleasant visit to your friends, I remain,

                         “Affectionately yours,

                                                 “HELEN CHEERLOVE.”

Having dispatched this missive, I felt greatly relieved; but my morning’s
work had so tired me that I was fit for nothing but a long rest on the
sofa, and would gladly have taken a little nap; but, every time my eyes
were ready to close, I was roused by the angry cry of “cockatoo.”

“That bird is a most disagreeable animal,” thought I. “How can any one
endure him? Even the wearisome cry of a gallina would less offend my
ears. It would be long before I should wish for a parrot: but a parrot is
a clever, entertaining bird, and affords some variety—this bird has only
one word. A rook can only say ‘caw,’ yet contrives to make its one harsh
note tolerably pleasant; but _this_ tiresome thing—Oh dear, there it
goes again! Phillis must be tormenting it.”

In fact, the cockatoo set up such a noise that I became quite irritable,
and rang the bell. “Phillis, don’t worry that bird.”

“_I_ worrit the bird?” cries she, in high dudgeon, “why, I wasn’t even in
the kitchen. I declare it worrits _me_!”

And, hastening off, she soon returned with the cockatoo on its stand,
flapping its wings, and violently pecking her bare arms, and set it down
before me with a jerk, saying, “There, you’ll see now, mum, whether it’s
worrited by me or not. And it was a present, not to me, but to yourself.”

“Poor Phillis! how _could_ you let it peck your arms so?”

“Oh!” said she, mollified, and smearing them with her apron, “I’m not
made of gingerbread!”

“But I really cannot have this bird _here_.”

“Why, you see, he’s quiet with _you_.”

“But, if he is, I cannot be. I was trying to go to sleep; and I shall
expect him to scream every moment.”

“Oh well, then, I must carry him off.”

“Don’t let him peck your arms more than you can help.”

“Of course I shan’t,” said she.

“He’s really a handsome bird.”

“Handsome is that handsome does,” said Phillis, pitying her arms.

“Perhaps if I go along with you, offering him something to eat, he may
not fly at you.”

“Well, you can but try, mum,” said Phillis.

So I did try; and directly he felt his perch in motion he flew, not at
her, but at me.

“Oh, that’ll never do!” says Phillis. “Tell ye what, you radical, I’ll
wring your neck for you as soon as think, if you don’t keep quiet.
Please, mum, leave ’un alone—you only makes him wus.”

And off she went with her screeching enemy, leaving me deeply impressed
with her own valour, and my incapability.

A man has just called for Mr. Cockatoo, bringing rather a _dry_ note from
Miss Burt, saying she was sorry I could not take a kindness as it was
meant.

       *       *       *       *       *

Early as the sun now rises, the nightingale is awake while yet dark,
uttering the sweetest melody. Then a profound pause ensues; which, in
half-an-hour or less, is broken by some infinitely inferior songsters;
and soon, when the glorious sun uprears himself in the east, a full
chorus of larks, linnets, thrushes, blackbirds, redbreasts, titmice,
redstarts, and other warblers, pour forth their morning hymn of praise;
while the rooks caw on the tall tree-tops, and the wood-pigeon and cuckoo
are heard in the distant wood.

Yes, I am fond of birds in their own green shades. I am fond, too, of
entomology, though not very knowing in it. The change of grubs into
butterflies is so striking, that, as Swammerdam says, “We see therein
the resurrection painted before our eyes.” Spence and Kirby, in their
delightful book, have elicited wondrous facts. How many people see rooks
following the plough without knowing why they do so. It is in order
to eat the cockchafer grubs which the plough turns up. The cockchafer
grub, which remains in its larva state _four years_, preys not only
on the roots of grass, but of corn; and will so loosen turf, that it
will roll up as if cut with a turfing-spade; so that the rooks do good
service in destroying these mischievous little grubs. But insects are
not universally mischievous. A fly was once discovered making a lodgment
in the principal stem of the early wheat, just above the root, thereby
destroying the stem; but the root threw out fresh shoots on every side,
and yielded a more abundant crop than in other fields where the insect
had not been busy.

This reminds me, while I write, of another instance of compensation,
which occurred to my own knowledge. A great many years ago, a good old
market-gardener, whom I well knew, and who used to go by the name of
“Contented Sam,” lost a fine crop of early green peas he was raising
for the spring market, by a violent storm, which literally shelled the
pods when they were just ready to gather, and beat them into the earth.
He was looking at the devastation somewhat seriously, when some one
passing cried out, “Well, master, can you see anything good in _that_
now?” “Yes,” said he, rousing up, “I dare say God has some good purpose
in it, somehow or other.” And so it remarkably proved; for the peas,
_self-sown_, came up late in the season, when there were none in the
market, and sold at a much higher price.

To return to Messrs. Kirby and Spence. The friendship of these two good
and eminent men lasted nearly half a century. During the course of that
time, the letters that passed between them on entomology were between
four and five hundred. These letters were mostly written on sheets of
large folio paper, so closely, that each would equal a printed sheet of
sixteen pages of ordinary type. These they called their “first-rates,” or
“seventy-fours;” the few of ordinary size being “frigates.” But once, Mr.
Kirby having even more than usual to say, wrote what he called “The Royal
Harry,” alluding to the great ship “Harry,” built in the reign of Henry
VIII., of which I have seen a curious print. This _noteworthy note_ was
written on a sheet nearly the size of a _Times_ Supplement, and closely
filled on three pages! Talk of ladies’ long letters after this!

The correspondence sprang up, and was continued, some months before they
ever saw each other. They then spent “ten delightful days together,” at
Mr. Kirby’s parsonage, and devoted part of the time to an entomological
excursion in the parson’s gig.

At length, the idea occurred to them both of writing a book on entomology
together, and in a popular form, which should allure readers by its
entertainment, rather than deter them by its dryness. All the world knows
how happily they accomplished it; and I have heard one of them say, the
partnership was so complete, that in subsequent years neither of them
could positively say, “This paragraph was written by myself, and this by
my friend.”

       *       *       *       *       *

This morning, as I was at work, enjoying the soft air through the open
window, and listening to the blackbird and cuckoo, I heard a carriage
stop at the gate, and soon afterwards, Arbell, carrying a parcel almost
half as large as herself, came in, looking very merry, and said—

“Good morning, Mrs. Cheerlove! Mamma thought you would like to see what
I have been doing for Mademoiselle; so she set me down here, and will
call for me presently.”

And with busy fingers she began to take out sundry pins, and remove
divers coverings, till out came a splendid scarlet cushion, elegantly
braided in gold.

“How do you like it?” said she, wistfully.

“I think it superb! Will it not be rather too magnificent for
Mademoiselle’s _ménage_?”

“Mademoiselle is very fond of bright colours, and means to have
everything very gay about her, though she will not have a house to
herself, only a flat; so that I feel sure she will like it.”

“Well, then, everybody must, for it is a splendid cushion, indeed! Why,
the materials must have quite emptied your purse!”

“Mamma was kind enough to say, that if I did it well, she would not mind
paying for the materials; and I am glad to say she is quite satisfied
with it. But I particularly want to know what you think of the pattern.”

“It is intricate, and very rich. Where did you get it?”

“In a way you would never guess,” said Arbell, laughing. “One day, mamma
took me with her to call on Mrs. Chillingworth; and as they talked of
things that did not at all interest me, I sat looking at a great cushion
on the opposite sofa, and thinking how bad the yellow braid looked, and
how much better the effect would be in gold. The pattern pleased me; so
I looked at it till I was sure I could remember it, and when I got home,
I drew it on a sheet of paper. Mamma was amused, and said it was very
ingenious of me; but I did not think of turning it to account, till it
occurred to me that I might work it for Mademoiselle. So I asked mamma,
and she approved of it, and said I might.”

“Well, I think it does you great credit in more ways than one.”

“How strange it was, Mrs. Cheerlove, that I should take such interest
in doing something for Mademoiselle! I had such pleasant thoughts while
working it. Oh, what do you think? I am going to have such a treat! Papa
wishes to investigate the iron mines in Piedmont, and is going to take
mamma and me with him; and on our return, we are to see everything worth
seeing. Will not that be delightful?”

“It will, indeed. Of course you will, meantime, learn to speak French,
German, and Italian, as fluently as you can.”

“Oh, yes; I am fagging very hard now; I have such a _motive_, not only
for acquiring languages, but for improving in drawing, that I may sketch,
and for obtaining information about all the objects in our way. I am
making a list of ‘things to be particularly observed.’”

“An excellent plan.”

“You seem to have a good many books, Mrs. Cheerlove. Have you any likely
to be of service to me, that you could lend me?”

“I am afraid they are hardly modern enough,” said I, doubtfully. “You are
perfectly welcome to any of them.”

She scanned their titles at the back:—“‘Alpine Sketches.’ That’s
promising. ‘1814!’ Oh, what years and tens of years ago! ‘_With all my
heart, said I, as H. carelessly mentioned the idea._’ What an abrupt
beginning!” She laughed, and replaced the volume on the shelf. “Mamma,”
said she, “has been reading the Rev. Mr. King’s ‘Italian Valleys of
the Alps,’ and is very desirous to see the great St. Bernard and Monte
Rosa, and the Breithorn, and Petit Cervin. I am chiefly desirous to
see Mont Blanc. There’s such a charming account of it, and of Jacques
Balmat, in ‘Fragments du Voyage.’ But Jacques Balmat is dead, though
some of his family are guides. Papa has bought us two of Whippy’s
portable side-saddles, which fold up into waterproof cases, with spare
straps, tethers, whips, and everything one can want; and he has bought
guide-books, maps, saddle-bags, telescope and microscope, and air-tight
japanned cases to strap on our mules, so that our equipment will be
complete.”

“You must take a sketch-book.”

“Oh, yes, mamma has given me one already; and a journal, and a vasculum
for dried flowers and ferns.”

“You will see beautiful butterflies, as well as wild flowers, in the
valleys.”

“Are butterflies worth studying, Mrs. Cheerlove?”

“Certainly they are.”

“I will recommend papa, then, to take a butterfly-net. Do you think it a
good plan to keep a journal?”

“Very, if you put down things worth knowing, while they are fresh in
your head; and refrain from such entries as—‘Had very hard beds last
night’—‘breakfast poor, and badly set on table’—‘feel languid and
dispirited this morning, without exactly knowing why.’”

“Surely nobody could put down such silly things as those,” said Arbell,
laughing; “at any rate, I shall not. Ah, the carriage is at the gate.
Mamma desired me to give you her love, and say she could not come in
to-day. Good-by! Here is a little book-marker, on which I have painted
the head of Savonarola, for you, if you will be so kind as to accept
it. Oh, and I was particularly desired to tell you that the cocoa-nut
biscuits you liked so much, were made of nothing in the world but
chopped and pounded cocoa-nut, loaf sugar, and white of egg, baked on
wafer-paper. Good-by! good-by!”

       *       *       *       *       *

The longest day has passed! There is always something sorrowful in the
reflection, although the days do not really seem shorter, on account
of the moon. It is the same kind of feeling which we experience more
strongly, when we feel that we have passed the prime of life, though we
are still healthy and vigorous, and our looking-glasses may tell us that
our looks are not much impaired. But the early summer, and summer-time of
life, are gone!

I went to church to-day; but the heat is now so over-coming, that I must
discontinue my out-door exercise, while it lasts, till the cool of the
evening. As I passed Mrs. Ringwood’s, there was she at the open window
with her baby, and she nodded and smiled, and cried, “How d’ye do, how
d’ye do! You did me so much good! More than a glass of wine!”

She was not in low spirits just then, at any rate. And really I don’t
believe I could bear her peculiar trials as well as she does—even with a
glass of wine!

       *       *       *       *       *

Cooler weather again. I went to-day, in the donkey-chair, to call on Mrs.
Prout in her new house. It is small but cheerful, with everything clean
and fresh. A good deal of her old, heavy furniture has been supplied by
less expensive but more modern articles, which are more suitable to the
papering and fitting-up of the house; and yet I looked with partiality
at a few things that had been rescued from the sale—the old bureau,
easy-chair, work-table, &c.

When I entered, little Arthur and Alice were the only occupants of the
drawing-room, playing, in a corner of it, at “Doctor and Patient.”
What imitators children are!—“Well, mum, what is the matter with you,
to-day?”—“Oh,” says little, lisping Alice, coughing affectedly, “I have
the guitar! (catarrh!)” After shyly exchanging a few words with me, they
ran off, just as their mother entered.

She is an excellent little woman; there was no display of grief, but deep
affliction beneath the surface; and now and then a tear strayed down
her cheek, while yet she thankfully spoke of “many alleviations—many
mercies.” “But,” as she truly said—“her loss was irreparable.”

All the while, there was Mr. Prout’s good-tempered countenance looking
down on us from the picture-frame, as if he approved of all she said.
It almost startled me when I first went in; and I sedulously avoided
looking at it, or even towards it, when his widow was in the room; yet
she evidently had gazed on it so continually, that she could now do
so without shrinking; and I often observed her eyes turning in that
direction, as if the portrait afforded her a sad consolation.

She told me, it was quite arranged that Emily should spend the holidays
with the Pevenseys; and asked me somewhat anxiously, whether I thought
there could be any hopes of its leading to a permanent engagement. As I
was not authorized to communicate what Mrs. Pevensey had mentioned in
confidence, I only spoke hopefully, and said, I could see no reason why
it should not.

“Emily is rather afraid of undertaking Miss Pevensey,” said Mrs. Prout.
“She thinks she looks too womanly, and probably knows already more than
she does herself. But I, who know what is _in_ Emily, have no fears on
that score; only, to be sure, she does look—and _is_—very young.”

“I don’t think looks much signify,” said I, “if there be self-possession,
and a temperate manner.”

“And Emily has both,” said Mrs. Prout.

While she was speaking, little Arthur came in, and laid a bunch of
radishes, wet with recent washing, and placed in a toy basket, in her
lap. I had heard a boy calling radishes along the row. Mrs. Prout smiled,
kissed him, and said, “Good boy; we will have them by and by for tea;”
and he ran off with them, quite elated.

“He has spent the last half-penny of his allowance on them, I know,”
said she, with a motherly smile; “and all for me. That is the way with
the generous little fellow—he continually spends his pocket-money on me;
whether on a few violets, or radishes, or perhaps a little measure of
shrimps—something he trusts in my liking, because he likes it himself.”

“Such a little fellow is lucky to have any pocket-money at all,” said I.

“Oh, they all have their little allowances,” said Mrs. Prout. “Perhaps
you think me wrong, in my reduced circumstances, to continue them, and it
_was_ a matter of consideration; but their father and I had felt alike on
that subject, and I therefore resolved only to diminish them to half the
amount, and save in something else, rather than reduce them to absolute
penury. I don’t like pinching on a large scale; I cannot, therefore,
expect them to do so on a small one. Besides, it teaches children the
value of money; gives them habits of calculation, fore-thought, and
economy. How can they practise self-denial, charity, or generosity,
without something, however trifling, they can call their own? But I never
permit them to exceed their allowances, or borrow, or run in debt. If
they spend too freely at the beginning of the week, they must suffer for
it till the week after. Arthur and Alice had twopence a week each, but
now they have only a penny; thus, they too, know something, practically,
of ‘reduced circumstances;’ and the stipends of the elder ones have been
lowered in proportion. So you see, I am not, after all, very extravagant.”

I thought, afterwards, how much sense there was in what she had said; and
regretted her rule was not oftener acted on in families. Mrs. Pevensey,
for instance, not unfrequently makes Arbell handsome presents, but gives
her no regular allowance; consequently, not knowing what she has to
expect, Arbell is sometimes improvident—sometimes pinched. Consequently,
also, she knows little of the shop-prices of articles in common request,
and does not regularly keep private accounts. I know it is not my
province to interfere on the subject; but, should an opening unexpectedly
occur, I will just direct Mrs. Pevensey’s thoughts to it, by alluding to
the plan pursued by Mrs. Prout.

Every one of these young Prouts has left off drinking sugar in their tea,
to lighten their mother’s bills; and at their own instance. How well it
speaks for them!

       *       *       *       *       *

Priamond, Diamond, and Triamond, says Spenser, were three brothers in
Fairy-land:—

  “These three did love each other dearly well;
  And with so firm affection were allied,
  As if but one soul in them all did dwell,
  Which did her power into three parts divide.”

In the course of their story, a deadly quarrel ensued between the
youngest of these three brothers and Camball, brother of the Princess
Canace, which was assuaged by the goddess Concord, who gave them Nepenthe
to drink. And what is Nepenthe?—

  “Nepenthe is a drink of sovereign grace
  Devised by the gods, for to assuage
  Heart’s grief, and bitter gall away to chase,
  Which stirs up anger and contentious rage.
  Instead thereof, sweet peace and quietage
  It doth establish in the troubled mind;
  Few men, but such as sober are and sage,
  Are by the gods to drink of it assigned—
  _But such as drink, eternal happiness do find_.”

I can well believe it, good Mr. Spenser. Where can it be found? Did you
ever drink of it yourself? or did you write thus feelingly because you
sought and found it not? Oh! by what name shall we pray for it? “_The
grace of God?_”

       *       *       *       *       *

Here we are in the dog-days! and every one is complaining of the heat.
Last night we had a thunder-storm, and Phillis was afraid to go to bed,
till I told her that feathers were non-conductors. So then she thought,
the sooner she was on her feather-bed, the better.

Mr. Cheerlove used to be very fond of watching the lightning—of enjoying
what Sir Humphrey Davy called “the sublime pleasure of _understanding_
what others _fear_, and of making friends even of inanimate objects.” I
own I can never help starting at a very vivid flash. But I admire those
who are superior to vain alarms.

My garden is all-glorious with roses, from the China, Japan, Macartney,
and Alice Grey, that embower the house and cluster the green palings with
their crimson, pink, cream-coloured, and white blossoms, to the rarer
yellow rose, and far more beautiful moss-rose, “queen of flowers!” I
literally tread on roses as I walk from room to room, for every breath of
air wafts the loose leaves through the windows, and scatters them about
the carpets, making them, as Phillis says, “dreadful untidy.”

The hay is pretty well carried, and I am glad to say that the hay-turning
machine has not yet superseded hand-labour in this neighbourhood. The
poor woman who, with her husband and baby, found nightly shelter in
Cut-throat Barn, brought me some fine water-cresses at breakfast-time
this morning:—a grateful return for some old linen and broken victuals.

The young Prouts came in just now, bringing in yellow bed-straw,
harebells, three different sorts of heath, and a bunch of flowering
grasses that will make a graceful winter nosegay.

While Arthur turned over the contents of my curiosity drawer, and Alice
examined my collection of “pieces,” with permission to select three of
the prettiest for pincushions, Margaret read me Emily’s first letter from
Hardsand. All goes on satisfactorily. She finds herself quite equal to
the charge of the children, and Mrs. Pevensey tells her she more than
equals her expectations, and that she shall leave her at the head of the
school-room department with perfect confidence. Emily says, that so many
things, common to the Pevenseys, are new and delightful to her—their
polished manners and delightful conversation, the numerous little
elegances about them, the well-conducted servants, luxuriously-furnished
rooms, abundance of nice books, &c., all add something to her enjoyment.
As for her position among them, she does not mind it at all; in fact, she
is flattered by the confidence Mrs. Pevensey places in her, the obedience
of the children, and the respect of the servants. She admires the sea,
and the fine rough coast, and enjoys the daily walks on the sands. Arbell
seems to like her, and she likes Arbell. “When the children are gone to
bed,” she writes, “and Arbell is in the drawing-room, you cannot imagine
how I enjoy lying on the sofa and reading ‘Tremaine.’ But sometimes Mrs.
Pevensey looks in, and says, ‘Miss Prout, do come and join us—unless you
are tired.’ Then I spring up immediately, for I think it would neither
show good manners nor good feeling to hang back; and the result is that I
get a cheerful evening, and am made to feel completely one of themselves.”

The Pevenseys were to cross the Channel the next morning: they were all
in excellent spirits.

       *       *       *       *       *

August is the month when the fields are ripe to harvest, and when, to use
David’s joyous imagery, “The little valleys stand so thick with corn that
they laugh and sing.” That is a beautiful line in a Scotch song, which,
describing a graceful, pretty young girl, says—

  “Like waving corn her mien.”

Nothing can be more graceful than the motion of corn, stirred by the
light summer air—not even the dancing, in his boyish days, of one of
our greatest civil engineers—now, alas! dead. Light as feather-down,
and as if it were the pleasure of his existence to float on his
native element—the air—the next moment you might see him deep in some
abstruse question with his father, grave as if he had never known a
smile. (“_Ut in vitâ, sic in studiis, pulcherrimum et humanissimum
existimo, severitatem comitatemque misure, ne illa in tristitiam, hæc
in petulantiam procedat._” Be that his epitaph, from his old and early
friend.)

Sir Isambard Brunel once showed us a stone perforated by an insect, which
had suggested to him the horse-shoe form of the Thames Tunnel. On how
many of us would such a hint have been utterly wasted! Southey tells us
that when Sir Humphrey Davy first ascended Skiddaw with him, he cast
his eyes on the fragments of slate with which the ground was strewn,
and, stooping to pick one up as he spoke, observed, “I dare say I shall
find something here.” The next moment he exclaimed with delight, “I
_have_ found something indeed! Here is a substance which has been lately
discovered in Saxony, and has not been recognised elsewhere till now!” It
was the _chiastolite_.

       *       *       *       *       *

I can scarcely form a pleasanter mental picture, than of a young girl,
healthy, talented, energetic, sweet-tempered, and with no burthen of
self-consciousness or morbid feeling, tired, but not too tired, after her
day’s toil as governess to a tolerably docile set of young pupils (and
all children may be _trained_ to docility), and resting body and mind on
a comfortable sofa in a cheerful room, with an entertaining book which
interests her; or now and then drawn off from it by pleasing thoughts of
home, and of the appreciation which there overpays her labours. And such
a picture do I form of Emily Prout.

Before Mrs. Pevensey sailed, she engaged Emily permanently, at a salary
of eighty guineas, to be raised to a hundred if she prove equal to her
situation.

       *       *       *       *       *

This morning, on my way to church, I saw Mrs. Ringwood looking over her
blind with rather a long face, and she bowed to me somewhat piteously.
Now, I cannot say that I had forgotten her request that I would look
in on her again, for it had occurred to me almost every time I passed
her door; but, somehow, something had said within me, “No, I will not.”
There was no need, I told myself; and there certainly was no inclination;
therefore my conscience was not at all uneasy—especially when I did not
see her looking over the blind.

But now, it struck me, she might be specially looking out after me, and
thinking it very cross and unneighbourly of me not to call; she might
even seriously wish to have a little talk with me; and it might do her
more good than a glass of wine.

So I resolved to call as I returned: and I did as I resolved. A rather
slatternly maid, for whom I would on no account have exchanged Phillis,
said “Missis was at home;” and showed me straightway into the parlour,
where was—not Mrs., but Mr. Ringwood.

I suppose some people think him good-looking, but he is too much
be-ringed and be-whiskered for my taste. Mr. Cheerlove wore no whiskers;
nor any rings. My taste, therefore, is plain. Mr. Ringwood is not
plain—but rather showily good-looking.

He said—“Bless my soul, Mrs. Cheerlove! This is a great compliment,
ma’am—I—(Jemima, tell your mistress)—I know how little you visit, and
how greatly your visits are prized. You could not have paid me a more
flattering compliment, ma’am, than in calling on my little wife.”

Dear me, thought I, I shall not like this man at all—how oppressive he
is! I am sure I never thought of paying him a compliment, and wish he
would not pay me any.

“I hope Mrs. Ringwood is well,” said I.

“Well,” said he, running his fingers through his hair, in the Italian
way, or in imitation of it, “Emma is well enough, if she would but think
herself so;—she wants to go to the sea-side.”

“A nice time of year,” said I.

“Ah, ha,” said he; “but perhaps you are enough of a classical scholar,
Mrs. Cheerlove, to have heard something of ‘_res augusta domi_.’”

“I have heard the expression,” said I.

“Ah,—you don’t deceive me in that way,” said he; “I’ve heard of Mrs.
Cheerlove’s acquirements. You read by stealth, and blush to find it fame.”

“I thought fame was acquired by writing rather than by reading,” said I.

The absurd man bowed, as if I had meant to compliment him; for editing
the _County Advertiser_, I suppose! Oh dear!

Luckily for me, Mrs. Ringwood came in, wearing the very smart cap I had
seen her manufacturing on a previous occasion.

“Oh, I’m so glad to see you!” said she, hastening towards me, all smiles.
“I take it so kind of you!”

Then I asked how the baby was, and she told me he was cutting his teeth,
and went into long details, naturally interesting to her, and very well
to tell to me; but that might as well have been spared, I thought, in the
presence of Mr. Ringwood. I wondered he did not walk off to his office.
Instead of which, he stood, shifting from one foot to the other, running
over the paper, and making it crackle prodigiously as he unfolded and
refolded it; and at length he said, somewhat abruptly—

“My love, all this cannot be very entertaining to Mrs. Cheerlove.”

“That is true, Alfred,” said she, with a little flutter which I could not
account for. “I was to blame for forgetting Mrs. Cheerlove had no family.
How have you been, ma’am, lately? Don’t you think a little sea-air would
do you a great deal of good?”

I smiled, and said I did not feel any need of it.

“Oh, but it braces one so,” said she. “It would strengthen ME, I know,
more than all the wine and porter in the world!”

“Why should not you try to let your house?” said I. “Many people do.”

“’Pon my honour, Mrs. Cheerlove, that’s a capital thought of yours!”
burst in Mr. Ringwood. “I wonder it never occurred to me. I’ll tell
you what, Emma, if you can let the house for the autumn, you may go to
Hardsand the very next day! Put up a ticket to-morrow.”

“Oh, thank you, Alfred!” cried she. “I’m sure I’d no idea you would have
consented to such a thing, or I would have proposed it before.”

(“Don’t believe such a thought ever entered your head,” muttered he).

“I wonder, though,” she continued doubtfully, looking round the room as
she spoke, “who would take such a house as this?”

“Did you never hear Cowper’s line,” said he, quickly—

  “‘We never shall know, if we never do try?’”

“I’m sure I’ve not the least objection to trying—nay, I’m much obliged
to you for letting me—”

“Not with the house,” put in he, quite smartly.

“Of course not—how funny you are! But I haven’t the least idea about
these things.”

“Your kind friend, Mrs. Cheerlove, can doubtless supply you with an idea
or two—she has plenty of her own.”

“Oh, yes. Well then, Mrs. Cheerlove, what steps should you recommend?”

“Oh, it is a very simple affair. Tell Mr. Norris, the house-agent, that
you want to let your house, furnished, for the autumn, at such a price;
and that it can be seen at such and such hours. Or, if you prefer it, you
can put up a bill.”

“Dear me, yes! I think I’ll do both! How clever you are! So practical!”

“Ah, Mrs. Cheerlove,” said Mr. Ringwood, with a shrug and a smile, “it’s
we literary people who are the practical ones after all!”

Then she began to consider how many beds she could make up, and what she
should leave, what she should take, and what she should lock up; whether
she should allow the use of the piano, and whether the pictures should be
covered; till her husband impatiently cried—

“Oh, hang the pictures!” and then laughed at his ridiculous exclamation.

“But really, Emma,” continued he, “you need not give Mrs. Cheerlove a
list of all the cracked wine-glasses.”

“I haven’t a list to give,” said she with simplicity. “Perhaps it would
be well if I kept one.”

“You must make an inventory now, at any rate. Set about it this
morning—it will keep you amused for a week.”

“My dear Alfred, you are always finding things for _me_ to do, instead of
yourself. You forget the baby.”

“You take good care, my dear, I shall not do that. Mrs. Cheerlove, how I
do wish we could enlist you amongst us!”

“As what?” said I, amazed.

“As a contributor. Oh, you need not look so conscious!—murder _will out_.
I know you write. Now, do give me—poor, toil-worn editor as I am—some
little assistance. On public and local affairs, of course, I want no aid;
what I desire is historical anecdote, biographical sketches, traits of
character and experience—all that sort of _materiel_ for thought which
may or may not be used, according to the will of the reader—pleased with
the thing as it stands, but not always disposed to carry it on.”

He spoke earnestly and well.

“You do me great honour,” said I, “but, I assure you, you are quite
mistaken in me. I could not afford you the help you need.”

“Why—they said you wrote throughout your long illness!”

“Whoever _they_ may he, I can assure you, I only used my pen in hours of
solitude, as a companion; nothing more.”

“But its results!——”

“Will never appear before the public. Oh no, I am no authoress. And I
must confess to a prejudice against _female_ assistants in our leading
periodicals. I think it a province out of our sphere.”

“Well, you compliment us,” said he, bowing; “but I own you have not
satisfied me. I am convinced you _could_, if you _would_. Dear me! how
time runs away, to be sure! I must run off this moment; but one takes no
count of time in _your_ presence, Mrs. Cheerlove.”

And, presenting his hand to me in a very affable manner, and bowing over
mine, he flourished off.

“Delightful!” cried Mrs. Ringwood, taking a deep breath; “how you’ve
drawn him out! Oh, I do so enjoy good conversation! But I’m no
converser—never was. Always such a simple little thing!”

I knew not what to say; and she almost immediately went on in a dreamy
sort of way—

“He used to tell me before marriage, he loved simplicity; so I wasn’t
afraid, you know. But now he likes intellect better.”

“But why should you despair of pleasing him, even then?”

“Oh, he knocks me down so! I don’t mean literally,” cried she, seeing
my look of dismay; “but he has a way of _setting_ people down, as the
saying is, whenever they talk in a way that does not please him; and if
I am chatting a little, and he wants to cut it short, he says, ‘My dear,
I beg your pardon,’ quite politely; and takes the lead, and keeps it—‘My
_dear_,’ not ‘My love.’ It was so pleasant to hear him say, ‘My love!’
to-day.”

“Well,” said I, “you will be busy now, and I hope soon to hear of
your having let your house.” And so I talked a little about various
watering-places, as if she might pick and choose where she liked; though,
after all, very probably, she will have no choice but Hardsand. And I
told her what a cheerful, bracing place Hardsand was considered.

But, as I rode home, I thought that, perhaps I had done the little woman
no kindness, after all; for her efforts to let her house might only end
in disappointment. And the more I thought of blinds, scrapers, &c.,
wanting repair, crumb-cloths wanting washing, and wine-glasses wanting
replacing, the less chance there appeared to me of anybody’s being
attracted by the house.

“A pennyworth of putty and a pennyworth of paint,” said a nobleman, in
the last century, “would make my countess as handsome as any at court.”
Certes, a pennyworth of putty and a pennyworth of paint, or something
equivalent, will often go far towards making a house look tidy and
respectable. But, in Mrs. Ringwood’s domain, _il poco piú_ is sadly
wanting. A man may laugh at an Irish waiter who confidentially whispers
to him, as he hands him his venison, that “there is no currant jelly on
the sideboard, but plenty of lobster-sauce,” but he will not endure it
from his wife.

       *       *       *       *       *

——What luck some people have! The Ringwoods have let their house the
very first day! Just now, I was very much surprised by a call from Mr.
Ringwood, who looked much more gentlemanlike than he did yesterday, and
said, with a very pleased look, “Mrs. Cheerlove, I am sure you will be
glad to hear the good news, and therefore intrude to tell you of it
myself. I called on Norris just now, and found the Hawkers are wanting a
ready-furnished house, while their own is painting—that is to say, for
six weeks; so I’ve seen Mr. Hawker, and we came to terms immediately;
supposing, of course, that the ladies make it out together. But I am sure
Emma will be glad to make every concession to Mrs. Hawker, so I look on
it as a done thing. Don’t you wish me joy?”

I told him I did, very sincerely.

“So you see,” said he, laughing triumphantly, “we literary people _are_
the practical ones, after all!”

“Mrs. Ringwood must be much obliged to you,” said I, “for so promptly
carrying out her wishes.”

“Yes,” said he, drumming on his hat; “but I own I don’t see that I ought
to be expected to do everything in my office and out of it too. A man, or
even a woman, who fills the housekeeping purse, ought not to be liable to
every other branch of bother.”

I thought with him, but only observed, that where there was one clever
head in the family, the others might accustom themselves, unconsciously,
to depend too much on it.

“I believe you are right,” said he, stroking the important member in
question with a thoughtful air as he spoke. “I spoilt Emma myself in the
first instance—instead of remonstrating when I should have done so, about
one little matter and another. The consequence is—— No matter; but we
shall _never_ get straight now—never, never! I utterly despair of it.”

“Ah, you are too sensible to do that! To make the best of untoward
circumstances, even if they result from our own fault, is not only more
prudent, but more noble, than to sit down in Ugolino-like despair.”

“‘Ugolino-like’ is the light in that sentence!” said he. “Excuse me, but
you know I make a business of these things, and often have to insert them
in heavy articles. That phrase will fix your saying in my memory, and I
will endeavour to act upon it too—without which I know you won’t care a
half-penny for my remembering, or even quoting it. Ah, Mrs. Cheerlove,
you owe the world something from your pen. Why not try?” in a tone
intended to be very insinuating.

“There are plenty in the field already,” said I.

“Plenty, such as they _are_,” responded he. “Plenty—and too many! Oh, if
you knew the curiosities of literature that I hand over to my subeditor!
Now, I’ll read you a _morçeau_ I received this morning. I think I might
_defy_ you to make anything like it. The subject is the fancy bazaar our
ladies are going to hold at Willington:—

  “‘Come to Willington bazaar!
  Enter, neighbours, near and far.
  Pure delightsome harmony
  Welcomes all friends cheerily;
  Crops of pretty useful things,
  Philanthropy to market brings;
  Sympathy with ardour buys,
  What industrial zeal supplies!’

Do you think you could have done that? No, I’m sure you couldn’t!”

And, in excellent humour with himself and with me, he took leave, waving
his hand towards the book-case as he went, and saying:—

  “An elegant sufficiency! content,
  Retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books,
  Progressive virtue, and approving heaven!”

       *       *       *       *       *

Guido Sorelli beautifully says, “I learn the depth to which I have sunk,
from the length of chain let down to updraw me.” Without inquiring into
his wisdom in publishing his “Confessions,” (written for the public,
apparently, and _not_ for Silvio Pellico), they certainly have, as he
says, a tendency to bring the reader to “a saddening contemplation of his
own heart.” This sensitive Italian was converted by the Bible, which he,
in the first instance, read for an hour daily, and completely perused in
three months; never opening it without first praying for humility. Nor
did he ever commence his daily seven hours’ task of translating “Paradise
Lost,” without imploring divine assistance; and the last four years of
his ten years’ labour of love, “bore the impress,” he tells us, “of
a happiness almost beatific.” Such are the silent, satisfying rewards
which high and virtuous art bestows on her children, wholly independent
of fame or emulation. Like the exquisite _fanatico per la musica_, in La
Motte Fouquè’s “Violina,” they “carry on their labour as a sweet secret,
hardly knowing at the time whether they shall ever feel inclined to
make it known.” The “last infirmity of noble minds,” is their seeking
the confirmatory sentence of some master-spirit, whom the voice of the
world, and their own cordial acknowledgment, place far above themselves.
All beyond this opens the door to rivalry and uneasiness. Once know that
you do a thing well, and the calm pleasure needs not to be augmented by
everybody’s owning it.

       *       *       *       *       *

If a botanist ranges over an entire meadow, and find one or two new
specimens, he thinks his labour not in vain. And if I find one or two
noteworthy passages in a book, I am glad I have read it. Here, now, is
the life of Pollok. What true soul of art has not experienced, at some
period of its existence, the depression and despondency, the suspicion of
its own self-delusion, thus expressed by the young Scottish poet?—

“The ideas,” he says, “which I had collected at pleasure, and which
I reckoned peculiarly my own, were dropping away one after another.
Fancy was returning from her flight—memory giving up her trust; what
was vigorous becoming weak, and what was cheerful and active, dull
and indolent.” And yet he was at this time on the brink of writing an
immortal poem! One December night, sitting alone in his lodgings in great
desolation of mind, he, to turn his thoughts from himself, took up the
first book within reach, which happened to be Hartley’s “Oratory.” He
opened on Lord Byron’s “Darkness,” and had not read far when he thought
he could write something to the purpose on the subject of the general
resurrection. After revolving his ideas a little, he struck off about a
thousand lines—the now well-known passage, beginning,—

  “In ’customed glory bright!”

Soon afterwards he wrote to his brother, that “he had lately been
soaring in the pure ether of eternity, and linking his thoughts to the
Everlasting Throne!” “And I knew,” says his brother, “that he had now
found a subject to write on.” “May the eternal and infinite Spirit,”
wrote this sympathizing brother in return, “inform your soul with an
immortal argument, and enable you to conduct it to your own happiness in
time, and blessedness in eternity; and to His praise, honour, and glory
for ever!”

Soon after this, Robert returned to his father’s humble dwelling, at
Moorhouse, where he continued his poem, but without any definite plan.
“One night, sitting alone in an old room, and letting his mind wander
backward and forward over things at large, in a moment, as if by an
immediate inspiration, the idea of the poem struck him; and the plan of
it, as it now stands, stretched out before him, so that at one glance he
saw through it from end to end like an avenue. He never felt, he said, as
he did then; and he shook from head to foot.”

       *       *       *       *       *

How soon September has come! The roses are now nearly all over; but
the ram’s-head border I had cut in the grass-plat last spring is gay
with fuchsias, verbenas, geraniums, and balsams. Miss Burt, who has no
garden of her own, comes now and then to expend, as she says, some of
her superfluous energies, in raking and hoeing my garden, while I sit
near her in a light wicker chair, and watch her proceedings. She became
tired of her cockatoo about a month after her return, and made a present
of it to Mrs. Grove. The cockatoo thus shared the fate of a certain fine
cucumber, which I remember being passed from house to house one autumn,
till at length somebody was found who liked it.

Mrs. Pevensey’s gardener’s boy brought me a delicate little griskin this
morning, to show me that, though out of sight, I am not out of mind. I am
reading a curious little tale Mrs. Pevensey lent me, called “Agathonia,”
about the Colossus of Rhodes. The style is inflated rather than grand,
which makes the incidents appear less grand than inflated; but yet, I am
struck with the story, which, picturesquely enough, opens thus:—

Three weather-worn brigantines, belonging to Ben Shedad the Jew, are
anchored in the harbour of Rhodes, to carry off a hundred brazen statues,
the masterpieces of Lysippus and Chares, as well as the renowned
Colossus, whose remains have for nine centuries encumbered the arsenal.
The bastions are crowded with victorious Saracens—not a Rhodian is
to be seen among them; the island has been conquered and humiliated,
its temples razed, its churches defiled, its vineyards rooted up, its
population maltreated, and, to conclude, its works of art sold to the
Jews.

As Ben-Shedad and his crew are proceeding to the spot where the prostrate
Colossus lies embedded in sand and rushes, one of the Jews attempts to
propitiate Velid, son of the emir of Rhodes, by kissing the hem of his
garment. The young man shrinks from him in disgust, and, turning to his
friend Al Maimoun, asks whether artizans might not have been found on
the island who might have removed the statue without its being polluted
by the touch of an accursed race. Al Maimoun replies, that certainly the
camp of the faithful might have supplied workmen; and Velid rejoins, that
were he not compelled to respect the contract, his soldiers should pitch
the Hebrews into the harbour.

Meantime, the attention of the Saracen bystanders, who have been
deriding and cursing the Jews, is diverted towards another party slowly
approaching the Colossus, consisting of an Ascalonian soldier of the
emir’s, three Rhodians, and a tall, grizzled Numidian, who bear a
closely-curtained litter, which is accompanied by two veiled females.
One of the women stoops with age, but the other is slender and graceful
as a young roe. The crowd divides before them; and, when they reach the
fallen Colossus, the Rhodians pause, and, the litter-curtains being drawn
back, disclose the venerable grey head of an old man, spiritual as an
apostle, mild as a sage, who gazes long on the Colossus, lit up by the
setting sun, and then sinks back and weeps.

All this is very vivid and touching.

       *       *       *       *       *

A vague, but terrible report has reached me,—I fervently hope it may not
be true,—that a dreadful accident has happened to the Pevenseys somewhere
abroad. Phillis heard it of the baker. I am on thorns, while waiting for
more particulars. This October has set in wet; the rain has fallen fast
all the morning, and I cannot send out for the donkey-chair, nor spare
Phillis to go out and make inquiries; nor is a creature likely to call.

Miss Secker has just been here. She says the report came from the Stone
House. Mr. Pevensey had written some hurried orders to the steward,
saying Mrs. Pevensey, in crossing the _Mer de Glace_, had fallen through
a _crevasse_, and, with difficulty, had been drawn up with ropes, alive,
but nearly dashed to pieces. Oh, melancholy news! the mother of so large
a family! so kind a neighbour! so admirable a wife! so charitable and
exemplary in the various relations of life! What a loss she will be,
should she not recover! Meanwhile, what responsibility devolves upon poor
Arbell, her sole nurse! It is enough to put a grey head on her young
shoulders.

       *       *       *       *       *

This morning, I could not rest till I was off in the donkey-chair to call
on Mrs. Prout, and inquire whether she had heard anything from Emily.
The post had just come in; I found them in tears over Arbell’s letter,
inclosed to them by Emily. It was written at her mother’s bedside, in the
little parsonage of a Swiss _pasteur_.

Poor mamma, she wrote, was taken out more dead than alive. The guides,
who were all goodness, made a kind of litter for her with their poles
and ropes, and threw their jackets over it. But when papa lifted her on
it, she thrilled all over, like a little bird that had fallen out of its
nest; and Arbell turned her head away, for it made her feel quite sick.
So then, as the litter shook her so much, they only took her at first to
the nearest _châlet_, where there was a very kind _bergere_, and where
they laid her on the heaps of hay for the cows; and a guide ran off to
the inn for an English doctor, whose name they happened to have seen on
the travellers’ book.

Meanwhile, poor mamma lay quite still; but her face was very cold. And
once, when Arbell softly wiped the damp off it, and kissed her white
lips, she whispered, “Good girl—dear Arbell!” so that she was ready to
burst into tears, but knew she must not. And when the guide came back,
he said the English doctor had gone up Mont Blanc; and Arbell could not
help thinking, how stupid and wicked it was of him, to be running after
such nonsense when he had better have been minding his own business.
However, he brought back mamma’s maid, Kent, and a famous mountain
doctor, who ordered a sheep to be killed, and mamma to be immediately
wrapped in its skin, which they did. And, directly afterwards, a most
benevolent-looking _pasteur_ (such another as Oberlin must have been!)
came in, with a face of kind concern; and, after a few words with papa,
it was arranged that the guides should carry mamma, who seemed in a
stupor, to the _pasteur’s_ house, which was close at hand, and much
quieter than the inn. So they did so; Arbell holding her vinaigrette
to mamma’s nose all the way, though she could not be quite sure it was
of any use. When they got there, such a neat old housekeeper came out,
quite a Louise Schepler; for the _pasteur_, like Oberlin, was a widower.
But he had no children, which was all the better, because the house was
all the quieter. So they took dear mamma into the best bed-room, where
everything was very poor and scanty, but very clean; and just then, the
English doctor arrived, who had only gone a little way up the mountain
after all, and, strange to say! had turned back under an unaccountable
impression that he was wanted. And he said, as mamma was in the skin,
she might as well remain in it, though it was queer practice; and then he
gave her a very strong restorative from the _pasteur’s_ medicine-chest,
which made her open her eyes and look slowly round, without turning her
head; and then he said “You’ll do, my dear madam, now;” and nodded and
smiled, and went off talking to papa quite cheerfully. But, oh! he was
quite mistaken; for, as soon as the effect of the restorative subsided,
mamma felt herself rapidly sinking, and told papa she knew she was going
to die. Then poor papa, who had returned quite hopeful, lost all his
courage again, and cried bitterly; and called the _pasteur_, who came in,
and knelt down, and offered, oh! such a heavenly prayer! Even Kent, who
understood not one word of it, said the very _tone_ was prayer. He began
“_Seigneur!_”—and then made a great stop—and then began again, “Seigneur!
Holy and just are all thy ways! Who shall not magnify thee, O God most
holy?” And then went on. Arbell’s head was too confused for her to retain
it in her memory, but it sank into her heart, and seemed to carry her up
to heaven, quite away from all earthly, vexing cares. And when they rose
from their knees, dear mamma was asleep, and slept for hours! Meanwhile,
papa got some very strong jelly from the inn, and when she woke, he or
Kent gave her a spoonful of it from time to time, which she seemed to
like; for, when she wanted more, she opened her lips without speaking;
and Arbell or Kent watched her lips all night long, taking it by turns
to sleep a little on the ground. Poor papa got a little rest in the
easy-chair in the parlour. The doctor—Dr. Thorpe—had come very early in
the morning, and twice more in the course of the day, and was excessively
kind, though at first he had seemed rather _brusque_. He said all the
travellers, inn-people, and guides were deeply interested in mamma, and
prayers were being offered up. (Poor Arbell’s writing was here smeared
with tears). An English lady had sent Arbell a little text-book, which
was a great comfort to her, and so were many hymns she remembered; but
she had her little diamond Bible in her pocket already; there were
parts in it that she thought she should never be able to read hereafter
without their bringing to mind that little whitewashed room, with table,
chairs, and drawers painted sea-green, and cold, uncarpeted floor. She
was going to bed that night—papa insisted on it; but at four o’clock Kent
would change places with her; the _pasteur_ was going to sleep in the
easy-chair. She would soon write to dear Miss Prout again.

Thus ended poor Arbell’s letter. What depths of new experience had she
sounded in a few hours! I could not help thinking of those beautiful
words of the prophet Hosea, “Come, let us return unto the Lord; for He
hath torn, and He will heal us; He hath smitten, and He will bind us up.”
I felt an impression that it would be so in this instance.

The Pevenseys had been what people might call a _moderately_ religious
family; but without much devotional feeling apparent among them. Mrs.
Pevensey was a churchwoman; her husband had been brought up among
dissenters; Mademoiselle Foularde was a Roman Catholic; and each had such
a well-bred respect for what they deemed the prejudices of one another,
that I had sometimes feared it tended to a little indifferentism in
practice. But what right had I to judge of others? To their own Master
they would stand or fall.

  “Motives are all, in Heaven’s impartial eye,
  But ’tis not ours to doubt and give the lie;
  Let each give credit to his neighbour’s share,
  But analyse his own with utmost care.”[4]

How many afflicting thoughts must have passed through poor Mrs.
Pevensey’s mind, as she silently lay, hour after hour, sewn up in her
sheep-skin! I thought she must have needed _more_ than the fortitude of a
Roman matron; _nothing_ could have given her composure commensurate with
her need of it, under such circumstances, but the submission and faith of
a Christian. This trial, so afflictive at the time, might yet hereafter
be reverted to as the crowning mercy of her life, by having led her to
more complete subjection to the will of her heavenly Father.

       *       *       *       *       *

Margaret Prout came in this morning, looking so pleased that I concluded
she had fresh and better news of Mrs. Pevensey. But no—she had only a
letter from Harry, and a note from Emily. I begged she would read me
Emily’s first, which she did. Emily said that immediately on hearing of
what had happened, Mrs. Pevensey’s maiden sister,—who goes among the
young people by the name of Aunt Catherine,—packed up bag and baggage,
got a passport and bills of exchange, and started off with a courier
for the scene of affliction. What a comfort she will be to them all!
Many would have shilly-shallied, and written to ask whether they were
wanted, and looked about for an escort, and awaited a quiet sea for
crossing, and nobody knows what, till the real day of need had passed.
That is not Aunt Catherine’s way. “What thou doest, do quickly,” has,
throughout her life, been to her a precept of Divine obligation. She
does not do things hurriedly—all in a scramble, so as to be twitted with
“most haste, worse speed,” by people less energetic than herself; but
she does them _at once_; consequently, she does them efficiently; while
her ardour, uncooled, supports her through the undertaking, and makes
her insensible of half the difficulty. I always regard this as a very
fine element in her character. Aunt Kate does not look twice at a pill
before she takes it; nor lose the post for want of finishing a letter
in good time; nor send a cheque to be cashed at the county-bank after
office-hours. She is never likely to be short of postage-stamps, or of
money for current expenses, or to leave small debts unpaid, or small
obligations uncancelled, and then to content herself with saying, “Oh,
I forgot that!” There is no one on whom I should more surely rely for
knowing, in a common-sense, unprofessional way, not only what remedy to
take for any illness, or what measures to resort to in case of a burn,
scald, or fractured limb, but what antidote to administer for any poison
accidentally taken—whether hot brandy-and-water for prussic acid, milk
for vitriol, or an emetic for opium, followed by draughts of vinegar
and water—thus preparing the way for the doctor she had lost no time in
summoning, but who might not be able instantly to answer her summons.

Such a maiden sister as this in a large family household is invaluable.
Nor does Miss Pevensey deteriorate the price set on her sterling
qualities by acerbity, or bluff or snappish manners. On the contrary,
she is cordial and easily contented—always ready to take, without saying
anything to anybody, the least-envied seat in a carriage, or at table,
or in church, willing to sleep in the room with the chimney that smokes,
and to have the windows open or the doors shut, to suit her companions;
though, of course, she has her preferences. And all this without the
least servility—which, indeed, would be strangely purposeless, for she is
in independent circumstances.

She is a small, thin woman, not in the least pretty; but excessively neat
in her apparel, and quite the gentlewoman; with a cheerful, sprightly
manner, so that most people like her. She is not single because no one
ever asked her to marry. She has grey eyes, an aquiline nose, thin lips,
and wavy brown hair, banded under an airy little cap. You would seldom
wish to have a dress off the same piece with her cheap, thin silks; but
they are always fresh, and well made, and you see directly that they suit
her exactly, and that what you are wearing would not suit her at all. I
have not seen much of her, but what I have seen, I have liked.

Harry’s letter was capital. He had been with the Whitgraves to Hampton
Court, and after seeing the pictures, the maze, &c., they had dined on
the grass in Bushy Park. It had freshened him up for a week. And Mr.
Whitgrave had gone with him to the National Gallery, and told him what
to admire, _and why_. And Mrs. and Miss Welsh had accompanied him to the
British Museum, where they had spent a whole afternoon over the Assyrian
Marbles.

“Only think,” he wrote, “of our looking at the very Bel and Nebo
mentioned in the prophecies of Isaiah! ‘Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth,’
&c.,[5]—which they _did_, when they were taken from their pedestals by
the victorious enemy. Do you know, that when Babylon was taken by the
Persians, these two images were carried before the conquerors? Only think
of their finding their way to the British Museum! There is old Nebo, with
folded hands, and with an inscription on the hem of his garment, telling
us (now we can read the cuneiform letters) that he was carved and erected
by a sculptor of Nimroud, in the days of Semiramis, Queen of Assyria. As
I gazed on it, I could not help thinking, ‘Truly, _this_ is poetry, and
history too!’ It now turns out that the famous Semiramis was not the wife
of Ninus, but of King Pul, mentioned in the Old Testament; and that she
did not live, as has been commonly supposed, two thousand years before
the Christian era, but only eight hundred: which brings the date within
a hundred years of that given by Herodotus, so long called ‘the father
of lies,’ by people who would not, or could not, examine for themselves,
but whose veracity is being more and more established every day by the
researches of the learned. Of course, as a good deal of his information
was picked up from hearsay, he was liable to occasional errors, like
other people; but he seems to have been a careful, painstaking man, who
went from place to place to collect information on the spot wherever he
could; which was certainly a good deal more creditable way of gathering
materials for a history, than that of many modern writers, who merely
collect a few books around them in their study, and write out, day by
day, what has been written in pretty nearly the same words many times
before.”

I thought this passage of Harry’s letter to Emily (who had inclosed it to
Margaret) so interesting, that I asked and obtained permission to copy
it. How good a thing it is when brothers and sisters write in this free,
communicative way to one another! not merely pouring out their feelings,
but taking the trouble to express thoughts, and thereby brightening and
polishing the best properties of their minds by collision. The present
Dean of Carlisle says, that he has known young men at college wholly
restrained from vice, simply by the hallowed and blessed influence of
their sisters.[6]

       *       *       *       *       *

Arbell has again been heard from. Aunt Catherine had safely arrived, and
they were all so glad to see her! Also an eminent English surgeon, who
had been telegraphed for, and who accidentally, or rather providentially,
crossed in the same steamer, and, seeing the name of “Miss Pevensey”
on her carpet-bag, immediately introduced himself to her, and took
care of her all the rest of the way. This was an immense advantage to
Miss Pevensey, who speaks very indifferent French, and who, without
a courier, could not have got on at all: besides, he prevented her
thoughts from dwelling on one painful subject all the way, and told her
several instances of remarkable recoveries, which greatly cheered her.
He, on his part, was glad to get some idea of what sort of people they
were who had sent for him, and became interested in Miss Pevensey’s
account of her sister-in-law’s character and responsibilities. When
they arrived at the _pasteur’s_, Arbell said she was so glad to see
her aunt, that she could not help the tears running down her face. Sir
Benjamin pronounced dear mamma to be going on quite favourably; indeed,
he thought her progress, as far as it went, almost miraculous; and said
it showed that mountain-practice was not altogether to be despised. They
were going to begin their homeward journey by very easy stages, as soon
as an invalid litter could be constructed according to Sir Benjamin’s
directions, which would shake dear mamma as little as possible. They
could not think how they could ever be sufficiently grateful for M.
Peyranet’s goodness—the only way in which papa thought he could show a
sense of it was, by giving largely to his poor.

       *       *       *       *       *

The harriers and stag-hounds are out this fine November morning; and I
see hunters in green coats and red winding down the steep chalky sides
of the hill; while men, boys, dogs, and cattle all seem animated by the
spirit of the chase—the cows and horses galloping round the meadows in
search of some outlet from their confinement. Certainly, the distant horn
does sound enlivening. For the poor hare there is no hope of mercy; but
the stag has been so often turned out, that I hardly think he can believe
himself in much danger. There he goes! I was cockney enough to mistake
him at first for a donkey! How gracefully he cleared the gate! Off he
goes, at a rocking-horse sort of pace. He will give them a good run yet.

The trees are now as many-hued as Joseph’s coat of divers colours—orange,
golden, lemon colour, every shade of green, brown, and mulberry, some
cherry red; but few trees, except the walnuts, are quite leafless. The
pigs, with eager snouts, are grubbing for acorns around the oaks,—off
they trot, except one, to a new locality; he is too busy to note them,
till suddenly looking up, it seems to strike him, “_Can_ they be doing
better than I am?” and off he posts for his share of the spoils.

How much one may see from a window! I can descry long wavy sheets of
gossamer, glittering with dew, shimmering in the air—the most exquisite
texture conceivable, fit for the wedding-veil of the fairy-queen!
The walnut-trees have been threshed; the wild-geese have flown home;
the swallows flew off on the 21st of September. Many garden-flowers
yet linger; but wild-flowers are reduced to a pitiful array, chiefly
comprising daisies, yarrow, ragwort, and furze. Bright days are becoming
fewer and fewer; but we had a fine Fifth of November, and I saw a rustic
Guy Fawkes set down in the middle of the road by a party of merry lads,
that they might scramble over a gate and race after a squirrel. The
skylark and thrush have not yet quite forsaken us, but our principal
songster is the robin, who pipes away most merrily.

In one of Mary Russell Mitford’s fairy-like notes to me, written within
three weeks of her death, she says, “I am sometimes wheeled from my
fire-side to the window; and, about a month ago, a red-breast came to
that window and tapped. Of course, we answered the appeal by fixing a
little tray outside the window-sill, and keeping it well supplied with
bread crumbs; and now he not only comes himself, but has introduced his
kinsfolk and friends. Think how great a pleasure!”

       *       *       *       *       *

No news of the Pevenseys’ return; but they must be slowly nearing home,
unless any fresh causes of delay have occurred. Winter is stealing
imperceptibly upon us; November has slipped away, and December has
arrived, almost without the change being felt.

We speak of the merry month of May, and why not of the merry month of
December? Well, there is an answer to that question; but, before I give
it, I will consider what may be said on the bright side. True it is, that
many of nature’s processes are now veiled from human sight; but not less
true is it that they are secretly progressing. The seed-corn is garnered
in the earth; the earth itself in many spots is sweetening; the leafless
trees are preparing to burst into verdure next spring; and, had we power
to observe what is going on in their secret vessels, how much should
we find to delight and surprise us! what multitudes of contrivances of
which we have no knowledge, and even too delicate and complex to be
comprehended! Meanwhile, many of the trees, when unlopped, have forms
so beautiful as to present a delicate tracery, reminding one of black
lace (though that is a miserable comparison), when seen in the distance
against the clear, grey sky. There is little to do in the field; but the
flail resounds noisily within the barn; and the horses and cattle enjoy
the comfortable warmth of the straw-yard. Then, within-doors, how snug
and sociable is the fire-side! How the solitary enjoy the book, and the
domestic party the long talks they had no leisure for in the summer!
Christmas is coming; and is not that season proverbially merry, save
where there is some sad domestic bereavement or affliction? How gay the
shops are! with winter fabrics, and warm furs, and brilliant ribbons;
with jolly sirloins, plump poultry, heaps of golden oranges, rosy apples,
and all kinds of winter fruit! How gladly we think that the young folks
will soon come home for the holidays! “I call to mind,” says the genial
Southey,

  “The schoolboy days, when, in the falling leaves
  I saw, with eager hope, the pleasant sign
  Of coming Christmas; when at morn I took
  My wooden calendar, and counting up
  Once more its often-told account, smoothed off
  Each day, with more delight, the daily notch.”

Dearly do schoolboys love a hard winter, because it brings sliding, and
skating, and snowballing in its train. Is not December, then, a merry
month? Well, there is a reverse to the picture. In the first place, we
poor, creaky invalids feel his cold touch in every joint, and at every
shortening breath drawn from our wheezing chests, and very early in the
month get shut up by the peremptory doctor; unless, indeed, we are too
poor to be laid aside from the active toil that wins daily bread. Let the
invalid with every comfort around her, think of those who have neither
warm fires, nor warm clothing, nor warm bedding, nor warm food. See their
sad, pinched faces, shrinking forms, chilblained hands, and ill-protected
feet; think of their desolate dwellings, where the rain drips through the
roof, where the broken pane is stuffed with rags, and where, for many
hours daily, no fire burns on the hearth; and then refuse them sympathy
and aid if you are not of the same flesh and blood, children of the
same Creator! Oh, the time is drawing near when we may indeed warm our
own hearts by warming the bodies of others! by putting shoes with warm
stockings on bare feet, thick tweed on shoulders, and flannel on chests,
coals in the grate, and wholesome, nourishing food on the table! Here is
our encouragement—“And thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense
thee, but thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just.”

As I look up from my writing on this 4th of December, I see a blue,
cloudless sky shining above steep, chalky hills that are clothed with
the short, sweet turf loved by sheep, below which are green meadows,
cut with dykes, to drain them during the winter; leafless hedges and
scattered clumps of trees, principally oaks, still clad in a good many
yellow leaves. The tiled roofs of many scattered cottages in the lanes
are now visible, that cannot be seen in the summer: all looks bright and
cheerful. Such is hardly a scene to remind one of the real severity of
winter:—

  “When all abroad the wind doth blow,
  And coughing drowns the parson’s saw,
  And birds sit brooding in the snow,
  And Marian’s nose looks red and raw,
  When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
  When nightly sings the staring owl,
  ‘Tu-whit! tu-whoo!’ a dismal note,
  While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.”

For my part, I like hearing the owl; perhaps because Shakspere has linked
it with immortal verse. Dismal it is, I suppose—something like the
forlorn cry of a belated traveller for assistance: its association with
darkness and horror makes more vivid the contrast of the light twinkling
through the casement, the crab-apples roasting and sputtering as they are
popped, scalding hot, into the wassail-bowl, and Mrs. Joan’s assurance
to the hospitable host that she has had “quite enough,” and has quite
emptied her mug, to verity which, she turns it topsy-turvy—top-side
t’other way.

       *       *       *       *       *

Down comes the rain!—and enters Miss Burt with dripping umbrella, and
dress hooked in festoons above her ancles, to tell me the Pevenseys
reach home to-day. She is full of the news, and has carried it on to the
Seckers.

What a cheerless, wretched afternoon! Rain, rain, go to Spain! What
matter? Home is home, be it ever so homely,—and the Stone House is
anything but that, I am told—for I have never been within it. Mrs.
Pevensey’s first call was during my illness. How fresh and blooming she
looked! I had heard of her numerous family, but not of her personal
appearance—she did not visit any one I then knew, and I was unprepared
for her sweet face and charming manners. She seemed to enter like a
stream of sunshine, or like Una into the dark cottage of Abbessa. How
kind, how good she was!—she thought she could never do enough for me.

And now she is ill herself—crippled, shattered perhaps for life, though
comparatively restored; as motionless, I am told, as a figure on an
altar-tomb. Sad, sad!

But she is not in pain, and her mind is as cheerful and alert as ever;
and the little girls will hang over her with warm kisses; and the baby,
whom she cannot take in her arms, will leap and crow, and be held to
her; and the faithful family servants will receive her in a flutter of
sympathy, and hover about her with tender concern.

——I feel very lonely to-night. How quickly the day closed in! and how
cheerless the rain sounds against the window-panes! The fire lights up
with fitful gleams the picture on the opposite wall, and the footstool
worked by Eugenia.

I remember, when we first went to Nutfield, Eugenia and I sallied out,
one bright morning, with a basket, trowel, and old kitchen knife, to take
up some of the pretty purple heath on the common for our flower-borders.
We had not counted the cost. Snap went the thin old knife! Then we tugged
and tugged at the tough stems with our hands, to the great injury of
our gloves, and plunged at the roots with the trowel. But there seemed
no end to those fibres and their ramifications underground—they spread
interlaced and interwove in every direction:—and so, I think, must Mrs.
Pevensey’s social affections:—while I am like a flower in a pot.

       *       *       *       *       *

Here is Christmas close at hand, and Emily Prout is looking forward to
the speedy arrival of the holidays. Harry is expected to-morrow. He will
return to a humble, but happy home,—all the better able to value it for
having been away from his family for some months.

_I_ have no prospect of any other than a lonely, and perhaps a dull
Christmas; and I am shut up, I fear me, for the winter. I cannot walk;
the donkey-chair is unsafe for me, now that the weather is so cold; and I
cannot afford a close carriage. But I will endeavour to raise my thoughts
from things terrestrial to things celestial—from Christmas feasting to
Him whose birthday feast it is:—

  “Not more than others I deserve,
  Yet God hath given me more.”

Phillis has been very contrary lately. She is completely out of humour;
does everything badly, and resents the least word of reproof. Instead of
her waiting at table, it is _I_ who _wait_, while she does not answer the
bell. If coals are wanted, it is so long before she brings them, that the
fire is nearly out; then she comes in, throws on half a scuttle-full,
which, of course, extinguishes it completely; and, to finish all, upsets
the remainder on the carpet. Then she goes off in a towering rage, comes
back with dust-pan and brush, repairs the damage to the carpet in a very
slovenly way, and then fetches an armful of chips and paper, which make
a great blaze for a few minutes, and soon burn completely out. Is it not
singular that persons will sometimes appear to forget how to do a thing
that they have done, and done properly, for years?

This morning, though I was suffering from neuralgia, and a drizzling rain
was falling, she scoured my bed-room all over, and set the windows wide
open, whereby everything in the room is as damp and limp as possible. On
my telling her that I would rather have had the cleaning deferred till a
drier day, especially when I was suffering from a cold, she replied that
Friday was the day for doing it, and she would do it on a Friday, or not
at all. On my rejoining—“Nay, is that a question for mistress or maid to
settle?” she replied, she never knew such a mistress; nothing she could
do gave satisfaction; and, as she saw it was no use trying to please me,
she hoped I should suit myself with another servant by that day month;
and then went off, banging the door after her, yet leaving it ajar.

I felt resentment. I knew I had been a kind mistress to her; had studied
her comforts, allowed her many indulgences, and overlooked many faults;
and this was the way I was repaid! I felt it very hard. True, I had given
her much trouble during my long and painful illness; but she had been
engaged on purpose to assist in nursing me through it, and undertake the
whole general work of the little house; had said, again and again, the
work was nothing, and, in fact, was always sitting down to needle-work
at five o’clock in the afternoon.

I was aggrieved: I thought, if she would go, she might: if there were
no attachment on one side, why need there be any on the other? And as
to getting another servant, why I _could_ but have a tiresome one, and
Phillis was that already.

In writing all this down I perceive some bad logic, but I felt very
forlorn and depressed. When she came in to lay the cloth for dinner, she
said not a word, nor did I; but her face declared war. The dinner could
hardly have been worse cooked.

After dinner Mrs. Prout called. She seemed sorry to see me not looking
well, and made such kind inquiries that a tear rolled down my cheek, and
I told her all my trouble. She was very indignant at Phillis’s conduct,
which she called abominable; and she said she would look out for a
better servant for me—a woman who could behave like that was not worth
her wages. I softened a little, and said she was not always so bad, of
course; and when I had been so very ill, was really very attentive to me.

Mrs. Prout said yes, she remembered poor Mr. Prout saying I had a rough
sort of creature to wait up me, but that she seemed kind-hearted.

“And, after all,” said she, “when we consider how little training such
women get before they go into service, and what indistinct notions they
have of their relative duties, we must make great excuses for them.”

“O yes,” said I, “we must; and, perhaps, I have been too exacting.”

“Well, it is possible you may have been a little so without intending
it,” said she. “We are all so apt to see things only from our own point
of view, and not to make sufficient allowances for others. Still, I don’t
see how you can go on comfortably together, since she makes no allowances
for _you_.”

“Not unless she _would_ make allowances,” said I, doubtfully.

“Do you wish her to stay?”

“Why, yes, if she would go on comfortably; for I can’t bear strange
faces, and we shall never find any one who is perfect.”

“Then, shall I say a few words to her, when she lets me out?”

“My dear friend,” said I, “I shall be _very_ much obliged to you!”

So the kind little woman arose, after telling me that Mrs. Pevensey had
reached home, and had borne the journey better than had been expected;
and that Emily was to come home on Saturday. And after she had taken
leave of me, I could hear her quiet voice for some time in the passage.
I could also hear an indistinct grumble, grumble, grumble, from Phillis,
and wondered what bad case she was making out against me. Then I heard
Mrs. Prout’s quiet voice again; but the only words that reached me were,
“You really should not;” and, “You really should.”

Then the door closed after her, and I heard a tremendous cleaning of
fire-irons going on in the kitchen, and quantities of coals shovelled up,
and quantities of water pumped up; after which ensued a lull. I lay back
on the sofa, and stayed my troubled mind with; “O Lord! undertake for
me!”

Just as it was getting quite dusk, I was startled from a little nap by
a smart ring at the back-door. A distant grumbling of voices ensued;
and as some suspicious-looking tramps had lately been hanging about the
neighbourhood, I became nervous, and rang the bell, to desire Phillis not
to parley with any people of the kind, but to shut and bolt the door. She
answered the bell, looking very glum.

“Who is that, Phillis?”

“Some one as has come after _my_ situation. I should’t ha’ thought
there’d been such a hurry!”

“Why, you yourself gave warning; and you have never said a word since of
being sorry for it, and wishing to stay.”

“You’ve never given me time!”

“To settle the matter at once—_do_ you wish to say so now?”

“Why, dear me, how can one settle a question like that in a minute?”

“Send the person in.”

“Then you _do_ want me to go?”

“Phillis, have _you_ ever said you wanted to stay?”

“Why, you knows as well as I do, that I can’t abear change.”

“There are other things, though, you must bear, Phillis, if you can’t
bear that. Let a family be large or little, it can never be a happy one
where the great law of obedience is broken, and where the mistress is
obliged to follow the lead of the servant. I do not mean to follow that
course; and, therefore, if you wish to remain here, you must obey _me_.”

“Why, don’t I?”

“Certainly you don’t.”

“Then you want to see this gal?”

“Of course, it is the least I can do, since Mrs. Prout, no doubt, has
been kind enough to send her down.”

Phillis put the corner of her apron to her eye.

“Then ’tis you wants to change, not I,” said she, in a stifled voice;
“for I’m very well content to rub on as I am.”

I took no notice. The next minute, she showed a tall young person into
the room, who stood close to the door.

“You may go, Phillis.”

Phillis shut the door, and went.

“Good evening; will you come a little nearer?” said I.

The stranger obeyed, and I suddenly became frightened; for the stride and
awkward gait convinced me it was a man in woman’s clothes. Thoughts of
robbery and murder rushed through my head as the figure advanced towards
me; but just then, the fire, which had been burning dimly, sent up a
bright tongue of flame, which lighted up the room, and shone on a face
that I thought was not altogether unknown to me.

“Where do you come from?” said I.

“Little Coram Street, London, ma’am,” in a voice of studied softness.

“Hum! then I fear a country place won’t suit you.”

“O yes, it will, ma’am! I likes the country best.”

“I am afraid you are not used to hard work. Did you ever scour a room?”

“I can work harder than people think, ma’am.”

“Well, but, _did_ you ever?”

“O ma’am, there’s _nothing_ I mind setting my hand to.”

“Or clean a saucepan?”

“Surely, ma’am, every servant can do that!”

“Who will recommend you?”

“Mrs. Prout knows me very well, ma’am.”

“And so does Mrs. Cheerlove!” said I, laughing. “Oh, Harry! you impostor!
I found you out directly!”

“Did you though?” said he, bursting into a fit of laughter, and throwing
his disguises right and left, till he stood before me in his original
dress. “Phillis didn’t; and a good fright I’ve given her. Served her
right, too! Listeners never hear any good of themselves, Mrs. Phillis,”
added he, as she put her head a little way into the room.

“Why, I thought I heard a man’s voice, and it gave me quite a turn,”
said she, advancing in a hesitating way towards us; “and so I did,—for,
whoever would have thought of its being _you_, Master Prout!”

“_You_ didn’t, it’s certain,” said he, rolling his things up into a
bundle, “or you wouldn’t have tried to set me against the place!—so there
I have you! Recollect, I’m a lawyer, and can take advantage of you at any
time.”

She was, for once, without one word to say.

“Yes, yes,” added he, “I’ve had a grudge against you this long while
for calling me _Master_ Prout, when all the world knows I’ve been _Mr._
Prout ever so long. One would think I took my meals in the nursery.
So, mind you, Phillis, if ever you are uncivil to your mistress again,
or ever more call me _master_, I’ll show you I _am_ your master, in
one way or another. And, as for your not having answered the bell when
Mrs. Cheerlove wanted you, because you were making a cap, why, sooner
than keep her waiting for that, I’d have worn a brown-paper cap like a
carpenter. So now go and make the kettle boil—very boiling, indeed, for
I’m come to drink tea with Mrs. Cheerlove; and we Londoners don’t admire
tea made with lukewarm water, I assure you.”

Off she went, with “Well, I’m sure!” on her lips, but with by no means a
displeased look on her face; and I could not help thinking, “Some people
may steal a horse, while others dare not look over a hedge. She has taken
a good deal more from ‘Master Prout’ than she would from Mrs. Cheerlove.”

       *       *       *       *       *

                                            The Stone House, December 27.

When will wonders cease! I can hardly believe I am awake and in my
senses,—yet so it is:—yes, here I am, spending the Christmas holidays
with the Pevenseys:—

  “And nothing meets my eye but sights of bliss.”

They had only been at home a few days when Arbell came in, all smiles,
to ask how I was, and to say that her mamma had thought a great deal
about me; and that it had occurred to her that as _I_ was an invalid, and
_she_ was an invalid, we should suit one another much better than if our
positions were more dissimilar; and that though we were not equal to a
merry Christmas, she did not see why we might not have a pleasant one. So
she had resolved on my occupying a certain bow-windowed blue room, with
dressing-room attached, during the holidays, and I should keep my own
hours, and choose my own companions, and dine early, and see as much or
as little of the family as I liked. She would not take no for an answer,
and she would send the close carriage for me the very next day.

Well, as she would not take “No,” for an answer, what _could_ I say but
“Yes?” and “very much obliged,” too. It put me quite in a flutter, but a
flutter of pleasurable excitement; for I have come to think the Pevenseys
one of the most interesting families in the whole world. It was very
satisfactory to think that my wardrobe was in fine order; that my best
caps, handkerchiefs, &c., were all beautifully got up, and ready for
immediate packing; that my new black silk dress had not even been worn;
and that I had got rid of the neuralgia just long enough not to be afraid
even of changing my bed.

I am sure the real danger will be in returning to my own house! I have
always considered it sufficiently snug; but the walls are so thin,
compared with these; and there are many chinks and fissures we are
obliged to stop up by ingenious contrivances, similar to what sailors
effect by means of _shakings_. Whereas here, if you want to open a
window, you may, indeed, do so with ease; but if you want it shut, it
really _will_ shut, without admitting a current of air strong enough to
blow out a candle! or making a noise like the roaring of a lion, through
some undetected orifice, as mine occasionally does at home, when least
expected or wished. I determined Phillis should enjoy herself in my
absence, and therefore permitted her to invite her widowed sister with
her small baby, to stay with her till my return, which she took very
pleasantly.

And here I am, in the snuggest of dressing-rooms, on the first floor of
the Stone House, overlooking a charming Italian garden, something in the
Haddon Hall style, that is beautiful even in winter, with bright masses
of evergreens forming backgrounds to its “storied urns and animated
busts.” And this dressing-room opens into a delightful bed-room, and also
into a warm, thickly carpeted gallery, into which, also, open three other
spare bed-rooms, one of which is at present occupied by Miss Pevensey,
another by Arbell; chiefly, I believe, that I may not fancy myself
lonely, as a door at the end of the gallery shuts off this wing from the
rest of the house.

Lonely!—in a house with eight children and sixteen servants! A likely
thing! Here, however, I may be as solitary, if I like, as a nun in her
cell; but as it is now ascertained that I enjoy the family ways, I am
continually having little visits from one and another. Firstly, Mrs.
Kent peeps in before I am up, to see whether the under-housemaid has
lighted my fire, and to inquire how I have slept; and to ask whether
I will have tea, coffee, or chocolate, in bed or out of it. Then, the
aforesaid housemaid (Mary, her name is) helps me to dress, as nicely as
Mrs. Kent could do. Then I step into the dressing-room, where I find
a clear fire, and breakfast for one awaiting me; chocolate and rusks,
may-be, or milk-coffee and French roll; or tea, toast, and a new-laid
egg. After this I commence my little prayer-service and Bible-reading, as
at home, while a prayer-bell, in some far-off quarter, which they tell me
is much too cold for me, summons the household to prayers.

Immediately after this, the three little ones steal in from the nursery,
saying,—“Will oo like to—to—hear our texts?” Of course I say “Yes;” and
then one little creature says, “God is love;” and another reverently
repeats, “Little children, love one another;” and another, “Live
peaceably with all men.” They learn something fresh every day. Then
Arbell comes in, and we have long, delightful talks, till Mrs. Pevensey,
who sleeps late, is ready to hear her read a portion of Scripture: I
think they talk it over a good deal together afterwards. Meanwhile,
cheerful “Aunt Kate” looks in on me; brings me _The Times_, or “Pinelli’s
Etchings,” or something by the Etching Club, or Dickens’ last number, or
anything she thinks I shall like; makes up the fire, and has a cheerful
chat; but she does not stay long.

After this, I see no one till the one o’clock dinner, except Rosaline
and Flora, who are happy to give me as much of their company as they
may, till called off for their walk. At one, we all assemble to a very
bountiful meal, presided over by Miss Pevensey and Arbell, who, I am
happy to see, already carves neatly and quickly. Then they generally
carry me off to the conservatory, music-room, or library, the weather
not inviting the delicate to indulge even in carriage exercise. Towards
dusk, comes the grand treat of all: Miss Pevensey, Arbell, and I, repair
to Mrs. Pevensey’s dressing-room, where we find her lying like a statue,
perfectly still and colourless, but with her active mind ready to enter
on any subject, gay, or grave, that may be started. These conversations
are truly enjoyable. They insist on my occupying a couch opposite
Mrs. Pevensey’s; Miss Pevensey establishes herself between us, in her
brother’s easy-chair, and Arbell sits on a cushion at her mother’s feet.
By the uncertain light of the fire, we harmoniously discuss all sorts of
subjects, in a style not quite equal to that of “_Friends in Council_,”
but that suits our requirements equally well.

The Swiss tour affords inexhaustible subjects of interest and
entertainment. Sometimes Arbell tells what profound astonishment her
tooth-brush excited among the country girls; at other times, they speak
of the wonders of Mont Blanc, and Monte Rosa; and describe their arrival
at the hospice of the Great St. Bernard—the hospitable reception of
the good monks—their cheerful chat round the fire after supper—their
attendance at morning prayers, before dawn, in the chapel—and afterwards
witnessing the substantial breakfast given to the peasants who had
received a night’s shelter, before they descended the pass.

Sometimes Mr. Pevensey comes in while they are thus talking, and exclaims—

“What! still among the mountains? Mrs. Cheerlove must be quite bored!”

“Oh no!” they boldly reply, “she is such a good sympathizer!”

Then he, his sister, and Arbell, go down to their two hours’ dinner,
which I privately think it a privilege to escape. Mrs. Pevensey and I
have ice, fruit, cakes, and coffee. And then I see her no more, for Mr.
Pevensey spends the rest of the evening with her; and I say good-night,
and retreat to my own room, though not always to bed, if I have an
interesting book.

Though Mrs. Pevensey is not well enough to receive visitors (except such
a quiet one as myself), it has been very interesting to witness the
benefactions to the poor, the Christmas-tree loaded with presents for the
children and servants, the school-children’s treat, the servants’ feast,
&c., which ushered in Christmas in this hospitable house. In connection
with these, something very mysterious was to take place on Christmas
Eve, in the largest drawing-room, which was known only to Mr. Pevensey,
Arbell, and a few assistants. Great expectations were raised, and most
absurd guesses made, as to what could be going on,—much peeping, prying,
and tittering outside the carefully-locked door, and many conjectures
hazarded on the occupations of those who passed in and out. A good deal
of hammering added excitement to the scene; and Mrs. Pevensey said, with
some anxiety, she hoped they were not hurting the new white and gold
paper; a tinkling bell was also heard.

At length, the longed-for hour arrived; the school-children had had their
prizes and buns, the servants’ friends had had tea and plum-cake, the
Christmas-tree had displayed its glories, when, at the eventful hour
of eight, the public were admitted, and Mrs. Pevensey was carried into
the drawing-room. All were surprised, and rather disappointed, to find
it so dark; and when Arbell had marshalled every one to their places,
it became darkness itself, for every light was extinguished. A laugh, a
whispered remark, alone broke the silence, though all the household were
present, and the general feeling was of awe.

At length, on the ringing of _a small bell_, the solemn, distant sounds
of an organ were heard (a very good barrel-organ in the nursery, that
played hymn-tunes), and a curtain, slowly rising, revealed the hospice
of St. Bernard!—or, at any rate, so good a transparency of it as to give
a very vivid impression of the place itself. There was the old monastic
pile, shut in among craggy, snow-clad rocks—the adjacent church, the
_morgue_—the gloomy little lake—the tiny patches of garden, in which
the monks grow a few cabbages and lettuces. To add to the illusion, a
twinkling light was seen in one of the distant windows; a dog’s short,
sharp bark was heard afar off, and the tones of the organ conveyed the
impression of a midnight mass.

It was very impressively, capitally got up; and at small amount, as we
afterwards learnt, of trouble and cost. Ingenuity had been the prime
artificer; and Mr. Pevensey was much pleased at the cleverness with which
Arbell had seconded him. Altogether, the entertainment was well thought
of, and gave unmingled satisfaction.

       *       *       *       *       *

——I have come to the last page of my little note-book. Oh that the last
page of my life’s story may end as happily!


THE END.




FOOTNOTES


[1] Ecclesiasticus xix. 1.

[2] These hymns have been inserted by the kind permission of the
publisher of “The Invalid’s Hymn-book.”

[3] These golden words were once spoken by a wiser tongue than Mrs.
Cheerlove’s.

[4] Jane Taylor.

[5] Isaiah xlvi. 1.

[6] The Rev. F. Close’s Sermon, addressed to the Female Chartists.


J. S. VIRTUE, PRINTER, CITY ROAD, LONDON.







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