tf^ y%MIW>^ r^ yomm& ^fciwron i V NMR% y no one's charity, if she had the power of supporting herself. The very life of luxury and ease she would lead, would but make the dependence the more galling to her. No ! it could never be. She knew that the only way open to her to provide for herself, was one which must in all probability doom her to isolation from every en joyment natural to her period of life, to almost cloistered se clusion, to neglect and indignity. It was a hard lot ; but she knew she could bear it better than being a dependent for the bread she ate on the charity of another. In the one case the suffering would come from without, in the other from within. No comparison could be made between them. Among the many teachers Ellen had had in her childhood, she remembered one from whom she had both at the time, and in after years, been conscious of gaining more informa tion than from any other of the numerous governesses who had one after another made their entrance and exit at Beech- land. Ellen thought she herself had the material for teach ing, but that she had no skill or experience in using it. Her constant companionship with her father, and the desire of acquiring every thing which could gratify him, had induced her to read and converse with him on many subjects usually voted " dry" by girls of her age, and she had a stock of ge neral information in consequence by no means contemptible. She played with brilliancy on the piano, and with much de licacy and taste; though with less execution on the harp. She had some skill in drawing, too, though she devoted her self chiefly to flower painting. But how apply the know ledge she possessed to the instruction of others ? She felt her deficiency here. She had never been to school ; she had had no younger brothers and sisters whose instruction she might have witnessed, and had entirely forgotten how the 52 ELLEN PARRY. elements of her education had been administered to her. Children generally know when they are well taught, and Ellen, though she had rebelled against Miss Sanderson's disci pline, had always acknowledged that she had gained a great deal from her. This lady had for some years kept a board ing school, and it occurred to Ellen that she would per haps receive her for a year as teacher, and she should thus inform herself of the routine of school-room business. The idea was executed almost as soon as conceived ; and a few days afterwards Ellen received a letter from Miss Sanderson, wherein, after some well-turned expressions of condolence, in which there seemed to be more head-weav ing than heart-feeling, she informed her that she could and would be pleased to admit her as junior teacher. She re ceived, she said, only twenty young ladies in her house, and the assistance she had hitherto obtained, in addition to that of her resident French and English teachers, was from articled pupils, who paid her fifty or a hundred guineas, according to the time they wished to remain with her and the studies they wished to pursue ; but as Miss Parry's object was merely to make herself acquainted with the routine of the school-room, she should consider her ser vices as an equivalent for her board, and for the advantages she would derive from her position. At the same time it had better be understood that she must consider herself as, and perform the duties of, junior teacher. Ellen read and re read the letter. There was nothing in it with which to find fault, and yet there was something cold and hard in its tone. Her heart contracted rather than dilated towards its writer j "but," she reasoned with herself, "must I expect to find the kindness and consideration to which I have been too much accustomed ? If I shrink thus at the outset, what reliance can I place on my fortitude for the future?" The Howards were displeased at the decision she had made. Mrs. Howard called it ingratitude to fling back their proffered kindness upon them ; to refuse to receive a favor from those she knew felt so strong an interest in her. Mr. Howard, when his first emotions of vexation had subsid ed, maintained that Ellen's feelings were to be respected, and that on the whole he thought it was better she should try her own plan, and enter Miss Sanderson's school for a year, and if at the end of that time she should feel that ELLEN PARRY. 53 she had made a mistake, she should come to them, and be unto them as a daughter. Caroline's letter to Ellen was full of reproaches for "her absurdity," her "unkindness," in re fusing to live with them. But she continued firm, thanked Mr. Howard for entering so well into her feelings, and pro mising him that if the time ever came when she should feel her choice to have been an unwise one, and the course she had chosen one she had not strength to pursue, she should have confidence enough in him to tell him so. It was a cold blustering evening at the end of March when Ellen arrived at Miss Sanderson's residence, about five miles from London, in the vicinity of Wimbledon ; the house had less of the usual appearance of " Establishments for Young Ladies," than she had anticipated. There were no huge iron gates and high walls ; no notice of "man-traps and spring-guns in these gardens," and the windows that looked out on a pretty lawn, round which a carriage road passed with graceful sweep, did not appear to have any spe cial pains taken to prevent any one from looking out of them. It was the close of the Easter holidays, but the pu pils had not yet returned. A maid-servant came to the door, who. when Ellen had paid the coachman, and seen that her two trunks were duly deposited, asked her to walk into the study. It was at the back part of the house, and consisted of two large rooms, the folding doors between which were thrown back. At the extreme end of the farther room was a grand piano ; and numerous desks covered with green baize, with high chairs pushed under them, surrounded the room. These, with a large table in the centre, and two or three smaller ones in different parts of the rooms, and a large book case, constituted the whole furniture. There were two can dles on the table, but their insufficient light served only to make the gloom of the large cheerless rooms more percepti ble. There was no fire ; for at Wimbledon Villa there were no fires after Easter in the study, or resumed before Mi chaelmas, no matter what might be the caprices of the wea ther ; the law of the house with regard to fires was as im mutable as that of the Medes and Persians. In a few minutes Miss Sanderson appeared ; very little changed since the days when Ellen and she had struggled for the supremacy. She had the same quiet unchanging man ner, the same precise neatness in attire, and erect carriage. EN 54 ELLEN PARRY. She took Ellen's proffered hand without pressure, and spoke the matter-of-course words of welcome with no smile on her lip, and no warmth in her eye. After a short conversation, she said, " You are fatigued, and I dare say would like to go to your room," and taking up a candle offered to show her the way. Ellen followed. Over the study were three rooms, with four small pretty little beds in each. One of the four in the outer room was pointed out to Ellen as hers, it was larger than the rest. Miss Sanderson remarked that sometimes she found it convenient to place one of the pupils with her junior teacher, but she thought for the remainder of that half year she would probably not have a companion. " Shall I send you some chocolate, Miss Parry ?" she said, as she was leaving the room. Ellen accepted the offer, and as soon as she was alone, sat down on the chair beside the bed, and buried her face in her hands. A feeling of utter forlornness was upon her ; she was cold and weary, and every thing had a comfortless air. The battle with the world had indeed begun, and despite all her preparations for the encounter, she found herself fainting at the outset. Humble in comparison with her previous lot as was her late home, still it had been home ; and home in which she was actually, if not nominally, the presiding spirit where the affectionate attentions of nurse had scarcely permitted her to be sensible of any change in her personal comforts and attendance. Every thing had always been placed in readiness for her nightly toilette, and nurse was always there to brush her hair and arrange the clothes she took off. Here every thing looked as scrupulously un comfortable as it was neat and clean. A small wash-stand with a mirror over it was placed in the corner opposite the foot of her bed, and this was the only provision made for her comfort and convenience beyond that of the other pu pils, with the exception of half a bureau, the other half be ing occupied with the bed linen and towels required for the use of the various occupants of the chamber. Ellen was roused from the painful and dangerous con trast of past and present in which she was indulging, by the entrance of the servant with the chocolate, and a request to know if she would have her trunks brought up. As soon as they were deposited in her chamber and the door closed, she ELLEN PARRY. 55 for the first time in her life set about unpacking a trunk, and undressing herself without assistance. The discomfort of having no room to herself struck her more and more as she thought of it ; it was a thing she had not contemplated for a moment; and after pondering upon it for some time she came to the only wise conclusion, to do and bear as others did, to avoid all comparisons with her past lot, and to cherish the hope of something better. The next morning at eight she breakfasted with Miss Sanderson in her parlor, and was informed that many of the pupils would probably return that day, and that Mile. du Croix and Miss Spring, the French and English teachers, would arrive that evening. In reply to Ellen's inquiries concerning the hours of sfudy^rshe was informed that the bell rang at six in the morning;for the young ladies to rise ; they were expected to be in the study by seven, and occupy themselves about their lessons until eight, when she herself came in to read prayers. They then breakfasted ; at nine school commenced and continued until one, when they went out to exercise themselves in tfe play-ground, under the sur veillance of the junior teacher, on occasionally to walk out with herself or one of the older teachers. At half-past two they dined, and at half-past three resumed their studies until five. They then took tea, learned their lessons for the next day, at eight retired. Ellen's astonishment was depicted very legibly on her face, but Miss Sanderson did not per ceive or did not understand its expression. The poor chil dren ! She pitied them from the bottom of her heart. Such arrangements seemed to her out-of-door habits perfect im prisonment. Miss Sanderson was a very good type of her class, the daughter of a tradesman who had exerted himself to give his child a more expensive and varied education (it may be doubted whether a better one for her) than was general among people in her class of life, under the idea that he was supplying her with the means of supporting herself in a higher grade of society than he could place her in. She had been early separated from all the endearments and social af fections of home, and placed at a boarding-school so distant from her father's residence that she only visited it once a year. At seventeen she ceased to be pupil, but remained 56 ELLEN PARRY. two years as teacher in the same school ; thence she was re moved to the more lucrative post of private governess. Of society she had seen nothing. Her ideas were consequently limited ; kidness and affection she had rarely experienced. Her affections had never been cultivated, how then could the law of kindness be written on her heart? She was at twenty-five a well organized teaching automaton, always per forming and exacting the due amount of work in the school room. Place her among men and women, and she was like a being from another world, having no sympathies with their tastes and pursuits, scarcely comprehending their feelings among them, but not of them.^ Such a character was the natural result of such a system of training. She had some quiet energy which she exerted when self-interest called it out ; and this had shown itself in the steady perseverance of a plan for laying aside three-fourths of her income until she had saved enough to undertake a school. She had achieved her purpose and attained the height of her ambition. Ellen soon grew accustomed to the business of the school room, nor did she find teaching as irksome as she had anti cipated ; but the confinement and the total absence of society was what she had not expected. Her fellow-teachers were uncongenial. The French woman, when not engaged with her classes, was always absorbed in romances, and the English wo man had not a thought or idea beyond her profession ; indeed Ellen sometimes doubted whether she had ever entertained an original idea. Her conversation abounded in quotations; she gave the date for every thing ; was always setting right, and was particularly fond of tutoring and finding fault with Ellen, who at times could scarcely suppress the contempt she felt for both, especially when she saw some petty deception practised towards Miss Sanderson. Ellen's nature was es sentially open and true, the fearlessness of her character had never permitted her to see any reason for prevarication or falsehood. She had never felt any inducements to it. She told them both she should take no part with them. If Ma demoiselle went out to the circulating library in the evening, and she knew of it, she could not condescend to reply to Miss Sanderson's inquiries by a subterfuge, and could not say Miss Spring had gone to bed, when she knew she had gone to the kitchen to eat the hot supper the cook had pre- ELLEN PARRY. 57 pared for her. Both were of course her enemies, complain ed that the younger pupils' lessons were not properly pre pared, that Miss Parry was neglectful, that she did not know her place as junior teacher, and was too self sufficient to sub mit to their dictation. Poor Ellen felt miserably enough, but Hope held a beacon-light ; and she said to herself it was but for a year, better things would come ; and after a year at Wimbledon Villa, it appeared to her that the position of a private governess must be one of comparative dignity and independence. But though she occasionally reasoned with herself in this manner, the greater part of the time she was really unhappy. Miss Sanderson was as kind to her as she knew how to be to any one. She always included her in the invitations occasionally given to the other teachers to take tea with her in the drawing-room, to meet the select few who were admitted to Wimbledon Villa ; but there was no one who sympathized in her pleasures or her trials, who rejoiced in her joy, or was saddened by her sadness. Her abode there was home in its narrowest sense, " four walls and a roof." It had none of the endearments, none of the heart- cheering smiles, unrestrained interchange of thought and feeling, which we associate with the name, and which the sound of it ever calls up. Those habits of free communication on all the trifles of every-day life, which are common in our domestic circles, have undoubtedly an effect for good upon our characters. What if it be but the choice of a ribbon, the selection of a dress, the arrangement of a piece of work, or the decision of where we shall walk they are links in the chain of our so cial sympathies, and by no means despicable ones, for, small though they be, the chain is imperfect without them ; the goats'-hair was required for the building of the tabernacle as well as the gold and the silver and the brass ; and the tithe of the mint and cummin and anise was to be observed in conjunction with the weightier matters of the law. Na turally joyous and frank as Ellen's character was, a long continuance of this state of things, the reserve touching her own interests, feelings, and tastes, because no one around her cared any thing about them, would in all probability gradually have imparted a certain hardness of manner, a 3 58 ELLEN PARRY. proud, stern self-reliance, more calculated to inspire respect than love. But deliverance was at hand. There is a tendency of the heart, even when it has not been touched by divine grace and is suffering from the re verses of life, or from the coldness and heartlessness of the world, to turn to Him with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning, and whose name is Love. The words of Scripture seemed to Ellen invested with a meaning they had never conveyed to her before. The history of the Saviour's love and compassion, now that she was poor and forlorn, and alone, called up emotions as new as they were delightful. Her knowledge of the Scriptures was not extensive even in the letter, and to their spiritual meaning her attention had never been directed. Of the plan of salvation, of the alien ation of the heart from God, of the necessity of Repent ance, of Justification by Faith in the Atonement, and Sanc- tification by the Spirit, she had never so much as heard ; but she loved to turn to the pages of the New Testament and read the beautiful history of the Saviour's life on earth, so touching in its tenderness, its patience, and its self devo tion; it was when alone that she sought this solace, for there were none there who sympathized with her even in this new feeling. The observances of religion were mere forms there ; prayers were daily read morning and evening, and public worship duly attended on the Sabbath ; but religion, as a vital principle, which should operate on every thought and action, was a stranger. Among the few very young children was one who had in terested Ellen more than the others ; she could scarcely tell why, for she was not more attractive, or engaging, or intel ligent ; perhaps it was that the tear on her cheek, when her parents wished her " good bye." was less quickly dry. and that she seemed fonder of sitting quietly in a corner thinking of her home and talking to her doll about it. than in join ing her companions in the few sports permitted them. She had been left there only for a short time while her parents were travelling in Scotland. Mr. and Mrs. Winter- ton, her father and mother, lived near Bath. This daughter, about eight years of age, and an infant son, were their only children. Mrs. Winterton's health being delicate, her hus band had determined to travel the whole summer, and ELLEN PARRY. 59 thinking her little daughter would be too great a care for her under such circumstances, they had agreed to place her in Miss Sanderson's charge for the time of their absence. The Christmas holidays were near at hand, when little Lucy, who had been drooping for several days, became evi dently very ill, and the physician who was called in pro nounced her illness bilious fever. Ellen showed herself so active and efficient in the chamber of the sick child, that she was soon installed as nurse. No attentions seemed so welcome to the little sufferer as those of Ellen, and she was even impatient of the presence of any one else Her parents had been written to at the commencement of her sickness ; but the crisis had passed, and though very feeble, she was convalescent when they arrived. The little one, tired of lying in bed, was in Ellen's lap when they entered with Miss Sanderson, and they were naturally too much engrossed with their child to notice her young nurse. Ellen was about to leave the room, when little Lucy's broth was brought in, and she said she could not drink it, unless Miss Parry gave it to her. The appeal could not be withstood, and with a heightened color and some confusion, Ellen took the child again in her arms and fed her, as she had been accustomed to do throughout her sickness. One on whom their child seemed so dependent was naturally an object of interest in the eyes of Mr. and Mrs. Winterton. and it was not surprising that when they withdrew to the room Miss Sanderson had had prepared for them, that Ellen, in connection with the little patient, should be the subject of conversation. They had both, it appeared, been struck with the idea, that Ellen might be a very desirable person to take with them into the country as Lucy's governess. Miss Sanderson's little history, in reply to their inquiries, did but heighten their interest. The lady, indeed, no sooner heard it. than her mind was made up, for there would be a little eclat in having such a per son as her daughter's governess, to which she was by no means insensible. Mrs. Winterton was known among the society in which she lived, as a woman fond of forming new and close inti macies, whose decline was often as rapid as their growth. She was a coquette, if I may so call her, with her female 60 ELLEN PARRY. acquaintance, and was perhaps as incapable of a true friend ship as a coquette, in the common acceptation of the word, is of a true and earnest love. She was ever very desirous of appearing amiable and at tractive in the eyes of all strangers she met with. Nothing was left undone which she thought likely to win her a place in their confidence and affection, and her devotion generally continued until she felt pretty secure of her conquest, or some new object crossed her path and drew her attention in another direction. She was a fine looking woman, about eight and twenty, and the versatility of her manners and her aptitude in suiting them to the person she was conver sing with, made her a general favorite with strangers. Her husband was a plain good sort of man, some ten years her senior. He had inherited a handsome estate, on which he lived in bachelor freedom until thirty years of age. He had shown so little taste or inclination for ladies' society, and seemed so indifferent to all the attractions spread in his path to lure him into matrimony, that the most sanguine had begun to consider him a forlorn hope ; but so good a " parti " was worth trying for, and thus thought a prudent papa and mamma, with two portionless daughters. The papa hunted with his young neighbor, shot with him, and generally contrived to pursuade him. after a day's hunting or coursing, that he might as well go home and dine with him. When this had occurred once or twice, mamma inva riably had a presentiment that her husband would bring home his companion to dinner, and had, therefore, dispatched a groom to the Grange, to request Mr. Winterton's man to send back such change of raiment as his master would re quire, and there was always a comfortable dressing-room for him. His favorite dishes were better cooked, he thought, than at home ; his host's wine was good ; the hostess did the hon ors so judiciously as to put him on very good terms with him self; the young ladies did not seem to require too much attention, and did not sit too long after dinner to postpone the favorite topics of all country gentlemen, politics and the genealogy of their favorite hunters and racers. The conse quence of all this was. that one morning, by some means or other, he scarcely knew what, he found himself the engaged lover of the younger of the two daughters, Miss Mary Os- ELLEN PARRY. 6l borne, and as soon as the "trousseau" could be arranged, she became the wife of Mr. Winterton, and the proud mis tress of the Grange. / They got along together very com fortably, no very rapturous love on either side ; > and the lady finding, soon after her marriage, that her lord had a will of his own, which neither opposition nor coaxing could turn from its purpose, had prudently refrained from setting up her own against it, though she did not fail to complain of the dulness and weariness of being buried alive in the country year after year ; and unless when she had company, or was in any other drawing-room than her own, was so vapid and listless a companion that she sometimes set her husband wondering what had become of the frank, naive manner and gay conversation which he had always noticed at her father's table. He was, nevertheless, in the main, a very kind husband, although he did not, to be sure, yield to her desire of living in London every spring, or spending every autumn at a watering-place. The ladies who had for several generations ruled at the Grange had found its comforts and beauties sufficient for them, and he saw no reason why his wife should not. But he no sooner became aware that his wife's health really required change of air and scene, than he threw aside every other consideration and devoted him self to her. Her summer at the lakes and in Scotland, and a few weeks in London in the height of the season, had suc ceeded in restoring both cheerfulness and health ; and that gained, Mr. Winterton only waited until the physician should pronounce Lucy in a fit state to travel, to issue his orders for their return. He was the more anxious to get home as he thought the summer travelling, though beneficial to the mother, had not been equally so to the heir of his name and fortunes. How could a Winterton thrive any where but on his patrimonial estate? When the proposal was made to Ellen, she very readily acceded to it, subject, however, to the assent or non-assent of Mr. Howard. She felt that he had a right to be con sulted and informed of all her movements before they were finally decided on, and he had promised her, however sorry he might feel that she would not come and reside with them, he would never thwart or oppose her wishes on the subject ; that though her notions of independence appeared to him 62 ELLEN PARRY. exaggerated, he felt they were to be respected. The How ards were expected home every day, and arrived the week after the Wintertons had departed for Somersetshire. Elleu went to them immediately after she heard of their arrival, and experienced the greatest happiness in meeting them again. Caroline had grown into a very lovely woman, strikingly elegant in her appearance, and with the finished manners of a femme de societe. Ellen passed several days with them. But even in that short time she perceived how much the different scenes through which they had passed, the different emotions which they had experienced in the last two years, had done to destroy the perfect sympathy there had formerly been between them. She was conscious, as she talked, how many feelings and views of life which circum stances had developed in her she could not speak of to Caroline, they would be to her as an unknown tongue; but she sat and listened to her glowing description of the grace and wit and polished converse of the salons of Paris, the enchanting beauty of Italy, the luxury of living in such an atmosphere of art and storied interest. What wonder that Ellen gave a sigh for those gratifications of taste which she felt she could appreciate so highly, and which her friend described with all the vividness of youthful enthusiasm ? She remained with them in London until the beginning of April. The young heart will assert its claim to happiness and joy, and Ellen's naturally gay spirit began to show itself again. She saw now. by contrast, how cheerless and joyless her life had been during the last year. She did not accom pany Mrs. Howard and Caroline to any parties, though they often urged her to do so ; for she had not yet left off her mourning, and she shrank, more than she herself was per haps conscious of doing, from meeting any of the gay and fashionable who had been among the "dear five hundred" at her mother's thronged routs, and who now would probably meet her with little notice beyond a fashionable stare, if they even remembered her name. She bad experienced a little of this treatment from the occasional visitors at Mrs. How ard's house, whom she had been compelled to meet. She had. perhaps, less to struggle with in. resigning the gratifica tion of balls and parties than most girls of eighteen ; for Ellen was singularly free from all coquetry and desire of admiration, and possessed that purity and delicacy of feeling ELLEN PARRY. 63 touching her intercourse with gentlemen, which Caroline's early introduction into society, and the train of adorers who were ever in her suite, had entirely dissipated ; and Caroline often astonished the simplicity of her friend by recounting acts and words of gallantry which she felt she should have shrunk from. This absence of all desire to attract admira tion produced a quiet ease of manner which was very charm ing, and a dignified self-possession, which it is often errone ously supposed can be the result only of an early introduc tion into society. With some natural regrets, but unwavering courage, Ellen took leave of her friends. Mr. Howard accompanied her to Bath, where Mr. Winterton's carriage met her. The footman handed her a note from Mrs Winterton, in which she said that the illness of her mother had summoned them to Clifton, and that Mrs. Osborne, who was still confined to her room, was anxious that they should remain with her a short time longer. She very politely expressed her regret that she could not be at the Grange to welcome Miss Parry on her arrival, but begged she would consider herself quite at home. Ellen was tired with her journey, and was not at all sorry when, after a ride of a few hours, the carriage stopped, and roused her from the state of drowsiness into which the easy swing of the well-hung vehicle was lulling her. The footman rung a bell which hung beside huge heavy-looking gates ; and its clear tone was still ringing on the silent evening air when they were thrown open, and the carriage entered a magnificent avenue of elms and sycamores. After proceeding about a quarter of a mile, it drew up before a mansion, of that varied architecture so frequently seen in the country residences of the gentleman commoners of Eng land. It was of gray stone, and had been enlarged from time to time, according to the convenience, probably, rather than the taste, of the different proprietors, who for centuries had been born and lived and died there. The entrance was adorned, or deformed, according to the taste of the spectator, by a low stone porch, surmounted by the family crest, a lambent torch, encircled by the motto in the old English character. Dum spiro spero. The porch was covered thickly with ivy, and the same luxurious evergreen had spread itself 64 ELLEN PARRY. over a large portion of the front of the mansion on either side, mantling the stone frames of the heavily mullioned windows with its beautiful foliage. On either side of the entrance were two large yew-trees, carefully clipped in the form of peacocks ; and, as if in contrast to their vegetable imitations, two living specimens were strutting on the rich green lawn in front. An old sun-dial, hoary with the moss of years, which stood on the edge of the lawn, added to the general appearance of antiquity, which struck Ellen's eye with delight. The Wintertons were a conservative race, and the visitor of the seventeenth century found every thing at the entrance of the Grange in the same place, and wearing the same aspect, as our heroine in the nineteenth. The housekeeper preceded her up the broad polished oak staircase, and led the way to a room on the opposite side of the house. It was well furnished and cheerful, and con nected with another which had been fitted up as a chamber. The windows of both apartments overlooked the park, and there was an air of cheerful retirement about them, which made a favorable impression on their future tenant. After Ellen had taken tea, and the tea equipage had been removed, she drew her chair near the fire, and spent a very agreeable evening in planning the arrangement of her own possessions in this her new domain. There was a book case, now nearly empty. How delightful it would be to have it filled with the volumes familiar to her eye, and dear to her heart ! In that corner her harp should stand ; there her piano ; there would be a good light for her father's pic ture ; and she formed plans for little Lucy, and contrasted, with a thankful heart, this her first evening at the Grange with her reception at Wimbledon Villa. Then came many good angels, prompting self-examination ; pressing home, gently but firmly, conviction of things which ought not io have been done, and of things left undone which ought to have been done. Then came good resolutions, accompanied by the prayer that God, " without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy," would be her Euler and Guide. These were a fitting sacrifice of sweet-smelling savor, wherewith to consecrate the apartments assigned for her use. Welbourne. the village in which the Grange was situated, was distant about fifteen miles from Bath ; and the society ELLEN PARRY. 65 it afforded was as enlarged, and formed of nearly the same materials, as in most villages which boast of a manor-house, and are situated in an attractive part of the country. The Wintertons were the principal inhabitants ; then came the Osbornes ; then the showy family of a wealthy banker, who occupied the mansion of a nobleman, resident for some years on the continent, whose estate was " at nurse." This resi dent was a gentleman who managed, on a plan of the most enlightened and enlarged benevolence, a large woollen manufactory, which he had established there, much to the annoyance, at the outset, of the magnates of the village. But time had removed the prejudices of even the most de termined opposers ; all had yielded to the moral influence of a man whose life was a manifestation of the beauty of holi ness, and whose zeal in any cause he undertook never led him to forget the consideration due to those who differed from him. But the most remarkable person Welbourne contained was the widow of the former vicar. Lady Sarah Ford was the youngest of three daughters of the Earl of Warlingford, all remarkable for their personal beauty and mental accom plishments. A ducal coronet in possession had been laid at the feet of her eldest sister ; and the eldest son of a noble man of equal rank had obtained the fair hand of the other. Lady Warlingford anticipated an equally brilliant match for her youngest daughter ; but Lady Sarah was not to be dazzled by mere rank and wealth, however exalted the one, or great the other. In her earliest womanhood (and Lady Warlingford had brought her daughters forward early), she had turned with pleasure and delight from the adulation of the gay and the giddy, to listen to the more congenial con versation of the men of letters and science who were not unfrequent guests at her father's table. When about nine teen, she became acquainted with Mr. Ford, the orphan child of an officer who had been killed in India, and nephew of the Dean of Y. He had entered the church, not because * it was a line in which he might hope for patronage, but be cause he loved the service of his Grod. He had then just taken orders ; and the elevated view which he entertained of the duties and privileges of the career he had chosen, and the ardent and pure spirit of piety with which he was enter- 3* 66 ELLEN PARRY. ing upon it, confirmed in Lady Sarah's heart that predilec tion which his high intellectual culture and graceful man ners had previously awakened. Soon after he had been admitted to priest's orders, he was appointed to the living of Welbourne, giving him an income of seven hundred and fifty pounds per annum. He thought he had an interest in the heart of the woman he loved with an affection she was well calculated to inspire; but could he ask her to share so narrow a pittance, cradled as she had been in the lap of luxury? How much privation must she endure of those superfluities of life which, from having been always her allot ment, must be to her as necessaries. But then he thought of the simplicity of her tastes ; of how little pleasure she seemed to derive from the gay scenes upon which she entered in compliance with her mother's wish ; and of her active in terest in the poor on her father's estate. Thence he took "heart of grace," laid his love and his poverty at the feet of the high-born and beautiful daughter of the Earl of War- lingford, who was no less happy in the proffer than he in its acceptance. It needed all the buoyancy and courageous spirit with which his successful suit had inspired him, to sustain Mr. Ford under the fire of anger and sarcasm with which the old Earl, irascible by nature, and rendered still more so by frequent attacks of gout, received his proposal for his fair daughter. Had he "lost his senses," he inquired, "that he thought of marrying his daughter? Why didn't he propose for the moon ? it wouldn't be at all more absurd. The wife of a country parson should be a woman who could live on sheep's head and blackberry pudding, and cook it herself. If Mr. Ford thought the Earl could give her a fortune, he was mistaken; Lady Sarah would have no marriage portion but her godmother's legacy of ten thousand pounds, which could not be touched till she was five and twenty. Mr. Ford dis claimed any knowledge of Lady Sarah's having even that fortune. " Well, then," was the reply. " all I can say about it is, you're a bigger fool than I thought you were ; and now begone as quick as you can. Your father was a brave man, and a brother officer of mine, and I don't like to see his son making such a fool of himself." Discouraging ELLEN PARRY. 67 enough ! But when did hope ever desert man or woman in the first flush of the happiness which springs from avowed and reciprocated affection ? It is the unrequited love, which puts out its beacon light, which prostrates the strength to will and the courage to dare, which makes the " grasshopper a burden," and the years draw nigh when we say, " there is no pleasure in them." Lady Sarah needed no words to inform her of the ill success of his mission when he joined her in the shrubbery. She listened with heightened color and quickened breath to his relation of what had passed, and then turning her blushing face to wards him, said, how ennobling was the preference of one against whom no ground of objection could be raised save that he had no money. " My father," she added, " is hasty, but not unreasonable when his impetuosity subsides ; and though my dear mother sets a higher value on the honors and dignities of earth and the possession of riches than they merit, I cannot but think she would consider them wanting when weighed in the balance with the happiness of a child. Let us hope in patience that when they find the choice, which now appears to them to be the idle offspring of a girl's imagination, is based on an appreciation of virtues of no common order, they will view in a more favorable light what now excites their opposition." Lady Sarah had spoken words of comfort and assurance, for her delicacy of perception made her feel keenly the galling insulting man ner of the rejection of his suit, and the mortification which must attend it But she felt that a struggle was at hand, which she must nerve herself to sustain with unflinching firmness and patient hope. She entered the house with a slower step than usual, and so absorbed in thought that she started at the approach of a servant, who said the Countess wished to see her in her morning room. Gladly would she have had a few hours of solitude and self-communion before meeting with any of her family ; but Lady ^arah never stooped to excuses, to avoid or postpone the little daily vexations and crosses from which even her high degree did not exempt her ; and she turned to her mother's room without considering whether she could evade the summons or not. The Countess was writing when Lady Sarah entered; her 68 ELLEN PAREY. elder daughters, then on a visit to Warlingford Castle, were also there the Duchess indolently reclining on a sofa, ap parently reading, and Lady Dunmore engaged in putting the finishing touches to a miniature portrait of her mother, which she had been taking. h Where have you been, Sarah ?" said the latter. " Suspicions were beginning to form them selves into certainties in my mind that ' II Pastor fido ' had carried you off to Grretna. Papa hobbled in here about an hour ago, and gave a most ludicrous account of the humble and modest request of a certain unassuming young man, that the Honorable Lady Sarah Warlingford should be given unto him as a help (meet or unmeet, which is it ?) in the parish duties of the village of Welbourne, and the household duties of its vicarage. I have thought that the young man might be pardoned if he should nourish a spirit of presumption, when I have seen you listening with the most interested air to his conversation after receiving the attentions of some sprig of fashion (insipid, perhaps, but still the fashion) with an air that expressed (too manifestly for high breeding) that you barely tolerated him ; but," she continued, unmindful of the rising blush on her sister's cheek, " do you know, Cara, it exhibits a new phase in your character which I thought dame Nature had omitted in you, the spice of coquetry with which she generally gives piquancy to feminine manners and now behold ! I find you are not contented with a little flirtation , after the manner of ordinary damsels, but are actually allowing the poor man to commit himself by an open avowal. I think you might have spared him that mortification, and have been satisfied with his homage to your attractions." " Stop, Eva, pray stop ; I cannot bear this careless jest ing. It is impossible you can really think I have been playing so degrading a part. Mr. Ford saw papa with my permission, and I never had the most distant idea of trifling with a preference I am proud of awakening." " An avowal worthy a heroine of romance. I have no doubt 1'inamorato echoes the last sentiment from the bottom of his heart. In sooth the Vicar of Welbourne would have reason to think himself endowed with the golden spoon, should he win the youngest and (mark my humility) fairest and most gifted daughter of the Earl of Warlingford ; and the house of Ford might justly felicitate itself to think this ELLEN PARRY. 69 scion of their race had made a good match, had taken not a step but a mighty stride in the way of promotion." " You do not know him. Eva, or you would, I am sure, acquit him of all such motives as your remarks express." " Granted that I do not know his in particular ; but I have been 'femme de societe' six years, and know the mo tives of mankind in general, and have found that love, which in ' le verd anni' one thinks a simple body, proves on ana lysis to be a subtle compound of an infinite variety of elements. " It would startle many young wives, who think their lords have been led into love and matrimony by their inhe rent attractions only, could they analyze their motives : First, a good connection ; second, worldly advancement ; third, a more dignified position in society ; and fourth, the necessity of a wife to preside at table, that the hus band may enact the magnificent host ; and so forth, and so on adinfinitum. To serve, the whole may perchance be spiced with a modicum of admiration for the personal attractions of some fair lady. There you have it, sister dear a true, faithful analysis of that love which leads men to matrimony. What think you, Mildred?" said she, turning to her eldest sister, who, with downcast eyes and an abstracted air, was twining her taper fingers in the long silky ears of a spaniel crouched on a cushion beside the sofa on which she lay. The young Duchess started, and made a scarcely audible reply. She had been turning back to a past page in the his tory of her life, which told of a certain young ensign with only a younger son's portion, who had offered her the un spoken homage of his heart. But her mother had stepped in between them, represented the imprudence, the folly, of an unequal alliance, the impropriety of allowing a man she could not marry to place himself on that footing of familiar intercourse which a woman should only accord to one with whom she could unite herself. The Countess kept back her opinion " that a young woman should steer clear of inel- igibles, who might possess sufficient attractions to blind her eyes to the solid advantages of a title and establishment." She would not have sacrificed her daughter to a man of de praved character ; but disparity in years, opposite tastes, uncongenial opinions, she thought matters not worth consi- 70 ELLEN PARRY. dering, where the persons in question were in a rank of life which would enable them to follow their own tastes and pur suits without interfering with each other. The young ensign was softly whistled down the wind ; and soon after the an nouncement of Lady Mildred's betrothal to the Duke of Elferion, went with his regiment to the West Indies, and there died of yellow fever. The Duke was a good sort of man, of respectable charac ter and abilities, some twenty-five years Lady Mildred's se nior. She reverenced and esteemed him. was an excellent wife and mother, and her character, too facile perhaps as a girl, had developed and strengthened since her marriage. The world thought them a mostT happy couple, and the young Duchess, when she compared her married life with that of many of her acquaintance, could not but acknowledge she was highly favored in the lot which had been assigned to her, especially as years passed on. and her children filled up that void in her heart which her husband had never reached. Lady Dunmore's query of " What think you, Mildred ?" not only roused her sister from her reverie, but called the blood to her delicate cheek. She was a pure-hearted woman, an,d fqlt guilty of a breach of faith to her husband, in the recollection of the lover of her youth ; and the momentary thought of whether she might not have been happier as his wife, comparatively poor and undistinguished, than with a ducal coronet on her brows. "I I was not listening. What was the question?" Lady Dunmore repeated it. " Yes, I agree with you as to the truth of your remarks generally; but with this difference, that as many women as men marry from mere motives of expediency. For my part, I intend to keep my girls out of the way of the vicious and designing. But if I think as I do now, I shall never refuse my consent to a match simply because a man is poor." Lady Warlingford raised her eyes in astonishment from the letter she was writing. " You will think differently, my daughter, ten years hence. Will the way in which you are bringing them up fit them for poor men's wives? You might as well place a hot-house plant beside yonder oaks, and expect it to thrive as they do under the influence of the rough blasts. And you. my darling Sarah," she continued, as she drew her daughter toward her and kissed her brow, " your mother ELLEN PARRY. 71 can have no other motive than your welfare and happiness in refusing to consent that you should place yourself in a position, the privations and hardships of which she can esti mate much more correctly than yourself. Moral excellence and intellectual gifts are not so rare in your own rank of life that no man endowed with them is likely to seek and win your heart. " You must conquer this idle fancy. A few months, perhaps weeks, will make you feel thankful that we take the present course in this matter." But Lady Sarah, though very gentle, was very firm, and she could not submit to have an affection so strong, in which her judgment approved the choice her heart had made, stigmatized as an ''idle fancy" to be thrown aside at will; and with a voice low, but very calm and clear, she said that though she could never marry even the man she loved without her parents' consent, she could never withdraw her pledge to him while he should retain his own. She hoped time would convince them there was nothing in the simple habits of life which would be proper to her as Mr. Ford's wife, for which nature had not fitted her. The pomps and vanities of the world had never had any charm for her, and the retired life of a clergyman's wife, with its many and in teresting duties, had always appeared to her a most happy lot. " Her preference for Mr. Ford," she said, " being based on qualities which commanded her reverence and esteem, could not change." An angry flush passed over the face of the Countess. She was not accustomed to have her children set up their judgment against hers. The Duchess had always yielded implicitly to her guidance in the encouragement or discour agement she gave her admirers. Lady Dunmore gave to worldly honors and distinctions their full value, and perfectly acquiesced in her mother's opinion, that her own rank in life would furnish a sufficient number of lovers, to select one who should meet all the requisitions. Love in a cottage might look very well as described on hot-pressed paper as ' a rivulet of prose in a meadow of margin." But for real life, love in a house in Belgrave Square in town, and in a lordly mansion in the country, was much better ; and when the " observed of all observers," the handsome and accom- 72 ELLEN PARRY. plished Lord Dunmore proposed for her hand, she was quite prepared to fall in love with him as desperately as any hero ine of romance. In her youngest daughter, the Countess had already found she had not an ordinary nature to man age. An early seriousness had grown into strong religious principles, which seemed even at nineteen to govern all her views of life and its duties. Her mind was highly cultivated, and had never been attracted from the pursuit of knowledge by the spell which the world and its pleasures usually exer cise over the petted children of fortune. " We will talk no no more on this subject now," she said, with forced calm ness, and turning to Lady Dunmore, added, "the car riage will be here in a few minutes, Eva, for our drive." When they left the room, the Duchess and Lady Sarah con versed long on the subject of the attachment likely to meet with so much opposition ; and when the servant entered to announce morning visitors, Lady Sarah felt that at least her eldest sister would not be among those who opposed it. A year passed, and Lady Sarah was still firm in her re jection of all the offers of marriage tendered for her accept ance ; struggling to bear, with Christian patience, a trial which she recognized as a part of the moral discipline her Heavenly Father saw to be necessary for her. Another year, and still the same gentleness of manner to all around her, the same filial attention to the parents who were crush ing and extinguishing the hope of her youth : but her cheek was paler, and her smile had more of resignation than joy in it. The Duchess had advocated her sister's cause, and Lord and Lady Warlingford, feeling there was no hope that Lady Sarah would cease to love Mr. Ford, or would marry any one else, at length gave their consent. As great happiness as can be experienced in this world, fell to the lot of. Mr. and Lady Sarah Ford, during the ten years of their married life. The most fervent personal piety, the most enlarged and judicious benevolence, all that can adorn the character of man and woman, as moral and intellectual beings, was exem plified in the life of the vicar of Welbourne and his wife. Their resignation to the will of their Heavenly Father had been sorely tried, in the loss of their child, whose only mis sion on earth seemed to be that of unsealing the fountain ELLEN PARRY, 73 of parental affections common to us all, but of which all are unconscious, till the moment when the first cry of the first born unseals its slumbering waters, which leap from their confinement, and pour forth, sanctifying every kindred feeling within us, and giving fresh impulse to every kindred sympa thy. Eight years after, Lady Sarah was called on to bear a similar trial : her husband was attacked by a lingering and painful disorder, the fatal character of which both were aware from the first. As his bodily powers sunk under his disease, his spiritual nature seemed to gain additional purity and elevation : and in the long years of her widowhood, his wife would draw rich consolation from the remembrance of their conversations in that season of suffering, every word of which was indelibly impressed upon her memory. On the tenth anniversary of their marriage, her husband was taken from her. Too much enfeebled to arise from his couch, the last hours of a lovely summer evening had been passed in that solemn and sacred interchange of feeling, to which two hearts, so strengthened and purified by affliction, and so fondly united, were irresistibly impelled, in view of so near a separation. Every feeling of the dying man seemed brought into the most perfect submission to the will of God. " His soul was even as a weaned child." and faith seemed vouchsafed to him without measure. As the day declined, he folded his hands for prayer, and in thanking God for the "goodness and mercy which had followed him all the days of his life," he dwelt particularly on the blessing vouchsafed him in his wife, for the mercies which had attended his sickness, and for the grace he had given both to bear it with faith and patience. As he composed himself for the night, he said he was singularly free from pain, and added, " I think I shall sleep ; He giveth his beloved sleep ; those who suffer pain, my wife, know the value of the gift." These were his last words. When she approached his bed. a short time after, his spirit had returned to God who gave it. Her sisters (the Earl and Countess were both dead) were very desirous that Lady Sarah should leave Welbourne, but she preferred remaining there. No spot of earth was so dear to her as that which contained the graves of her husband and child. The poor, over whom he had watched, and for whom 74 ELLEN PARRY. he had prayed and labored, were more interesting to her than any others could be ; and the associations with that field of labor, which no church preferment could induce her husband to leave, bound her closely to it. Her father had left her ten thousand pounds at his death, and this, with the legacy of her godmother, gave her an ample income, a large portion of which was devoted to charitable objects ; for her simple style of living and personal self-denial brought the neces sary expenses of her establishment within a very small com pass. Many were surprised at the calm self-possession with which Lady Sarah, soon after her husband's death, returned to her usual active benevolence, to the instruction of the ignorant, to the ministration to the sick. In her days of happiness she had not forgotten God, and in her days of sorrow he forgot not her. How much divine teaching does the soul need, before it can look on the trials of life in their true light! God can be the giver of nought but good : for those events which cause us suffering, and which we misname adversities, are blessings as they come from him. We pervert them, make them adversities, when \ve do not use them rightly. But take a still deeper view : faith in the justice as well as the love of God tells us he would never place his children in any circumstances for which they might not have been pre pared, had they been faithful to the previous teachings of his Providence. Thus regarded, prosperity is a preparation for adversity, and adversity for prosperity ; health for sick ness, and sickness for health ; and all are blessings to the Christian whose heart is fixed with a single-eyed devotion on the mark of the prize of his high calling in Christ Jesus. What are the highest hopes which centre in this shor-t life, of which the duration even is not within our knowledge or control, in comparison with hopes that have eternity for their range ? What the grovelling pleasures of earth, in comparison with those which the Christian has laid up in that eternal home which the Saviour has prepared and pur chased for him ? What are the hollow distinctions of the world, to those aspirations which have no lower goal than that of being one with the Father and the Son ? Lady Sarah was now nearly forty years of age, and all the powers of her naturally strong mind were matured in ELLEN PARRY. 75 singular harmony. Small as the society she had entered into since her marriage, out of Welbourne, it had been of a very high tone. "The choice and master-spirits of the age were not unfrequent guests at the vicarage of Welbourne, and found in their gentle and always feminine hostess one quite equal to discuss with them any of the more abstruse subjects on which they reasoned. To the quick perception of dis tinctions natural to women, she united, in an unusual degree, the masculine and higher power of reconciling them. This comprehension of relations and harmonies, unseen to com mon observers, imparted a calmness and repose to her mind, and had its influence also on the every-day associations of life. Thus one rarely heard from Lady Sarah of the ingrati tude of her poorer neighbors, of the inconsistencies of her wealthier ones, or of the forgetfulness and coldness of friends. She*did not look at things as isolated facts ; and in tracing to their source incidents which pained and disappointed her, and which, had she possessed a mind less well balanced, would have irritated her, she generally found in that source of which we speak cause for forbearance of judgment, and more to excite Christian love and kindness on her own part, than indignation or distrust. A superiority so great and so manifest must, one would think, have been felt by its possessor in her intercourse with common minds and char acters ; but if so, it was ' a calm influence of the understand ing, not a busy, importunate passion of the heart."* CHAPTER IV. THE early part of the day after Ellen's arrival was spent in unpacking and arranging her possessions, replacing broken strings and tuning her harp. When every thing was in order, she sat down and related all her doings to Caroline Howard. Somewhat wearied by her indoor pursuits, she put * Robert Hall. 76 ELLEN PARRY. on her bonnet and shawl, and went to seek refreshment and recreation in the open air. She had strolled for some time in the park, and at length came to a small gate which led into a most inviting lane. Tempted by the odor of violets and primroses, she passed through, and was walking slowly along the hedge-side in search of them, when the sound of voices near drew her attention. A lady and gentleman were approaching. The latter had nothing particularly at tractive in his appearance, but the former riveted Ellen's gaze She was in very simple mourning, but Ellen thought that she had never before seen such a union of majesty and grace. As the lady drew nearer, she was no less struck with the extreme beauty of her face. Ellen had gazed upon her some seconds before she was conscious of the intentness of her scrutiny, and, with a deep blush, withdrew her eves. She longed to turn round when they had passed her, out feared being caught in the act, and all the way home her imagination was busy concerning this lady. The house keeper came into her room soon after her return to attend to some duties of her office, and Ellen, after making some remarks on the beauty of the park and grounds, gratifying to the old servant's predilections, mentioned having met a tall lady in mourning, who, she thought, entered the pretty cot tage opposite the gate which led into the lane, and inquired if she could tell her who she was. "Was she very handsome? and rather stately-like (not proud, I don't mean that) in her walk ?" "Yes. quite so ; she had a gentleman with her." " And he was rather short and not partiklar well favored ?" "Keally, I scarcely noticed him, I was entirely occu pied with the lady." " It couldn't be any body but Lady Sarah Ford, and, most probable, the gentleman with her was Mr. Sherwin. He owns the great factory the other side of the river. He isn't much to look at, but he does a ' power of good,' and if, as some say, folks' bodies will be glorified at the resurrection, according to their holiness in their lifetime here, he'll be a sight handsomer than most men." " And who is Lady Sarah Ford ?" The housekeeper, glad to have information sought from her, indulged her garrulity, and satisfied Ellen's curiosity by a rambling hi ELLEN PARRY. 77 tory of Lady Sarah, and her goodness and piety, till the bell summoned her to tea " people will gossip, you know, Miss Parry, and when Mr. Ford had been dead three or four years, every body said she'd marry Mr. Sherwin, for he was a sworn friend of her husband's, and was a good deal with her, to be sure. But I know'd better, I always said there was nothing in it, and now it's nine years come July that she's been a widow. It's my opinion she never had no thought of changing her condition, nor ever will have and I don't believe Mr. Sherwin ever had any thoughts of ask ing her to." Ellen was much amused by the oracular tone in which the last opinion was delivered, and sat wondering whether people realized with what freedom and familiarity, and occa sionally acumen, their actions were commented on by their servants ; whether Lady Sarah Ford visited at all, and whether she should be likely to be presented to her, and whether her manners would confirm the impression her beauty and elegance had made. The next day was Sunday, and Ellen set out on foot to church. There was a way through the park leading directly to the north gate of the churchyard, but she preferred going by the road that she might see a little of the village. Ellen had learned early to love the Sabbath stillness of the country, and had always chosen a walk with her father to church, rather than a ride with her mother. This morning her thoughts reverted to the time when she had trotted by his side a " toddling wee thing," ever and anon bounding away to pluck a flower or chase a butterfly ; father and child alike ignorant of the cloud soon to break over them. She was so deeply absorbed in her own thoughts that even the chiming of the bells seemed a memory's echo of those of Beechland. When she reached the churchyard gate, it was held open for her to pass, and looking up to acknowledge the courtesy, she found she owed it to a gentleman whose air reminded her a little of the one she had seen with Lady Sarah Ford the preceding afternoon ; and on entering the Winterton pew, she perceived that lady already seated in one beside her. If Ellen's attention was drawn from time to time to her attractive neighbor, no such wandering thoughts seemed to disturb Lady Sarah's devo- 78 ELLEN PARRY. tions ; she had come to the house of her God to worship him, and had said to the world as she entered its courts, " There's the mountain of prayer, I am going up yonder, And tarry you here till 1 seek you again." The church was small and of simple structure, unadorn ed, unless the escutcheoned monuments of the Wintertons, which abounded on its walls, could be considered ornament al. The congregation was much larger than is usual in country churches, for the operatives from the neighboring manufactory very generally attended the service of the parish church. The prayers were read with much devotion, and were succeeded by a plain and comprehensive sermon on truths touching equally on the rich and poor hearer. Ellen lingered in the pew until Lady Sarah had left hers but arrived in the churchyard, her Ladyship made so many and frequent pauses to inquire about rheumatic old people, and teething young ones the measles of one child, and the whooping-cough of another, that Ellen was obliged to pass on. The tone of interest in which the inquiries she had overheard were made, served to add to the admiration with which she had been inspired, and her anxiety to become acquainted with Lady Sarah was increasing hourly. The interest was reciprocated, for Lady Sarah was most agree ably impressed with the appearance of the young stranger, who had naturally in a country village been the observed of all observers as " the latest found." Besides. Mrs. Winter- ton, during a morning call at Willow Cottage (Lady Sarah's abode), had talked of her engagement with Ellen, and had repeated the account which she had received of Ellen's ter rible reverses, and of her determination to support her self, embellishing her narrative with some additions and coloring of her own. She had thus prepossessed Lady Sarah with the opinion that Ellen must be endowed with more than ordinary strength of character ; and on the morning of the next day she called upon Ellen. Her man ners were simple yet dignified, polished but not artificial. The high-bred ease and courtesy peculiar to her class, blended with that Christian politeness which is the offspring of a heart fraught with love to all human creatures, soon put Ellen perfectly at her ease, and she found herself con- ELLEN PARRY. 79 versing on a variety of topics with a fluency and familiarity which rather astonished herself. " Will you drink tea with me this evening, Miss Parry ?" said her visitor, as she rose to take leave. ' Seven is my usual hour ; but if you would like to come early, and take your afternoon walk with me, I may be able to show you some of the beauties of Welbourne." Ellen readily assented, and promised to be at Willow Cottage by four o'clock. Lady Sarah's establishment was small : the cottage con tained but seven rooms ; and her household consisted of a man and his wife, (who had lived with her ever since her marriage.) and a young girl of seventeen, an orphan, whom she had brought up. Every thing was in the most exquisite order ; and the fitness and harmony visible in all the arrangements had that soothing effect which they never fail to produce, though the beholder does not always know its source. After tea, the little household were all assembled. Lady Sarah read a portion of Scripture, and offered up the even ing sacrifice of prayer and praise, and the social worship concluded by all uniting in singing the Evening Hymn. Before Ellen took leave that night, she had been led on by degrees (she scarcely knew how) to speak of her past life of her father, and the last hours she had passed with him. The tears were glistening on Lady Sarah's cheek as she said. " The discipline of life has been your portion early; but trust my experience when I prophesy that you will, before the meridian of life, echo the assertion of the prophet, that "it is good for us to bear the yoke in our youth." In a few days Mrs. Winterton returned, and Ellen's duties as instructress were entered upon. Like all young governesses, she began with high expectations, warm hopes, and a cheerful spirit She had read, and in some degree witnessed, the truth, that the lot was a crooked one ; that sufferance is the badge of all the tribe. But young hope was whispering its soothing, nattering assurance, that there would be some exemption in her particular case ; that her life at Wimbledon Villa had prepared her to think less of some annoyances, and more of some advantages, than she should otherwise have done: and then there was the thought, never long absent from Ellen's mind, that her father would 80 ELLEN PARRY. have approved the course she was pursuing. As yet she knew nothing of the weariness of soul which years would bring ; years passed in a monotonous occupation ; day after day, week after week, month after month bringing the same daily employment, at the same time. The golden hours of life, when the heart is warm, and gushing with its purest feelings of human love and trust, passed among strangers, who have no connection with its past, and will have little with its future ; all its feelings repressed. for none have any heartfelt interest in its joy or its sorrow, " Alone, although the heart may beat With love to all things great and fair." And yet the poor victim of a system twice cursed (for can a woman, the development of whose social nature is utterly impossible, where the light and sunshine of house hold affection and kindness are excluded, be fitted to train young minds to the higher purposes of life ?) is expected to manifest feeling and interest in all things, grave and gay, that concern her employers ; to be willing to spend and be spent for their advantage or their gratification ; and is con sidered uncongenial or unsocial if she fail. Neither experi ence nor imagination called up any of these spectres to Ellen. Mrs. Winterton greeted her with great suavity ; inquired with much interest if any thing was unsupplied in her rooms which she would like to have, and neglected none of those courtesies which she would have paid to an honored guest. Lucy had entirely recovered from her sickness, but she did not like the restraint which the new system imposed upon her. Home had hitherto been to her a place of perfect freedom, where she could play all day long, if it so pleased her. The strangeness of every thing at Wimbledon Villa, the sight of so many other children subjected to the same restraints as herself, had awed her into submission ; but, once more at home, she wanted, as heretofore, to do what seemed good in her own eyes ; and every allusion to school- time brought a fit of crying, which Ellen was sorely puzzled about. Her magnificent plans for her instruction she soon found must be given up, for the present at least ; and she made her requirements as few and simple as possible, though ELLEN PARRY. 81 she exacted their strict fulfilment. Lucy was fond of flowers, and it occurred to Ellen that she might turn this taste to her purposes. She had for some months pondered the ques tion, whether the common custom is a wise one, of devoting to the analysis and study of languages so many of the early years of life, when the observation is quickest, and the curiosity most eager ; and whether some branch of natural history, studied, not from books merely, but observation, was not much better. But she was young and inexperienced ; diffident of forming a system for herself, and throwing aside one honored by past authority, and sanctioned by the present. She re membered how much more interested she had been, when a child, in the examination of a flower, and the observation of its habits, than with the lessons usually given her. To be sure, it might have been because her father was her in structor. She talked with Mrs. Winterton about her per plexity, but she found that she had no idea of troubling herself with the details of her daughter's instruction : all about which she was concerned were the results ; nor had she any very enlarged ideas of education. She wished Lucy to be as well educated as other gentlemen's daughters ; that is, she should like her to sing, play, dance, and understand French and Italian. She did not wish her to be a " blue" she had a horror of all " blues." Ellen then had recourse for counsel to Lady Sarah, whom she saw almost daily, and, to her great encouragement, found that she highly approved of the plan. " Do not," said that judicious counsellor, "allow your judgment to be fet tered by custom in this matter. Much, no doubt, has been done to improve the mode of conveying instruction, and much remains still to be done. In learning to walk, or rather to teach, by the light of your own mind, you will probably make some blunders perhaps must retrace your steps occasionally ; but you will, doubtless, be a much more efficient teacher than if you indiscriminately adopt the mingled wisdom and folly of other systems." Ellen com menced her new scheme; and she had the pleasure of finding the little eyes, which were filled with tears over the multi plication table, or the declension of a Latin noun, sparkling with pleasure when some new flowery acquaintance was to be examined and described. Ellen had a great deal of 4 82 ET, LEN PARRY. leisure on her hands, and she had made a very systematic use of it, for the purpose of study and improvement. After luncheon, which was at one o'clock, she seldom had Lucy much with her : she generally rode with her mother, and was in the drawing-room after dinner, until her nurse sum moned her. Ellen took her dinner with Lucy, when the fa mily lunched. This left her evenings free, and these were not unfrequently passed with Lady Sarah, who seemed to feel a daily increasing interest in her young friend, and to find pleasure in the intercourse. Mr. Ford had possessed so great a taste for music, that his wife had, during his life, never given it up ; and during her widowhood, she had often played the music he had loved to hear ; for her deep sense of the loss she had sustained had never led her to put away, as painful objects, things connected with him. Ellen's harp was often transported to Willow Cottage ; and music, which might have satisfied more critical and travelled ears than those in Welbourne, was often heard on the sweet summer evenings, and arrested the village maiden and her lover, in their twilight stroll. Not unfrequently, two sweet and rich female voices were accompanied by a tenor of singular power ; for Mr. Sherwin was often at the cottage. Nature sometimes makes up for a defective whole, by some one gift or beauty, of surpassing perfection ; and Mr. Sherwin, com monly spoken of as being as homely as he was good, had brilliant teeth, which rivalled the ivory of Ceylon for white ness, and a voice to which Plato might have listened, and mistaken for the music of the spheres. And who was Mr. Sherwin ? A man whose life entitled him to something more in the annals of Welbourne than the announcement on his tomb-stone, that he lived and died; and, as he is necessary to the development of our story, he must be carefully introduced to you, dear reader. Mr. Sherwin was the younger of two, sons of a man .of some fortune. In his boyhood, he had been as remarkable for his plain appearance, awkward motions, embarrassed manners, and slow comprehension, as his elder brother for the opposite mental and personal characteristics. Under this exterior, was beating one of the warmest and most loving hearts that ever throbbed in human bosom, accompanied by a sensitiveness, touching his meagre personal endow- ELLEN PARRY. 83 ments, which was as a serpent's tooth, gnawing at his heart. This sensitiveness, not being seen, or if seen, little cared for, his deficiencies were often the subject of remark, and as often placed in comparison with the showy acquirements, graceful manners, and attractive person of his brother. The boys were sent, when about ten years old, to a private school, and there Richard Sherwin formed an acquaintance whose influence was as dew on the tender herb of his social chari ties, then almost perished for lack of the fostering cul ture of some sympathetic affection. This boy was the son of a clergyman in the vicinity, and came only for occasional instruction, as his fluctuating health permitted him. He was a hopeless sufferer from a spinal affection, and often endured excruciating pain. The prayers of a pious mother, that God would give him strength to bear the burden laid upon him, had been heard, and granted ; and the consolations of religion, the " peace which passeth all understanding," was early given to the sufferer. Years, which seemed to bring increase of suffering, seemed also to bring increase of light and strength to his soul. Richard Sherwin, awkward and inapt in the usual sports and exercises of boyhood, loved to spend his leisure hours beside the inclined chair of the invalid, talking to him, or reading with him ; and the greatest stimulus to exertion in his studies, was the hope of being allowed to spend the half-holidays with James Tor- rington. The boys' hearts were soon open to each other, and the barrier once removed, all the long pent-up feelings of Richard were poured forth like a flood ; the self-distrust, the painful consciousness of personal and mental inferiority, the yearning love which none responded to u how could they?" he added, bitterly, " there was nothing in him to love." Few, looking at that pale youth, constantly recumbent, often tortured with racking pains, would have thought that his mission upon earth could ha? e been for aught but to furnish, in his own person, an object for the benevolent charities of others ; and yet, to the angels round the throne of God, no higher could have been vouchsafed. To him was given " to speak the word in season to one that was weary," to " strengthen the weak heart and confirm the feeble knees," to " say to him of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not ;" and under the sweet and holy influence of that boyish friendship, 84 ELLEN PARRY. Richard Sherwin was led to seek the wisdom which cometh from above. In the joy and peace which are generally the portion of those whose hearts are early given to the Lord, the burden which had pressed so heavily upon him in his childhood and boyhood, gradually removed ; and though through life a diffident man, insecure in his powers of pleas ing, there was nothing morbid about his feelings. No tear was on his cheek when, during his last year at school (he was then eighteen), he gazed on the dead coun tenance of his friend. But who could estimate the peculiar tenderness of the bond which had bound them to each other ? the "love passing the love of women." which had twined itself round their hearts. Often did Richard Sherwin, throughout his life, love " From memory's store To cull each fondly cherished grace, And fold them to the heart's embrace. No bliss 'mid worldly crowds is bred, Like musing on the sainted dead." A favorite subject of conversation between these boys, suggested, probably, by their living in a manufacturing dis trict, was the condition of the operatives in the manufacto ries ; and many plans and improvements were suggested, crude, perhaps, and some of them impracticable, but all indicative of a sense of the magnitude of the existing evils. Richard Sherwin determined on becoming a manufactu rer, and endeavoring to carry out the views they entertained on this subject. On leaving school, he was sent to travel with his brother on the continent for two years, and while quaffing diligently from all fountains of knowledge there, he especially sought for that which had any bearing on manu factures. At twenty he returned to England, and spent four years in a large woollen manufactory, in the North, making himself perfectly acquainted with the minutest details connected with the manufactures ; and satisfied that he was practically fitted for his undertaking, he determined on establishing a manufactory of his own, and carrying out the philanthropic views which time had matured. He had inherited a fortune of twenty thousand pounds on coming of age ; and his father, satisfied of his prudence and juclg- ELLEN PAKKY. 85 ment, engaged to supply him with further means to a mod erate amount. Welbourne was selected, as offering many advantages, and thither he went to reconnoitre. Lady Sarah Ford had been married about a year, when., her husband, on returning from a visit to a sick parishioner, said, " Sarah, I have invited a stranger to dine with us to-day." "Indeed, who is it?" "No less a person than the one we were wishing last night far from Welbourne ; the gentle man who is thinking of establishing a manufactory on the opposite side of the river." " I must confess myself a little astonished ; where did you meet him?" "At Fisher's; he had brought the old man a jar of tamarinds, and some Port wine, and was reading the psalms for the day to him, when I entered. We exchanged a few words then, which convinced me I was speaking to no ordinary person. About an hour afterwards, I met him in the village, and entered into conversation with him. I find his scheme is as much one of benevolence as gain ; he feels the oppression of the operatives in manufactories, and the crime and degradation which are attendant on it, and is deter mined to carry on his with a view to the' religious and intel lectual culture of those employed in it. His views of the duties and responsibilities of great capitalists whose property is invested in manufactories are very elevated, and, it ap pears to me, well digested. He tells me that he has passed four years in a manufactory, for the express purpose of making himself fully acquainted with all the details of the business." "You interest me very much in him ; what sort of a per son is he in appearance?" " Young looking, though I judge, from his conversation, he must have lived longer than heannears to have done ; certainly he is not handsome, though he has the finest teeth I ever saw. and a very melodious voice." " Is he gentlemanlike ?" " Yes ; his manners are a lit tle embarrassed, perhaps. When I asked him to come and dine, he seemed to hesitate said he was no't much accus tomed to ladies' society evidently shrunk from encounter ing you." " And how did you rouse -his courage?" said Lady Sarah, smiling. 86 ELLEN PARRY. " Oh ! told him you were not at all formidable, and that in a quarter of an hour after I had presented him to you, he would think he had known you all his lite." Whether or not this assurance was fulfilled it is very certain that one of the happiest evenings of Mr. Sherwin's life was that in which he related his plans and hopes and wishes at Welbourne vicarage. One of the loveliest faces in the world turned towards him, the flush of feeling on the fair cheek resembling the reflection of a rosy light in mother- of-pearl, and the soft eyes glistening with sympathy as entirely melted by the softening consciousness that he was with those who could understand him, and who had much in common with him he spoke of his boyhood, of his intimacy with Torrington, of its effect upon him, and the rise and progress of the plan he now hoped to mature and equally certain that he was then adding to his list of the advantages of Welbourne for the prosecution of his views, the friendship and sympathy of the pastor and his wife. In a few years his establishment was as thriving as his most sanguine hopes had anticipated. Comfortable dwell ings, securing to the operatives the sanctity and privacy of home, were provided and let at reasonable rents ; a school- house was built and good instruction provided for the chil dren ; there was" a library furnished with judiciously select ed books, which might be taken out once a week ; a room in Mr. Sherwin's house was fitted up as a store-room, in which medicines were kept, and a provision of linen, which was lent to the laborers when sickness made more than their or dinary supply necessary. In arranging all his plans for the well-being and im provement of his people, Lady Sarah had been of great use to him. She early cautioned him against doing too much, the error she saw he was very likely to fall into. " Teach them to help themselves and each other," she said, " rather than to depend entirely upon you. You must fail in your great object, their moral improvement, if you do not leave them the opportunity of exercising their social charities. We must try to make each man and woman feel that they are working with you for the happiness of the whole." There were many disappointments and many difficulties to ELLEN PARRY. 87 be overcome in the first few years, but Faith and Patience were now enjoying the fruits of their exercise. A new generation, for the most part educated and some born there, was coming forward. It was an active and intelligent little community ; the women had been much under Lady Sarah's wise influence, and her husband's religious teachings had brought forth much fruit. The linen of the store-room was made, kept in repair, washed, and taken account of by the wives of the laborers ; and they had their little sewing cir cles, a number meeting together to do an evening's or afternoon's work for some one or other among them, whose more numerous family cares made the amount of needle work necessary to be done burdensome. On one occasion, a man and his wife had died of typhus fever, leaving an or phan child, and while Mr. Sherwin was pondering which of his operatives he had better ask to take the little orphan into their family (expecting, of course, to remunerate them), his overseer told him, that one man with four children had undertaken to board and lodge the little one ; the wife of another to wash and mend for him ; and two others, to clothe him ; the good man's heart was lifted up in thanks to God for this manifestation, that he had not spent his strength for nought in laboring for the moral advancement of his people ; and as he thought of the sainted dead, and that the spirit of him whose memory, like a hallowed thing, was enshrined in the innermost recesses of his heart, was rejoicing with him, like Joseph " he sought where to weep, and entered into his chamber and wept there." The teachers in the school, at which Lady Sarah had labored much in its infancy, and noiv attended very fre quently, were those who had been educated in it. Within the last three years the people had been in the habit of in viting some popular man to deliver them a course of lec tures on different subjects. The desire for knowledge, which is generally to be found among people who are not obliged to spend every moment of their lives in labor for the support, perhaps the insufficient support, of animal life, was active in the little hive ; and Mr. Sherwin's constant adhe rence to the rule, that none but those disposed to lead orderly and sober lives should be employed in the factory, kept them from the contamination of vicious companions. 88 ELLEN PARRY. Nor had the influence of Lady Sarah and her husband been less striking on that portion of their parishioners who were unconnected with the manufactory. Mr. Ford had constantly observed that the class of people who swelled the ranks of the dissenters was that most neglected by the clergy of the Established Church, persons of the middle ranks, families of the tradesmen of his congregation ; they are, as a class, the most neglected of all, too far removed from poverty to be visited as he visits the necessitous for the relief of their temporal wants ; they are considered equally far from the class he visits on terms of equality. In a case of sickness or approaching death, he may be sent for, but this is the most they see of their clergyman, and of his wife still less : in the larger towns this is even more per ceptible, and the strong and bitter invectives of the dis senters against the pride and exclusiveness of the ministers of the English Church have probably been called up by this circumstance ; among them, their spiritual teacher belongs to no class, he is the household friend of all ; and the great mass of dissenters in towns is composed of those with whom the clergy of the Church of England have neglected to cul tivate social intercourse. Mr. Ford and his wife began their life at Welbourne strongly impressed with this fact, and recognizing the duty of visiting all classes of their flock, not only for the pur pose of ministering to their spiritual and temporal wants, but for the interchange of social courtesy. The vicar's wife was quite as often to be seen in the little back parlor of the widow who kept the ' : general shop " in Welbourne, listening to her accounts of how Jemmy " took to his book," or engaged in consultation over the best and prettiest way of making the new dress the widow had brought from Bath for her daughter Hannah ; as in the drawing-room of the Grange, joining in the more elegantly expressed, perhaps, but not more important, converse with Mrs. Winterton, touching the increased or diminished size of the last new fashion in bonnets, or the latest combination of industry and uselessness in the shape of fancy work, entering into the in terests and tastes of both. Another thing which made the vicar and his wife so dear to their people, and so sought by ELLEN PARRY. 89 them for counsel and advice in almost all circumstances, was the reliance each felt that the private confidences im parted to them were held as a sacred deposit. CHAPTER V. THE summer flew by ; and Lady Sarah and Ellen's evening stroll, and the pleasant chat in the " gloamin'," by the open window, inhaling the evening air laden with odors caught from the flowers it had toyed with on its way, yielded to the enjoyment of the fireside and the snug comfort which is born of a well-curtained and well-lighted room, work which is merely occupation not labor, " books which are books," and conversation, marked by intelligence, spirit, and taste. Had Ellen possessed a far less degree of admiration for her new friend than she did, it would have been impossible to resist the strong influence which is ever emanating from such a character. Their conversation often turned on reli gious subjects ; and Ellen's earnest prayer for light to know the will of God, and strength to do it, was gradually re ceiving its answer in clearer and clearer views of the rela tion in which man stands to God by nature a condemned sinner and his state by grace, a redeemed heir of glory. Lady Sarah watched with great interest the workings of her mind, and its gradual attainment of religious light. She scrupulously forbore to urge on this dawning day by any influence merely personal. Pray for her she might, and did most fervently ; and most intensely did she feel, at this time, the great importance that the professed Christian should be a consistent follower of Jesus, manifesting in his whole life the beauty of holiness and the power of the gos pel. She knew her influence over Ellen, and she feared lest (unconsciously, pei'haps) she might mistake such influence, like many others, who have thought they were acting in ac cordance with the Spirit of God, given to them in answer to their careful study of His word and prayer for guidance, 4* 90 ELLEN PARRY. when, in fact, they were only seeking to conform themselves to the opinions and practice of some favorite friend or preacher. Such a foundation is unsound, however perfect may be the external obedience : the house is built on sand ; and though the sand be golden, it must surely fall. Lady Sarah was right. A great deal of what is called religious declension may be traced to the more zealous than discreet eagerness of the religious world to see their young converts adopting the strict outward observance of the ad vanced Christian. There are often no harmony and propor tion between the outward and visible sign of holiness and the inward and spiritual grace. The child is called upon to wear the garb of the aged. What wonder that he should throw it off when he perceives he does not fill it out? Let the young convert be urged to labor more for the purifica tion of the heart than for the strict observance of outward forms, and we should witness less declension and more con sistency. As the inner light becomes brighter and clearer, all external observances will grow in proportion ; and until they are prompted from within they are nothing worth. Ellen had promised to spend a month at Christmas at Ash Grove with the Howards. She had not been there since she left Beechland, and she looked forward to her visit with very mingled feelings. She knew the house would probably be full of gay company, with whom her feelings, on finding herself under such altered circumstances again amid the haunts of her girlhood, would be little in accordance ; but that the time would ever arrive when she should find them without company, did not seem very probable from Caroline's letters, and it was impossible to decline visiting such valued and valuable friends on such a plea, and when, after all, her fears of society might be but a spectre she had conjured up in her retirement, which would vanish when she faced it boldly. Lady Sarah was going to London, to be present at the marriage of one of her nieces ; and Mr. Sher- win, who had business there about the same time, proposed they should all go together in his carriage, and leave Ellen at Ash Grove on their way, which could be done by slightly changing the usual route. It was a bright frosty morning in the middle of Decem ber, when Mr. Sherwin's carriage stopped at the Grange, ELLEN PARRY. 91 and he placed Ellen beside Lady Sarah. For the first mile or two he seemed entirely occupied in ascertaining that his two fair companions were well protected from the cold, that the leopard skins were closely wrapped round their feet, and the cushions comfortably placed at their back. "I want you to meet your friends," said he, " looking like envoys from Hygeia ; and it shall not be owing to my want of pre caution if you take cold on your journey. You, Miss Parry, look rather more delicate than is for the honor of Welbourne." Ellen smiled ; and Lady Sarah, turning to look at her, said, " You are paler than usual, my dear. I have thought, for the last two or three months, you have needed rest and change ; and though we shall miss you very much, I shall rejoice in your absence. Enjoy every thing as much as you can ; though I would fain have you retain sufficient attach ment to Welbourne friends and Welbourne scenes to make you wish to remain among us." Ellen pressed the hand which had been laid in hers, as she said, " Welbourne, and her friends there, were connected with memories far too sacred to be forgotten." " I met Mr. Howard in Edinburgh, many years ago," said Mr. Sherwin. " We were both travelling for recreation at the time, and passed a stormy day, when sight-seeing was impossible, in playing chess and talking politics." " It would be difficult for me to judge what impression Mr. Howard would make on a stranger. I have known him all my life, and love and reverence him too much, perhaps, to estimate his mental acquirements at their true value," said Ellen, in an inquiring tone. " I can speak for myself," said Mr. Sherwin : " he made a most favorable impression. But, ' Nous ne trouvons guere de gens de bon sens, que ceux qui sont de notre avis,' says La Rochefoucault ; and, as his opinions accorded with many of mine, perhaps that is the reason I found him possessed of so much good sense." " I often hear you quote La Rochefoucault," said Ellen. " I suppose I have not read human character sufficiently to enjoy his maxims for their truth and subtle penetration. I am alive to nothing but their cold brilliancy, and the want of faith in the existence of disinterestedness. He seems to 92 ELLEN PARRY. think self-love the motive of all right action. An abstract love of virtue is not an article of his creed." " I think you are rather unjust to him, Ellen," said Lady Sarah. " La Rochefoucault lived in an age singularly superficial ; rich in intellect, genius, and wit, and poor in all virtue : as he says himself, ' L'hypocrisie est un hommage que le vice rend a la vertue ;' and, while exposing the false semblance, it appears to me he admits, as it were, the exist ence of a reality." " Yes ; I agree that he believes in right and wrong ; but he seems to maintain that no one follows the requisitions of the former, except as they are in accordance with his in terests or his vanity. I think it is he who says, ' La vertu n' irait pas si loin si la vanite ne lui tenait compagnie.' " " It should be remembered," said Mr. Sherwin, " that it is the human heart, unsanctified by grace, on which he exer cises his moral anatomy. He lived a worldling among worldlings. Though his was an age when his country pro duced its finest preachers, whom it was the fashion to run after and listen to, as they went to hear Racine and Moliere, it was not one of practical religion. The women were mostly coquettes, or blind devotees, often assuming the lat ter character when the power of playing the former forsook them ; and the men were immersed in political intrigues or engaged in war. That the human heart was ' deceitful above all things,' La Rochefoucault well knew ; and he loved to display its deceit towards others and its self-decep tion, in his pointed and compact language ; but he knew nothing of the power of Divine grace to purify the corrupt source, and cause it to send forth healthy streams." " Cardinal ," said Lady Sarah, " reproaches him for not having sufficient faith in virtue ; but, from the accounts of his life, he seems to have been superior to most of his contemporaries, and to have exemplified in his own character many virtues whose reality he seems sometimes to doubt. Towards the close of his life, he endured much suffering of body and mind with patience and resignation. Mad. Sevigne, speaking of his state of mind on learning the death of one and the wound of another son in battle, says, ( II est au premier rang de tout ce que je connais, de courage, de merite, de tendresse et de raison ;' and then adds, ' Je ELLEN PARRY. 93 compte pour rien son esprit et ses agremens.' Nevertheless, Ellen, I am not at all surprised that, at your age, you should be unfavorably impressed with his views of the general mo tives of human action ; and it is much better to let time re move the illusions of youth in this as in other things. The knowledge of human nature, which is gained in the gradual daily experience of life by one under the influence of a Christian spirit, is not a stern, censorious, satirizing know ledge, but subduing and humbling, full of mercy and good fruits. The conviction of its selfishness and weakness is obtained in conjunction with so many instances of their opposites, that we are saved from becoming cold, skeptical cynics." Conversation on a variety of subjects had been kept up briskly during the early part of the day, but towards the close each relapsed into silence. Ellen was approaching scenes familiar to her, and the past was busy at her heart. Lady Sarah entered too well into her feelings to attempt to turn the current of her thoughts ; and Mr. Sherwin either sympathized with them, or supposed his compan ions weary with their journey and indisposed to talk. About five in the evening they had entered on a road flanked for some distance by a handsome park paling. " This is Beechland," said Ellen, in a voice which slight ly trembled, despite all her effort to control it. Lady Sarah looked out of the carriage window, but her only reply was a close pressure of Ellen's hand. It conveyed much more sympathy and interest than words could have done. A nice perception of the fitting time to speak is a great gift ; but it is an equally great and far more rare one to know when to be silent. Half an hour more and they had reached Ash Grove. Lady Sarah and Mr. Sherwin declined the invita tion to stay there instead of proceeding another stage that night (which Mr. Howard politely urged as soon as he had consigned Ellen to his wife and daughter), and the carriage proceeded on its way. A very few inquiries had been exchanged, and remarks made, when the dressing-bell rang, and Mrs. Howard hurried Ellen to her room, telling her she would find an old friend there very impatient to see her. It was her nurse who had settled in the village, and was living on the income of her 94 ELLEN PARRY. savings. Mrs. Howard had invited her to come and stay at the Grove during Ellen's visit. The dressing proceeded but slowly, for nurse was constantly pausing in the necessary un packing to "look at the dear child." and to remark over and over again how handsome she had grown ; and to express her hope, that now she'd stay at the Grove, which certainly was the right place for her. Ellen was nearly ready when Caroline knocked at her dressing-room door. " I thought you might perhaps like Laval to arrange your hair." said she. as she entered, and then added " but I think if she were to see your head she would resign her art in despair, c'est vraiment fait a peindere ma chere, how can you dress it so exquisitely your self?" " ' Necessity is the mother of invention' you know. It was some time before I learned the art, and during the pro cess I often thought I would shave my head, and take to caps and a frisette. If Berenice was without a lady's maid for the first time, I am not at all surprised at her sacrifice," said Ellen. " I have not, by the way, ascertained if you have any othgr guests ?" " No ; mamma did not invite any one to dinner even ; we shall be a sober parti quarre. Next week my aunt Gordon and my hopeful cousin her son are coming. He exactly meets my ideal of wearisome and uninteresting. Emma and Maria Norgrove are coming you do not know them ; we met them at Florence ; they are accomplished girls and very fashion able Mr. Robert Thornton, Capt. Ferrymore and his sis ter, and papa told me this morning he had invited Edward Moreton, who promised to make every exertion to spend Christmas week with us." " Indeed !" said Ellen, her countenance, which had looked rather Blank on hearing such a string of strange names, lighting up as she caught the sound of a familiar one. " I shall be very glad to see him again." As the girls stood conversing together, many might have thought with nurse that Ellen was very nearly as handsome as Caroline, who had been for two years the undisputed beauty of her circle, and whose faultless features, by means of the exhibition at Somerset House, and the Book of Beau ty, were known from Lands'-end to John o' Groat's. But ELLEN PARRY. 95 while marvelling at her wondrous perfection of feature, the gazer often (especially if somewhat of an idealist) found a de ficiency for which mere beauty could not compensate ; there was no poetry, no sentiment about her ; there dawned not in her face " the high expression of a soul." With much less re gular beauty, Ellen's face invariably excited the imagination of the beholder, for it was one in which both history and prophecy might be read. The history and prophecy of a refined and elevated character, and the dark eyes beaming with light, and the flexible mouth, seemed capable of express ing every emotion of the soul. Tall and well-formed, she moved with dignity and ease, and though possessed of less confidence than Caroline, her manners were unembarrassed and pleasing. The dinner and the e'vening passed off delightfully. El len felt the happiness of being among old friends, after liv ing for months among strangers however agreeable. They had subjects in common in the past. How strong a link that is all know, and how often it is the only one, and stands in the stead of the sympathy, expediency, or community of interests, which we require to induce us to cultivate and keep up newer acquaintanceship. Her buoyant spirits, those " nurses of ready wit," were stirred up, and her musi cal laugh and playful rejoinders to Mr. Howard's jests and bon mots, were almost as striking and expressive of light- heartedness as in her earlier years. Several successive days were passed in pleasant compan ionship within doors, or in strolling over the grounds, and once she had ridden with Mr. Howard, who told her that her horse, her own old favorite, was in condition for her riding. It was delightful to find herself again on Stella's back, though unshed tears weighed on her eyelids as she thought who had last lifted her to that saddle and ridden by her side. Every thing which brought the loss of her father to her mind, even now excited Ellen's emotion in a greater degree than she had always the power to hide. No other deprivation except her mother's death had ever drawn a tear from her. Exertion is generally its own reward, and even now, as El len felt her own indifference to trifling annoyances which were serious evils to Caroline, the views of life and its pro per aims which she had obtained, she acknowledged that the 96 ELLEN PARRY. loss in one way was balanced by the gain in another and then to have known Lady Sarah such a friend was a mine of wealth. The following week the guests began to arrive. The Misses Norgrove were on the same model as most young la dies ; tolerably endowed with personal attractions, very well dressed, very well informed on all fashionable subjects, danced and played, were skilled in getting up charades and arranging tableaux, could in short make themselves general ly useful in the various amusements resorted to for the pur pose of relieving the tedium vitae in a country-house. Mr. Robert Thornton was a handsome well-bred young man, ap pearing to advantage in a drawing-room as a cavalier des dames, and very much out of place every where else. Mrs. Gordon was a sister of Mr. Howard, a plain motherly sort of person, very proud of her awkward son, and very anxious he should take unto himself a wife ; but his frequent attempts to endow some fair maiden with his broad Northampton shire lands, and other wordly wealth, had failed. The only way in which he had ever shown good taste, except in his horses and hounds, was in his choice of a bride. Those whom he had selected had been uniformly women of great personal and mental attractions but unfortunately he had never got further than a c/ioice, and he was still unmated. A most un couth specimen of humanity was Mr. Cornelius Gordon. He seemed composed of the odds and ends of nature's workshop put together by a " 'prentice hand." Nothing about him seemed to match: Even his small light gray eyes were not alike, for one had a spot of a different color in it. He was very tall and awkward in his motions. His manners were such as might be expected from an ordinary youth, whose male companions up to the time he was twenty had been grooms and graziers. His only experience of female socie ty was such as he might have gained at sheep-shearing, har vest home, and other romping rustic festivities. Captain and Miss Ferrymore were Irish ; he with all the chivalrous gallantry of the soldier grafted on the ease, spirit and enthusiasm of the Irish gentleman : and she such a woman as only her nation can produce. The Irish lady is among the most bewitching and capti vating of her sex: witty and vivacious, possessed almost in- ELLEN PARRY. 97 variably of conversational powers rarely if ever to be met with among the fair daughters of the sister isle, frank and affable, warm-hearted and impulsive, yet possessed of a natural delicacy and modesty which seem to shield her from the misconstruction and invidious comments which English ladies think are only to be avoided by intrenching themselves behind the icy barrier of a cold and formal reserve. The slight national accent (which is seldom lost), and the arch intonation, seem, in the mouth of a cultivated woman of the higher classes, to give an additional charm to her spirited and sparkling converse. To all this charm of manner Miss Ferrymore added much of the beauty of her countrywomen. She was on the shady side of thirty, and was known to have re fused so many eligible offers, that people at length began to believe her assertion, that she preferred the blessed state of singleness to the holy state of matrimony, and intended to continue therein. Some of the many persons fond of fathom ing, and, if they cannot fathom, inventing motives for the conduct of their neighbors, asserted that Miss Ferrymore's indifference to her numerous admirers was occasioned by having fixed her affections where they were unreturned. Perhaps they were not far from the truth, but if so, she had not indulged in the young-lady-like luxury of a confidant on the subject. She had no very high purposes, and no deep views of the responsibilities of life, nor any strong feeling save her attachment to her brother. To please she consider ed a duty she owed to herself, and her natural good nature suggested that it was a duty to others to be pleased. She was a universal favorite in society with all ages, from the sexagenarian to the gauche youth just entering society, awk ward and ambitious, whom she set at ease because she con trived to make him think that instead of stooping to his level, she raised herself to it. The young girls liked her for her gayety and amiability, and the most shrewd and managing chaperone had no fear and consequently no hatred for Miss Ferrymore, who she knew would be no marplot. What pro vision she was making for the time when she could no longer amuse or be amused, or what account she could give at the judgment bar of her Creator of the talents committed to her care she had not inquired, and if the unbidden thought had forced itself sometimes into her presence, it had been dis missed till a more convenient season. 98 ELLEN PARRY. Such were the guests assembled at the Grove. On the first evening of Mrs. Gordon's arrival. Ellen found herself at dinner between that lady and Mr. Robert Thornton. Mrs. Gordon had commenced a string of questions to Ellen about her private affairs, while they were in the drawing- room. Ellen felt embarrassed by them, and strove to turn the conversation, but in vain. She was thankful that Mr. Thornton, who was close beside her, was too much engaged in a conversation with Mr. Howard to overhear the old lady's provoking and indelicate queries. When the butler announced dinner, Mr. Hargrove offered his arm to Ellen ; and she had just taken her seat, when she perceived she was next Mrs. Gordon. The first course had been removed, and she congratulated herself that no attempt had been made to renew the conversation, when, during a pause, which to her sensitive ears seemed universal, Mrs. Gordon attacked her with, " What's the name of the family you live with, my dear ? I've forgot again, my memory is so poor." " Winterton," said Ellen, her color rising and deepening, as she felt mortified with herself that she should entertain any false feeling about the position she held. " Well, are they kind to you ? Do they treat you like one of themselves 1 I'm sure I've seen some folks behave to their governesses as if they didn't think they were human beings, and wanted some reasonable amusement, like other young folks." Ellen assured her she was very happy, and found as much amusement in Welbourne as she wanted. " You can't have very hard work," pursued her relentless querist. " Only one child. Do you have to wash and dress her, and take all the care of her ?" " Oh, no !" said Ellen, with a forced laugh. " I'm really glad you've got such a good place ; but, dear me, it must be a sad change, so proud as your father was of you, poor man ! Ah ! he was taken away from the evil to come !" Ellen could hardly control her feelings. Such a chord, touched by so unsympathizing a hand, jarred to agony. She poured out a tumbler of water so hastily, that the old lady's attention was attracted ; and, looking up at the flushed EL J, E IV PARRY. 99 cheek and agitated manner of her young neighbor, she be came aware that something was the matter, and a bodily ailment being the first thing to suggest itself to her matter- of-fact mind, she exclaimed eagerly, " Arn't you well, my dear?" Mr. Howard, who was seated opposite to Ellen, had like wise perceived her trepidation of manner ; and his know ledge of his sister's want of tact, and of her habit of saying things mal apropos, made him feel that something had gone wrong. " Ellen, my dear," said he, " that seat is too warm for you. Let me change with you ?" " I second that mo tion," said Mr. Cornelius Gordon, who occupied the seat next to the one Mr. Howard was about to vacate in Ellen's favor. Under any other circumstances she would certainly have tried to avoid his neighborhood ; for, during the few days he had been at the Grove before his mother's arrival, he had been making very marked and annoying demonstra tions of his desire to find favor in her eyes. Though much annoyed with his vulgarity, she constrained herself to be civil to him, as the nephew of her host and friend. On the present occasion, elated with the encouragement she gave him in so readily accepting the seat, he was quite profuse of his petite soins and would-be civil speeches. The latter were unheard or unheeded. Finally, he began to tell her of his favorite horses his riding feats ; and, taking her silence and occasional nods and monosyllables of assent for proofs of deep interest, he was at the summit of felicity, when Mrs. Howard gave the signal, and the ladies rose to leave the table. He whispered to Ellen, as he drew back her chair, that he should soon be after them, and added, with an air he intended for gallantry " What signifies the life of man, If't were na for the lasses O 1" Ellen was too much vexed and disconcerted with herself to pay much heed to Mr. Cornelius Gordon's words or looks. In the drawing-room the ladies had collected together in a little knot, and were discussing some fashionable gossip, with which all seemed familiar but Ellen j and this did not tend to restore the feeling of being among, and not of, the circle in which she was moving. 100 ELLEN PARRY. The subject was still calling forth very animated remarks and rejoinders, when the gentlemen entered, and Captain Ferrymore immediately came up to Ellen, and begged she would charm them with voice, or fingers, or both. She com plied, and played air after air, from a variety of operas, eliciting thanks and encomiums from her hearers ; though it seemed to her own jarred and irritated sensibilities that she produced nothing but discords. There is no true lover of music, however, who, whether listening or performing, does not, after a while, experience its power to soothe and calm the ruffled spirit. Captain Ferrymore proposed that they should sing some duets ; and his rich impassioned voice blended with hers in a manner which was exquisite to all ears but those of Mr. Cornelius Gordon, who, seated very ill at ease on a sofa near, would at that moment have resigned a moiety of his possessions to have been endowed with the gift of song himself, or the power of depriving the Captain of his. At length he started up as if determined to put an end to the duets, and asked Ellen if she knew " Little Taff- line," or the " Garden Gate." These homely old ditties happened to be the ones on which Ellen's first efforts of singing had been made ; and, despite the ill-suppressed laughter of some of the company, and the entirely unsup- pressed mirth and ridicule of Caroline, Ellen, with great taste and delicacy of touch, played the airs and sang a verse or two of each; defending poor Mr. Gordon's selection by saying, that she loved music herself for the associations it called up, and that the memories which, like Genii sum moned by a spell, always obeyed the call of " Little Taffline" and the " Garden Gate," were among the most precious of her garnered treasures. This was the coup de grace to Mr. Gordon's hopes, and it was with much complacency that he looked on the reflec tion his mirror gave back to him that night, as he unbuckled his stock, and almost made up his mind to oifer himself on the morrow. But suddenly there came up the unwelcome remembrance of numerous refusals where he had felt equal assurance of success, and. after much deliberation on the subject, he made up his mind to sound his uncle on the sub ject first ; and, having come to this prudent decision, he drew his night-cap over his ears, rolled the bed-clothe snugly in at his back, and was soon in the land of dreams. ELLEN PARRY. 101 Meanwhile Ellen, quite unconscious of her admirer's particular attentions and intentions, retired to her apart ment, in that state of feeling when solitude is not so much a luxury as a necessity, and when the most dependent daugh ter of Eve would gladly dispense with the services of a lady's maid. But nurse was, as usual, there ; and Ellen was too well aware of the pleasure which this motherly friend felt in being with her, and waiting on her, to be will ing to intimate a wish to be alone, until the usual services of arranging her hair and putting away her clothing had been completed. She then affectionately bade her good night ; and, drawing her chair towards the fire, leaned her head on her hand, and reviewed, with pain and mortification, the events of the evening. Was this the strength and cou rage she had flattered herself she possessed? Was her calmness of feeling, her self-possession of manner, to be at the mercy of every allusion to her dependent position which ill-breeding or inadvertence might occasion? And, after all, what was it that she shrank from? That Mr. Thornton, a man she knew little and cared still less about, should know she was a governess. When Ellen made her choice between becoming a governess and being a pensioner on the bounty of Mr. and Mrs. Howard, she felt, with the acuteness of a proud and sensitive mind, the sneer and the sarcasm which society, with its usual inconsistency, levels at those who make teaching a profession, except perhaps in cases of the heads of the great public schools ; and they find it neces sary to take orders, that, as clergymen, they may secure that rank in society to which education merely will not give them an entrance, on a footing of equality. She was enrolling herself among a class whose false position and indignities were the marks at which many of the periodicals of the day aimed the shafts of their ridicule, justly, perhaps, and with good intent ; for it is well to hold the mirror up to the faults and follies of the age in which we live. All the refined habits and tastes of a lady, the delicate perception and tact which are to prevent her wounding the feelings or prejudices of others, she knew would be required of her, at the same time that she would be expected to be utterly insensible to, or passive under, any sort of neglect or contumely. In short, that she should possess alike the generous qualities of 102 ELLEN PARRY. the racer, and the stolid, all-enduring patience of the ass, to form that anomalous appendage to most families " The Governess." f Ellen had long ceased to consider her occupation at all degrading. She felt its elevated nature, and great moral and intellectual requirements. She felt that to fit a woman for such an office an unusual combination of judgment, sense, feeling, energy, and constancy, is demanded and she thought, until this visit, that she was utterly indifferent also to the opinion of the world concerning it, .that she was insensible to its ridicule or contempt. Who that have had to gird up their loins, and go forth and battle in this stern world from a sense of right, warring perhaps with preju dices of early growth and long standing with the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life but have experienced the exquisite suffering which springs from the discovery that some weakness we supposed to have been overcome, is slumbering, not dead ; and that strength se cretly boasted of has suddenly vanished like the morning dew in the hour of need. Ellen wept bitterly for some time, and at length dropped on her knees to pour out her sorrow ing heart to Him whose ear is ever open to the sufferings of his children. She prayed that she might be enabled to look on life and its relations and employments not with the finite view of mortality only, but to pursue present and enter on future occupations, considering only in what light God looked upon them, and to set the fear of man and the opinion of man entirely aside. 'I She rose from her' communion with her Maker calmed and refreshed, and sought her pillow with less confidence, but probably with more real strength than she had quitted it that morning. It was only by frequent and severe con flicts, that the knights of old attained to the marvellous strength which makes their feats appear to us like the won ders of a fairy tale. So, many a severe thrust and hard fall must be sustained, before the man or woman who is striving after moral strength can attain it ; and never, even then, unless they seek it through Him who is unto us wisdom, as well as righteousness and sanctification and redemption. ELLEN PARRY. 103 CHAPTER VI. 7 CAROLINE, Ellen, and Miss Ferrymore were the only occu pants of the library the next morning, when Mr. Cornelius Gordon entered, and addressed Caroline with, " Cousin Carry, I wish you'd be so good as to set a stitch in this rib bon, I can hardly ride the match I've undertaken with the Captain without a guard to my hat." " Very sorry, cousin Corney, but I must hasten to try on some bonnets, which have been sent from. Cheltenham, and must be returned im mediately. Ring, and tell Pearson to give it to one of the housemaids." " Perhaps I can do it for you, Mr. Gordon," said Ellen, looking up from her work. All smiles and thanks, he was beside her work-table in a moment. " I've been looking at that black mare of yours, Miss Parry ; she must have been a beauty in her youth ; a little too old now for much work ; likely to break in her pace and trip a little perhaps ; I don't believe she'd ever come down with you. Its my notion, that a horse that's lived as long as she without coming down, never does, at least I never knew an old horse stumble for the first time. I've got a colt at home of my own rearing, a marvellous pretty creature, that I in tend to take in hand and break when I get back ; just the thing for a lady's horse ; stands about fourteen hands and a half high when she's full grown, handsome bright bay, long pastern, high withers, fine crest, deep chest, and one of the handsomest heads you ever saw. What sort of a tail do you admire most, Miss Parry, square or switch ?" Ellen told him she had a woman's taste for a long flowing tail, though she knew it was at variance with the standard rules of taste on that subject. The gentleman's ribbon was by this time securely fixed, and with many more thanks than Ellen thought necessary, he left the room to commence his ride with Captain Ferrymore. " You are the most innocent creature I ever met with," said Miss Ferrymore, with a gay good-humored laugh, when he had closed the door, " for you do not seem to have the 1 04 E L L E N PARRY. most remote idea that that ' length of limb' is in love with you.'' Ellen looked at her somewhat doubtingly, as if to assure herself whether she was in jest or earnest, and then said, " The young man is uncouth and underbred ; but, at the same time, his being not only Mr. Howard's guest, but his nephew, ought to shield him from ridicule. He has paid me no attentions which can give any one a right to suppose he wishes to stand on any other footing than that of an ac quaintance." " That is only because you do not understand them ; I dare say, like all young ladies, you have an ideal of love- making, and do not recognize any attentions as having that purpose which do not bear some resemblance to that ideal ; but take my word for it. if you should have twenty levers, and all should proceed so far as to declare the soft impeach ment, you would find the style of all twenty different, all awkward, and all the antipodes of your ideal, and perhaps' the one to whom you will say yea, will be, of all, the farthest from it, and the most awkward in his declaration." " I disclaim the possession of any ideal on the subject, I really have had no time to dream dreams and see visions of sighing adorers and raptured hearts." " I believe you, which is a reply I could not make to the assertion as it falls from the lips of most damsels of nine teen. You are really a novelty to me; you have beauty and wit, et une foule de charmans talens, and do not presume upon them, are quite willing to ' blush unseen,' might lure admirers in plenty, and do not seem to know it or care about it. You prefer hardship with independence, to ease and luxury without it ; and with every inducement to look out for an establishment, you neither weave nor lay nets for the unwary, or even catch those who are willing to be vic timized. I have been watching young ladies of every va riety of character (no very great variety you will say) for the last 'fifteen years, and I assure you, you are a lusus naturae in my eyes. One thing, however, let me say to you, and I say it because I see you are unconscious, and are giving the young man encouragement in the purest sim plicity be chary of what appears to you common courtesy, for he receives it as an indication of the feeling he wishes ELLEN PARRY. 105 to inspire ; unless, indeed," she continued, with an arch voice and glance, " you should think his Northamptonshire manor of Fairacres a good match ; or, unless he may, perhaps, as many a man has done, render himself charming and acceptable in your eyes, by finding you so in his." " You must have rather a low idea of the ideal that you have been supposing me to possess, to think this young gen tleman can meet it, and to marry for an establishment is rather inconsistent with the character you have so flatter ingly imputed to me," said Ellen. " Ce n'etait que pour rire ma chere, though I know fifty girls in whose eyes he'd find favor for the sake of what he has." " I think you are libellous this morning ; I will not be lieve a mercenary spirit to be so common as you would fain make me think, among my young contemporaries. I dare say Mr. Gordon has good qualities which some woman may consider ample compensation for that uncouthness of manner which I confess is exceedingly unpleasant to me. It is by no means certain that he will never find any woman but his mother to love him." " "Well, as I've no particular interest in Mr. Gordon's condition, we will not discuss that further ; but as I saw you were very unconsciously leading him to a point which I knew you would be sorry he should arrive at, for his own sake as well as yours, I spoke a cautionary word to you, which you can act upon or forget, as you please. And now what say you to a walk the sun is bright and the air de licious ?" Ellen assented, and in a few minutes they set out on their walk. There was a frankness and apparent sincerity about Miss Ferrymore, which made her feel more at ease with her than with the Misses Norgrovc. It might be that Ellen's mind, more reflective and more accustomed to think and decide (for herself) on subjects and events that came up before her, found Miss Ferrymore's conversation, made up as it was of shrewd observation, originality, and wit, less wearisome than the platitude of the strictly fashionable young ladies whose motions, actions, conversation, dress, and acquirements, were all such as had been prescribed for them by the most approved authorities of the day. They walked 5 1 00 ELLEN PARRY. on briskly for some time, and at length came to a hill, which Miss Ferrymore proposed they should ascend. " It is only half past twelve," said she, looking at her watch ; " we shall be back by luncheon at two." Ellen assented ; she had often ascended the hill, and knew the road perfectly. " The view in summer is magnificent," she said, " but at this season the landscape will hardly do justice to itself." " Never mind, we shall get the exercise, and eyes and cheeks a la Hebe, for our pains." In half an hour they were at the top of the mountain, and Ellen pointed out to her com panion many objects which in the clear frosty atmosphere were more distinct to her than they had ever been before. " There is Gloucester Cathedral," said she, " and there is Chosen Hill, crowned with its pretty church. Tradition says that the people of the village tried to place it at the foot of the hill, in opposition to the will of the founder and endower ; but by some supernatural means, whatever was built during the day, was transferred to the top during the night, and they were finally obliged to conform to the con ditions." " Look in this direction," said Miss Ferrymore, as she turned round ; Ellen had shrunk from that view, for the broad acres of Beechland, its park and mansion, were spread out fully before them, but with a powerful effort of self-command she joined her companion, who had advanced a little in the direction to which she had called Ellen's attention. " This view must be glorious in the leafy season ; whose is that fine place below us ?" " It is Beechland," said Ellen ; " Sir Godfrey Martin owns it now." Miss Ferrymore knew that Beechland had been Ellen's home, though not aware of its contiguity to Ash Grove, which she was now visiting for the first time ; and her naturally kind feelings made her sensible that she must be taxing those of Ellen fearfully. With equal de licacy she felt that the only course she, the acquaintance of a few days could take, was to turn easily and indifferently to some other feature in the landscape ; and after a few passing remarks which called for no reply, she pointed to two pretty cottages in another direction, evidently the homesteads of laborers, and remarked upon the beauty of their situation. " It is beautiful," said Ellen ; " these happy-looking ELLEN PARRY. 107 cottage-homes hare always been objects on which I love to look; they bring up so many pictures of domestic happiness and household love to compensate for the life of toil which is the lot of the poor." " I thought as you at your age ; but nothing brings the fact that I have outlived the age of illusion so forcibly to my mind as when I hear such a remark. That pretty cottage may be the abode of the peace, and purity, and love which your fancy calls up ; but it is far more or at least equally probable, that the wife is a scold, the husband in temperate, and the children par consequence lawless and vicious. I remember when I was about your age passing a summer in travelling with an uncle and aunt. I had never been twenty miles from home before, and was full of en thusiasm. The world was all beauty, and its inhabitants all honest and true sinless Adams and Eves in a serpent- less Garden of Eden. Late one Saturday evening, at the close of a lovely summer day, we arrived at a small village removed from the high road, and in the vicinity of a very recently discovered mineral spring. The hotel at which we stopped had been lately opened, and its quiet retire ment and beauty offered just the sheltered nook in which my uncle and aunt, who were very sober-going folks, loved to pass Sunday. The house was elegant, and the grounds, though bearing traces of recent neglect, had evidently at no distant period been under careful and high cultivation. My aunt learned from the chambermaid that it had been purchased by the landlord of a merchant in a neighboring city, who had made it his summer residence, but had re signed it for some reason the girl did not know. I was enchanted with the place: its wilderness of flowers was more to my taste than a regularly kept parterre ; the lovely mere, with its boat bearing the euphonious title of La Donna del Lago ; and the long colonnade facing the western sky, and commanding a view of lake and mountain and woodland, on which even my aunt, perpetually haunted as the dear lady was by spectres of colds and catarrhs for me, allowed me to walk as long as I pleased, were so many materials with which I wove those pictures that youthful imagination draws and colors with such dyes as are never furnished by reality ; and I went back in imagination to the late inhabit- 108 ELLEN PARRY. ants, and pictured man as he should be ; and as it is not good for man to be alone, I supposed him to have had one fair spirit for his minister and as no home scene was well grouped to my fancy without toddlin' wee things, I imagin ed the walls echoing To those eloquent tones that start From happy childhood's innocent heart, Ere knowledge and sorrow disturb the well In which their mirth and music dwell. In short, I had conceived as pretty a coup d'ceil as any well intentioned young lady, with a large amount of dis posable affections, and an equal share of enthusiasm and inexperience, could desire for herself, and all of which I no doubt expected to realize in my own person. Now mark the contrast. My uncle made some inquiries of the landlord concerning the previous owners of the place. He found that the man had been intemperate and a gamester; had not only ruined himself, but much involved his father ; that he had destroyed his health by his excesses, and had died a few weeks before, leaving his wife, a feeble-minded, indolent woman, and four children, dependent on his father for support." " And did that circumstance destroy all faith in the existence of happiness ? :) said Ellen. " By no means I went on dreaming again and again and I do believe that there are such things as Love which may not be " an empty sound ;" Friendship which may be something besides a name ; Homes where " Peace with ever- blooming olive crowns the gate ;" that there are men who are noble and true, and women who possess and know they possess the power of captivating hearts at will, who are free from coquetry : but then these things and these men and women are few, and the earth over which they are scattered is wide. No, my illusions have long been dispelled and now I get along as well as I can without them making the best of this world of bubbles, which bubbles, as I know their empty nature, do not deceive me." There was a pause of some minutes when Miss Ferry- more said, " I see you do not relish my experimental philo sophy ; you cannot believe in the mutability of your own ELLEN P A R R . 109 feelings, and at your age every thing seems possessed of reality and durability." " Not so," said Ellen, gently and gravely. " Three years ago I was the petted child of indulgent parents and the heiress of that fair domain. Now I am an orphan, and des titute of every thing which my personal exertions cannot procure. Do you think I do not fully recognize the insecu rity of that happiness which is centred in earthly things, or even on the purest earthly affections 1 The inference I was drawing from your words was, that if these illusions and hopes of our youth are to pass from us, how dreary and cold must life be. uncheered by that Faith which looks beyond time ; how cold and desolate the heart which has not laid up for itself treasure in heaven. A human heart with all its generous impulses so spent, its sympathy with the weakness of our common nature and love of human kind all chilled and frozen, can serve no other purpose than (as some old writer expresses it) ' to keep the body from corruption.' Now this is a state of feeling at which it is impossible that a Christian should arrive. He draws con stantly from the source of Love, from Grod himself, streams which keep his own heart fresh and pure, healthy and vigor ous, and which issue thence to gladden and improve his fellow-men." Ellen spoke enthusiastically, but there was no answering harmony in her companion's heart to the chord which had been struck in her own. Miss Ferrymore smiled. " I grant you there may be, sometimes is such a religion practised and experienced as you speak of; but as I said before of other realities great in their quality, small in their quantity, there is little of it, and the world is wide." " But our standard of religion is not its exemplification by fallible mortals ; we have one unfailing, immutable. Ke- ligion, with its glorious hopes, its strong faith, its sanctifying influence, its unspeakable consolations under every trial, is a reality; and though we may and must see many counter feits, much that is feeble and distorted and stunted, if we only view it as we see it but too frequently in erring men, if we look on it as God has presented it to us in his word, as Jesus has exemplified it to us in his life, there seems 110 ELLEN PARRY. to me every thing in it to meet the cravings of an immortal spirit for something higher and better and more stable than earth can offer." " You speak so eloquently, and have so evidently experi enced the faith you describe, that it checks the remark I was about to make that this religious enthusiasm is but another " Miss Ferrymore hestitated. " Don't let me give you a wrong impression for a moment," said Ellen. " I cannot tell you that the sure and certain hope which is the portion of the Christian is mine. I am but a seeker after those life-giving perceptions of truth which I believe to exist ; an humble but yet unanswered suppliant for that sanctification which God has promised in his own good time to all who seek it in spirit and in truth. I think I know what you hesitated to say, that religious enthusiasm is but another form of self-delusion." " Yes, that is what I meant, though I wished to put it in words that should not shock you," " And yet you acknowledge the reality and stability of the objects on which this Faith is based. You believe in God, and that he is a God merciful and loving and just and true. You believe that the Bible is a revelation from God, that from this revelation the Christian learns his relation to God, and the purposes of God towards him. You believe in the divinity of the Saviour, and that he lined on earth to be our exemplar, and died to atone for the sins of the world. You believe in the immortality of the soul. How is it pos sible that all the objects of a religious man's faith and hope can be realities, and the faith and hope delusions ?" " You have not exactly comprehended my meaning. All I meant to say was, that though in common with every body else I receive these truths, I think it is only under the in fluence of an exalted imagination they can be brought to bear on the common momentary concerns of life, or that the revelations concerning a future life can be so realized as to afford the consolations and support of which religious people speak." " The most exalted imagination could not go beyond the words of Scripture, ' Neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive the things which God hath prepared for those who love him,' " said Ellen, quietly. ELLEN PARRY. Ill " There is certainly one thing to be said." rejoined Miss Ferrymore, " it is a Faith and Hope which, where it is not a mere sham, but honestly and truly experienced, is a mine of wealth to its possessor. I have now and then met with such an individual ; and when I have felt sick of the heart- lessness and hollowness of most things in this world, and have found the cold philosophy that ' nobody in reality cares for any body,' mowing down first one and then another of the warm feelings that used to gush so freely from my heart. I have wished I could feel as they do ; but come, we shall be late if we do not walk faster. You have advocated your cause with as much sweetness as though the bees of Hybla had clustered on your lips, as on the less rosy ones of the philosopher of old." " And with as much success ?" said Ellen, smiling ; " but touching that maxim, ' Nobody in reality cares for any body,' I am sure you must constantly find it negatived in your own experience. You care for and love others surely you do not arrogate to yourself the only capacity for loving that is to be found ?" " No ; oh, no ! though I have a pretty good opinion of myself. But I begin to think it's a sort of desecration to be pouring into your young fresh heart the cynical feelings to which the experience of a hackneyed woman of the world gives birth. Don't be alarmed lest you should arrive at the same conclusions ; you'll probably be married and ordering your household and educating and plotting for your children, and attending to the needs of Mons. le Mari and verily the needs of man are legion ; you will find too much occupation for the thankless office of studying human nature as society exhibits it." " That may or may not be ; but what appears to me de sirable and atta0able is such a view of life as shall give to it under any circumstances dignity and interest. I wish you knew my friend Lady Sarah Ford," continued Ellen, musingly. " The Fates forefend ! I heard you talking to Mrs. How ard about her the other day ; I should shrink into a micros copic atom in my own eyes before such awful excellence. I think, by the way, it is a great pity you are not a Quakeress ; you have great gifts for a " public friend." Is not that the 112 ELLEN TARRY. name they give their female preachers ? You would certainly have much influence with the opposite sex ; you are a little too handsome to have much with your own." At this mo ment, Mrs. Howard's carriage appeared from a cross-road, and they accepted her proposal to get in and ride home with her, instead of finishing their excursion on foot. - - - &ft~ fa>~l*$- atcc^ si 7 CHAPTER VII. IT was the day before Christmas ; the snow was falling gently and evenly, and gave evidence that the sun of that joyous Christian festival would dawn on a world appropriate ly habited for the season in the vicinity of Ash Grove at least. The young people had been planning and arranging various games for the evening, and to many of the old time-honored sports they had added the more modern amusement of ta bleaux vivans. The plan proposed was, that each young lady should adopt one of the costumes which from time to time the imperious goddess Fashion had prescribed either in England or France. Caroline appeared in that of the se venteenth century, having copied very accurately a picture of the celebrated Anne of Bourbon, Duchess de Longueville. Miss Ferrymore took the costume of the beginning of the eighteenth, and found a model in a picture of Lady Wortley Montague. The elder Miss Norgrove appeared as the repre sentative of the 16th, in the simple and modest attire of Mary Stuart, while her younger sister assumed that of Eli zabeth of York, to mark the 15th. Ellen^hose the close of the eighteenth, and she could not have made a more fortunate choice. The hair rising straight from the forehead, and showing the beautiful line of its growth, which modern fashion entirely conceals, suited well the noble and elevated expression that characterized her face ; while the effect of the powder was to heighten her complexion and brighten her eyes. The close-fitting dress, with its long bodice, displayed to advantage her drooping shoulders and delicately rounded ELLEN PARRY. 113 waist ; the sleeve deeply ruffled from the elbow served to set off a well-turned arm and wrist ; and the skirt tucked up over a rich flowered satin petticoat, gave a somewhat coquettish air to the tout en semble. They were to appear at dinner in their fancy dresses, and separated to their different toilets long before the usual time when the dressing bell was rung. Ellen and her costume were on such good terms with each other, that she found herself ready much sooner than she had expected, and went down to the library to get a book she was much interested in, and which she thought she might finish before dinner. Just as she approached the door, it was opened by a gentleman. At the first glance she did not recognize him, but the second told her it was Edward More- ton. That he did not recognize her was not to be wondered at. With a look of mingled astonishment, curiosity and ad miration, he bowed and held the door open for her to pass ; but her pause, and the mirthful expression which danced in her eyes and played on her lip as she looked in his face, soon elicited the animated exclamation, " Ellen ! Miss Parry ! Yes, it is !" A little rallying on her part touching his for- getfulness, and many civil speeches on his, followed : and accompanying her back to the library, he stayed chat ting till he had barely time to make a hurried toilet, perfectly fascinated with his companion, and leaving her with the impression thatAe had much improved since she saw him last, and was certainly an elegant and graceful man in ap pearance and manners ; and then she reflected that in the few minutes (a suspicious mistake, considering that they had been talking three-quarters of an hour) which they had spent together, he had alluded with such warmth and feel ing to old times, and to the pleasure he anticipated in talk ing them over with her, as to render it very certain to her mind that he retained the same ardent nature which had made him such a favorite with her father. The interesting book was forgotten, and for the next quarter of an hour noth ing flowed down the current of Ellen's thoughts with which Edward Moreton was not in some way connected. He seemed to have spent no more time than he could possibly help in his dressing-room, for he was among the first to return to the library ; paid the du^need of compliment to the fair Duchess York's pale rosc-**witty Montague the 5* 114 ELLEN PARKY. beauteous Queen of Scots as they entered ; but it was very evident that his eye most often sought and lingered longest on the fair representative of the era when costume was unprecedented in its beauty, and enjoyed what it deserved, a Sir Joshua to hand it down to future ages. The evening passed away in graceful mirth mingled with music, when El len with her voice and fingers deepened every moment the impression she had made on Edward Moreton's heart. Poor Mr. Gordon's hopes sank to zero as he contrasted her gay and animated conversation with this new comer with her manner towards him. Once or twice he had heard her call him " Edward," and though she had corrected herself, it showed a familiarity which made him very uncomfortable ; and he felt as if he should like to pitch this interloper out of the window, when he heard him say to Ellen, that if he did not fear that it would be presuming, he should ask her to continue the familiar appellation with which she used to honor him ; that he had never regretted passing from boy hood till now, when he found that privilege had passed with it. Like many another luckless wight. Mr. Cornelius Gor don knew when a thing was well said, though he never could say a thing well himself. Speech-making is very much like pearl-stringing, and requires judgment in the selection of the materials, taste and variety in the arrangement, and much practice in the workman. The "golden hours" of that Christmas week flew on " angel wings" to Ellen ; Edward . Moreton paid all the attention which courtesy required to the other ladies but it was by her side or leaning on the back of her chair he was most often to be seen ; had he been a new ac quaintance, such attention would probably have awakened even in one so unsuspicious a doubt at least as to the nature of the feelings she had inspired and which attracted him so often and chained him so long to her side. But the familiar intercourse which had for years subsisted between them, and their conversations oft renewed and long continued, always having more or less reference to those scenes and associations of former days which it was an exquisite luxury thus to revive, kept Ellen's mind so busy with the past, that the present, except as it had relation to it, was forgotten. If the eye of one experienced in^^je subtleties of the blind deity had 11 the ,*, looked into her un^Hbious heart, they might have told her ELLEN PARRY. 115 that one so constantly present to her thoughts, and to whose likes and dislikes, opinion and remembrance, she was refer ring almost every thing as it presented itself to her reflection, imagination or memory, was not likely to leave her long " fancy free." A gentleman may consider himself very se cure when a lady feels his absence more than his presence (did he but know the fact), and that was very nearly the case with our heroine. Had Edward Moreton's character developed into finer proportions, or attained to more vigor and strength than when Ellen rallied him on his variability of purpose ? Not so : his scheme of entering the church had been as short lived as she had playfully prognosticated it would be, and within six months from that time he was studying law with his uncle, a barrister of some eminence, and a man whose life had been devoted to his arduous profession. He pro posed to receive the son of his favorite sister, and aid him in the study of the law, and was pleased with the quickness and brilliancy of mind which he found his young nephew to pos sess. The keen glance of the shrewd man of business soon perceived, however, that there was a want of that combina tion of qualities to which we give the name of constancy. Voltaire says, and observation confirms the truth, that men succeed in life more by their character than- their talents ; and the uncle felt he should have been very glad to purchase a little more force of character with the sacrifice of some of the talent he discovered in Edward. As it was, he had duly kept his terms, prepared his theses, and, constantly under the influence of his uncle, had made very respectable attain ments in professional knowledge. This might be called the active portion of his life ; and we are very apt to think that the active portions of our lives alone influence the character, while, in fact, it is greatly moulded by the way in which we spend our leisure. The latter is certainly the truer index. Necessity, circumstances, may control the one, but the native bias is seen in the other. " Every thing by turns, and no thing long," was Edward's hobby. All the sources from which he sought recreation and amusement were refined, pure, graceful, and often elevated, but soon thrown aside. He was a general favorite in society^s persons usually are who, like him. are apt to take their tote from the companion 116 ELLEN PARRY. of the hour. The fabulous power formerly attributed to the chameleon, of reflecting the coloring of the object near it, is theirs. To this habit he added a susceptibility to the warmth emanating from the souls of others ; and often luxuriated in high thoughts and noble resolves, which, though they might be generous fire on the altars from which he had caught them, were mere phosphoric gleams in him. He was generally thought to have a warm affectionate heart, but he had merely what is often mistaken for it. a ivarm imagination. There was a great deal about Ellen to captivate such a man. Her lofty views of every good thing which came under her consideration, her scorn of every thing base and low, her refined and generous enthusiasm, communicated themselves to his facile nature. With the common vanity of mankind, he felt that the nobler aspirations and higher purposes he experienced when conversing with her, were parts of his own latent nature which she but awakened, while, in fact, they were born aliens, and never could find a permanent rest for the sole of the foot in the character of one of whom it might be said, as of Reuben, " Unstable as water, he shall not excel." Woe to the man or woman who is " infirm of purpose." Such are helmless ships, the sport of every vagrant wind ; shuttlecocks bandied hither and thither at the will of another ; " trees without fruit ;" too often " wandering stars to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness." And yet nothing is more common than to hear those who are utterly incapable of the constancy and devotion needful for noble actions descant most eloquently upon them. There is something flattering and complimentary to ourselves in the utterance of fine sentiments, which soothes our vanity, and perhaps satisfies the conscience. Certain it is, that among those whose lives exhibit poetry in action, there is rarely any poetry of speech ; while, on the other hand, the purest and most elevated views are express ed by those whose whole life is but a series of selfish acts. If Ellen thought at all about the defect in Edward's character as a youth, she speedily came to the conclusion that it had been entirely overcome ; and, conscious how great a change had taken place in her own character, it was not n pla< 11 * perhaps any marvel tfeat she should easily receive the im- ELLEN PARRY. 117 pression that the defects in his had been as much modified. Edward stayed through the first week in January, loth even then to take leave ; but his uncle's summons was such as he knew he must not dally with. He would have given .much to have been able to say, with the ease he had done four or five years before, " I shall write in a week or two : mind you send me a good long letter in reply." .But it could not be. He saw that Ellen was very unconscious of any alteration in his feelings towards her, and equally unconscious of any change (if any there was) in her own. He was quite enough in love to feel anxious and dubious upon this point, espe cially when she said, with unembarrassed ease, how much gra tification she had had in his visit, and how much she re gretted that he could not remain another week, which would bring her stay at Ash Grove to a close, a very civil speech to a friend ; but he would have felt more encouragement to his hopes had he discovered these parts of speech in her eyes, and been left to combine them himself. He had not much experience in feminine nature, but he had an intuitive perception that it was not exactly the speech a woman would make to a, man with whom she was in love. Mr. Gordon and his mother took leave on the same day as Edward. The former, after some conversation with Mr. Howard, had come to the conclusion that Miss Parry was not exactly the woman for his wife. He shortly after sought and obtained the fair hand of a Northamptonshire maiden, whose natural or acquired refinement was not so great as to prevent her thinking her lord and master to be an epitome of all knowledge, wit, and good-breeding. Miss Perrymore, whose stay was prolonged beyond Ellen's, parted from her with many expressions of affection, and begged they might promote the growth of their acquaint ance by an occasional correspondence, to which she readily assented, and with loving farewells to her Ash Grove friends, she set out to return to her quiet duties at the Grange, and the society of Lady Sarah and Mr. Sherwin. The first few days Ellen experienced the lassitude of spirit which attends a reaction, after any unusual excite ment. Teaching seemed very dull work. Lucy appeared sorrowful that her holidays were over, and all pursuits were insipid and unprofitable. A very few days, however, served 118 ELLEN PARKS'. to restore governess and pupil to their usual habits of thought and action ; and though Ellen might play over two or three particular songs more often than others, because Edward Moreton liked them, and though she hunted over the library for some books he had recommended to her. the thought of him was by no means so engrossing as to destroy her appetite, break her rest, or divert her occupations or her thoughts from their ordinary channel. Lady Sarah was glad to see her return, for her society had become very delightful to her ; and glad to find that those dawning prin ciples which she had watched with so much anxiety and gratitude had stood the ordeal to which they had been ex posed, for such she considered a visit to be among people whose principal object in life was to stand well in the fashion able world. She thought it very probable Ellen, in such a circle, would be subjected to a test not yet applied to her character, the flattering attentions of the male guests at Ash Grove ; for feminine vanity, the love of personal admi ration, is the rock on which many have foundered. But Lady Sarah soon found that she need have no fears on this subject, and that Ellen's feelings touching the " one thing needful" were as earnest and deep as ever. As the lengthen ing days of spring permitted them to resume their customary evening walks, they often discoursed on this topic, and many a lesson of wisdom did Ellen thus gain. They were returning one evening, and called on their way at the house of a family which, with all the comforts, and even some of the luxuries of life at their command, had not the cheerful aspect of a happy home. The parents were well-disposed, sensible people, of the middle class of life ; but the children, educated away from home, had returned when it was deemed necessary that they should leave school, with few of the elements of character and the cultivated aifections which are so essential to the harmony and peace of a large family. A scene which had taken place during their visit had turned the conversation, when they resumed their walk, to the influence of trifles on the every-day happi ness of life. " Yes," resinned Lady Sarah, after a short pause, " Fenelon wrote truly : ' There is no greatness of mind in a contempt for little things :' and experience proves to us that what we misname little things are very important ELLEN PARRY. 119 ones. Nothing so well preserves the sensibility of conscience as the observance of those little acts of household courtesy, that forbearance and patience with others, and that self-de nial, for exercising which every body's every-day life gives abundant opportunity. Life does not afford many occasions for acts of heroic self-sacrifice, and many are more capable of performing those single acts than of being uniformly courteous and attentive to the uninteresting, patient with the dull, gentle with the ill-tempered, imparting vigor to the feeble, and cheerful submissiveness to the repining. Fur thermore, even if we admit them to be minor duties, does not the frequency of their recurrence compensate, in the aggregate, for their minuteness ? Be assured, my dear Ellen, that the dazzling flash of isolated acts of generosity is not to be compared, for beauty or utility, in its direct or reflex influence, with the steady lovely light shed by the hourly exercise of these small sweet charities of life. Our Father teaches us throughout creation, that if we would ' act upon His plan,' and ' form to His the relish of our minds,' we must care for and work for the happiness of our fellow-creatures, as well as for their necessities. Look at this little flower," she continued, as she stooped to gather a Ve ronica, whose minute blossom was scarcely visible in the tufts of grass among which it grew ; " it is a great favorite with me, for it first turned my thoughts definitely to the subject on which we are speaking. What myriads and myriads of these fair creations are scattered up and down this wide world, whose only known mission is to gladden the eye of man, and make his way pleasant. They are no less cared and provided for than those productions which support life. And thus, as far as Grod has given us ability,, we must" provide food for the hungry, clothing for the naked, medi cine for the sick, instruction for the ignorant, the knowledge of the blessed gospel for all ; and we must scatter up and down, far and wide, in the moral world, fair flowers the kind look, the considerate word, the ready sympathy, the constant thoughtfulness. And then we have rich poor with claims upon us, in the homes of those who lack not the com forts and luxuries of life. There are the lonely-hearted and the feeble-minded, the invalid and the bereaved, to them we should give careful heed ; for their claims, being less ob vious, are more apt to be overlooked." 120 ELLEN PARRY. Such were the views of Christian practice which Ellen was in the habit of receiving from the lips of her friend, and daily and hourly seeing illustrated in that friend's life. Lady Sarah's piety was eminently cheerful. She looked with love on every human thing true, it was a sinful world she lived in, but it was a world which Grod loved and Christ had redeemed it was a world where care and sorrow must be felt and the burden of life borne ; but she knew that the " Lord reigneth," therefore she might well rejoice. She spoke little of her frames and feelings, her seasons of spiritual enjoyment or depression ; but there was in every action and every uttered thought a pervading spiritual- mindedness, which made all take knowledge of her, that she was often with Jesus. Easter Sunday broke upon Welbourne with the brilliant dawn of departed Eden, or anticipated millennium. It was Ellen's first communion season. Solemn and full of intense feeling to every child of God is the time when he first comes forward openly to proclaim himself a member of Christ's visible Church ; the holy, the high purposes of self-renunciation, the firm resolve that henceforth Christ shall be all in all, and the world, with its pomps and vani ties and idolatry of shadows trampled under foot, animat ing the soul with a fervor only to be experienced at inter vals as we pursue our course. Calvary, not Tabor, is the common resting-place of the Christian's soul ; and often is the young convert cast down and discouraged because he finds a reaction after this first rapturous season of uniting with the redeemed in commemorating the dying love of a glorified Redeemer. The progress of Ellen's mind had been very gradual, but her use of the appointed means of grace had been faith ful ; the unfluctuating effort of a steady mind, not the fitful one too often brought to the. study of divine truth. Long before her own self-distrust would allow her to feel that the Holy Spirit, so often asked for, had been indeed shed abroad in her heart, Lady Sarah felt secure that she had made a fixed and intelligent choice of that good part which should not be taken away from her. The month of June brought letters from Mrs. Howard ,and Caroline, full of important intelligence and happy pros- ELLEN PARRY. 121 pects. Caroline was engaged to a gentleman of fortune, good repute, and, of course, of unexceptionable mind, man ners, and appearance, selon la fiancee. She claimed Ellen's fulfilment, in the middle of August, of an old promise to be her bridemaid, if she should be the first married. The sheet was closely filled and crossed, and the writer described, in fair and flowing characters, her anxieties and her per plexities ; but the anxieties related to the possibility of getting a Brussels lace dress and veil worked expressly for her, in so short a time ; and the perplexities, to the diffi culty of choosing between a set of pearls or amethysts, which the father of her lover had sent for her selection, as his cadeau de fianqailles. Mrs. Howard's letter detailed her engrossing cares in the preparations of household gear, and such parts of a lady's trousseau as she usually leaves to others. Ellen felt that the tone of both letters was low ; and she knew they must appear so to Lady Sarah. The only remark that the latter made, however, was, " Do you know any thing more of Mr. Langton than these letters tell you?" "He is the eldest son of a gentleman who has a fine estate near Ash Grove. He has been much abroad, and I have never seen him ; his father used to dine at Beechland occasionally," replied Ellen. "The development. of your friend's character will depend much on that of the man she is about to marry," said Lady Sarah. " Generally speaking, a young lady whose parents are living, on whom fortune and health have smiled, has very little to develop her character before she marries ; here and there we meet with instances, both in the highest and lowest classes of society, of natures which seem to have stood free from surrounding influences of refined luxury on the one hand, or vice on the other; but, usually speaking, we require a great deal of pressure from without, in the shape of affliction or responsibility, or the influence of the opinions and example of others, to develop the resources within us. From all I have heard you say of Miss Howard, I suppose she has not manifested, as yet, what her character is." " No," said Ellen, " there has been, as you say, nothing to call forth any thing positive ; she is gentle and amiable, well bred and well disposed, and loving her as I do, I can- 122 ELLEN PARRY. not but feel she will act conscientiously when called upon to decide on any subject of importance." " She belongs, I think, to that numerous class of dam sels one can only describe as yotmg-l&dy-like ; but some of the finest characters I have known have, as very young gii'ls, manifested only the negative characteristics of this large class." Ellen felt that all she wished for in Caroline was piety ; in that, indeed, every good is comprised. But with intui tive delicacy and good taste, she forbore to speak of her friend's religious, or want of religious, character. The opin ion which had long been a rule of action with Lady Sarah had hardly developed itself in Ellen's mind as such, viz., that the spiritual deficiencies, dawning light, or progress, in the characters of others with which we have become ac quainted, are matters on which we cannot too often com mune with our Heavenly Father in his appointed way, by supplication and thanksgiving, but which should rarely, if ever, be made the subject of remark to others. Animad version on the deficiencies of our neighbor is very likely to open a door through which spiritual pride can creep in, and while talking openly on the subject to man, we may forget to bring it before our Father, who seeth in secret. CHAPTER VIII. THE wedding was to take place on the twentieth of August, and Ellen was to spend the whole of the month at Ash Grove. She found, on her arrival, that all the preparations were in a state of great advancement. Mrs Howard was up early and late, providing for every possible exigence. The elder Mr. Langton had assigned to his son an elegant cottage, built on the outskirts of his own park, and which he had himself occupied in the first years of his marriage. This Mrs. Howard had furnished, Caroline having no further trouble than that of selecting such articles of fur- ELLEN PARRY. 123 niture as were to her taste. By the beginning of August the house was ready for its intended occupants, the servants were engaged, and Mrs. Howard's cares were mainly directed to the organization of the wedding party. Caroline had selected Miss Norgrove for her second bridemaid, and had chosen as groomsman Seymour Langton, a younger brother of the bridegroom, to be Ellen's ; and Edward Moreton, Miss Norgrove's. " It would," she said, " be too much like ask ing brother and sister to be groomsman and bridemaid, to couple Edward and Ellen. As soon as Ellen arrived, she set to work tying up cards and writing invitations to those who were to be of the wedding party. Caroline was quite too much engrossed with her lover to attend to any thing so monotonous and un interesting as writing invitations. Ellen found Mr. Henry Langton agreeable and well informed, handsome in person, and gentlemanly in manners ; Caroline's description of him might really have been taken without much allowance, she' thought. On the Saturday after her arrival, Mr. Howard, who had been for a week in London, returned to the country, bringing Edward Moreton with him. " I picked up this gentleman on 'Change this morning," said he to the ladies. " I thought he looked rather wo- begone, and persuaded him to run down and refresh him self for a few days. It must be rather dull play here, I think, for Ellen ; Caroline and Langton count for nothing as society except to each other, and you and I, my wife, are not so young as we have been." Edward's greetings were mingled with some expressions of doubt lest he had been presuming in accepting even so pressing an invitation as Mr. Howard's just at this time ; but there was a little embarrassment in his manner, and his expressions were not as well turned as usual, " Since what date has Mr. Edward Moreton thought it necessary to apologize for visiting Ash Grove, whenever in clination moved him thereunto ?" said Caroline, as she shook hands with him. " Since you have chosen to reduce hundreds to the depths of despair by exalting one favored and happy mortal above his fellows," was the gallant reply. " That very neat and appropriate speech proves you are 124 ELLEN PARRY. not to be numbered among the despairing hundreds," said Mr. Howard ; " a man tnust be on pretty good terms with himself, and all the world, who says such civil things." Edward was soon by Ellen's side, telling her in a tone of pleasantry how firmly he had resisted Mr. Howard's invita tion, until he heard she was there, when he yielded at dis cretion, and sundry other civil nothings which no one could say more gracefully. And she could not but admit that the evening passed much more agreeably chatting and singing with him, than playing backgammon with Mr. Howard, a game she detested, and only resorted to that she might be no restraint on the tete-a-tete that the lovers, tempted probably by the inviting aspect of a causeuse placed in a deep bay window, were wont to indulge in after dinner ; which meal Mr. Langton had taken at Ash Grove ever since his engagement. Edward found that the seven months which had elapsed since he had seen Ellen had by no means diminished her power over him ; nay, she seemed rather to have supplied herself with new and more powerful charms wherewith to rivet his chains. Nevertheless, there was something in her manner, indescribable but not to be mis taken, that made him sensible she was still unconscious of the passion she had inspired ; and he was alive to the im policy of risking the success of his suit by a premature declaration. Meanwhile he dreaded seeing any man with tolerable pretensions to find favor in a fair lady's eyes, approach her within speaking distance. The invitation to come down to Ash Grove had been most opportune, for his anxieties touching the agreeableness of Mr. Seymour Lang- ton had been great ; and lover like, he felt it to be an utter impossibility that the gentleman should see Ellen in the every-day social intercourse likely to take place beween the Howards and the Langtons, without becoming captive to her charms, if he should be as yet fancy free. As they were walking to church on the Sunday morning, he asked Ellen if she had seen Mr. Seymour Langton. " Yes, several times," was the reply. " I do not think he is so agreeable as his brother, do you ?" added Edward. " I don't know All I have yet found out about him, is that he detests England, and has very white and well formed hands, which he watches and tends with much care and affection." ELLEN PARRY. 125 Edward laughed, and a nice ear might have detected gratified hope and exultation in his tone. " He is a little of a coxcomb perhaps," said he, "but that will wear off; he has many good points." He could afford to be generous now, and say a word in Seymour Langton's favor. " Very likely," said Ellen, in a tone of indifference; " and I will suspend my judgment until he has laid aside his cox combry ; very generous in me, I assure you ; for In man or woman, but far most in man ******* *****! loathe All affectation. 'Tis my perfect scorn, Object of my implacable disgust." The Howards seldom went to church in the afternoon, but the day was fine and the air fresh, and Ellen set off alone after luncheon, intending to return through Beechland. She had a strong wish to tread again the path by which she had been accustomed to go to church with her father, but did not desire a companion. She knew that Sir Godfrey Martin's family were absent from Beechland, and moreover, the walk lay through a secluded and unfrequented part of the park, so that she would not be likely to meet any one. Late in the afternoon Caroline came into the library, where Edward was lounging with a book in his hands, of whose contents he knew little more than when he took it up, and asked him if he had seen Ellen since luncheon. " No !" was the reply. " She is not in her room," rejoined Caroline ; " I suppose she has gone to church ; I wanted her to take a stroll with me ; but as she is not to be found, I shall make you a substitute, and invite you to walk with me on the terrace for a little while." Edward's first impulse was to set off for the church, in the hope that he might arrive in time to walk home with Ellen ; but there was no possibility of evading Caroline's invitation to join her, and he expressed his pleasure, &c., &c., with much more politeness than sincerity. He was taking his hat when she said, " Here is Henry ! What can have brought him over so much sooner than he intended ?" Edward merely lingered to express in a serio comic manner the blissful anticipation which Mr. Langton's 126 ELLEN PARRY. arrival had blighted, and his necessity for seeking some shady retreat, where he might soothe his disappointment by telling it to the Zephyrs and Hamadryades, and then walked off at a brisk pace, which became a run as soon as he felt himself out of sight. But all was in vain. The service was over when he arrived at the church, and even the old sexton, who, he thought, might have told him which road Miss Parry took, had disappeared. He had a presentiment that she had followed the old familiar way, and he also took it, without however finding any trace of the object of his search. He gave it up as hopeless when he reached a part of the park which was in full view of the house ; for not being himself aware of the absence of the family, he felt sure that Ellen would not have approached so nearly as to be seen from it. The spot on which he stood was a high knoll sloping rather suddenly to the river, and cover ed with large and handsome oaks ; one of which close to the bank of the stream was much decayed. In former years they had been in the habit of descending the knoll at this tree, and after resting awhile under its still umbrageous arms, pursuing their way by the side of the river. Edward had walked so rapidly that he felt somewhat tired, and as he despaired of meeting Ellen, he threw himself on the grass, and indulged himself in building castles in the air, of which she was always chatelaine. He had not been long thus occupied, when Ellen's voice reached his ear so distinctly that he recognized the words she was singing, in a low but clear tone, to be those which he had seen marked in a volume of Sacred Poetry belonging to her. They ran thus : ! hadst thou left me unchastised, Thy precepts I had still despised, And still the snare in secret laid Had my unwary feet betrayed? 1 love thy chastenings, O my God, They fix my hopes on thy abode, Where in thy presence fully blest Thy stricken saints for ever rest. Edward turned as noiselessly as possible in the direction whence her voice came, and saw her sitting on the mossy ELLEN PARRY. 127 roots of the old tree. For worlds he would not have broken in upon the hallowed memories, the holy anticipations which were evidently engrossing her mind, and he stole quietly away, lingering near a bridge at a little distance, which he knew she must past. Very soon he saw her white dress fluttering among the trees, and walked forward to meet hgr. She greeted him with a surprise but pleased look, though her face wore a more pensive expression than usual, and she said quietly as she put her arm within his, that she had been visiting old haunts and gathering stores of Faith from the remembrances they called up. They walked slowly, and were talking very freely and almost confidentially about the discipline which had been allotted to her, tha-view she took of it, and the advantage she felt it had already been to her ; and Edward was receiv ing and reflecting back her opinions (to do him justice all unconsciously, for he thought they were his own) in a manner that manifested a singular identity of feeling and purpose. He had a sort of poetic imaginative religion, which Ellen's stricter piety (as it did not lead her to the adoption of dresses indescribably dowdy, or the rejection of any external marks of a lady) did not offend. Indeed, it rather added to the influence which she had obtained over his imagination, and it appeared to him that it would be very easy to act out all the intentions of his better moments, with such a being as Ellen to be at once his inspiration and his aid. Those clear dark eyes, in whose light there seemed blended the tenderness of an earthly with the purity of an angelic nature, and that radiant smile, were at once his en- cgjpigement and reward. ^Tlic dressing bell was ringing as they ascended the steps of the house. Mr. Langton and Caroline were enter ing at the same time, and the former congratulated Edward on his singular success in finding so fair a Hamadryad to listen to the recital of the disappointment he had so pathet ically deplored on quitting them. Mrs. Howard, with the usual keen-sightedness of a matron in such cases, had come to the conclusion during the winter visit that Edward and Ellen were very much pleased with each other ; but for once thought she would keep her suspicions to herself, and escape the laugh they generally 128 ELLEN PARRY. drew upon her from her husband, who declared that women in general, and his wife in particular, could never see two unmarried people talking, or walking, or riding together, without a vision of Cupid and Hymen approaching to join company. The good lady therefore chuckled a little at the prospect of turning the laugh against her spouse, when he said to her that evening. " My dear, this love-making seems to be infectious ; I should not be surprised to hear of another pair of turtle-doves at Ash Grove." " What do you mean ?" said Mrs. Howard, determined to make him commit himself a little further, before she rallied him on his visions of Cupid and Hymen. ' : I mean, my dear, that Edward Moreton has lost his heart, and is in a fair way to gain another in its place, if he has not already done so." Mrs. Howard was rather merciless in her bantering, but the pleasure of laughing at her husband for being the first- to proclaim an incipient love affair, soon yielded to the desire of talking seriously about the matter ; and she ex pressed her satisfaction in the prospect, though she remark ed, " It is a pity Edward has no fortune ; the old proverb, 'A physician seldom gains his bread till he has lost his teeth,' might be applied to the profession of law as well as physic." " Love is a powerful stimulant," said Mr. Howard. " I never made sixpence, my dear, till you smiled upon me. Moreton has a mine of wealth in himself when he has motive enough to work it ; he's a lucky fellow if she takes him. for he might spend many a long day in the search without finding her equal. Poor Parry ! how proud he would be of hqfejf he were here ; she's just what he would have wished to see her, high-spirited and independent, and yet perfectly femi nine. I never saw a girl so changed ; I often wonder where the temper is we used to think so frightful. After some further conversation on the subject, Mr. Howard concluded by saying that whenever she was married, he should insist on "fitting her out" in a manner suitable to the circum stances she was likely to be placed in, whether she would or no ; and with this expression of his benevolent intentions towards the orphan daughter of his friend, the good man composed himself for the night. ELLEN PARRY. 129 A day or two after this Ellen and Edward were in the conservatory, the former talking with the gardener about the probability of some white moss rosebuds being in pre cisely the desired state of advancement for Caroline to wear on her wedding-day. He assured her they should be ready to the hour, and then told her that his daughter and some other girls in a school of which Mr. and Mrs. Howard htd been liberal patrons, had got a notion about bringing the flowers to Miss Caroline on her wedding morning, and sing ing some suitable song at the same time. The girls had a good many to choose from, he said, but he thought every thing ought to be new at a wedding, and had told them he'd ask Miss Parry if she would write a verse or two for them, and set it to some new tune. They had quite a pretty idea, too, of making large " horns of plenty" of cardboard, and cov ering them with moss to hold the flowers, with which they intended to strew the path from the churchyard gate to the porch. Ellen told him that he had greatly over-estimated her powers ; that she thought she might be able to compose a tune, but Mr. Moreton would be the best person to apply to for the verses. Edward smiled, and promised to do his best ; and she continued to listen with much interest to the girls' plans, and offered her assistance if they needed it. Edward, meanwhile, tore a leaf from his pocket-book, and after writing a few minutes handed it to her, with the fol lowing lines inscribed upon it : Flowers we bring, than thyself less fair, To wreath with the braids of thy shining hair, Emblems meet in their youthful pride Of thee, whom this morning we hail a bride. Flowers ! flowers ! sweet flowers We bring for the fair young bride. Flowers we bring, thy way to strew, Whose buds are yet moist with the early dew- Type of the joys of future hours That shall make thy life a path of flowers. 6 1'30 ELLEN PARRY. Flowers fresh with the early dew We bring, the young bride's path to strew. " Very good," said Ellen, " not likely to live so long as Theocritus's Epithalamiuni of Helen, but probably much less llfearisonie to those who are compelled, par complaisance, to listen to it, than that was. Do you not think Mr. Moreton has entirely met your wants ?" she continued as she gave it to the gardener, who pronounced it just the very thing " It said every thing they wanted to say, in good words and few of them." Ellen promised to set them to some tune that should be particularly suited to his young daughter's voice, who, as the most accomplished songstress, should sing the solo ; and she and Edward returned to the house. Mrs. Howard and Caroline had gone to Cheltenham that morn ing, and as it seemed a very favorable opportunity for the execution of the task she had undertaken, she sat down im mediately to the piano, but found herself constantly run ning into the strains of familiar melodies. At last Edward suggested that she should sing the words, composing the melody with her voice, *and then noting it down, merely to fix it in her own memory ; for, as she must teach it to the girls from her voice and not from the piano, the notes would be of little consequence. The plan succeeded, and she at length produced a melody which she thought would do, and which Edward pronounced " delicious." She continued singing some time, all unconscious of the rapt and earnest gaze with which her companion's eyes were fixed on her face, until when turning to address some remark to him, he started, colored, and answered with so much embarrassment, that in spite of herself she felt the flush mantling to her very temples. A sudden light had flashed upon her unde fined but thrilling, the dawning consciousness that Edward Moreton loved her. Ellen left the piano, and after a few trifling remarks, took up her bonnet and shawl and went to her own room. The current of her thoughts probably differed very little from that of most young ladies similarly circumstanced ; as she sat alone for some hours, past, present, and future combining to produce a state of feeling not very definable, perhaps, but ELLEN PARRY. 131 very agreeable. Edward Moreton felt certain that he had betrayed his secret to the fair object of his worship, and was in a very proper and natural state of anxiety concerning the manner in which she would henceforth receive his attentions. It was most provoking that he should be obliged to go to London the next morning, but so it was ; and still more provoking that he should not be able to return until the day before the wedding. Ellen appeared at luncheon, and reminded Mr. Howard of a promise he had made to ride on horseback with her. He said he should be very willing to go, but suggested that she had a better cavalier at hand than a staid old gentleman like himself. Ellen professed herself quite willing to accept another cavalier by way of addition though not as a substi tute, and the saddle-horses were ordered. The ride was little more than a horseback saunter through a very beauti ful part of the country, but the conversation between Ed ward and Ellen was by no means so animated as usual ; and though she sat by him at dinner that evening, and showed no desire to avoid his customary attentions, the crumbs of encouragement which he found therein were few ; and with a lover's inconsistency, he imagined that even her manner of bidding him farewell when he set out for London the next morning, though- marked by exactly what he felt was wanting when he last took leave of her, was cool and am biguous. Among the wedding guests who. coming from a distance, were necessarily domiciled at the Grove, were Captain Ferry- more and his sister. Ellen was really glad to see the latter ; they had frequently corresponded during the last six months, and the penetration and quick perceptions of the woman of the world, united to the impulsive affections of an Irish heart, enabled Miss Ferrymore to perceive the dignity and simpli city of Ellen's character and to love her warmly. Perhaps (for vanity is apt to cling to us through life, and merely changes its form with our changing years) she was flattered by Ellen's evident preference of her society and conversa tion, to that of the young girls of her own age whom she had met at Ash Grove. The ease and freedom with which Ellen conversed with her on all subjects, unawed by the dif ference of age, her earnest life and high aims, her steadfast 132 ELLEN PARRY. assertion (supported by revealed truths which the hackneyed woman of the world could not gainsay) that " life is good," and sacred, and not to be shabbily shuffled through, but to be digested for the soul's nourishment, and her unuttered though implied opinion that those only who misuse life find occasion to rail against it, all these were insensibly operat ing on Miss Ferrymore's mind with a gentle but steady in fluence. At length the twentieth of August came, and the rising sun was hailed by a merry peal from the bells of the village church. They awakened Caroline, who threw her dressing gown around her and went into Ellen's room, which adjoin ed her own. She found her standing at the open window. But so noiseless was Caroline's entrance, that it was not until her arms were around Ellen's neck that the latter was aware of her presence. Caroline's tears flowed freely as she hid her face on the bosom of her friend. It was the first time that she had manifested any emotion that indicated a sense of the sacred nature of the tie she was about to form, or of the responsibilities connected with it. Ellen rejoiced at what seemed to her a natural indication of the feelings proper to the circumstances in which her friend was placed, and her own heart swelled with emotion as she expressed, with deeper feeling than she had before done, all her hopes and wishes for the future, her joy in Caroline's happy prospects, and as she added a few strong but timidly uttered words, touching the religious feelings which should be ever mingled with our greatest happiness, as well as with our greatest sorrows. " Oh, Ellen ! if I were only like you ! but I feel at this moment, as if I were about to undertake duties which I can never perform and Henry thinks me so much better than I really am so much better than he will find me to be." Ellen, though deeply moved, could scarcely forbear a smile at this simple acknowledgment of self-distrust and timidity from Caroline ; carrying with it too (as it did) evidence of a stronger attachment than that of which she would generally have been supposed to be capable. Ellen's words of gentle affectionate encouragement, succeeded in dispelling the cloud from Caroline's spirit and in restor ing the smile to her face. SOOB after household sounds ELLEN PAR fftf . 133 gave notice that they were not the only^iferly risers, and Caroline's maid announced to her mistress that it was the hour she had wished to be called. The bridal party was to leave the house at eight o'clock, and, by half-past seven, the bride's toilet was completed with the exception of her veil. Just then a sweet young voice was heard singing, in clear and distinct tones, the verses which Edward Moreton had written. Caroline went to the window. The gardener's daughter was the centre of a group of girls, and held on her head a moss basket, containing the exquisite rose-buds which the bride was to wear in her hair, while the others held cornucopias containing flowers. Their voices rose, full of melody, on the morning air, as they mingled in the chorus ; and Caroline thanked them with real pleasure for the good wishes they expressed. At eight o'clock precise ly, Caroline and her father entered the first carriage, and the steps were duly scattered with flowers and the girls then made their way by a short cut across the fields, and were ready at the entrance of the churchyard when the carriage drove up. A few minutes more, and the sacred vows were pronounced in that low, clear, and emphatic tone so common,; that one scarce knows whether it be the accent of fashion, or of feeling ; the pastoral blessing was spoken, the joyous wedding peal from the belfry announced to those without that Caroline Howard had become Caroline Langton ; and the gay cavalcade was moving back to partake of the break fast prepared at the Grove. The evening of that day offered a strong contrast to the morning. The bride and bridegroom departed on their wedding tour ; the guests had all gone but Ellen and Ed ward ; all traces of the gay feast had disappeared from the apartments occupied by the family, and Mr. and Mrs. How ard were walking up and down the drawing-room, talking in a low tone about their daughter. They had consented will ingly to her marriage. The connection was in every point of view desirable. Every thing promised well for the hap piness of this only child of many cares, yet they could not but feel that a large amount of happiness had been with drawn from their own hearth stone ; and the occasional tear which Mrs. Howard wiped from her eye, proved that the mo ther realized now, in a degree she had not done before, the full extent of her loss. 134 ELLEN PARRY. Ellen and Edward were sitting in a bay window, chat ting about the occurrences of the day, when he proposed a stroll in the moonlight ; " Let me ring for your bonnet and shawl," he said, earnestly. Ellen consented, and telling Ed ward he might carry the bonnet, but she did not think she should need it, she stepped out on the terrace. They had not walked long there when he suggested that the effect of the moonlight was much more beautiful among trees, where the masses of light were contrasted with shadow, and drew her off in the direction of the shrubbery, where, deter mined to put an end to his suspense, he poured forth the tale of his love, his fears and doubts, in a strain of great eloquence, which (aided, probably, by a secret advocate in his listener's heart) met with a favorable reception ; and Ellen returned to the house the plighted love of Edward Moreton. There was a gushing, bewildering sense of happiness playing about her heart that night. Since her father's death, she had experienced nothing of the love which her nature yearned to receive and bestow. Her capacity for bestowing and receiving happiness was great. The very circumstances which had deprived her of the natural sphere for its exercise, home and home ties, had enlarged and re fined it; and now to find herself again the object of a pa ramount affection the one thing loved, cared for, and thought upon, above all the bright and beautiful things of earth, was almost overwhelming. True to the feeling she had expressed to Caroline in the morning her recognition of the hand of God in every circumstance of her life, prompt ed her as soon as she reached the retirement of her own room, to pour out her heart in gratitude to her heavenly Father, for the new motives to right feeling and right ac tion, and for the new source of happiness opened to her. and also to pray that she might be faithful to the responsibili ties of her new relation ; that wisdom might be granted her in judgment, and strength in action, to meet any duties she might be called to, with him or for him. Ellen had, like most women, taken too much for granted on a point which she would have acknowledged mainly essen tial in the character of a man to whom she engaged herself; and perhaps she had more excuse for so doing than can ELLEN PARRY. 135 generally be alleged. She had known very few persons, no gentleman, in fact, but Mr. Sherwin, whose life was profess edly governed by religious principles ; and though not aware of it, she was satisfied with a less strict adherence to externals and lower views of religious duty than would have satisfied her in a woman. She believed Edward a religious man on no stronger grounds than his general assent to her views on the subject, which had been occasionally expressed in their tete-a-tete conversations ; whereas such was Edward's state of feeling, that if she had professed herself a worship per of Vishnu or a devotee of Juggernaut, he would pro bably have expressed himself a follower ; a far off, perhaps, but still a follower of the same faith. Mr. and Mrs. How ard expressed pleasure, but no surprise, when informed of the engagement ; and Ellen, after writing to announce it to Caroline, took up her pen to inform Lady Sarah Ford. This was a long task, for Edward had been merely named en passant, if at all, to that lady ; and, knowing the interest she would feel in it, Ellen gave a history of their whole ac quaintance, her father's affection for Edward as a boy, the circumstances in which he was placed, and the probability that it might be an engagement of some years before it would be prudent for their marriage to take place. Confi dent in the sympathy of Lady Sarah, she detailed to her feelings and purposes which she could have breathed to no other living being than Edward. The next post brought her a most affectionate letter from her friend, such an one as an anxious and holy-minded mother would address to a beloved child ; and on the envelope were a few lines from Mr. Sherwin, saying that Lady Sarah had just in formed him of the event, and had kindly permitted him to add his good wishes, and to congratulate Mr. Moreton on his rare good fortune : with the gallant addition " had I found a Miss Parry fifteen or twenty years ago, my den would have been much more cheerful, and its occupant a much more civilized being." Mr. and Mrs. Winterton said all that was proper on the occasion, and when Ellen had received the usual civil noth ings or somethings, as the case might be, from Edward's friends, she settled down to her old habits and duties, and quietly endured that fearful test of strength, patience, and 136 ELLEN PARRY. cheerfulness a long engagement ; to which were added the disadvantages of their moving in different spheres, being subject to different social influences, and being deprived, for long intervals, of all intercourse except by writing. Every thing now, however, seemed light to Ellen, her great est anxiety was to render herself worthy of Edward as she estimated him, and that was no low aim ; so to train her self morally and intellectually, that if he was destined to prosperity and a high station, he might feel she adorned it, and if to an humble one, that she dignified it. Laugh as we may, when we become worldly wise, at the romance and enthusiasm of the young and unworldly, there is in the sim ple love of a guileless heart undebased by the spirit of flirta tion, interest, vanity, or by the anticipations of an estalish- ment in the ideal atmosphere with which it invests the ob ject of its devotion, a something which commands respect ; it may be of the imagination imaginative, but it is not of the earth earthy. The Christmas holidays of that year were spent partly at Ash Grove, and partly with Mrs. Langton. Edward, who seemed devoted to his profession, came down there frequent ly ; and Ellen felt as if her cup was full to overflowing, as they talked over their future plans, all the good things they were to do, all the books they were to read together, and as she heard his warmly expressed hope, that in two years more he might be in circumstances to claim the fulfilment of her promise to commit herself and her happiness to his keeping. CHAPTER IX. Two years had passed away, and there were occasionally to be seen on Ellen's brow traces of anxious care. These were not caused by daily trials in her own life, though she was by no means free from them. In the course of the last year, the thought had often pressed painfully upon her. that ELLEN PARRY. 137 Edward was less hopeful about success, and seemed occa sionally depressed and discouraged that he did not advance more rapidly in his profession. He often dwelt, and it seemed to her with some bitterness, upon the inequalities of Fortune, and the far-off, and often (even when obtained) paltry pittance that rewards long years of industry. She ever met his complaints with cheerful encourage ment, but frequently they made her think that, perhaps, Edward's engagement to her might have impeded his ad vancement. She had no fortune, no influential connections ; and she feared that he might think that the engagement had been imprudent on his part, and that he was held to it by a sense of honor only. When the last thought came uppermost, she would resolve to write to him, frankly tell him her thoughts, and release him from his engagement ; taking it upon herself that he might be spared embarrass ment. On the other hand, if Edward had no such thought, and if his remarks were only occasioned by the weariness of a toiling spirit, she felt that it would be cruel to intimate any doubt of his heart being still faithful to his choice ; and that by so doing she would certainly check the free out pouring to her of his cares and anxieties. Under the in fluence of such reflections all idea of such a course was abandoned. The truth was, Edward did begin to grow weary of the hard labor necessary to secure an income on which he could marry a portionless wife. He loved society, and could not altogether give it up ; society courted and flattered him, for he was handsome and agreeable, and many, chaperones, who would not have encouraged his attentions to their proteges, had he been free, allowed him many opportunities of exercis ing his gallantry of speech, and talent for " petits soins " among the most distinguished belles of the circle in which he moved. When the wish first crossed his mind that Ellen, to all her other attractions, added that of wealth, he felt ashamed of the idea, and said to himself, that though the fair damsels around him had beauty and grace, wit, for tune, and good connections, there was not one who could be compared with his noble-minded, pure-hearted Ellen. But the thought came again and again, at times when he must relinquish some agreeable entertainment for the dull read- 6* 138 ELLEN PARRY. ing of a law case. One day the idea presented itself in another form was it not thoughtless and ungenerous in him to have drawn Ellen into an engagement with a man who, without a penny, was following a profession which probably would not give him the means of supporting her for years. This view of the case he did not banish, and he looked at it so often that he almost persuaded himself it was an act of heroic self-sacrifice to renounce her plighted faith to him. He had been selfish and ungenerous, he argued, in placing her in circumstances which doomed her in the very bloom of youth, to such a life as she must neces sarily lead with him. But for her engagement to him, she might now be living at ease, filling the position in society for which she was so well fitted, instead of eating the " salt bread " and ascending the " steep stairs " of the stranger. Yet he could not appease his conscience with this reasoning sufficiently to enable him to act upon it. Many letters to Ellen on the subject he had begun and rejected. Apt as he was at self-deception, he was not so thoroughly blinded by his own sophistry as to be able to set it forth to her in a manner that satisfied himself, and it was in this state of mind that he addressed to her those fretful and impatient letters which distressed and perplexed her so much. Lady Sarah saw her anxiety, but knew nothing of its cause. She had seen Edward once only, and though he appeared to be a person richer in showy externals than solid attainments, she saw nothing from which to infer his want of stability. It did appear to her, that for a young barrister anxious to obtain briefs, he went too much into the fashionable world ; and that for a man whose heart was fixed, he derived an un common degree of pleasure therefrom. This did not. in her opinion, contrast favorably for him with the monotoaous re tirement of Ellen's life, borne so courageously and cheerful ly, though rife with trials and privations peculiarly galling to a young and sensitive woman. 'And when Ellen's voice was less joyous, or her countenance more pensive than usual, Lady Sarah would experience a dread lest circumstances and propinquity had brought about the engagement, and lest Ellen's attachment was based on qualities which existed only in the Edward Moreton of her imagination. Just at this time, as if to add to Edward's temptations, ELLEN PARRY. 139 a rich ward of his uncle returned with her mother from the Continent. She was about fifteen years of age when her father died, leaving her an inheritance of fifty thousand pounds when she should attain her majority, and of fifty thousand more at her mother's death. She had remained abroad until now, when within six months of completing her one and twentieth year. Showy and attractive in ap pearance, with manners formed in the most fashionable salons of Paris, and a native talent for coquetry that she had exercised sufficiently to render herself rather blasee, she was certainly not a woman to have had a single attrac tion for Edward, whose taste was fastidious and refined, had he not been needy and deficient in energy. His uncle, to whom Mrs. Singleton of course looked for any aid she need ed, very gladly turned over to Edward the task of assisting her in selecting a house. Numberless other little services, for which she needed a gentleman's co-operation, he was called upon to perform. Miss Singleton professed herself so charmed with his taste, that no carpets, curtains, or otto mans could be selected till he had passed judgment upon them. The adornments of her own boudoir, the planning of a conservatory that should lead from it, were all referred to him, and all that he proposed was adopted. Then she de termined, she said, that the gems of art and objects de gout which she had designed for this retreat, should be arranged on strictly aesthetic principles ; and many an hour was loitered away in deciding on the best light for some choice cabinet picture, or the most advantageous position for a pre cious antique vase. Poor. Edward was attacked in his very weakest point, his good taste. Mornings passed in this way led him to evenings at the concerts or opera ; and to every public place which Miss Singleton wished to visit, Mr. Moreton must be the escort. She was really pleased with him, and saw no reason why his being engaged should pre vent her exercising her own powers of pleasing, or enjoying his. Edward could not see so much around him that gratified his love of ease, his taste for the fine arts, and the elegancies of life, without a secret sigh for their possession. Vanity whispered that were he free, he might succeed with the heir ess. He certainly could not consider her worthy of com- 140 ELLEN PARRY. parison with Ellen ; but then how hopeless was it, that he should ever be able to marry her. As he looked round Mrs. Singleton's elegant rooms and their choice adornments, his dark chambers in Lincoln's Inn and his musty law books were more disgusting to him than ever. He did not imagine himself to be in love with Miss Singleton, but she flattered and soothed him ; with Ellen his mind was always standing on tiptoe, with upstretched neck ; and though there was at first much delight in the apparent increase of stature it produced, it was fatiguing, and stooping to Miss Singleton was an agreeable relief. He grew more fretful and impa tient from day to day. His letters to Ellen were hurried, and not so frequent as usual, but she readily accepted the excuse, that he was incessantly occupied in attending to some matters relating to a ward of his uncle's, which left him scarcely a minute to call his own. Towards the close of this year Ellen received a letter from Mr. Langton, asking her to come and spend her Christmas vacation (which was near at hand) with them. His wife, he said, was out of health and spirits did not re cover from the shock she had sustained in the death of an infant daughter (her second child) a few weeks before, and was unwilling to adopt any of the means of recreation to dispel the lowness of her spirits. She had expressed a wish to see Ellen, and had urged her husband to write and beg her to come to them instead of making her usual visit at the Grange. Poor Caroline was feeling as all must when sickness and the loss of near objects of affection come upon us, the in sufficiency of every thing but religion to sustain and cheer ; and religion she had not. Feeble, easily wearied, and often suffering pain, she could take little interest in the luxuries and elegancies that surrounded her. The flatteries of so ciety, which had been grateful incense to her girlhood, could no longer satisfy ; and she could take but one view of the infant's death her own bereavement. Her husband was indulgent and affectionate, and when she was seriously in disposed, anxious and devoted to her. But Caroline, who had been accustomed to see father and mother, and every one who approached her, entirely engrossed with her state if she had but a headache, expected her husband to be ELLEN PARRY. 141 all day long beside her sofa, talking or reading to her, if she felt too weary too sit up ; and could not understand that he should speak cheerfully, or want to dine at his father's, or ride over to the Grove, if she were unable to go with him and his departure was always followed by a flood of tears, which only served to make her more exhausted and nervous. Such was the state of things in the elegant home to which Caroline had gone scarcely two years and a half before, sickness and sorrow having no part in her anticipa tions of the future, when Ellen arrived there after a long and fatiguing journey in a post-chaise. Caroline's spirits had revived under the hope of seeing her friend, and she was look ing less ill and depressed than Ellen had anticipated. A very few days, however, proved to her that Caroline was in a very irritable state of mind and body ; she was restless and anxious about her remaining child, a fine healthy boy ; she talked a great deal about the child she had lost. All allu sion to it was ordinarily accompanied by so much agitation, that Ellen at first endeavored to turn her thoughts from the subject, but finding that unavailing, she strove to direct them to those rich consolations which, as if in compassion to the holiest and purest of human affections, apply pecu liarly to the loss of a sinless child. " You are not a mother, Ellen, and you cannot tell what it is to lose a child. One cannot reason about it. My child is taken from me : I shall never see it again. That thought swallows up every other." " Yes, dearest, you will see it again," said Ellen gently. ' : Did not the prophet King say, when he mourned for his dead child, ' I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me ?' I know perfectly well that there must be many feel ings connected with your loss that I cannot enter into ; but I know, too, that whatever ' instruments of human melody are broken, there is a hand that can sweep the heart-strings, and bring forth notes of praise.' If your dear baby had lived, it must have endured many an hour of pain and suffer ing, bodily and mental, even under the most favorable lot, and from which you could not have shielded it, though you would have cheerfully borne them in its stead. Try and look at your affliction in that light. You are suffering tiow that your beloved child may be spared all pain and sorrow 142 ELLEN PARRY. and sin. Her existence is no less a reality than that of your boy. A few years hence you would have given her up. sor rowfully, perhaps, but still voluntarily, if you found her happiness concerned in it, to -the care and guardianship of another human being ; perhaps, too, with a prospect of being separated by half the world. Now she is with Jesus ! Could you ask her back again, if asking would bring her to your bosom ? Try, dear Carry, to think on these things. It ap pears to me they must console even so deep a sorrow. It must, too, draw you nearer to the unseen but eternal world. The mother of a child 'passed into the skies' must often have her thoughts in heaven. And I speak, dear one, of what I do know, when I tell you there is no peace and no hope like that which God gives liberally to those who seek them by faith in Him who hath redeemed us." Spiritual things are only spiritually discerned ; and though Caroline could not gainsay the consolations Ellen brought forward, she was far from deriving comfort from them ; but from her affectionate soothing attentions and constant watchfulness she did derive much benefit. Uni formly cheerful without excitement, watchful without ap pearing over anxious, considerate and attentive without giving annoyance, Ellen was a most desirable companion for a valetudinarian ; and before she had been a fortnight there, Caroline was occupying herself with her needle or some in teresting book, though she was equal to dining at her fa ther-in-law's, and proposed to Ellen to draw plans of a pic turesque dairy, which the elder Mr. Langton had promised to erect, if she would plan it, and describe such details as would suit her own taste. All this was not exactly the way in which, with Ellen's views, she would have desired serenity to be regained : it was a false peace which would bend like a reed, or be utterly washed away when the tide of sorrow should again flow in. Still it was better than her former state, for it induced her to take the air, exercise, and to resort to cheerful society, all of which were necessary to her health. With stronger health she had her little son more with her, and Ellen hoped much from the sense of responsibility which she thought he must awaken in her mind. About a week before the expiration of her visit. Ellen ELLEN PARRY. 143 received a letter from Mrs. Winterton, informing her that they had taken a house in London for several months, wish ing to place their son under the care of an eminent aurist ; for the scarlet fever had left him very deaf, and they were anxious to procure the best advice. She intended, she said, to send Lucy to London the following week, and wished Ellen to be there to receive her. The little girl would tra vel with her nurse, and the father and mother would follow slowly with their son, as they proposed to visit several friends on their journey. The thought crossed Ellen's mind, that perhaps if Ed ward knew the day she was going to London, he would meet her on the road ; and as soon as she had fixed upon it, she wrote to tell him of the happy plan Mrs. Winterton had formed. She also named on which day she should set out, and the precise route she proposed pursuing. She would not ask him to meet her, for she felt confident it was a thing his own feelings would prompt him to do, if his business would permit it. She was telling Caroline of her hopes that he would meet her, and of her pleasant anticipations of this visit to London, as she thought she should be able to cheer him up a little, when the latter said, " What does he tell you about the Singletons ? Seymour Langton says he has been head and eyes to them in the decoration of the magni ficent house they have taken in Park Lane." " He has never mentioned that name to me," said Ellen. " Perhaps, though, you mean a ward of Mr. Parkinson's and her mo ther, whose affairs he told me had been engrossing him very much of late." ' : According to Seymour's account, the affairs related to furnishing a house and directing the taste of the ladies. But, entre nous, I think Seymour is a rejected admirer of Miss Singleton ; and though he could not fear Edward as a rival, he was jealous of hearing that lady and her mother quote him so often, and receive him into the bosom of the family so suddenly and completely." Ellen experienced a sensation not altogether agreeable. It was rather strange, if Edward had been thus engaged, that he should not have spoken to her of people with whom he was on so familiar a footing ; and she then felt ashamed at herself for indulging, even for a moment, any feeling 144 ELLEN PARRY. allied to doubt of Edward, or jealousy of those who enjoyed more of his society than circumstances permitted her to do. Caroline said no more about the Singletons, and, fearful, perhaps, of betraying herself, Ellen asked no further ques tions about them. Ellen declined taking a fourth seat in the travelling car riage of a sister of Mr. Langton who was going to London, feeling surer as the time approached, that Edward would certainly meet her. Early on the day of her journey the Langtons' carriage conveyed her to Cheltenham, whence she was to proceed in a post-chaise. The mail had not arrived when she got there, and she awaited its coming before she proceeded, in the eager hope that he might have left town the night before. But he was not among the passengers she watched emerging from the coach, as she stood at the win dow of the hotel ; and having satisfied herself that he had not come, she ordered her chaise. At Northleach. Burford, Whitney, as the chaise stopped to change horses, her hope ful glance was cast around, in expectation of seeing that dear familiar face ; but when, on reaching Oxford, the same disappointment awaited her. she gave up all hope, and tried to persuade herself that she had been very unreasonable to expect him. A thousand things she reflected might have happened to prevent his executing the idea, which, besides, might not have occurred to him, especially as it would but have anticipated their meeting a few hours. She occupied herself with a book as long as the light would permit her, and her heart again expanded to hope, when the confused hum gave notice they were approaching London. Soon she recognized Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park. The chaise turned down Park Lane, and presently she alighted at the house in Lower Grrosvenor Street which Mr. Winter- ton had hired for the season. Edward was not there to meet her. A few of the servants from the Grange had been sent on, and some rooms had been set in order, but they had a cold, comfortless appearance. A note was on the table in the room she was shown into. She took it up eagerly, for it was Edward's writing. It was not to tell her of his regret at not being there to meet her, or announce his coming even, but to say how inexpressibly grieved he was that an engage ment he had vainly endeavored to break would prevent his ELLEN PARRY. 145 coming that evening ; and then came some expressions of sorrow. &c., which she was too much vexed and disappointed to read until the hot tears which fell from her eyes had relieved her bursting heart. She had expected so much this day, and disappointment had met her every where ! It was long since Ellen had felt so wretched and dejected as she did that evening. The morning brought a happier state of feeling, and de termined that Edward should know nothing of her weak ness, she tried to summon up all her cheerfulness ; but hour after hour passed, and neither note nor Edward appeared. Indignation was fast taking the place of grief in her mind, and when in the afternoon, Miss Ferrymore called, and urged her to go with her to a concert in the evening, Ellen ac cepted the invitation, and Miss Ferrymore added, " we can leave a ticket here for Mr. Moreton, if you think you shall not see him before we go, and I will call for you at seven." The intervening hours were passed in a state of much agitation ; and there was a flush on Ellen's cheek, and a firm compression of her usually smiling mouth not often seen there. The concert was thronged by the world of Fashion, and Ellen would have found some amusement in looking about her, if she had not been so engrossed with one subject as to make all others utterly devoid of interest. Suddenly her attention was arrested by hearing a gentleman say to some ladies who were seated in front of them, " there is Miss Singleton, and looking uncommonly well, too." " Where is she ?" said one of the ladies. " To your right, there Mr. Moreton is taking off her cloak." The blood rushed from Ellen's heart to her temples, which felt as though they must burst. She turned her eyes unconsciously in the same direction, and saw Edward, after placing Miss Singleton's cloak over the back of her chair, sit down beside her and enter into a very animated conversation. Miss Ferrymore, who had heard the same remarks which had struck Ellen's ear, turned with a surprised inquiring look to her compa nion, and guessed the truth. For a moment she paused, un certain whether Ellen could control her feelings and remain, or whether she would be obliged to leave the room, even at the risk of being seen by Edward and Miss Singleton, near whom she would be compelled to pass on her way out. Sud- 146 ELLEN PARRY. denly she perceived another mode of exit, and whispered to Ellen that if she wished to return home they could make their retreat unobserved. But all the pride of Ellen's nature was roused ; and it seemed possible to bear any thing rather than attract attention to her mortification under the insult to her feelings so cruelly inflicted upon her. She declined going out, and sat through the three hours of the concert, her heart ready to burst with its suppressed agony. How many things which had created undefined sensations of doubt for which she had felt displeased with herself, were now ex plained ; how many words that had waited till that hour for their meaning, were now fully understood ! Edward's wav ering character as a boy stood out as if to lend its confirma tion to the bitter consciousness that he could change ! Her considerate friend warded off all attention to Ellen ; en treated her brother to say nothing to her, for reasons which she would explain when she got home, and the only allusion to her friend's secret grief which she made was to whisper, as she kissed her, and bade her good night, " If I can be either aid or comfort to you, send to me." Ellen took up the chamber-light and went to her own room. For hours all was in too great confusion in her mind to allow her to think what course she must pursue. To in dignation and wounded pride succeeded the stinging con sciousness that her affections had been lavished on, and cher ished for, one utterly unworthy of them ; who had not even the decency to renounce his claim on them before he neglect ed her to pay his devotions to another. The deception of his note, too, was in accordance with the rest of his conduct ; he had not said distinctly that business detained him from her side, but he had implied it in several parts. The late dawn of a winter day in London was striving to make itself perceptible, when pale and exhausted, and still in her dress of the preceding evening, Ellen sat down and wrote the following words to Edward : " Many intangible things have made me fear, Edward, for some time past, that your affection for me might not be strong enough to sustain you under the exertion and self- denial, unremitted and long-continued, which your engage ment to a woman without fortune necessarily entailed upon you. During the thirty-six hours that I have been in Lon- ELLEN PARRY. 147 don this has been confirmed to me beyond the possibility of doubt. From the moment you read this, you are free from any bond of honor which (I judge from your disingenuous- ness) you still think exists. To those friends who have a right to know my motives of action in this case, I shall state that we have broken off our engagement from the, conviction that its continuance would not be for the happiness of either. ELLEN PARRY." Ellen had sealed her note, undressed and gone to bed, when the housemaid entered to light her fire. She told her that she was too weary and indisposed to rise, and that if Mr. Moreton called she wished that note given to him. Soon after she sunk into a deep sleep which lasted many hours, for it was four in the afternoon when she was aroused by the servant's entrance. She said Mr. Moreton had called early in the morning, and about an hour since had left a let ter, which she handed to Ellen. It was long and closely written, and she first thought she would not read it, and then the lingering fondness of a woman's heart suggested that perhaps he might be able to bring forward some justi fication. But all he dwelt on was his consciousness that he had been unkind and ungenerous to draw her into an en gagement with him without any prospect of offering her the humblest establishment for years ; and the obvious ex pediency of dissolving their engagement, though he had not been able to bring himself to it. He ended with the assu rance that any statement she might please to make to any one she considered entitled to an explanation, would be as sented to by him as a matter of course. Many words were multiplied on the subject of her claims to a position in the world which he could never hope to win for her ; and that though it must be at first a matter of some suffering to both, they should eventually see its wisdom. Ellen's lips curled with ineffable scorn as she read the epistle. She returned it to him that evening with all his other letters, and a few lines congratulating him on the pos session of so many consoling considerations as he had de tailed to her in the letter of the morning, adding, that for her own part she did not stand in need of any of them. Thus ended an engagement which (as has been observed in many love affairs) had its origin in ignorance, its termination in experience. 148 ELLEN PARRY. To the first excitement occasioned by the burning sense of outraged feelings, succeeded the sorrow and dejection which the proudest woman, if not deficient in feminine ten derness, feels when her affections have been slighted, and the bright hopes she had scattered on the future have come back to her withered. The first turbulent emotions had passed, and Ellen had to settle down to her monotonous and weary ing task, feeling that though life must still have many plea sures, joy had gone forth. Little things, which had scarcely had the power to make themselves felt, pained and irritated her ; her fine elastic spirits were flagging ; and when, towards the end of spring, she returned to the Grange, Lady Sarah Ford was struck with her altered appearance. The tone of Ellen's letters had not satisfied her, for though after the first intimation to Lady Sarah that her engagement to Mr. More- ton was at an end, she had studiously avoided the subject ; there was something of effort in her writing, as though she was constantly striving to suppress feelings that sought to make themselves apparent. After some consideration Lady Sarah resolved to see Mrs. Winterton, and propose that El len should resign her duties for two or three months, and accompany her in a journey she proposed to take leisurely during the summer. Lady Sarah was not in the habit of asking people to do things which, however repugnant they might be to their wishes, they might think they could not refuse her. Her influence was one of example ; and as she did not constantly go round with personal solicitations to her friends and acquaintance for their co-operation in mat ters which interested and engaged her feelings, her time, and her purse, she was always attentively heard when she did call upon them for their sympathy and aid. Mrs. Winterton she knew was not at all likely to notice any change in El len ; or if she did, would not understand or appreciate the cause. If she had been dangerously sick, she would very likely have been alarmed, and given strict orders that Miss Parry should receive every attention, and might have gone to see her every morning ; but nothing short of that could move her. If Mrs. Winterton thought at all about Ellen's claims upon her, she would have felt they were most nobly and generously met ; she had every domestic comfort in the shape of the accommodations and attendance of a lady ; her ELLEN PARRY. 149 duties were light, and no one interfered with her appropria tion of her leisure. She never showed her any very marked discourtesy, neither did she pay her the civility of ever consi dering her pleasure, her convenience, or her taste. Occa sionally Mrs. Winterton would send up to Ellen some costly gift, embarrassing to her, as of course it could not be de clined, and rich gifts, or any gifts, are never welcome things to a delicate mind, when they are not prompted by the per sonal friendship and affection of the donor. During the first part of her residence at the Grange, Mrs, Winterton had been very empressee in her attentions ; but with the cha racteristic instability of her likings and lovings, this had subsided, and Ellen had gradually settled down to depend entirely upon herself for recreation and enjoyment, save when she found it in the society of Lady Sarah Ford. After some conversation on subjects of personal interest to Mrs. Winterton, Lady Sarah Ford said, " I have come to make a proposal to you, Mrs. Winterton, which if you see the subject in the same point of view as myself, will not ap pear unreasonable to you and if not, very much so. It is, that you will permit Miss Parry to accompany me in a jour ney I propose to take. She is, I think, languid and droop ing, and I fear her health may become seriously impaired if some measures are not taken to restore her. I have said nothing to her on the subject, feeling it best to consult with you first. How valuable a habit is that of observing small courte sies ! Had Lady Sarah arranged the plan with Ellen, and made Mrs. Winterton's consent the last thing to be gained, she, already a little jealous of the intimacy between her governess and her titled neighbor, would have felt herself treated with neglect, and have yielded at most an ungracious assent to the proposal. As it was, she entered into it with at least the appearance of interest. Yet she expressed her surprise, that a sensible person, like Miss Parry, should allow herself to be depressed by the breaking off of such a match " the young man had no fortune ; it was really rather a ridiculous affair on both sides." Lady Sarah did not attempt to prove that as no merce nary motives had brought about the engagement, the suffer ing from its rupture could not arise from disappointment 1 50 ELLEN PARRY. on that score. She merely asked Mrs. Winterton to break the " mischievous design" they had been pondering to Ellen, and took her leave. Ellen heard it with gratitude and joy. Her heart and head ached with weariness ; and the Psalmist's pathetic desire for the wings of the dove that he might flee away and be at rest, was often the unexpressed language of her soul. A young Christian it seemed to her that even Religion did not afford her the aid and strength she needed. Her judi cious and clear-sighted friend saw that physical causes were operating to repress the native energy of her character. She knew that Ellen was not a woman to sit down, and say by words or deeds that, if she could not be happy in her own way, she would not be happy at all ; and that disappoint ment in one source of earthly happiness poisoned all other springs. She felt convinced that once restored to health, her good sense as well as religious principles, and the soften ing hand of time, would bring about a healthy state of action and feeling, that the memory of the past would lose its bitter ness, and the hope of the future resume its brightness. In a short time they set out on their journey, Lady Sarah's man and his wife being their attendants. How often in after years did Ellen look back on this, as the sabbatical summer of her life kind and loving eyes watching her, kind and loving hands tending her ; and that " excellent thing in woman," a low soft voice, now reading to her the soul-stir ring strains of the poet, the pages of amusing fiction, and still more often the sacred words of inspiration. Many places, rich with storied as well as local interest, were visit ed : and who that has felt the difficulty of discoursing on matters of taste, when connected with feeling, but can appreciate the luxury which Ellen experienced in the society of Lady Sarah. Mind and real feeling have no age ; and that there was a difference of more than twenty years in their ages never struck her, save when some remark, betraying the more mature judgment and enlarged observation of her friend, met her ear. A great change was soon visible both in Ellen's health and spirits, and she soon spoke naturally and calmly to Lady Sarah about her recent sorrow, and her desire to look upon it and receive it as part of the discipline allotted to her by the love and wisdom of God. ELLEN PARRY. 151 " You are quite right, my dear Ellen, in striving after such a view, not only of the greater but of the lesser trials of life. While we note only surrounding causes, the agency of our fellow-creatures in our discipline, we are fretted and irritated, often magnifying our own deserts as well as the offences against us. But if we take our cares and crosses as coming directly from God, and refuse to dwell with angry feelings on the instruments he has seen fit to use in inflicting them, they are borne even at first with calmness, and very soon with acquiescence. There is a state of feeling which it is the duty of every child of God to strive after, though we may not always attain unto it 'In all things to give thanks,' for suffering as well as for joy. It seems to me sometimes the last Christian attainment, the crowning grace, which, when acquired, must complete our purification, and enable Him, who sitteth as a refiner and purifier of silver, to see his image reflected in our souls." " It seems to me a more exalted state than human nature can arrive at, :) said Ellen ; " surely trials must cease to be discipline when we can receive them thus." ' ; I think they can never cease to be discipline, because of the exercise of different virtues for which seasons of trial furnish the opportunity. But the sort of discipline which may be needed for the young Christian, scarcely weaned from the world, may be very different from that needed for a state so advanced as the one we are speaking of. " The casting down imaginations and every high thing, that which exalteth itself against the knowledge of God and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Chirst, must be a painful process to the young, whose faith is, perhaps, but as a grain of mustard-seed. Our hearts must often be salted with fire ere they are meet offerings for the Lord ; and all this perhaps merely to bring them into subjection ; afterwards discipline may come for the perfection of Christian graces, the development of the fair fruits of religion. You know the poet says : ' The good are better made by ill, As odors crushed are sweeter still.' " " My reason is perfectly satisfied on these points," said Ellen. " I think I have a clear perception, that there is a 152 ELLEN PARRY. loving purpose and end in the dealings of Providence, how ever painful they may be ; and I know, that angry feelings against human agents are senseless as the blows a child gives to the missile that strikes him. Yet I do not seem to gain the peace and strength which this view is calculated to inspire. I fear me there are some lingering traces of an obstinate will refusing content, unless that content be after its own fashion." " You are experiencing, dear Ellen, what every one, who has suffered, has gone through, more or less. Only be faith ful in the use of the means which religion and reason point out for the restoration of a healthy state of mind, and success is certain. One of the most potent means in your possession is the exercise in the service of others of the acquirements and gifts you possess. Mere intellectual exertion for the purpose of diverting sorrow is alone rarely effectual ; and when it is, has not a happy influence on the character, and especially with women. Our moral organization as well as our physical, is more delicate and sensitive than that of men, and a woman's affections must have objects of interest on which they can expand, and without such the development of the character must be a very imperfect one." " I feel that you are right," rejoined Ellen. " Already I have experienced the truth, that our highest happiness is to be derived from exertion made in behalf of others ; the adding to my own intellectual stores even should, it appears to me now. be a secondary consideration. A studious leisure will not be henceforth so much my aim, as to try and benefit others by imparting of that which I possess." " In time, too, Ellen (believe my experience), you will feel thankful for all the reverses, and bereavements, and disappointments that you have suffered ; because of the en larged sympathy, the greater power of entering into, and ministering unto the sorrows of others, that you will find you have derived from it." The pleasant summer passed rapidly ; they had loitered about the Cumberland- and Scotch Lakes, enjoyed the in tellectual society of Auld Reekie; and the end of September found Lady Sarah and Ellen again at Welbourne ; the latter renewed in health and spirits, and the former rejoicing in the success of her efforts to bring about this renovation. ELLEN I'AKRY. 153 CHAPTER X. YEARS passed each one seeming shorter than its pre decessor ; and Ellen still watched the spring " purple all the ground with vernal flowers," and plucked the " rathe primrose," and passive cowslip in the meadows of the Grange; and had looked on the landscape from the windows of her apartments, and watched the cloud shadows chasing each other over the fair face of nature, on many a summer's day, until every object, every aspect, the gentle motion even of the trees near her windows, was looked upon with love, and linked to her heart by the delicate but strong chain of association. Eight years had come and gone since the summer she had spent in travelling with Lady Sarah Ford. It was her birthday, one of the fixed way-marks on our path of life, at which, when the anticipation of youth has lost its first keenness, the least reflective mind is prone to cast its glances backwards " to hold communion with past hours," and ask "what record they have borne to heaven." Ellen sat at her chamber window, gazing on the view ; but with thoughts evidently detached from the objects on which her eyes rested. Somewhat of the freshness of her youth had passed away; but who that looked upon the calm and placid brow, the gentle smile more benignant, though less arch, that rose and passed over those full red lips, like the breath from a mirror, or the west wind's softest summer sigh on the bosom of a lake ; and the tenderer, though less flashing light of her dark eyes, but would have acknowledged that there was something there more impressive than the lustre and freshness of girlhood 1 Her life, at Welbourne, had been favorable to the development of her character. The disci pline of petty trials and cold indifference patiently borne, in which she constantly sought to overlook the intervention of human agency, had given great serenity to her mind. It would have been inconsistent with the dignity of Ellen's character, even if it had not been brought under the in fluence of practical Christian principles, to have fallen into the common error of the weak, and sought alleviation for 7 154 ELLEN PARRY. the galling points in her yoke, in complaint. 'Speaking much upon our trials is like applying a powerful microscope to them. It magnifies them to our view, and the evil, which might have been borne while unspoken of, soon becomes in tolerable when we allow ourselves to detail it to some sym pathizing ear. Complaint is always undignified. When we are in circumstances to command, it is unnecessary ; when we are not, it is humiliating because impotent. She had had responsibility too, that essential element in the formation of character ; Lucy was now approaching wo manhood, not to be sure all Ellen wished to see her, but a ' cultivated, well informed girl, with the germs of purposes and aims which, despite the retarding influence of a mother whose views of individual responsibility were low, Ellen hoped might one day ripen into fruit which should give evidence she had a nobler view than that of being among the " well arrayed, the lilies of the land who neither toil nor spin." If she had not done for Lucy all she could wish, and she sometimes feared she had not done all she might, there was the cheering consciousness that she had fostered many good habits and assisted in the correction of some faults. Ellen's leisure, too, had been faithfully and wisely spent. Many an effort for others' good had strength ened her own spirit and enlarged her heart ; and many a time and oft had she found the rising distrust, the unkind thought, the insidious advances of discontent, checked by the contemplation of some patient sufferer under sickness or sorrow, whose burden she sought to lighten by consoling attentions, always welcome because always delicate, and which being an emanation from her own heart, seldom fail ed to reach the hearts of those to whom they were ad dressed. The regular succession of unvarying duties, the daily recurrence of the same recreations even at the same hours, had given a precision of manner, which the young visitors at the Grange called " old maidish ;" and the timid reserve which was the natural result of knowing she was " only the governess," and to be treated accordingly, prevented the elder guests from seeing any thing more in her than a mo dest, unassuming woman. It was in the little drawing-room at Willow Cottage that all Ellen's qualifications for adorn- ELLEN PARRY. 155 ing, cheering, and refining home, were visible. There unre strained, the rich stores of a cultivated mind were poured forth, and her innate love for, and true perception of the beautiful, whether in nature or art, showed themselves. She had never been taught to admire, an accomplishment now so generally acquired, that all have some stereotyped phrases of praise or censure. Real taste is ever connected with feeling, and hence the difficulty often found in impart ing the impressions derived from beautiful objects. At the cottage there was no embarrassment of this sort, and the native enthusiasm of her character exhibited itself, free from the restraints imposed by the companionship of the unsympathizing and unloving. Lady Sarah, though convinced Ellen was a woman to whose happiness or dignity marriage was by no means abso lutely essential, could not help feeling, as her eyes rested on her with almost maternal love, a desire to see her a " crown of rejoicing" to some good man's heart. Sometimes she thought how suitable a wife she would make for Mr. Sher- win, but for the disparity in their years. Though her at tachment to Edward Moreton had long ceased to have any influence over her feelings, the result of that engagement had made her distrustful of her power of inspiring a true attachment. " Many a heart is caught in the rebound," says the adage ; but there had been no one to prove its truth in Ellen's case. For several years she had shrunk almost morbidly from the most common attentions of the few gentlemen with whom she came in contact. In her visits to Ash Grove she rarely encountered guests, and Caroline Langton's ill health prevented her opening her house to any but her own family and very intimate friends ; and though the universal belief of the young and romantic, that a "woman's heart, like a precious gem, can bear but one engraving," had passed away, she had met with no one who had awakened a preference or excited the most transient emotion in her heart. Marriage was not among the certain ties she looked forward to in the future, but the seeking a new home, distant, perhaps, from her present one, and from the friends she had made there, was a certainty which a short time must bring upon her, and for which she strove to prepare herself. It was when contemplating this that Lady 156 ELLEN PARRY. Sarah Ford experienced the wish that Ellen might win and reciprocate the affections of some worthy man capable of appreciating her many excellencies ; though it was not pro bable that she would ever fall into the trifling gossiping ha bits proverbially common to single women of a certain age ; and while considering a combination of higher excellencies necessary to make a woman equally respected in single as she would be in married life, she felt that Ellen possessed them. As a general thing, her remark was correct that a mar ried woman is, unless under very unfortunate circumstances, more favorably situated for the development of her character than if unmarried. She has more and weightier responsibili ties ; she has more to call forth and nourish her affections ; she is removed from dependence into power ; no longer an orb borrowing its domestic sunshine from a superior source ; she becomes herself the sun from which attendant planets must derive the moral light and warmth which make ge nial and healthful the atmosphere of Home. " Love and a cough cannot be hid," says the quaint Rec tor of Bemuton, in his collection of proverbs ; but despite the proverb, a very deep hidden attachment to Ellen had been growing for some years in the heart of Mr. Sherwin ; but like the modest lover of Tasso's episode, " poco spera, e nulla chiede." At the commencement of his acquaintance, he thought her strangely like the ideal he had formed of what a woman should be. At the time of her engagement there was sufficient tenderness of feeling to make him much interested for her happiness in her new connection, and feel much sympathy with her suffering in its rupture. But the disparity in their ages had been too striking to him then, for him to indulge for a moment the hope of winning her affections for himself. But as years passed, this disparity seemed to diminish ; and Ellen, at the mature age of twenty- eight, with so many opinions and tastes, so many objects in life identical with his own, did not seem so unattainable as at twenty. At Mr. Sherwin's age, most men have the power of concealing their feelings if they wish to do so; and he had very carefully guarded his. He was so uniformly attentive and kind to every body, that his attentions excited no remark from any one. She honored and esteemed him ELLEN PA 11 II V. 157 for his excellence ; she admired and appreciated his culti vated mind, and her heart often beat responsive to the ge nerous and high purposes of his life (poetry in action, as she loved to call it) ; and perhaps the wish that Edward Moreton had been such a one as he, might sometimes cross her mind. It was the evening of her twenty-ninth birthday. Ellen and Lady Sarah had been sitting at the window of the little drawing-room in the Cottage, occasionally pausing in their converse and their work, to read from some favorite author, when Mr. Sherwin was seen approaching. He had been ex- pected to tea, and they had waited for him beyond the usual hour. " Ring the bell for the urn, my dear," said Lady Sarah to Ellen, as their guest passed through the garden entrance. " I fear I have delayed your tea," said he, as he depo sited a large brown paper parcel on a side-table ; " but I was very desirous of bringing some engravings with me which I expected by the stage, which was delayed full an hour beyond the usual time." " And what are the engravings for which you were willing to sacrifice an hour of our society ?" said Lady Sarah. " The Liber Veritatis which Miss Parry was speaking of the other evening my bookseller in London has been fortu nate enough to find a copy ; and he has sent me, likewise, some volumes containing engravings from Raphael and some other artists. I think we shall enjoy looking over them. I have brought the Liber Veritatis, and my servant will be here shortly with the other volumes." It was nearly ten when Ellen rose to take leave, and Mr. Sherwin, as usual, accompanied her home. He appeared unusually silent, and not a word was uttered until a sudden gust of wind blowing Ellen's shawl from her shoulders, he assisted her in replacing it, and said as he did so, " Wrap it closely round you, the air is chill and damp." " You are extraordinarily cautious this evening," said Ellen ; " are more fiends than usual abroad in the dismal night-air dressed, that you are so imperatively careful?" " Imperative ! was I ? I meant to suggest only. I would I had the right to be imperative in such a matter. I have no words of glowing flattery wherewith to back my suit, 158 ELLEN PARRY. Ellen, and such would be as unworthy you as unbecoming in me ; but if a heart which has long loved you supremely and exclusively, and has been withheld from proclaiming it only by a sense of presumption, could hope to awaken a re sponsive feeling in your breast, I should be the proudest and happiest of men." Whether Ellen made no reply, and thus encouraged her suitor, or what " words sweetly strung and modestly directed" she chose, if she did reply, we must leave to the imagination of our readers. A few mornings after, she and Mr. Sherwin were again at Willow Cottage. They had come to breakfast with its hostess and bring the intelligence of their engagement. Lady Sarah had not come down, and Ellen sent to ask if she might come up and speak to her. Permission was sent, and the man who brought it said to his wife, on returning to the kitchen, that there was something new in the wind he was certain ; Mr. Sherwin looked as if he had taken a new lease of life ; he shouldn't be at all surprised if he'd been making up to Miss Parry. Lady Sarah's surprise was equal only to her delight. The difference of age between her friends appeared trifling when there was so much identity of principle, feeling, and taste, and she congratulated both with the most heartfelt delight. The news soon spread through Welbourne, and awakened so strong an interest generally, and so much joy among the many personally attached to Mr. Sherwin and Ellen, that the village ringers had nearly decided it was a proper occa sion for exercising their professional skill, when the Clerk, a person of some authority in the councils of Welbourne, ex pressed his certainty that any such unusual compliment would be very unpleasant to Mr. Sherwin, and thus induced them to confine themselves to an additional peal on the next weekly ringing. Mr. and Mrs. Howard were visiting their daughter, who had been abroad for several years, and Ellen remained at the Grange until her marriage. There was nothing to wait for, and about two months after her engagement she became the wife of Mr. Sherwin. The wedding was as quiet and unpre tending as possible ; " a gay wedding," said Ellen, " may be very consonant with the views which a young gay girl may take of the new position she is about to occupy ; but later in ELLEN PARRY. 159 life the sense of its duties and responsibilities, and the sacred nature even of the happiness she is anticipating, make it a season when of all others a woman should wish to exclude the world. It should ever be a season of joy, but it is a joy with which the stranger intermeddleth not." And now in Ellen's matronly life might be seen the happy effects of the seemingly rude discipline which had been allotted to her. In passing through the waters of affliction her spirit had lost a portion of the oil of gladness with which it had been anointed in early youth, but in its place there was the heaven-born peace which springs from Christian faith and love. Strongly impressed with the belief that the lessons we think we have learned perfectly when in the school of adver sity are often forgotten or unpractised when we are suddenly removed into the sunshine of prosperity, Ellen felt that now as much as at any period of her life, was she called on to watch and pray ; and her life did indeed exhibit the flowers and the fruits, the graces and good works of an enlightened and consistent piety. Restored to the worldly prosperity of her youth, she exercised with fidelity the power to adminis ter to those " distressed in mind, body, or estate," which her experience in the school of adversity had given her. She considered this experimental knowledge a talent given to her in trust, and for which she must render an account when her Lord and Master should come to receive his own with usury. Especially did she feel her duties to those in any way dependent upon her ; the small, sweet courtesies of life were imperative duties in her esteem, for she knew them to be as dew and rain to the tender herb of our social charities, and she had been taught their value by having felt their omission in her years of dependence. The first guest to whom Ellen did the honors of her own house, was her friend Miss Ferrymore long since one with her in heart and mind, equally quick as formerly in her per ceptions of human infirmity, but much more charitable viewing this world as less vain, and its pursuits less vapid and unprofitable, as she linked it and them to hopes that centre in heaven. She no longer mourned the vanished illu sions of youth, or rushed into the giddy mazes of fashion for excitement ; the cultivation of her own heart, and the deeds 160 ELLEN PARRY. of love and mercy which resulted thence, gave to life the dignity and interest which right aims can alone impart. If there was one Christian grace more largely developed in Ellen's character than another, it was thankfulness ; and the tears often filled her eyes as she acknowledged before the Throne of Grace the blessings by which she was sur rounded ; and as day by day she became more intimately acquainted with the purity and nobleness of her husband's heart, the language of her own was, " My cup runneth over." The only shade that now rested on Ellen's happiness was when she thought of Caroline Langton ; all her letters betrayed the disease of a heart fearfully burdened, and that had not yet learned to cast its burden on the Lord. The adulation, the triumphs, and the toys of her girlhood, had necessarily passed away with her youth, and the luxuries and baubles of her station no longer excited her satiety. A feeble valetudinarian, with a nervous irritability, prompting her sometimes to rush into society, and again to seclude her self from every one, she had long exhibited the insufficiency of unsanctified prosperity to give peace. Constant change of scene seemed the only means of keeping her cheerful; and her husband's patrimonial estate lay under the curse of absentee ism, while he was a wanderer in a foreign land, seeking for his wife in external things that aid which could only come from within. CHAPTER XI. THE appearance of the mansion at Clay Hill, the name of Mr. Sherwin's estate, was very different now from what it was when he lived there, "lord of himself" alone, that "heritage of woe." The coldness and barrenness insepara ble from a house where no feminine spirit presides, had given place to the warmth, cheerfulness, and sociability, mingled with elegance and refinement, which no bachelor can give to his residence. He may attach to it the appear- ELLEN PARRY. 161 ance of self-indulgence and joviality, ease and freedom, but the impress which the spirit of a gentle and refined woman stamps upon her Home is wanting ; there is no dove crown ing it with " ever-blooming olive," and spreading its " snowy wings of innocence and love " over the scene. Mr. Sherwin had bestowed much more attention on his grounds and the general adornments of his place, than when he had no wife's taste to consult and gratify, and his house was now as much distinguished for its liberal hospitality and the charming society generally to be met with- there, as it had formerly been for its deficiency in these charac teristics. Ellen's methodical habits enabled her to receive company with pleasure to them and herself, without inter fering with the duties and claims of her position as mistress of a large establishment, or with that portion of her time which (ever since her marriage) she had been in the habit of devoting to the people connected with the manufactory, and in whose esteem and affection she held the place next her husband's. Her life glided on like a calm and beautiful stream, whose pure and healthy current, in its flow, imparts fertility and refreshment to all around it, nourishing the tender herb, and making its banks to rejoice and blossom. Ellen was sitting at work in her drawing-room one autumn afternoon ; her eldest daughter, seated on a low chair beside her, was reading aloud, and at a little distance a chubby boy of five was displaying the pictures in a scrap- book to a fairy creature, whose exclamations of delight as the showman turned over page after page of these treasures, often drew her mother's attention from the work which oc cupied her, and from the book her daughter was reading to her. But the little reader's volume, and the showman's task, and the attractive pictures were all relinquished, as a voice was heard singing " Boys and girls come out to play," the well known signal by which Mr. Sherwin always an nounced his return from the manufactory, and his readiness for his customary frolic with his children. Soon after, nurse, Ellen's own loving, faithful nurse, entered with " the latest-found," a wee thing, just old enough to know that papa tossed him better than any body else, and to stretch out his arms to claim his share in the family sports. While the children and their father were running riot. Ellen 7* 162 ELLEN PARRY. opened some letters which her husband had brought her. One was from Mr. Howard, informing her that he intended to pay them a visit which they had long been urging upon him. Ellen felt for the desolation of his home since the death of his wife, which had taken place two years before, and she greatly desired to repay, by the soothing and cheer ing attentions of a daughter, the paternal interest and affec tion he had ever manifested for her. Caroline, after her mother's death, had again proposed going on the Continent, and her husband, more indulgent than judicious in his treatment of his wife's nervous irrita bility, had consented again to exile himself. At the time of his marriage, Henry Langton bade fair, under favorable do mestic influences, to have taken very respectable rank as a man of letters ; but naturally gentle and affectionate in his disposition, he had yielded with almost womanly flexibility to the demands his wife made on his time and attention, and his life since his marriage had been almost without purpose or aim, save that of ministering to all her whims and ca prices. How much of the extravagance and the pitiable depend ence, which we often hear ascribed to nervousness, has its origin in the too great, and, as the result proves, cruel indul gence shown by parents to girls in delicate health. A slight indisposition is considered a title to every one's sympathy and self-sacrifice. Any appearance of languor or sensation of fa tigue is sufficient reason forgiving up all occupation requiring moral or intellectual effort. It is too often forgotten that in such cases refreshment is'generally much better obtained by a change than by a cessation of occupation. Thus, that numer ous class among the wealthy in civilized countries the deli cate in health and nerves are, from mistaken kindness, never taught to form those habits of self-control and of moral oc cupation, in which alone they can find refuge from all those indefinable and often to many mysterious horrors, which all who have witnessed them will acknowledge to be comprised in the word 'nervous. Ellen refolded the letter, and while her husband and children continued their sports, she sat musing over her poor friend's restless, unhappy life. That Caroline's health was feeble she knew, but she knew also that the main ELLEN PARRY. 163 difficulty did not lie there, but in the feebleness of a cha racter which had never been subjected to, or prescribed for itself, any moral discipline and her heart yearned with compassion towards the poor children who had grown up with very little of a mother's care. When the sports were over, and the children had retired to take their supper, Ellen and her husband sat for some time talking upon va rious subjects, and he occasionally reading to her scraps from a newspaper which he held in his hand : suddenly he exclaimed, with an accent of surprise, " Ellen, my love. Beechland is again for sale !" " Indeed," replied his wife, " how rarely it happens that a place like that changes owners so frequently : the reverse of the old proverb, ' The master of many houses has no home,' might be applied to poor Beechland, for the house of many owners can be Jwme in its dearest sense to no one. This is the second time it has been for sale since my father's death. I should like to see the house again ; Mr. Howard told me. two or three years ago, it was not at all changed." Little more was said on the subject, and if she thought her husband more silent and abstracted than usual, she attributed it to some business matter which was occupying his attention, and forebore to make any remark upon it. The abstraction continued through the next day, but her playful rallying on his air " reveux et distrait " only served to rouse him, without eliciting any explanation of its cause. In truth, he was meditating a scheme which had been suggested by the advertisement concerning Beechland that of becoming its purchaser. So great and uniform had been the success of his business, that notwithstanding his liberality, every year had found him richer at its close than at its commencement. He could well afford the purchase, and he felt how great the happiness would be of placing his beloved Ellen in the home of her childhood, precious to her from its associations with a father she had so fondly loved. The probability that she might be many years his sur vivor, was an additional motive for securing to her a home that would be agreeable to and desirable for her, under such circumstances, which Clay Hill could scarcely be, should the factory fall into other hands. Beechland was 164 ELLEN PARRY. not so far from Welbourne as to prevent his being frequent ly there ; and Mr. Foster, who had long been his chief assistant, was so strongly imbued with his employer's views and principles of action as ably to supply his place when absent. He thought, too, that the family might spend four or five months every year at Clay Hill. On the whole, the more he pondered the matter, the more did he lean towards making the purchase, even if it should turn out that he might find it best for the interests of the factory to let Beechland during his life. Mr. and Mrs. Sherwin were standing at a window, watch ing the sunset, when he said, " Nelly, I have been weighing pros and cons, and have finally decided, if you give me your concurrence, to purchase Beechland." Ellen looked up in speechless astonishment. Visions of her little ones growing up and sporting amid the scenes of her own childhood, her husband sitting in her father's place, and doing the honors of that house with equally urbane hospitality, floated in her imagination. " It must be the dearest spot on earth to you, my pre cious wife," continued Mr. Sherwin, " and the proudest moment of my life, always excepting the one when I hailed you irrevocably my own, will be that in which I shall re store you to the lost inheritance of your youth." But Ellen had now recovered from her first astonish ment, and throwing her arms around his neck, exclaimed with energy, " No, no ! my husband, the dearest spot on earth to me is that where I have lived your happy wife ; let us never leave it by any act of our own will. Beechland was very dear, but how many, and how strong are the ties which bind us here. It is of me solely that you are think ing ; you could never, I am sure, desire to leave Clay Hill, wb -ire you have spent life so nobly, and have seen your wofk prospering in your hands. If the matter be for one to d(j c ide. according to my own feelings, I say deliberately and earnestly, let us never quit Welbourne." " It is certainly for you to decide," said her husband, as he fondly kissed her brow, "but I cannot allow you to de cide thus hastily ; let us take counsel together. You and I are too much accustomed to think of death to shrink from speaking of it : in the event of my being removed from ELLEN PARRY. 165 among you, Beechland would be a much more desirable home for you and the children than this would be. The factory will remain in the hands of trustees. Mr. Foster and yourself being among them, until Richard is of an age to decide for himself whether he will carry it on. Should he not wish to do so, and if, in the opinion of a majority of the trustees, it will not be injurious to its interests, it will re main in their hands until James is grown up. He may perhaps like to take it if his brother should not. Mean while, with all these uncertainties as to the final destiny of this place, Beechland seems the most fitting and happiest retreat I can secure for you." " Not so," said Ellen ; " where can I so well teach my sons to walk in their father's steps, as here, where they are surrounded on all sides by proofs of his unwearied and life long patience and perseverance in well doing? Where can they have so many incitements and encouragements to holi ness and virtue, as here, where they can witness, on the right hand and on the left, its blessed results? If God should see fit to deprive them in their youth of their father's counsel and precepts, there is the greater reason that their mother should keep his example constantly before their eyes. They have a fairer inheritance than many are blessed with, let it be bound to their hearts by all the tender and last ing associations of their youth. No ! If I were to leave Welbourne voluntarily. I should feel that I was rashly giving up means and aids which God had vouchsafed me for the training of my children in goodness and virtue ; and for myself, believe me, though I should be happy with you any where, if you were taken from me, Welbourne is the place my heart would yearn towards most fondly." There were no words to express the mingled feelings of pride, affection, and gratitude, which agitated the throbbing heart to which Ellen was closely pressed. Her husband urged no further her consideration of the matter, for he was convinced, since these were the views she entertained on the subject, that it was not in a nature like hers, to change them on representations of mere personal ease and comfort. The same delightful intercourse which had subsisted be tween Lady Sarah Ford and Ellen, when the latter lived at 166 ELLEN PARRY. the Grange, was still continued ; less frequent of course, for the long afternoon and evening visits were necessarily broken up by Ellen's maternal and other occupations, but there were the same love and confidence as of old. To Lady Sarah's attentive and interested ear were detailed all the hopes and anxieties concerning the little ones, all the nursery bons mots, the traits of character, the infantine sayings which every mother lays up in her heart ; for she loved the children fondly, and one of the greatest treats to them was a visit with mamma to Willow Cottage. On the day after Mrs. Sherwin's conversation with her husband concerning Beechland, she summoned her two eld est children, Ellen and Richard, to accompany her, if they pleased, in a walk she was going to take. They were soon ready, and to their mother's inquiry as to which way they, should go, the unhesitating reply was, ' to the Cottage." Lady Sarah was at home, and Ellen, who had brought her work, sat down to spend a cosy hour with her friend. The children, accustomed even thus early in life to depend upon themselves for amusement, were soon occupied with some jack-straws and other games which had been provided by Lady Sarali for her young and frequent guests, whose claims on the hospitality of their hostess for suitable entertain ment, she considered as much as those of guests of larger growth. Lady Sarah was soon informed of Mr. Sherwin's propo sal to buy Beechland. " There is nothing," she said, as Ellen concluded, " that is considerate, generous, or disinter ested, which it would surprise me to hear concerning your husband : but you need not tell me how you received the proposal ; I feel nothing short of a sense of duty would in duce you to leave Clay Hill, invested as it is with the charm and interest which your husband's wise benevolence and virtuous life have shed around it." Ellen smiled as she re plied, " I should be very unworthy such a husband, if I were incapable of appreciating the true dignity and happi ness of my position here; there is nothing earthly for which I would voluntarily exchange it." Their long tete-d-tte was at length broken in upon by a joyous exclamation from the children as they ran into the garden, of " Miss Winterton ! Miss Winterton !" Lucy very ELLEN PARRY. 167 soon appeared at the open window of the little drawing-room. She was now an elegant and refined looking girl, but with that slight listlessness of manner so often seen in people who have no objects of interest to call forth their latent powers. She still retained a strong attachment for Ellen, and was very fond of her children. She visited frequently at Clay Hill, and felt some interest in the occupations of its inhabitants as well as pleasure in the aid she frequently af forded Ellen. But her soul's ear was not yet quickened to discern the " still sweet music of humanity ;" human beings were not generally objects of interest to her. It was fortu nate that she had a taste for pursuits to which a residence in the country is favorable, or her life would have been one of wearisome monotony. As it was, she occupied herself with painting and gardening, adding to her cabinet of shells, of which she had a fine and beautifully arranged collection. The few visits she made with her mother to the neighboring families, and the part she took in the winter festivities of Bath, did not seem to inspire her with a very high idea of- the happiness to be derived from society. Totally free from vanity, she did not possess even the desire to please com mon to her age ; and her indifference to attention, or ne glect, was the frequent subject of conversation in the circles she occasionally entered, more in compliance with ker mo ther's wish and a certain supposed necessity, which she did not give herself the trouble to question, than because she derived any pleasure from them. She walked through life as if she thought there was very little in it to be desired or regretted ; and yet when claims were made upon her, she was ready to meet them, and that with a promptness and energy which made it evident to all who were sufficiently interested in her to watch her traits of character, that Mrs. Shcrwin was right in her assertion, that there was " a great deal of uncoiled power in Lucy's character, which would develop itself in time." Lucy seemed in higher spirits than usual as she took her seat on the sofa beside Mrs. Sherwin, and begged she would resume her old office of instructress, and tell her how she should entertain some young people who were expected at the Grange ; " they," she said, " are my charge ; mamma provides for the entertainment of the dowagers and elderly 168 ELLEN PARRY. beaux ; I assure you I am a little puzzled to decide what young ladies and gentlemen want to amuse them ; my own amusements are not very young-lady-like, I know." " The remark proves you to be an inexperienced hostess, Lucy," said Ellen ; " if you have both young ladies and gentlemen, you may safely trust to their amusing each other. Who do you expect ?" Lucy enumerated her expected guests, and, after a short pause, added, " and my cousin Her bert." This name did not seem quite so easy of utterance as the others, and there was a little deeper color on Lucy's cheek, which Ellen observed, and from which she inferred that though last named, cousin Herbert was not last thought of by Lucy. " I observed there was a beau for every belle as you named your guests ; but cousin Herbert seems unprovided for ; can you not think of some other young lady you can invite ?" said Ellen, somewhat archly. " No, he is not much of a lady's man," said Lucy, seem ingly unmindful of the tone in which Ellen had spoken. " Perhaps," continued Ellen, " if he requires very little in the shape of amusement, and is not very fastidious, you might be capable of supplying, and he willing to accept from you, such entertainment as may be necessary." Lucy laughed and colored a little deeper. " Herbert," she said, " is as independent as I am myself, and does not care much about society in general." " That is no reason for his disliking some fair ladies in particular, and I think as you have provided him no lady, you will be bound to allow him to show you a little atten tion; if he feels inclined to be just civil, pray do not let him experience the fate of poor Mr. Chester." " Dear Mrs. Sherwin, pray do not recall that unlucky affair ; I am sure it occasioned as much mortification for me as for him." " I only meant to revive your recollection as a salutary caution ; but on the whole, I do not think cousin Herbert in any danger of experiencing the like wound in that very sensitive part of a young gentleman's nature his vanity." The Mr. Chester to whom Ellen alluded, had been stay ing at the Grange with his mother and sister a few months before. One morning, as Lucy was walking towards the ELLEN PARRY. 169 village, he overtook and accompanied her. On the way she remembered some inquiries she wanted to make of one of the cottagers, and asked him to wait a few moments for her, while she went into the cottage. The woman detained her longer than she had expected, and while listening to her story, she entirely forgot her attendant cavalier, who, in truth, had occupied very little of her attention while walk ing beside her. Her watch pointed to the hour of luncheon, and when she took leave, she left the cottage at an opposite door from that by which she had entered, and took a shorter way home across the fields. Mr. Chester meanwhile paced up and down for nearly an hour, wondering what could pos sibly detain her. He at length ventured to ask a child who came to the well for water, if Miss Winterton was still in the cottage, and received for answer that she had been gone some time. Poor Lucy had never thought of him from the time she quitted him until she saw him enter the hall after every one had left the luncheon-room. She apologized in the best manner she could ; but the utmost she could say, was no balm for the wound he had been for gotten. Mr. and Mrs. Sherwin had often laughed at Lucy about the matter, and rallied her on her indifference to attention ; but she herself had probably, as she said, suffered as much mortification from it as the gentleman himself; and was never inclined to join in the laugh of her friends when any thing recalled the subject. Cousin Herbert, as Lucy called him, was not in reality her cousin, but the son, by a former marriage, of the gentle man to whom Mr. Winterton's only sister was united. He was a handsome young man, as free from young-gentleman like fopperies and affectations, as Lucy was from young- lady-like vanities and coquetries. Every thing pointed them out as suitable for each other, and even Mrs. Sherwin, sen sible woman as she was, did speculate a little on the pro babilities of Lucy and Herbert falling in love with each other. Ellen, who expected Mr. Howard to dinner, now rose to take leave, engaging Lady Sarah to dine with them ; and receiving a promise from Lucy that she would join the party, if her mother had no other engagement for her. 170 ELLEN PARRY. CHAPTER XII. THE snow of several winters had covered and disappeared from the branches of the magnificent Cedars of Lebanon which stood opposite the hall-door of Norwood Manor, and had melted away undisturbed from the broad stone steps at the en trance. Many a summer's sun had pierced through chinks in the shutters, and cast a long slender ray of light upon the uncarpeted floors, and upon the various articles of furniture, clad in their uncouth coverings of Holland linen. Few were the living things, that broke the solitude of those old rooms. Occasionally, a solitary fly might be called into activity by the long lone ray of sunlight. Sometimes, a vagrant cat would steal stealthily in, looking round with keen but timid glance, as if frightened by the stillness, and start off, as she caught sight of her own image in the long mirrors. At stated periods, a housemaid visited the apartments to wipe off the dust, expressing her wonder where it could come from ; and after arranging her cap, and looking over her shoulder, to ascertain the fit of her dress, and the general air and symmetry of her "full length," usually satisfactory she, too, departed, and left the rooms again to solitude. When a hard winter came, letters arrived from Mr. Langton or his wife, desiring the housekeeper to have soup made, and distributed daily among the poor ; and the steward was ordered to furnish wood or coal, to the old, the sick, or such as could not obtain employment, and the poor around felt they were not altogether unthought of. Still they said and with truth " It was very different from having a lady and gentleman living at the Manor. Old Madam and the Squire used to come and see them some times, and some how or other, that seemed to make things go easier, and when people lived at their own places, there were always a thousand little things to be done, that gave employment to poor people, and were not thought of when they were away." Caroline and her husband had never lived in the Manor-house. During the short intervals they had passed in England, since the elder Mr. Langton's death, ELLEN PAKRY. i71 they had resided, either at the Cottage, which they had occu pied, when first married, or at the Grove with Mr. and Mrs. Howard. Caroline had lost three children, and each be reavement had occasioned a frightful degree of excitement, which made her husband and parents tremble for her reason. Her mother's death seemed, when her first burst of sorrow had subsided, to have produced a different effect upon her mind from that which the loss of her children had oc casioned. In her letters home she frequently dwelt on her mother's unwearing activity, and constant forgetfulness of self ; and remarked, how different in that respect would be her own children's remembrance of their mother. Her only living children, a son and two daughters, were very promising. The son was now fourteen, and his father, anxious that he should spend, at least, a portion of his youth in his native land, proposed sending him to England ; but in this child, Caroline's strongest maternal affections, as well as her maternal pride, were centred ; and rather than be separated from him, she proposed that they should all return to Nor wood Manor. When Mr. Howard arrived on his promised visit to Clay Hill, he brought the joyful intelligence, that he had received a letter that morning, informing him of their intention to return to England, and inclosing orders to the steward and housekeeper to have every thing ready for their reception by the middle of September. And now all was bustle and preparation in the dull and still old Manor-house. Upholsterers were going from room to room with their carpet-stretchers. Pictures, that had been unhung for years, and turned on their faces like penitent devotees, now looked down on the spectator, from their old stations on the walls, with the dull dignity so common to family portraits. The housekeeper was bustling about from morning to night with the inseparable badge of her office a bunch of keys at her side, now chiding a stupid housemaid new to her office, now urging a slow one, and supplying from her inexhaustible stores the various wants of her employes. Damask napery was handed over to the laundry maids from the deep and richly stored presses. Piles of sheets, fresh from their purifying hands, were duly interlaid with lavender and rose-leaves, and wo to the unlucky professor 172 ELLEN PARRY. of the lavatory art, if they did not rival the snow in white ness, or if a plait was unequally laid in the pillow-case ruffles. Then, from her bottled stores, the good lady selected delicate waters, distilled under her own eye, rose, lavender, elder, and orange-flower water, wherewith to fill the old-fashioned flagons in the various chambers. She was curious in the art of distilling, hated all French perfumes, and was desirous of impressing every one with a sense of the superiority of her fragrant waters over any others. Without the house were equal signs of active prepara tion. Stone-masons were at work on the old stone steps, sorely marked by signs that they had been long untrodden. Gravel walks, that had grown mossy, were being turned, others were honored with new layers of gravel. Troops of children were earning a daily pittance, by weeding the shrubbery ; while in the village, the " goings on " at the Ma nor-house were the theme of every tongue. Many expressed their opinion, that the Squire and his lady would not stay at home long ; when folks once got a hankering after foreign parts, it was apt to stick to them, and they were never easy at home. At length, the day came which was appointed for the arrival of the family. The housekeeper, with great ceremo ny, took out her best cap, trimmed with Mechlin lace, which had descended to her from Mr. Langton's grandmother, a black satin dress, which she had worn on great occasions for thirty years ; and a cambric apron of gossamer texture, edged with lace, and never worn but with the satin dress. Great was the impression made by her magnificent attire on the handmaidens, whom she summoned for the twentieth time (they said) to accompany her through the rooms, duster in hand, that she might be assured every thing was in order. The fairy Order herself might have consented to take up her abode there, so exquisitely nice was the appear ance of every thing, the beds so tempting in their snowy whiteness, the water fresh and clear as crystal, and the air of the room so pure and light. The housekeeper had heard that the chambers were not nicely kept abroad ; " how could they be," she said, "with nothing but men for chamber maids ;" and her heart swelled, and the black satin rustled with professional pride, as she said to herself, u they must feel the difference." ELLEN PARRY. 173 Towards evening the travelling carriages arrived. In the foremost were young Henry Langton and his sisters ; at first they looked rather shyly at the array of servants in the hall, and spoke hastily to each other in French, but their delight in catching sight of an old dog, who had been their playmate when they were last in England, and who snuffled about them, and seemed to recognize them, soon made them forget their shyness, and Henry shook hands with the house keeper, and reminded her of the hardbake tomtrot and toffy she used to make, and expressed his dislike to French bonbons, in a manner that satisfied the housekeeper and steward that he was a true Englishman. Meanwhile, the timid little girls, unaccustomed to their native tongue, answered aui and non, and then corrected it by a yes and no, of very un-English accent to the questions addressed to them ; but these were necessarily few, for the other carriage was heard approaching, and every one's attention was drawn to its occupants. Caroline, like most English women, had grown stout as she approached middle life, but her figure still retained much of the symmetry which marked it in her youth, though with a fuller outline. Her face, however, had greatly chang ed ; there was a drooping of the corners of the mouth, and a slight elevation and contraction of the eyebrows, which gave a discontented expression to her countenance. She replied gently and kindly to the congratulations offered to her, on her return, and remarked on the air of comfort and cleanliness, which pervaded all things, adding, "comfort and cleanliness are only to be had in perfection in an English home." One of Caroline's first acts after she had become a little settled in her home, was to write to Ellen, and beg her to bring her children, and pass a month at Norwood Manor a formidable proposal, she said, to make to a woman who had never left her home since her marriage ; but there was room enough for husband and children, and as many attend ants as Mrs. Sherwin chose to bring ; and there could, there fore, be no reasonable ground for refusing the visit. Mr. Sherwin thought it ought not to be refused. Caro line's health was better than it had been for years, and she had come home with the intention of being contented there. 174 ELLEN PARRV. Ellen might be able to influence her in the adoption and pursuit of avocations which might give her an interest in those about her, and materially affect her future happiness. The invitation was accordingly accepted, and Ellen and her little ones were installed in the Manor, Mr. Sherwin promising to pass as much of the time with them as possi ble. Who that has ever experienced the pleasure of meeting an early friend after long years of separation, in which much experience of life has been gained, and much change has taken place, save in the love which time had only made more tender, but can enter into the happiness of the long morn ings spent by the friends in listening to, and relating all the little unimportant things which, though they may " make the sum of human life," are yet, considered individually, too trifling to be enumerated in written intercourse. Ellen could not but perceive, in these interviews, that Caroline had grown more considerate ; had a higher sense of the duties devolving upon her, and the claims of others. She made Ellen give her an account of the way in which she appropriat ed her time, when at Clay Hill, and though she said it was quite impossible she should ever do so much, she professed her intention of trying to do a little. " You must go round with me to see some of the poor people, as a preliminary step," said she. " I shall never be able to begin without some one to show me ; I don't know what to say to those sort of people, and whenever I have gone to their houses, it has seemed to make them as uncomfortable and awkward as it did me. And I have always come away with the feeling that my absence was an inexpressible relief to them." < ; Your difficulty and discouragement are very common," said Ellen, " and it has always appeared to me that they arise from our forgetting that we are holding intercourse with people of like passions, like feelings, and like weaknesses, amiable and unamiable, to ourselves. The same rules of courtesy, which we observe in our intercourse with people of our own class in society, we should apply in our intercourse with our hum- < bier neighbors. You listen with patient courtesy and a well- bred appearance of interest to some lady-like invalid's envF meration of her ailments and remedies: to a doting mother's account of the nascent genius of her child, and to an inde fatigable housewife's detail of her economy and her servants. ELLEN PARRY. 1 75 You say civil things to one about her Arachnean labors, to another about her flowers, or her drawing, or whatever you know her to be especially interested in. Courtesy and good breeding demand this, and habit has enabled you to exercise it with sufficient fidelity to make you a favorite in your own class of society. Now the same courteous attention, in listening to an account of, or inquiring after the ills of some poor person, whose harmless weakness it is to talk about his or her infirmities, to some toiling mother's enumeration of the qualities and capacities of her offspring, to some thrifty housewife's account of her baking and brewing ; a polite notice of the sanded floor, or the range of pewter, or the garden, would make your visits among the poor as easy, and as productive, nay much more productive of happiness, than among your wealthier acquaintance. The interest you manifested yesterday in Lady Strachan's Blenheim spaniel, would have won the heart of a lone old woman in Welbourne, whom I know, and have supplied her with happy feelings for a long time, if manifested towards her tabby-cat. You have yet to learn, dear Carry, ' how many simple ways there are to bless ;' and without this sympathy and interest, any moral influence is utterly impossible. Your money may relieve the physical wants of the poor, but it will not elevate them in the scale of humanity, or teach them a wholesome self- respect. On the contrary, I think the habitual bestowment of money, unaccompanied by personal interest and personal courtesy, has a debasing effect ; and certainly, all the gold you possess could not, alone, purchase you a single heart. You will soon get acquainted with the habits and objects of interest in these cottage-homes, and will find it easy, both to give and derive pleasure. Even the phraseology which may at first strike your ear as coarse and uncouth, will often amuse you by its simplicity, and astonish you by its strength." " I do not expect to find my task quite as easy as you would make me believe, or to find as much pleasure in it as you do, who seem as much at home in, and as much au ecu- rant of all the trials, duties, and pleasures of a laborer's m&- hagc. as your own or mine," said Caroline. " Only persevere, and I will answer for your deriving both pleasure and profit from intercourse with the poor. You will see human nature as you have never seen it before ; not 176 ELLEN PARKY. dressed by fashion, or rubbed down to uniformity by the pumice-stone of custom. I allow you must often meet with disappointment, and witness the sad effects of sin and moral weakness, and perhaps it may be more revolting to you, be cause not enveloped in such a graceful drapery as are the vices of higher life, too polite to show their hideous form ; but on the other hand, you will meet with many instances beautiful to witness of that " electric chain" running through humanity, binding man to man, and all to God ; and despite all that may be said to the contrary, I feel that the more I have seen of human nature, the more I have loved it and felt its dignity. In the by-paths and nooks of life's most secluded valleys, many glorious virtues are born and live, which the dwellers in its high places know nothing of, and that to their loss." Mr. Langton, who had seen in his mother and grand mother a great deal of that interest in the tenantry of the estate, which the wives of the resident landholders were for merly accustomed to take, was delighted to find Caroline turning her attention towards them. He was planning a great many improvements and alterations, and the hope of seeing his wife well enough to enter into them with him, ani mated him, and made him appear happier than he had done for many years. Every thing seemed to promise felicity and joy. The gay laugh of light hearts rang through the rooms of the old Manor-house, and its fair mistress performed the sacred rites of hospitality with a grace and ease that won " golden opinions" from all. How often when in the enjoyment of happiness, deep and full, does a secret and vague presentiment of a coming blight lay its hand on the shrinking heart, and the shadow of some unseen misfortune rest on the fair landscape ! Uninterrupt ed prosperity is so inconsistent with all we have experienced or seen experienced in life, and so often do we witness the wreck of earthly happiness "when heaven is all tranquillity," that it is not to be wondered at, if our experience and con templation of unclouded happiness should be mingled with some feelings of dread for the future. ELLEN PARRY. 177 CHAPTEK XIII. RELIGIOUS experience, and the fruits the Christian should gather and scatter abroad from that tree which is for the healing of the nations, were the frequent themes of conversa tion between the two friends during many a long morning passed in Caroline's dressing-room. She one day remarked to Ellen, that she had often prayed and studied the word of God without deriving from it the comfort and the strength of which Christians speak. Ellen replied, " May you not have been too impatient, dear Caroline, concerning the result of your endeavors ? It is our part to tvait on the Lord though the vision tarry. We are commanded to strive to enter in at the strait gate, and to do the will of our heavenly Father. But the spiritual comforts and consolations of the Gospel are a reward^ and not a duty. The duties of the Christian, are all we have to do with. The reivards are of Grod's grace, and those 'joys' which, says Jeremy Taylor, ' are little drawings aside of the curtains of peace and eternity, and antepasts of immor tality,' are, as well as spiritual despondency, so dependent on temperament merely, that they are unsafe tests in them selves whether of true piety or its opposite." After this conversation Ellen left her friend in order to visit her nursery. It was in the opposite part of the house, and just as she reached it Mr. Langton came out of the next room, his pale face full of the expression of horror and agony. Before Ellen could utter a word of inquiry he laid his hand on her arm, and said in a hoarse tremulous voice, " Come with me, Henry is almost killed." She entered the room from which low suppressed groans issued ; the poor boy was lying on a mattress, his face blackened and disfigured by gunpowder, and the blood streaming from his eyes. Ellen's heart quailed as she looked upon him. He was suffering great pain, but the gunpowder and blood whic^cc-vered his face made it impossible to form any idea of the extent of the injury, and it was not until she was close beside him that she saw his right arm was broken. The doctor had been 8 178 ELLEN PARRY. sent for, but minutes seemed ages, and Ellen knowing that cleansing the face was one of the first things necessary, ap plied herself to the task with all possible gentleness. The boy shrunk from her touch, though he controlled all loud ex pression of pain with the most heroic fortitude, and said in broken accents, " Do not let mamma know it do not let her see me." Even Ellen, with all her dislike of concealment, could not but feel it would be better not to tell his mother of the accident until the doctor had seen him, and something had been done to alleviate his sufferings. Caroline was standing at the window of her room, when she saw Dr. Barton's little one-horsed chariot generally known as the Doctor's pill-box approaching. Her first im pression was that he had come to make a friendly call, but it was not the hour when the Doctor made sociable visits, and this had quite the air of a professional one ; and, sup posing that some of the servants must be sick, she rang the bell ; it was not immediately answered, and she was about to repeat the summons, when her maid came. " Is any one sick, Johnson ? I see Dr. Barton is here." " Yes, ma'am ; no, ma'am ;" said the woman, with much confusion of manners, " that is not much, ma'am, we think ; we believe. The gunpowder makes it look worse than it is." " Gunpowder ! but who is it? who is injured ?" " Don't be frightened, ma'am, it's Master Henry " The words fell like an ice-bolt on Caroline's heart. She rushed from the apartment to her son's bedchamber, and not finding him there, followed mechanically the direction which several servants were taking towards the room in which Henry had been placed. She entered just as he was saying to the Doctor, in reference to the setting of his arm, " Will it be very painful? I am afraid of mamma hearing me cry out." Caroline caught the words, and despite all the horror of the sight which met her anxious, strained gaze, she was sensible to the lofty spirit of self-oblivion and devoted love which dictated them. Her feebler nature seemed suddenly to imbibe strength from the heroism shown by this child of her love, and she suppressed every sound that could betray her presence to him. Nothing was real ized or felt at that moment but his suffering. Utterly re gardless of every thing else, her agonized face was turned ELLEN PARRY. 179 towards the Doctor, as he made his preparations for setting the arm. " It was/' he said, " only a simple fracture, a small matter ; the face was much burned, to be sure, but he flattered himself there was no serious injury." Caroline re sisted all attempts of her husband to lead her from the room, and remained there during the setting of the arm. Henry fainted several times, and the state of his face pre cluding many of the usual preventives and restoratives, made it peculiarly distressing. When Caroline followed the Doctor out of the room to obtain the information she could not seek in Henry's presence, he gave her cheerful and hope ful answers, but to Mr. Langton and Ellen he expressed his fear that the sight might be injured. For some days Henry was feverish, and suffering so much pain in his head and eyes, that strong opiates were administered, that kept him in a drowsy semi-conscious state. His mother, whose sense of personal suffering seemed entirely merged in anxiety for her son, was constantly with him, though he seemed unaware of her presence. A fort night after the accident, he was sitting up in bed leaning on his father's shoulder, and after speaking of the confused re collection he had of what had taken place since his arm was set, he asked if his mother had been very much frightened, and when his father thought it would be safe for her to see him. " Whenever you wish it, my boy ; you have constant ly expressed so much dread of the shock the sight of your burned face would be to her, that we thought it best to say nothing to you about her coming " "Papa, after the powder flashed in my face, and I had fallen on the ground, I thought of the suffering I should occasion her. Is she calm ? Was she very much fright ened ? " She is quite calm, my son, though, of course, much distressed by your suffering. She was with you when your arm was set, and has been constantly in your room since." Caroline now came forward, and as she stooped to kiss him, said, " Your mother has learned from you, my boy, to control her own feelings, and exercise fortitude for the sake of those she loves." Henry was feeble, and the surprise as well as the pleasure of having his mother by him. was ex hausting in his weak condition. He readily acceded to 180 ELLEN PA R-R Y . her request that he should lie down again, and soon dropped asleep with his hand in hers. The account of the accident which they had gathered from Henry and a boy who was with him at the time was, that while making some fireworks, he tried one to see if it would go off. He had several in his left hand, and the whole exploded in his face ; he fell backward, and probably broke his arm in the fall. In a short time the scars began to disappear from Henry's face, his eyelashes and eyebrows to resume their growth, and the inflammation to disappear from the eyes ; but, alas ! the balls were sightless. He said to Ellen one day, as she sat beside him, " Mrs. Sherwin, I wish you would tell me the truth, you all seem afraid to do it ; I would much rather know at once that I am to be blind all my life, than to feel doubts that you are dissembling with me." " You feel as I should do in your circumstances, my dear Henry. We cannot feel certain till the opinion of some skilful oculist is obtained, and Dr. Barton has proposed to your father to-day, that he should seek such an opinion." " Does Dr. Barton think I shall remain blind ? tell me just what he says." Ellen would gladly have been spared such a question, but she answered, " Yes, my dear, he does think so ; but that by no means shuts the door of hope." "Perhaps," continued Henry, "it maybe a long time before an oculist can tell me decidedly whether I shall re cover my sight or not." " And that will be your greatest trial, I think," said Ellen. " It is so very difficult when in a state of suspense and doubt, to apply ourselves earnestly to the means open to us for the alleviation of our trials, and which we generally seize and pursue with energy and constancy when we know out 1 condition to be decided and inevitable." Henry did not talk much further on this subject at that time, but when alone with Ellen he frequently recurred to it, and sometimes in much distress said, how terrible the privation was. She did not make any useless efforts to diminish this sense of it. She judged it would only tend to diminish the boy's confidence in her sympathy. But she spoke of the alleviating circumstances which often combine ELLEN PARRY. 181 to lighten the burden of a great calamity, and directed him to the only source whence he could derive strength to bear his great trial. Poor Caroline's anxiety, though she made most heroic efforts to be calm, was agonizing. It seemed as though their native land and their home were fatal to all hope of happi ness. Every blow had fallen upon them when in England, and had struck where they were most vulnerable their do mestic affections. The afflicting hand of God was again laid upon them, and now more than ever did they need a Christian's love and trust in God to sustain them under their trials. But an angel had stirred the waters, and into the Bethesda of prayer did Caroline throw herself for healing and strength in this her hour of need. How gladly would the mother's love have borne the sufferer's burden. It was the prospect of witnessing this child, whom she had loved beyond all her other children, this only son of whom she had been so proud, smitten with blindness, before which her heart quailed. But when the last ray of hope seemed ex tinguished by the oculist's opinion, that there was a bare possibility, but not the least probability, that Henry would regain his sight, she strove to make " thy will be done " the language of her heart. It seemed to her as if, under this new affliction, she realized all the sin and wilfulness of which she had been guilty in her previous rebellion against the decrees of God. How long had he stood at the door of her heart and knocked, and she had refused to let him enter and dwell there. The conviction of the light against which she had sinned, and the distressing doubts in consequence which harassed her mind, were all poured forth to Ellen, nor could she have found human counsellor more judicious or more tender ; and the peace passing all understanding, the sweet sense of reconciliation with God through Christ, became the abiding inmate of that long wandering but now restored heart. Little was now heard of Caroline's nervous attacks. She felt the necessity for personal exertion laid upon her, in order to ameliorate Henry's misfortune. She read a great deal to him, walked with him, cheered and encouraged him in all his attempts to render himself as independent as pos sible. Strong religious feelings were developing themselves 182 ELLEN PARRY. in him, and he often expressed, with much emotion, his sense of the goodness of God, in giving him so much calmness under his calamity as often, he said, astonished himself. His sisters, gentle affectionate girls, vied with each other in fond attentions to him, and sometimes, as he turned their soft curling hair round his fingers, the wish would arise, that he could see the faces which he felt must be daily growing more and more lovely. Henry had expressed a wish to go for a time into one of the admirable asylums for the blind. He had visited several of these institutions, with his parents, and an able teacher from one of them had been engaged to reside at Norwood Manor. But the opinions of all competent to judge, and Henry's own impressions coincided in the belief, that the instruction peculiar to his case could be much bet ter obtained among those similarly afflicted than by any aid that could be furnished him at home. His mother yielded to his wishes with a cheerfulness neither he or Mr. Langton had dared to expect. Six months was spoken of as the pro bable time of Henry's absence from home, and Ellen, con scious how great the effort must be to Caroline, to assent so cheerfully to this proposition, urged the latter to bring her little daughters to Clay Hill, and pass the first two or three months of his absence there. The plan was agreed upon, and Caroline found herself for the first time in her life re siding under the roof of persons governing themselves and their households in the constant faith, fear, and love of God. The example, influence, and Christian wisdom of her early disciplined friend, were the crowning means, under God, of confirming the dawning piety of this spoiled child of wealth and indulgence, whom neither could shield from the afflictions common to humanity, or console for the loss of near objects of affection. They were also the means of manifesting to her that the ways of religion are pleasantness, and her paths peace to those who walk therein. It was not to be expected, perhaps, that Caroline should ever become the strong-minded energetic woman that Ellen was. She had naturally less force of character, and she had experienced none of those vicissitudes of life, which had con tributed so much to develope and exercise Ellen's judgment, energy and endurance, which qualities, united as they were ELLEN PARRY. 183 to such gentle manners, and tender sympathies, gave her a power of no common kind, over those whom she wished to influence. The sufferer in mind, or body, the perplexed, or the doubting, could carry the burden of their woes to Ellen ; secure, not only of the sympathizing but of the practical friend. If help were possible, she was ready in suggesting, and prompt in procuring the ways and means ; and if the case admitted not of help, her tender interest enabled them to bear the burden more cheerfully. But Caroline, easily overcome by a tale of woe, was less often sought in the same way, for the natural excitability of her nerves made the delicate and sensitive shrink from pouring into her ear, sorrows, which would produce greater agitation in her than they themselves perhaps suffered from them. Still she was anxious and unremitting in her desire to obey the Apostle's beautiful injunction, " Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ." " It overwhelms me," she one day said to Ellen, " when I think of the number of years I have lived for myself alone. I have all my life been con sidering what was due to me from father, mother, husband, friends, my servants and society. Henceforth, I must try to think only of what is due from me to them." Caroline was more truly happy at this than at any pre vious period of her existence. She had now objects of in terest, which carried her out of herself. There was motive for energy of mind and body, which contributed to the health of both, and her religion heightened the joys of pros perity, and sustained her in the hour of trial. Great as was the misfortune of Henry's blindness, the rich mine of moral beauty it had discovered in his nature, the beautiful spirit of cheerful resignation to God's will, with which it was borne, and the energy of purpose he manifested in his endeavors to surmount the obstacles it placed in the way of his education, greatly alleviated it. And when, after some years of blindness, his sight was restored to him, both mother and son acknowledged, that in those years of visual darkness, a precious light had dawned by means of that darkness upon the souls of both. The dearest and most ardent wish of Ellen's heart was accomplished. The friend of her youth, so tenderly and truly loved, was one with her in Christian hope and faith, 184 ELLEN PARRY. adorning by her conscientious practice the religion she pro fessed ; blessing by it. as she had never blessed before, husband, children, and father, and investing the common acts of life with the light and beauty, emanating from a spirit constantly refreshed, strengthened, and beautified in the life-giving fountain of prayer. Edward Moreton, soon after his engagement with Ellen was broken off, had been on the point of offering himself to Miss Singleton, when he was informed, on the return of the mother and daughter from Hastings, that Miss Singleton had accepted the Earl of Arlington, a man old enough to be her father, and at whose pretensions she had so often laugh ed with Edward, that he had been very secure of not having a rival in that quarter. The only alleviation to his rage and disappointment, on feeling that he had been the dupe of his own vanity, and that the showy heiress had only permit ted him to swell the train of her adorers, without a moment's serious intention of marrying him, was, that he had not com mitted himself by a declaration. Vexed, and conscious, perhaps, when too late, of the value of the pearl he had flung aside, and craving wealth, while too indolent to work for it, he finally married the rich widow of a grocer, one of those " City dames with loud shrill clacks, The wealth of nations on their backs," whose sole ideas of elegance are centred in a showy house and equipage, "good living," and costly attire. His wife was some years older than himself, innately vulgar, and totally uneducated. He had married for money, and money only ; had bartered his ideal for gold, and had through long -years the bitter experience, that it is powerless to heal the countless ills attendant on that greatest of human miseries an ill-assorted marriage. Ashamed of his wife, degraded in his own eyes, he lived mostly at his club, a life of bodily ignoble ease, undignified by any act that could raise him in his own or others' estimation. Miss Ferrymore is still Miss Ferrymore the wittiest, merriest, and most good-humored of spinsters. Her wit is no unruly engine, for Christian charity is always at hand to control it. Ill-natured sarcasm has no place in her com- ELLEN PARRY. 185 ments on persons or events, though she is of the opinion of good George Herbert, that " All things are big with jest ; nothing that's plain But may be witty if thou hast the vein." She is an occasional visitor at Clay Hill and Norwood Ma nor, but can never be persuaded to leave her brother for more than a week or two. Many mammas and maidens of a certain age say, " Poor Captain Ferrymore," in a com miserating tone, and add, " he would be glad to marry, no doubt of it, were it not for his sister ; but he thinks he can not leave her alone." But the Captain does not look at all like a man in need of consolation, and no more heart-cheer ing or frequent laughs are heard, and no faces seem more radiant with happiness, than those of Miss Ferrymore and her brother. They occupy a pretty cottage in one of the most picturesque parts of the New Forest, and they are the light and life of all the society they enter. Lucy Winterton, as the wife of " cousin Herbert," and the mother of a numerous family, proves, by the admirable manner in which she fulfils the duties of these relations, the truth of all Mrs. Sherwin's prophecies concerning her. In the churchyard of Welbourne there is a plain un adorned monument, " Sacred to the memory of the Rev. William Ford, Vicar of Welbourne" and recently there has been added, "Also of Sarah, his wife, who departed this life in the sixtieth year of her age. Aug. 7th, 18 ." This, with the name and age of their infant child, and the words, " He giveth his beloved sleep," is the only inscription on the stone, of people who might have been said to have passed their lives between "going up into heaven to procure blessings, and returning to earth to scatter them among men." There is no elaborate record of their many virtues; a few years and even the remembrance of them shall have passed away ; but in that dread hour when " Grod shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil," will they not " shine as the brightness of the firmament, and as the stars, for ever and ever ?" Ellen and her husband felt they had lost, in Lady Sarah, a friend they could never replace, or indeed, desire to re- 186 ELLEN PARRY. place; but they laid her in her last resting-place, in sure and certain hope of re-union in that kingdom " whose extent is infinity ; whose duration is eternity ; whose throne is heaven ; and whose crown is glory." END D. Appleton Sf Company's Publications. Grace Aguilar's New Work. THE YALE OF CEDARS; OR, THE MARTYR. BY GRACE AGUILAR, Author of "Woman's Friendship," " Home Influence," etc. One volume, I2mo., paper cover, 50 cents; cloth, 75 cents. "The power and fervor of the pen of Grace Aguilar, are already well known. In thi work the scene is laid in Spain, during the glorious reign of Ferdinand ami Isabelia ; although (heleading chaiacters possess all the tire and energy of the ancient yru:hfnl nobles of England. This union of the intense and fervid passion of tiie S|>ani-h character with the nobleness of ihe English, has presented a field for the exercise of all the powers of the author ; and magn :fl- cently has she used them, by portraying in this work chaiacters and scenes which awaken iu the reader a most absorbing and thrilling interest." A New Historical Novel. NORMAN LESLIE; A TALE. BY G. C. H., Author of "The Curate of Lin wood," "Amy Harrington," etc. Jne volume, I2mo., paper cover, 50 cents ; cloth, 75 cents. " Tins is a new acquaintance under a familiar name, but one so well worthy to bear tha name, that we greet it with a hearty welcome. Norman Leslie, the hero of the present tale, was one of those gallant and spirited nobles of Scotland who bravely took the field in resistance to the cruelties which the Regency and the Church had inflicted upon the early Reformers. After the death of James IV., and during the time of the famous John Knox, the Regency which governed Scotland was weak, corrupt, and the vindictive instrument of the Chutcli against all who departed from her faith. It was during these perilous times that the scenes of this work are represented as taking place. Indeed, the characters and events may be said to be almost purely historical, and the lives so narrated of the leading individuals belong rather to biography than to romance. It is written with much force and vigor of style, and with an ele vation of thought and sentiment very appropriate tj this subject." Evening Post. HELOISE ; OR, THE UNREVEALED SECRET. A TALE. BY T A L V I . One volume, I2mo., paper cover, 50 cents ; cloth, 75 cents. This i*a romance of great power and interest. Thevjcenes are laid chiefly in Germany and Circassia, and the author shows a most intimate knowledge of social life in those countries. A a tale it is unsurpassed by few either in the development of some of the noblest and most self sacrificing passions of our nature, the lofty sentiments which it expresses, or the thrilling attrac tions of its narrative. It is told with much force aud beauty of language, and iu the rich dio tiou of a German scholar. "THE VERY AGE!" A LOCAL SATIRICAL COMEDY. IN FIVE ACTS. BY EDWARD S. GOULD, ESQ. One volume, 12mo., paper cover, 38 cents. This play is free from personalities ; but it hits hard upon the fashionable follies of New York society D. Appl&on 4* Company's Publications. NEW WORKS FOR DOMESTIC READING. WOMAN'S FRIENDSHIP. Etf*. BY GRACE AGUILAR, AUTHOR OF "HOME INFLUENCE," ETC. One volume, 12mo. Paper cover, 50 cents ; cloth, 75 cents. ' This is truly a classical novel. It is a relief to find now and then, amid the effeminate and multiplied issues of the press called novels, a really readable and profitable work, like the present. Here are the most wholesome truths and the most sage maxims, expressed in a beau tiful style. The genuine spirit of poetry mingles with and adorns the most practical good sense. Every lady and every gentleman, young or old, will be amply rewarded wieh the perusal of thia work. If we mistake not, you will read it a second \.ime."Middletoicn Oasis. HEARTS AND HOMES. BY MRS. ELLIS, AUTHOR OP "WOMEN OF ENGLAND," ETC. ETC. Two parts, paper cover, $1. Two parts bound in one volume, 8vo, cloth, $1 50. "Of the living female authors of England, there is no one more widely or more favorably known in the country than Mrs. Ellis. Her works are always characterized by a depth of feel ing, an earnestness of spirit, a zeal for the right, a truth, freshness, and vivacity, that render them not only interesting but instructive. Her stories contain, as the very end and essence of their being, a high and lofty sentiment of morality, equal to Maria Edgeworth or Hannah More. We carnot but trust they will ever enjoy their present popularity. The present publication combines all the graces and felicities of her previous writings, with added interest and value." THE VILLAGE NOTARY. A ROMANCE OF HUNGARIAN LIFE. Translated from the Hungarian of Baron EOTVOS, by OTTO WINCKSTEIN. "With Introductory Remarks by FRANCIS PULSKY. One volume, 8vo. Paper cover, 25 cents. " This is a very lively and entertaining book. It presents the reader with a minute picture of social life in all its varieties in Hungary, and was written with the noble design to inspire in the minds of the mass of the people of that country the glorious sentiments of liberty, and to trouse them to meet the terrific conflict with despotism which they have recently fought. The ale of ths work in the original has been immense, and its translation into English will doubHeai N received with great favor ; the London edition, from which this is reprinted, sells for $8. NORMAN LESLIE. By the Author of " THE CURATE OP LINWOOD," etc., etc. One neat volume, 12mo. Just Ready.) 1STEBESTIN6 BOOKS FOR LADIES Published by D. Appleton roductions of thfc eioell?nt writer, full of deep ami touching interest, and urging lessons of great practical im- BoniBce." II. PREVENTION BETTER THAN CURE; OR THE MURAL WANTS OF THE WOULD WE LIVE IN. By MRS. El.tis. 1vol. I2m<>. Price 50 els. paper cover, 75 cU cloth. " We can safely recommend the book 10 mothers and daughters who would prize useful hinti an the conduct of life, and practical directions for self-management." Christian Enquirer MISS M'INTOSH'S WORKS, i. CHARMS AND COUNTER-CHARMS. ji\ MARIA J. M'INTIISH, Author of " Conquest and Self Conquest," " Praise and Prin eiple," lac. Complete in one handsome volume, 12mo., cloth $1 ; or in two parts, paper, 75 ctt. This work will be found one of the most impressive and beautiful tales of the da} The moral is felicitously developed, and is true in thought and feeling. II. TWO LIVES ; OR, TO SEEM AND TO BE. By MARIA J. M'!NTOSH 1 vol. lOmo., paper cover 50 cts., cloth 75 cU. "The previous works of Miss M'lntosh, although issued anonymously, have been popnlai in the best sense of the word. The simple beauty of her narratives, combining pure sentiment with high p. 'uiple, and noble views of lite and its dunes, ought to win for them a hearing at .ivery fireside in jur land. We have rarely |>erused a tale more interestiii'' and instructive than the one before us, and we commend it most cordially to the attention of all our readers." Prot Churchman. III. AUNT KITTY'S TALES. By MARIA J. M'!NTOSH. A new edition, complete in one vol., 12mo., cloth 75 cU. This volume contains the following inte'esting stories: "Blind Alice," " Jessie Graham, ' ' Florence A-nott," " Grace and Clara," " Ellen Leslie, or The Reward of Self-Control." MISS SEWELL'S WORKS. i. MARGARET PERCIVAL : A TALE. Edited by the Rov. WM. SKWKLL, B. A 2 vols., 12mo., pa^r cover $1. cloth 91 50 II. GERTRUDE: A TALF. Edited by lie Rev. WM. SSWELL, B. A I'imo., cloth 75 cts. paper cover 50 cU. III. AMY HERBERT: A TALE. Edited by the Rev. WM. SEWEI.L, B. A. 1 vol. 12mo.. cloth 75 cU, paper cover 50 oU. IV. LANETON PARSONAGE : A TALE. AJtrd by the Rev. WM. SKWICLL. K. A 3vol. l-Jin-.., doth .*2'J5 pa|vr cover 8150. POPULAR NEW WORKS. Published ly D. Appleton 8f Co. /LADY ALICE; OR, THE NEW UNA. A NOVEL. One volume, 8vo. Paper cover, price 38 cents. LaJy Alice is decidedly a work of genius. Indeed we know of few fictions when this first and highest excellence is more apparent. It is both peculiar and original Nothing since " Jane Eyre" is more so. * * * Whoever wrote it is, or rather may be, a great writer. He writes like a full-grown man ; master of his subject and himself. He has occasional passages of health, strength, and beauty he lias pathos, delicacy, and spirit lie is finished and elaborate to a fault. More than this, he is exceedingly ingenious in constructing his plot, ana effective in bringing his incidents to bear. Boston Post. " This is an extraordinary book. * * * That the author was animated by a dee]>er motive than that of the production of a clever aud somewhat surprising novel, which should make a great sensation, we are perfectly satisfied. * * * A graceful fancy, and even a high imaginative power, are unsparingly exercised throughout. Douglas* Terrold's Weekly News. THE MAIDEN AUNT. A STORY. BY S. M. REPRINTED FROM THE LAST ENGLISH EDITION. One volume 12mo. Paper cover. 50 ctt. Cloth, 75 cts. " This is a story which should be and if a taste for simple, correct diction and pure eentiment is not extinct, will be widely read, and the publishers are entitled to thanki for publishing it in so handsome a form. We commend this sweet story, with its moral to every intelligent reader." Commercial Advertiser. 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