MMM ■ ' - A LIFE-LONG STORY. " Xor till each withering plant be ■h st A " "Cruel! cruel! do you call it," very unceremoniously interrupted Mrs. Carter — who, true woman as she was had a little amiable weakness for a gossip, and when she could get a listener, as in the present instance, to her somewhat extravagant ideas, was apt to overstep the Rubicon of good manners, which were evidently not taught for an extra penny a week at the university she took her degrees at, and, something like other masters at debate when contending with the feebler, she was not scrupulous in cutting short an oration whenever she wanted to perpetrate one * The power, and jurisdiction of Parliament is so transcendent, and absolute, that it cannot be confined, either for causes or persons, within bounds. ... It can, in short, do anything that is not naturally im- p ssible. — Sir E. Coke. f The public good is in nothing more essentially interested than in the protection of every individual's private rights, as modelled by the muni- cipal law. — Blackstone's Commentaries. 16 A LIFE-LONG STOKY. herself, — " cruel do you call it I I say 'tis brutal, and the sooner all these things be looked into the better. People, and ladies too calling themselves Christians, encouragin' such dreadful murders; for 'tis nothin' else; why the very blacks would teach 'em better, as never saw a Bible ! It makes my flesh creep to think of all their grandness and luxuries, while their fellow-creturs be dyin' in thousands a slavin' for 'em. I was told t'other day, that not content with blindin' * and killin' the poor young women, the missuses of them great millinary houses where the haristockrasy (Mrs. Carter had not much idea of the euphony of sound) as they be called, haves their tine things made, hires poor little children for a few pence a week to thread all the needles, 'cause the 'prentices shouldn't be hindered, and when they gets tired and sleepy, being past their bedtimes at night, they be so tired that they falls off their stools down upon the floor, and then they gets green tea and coffee give to 'em, to rouse 'em up." " "Worser and worser still !'' ejaculated Mrs. Greenham, simultaneously elevating her eyes, hands, and voice ; u I can't hardly believe it. Be shore, be shore it can't be true. Be you quite certain, Mrs. Carter?" u I don't know no more than I was told," replied Mrs. Carter ; and she looked an embodiment of the words of Scott, — " I don't know how the truth may be, I tell the tale as 'twas told to me." 11 Dear a mercy me !" suddenly exclaimed her auditor, " if there aint ten o'clock ; I had no idear 'twas so late. I really must bid you good mornin' Mrs. Carter, and I wish your poor dear lady better with all my art." * Dr. Hodgkin fully confirms this testimony ; and Mr. Dalrymple, of the Ophthalmic Hospital, makes statements of a most painful character. He says that all forms of ocular disease are produced, from 9imple irritation. to complete blindness. Others give more minute details, showing that by continuous work of a fine and minute character, carried on during so many hours of the night by lamp and candlelight, vision is in many cases totally destroyed. Mr. F. Tyrrell, of the Ophthalmic Hospital, relates a case which came under his notice. It was that of a delicate young woman of about seventeen, who had been apprenticed in a dressmaking establishment, and who through excessive work had entirely lost her sight. Dr. Donovan says of some of these persons, that their health and strength are gone, and many of them die of consumption. Dr. £haw and Dr. Johnson declare that these women become unhealthy themselves and transmit disease to their offspring. Another medical gentleman states that no men would work so lonjr with so little rest. THE RESPECTABLE POOR AND TIIEIE ON DIT. 17 When this model gossip reached home she found that the fire had followed her example, and "gone out" ; her two little boys, with their shoes pulled off, were paddling about in an artificial lake which they had improvised for the occasion out of the bowl used by their untidy mother for " washing up the breakfast things," which had no business whatever to have been left on the table ; and trifling as these things are in themselves — like the feather, show- ing which way the wind blows — they suggest to a reflective mind that this worthy woman, really kind-hearted and well- meaning too as she was. had much better have been at home looking after her own affairs than commenting on those of her superiors, and censuring conduct and character she evidently did not, and could not understand. And now, impatient reader, unlike Mrs. Carter, who it appears belonged to * ; well-informed circles," but was fully determined to keep her knowledge to herself, we will together unrol the scroll containing the history of her " poor lady," as she called Mrs. Courtenaye, and though may be it has been blotted and dimmed with tears, for few are the life-pages bearing not their mournful impress, it is but an every- day tale. " He who knows most of heart, knows most of sorrow." 18 A LIFE- LONG STORr. CHAPTER III. j*onietbmg about ©rtftotosg. " Religion is not a form, or a creed, or an ecclesiastical system, but a life." "What a charming spot !" involuntarily broke from the passer- by, as the eye rested on an elegant mansion, with its bright velvety lawn 'crowning a slightly elevated site in the neighbour- hood of the populous and wealthy town of D . " Yes, it is a ' charming spot !' What noble parterres of flowers ! How harmoniously those choice shrubs are grouped ! I wonder who lives there?" "Well, then, wonderer, your curiosity shall be gratified ; that u charming spot" is the residence of Dr. Grenville, of whom we have somewhat to say that may interest you; for though "not the rose, he has dwelt with it." Dr. Grenville, then— a rich retired physician, who, with one son and daughter, and in possession of a great deal of friendship, extracted from a wide circle who enjoyed his society and "capital dinners," — passed a sort of care-for-nothing, easy-going life, centring all the light and delight radiating from these various foci on himself," as the sun of his social system, from whence he deluded himself into the fond idea they both emanated. In his wav he might have passed for a model, too, that excellent doctor, so proper, so unimpeachable, so serenely he moved in the best circles of the above-named fashionable town : he was a world in himself, and a world to himself ; a superior planet whirling in its own orbit, and on its own axis ; but, as there are spots in the sun, so, alas ! a spot darkened this great orb, and it needed not the aid of the Rcsse, or any other telescope, SOMETHING ABOUT CRTHODOXT. 19 o discover its nature. In a word, Dr. Grenville's visible defect VaS SELFISHNESS. " The old story S" did you exclaim, reader \ Perhaps so ; but the doctor had been badly brought up. To continue — there was \ certain polish of manner, an easy self-confidence about him, not often met with in the disciples of the Abernethy school to vhich he belonged, that had stood him in need, may be in the Dlace of professional skill ; which latter had been principally and successfully directed to nervous disorders among patients of the tiigher classes, one of whom, a lady of "considerable rank," left him a legacy of ten thousand pounds. People did say— but rumour is scarcely an authority— that the roung physician cured her ladyship's body, but incurably wounded her heart ; and as she was not allowed to bestow her hand with it, she out of revenge left him her fortune. Be that true or false, he was still an especial favourite with the con- fiding sex ; and though at the time he comes out to figure before our readers, " drest in a little brief authority," his register ob- stinately affirmed that he was sixty, he refused positively to own to more than " somewhere about fifty" (the "lords" have little tender weaknesses on the score of age sometimes), an assertion which gained credence through his tall, handsome, Saxon appear- ance ; and with so few gray hairs on his finely-shaped head, it really required no great stretch of charity to believe the register at fault. \Yith such manifold recommendations, including his enviable house and fortune, it will be no matter of surprise that manv gentle spinsters, certain middle-aged young ladies of his locale, unduly anxious to bind their unappropriated hearts in the rosy chains of wedlock, evinced none of the reluctance to take upon themselves the tremendous responsibility felt, or feigned, bv the warlike girl-queen of Sweden, who gravely assured her ministers that in her opinion " it required more courage to get married than to fight a battle." Indeed, they often deplored, almost within the doctor's hearing, " what a pity Dr. Grenville never married again!*' ""What a delightful fireside companion he must be !" One, who always spoke in expletives, pronounced^ it a "physiological phenomenon!" Another, in hysterics of sympathy for the genus, voted it a "decided loss to society!" while a third candidate for connubial honours, coute qui coute, feminine delicacy included, having run through the Indian market unappropriated, and returned duly impressed with the startling 20 A LIFE-LONG STORY. fact that she had " no time to lose." by looking " unutterable things" endeavoured to convince her meditated victim that she had the finest eyes in the world ; and, failing in this, she had recourse to an indefatigable display of her dainty hands, proudly boasting to him and her other equally am fait friends, that " long ringers were kings' gifts : *' she then tried to conquer with a little German, a good deal of French, and a dash of Hindostanee ; but the steady" man of the good old times thought "one tongue enough for any woman," and was not over careful in hiding his sagacious views. Still, presuming on the stereotyped smile with which the doctor ever greeted her girlish simplicity in getting up an impromptu flirtation with him, and being (by accident) always near him, to be taken to dinner or supper, or anywhere else, as the case might be, she absolutely went so far as to send him, in right earnest, too, a four-leaved shamrock, which he had once jokingly declared he should look upon as " an offer of marriage from either of his charming lady friends who should send it." Fancv, dear reader, the waves of be-setting and be-flattering, and be-praising and be-speaking any man, however vain, must be deluged with, ere his instinctive respect for the female character could be drowned in such a flood of impudence ! However, no doubt the doctor had some cogent reason for not resigning his single blessedness ; he probably preferred being his own master once again, for he had twice taken up the gauntlet, ere most men think themselves old enough or wise enough to marry once in these deferring days. Twice, we repeat, had he taken up the hazardous gauntlet. His first wife — though not his first love, self was that — had been the petted and spoiled child of a weak, vapoury mother, and she gave her hand and fortune to the capti- vating voung Esculapian in a delirium tremens of gratitude for the consummate skill he had displayed in the treatment of a "most obstinate case of disorganization of the nervous system," super- induced on an originally supine character by inordinate self- indulgence, want of healthy exercise, and by trashy reading; which derangement developed itself in vague and almost crazy forebodings of misfortunes and trials that never happened, and in sickly fancies of diseases undiscovered in any pharmacopoeia yet invented. So successfully had "the very clever young man" managed to treat these intangible disorders of his future wife that she could scarcely bear him out of her sight, and at length, to the utmost surprise of her numerous acquaintances, the following SOMETHING ABOUT OETHODOXY. 21 announcement duly initiated them, not only into the fact itself, but also into the lineal and collateral respectability of the family, which is so often dragged in to cover personal want of it : — " Married, on Saturday last, by the very Reverend the Dean of Livingsmore, uncle to the bride, assisted by the Reverend George Henrv Wait, rector of Plurality, cousin of the bride, and bv the Reverend W. W. S. Mist, curate of Plurality, second cousin of the bridegroom, Edward Charles Augustus Grenville, Esq., M.R.C.S., and M.D., to Ellen Sinclaire, only daughter of the late Fitzwilliam Sinclaire, Esq., H. M. Consul of Xagerpoof and Sarah, his wife, niece to Rear- Admiral Macooley, and great great granddaughter to Sir Winslow Winstanley, of Winstay Hall, in the county of Dunnowhere. The interesting bride is the last remaining descendant of the illustrious house of "VYinstanley, col- laterally connected with the Stuarts and Plantagenets." The offspring of this union was a son, who for eight years his weak mother — treading in the macadamised path of children- spoiling "to the third and fourth generation" — managed to indulge to the most frightful extent. " Every living soul was put out jest to humour Master Johnny, if he di'd but set up a-crying ! " as his nurse pathetically declared ; and she moreover " verily believed missus would have the top brick of the chimbley pulled down, if he only put hisself into a passion." And truly poor Betty was not far wide of the truth in her estimate of "missus's" disci- pline. Every domestic arrangement had to yield in passive obedience to the whims and caprices of this infant Nero, "when he took it into his head to set up a-crying," for, with the preco- cious instinct of childhood — and few, especially mothers, consider how precocious that is — he soon discovered where his strength lay, and, like a small Samson, used it accordingly. Among other performances, called "Master Johnny's pranks," he insisted on desecrating the costly dining-room carpet, by feeding on it to the death an unfortunate little beast intended to be considered a dog, which would have passed in its grotesque obesity for a prize guinea-pig at any of our yearly displays of fat-in-misery, for rolls of fat curtained the apertures where eyes ought to have been.^ Mem. — There was no society then for preventing cruelty to animals. When the unfortunate boy was about ten years of age his mother died, and as he had long outgrown his father's authority, or rather as he never had exercised any over him, he was sent to a grammar school as a preparatory step to a higher educational 22 A LIFE -LONG STORY. course, his poor mother having prophesied that this offspring of the "last of the Winstanley's" would make a figure in the world some day. While there he distinguished himself by uncompro- mising tyranny over his hapless juniors, being the most relentless birds'-nester and robber in that small republic ; and by overreach- ing and " doing" the elder boys in a cunning display of adroitness and sharpness while bargaining for the exchange of knives, fishing gear, and other school merchandise, which bade fair promise of realizing the maternal prognostication ; till at length, in an unbridled fit of passion, attempting to strike one of the masters for holding him up in well-deserved execration before the assem- bled forms — having been caught in the act of crucifying a poor frog for his amusement, — he was expelled, covered with disgrace. No teaching powerful enough to efface from the boy's soul the tracing f the weak mother hand ! No discipline of man's invention could counteract the evil lessons learnt at the mother- side ; hence he grew up selfish, dissipated, godless, and at the age of eighteen, much against the wishes of his great uncle the Very Rev. the Dean of Livings, who intended him to "go into the Church," the doctor articled his son to an eminent London firm, in the vain hope that when he had "sown his wild oats" he would become an honourable and useful member of the legal profession. But no ! the man was a continuation of the boy. Alas ! for this sowing tares, and expecting a harvest of wheat. Alas ! for mothers, who with weak hand — ■ " Plant the vilest weeds, and fondly trust To gather rarest fruits." " What more is required to elevate the character of our youth V demanded Napoleon of Madame Campan. " Mothers !" was the all-inclusive response. " When Christian schools were first introduced into India," says a celebrated missionary, " an old chief seized with delight the opportunity of sending the boys of his territory to be instructed, but after fair trial lie did not find the improvement he expected ; he then determined to send all the girls," and in the lapse of years found this "beginning at the right end." About eight months after the loss of his wife, for whom he mourned by rule, regulated by the band on his orthodox hat (miners, wide-awakes, and "shocking bad hats" not being in < >METHE«3 ABOUT ORTHODOXY. 23 xozne then), the wealthy doctor entered a second time into the marriage speculation with a very charming, sensible woman, whom everybody said he loved most sincerely, and therefore it must be true ; but his happiness was of short duration, for at the end of a year she died, leaving him an infant of hours, and a large fortune to compensate his loss. Of this wee creature, who in due time he had baptized by the household name of Mary, he became passionately fond, and though this was natural enough, ill-natured people declared he only doated upon her because she was the "very picture of himself," everybody exclaiming " what a lovely child !" hence her pet name with him was "little Papa ;" and poor "little Papa" bade fair to be as much spoilt in her way as his boy was in his, till once upon a time, when three summers had nearly brightened upon the golden head of the child, dandling her on his knee after dinner as his custom was, he refused to allow her to eat some fruit, tearing it would hurt her, which so much offended the self-will and dignity of "little Papa," that ere the doctor could be aware of her Intention she seized the costly dish on which it lay, and with a flushed cheek dashed it on the ground without even deigning to look towards him, moving across the room, to escape, with the air of a miniature Juno ! This impromptu specimen of the early education of his little demonstrative pronoun, gave the elder papa a gentle hint that he was in imminent danger of having a second — neither revised nor corrected — edition of Master Johnny's voluminous works on crockery demolition and furniture destruction, of which he entertained a most vivid shrinking remembrance, having, greatly to his disgust, broken in upon the smooth current of his love for ease and self-indulgence. He therefore wisely determined to place his daughter entirely under the management of a lady in his own house, upon whose judicious care he could confidently repose ; and who for several years fulfilled her duty in the most exemplary way towards the child, which the latter bountifully repaid. At the age of nine, Mary lost her estimable friend by marriage ; after which event she was' placed at a fashionable establishment in the neighbourhood of London, where, happily, she never forgot the excellent lessons of her early instructress. Here, then, we will leave her awhile, and return to the doctor ; and if we say rather more of him than may be deemed necessary, the why and wherefore will be found in the effects of which his shallow ideas were the cause. 24 A LIFE-LONG STORY. With all his placid, easy-going life at the time he is introduced, the elder papa had some peculiarities that he cluug to, and when roused to action could defend with a pertinacity rarely found in people of his stagnant temperament. If there was one thing on earth he hated more than hard claret and homoeopathy, it was the name of an evangelical or dissenter, for he considered them synonymous ; and in the same proportion he idolized the " good dd times and sound orthodoxy." In the matter of the "healiug art" may be he entertained some grave doubts as to the wisdom of the ancient practice, when, duly presuming on a diploma " licensed to kill," he would bleed unfor- tunate patients to death's door at the very moment when the "blood, which is the life thereof," was most needed; when, if they were weak, he drugged them weaker ; if requiring nourish- ment he kept them on " slops ;" if, in short, that depopulating system which modern science and skill have so nearly exploded — patients driven "express" from "irritation to inflammation, and from inflammation to mortification." But medgre his doubts, and the entire banishment of the fatal lancet on all occasions by the " quack system," as he sneeringly called the common sense one, he hated and abused it just as virulently, because it savoured of" pro- gression" and "new-fangled notions" —two of his especial bugbears. Of his sound orthodoxy he had no misgiving whatever, the practical part of which consisted in going to church every Sunday morning, driving in the afternoon, sleeping complacently after his seven o'clock dinner, "taking the sacrament" with mechani- cal regularity four times a year, and subscribing one guinea annually towards the charities of the said church, which included repairs and cleaning. These were the bounds of his orthodox horizon, the sacrifices with which he was well pleased, the " deeds" entitling him to an "inheritance incorruptible ;" and he no more doubted their flawlessness than the old man doubted his claim to heaven, who on being inquired of by his pastor as to the safety of his anchorage, replied, "why, sir,haven't I always stuck to my church, and voted for the Blues !" True it is that now and then, overruled by the love he bore his daughter, he would wander out of the limits of this circle by consenting to accompany her to the evening service, where her favourite curate, the Rev. Stuart Chant- well preached. Yet, as he "considered the sermon of very little consequence" — and no wonder when such word-shops had superseded the old trumpet preachers whom God enthroned and SOMXTHTXG ABOUT ORTHODOXY. 'Id honoured— it would be no easy matter to decide whether he con- sidered he had paid his child* or his church the greatest compli- ment by going there. One thing is certain, the demure-looking curate could arrogate not the minutest fraction of the amiable concession to himself, for the doctor invariably— and we blush to record the fact that he was imitated by dozens in this practice — settled himself into a dozing attitude,' after he had nodded oyer the text which his daughter dutifully presented to him, but which he never read, his looks implying " I do not doubt it.'' Then as to his theoretical orthodoxy, or rather his stern hatred of any and everything that did not dovetail with his contracted religious views. ' He hated, with pious fervour, the name of an evangelical, a prayer-meeting, or a city missionary ; thought preaching in the open air ought to be put 'down with the same iron hand as chartism and poaching ; viewed every attempt to ameliorate the bodily and spiritual miseries of the poor as " fanatical " and " Quixotic," generally winding up the playful ar- gument into the meshes of which his daughter entangled him, with the ready clencher, " there was none of this nonsense when I was a bov, and we got on well enough '. I can't think, ior my part, what good all this praying, and preaching, and education is to come to, unless to make Vne~poor think themselves wiser and better men than their superiors:" with which finale he usually concluded the svnopsis of his brilliant theory, showing as much satisfaction as if he had solved the greatest moral problem now puzzling profound thinkers, or had liberated the mental Laocoon from its struggles in the coils of the monster Python prejudice. ^ It was whispered among the doctor's friends of the^" fast' school that a long time ^elapsed before he could sufficiently etherialize the murkv atmosphere of his pericranium to enable him to see " what good it would do, all this steam and nonsense ruining the countrv," and thereby nerve himself to trust his pre- cious personal res'ponsibility in a railway carriage. That it was years after the introduction'of luciiers before he would either use "or allow them to displace the time-honoured flint and steel in his household ; thev even went so far as to declare that when the pro- babilitv of balloon travelling was mooted in his presence he turned pale and absolutely declared that all these discoveries m which homceopathv and electricity figured conspicuously " were signs that the world was coming 'to an end," and that nothing should ever induce him to countenance in any way such a catas- 26 A LIFE-LON*; STORY. trophe. But, however apocryphal these stories may be, he confessed, and gloried in the confession, that he had " never taken the Times into his hands since the day it advocated the repeal of the corn laws" — his Magna Charta of agriculture — a change he looked upon in the light of a second deluge, or a liberal government, both and all equally destructive of social order and respectability. "Ah!" exclaims the reader, "evidently the °;ood doctor had not gone with the times." Just so ; and while he would have shrunk from the ridicule he would have encountered, had he made his appearance in public apparelled in the fashion of the last century, he seemed in enviable ignorance that the furniture of his brain was of the most obsolete antiquated description, deluding himself into the belief that — " He had forgotten more than most men ever knew." Poor self-satisfied man ! Little did he dream that that very brain of his might have foreshadowed the charity child's definition of chaos, to wit : — Government Inspector : "Little girl, what is chaos 1 " Little Girl (with a profound curtsy) : " A large lump of nothin'. and no whar to put it, please sir!" THE OmnODOXY OF EDUCATION. 27 CHAPTER IV. Zk (Orthoiovn of Ountion. " Round her she made an atmosphere of life ; The very air seemed brighter for her eyes, They were' so soft, so beautiful, so rife With all we can imagine of the skies." The Beautiful ever seems to claim our ready affection, and never more than when it comes in the outline of the wondrous human form ; vet when we say Mary was beautiful ! how shall we em- body that heart-stirring word? How meet the taste of our fair reader, when "every eye makes its own beauty,*' and that unde- finable sensation and appreciation of it will wander over the entire region of one mind, and leave another unthrilled ? However, as we are not attempting an essay, but simply writing a story, let us proceed, ever remembering that "the high standard of the' beautiful is set in reasons forum." Thus, with regard to grown-up ;i little Papa," probably it was not the dreamy softness of her dark hazel eye, curtained by its deeply -fringed lid, the polished loftiness of her brow, the delicacy of her slightly-aquiline nose, the rich crimson of her well-cut lip, or the clearness of her somewhat pale complexion, — for possibly no feature, singly, would have borne the rigid test and ,; cant of criticism ;" still when the eye rested on her, the heart went with it ; and, whether attired in light evening costume, displaying the rounded grace of her elegant figure, or, in simple morning robe, the gazer felt she produced all the effect of beauty — that involuntary and indescri- bable heart-homage one renders to it, without consulting critic or connoisseur : and it fell as naturally from the lip, " how beautiful she is ! M as to exclaim -what a lovely morning!'' in the bright Spring-time, when the heart exuberates, full of rapturous lifeT Then, too, Mary had a pleasant aptness in always doing 28 A LIFE-LONG STORY. the best thing at the best time, and saving the proper thing in the proper place ; with an intuitive ease she fascinated at first, and won afterwards by the gentle sweetness and consideration for the feelings or peculiarities of others she invariably evinced. Some people would have called her irresistible way of going straight to the heart, tact ; and what society would do without that vade mecum of words, is an inquiry not unworthy the columns of Xotes and Queries, so all-expressive, so comprehensive is it. And yet, applied to this fair girl, it was not the term ; there was so much reality about her, such transparent singleness and sim- plicity of purpose permeating her character, that however outre the idea may be, tact, applied to her, would not have been the right term in the right place. And yet, with all this single- heartedness there was also a depth and earnestness of nature rendering the idea paramount in her mind almost an absolutism for the time, which promised success in whatever she undertook, and challenged confidence in her mental strength ; thus, if to these many -varied and brilliant advantages we superadd the fact that she was considered rich, will it be surprising that she had numerous offers and numberless friends ? — not a few of the latter being among the poor, the aged, and the miserable, who ever found in "that sweet young lady. Miss Grenville," a kind and sym- pathising friend. Hours of loneliness did she beguile in listening to the oft-told tales of their griefs and wrongs ; and no trifling por- tion of her liberal allowance of pocket-money found its way into their huts in charity's ever-unmistakeable shape — the necessaries of life. ^ It might have been from hearing the subject frequently discussed at her father's dinner-parties, of the " strange goings on among the saints in the town," the force of her school educa- tion, or, still more probably, from hereditary prejudices which will inhere, generation after generation, that Mary entertained some notions amounting almost to that relic of the fire and stake- bigotry ; and yet it is too harsh a term to apply to one so large, so loving- hearted. Perhaps it will be nearer the truth to sav, that unlike her respected father, who believed salvation was only to be found in "his church," and who w^ould have refused it from any other, she had a confused, intangible sort of idea that the best kind of salvation was treasured up there, and accordingly, looked upon the teaching of any other section as extremely low and vulgar, fit only for the fanatic and ismorant of the lowest THE ORTHODOXY OF EDUCATION. 29 orders. Still she loved kindness and consistency wherever and in whomsoever she met with it, and whether the recipient of her ever-upwelling charity and sympathy attended church or chapel, it was of no consequence to her. — enough that they were poor and sorrowful. True, her impulsiveness often brought regret on discovering the frequent impositions on her bounty by artful recipients, and often did she yearn for a mother's tender guidance and counsel : vet in this very impulsiveness there was a beauty — an unconventional gracefulness recalling to the beholder the untram- melled luxuriance and elegant freedom of the wild-briar or honey- suckle, in the tangled haunts and careless rambles of roving youth. There were moments, too, when a feeling of sad:, ss, inseparable companion of deep hearts, crept over her. awaken- ing vague, dim longings for a higher existence ; and though by the moiiy, this innermost soul-yearning would have been " pooh-poohed !" as "folly!" "ridiculous!" " nonsense '." with which one so gifted and favoured had nought to do, to the few it awoke a kindred echo. Whence cometh this plaintive sadness wandering tibi the depths of feeling ? — why this strata of melancholy under- lying the heart's surface, even though the outer life be tremulous with creature bliss ! Surelv it is a spirit whisper, reminding the soul of its pilgrim state, when, like a young eaglet, with eye fixed on the sun, it yet quivers on newly-fledged wing nearer earth than heaven ! — that whisper to which the heart listens, hushed and solemn, as it interprets, " this is not my rest.'' Ah ! earth has no resting place for the immortal soul ! What if M we take the wings of morning, and fly to the uttermost parts of the sea," or mount up 'mid the glory of the impassive stars; what if we drink deep at the springs whence knowledge bubbles and bursts forth in bewildering streams, or deck the brow with roses, and glide down the untroubled tide of pleasure ; even as day-light die3 on the hill top, so one by one shall our joys depart, and the crv of the unsatisfied soul will be "this is not my rest."' The first grief that cast its gloom over Mary's lifepath, was the early death of one of the sweetest beings that ever ti sin-stained earth. Tenderlv attached to her sweet friend 30 A LIFE-LONG STOKY. scarcely left her side, even after the ransomed spirit had gone its glory- way, and long wa3 it ere her voice lost its tremor, or her eye again flashed out its old glad look. For a season this event awoke strange thoughts and fears — dim foreshadowings of the untried future ; as the young life of her friend ebbed away on her bosom, murmuring the name of Jesus, a solemn, unearthly feeling pervaded her entire being, as if that murmur came from within the veiJ, and some subtle filament, mysteriously connecting her with the spirit-world was drawing her resistlessly away from the things and ties of time. Along, death-like faint followed the "golden sunset" of her darling friend, and though (like the confused imagery of a broken dream) nothing tangible rested on her memory, save that the loved was gone. '' Gone ! oh ! so far. eye may not track her thither, Nor strong wings follow, where her flight may be." Many suns arose and set, ere the lonesome girl " smiled as she was wont to smile," or opened her sealed heart to enshrine another in its sacred depths. Dear reader, bear with us ! It is one thing to sentimentalize over the vanitv and brevitv of life after reviewing Ions: series of *- y CD CD causes and effects, tracing events from their origin to their close ; comparing means with ends ; discovering the weakness of man's mightiest schemes ; detecting the mirage bv which they are deluded, and thence deducing the stern fact that neither boundless wealth nor despotic power can confer happiness. But it is another thing to stand mute with anguish by the death-bed, and watch the dreaded film gather over the sinking eye that ever wore love's light for us : to watch the midnight shadow darken the brow and lip whose smile was more precious than "much fine gold ;" to hear the voice grow faint, and fainter still, as the spirit passes from time's receding shores, whose music was sweeter far than iEolian murmurs ; to hang over the quivering breath, dreading yet praying that the strife may cease ; then to know the breast whereon we laid our head in joy and sorrow is cold, — cold, that never was chill to us before, oh ! it is indeed another thins:! Xo philosophy teaches like a death-bed : no act so solemn as the act to die. We look on the ruins of life and beauty left us by the great Destroyer ; Death seems to have the victory, and the heart is wrecked, when over its troubled billows waft the THE ORTHODOXY OF EDUCATION. 31 Saviour's blessed accents, " weep not ! thy darling is not dead, but sleepeth." u That cheek shall wear a fairer hue, When risen from the yielding sod ; Those eyes shall speak more soft, more true, Love, in the paradise of God." To her father Mary was dutiful and affectionate, attending with cheerful alacrity to his lightest wish, and ever submitting to his sometimes arbitrary requirements with a yielding obedience which left him in full-blown enjoyment of that self-love and ease he so highlv valued ; and though there was little or no sympathy between them on any subject, this never troubled him. He allowed her the free use of his purse, as much from a sense of well placed confidence, as from his dislike to be consulted or worried f which were both one to him) on any subject he could possibly evade. To Mary this utter want of oneness of feeling between them was a source of deep regret, and often when sio-hing for a kindred sympathy to enter into her plans and views, and to share her anxieties — anxieties she felt less tor her- self than for others — the cold indifferentism of his tone, or the good-humoured but heartless banter fell on her ardent spiiit like a wind that freezes the mountain spring, and she sought re- fuge in those impassioned inner yearnings before alluded to. It was easy to read on her earnest face, with its varying light and shade, that the depth and tone of her feelings, the warmth and amplitude of her heart, and the strength and poetry of her intellect needed but the love-guiding hand and true heart to develope a character of no ordinary usefulness, in a sphere where her influ- ence would be hallowed by the holy principles of the Great Teacher. The education she had imbibed at Mrs. Gregory's was of the highest calibre for maturing mind and body power, the former being expanded, as if by g