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 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2010 with funding from 
 Duke University Libraries 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/fiveyearsofyouthOOmart 
 
J'ape 2 
 
 Icmhn, PnhUsheil iv JIarvej i.-Pitrfoji . 1S31. 
 
FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH; 
 
 OR, 
 
 SENSE AND SENTIMENT. 
 
 BY HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 PRINTED FOR HARVEY AND DARTON, 
 
 GRACECHURCH STREET. 
 
 1831. 
 
I-RI.NTliD BY JOSEPH RICKEKBY, 
 SHI.RBOURN LANE. 
 
2^ CQi 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 It is undoubtedly true, that, as a general 
 rule, tales which are intended for the use 
 of young persons, should contain dehnea- 
 tions of character as formed by ordinary 
 influences, and a picture of circumstances 
 which are not uncommon. It is desira- 
 l^le, however, occasionally to represent 
 the developement of virtues of every-day 
 use, (and therefore of the highest value,) 
 by peculiar influences, as well as the ex- 
 traordinary beauties of character which 
 may be piade to grow out of the common 
 experience of life ; since there are always 
 some who are remarkably placed, and, 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 alas ! very many who appear to suppose 
 that, in common circumstances, they may 
 be content with a common character. It 
 is possible that, in reading books like the 
 following^, not only motherless daughters 
 may be interested by a narrative which 
 comes home to their feelings; but that 
 some who have mothers may be roused to 
 such reflection, to such comparison of 
 their own situation and character with 
 those of others, as may be of no little 
 benefit to their affections. Such, at least, 
 is the effect of the comparison in actual 
 life, of which it is the highest ambition 
 of this little work to be a faithful tran- 
 script. 
 
 Norwich. 1S30. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The Sisters at Home 
 
 Page 
 1 
 
 CHAPTER n. 
 
 
 Preparation .... 
 
 . 22 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 
 Arrivals , . . . 
 
 41 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 
 Pleasure OR Pain ? 
 
 . 57 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Friendship not always Bliss . . .80 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 Departures .... 108 
 
VIU CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Page 
 
 London ...... 131 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 Profitable Pleasure .... 155 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The Convent ..... 176 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Sensibility without Sense . . . 204 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 A NEW Abode ..... 217 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Sense with Sensibility . . . 252 
 
FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ®]^c .listers at ?^omc. 
 
 Near the small town of A , distant 
 
 thirty miles from London, stood a farm-house, 
 surrounded by a few acres of well-cultivated 
 ground. There was a green before the door; 
 and in the midst of the green stood an old elm, 
 and under the elm was a pump. There was a 
 sort of basin under the pump, and there were 
 gathered together the goslings as soon as hatch- 
 ed, leaving the large pond in the farm-yard for 
 the use of the ducks and ducklings, and the 
 larger birds of their own race. There were hen- 
 coops placed on the grass, which were furnished 
 
2 FHE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 with an abundant population; and there was a 
 constant fluttering of wings about the pigeon- 
 house, where the old ones of the flock would 
 perch at one of the entrance holes, and glance 
 up and down and around, perching their heads, 
 and making their beautiful necks glitter in the 
 sunshine with twenty different colours. At a 
 little distance was a rookery, a scene of incessant 
 activity, as the eyes and ears of all who were 
 within hearing could testify. The farmer''s chil- 
 dren were generally in the farm-yard, seeing the 
 cows milked, or playing duck-and-drake on the 
 pond; and the boys followed the team with their 
 father, or went into the field with old Robin, 
 the hedger and ditcher, trying to help him with 
 their little spades and wheelbarrow; while the 
 girls fed the chickens, or stole into the dairy be- 
 hind their mother. 
 
 It sometimes happened, that two little girls, 
 who were evidently not of Farmer Rickham's 
 family, were seen playing with the children on 
 the green. From their dress alone, no one 
 would have supposed them to be young ladies; 
 but their manners and conversation proved them 
 
THE SISTERS AT HOME. 3 
 
 to be, in some respects, well educated. All 
 strangers who saw them looked again, wondering 
 who could have the care of them, and what sort 
 of management they had been subjected to. 
 Their frocks, made sometimes of silk, and some- 
 times of calico, as it might happen, were gene- 
 rally torn, and always dirty; their shoes were 
 all, from the sky-blue kid to the coarse black 
 leather, down at the heel, so as to display a 
 large round hole in the stocking. If Mary had 
 a silk bonnet, and Anna a straw, the one was 
 used as a cradle for the kitten, and the other as 
 a basket to hold strawberries. Of course, all 
 this inspired a stranger with disgust; but if oc- 
 casion led him to speak to either sister, he was 
 favourably impressed by the modesty of man- 
 ner, and simplicity of speech, by which they 
 were distinguished from many young persons 
 more fortunate in their external appearance. 
 They were the only children of Mr. Byerley, 
 
 who lived at A . 
 
 One fine May morning they went, as they 
 often did, to see Nurse Rickham, as they called 
 the farmer's wife. While Mary was looking for 
 
 b2 
 
FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 eggs among the nettles, Anna amused lierself 
 with helping nurse to get dinner ready. When 
 she came up from the potatoe hole with her apron 
 full of potatoes, (for nurse had insisted on tying 
 on an apron,) she stood in the middle of the 
 kitchen for a minute or two, looking closely at 
 Mrs. Rickham's gown. Mrs. Rickham turned 
 round surprised. 
 
 " I never saw you in this gown before, nurse," 
 said Anna. 
 
 " 'Tis a very old gown. Miss Anna; Fve worn 
 it this many a year." And nurse coloured, and 
 looked uncomfortable. 
 
 " I have seen it before, I am sure, nurse; 
 though not on you ; and yet I thought it had 
 been blue. I don't remember mamma in any 
 thing green. Was it not mamma''s.P" 
 
 " My dear, it was. But who could have 
 thought of your remembering that, so many 
 years as it was ago? I have always kept it out 
 of your sister's sight, because she, being older," 
 might perhaps remember it; but to-day you 
 took me by surprise with it on, and I persuaded 
 myself there was no need to change it." 
 
THE SISTERS AT HOME. 5 
 
 "No need at all, nurse ; but I should just 
 like to see if Mary would know it again." 
 
 When Mary was called in, she did not remem- 
 ber having ever seen the gown before. 
 
 " Well, how odd that is !"" said Mrs. Rick- 
 ham, " that Miss Anna should remember better 
 than you do, when she was only three years old 
 when my mistress died, and you were five."" 
 
 " Oh ! but I remember many things that 
 Anna cannot," said Mary: "I remember my 
 coming to stay here when papa and mamma went 
 to London. How long ago is that, nurse.''"''' 
 
 " Let me see: my mistress died seven years 
 ago, and she went to London every year for 
 three years before she died, and it was the first 
 visit when you came to me, the year Miss Anna 
 was born. My dear, you can't possibly remem- 
 ber so long ago as ten years, when you could 
 only just go alone." 
 
 " Oh! but I do," said Mary; " and it is just 
 the trying to run about the green by myself that 
 I remember. You had a wooden step at the 
 door then; and I used to take fast hold of the 
 door-post, and put down first one foot and then 
 
6 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 the Other; and when I could not reach the 
 ground, I sat down on the step and slid, so that 
 I fell softly on my hands and knees." 
 
 " Bless the child !" cried the nurse; "'tis all 
 true; hut what can make you remember it.^" 
 
 " Ah ! that I don't know ; but I can tell you 
 of some other things. Do you remember whe- 
 ther I cried the first night you put me to bed? ' 
 
 " Yes, Miss, you did; for I said to my hus- 
 band, that you had got into a bad habit with 
 your new maid, of crying when you went to bed. 
 However, it was only for that night, I think."' 
 
 " It was because the bed creaked, and fright- 
 ened me ; and the feel of the coarse sheets was 
 not like what I had been accustomed to. And 
 chat old elm too, how its rough bark hurt my 
 little hands when I used to try to get round it. ' 
 
 " Well, I will never say again tliat children 
 can't remember back to two years old," said 
 nurse. 
 
 " I think 1 could not have been older than 
 that when I cut off the fingers of Miss Oliver's 
 gloves," said Anna. " Do you remember that, 
 Mary.f*" 
 
THE SISTERS AT HOME. / 
 
 Mary laughed heartily at the recollection. 
 
 " What a little rogue you looked, Anna, peep- 
 ing from under the table between the folds of the 
 cloth ; while Miss Oliver was so busy talking to 
 mamma about the patterns, and unrolling and 
 drawing on her gloves in an absent fit ! And 
 poor mamma tried to look grave, and could not, 
 when the fingers' ends came through." 
 
 " Miss Anna was always the child for fun," 
 said nurse. 
 
 " There was as much fright as fun in that 
 joke, however," said Anna. " When I had 
 done my cutting, I could not roll up the gloves 
 again for a long time; and I felt so sure of 
 being punished, that I heartily wished the finger 
 tips on again. I shall never forget how glad I 
 was to see mamma laugh." 
 
 Mrs. Rickham turned away and sighed, and 
 Mary and Anna looked at one another with sad- 
 ness in their faces. 
 
 " I know, nurse," said Mary, " that you do 
 not like to hear us talk in this way about mam- 
 ma. But only consider how very little we re- 
 member of her, and how trifling that little is. 
 
8 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 We only talk about it because we would not 
 forget even this much." 
 
 " It is all very natural, my dears; but when 
 I think about her, as I do every day, and when 
 I see how like her you are, Miss Anna especially, 
 I can't help grieving when I think how much 
 more chance there would be of your growing up 
 to be like her, if you could remember for your- 
 selves what she was." 
 
 Here nurse Rickham stood and looked at the 
 young ladies from head to foot, and began to 
 smooth down their rough hair with her hand. 
 They knew well enough what would come next 
 to be anxious to make their escape; so, to avoid 
 a lecture on tidiness, one ran to help little Tommy 
 to pump, and the other to gather some flowers 
 for papa. 
 
 Mary had not finished gathering her flowers 
 when the farmer came in to dinner ; and when 
 Tommy was called away from the pump to eat 
 his dumpling, Anna thought it time to set about 
 the recovery of her bonnet, which hung, out of 
 reach, from the branches of the elm. When 
 she had used stick, rake, and pole to no pur- 
 
THE SISTERS AT HOME. 9 
 
 pose, she climbed the tree far enough to be able 
 to shake the bough on which the bonnet hung, 
 and from which it presently fell into the pool. 
 In her haste down to snatch it out of the water 
 before it shovild be wet through, she tore her 
 frock-skirt almost from top to bottom. 
 
 " Mary! Mary!" cried she, running to the 
 garden, with her dripping hat in one hand, and 
 the terrible rent gathered up in the other, " can 
 you give me some pins to make my frock tidy 
 till we get home.''" 
 
 " Tidy !" said Mary, laughing: " nurse will 
 think it an odd sort of tidiness; bvit let us see 
 what we can do." 
 
 " Please to wipe my bonnet then, while I pin 
 up this great hole, and then let us go home 
 directly." 
 
 When they went to bid nurse good bye, she 
 begged them to wait a few minutes, if they could, 
 as she wished to walk to the town with them as 
 soon as her husband should have dined. This 
 delay gave Anna an opportunity of hanging up 
 her bonnet and handkerchief to dry in the sun ; 
 so she stuck them on a bush, and amused her- 
 
 B 5 
 
10 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 self with watching the bees till nurse was 
 ready. 
 
 It appeared that her errand was to their fa- 
 ther's house, and her business with the young 
 ladies' maid, whom she blamed for allowing them 
 to appear as they had come to the farm that 
 morning. Every body in Mr. Byerley's house 
 knew that Nurse Rickham was privileged to say 
 and do what she pleased when the young ladies 
 were in question, and that she was as capable 
 as any body about them of deciding what it was 
 proper for them to be, and to do, and to wear. 
 The maid therefore only justified herself by say- 
 ing, that the young ladies were more trouble- 
 some about their things than any children she 
 ever had to wait upon, pleasant and good as they 
 were in other matters; and that she thought 
 they were really too old to need to have a ser- 
 vant to tell them always what to put on; though, 
 to be sure, it made a great difference their hav- 
 ing no mother to teach them such things. No- 
 body knew, she said, how anxious she was to 
 do what was proper for them; and as a proof, 
 she would beg Mrs. Rickham 's opinion about 
 
THE SISTERS AT HOME. 11 
 
 some purchases she was going to make for 
 them. 
 
 It always grieved Mrs. Rickham that Mr. 
 Byerley should have resisted the advice of all 
 his friends in so important a point as the domes- 
 tic education of his children. He was known to 
 have so strong a prejudice against schools, that 
 no one thought of persuading him to place his 
 daughters in one. Besides, his health was in- 
 firm, and his spirits variable, so that it would 
 have been too hard upon him to have relinquished 
 the society which alone could make his home 
 cheerful to him. It appeared to all sensible 
 people, that the best plan would have been to 
 have invited some respectable elderly lady to 
 take up her abode with his daughters, and sup- 
 ply, as far as might be, that guidance which the 
 best of fathers cannot afford. To this plan, how- 
 ever, as often as proposed, he refused to listen, 
 declaring his determination to educate his daugh- 
 ters himself, independently of all assistance but 
 that of masters for accomplishments. 
 
 For such a task he was well qualified by high 
 principle and extensive information, and by his 
 full appreciation of what is valuable and beauti- 
 
12 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 ful in female character; bvit he had some eccen- 
 tricities which were likely to impair the effects 
 of his most earnest and judicious endeavours. 
 He was also much engaged in public life, and 
 had therefore less command of his time than was 
 desirable on account of his children, who were 
 allowed to dispose of their leisure more freely in 
 his absence than was at all consistent with those 
 habits of regular industry, which, at their ages, 
 (ten and twelve,) ought to have been formed and 
 confirmed. A great deal was accomplished by 
 means of the close application to which they were 
 accustomed while pursuing their studies in his 
 presence ; but much valuable time was wasted 
 by bad management in his absence. 
 
 Dinner waited long this day, as was often the 
 case: Mr. Byerley was engaged in his study with 
 a gentleman, whom he was assisting to draw up 
 resolutions for a public meeting. When he en- 
 tered the dining-room, he saw his girls sitting 
 close together, reading out of the same book so 
 intently, that they did not hear him approach. 
 Standing behind them, and looking over their 
 heads, he read aloud, 
 
 " ' No fear lest dinner cool.' 
 
THE SISTERS AT HOME. 13 
 
 Aye, that was a dinner in Eden — a dinner very 
 unlike ours, which is probably cold by this time. 
 Come, come, "'tis very late." 
 
 The girls, who had started and closed the 
 book hastily at the sound of his voice, ran to 
 take their places at the table. 
 
 Mary remarked that her papa had not been 
 out, if she might guess by his gown and slippers 
 being still on, as at breakfast. Anna supposed 
 that it was because he wore his slippers that he 
 had startled them, though they had been watch- 
 ing for him just before. 
 
 " Mary," said Mr. Byerley, " what made 
 you shut your book in such a hurry when I put 
 my head in between you .'''" 
 
 " I hardly know," said Mary; " but I believe 
 I was not quite sure whether you wished us to 
 read Paradise Lost yet." 
 
 " You might have known in a m.oment by 
 asking." 
 
 " Yes; but Mr. Wilkins was with you, and I 
 knew you were busy; and the book was lying 
 open, and we did not mean to read on, only we 
 could not help it." 
 
14 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 " It has done you no harm, I dare say, my 
 dears; and if it had, it would have been my 
 fault for leaving such a book in your way. 
 Would you like to see more of it?" 
 
 " 1 like the little I read, papa; but I do not 
 know how I should like the whole." 
 
 " The whole! I should be sorry to be obliged 
 to read all that," said Anna. " I like the Argu- 
 ments best. Why are they called the Argu- 
 ments, papa.''" 
 
 " Because, by Argument, is properly meant a 
 subject of thought. The Argument of a poem is 
 the subject, the story; and in Paradise Lost. 
 and most long poems, it is given in prose, like a 
 table of contents." 
 
 " I like getting at the story at once, instead 
 of fishing it out from the poetry." 
 
 " If the story is all you care about, you are 
 very right," said her father ; " but the story is 
 the last thing people of taste think about in a 
 tine poem." 
 
 " Then Mary is a person of taste, I suppose; 
 for she was in a great hurry to get to the grave 
 part." 
 
THE SISTERS AT HOME. 15 
 
 " If she likes the grave part, shejmay go to 
 it again," said Mr. Byerley. " She would not 
 like it if she did not understand it; and the more 
 she understands and relishes it, the more likely 
 she is to become a woman of taste. But I have 
 another argument to propose to you both. Did 
 you ever hear me speak of Mrs. Fletcher of 
 Southampton.'*" 
 
 " Yes, papa : you showed us a letter of her's 
 once: you remember it, Anna." 
 
 " About her little girl that died.'* O yes, I 
 remember that letter, and I want to see it again." 
 
 " You shall, my dear; and you will soon see 
 Mrs. Fletcher too. She is coming to stay with 
 us for a few days." 
 
 " Any body with her, papa?" 
 
 " Yes, her husband, of course; and perhaps 
 two of her daughters. They come on Wednes- 
 day; so you must consult Mrs. Rickham how 
 you are to make room for them all, and I am 
 sure you will try to make their visit pleasant." 
 
 Mary and Anna were troubled with no fears 
 on the subject, for they were accustomed to re- 
 ceive their father's friends, and had never been 
 
16 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 conscious of any awkwardness in doing so. If 
 they had now any doubts, it was about the plea- 
 sure they might have in the Miss Fletchers' 
 society ; for they had never had any companions 
 of their own age, or any playmates except the 
 farmer's children. 
 
 When their father called them into his study 
 to repeat the lessons which had been omitted in 
 the morning, Anna stretched herself and yawned, 
 preparatory to collecting her books and exercises. 
 
 " What, Anna ! yawning at the very idea of 
 being employed ! Better wait till you are tired, 
 surely." 
 
 " I can stretch again then, papa. I wonder 
 whether you ever do. I never saw you ; but I 
 suppose you are tired sometimes, like other 
 people." 
 
 " Very tired, my dear ; and never more so 
 than when you are rattling nonsense, instead of 
 opening your books. There is a time for all 
 things." 
 
 It was now Anna's time for looking grave ; and 
 she read her page of Virgil as steadily as if she 
 had been ten years older. Nothing was heard in 
 
THE SISTERS AT HOME. 17 
 
 the Study for the next two hours, but the single 
 voice of the reader, and the scratching pen of 
 the writer. When the last school-book was 
 closed, the girls looked at their father. He 
 pointed to the book-case, where the large Bible 
 was placed ; and while Mary took it down, Anna 
 drew a seat to each side of her father's large 
 study-chair. They read and talked, and read 
 again, till the servant came to say that tea had 
 been ready some time. Anna forgot her inten- 
 tion of yawning again. They never remembered 
 having been weary of reading the Bible with 
 their father ; for he made them understand it 
 clearly, as far as they went : he talked and en- 
 couraged them to talk freely on the thousand 
 subjects which made religion interesting; and his 
 voice was never so soft, or his manner so tender, 
 as at those times. 
 
 After tea, Mary, who saw that her father was 
 troubled with headache, as was often the case, 
 pointed to the field, where the evening shadows 
 were lengthening in the golden light of the set- 
 ting sun, and asked him if a walk would not do 
 him good. He was too tired to go out, he said ; 
 
18 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 but he should like some music, which generally 
 refreshed him more than any thing. So he 
 established himself on the sofa ; and Mary, who 
 played very well, opened her piano, and amused 
 him till it was quite dark. Before he dismissed 
 his children for the night, he called Anna to sit 
 on the low stool beside him. 
 
 " Our days fly away fast, Anna ; do not 
 they .?" 
 
 " Yes, papa; but not so fast as I should like. 
 I want to be older, that I may have more of my 
 own way." 
 
 " You unreasonable child ! People tell me 
 I let you run wild already. What more do you 
 want.''" 
 
 " I want to take journeys, and to leave off" 
 learning some things that are tiresome, and to 
 learn others that must be very entertaining ; and 
 I want to send Farmer Rickham's children to 
 school, and to build an hospital here, and several 
 other things. What a will I would make, if I 
 was a woman !" 
 
 " If you had any thing to leave, I suppose 
 you mean," said her father, laughing. " But, 
 
THE SISTERS AT HOME. 19 
 
 seriously, my dear, don't you think it as well 
 that people should be taught to do no harm be- 
 fore they form grand schemes for doing good ; 
 and that they should learn to do good in a 
 small way, before they form plans too large for 
 them to manage?" 
 
 " Like Sally Benson and her bird."" 
 
 " What was that ?" 
 
 " She thought she should like to help her 
 brother's birds in building their nests ; (you 
 know he has three pairs, in a very large cage;) 
 so she got them some moss that she thought 
 better than what he had provided, and she went 
 a great distance to get it ; and she was a long 
 time searching for a plant that she was told they 
 would like to eat ; and she watched and watched 
 them, and was very busy trying to make them 
 build. But O, papa!" 
 
 " Well, what happened ?" 
 
 " Why, she frightened them so with putting 
 her fingers between the wires, that they would not 
 make their nests properly ; and she had got the 
 wrong plant after all, and one of them died from 
 eating it. And what was far worse, she forgot. 
 
20 FIVE YEAKS OF YOUTH. 
 
 all the time, to feed her own canary ; and she 
 found it dead at the bottom of the cage one 
 day." 
 
 " Aye, that is the way with young minds till 
 they get experience ; and I am afraid it would 
 be the way with you, if you had more of your 
 own will, as you say." 
 
 " Why, papa, what harm do you think I 
 should do r 
 
 " Consider whether you do none already. 
 Have you done nothing on this one day that 
 can be hurtful to anybody ? You need not tell 
 me, if you find you have ; but satisfy yourself — 
 that's all.'' 
 
 " I will tell you, however, papa. I ran away 
 when nurse was going to say something I did 
 not wish to hear. I saw she looked vexed, and 
 I am afraid little Kitty saw it too ; and perhaps 
 I have put it into her head to do the same.*" 
 
 " You must put a better behaviour into her 
 head as soon as you can, then. Now try and 
 recollect if you have done any good to-day." 
 
 Anna thought some time, and looked sad when 
 she owned she could recollect nothing. 
 
THE SISTERS AT HOME. 21 
 
 " I am afraid you are hardly fit for building an 
 hospital yet, Anna," said Mr. Byerley. " How- 
 ever, to comfort you, I can assure you that you 
 have done me some good to-day." 
 
 " You mean, by making you forget your head- 
 ache. But that was accident, so it does not suit 
 what we were talking about ; but I will try to 
 make it better another time, for fear you should 
 be the first person to go into my hospital, when 
 I build it." 
 
 Mr. Byerley smiled as he kissed her and sent 
 her to bed. 
 
22 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 preparation. 
 
 The next morning, Mr. Byerley, who was a 
 bad sleeper, was wakened very early by the 
 murmur of voices from the next room, which 
 was occupied by his daughters. Though the 
 partition between the chambers was very slight, 
 lie was not usually disturbed by noise ; for the 
 girls were asleep before he retired to rest, and 
 he arose as early as they in the morning. Now, 
 however, he heard the never-ceasing sound of 
 low tones from four o'clock till six; but not 
 a single word could he distinguish of all that 
 was said. The girls could not be learning les- 
 sons, for it was Sunday morning ; and, as he 
 heard no tread, he thought they could not have 
 left their beds. They were evidently stirring. 
 
PREPARATION. 23 
 
 however, as soon as he had rung his bell ; and 
 from behind his blind he saw them afterwards in 
 the garden, not running or gathering flowers, as 
 usual, but in earnest consultation. They stood 
 before a certain balcony, looking at it from all 
 sides, and presently from all distances ; for Mary 
 would have walked backwards into the fish-pond, 
 if her sister had not caught hold of her. Then, 
 with each a bough, they attempted to disperse 
 the chickweed which had overspread the pond ; 
 and then they repaired to the arbour where the 
 honeysuckle trailed on the ground, and a film of 
 gossamer overspread the entrance. When they 
 met their father at breakfast, they looked heated 
 and exhausted. He told them there was no oc- 
 casion to toil so hard, as he should give direction 
 to John, the gardener, to put the garden and 
 court in good order before the arrival of their 
 expected guests. Part of their weighty business 
 was taken off the girls' hands, but apparently no 
 great deal ; for they were found, more than once 
 that day, in the little parlour which opened upon 
 the balcony, as eager in consultation as they 
 had been before breakfast. This parlour was so 
 
24 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 small that it might almost have been called a 
 closet ; but the balcony was larger than the 
 room, and communicated so easily with it, by 
 means of a French window, that the deficiency 
 of size was a small objection. The parlour would 
 just contain Mr. Byerley, his daughters, and a 
 tea-table ; and when they had guests with them, 
 the balcony held the visitors and their host, and 
 the green parlour the young tea-maker and her 
 apparatus. It was a favourite place, the view 
 from it being particularly pretty, and its retire- 
 ment complete. The simple ornaments of the 
 dwelling were all collected there; Mary's harp- 
 lute, Anna's flower-stands, and the precious pic- 
 ture of their mother. The room was so dark- 
 ened by the colour of its furniture, by the roof 
 of the balcony, and the creepers which hung 
 thickly about it, that the picture conveyed no 
 very distinct impression to strangers. Mr. Byer- 
 ley, however, liked it better in this obscurity than 
 in a fuller light : the girls had long been too fa- 
 miliar with its features not to feel as if they had 
 been equally fiimiliar with the original. 
 
 While thev were drinking tea in this place 
 
PBEPARATION. 25 
 
 on the Sunday evening of which I speak, Mr. 
 Byerley told the girls that he was going, in the 
 morning, to London, to attend a public meeting, 
 and that he should not return till the Tuesday 
 night, or perhaps the Wednesday morning ; but 
 that he would take care to be at home when 
 their guests arrived. Mary asked what should 
 be done for their entertainment ; for she thought 
 the house must be very dull to strangers. Her 
 father thought not, as their friends came to see 
 and talk with friends, and not to see sights and 
 be entertained as they might be in the house of 
 any stranger. Mary knew her father's dislike of 
 bustle, and of any interruption of his daily plans 
 which was not caused by public business ; but 
 she felt quite sure that Mr. and Mrs. Fletcher and 
 their daughters would enjoy seeing more of the 
 pretty country near, than could be brought within 
 the limits of a walk ; and she therefore pressed 
 the point. " You shall have no trouble, papa, 
 but just to get on your horse and go with us." 
 
 " Where, my dear ? I will go to the world's 
 end if you show me that it will do any good; but 
 you know I dislike frolicking." 
 
 c 
 
26 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 " It will do a great deal of good to make Mrs. 
 Fletcher admire Audley bridge and the castle; 
 and you need not call it frolicking, but only a 
 morning's ride." 
 
 " A morning's ride stretched out till near mid- 
 night ! Think of the distance, my dear." 
 
 " Suppose it should be past midnight,''' said 
 Anna; " it would still be a morning's ride." 
 
 " We will be home as early as you please, 
 papa, if we can but set out early enough ; and 
 we have planned it all so completely ." 
 
 " Well, well ; don't talk to me any more 
 about it, but settle it all your own way. I have 
 no time for such nonsense." So saying, Mr. 
 Byerley took out of his pocket his list of resolu- 
 tions for the public meeting, and began to read 
 very attentively. He soon seemed sorry, how- 
 ever, for his hastiness; for he folded up his pa- 
 per, drew his girls to him, and put an arm round 
 each of them as they stood. 
 
 " I hope, my dears," said he, " that your 
 heads have not been quite full of these little 
 plans all this day." 
 
 " No, papa, not quite full; not at church- 
 
PKEPARATION. 2'J 
 
 time, nor while Tommy Rickham was saying his 
 lessons ; but yet ." 
 
 " Are you quite sure what you were thinking 
 of when Tommy was reading ?" asked Anna. 
 " Did you make no mistake that you remember?" 
 
 " Mistake ! What mistake ?" 
 
 " When he was reading about little Will's 
 giving all he had to the old beggar, he stopped 
 at the word penny, and you told him it was 
 pony : the little fellow stared, and I dare say he 
 wondered how little Will could toss his pony 
 into the old man's hat." 
 
 " I must have been thinking of the pony you 
 are to ride ; but you should have told me." 
 
 " I set it right with Tommy afterwards ; but 
 I did not want to make Kitty laugh, so I let it 
 pass at the time." 
 
 " Then, papa,"' said Mary, " I am afraid 
 I can't answer for not having had any silly 
 thoughts about this at church." 
 
 "It is always wisest not to answer for any 
 such thing, Mary ; for the wisest and best of us 
 are troubled with vain thoughts at the most so- 
 lemn times, and in the most sacred employments."" 
 
 c 2 
 
28 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 " The very wisest and best, papa ?" said Mary, 
 looking at her mother's picture. 
 
 " Your mother used to say so," said Mr. 
 Byerley, as his eyes followed Mary's and rested 
 on the picture. " If ever there was an example 
 of entire self-command, it was she ; and if ever 
 there was one who fully understood and felt the 
 blessings of this day, it was she : and yet she 
 used to make the same complaint that we have 
 made." 
 
 " I remember," said Mary, in a low voice, 
 " that I thought she looked differently on a 
 Sunday from every other day ; and I felt dif- 
 ferently. The feeling comes over me now, of 
 those bright summer mornings when I used to 
 be taken up earlier than on week-days ; and the 
 washing, and the clean frock and pinafore, and 
 mamma making breakfast, in her neat white 
 gown. And then, after breakfast, she used to 
 take me into the garden, and let me gather a 
 flower for her. I don't know what makes me 
 remember crocusses so particularly ; but I never 
 see a gay crocus-bed without thinking of one of 
 those bright old Sunday mornings." 
 
PREPARATION. 29 
 
 " She loved to make you particularly happy 
 on Sundays, because she thought the feeling of 
 pleasure might last through life, as it did with 
 her. Her parents made her love the Sabbath, 
 and the power of the feeling was once shown very 
 remarkably .'" 
 
 He stopped, but the girls looked at him so 
 earnestly that ^e soon went on. 
 
 " You know, though you cannot remember, 
 that you once had a little brother : nurse often 
 tells you about him, I know, and how he died. 
 Nothing could be more sudden than the acci- 
 dent, and, of course, neither your mother nor 
 any body else could be at all prepared for such 
 a shock ; for a heartier child could not be. It 
 happened on a Friday afternoon, and all that 
 night and the next day the struggle which your 
 mother underwent was fearful. Early on the 
 Sunday morning, she slept for the first time 
 since the accident, and I would not have her 
 wakened when it was broad day. She started 
 up, at last, with the confused feeling of some- 
 thing very dreadful having happened ; but when 
 the tide of grief was just flowing in upon her 
 
30 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 again, the church-bells rang out. She was calm 
 instantly ; and that day did more towards re- 
 storing the tone of her mind, than any previous 
 exertion, though she had striven hard for com- 
 posure. She walked in the garden with me, and 
 sat by this very window, sometimes reading, and 
 sometimes listening to the chimes ; but looking 
 so like herself that I was no longer anxious about 
 her." 
 
 " She was ill then, nurse says." 
 
 " Yes ; her strength had declined very much, 
 and that was the reason why I was so uneasy 
 about her. While she was in health, she was 
 the one to give, not to need, support; and, to the 
 last, the strength of her mind never failed." 
 
 " Nurse told us once what mamma said the 
 day before she died, about us, and about every 
 body who depended on her for any thing." 
 
 " I gave nurse leave to repeat it to you when 
 she thought you could understand and feel it 
 properly; and I am glad she has, because Mrs. 
 Fletcher can tell you much more which you are 
 now prepared to hear. She will tell you how 
 your mother and she used to study together; 
 
PREPARATION. 31 
 
 perhaps she will show you the bible, marked by 
 themselves for their own use." 
 
 " I have often wanted to know," said Mary, 
 " what parts my mother was most fond of, and 
 read the oftenest; but I never asked you, be- 
 cause I thought you would tell me when the 
 right time came." 
 
 " It is the right time now," said her father, 
 kissing them both ; " bring the bible from be- 
 low, and we will read a portion to which she used 
 to turn perpetually when she was in any trouble." 
 
 The next morning, the girls were ready dress- 
 ed to make breakfast early for their father, that 
 he might be in time for the coach to London. 
 But anxious as they were to make him comfort- 
 able on all occasions, they did not understand 
 the way, and knew nothing about the many little 
 niceties on which domestic comfort depends. 
 How should they, when there was nobody but 
 servants to teach them ? They were very quick 
 of observation, and if their father had allowed 
 
32 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 them to visit his friends, and to see what was 
 done in other houses, their wish to learn, and 
 their affection for him, would have enabled them 
 to improve their domestic notions and habits; 
 but Mr. Byerley was, as we have said, sadly 
 prejudiced in some respects; and he would allow 
 of no intercourse between his daughters and any 
 of their neighbours. The neighbours thought 
 it very odd, of course. Mr. Wilkins was wont to 
 shake his head when he told his wife how poor 
 Byerley 's children were being spoiled for life by 
 being so shut up as they were ; and Miss Pratt, 
 their opposite neighbour, was much scandalized 
 at their method of romping with Nurse Rick- 
 ham's children; and the young Grants, who, to 
 the number of eight, were boating, riding, and 
 driving every day and all day long, supposed 
 that the poor Miss Byerley 's were intended to 
 be very learned, as they could read Latin, it was 
 understood, and had been seen, one day when the 
 blind was open, poring over a globe. It did not, 
 of course, signify what such neighbours as these 
 thought of Mr. Byerley 's method of education ; 
 but there were two or three families of a better 
 
PKEPARATION. 33 
 
 class as to sense and merit, with whom the girls 
 might have associated with great advantage to 
 themselves; and the very commonest circum- 
 stances which take place in a tolerably well-regu- 
 lated family would have conveyed much instruc- 
 tion to these motherless children, which could in 
 no other way be supplied. Mrs, Rickham had 
 taught them to sew, and that well ; but about the 
 management of the kitchen and larder she knew 
 little, and next to nothing of the customs of the 
 parlour. Their father often sighed when he con- 
 trasted the appearance and manners of his chil- 
 dren at table, with what they would have been if 
 their mother had lived; and sometimes he sent 
 them to smooth their hair or change their frocks 
 before he would sit down with them; but it was 
 beyond his power to establish regular habits of 
 neatness and method, and he trusted that this 
 would be done by their own observation and care 
 when they should, at length, see something of 
 the world. He found that the servants grew 
 more and more awkward and remiss from the in- 
 ability of the young ladies to direct them steadily 
 and with propriety, as children as young as them- 
 
 c 5 
 
34 FIVE YEARS Of YOUTH. 
 
 selves are able to do when well taught. He was 
 partly to blame himself, for his habits were, in 
 some respects, eccentric. 
 
 On this morning, he called from his chamber- 
 door to desire the servant to run and take his 
 place in the coach. This ought to have been 
 done on the Saturday ; and the maid was obliged 
 to leave the fire, which had been badly lighted, 
 and could not be coaxed into a blaze. Mary saw 
 that the kettle would not boil in time unless she 
 took the bellows, while the cook dusted the par- 
 lour-furniture, and Anna brought up the bread 
 and the eggs and the butter from the larder. 
 When their father came down, he looked dis- 
 pleased to see them so employed, and wondered 
 why, with two servants in the house, breakfast 
 could not be prepared without so much confusion. 
 After all, the kettle would not quite boil, so the 
 tea was not fit to be drunk, nor the egg to be 
 eaten ; and there had been so much delay, that 
 the horn sounded at the end of the street before 
 Mr. Byerley had half finished breakfast. He 
 stuffed his papers into his pockets ; pulled on the 
 boots for which he had waited till the last mo- 
 
PREPARATION. 35 
 
 ment, and \^hich were only half cleaned after all; 
 pushed aside the umbrella which Anna offered 
 him, with " Pshaw, child ! where's the ring ? I 
 can't carry it unfastened in that manner ;" kissed 
 his daughters hastily, and ran off just in time to 
 overtake the coach, which had been driven on in 
 disregard of the maid's protestations that her 
 master was coming. 
 
 When she came back, she sat down to make a 
 comfortable cup of tea for herself and the cook, 
 while the young ladies finished the cool beverage 
 in the parlour. They were not long in doing so ; 
 for they were eager about the schemes which 
 were next to be undertaken. They heard John, 
 the gardener, whetting his scythe ; so they went 
 first to see how the garden could be beautified. 
 When they had ranged the walks with John, 
 shaken their heads over the weedy pond, got 
 their shoes thoroughly wet in the dewy, new- 
 mown grass, and then thoroughly soiled on the 
 flower-beds, they came in again, and mounted to 
 the lumber-garret, leaving in the housemaid's 
 eyes very strong evidence where they had gone. 
 She followed them with dry shoes, and found 
 
36 
 
 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 them trying to bring down, from a high shelf, a 
 looking-glass which was placed with its face to 
 the wall. 
 
 " Stop, Miss Mary," cried the maid ; " you 
 will be down, and the glass after you. Let me 
 reach it, or whatever else you want." 
 
 " We want only the glass, thank you. There, 
 down it comes, safe. But, O dear, what a tar- 
 nished, battered old frame it has !" 
 
 " You can never use that glass, Miss Mary. 
 It cannot have been used these fifty years." 
 
 " Not quite," said Mary ; " for I remember 
 nurse's dandling Anna before it. But I had no 
 idea it was so shabby. Let us take it down and 
 dust it, however : it may look better then."" 
 
 Just as they reached the head of the stairs, 
 the maid holding one end, and the girls the 
 other, the part of the frame which they held 
 gave way, and it was a wonder the glass was not 
 broken. 
 
 " I had like to have fallen down stairs, glass 
 and all," exclaimed the maid. " Here's an end of 
 the matter, young ladies ; so let us put it where 
 we found it." 
 
PREPARATION. dtj 
 
 No : Mary thought it would answer their pur- 
 pose better than ever now ; so she pulled off th 
 rest of the frame, which split with a touch. She 
 desired the maid to rub up the glass, while she 
 and Anna went back into the lumber-room to 
 find some paper, the same as the hangings of the 
 green parlour. This they found ; and when they 
 had called John in to nail up the glass in the 
 little room, opposite the balcony, and sufficiently 
 low to reflect the landscape beyond, and sent 
 down into the kitchen for some paste, they began 
 to cut out the trailing pattern of the paper, and 
 so fixed it on the edge of the glass as to make a 
 very pretty border, and one more corresponding 
 with the rest of the furniture than a gilt frame 
 would have been. Even the maid admired what 
 she thought, at first, a mere fancy ; and the girls 
 saw their own faces oftener that day than on any 
 preceding day of their lives. Mary thought that 
 one ornament more was wanted to make all com- 
 plete : she asked Anna if a white cast of some 
 sort — a vase or ^, bust — would not look very 
 well in the corner where the harp-lute rested. 
 Anna agreed, and inclined for a vase, which they 
 
38 FIVE YEARS OF YOLITH. 
 
 might fill with flowers. Mary thought the head 
 of a poet or a musician would be more suit- 
 able. Who should it be ? The only musician 
 she remembered to have seen on the Italian's 
 board was Handel ; and Handel was sadly fat 
 and ugly. She did not know who it could be 
 but Milton ; and that face, beautiful as' it was, 
 was known to every body by this time. It re- 
 minded her, however, that she might perhaps get 
 some hints about ornamenting their bower from 
 " Paradise Lost ;" for she liked what she had 
 read of Eve's preparation of a repast for the 
 angel. So, while Anna ran to the window to 
 watch for the Italian with his image-board, who 
 was sure to pass, Mary settled herself in the 
 balcony to read about Paradise. 
 
 As soon as she was fairly lost to all outward 
 things, and present only with Adam and Eve, 
 seeing how 
 
 " raised of grassy turf 
 Their table was, and mossy seats had round," 
 
 she was roused by somebody standing before 
 
PREPARATION. 39 
 
 her. It was Mrs. Rickham, who came to ask 
 something about clean sheets for the best bed. 
 
 " Clean sheets !" exclaimed Mary. " Oh, 
 ask Anna to give Susan the keys, and then you 
 can find what you want." 
 
 " Very well, Miss. But there wants a new 
 ewer and basin for the room the young ladies 
 are to have ; and I doubt if there are towels 
 enough." 
 
 " We will see about that to-morrow, nurse. I 
 must make this room complete now I am about 
 it." 
 
 " Perhaps that will do as well to-morrow, Miss 
 Mary, if indeed it wants any thing more ; but 
 the first thing to be done is to make the sleeping- 
 rooms comfortable, and to see what condition 
 your frocks are in. Miss." 
 
 This was too true to be denied ; so Mary left 
 her book in the balcony till her provision for the 
 comforts of her guests should leave her at leisure 
 to plan luxuries for them. 
 
 There was time, however, for all ; and the 
 manifold luxuries of an excursion in search of 
 the picturesque were duly cared for. The fowls, 
 
40 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 the cakes, the wine, the sketch-books, the tele- 
 scope, were appointed and hunted up ; and Anna 
 put on her habit and went to the farm, to try the 
 grey pony which the farmer was to lend her. 
 The pony carried her round the twelve-acre field, 
 and up the green lane, and down the mill-lane, 
 with the utmost propriety, and promised to be a 
 great ornament to the cavalcade. 
 
 On Tuesday night the girls sat up for their 
 father till the last coach had passed through the 
 town at eleven o'clock. They were a little dis- 
 appointed at not seeing him, but had no doubt 
 of his arrival before noon the next day. 
 
41 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ^rtibal^. 
 
 " Here comes papa !" cried Anna, as she rose 
 from the breakfast-table, " and a gentleman with 
 him ! Can it be Mr. Fletcher already ?'" 
 
 " O, no!" said Mary; "how should it be, 
 without Mrs. Fletcher and their daughters ? He 
 is coming in, however. I do hope it is not a 
 political person. I had rather hear any thing 
 than politics from London people." 
 
 Anna agreed that they had quite enough of 
 politics every day of their lives, without hearing 
 more from strangers. When their new guest 
 entered the room, Mr. Byerley introduced him 
 to his daughters as Signer Casimiro Elvi. He 
 did not at aU answer to Mary and Anna's no- 
 tions of a politician, as they assured one another 
 
42 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 by a glance of congratulation. If he had been 
 twenty-five years younger, he might have been 
 taken for a poet ; and though he was too old for 
 that, he might well be supposed a great man of 
 some kind or other ; for he had a profusion of 
 black hair, curling back from his prominent fore- 
 head in a manner which is uncommon among 
 Englishmen. His countenance was bright with 
 intelligence, but mild, and sometimes deeply 
 melancholy. The girls answered his greetings, 
 which were those of a foreigner, with much re- 
 spect ; and while they prepared a fresh breakfast, 
 wondered what topics of conversation would suc- 
 ceed the usual hopes and fears about fatigue, and 
 invitations to eat and drink. 
 
 " As we were saying, sir," observed their fa- 
 ther at length, " if we cannot induce the minister 
 to regard public opinion when it is so plainly ex- 
 pressed as in this case, what is to be done but 
 to petition, and petition again, till the House 
 forces the matter upon his attention ?" 
 
 To the great disappointment of the girls, the 
 Italian gentleman listened, not only with polite- 
 ness, but with eager interest, and replied with 
 
ARRIVALS. 43 
 
 such animated volubility, as to leave no doubt of 
 his being a politician after all. They could not 
 make out much of what he said, though they 
 understood French very well ; but his rapid 
 utterance did not prevent their discovering that 
 he spoke of the ruin of his own country as owing 
 to the obstinate disregard which a despotic go- 
 vernment had shown to the interests of the peo- 
 ple, and the establishment at length of a military 
 government, to the destruction of all freedom 
 and peace. Anna was soon tired of stretching 
 her attention to listen to what did not interest 
 her to hear, and she therefore slipped out of the 
 room. Mary was obliged to remain, to pour out 
 the tea ; and presently, as soon as there was a 
 sufficient pause, Signor Elvi addressed her in 
 French, which it appeared he always spoke, 
 though he understood English pretty well. Mary 
 liked all he said ; and he gave so entertaining 
 an account of his late perilous journey across the 
 continent, that she was quite sorry when her fa- 
 ther refused a fourth cup of tea, and it became 
 necessary to offer to the Signor the refreshment 
 of his own apartment. 
 
44 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 She ran to find her sister, and relate all that 
 she had heard. The story was interspersed with 
 many remarks on Signor Elvi, and many con- 
 jectures respecting his rank and circumstances, 
 which excited Anna's active imagination to an 
 unusual degree; and by the time Mr. Fletcher's 
 carriage drove up to the door, her mind was so 
 occupied with the adventures of the Italian gen- 
 tleman, that she could think of nothing else- 
 Mary looked anxiously to see if there were 
 any young faces in the carriage. That the Miss 
 Fletcher's were there, there was evidence in the 
 straw bonnets and pink ribbons which appeared 
 when the glass was let down; and the young 
 ladies had no sooner alighted, than Mary and 
 Anna had decided that they might become very 
 charming companions, and perhaps friends for 
 life. Even Mr. Byerley wished that the ap- 
 pearance of his daughters was equally prepos- 
 sessing, both as to countenance and dress. 
 
 Mr. Fletcher was as remarkably decided in 
 manner and abrupt in speech, as his lady was 
 soft and mild. It seemed as if he was somewhat 
 out of patience with the tone of sentiment which 
 
ARRIVALS. 45 
 
 distinguished his wife's conversation, and had 
 therefore run into the other extreme. His 
 daughters, who much resembled their mother, 
 stood so much in awe of him, that they spoke as 
 little as possible in his presence, so that he pro- 
 bably knew much less about what was in their 
 minds than many comparative strangers; but he 
 concluded them to be weak and romantic, as he 
 was pleased to say women in general were; and 
 by thus concluding, he adopted the most likely 
 method of rendering them so. The Byerleys, of 
 course, knew nothing of all this; and as they 
 were in the habit of opening their minds freely 
 to their father, they were very slow in making the 
 discovery that a similar degree of confidence did 
 not prevail in all families. 
 
 Soon after their arrival, Anna was sitting near 
 Mr. Fletcher and his daughter Selina, who ap- 
 peared about her own age. Amidst the many 
 enquiries which she made of Selina about the 
 journey and other subjects of discourse, she 
 looked perpetually to the door, in hopes that 
 Signer Elvi would enter. When there had been 
 a short pause, she said: " There is such an in- 
 
46 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 teresting gentleman here now ! I am glad you 
 will see him, and hear his adventures." 
 
 "Adventures!" said Selina: "oh! what ad- 
 ventures?" 
 
 " Oh ! so interesting ! He had to fly for his 
 life, and to put on a disguise; and he has been 
 shipwrecked." 
 
 " Dehghtful ! Did he tell you about it him- 
 self.^" 
 
 " He told my father and sister when I was 
 out of the room ; but I dare say my father will 
 draw him out again; and we must take care to 
 be in the way." 
 
 " Certainly; one would not miss such an op- 
 portunity for the world. But what is his name, 
 and where does he come from ?'''' 
 
 " His name is Casimiro Elvi, and he comes 
 from Italy." 
 
 " From Italy! the very country one would 
 guess, to be sure." 
 
 " Pray, why.''" asked Mr. Fletcher, who had 
 overheard the whole. " Does nobody put on a 
 disguise, is nobody shipwrecked, that does not 
 come from Italy?"' 
 
ARRIVALS. 47 
 
 Selina made no attempt at an answer, which 
 surprised Anna, who said, she supposed Selina 
 meant that the refugees, of whose misfortunes 
 we hear so much, were generally from Italy; 
 and that she therefore concluded Signor Elvi to 
 be an Italian. 
 
 " Find out what she means if you can,"" said 
 Mr. Fletcher, as he turned his back upon them 
 both. 
 
 " Tell me the rest when we go to take off our 
 bonnets," said Selina, in a whisper. 
 
 " Let us go now then," said Anna, " unless 
 you would like some more cake first.*" 
 
 Selina refused the cake, and they moved to- 
 wards the door; but as Anna put her hand on 
 on the lock, Signor Elvi entered. The girls 
 delayed a moment to see how gracefully he paid 
 his respects to the strangers, and then looking 
 at one another for consent, they returned to 
 their seats. 
 
 " Does Mr. Fletcher understand French?" 
 enquired Anna, at the end of half an hour, dur- 
 ing which every body had conversed with the 
 stranger but Mr. Fletcher. 
 
48 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 " Yes," replied Selina ; " but my father 
 does not like foreigners generally. There is an 
 Italian gentleman in our neighbourhood, who 
 brought letters of introduction to my father; but 
 we can only ask him when papa is out, or when 
 we have company, because papa never speaks to 
 him." 
 
 " What can be his reason.''" asked Anna. 
 
 Selina shook her head, and Anna sat in a 
 reverie, till she saw the ladies about to leave the 
 room. She was made very uneasy by what she 
 had seen and heard. She was sure that there 
 must be something wrong, to occasion so strange 
 a want of sympathy among members of the same 
 family ; and she began to be afraid that she 
 might not like Selina so well as she at first 
 thought she should. She hoped that their guests 
 would wish to be left to themselves when they 
 entered their own apartments, that she might 
 consult Mary, and learn the result of her ob- 
 servations. But the Miss Fletchers said, "Don't 
 go;" and Mary seemed quite inclined to stay, 
 having ascertained that ]Mrs. Fletcher's maid 
 was in attendance on her mistress. 
 
ARRIVALS. 49 
 
 Dressing went on slowly ; for there were fre- 
 quent and long pauses, during which Selina 
 stood with the comb suspended, and her sister 
 Rose with the key unturned in the lock of her 
 trunk, while they talked of many things. When 
 they descended to the drawing-room, Anna won- 
 dered whether the same restraint was to be im- 
 posed by Mrs. Fletcher's presence as by her 
 husband's. To her great relief, the girls showed 
 at once that they had no reserves with their 
 mother. They made her rest on the sofa, as 
 she was in delicate health, and somewhat tired 
 with her journey. The four girls then gathered 
 round her, and held what Anna thought the 
 most delightful conversation she had almost ever 
 enjoyed. She was quite sorry when dinner-time 
 approached, and the gentlemen dropped in, one 
 by one, and engaged Mrs. Fletcher's attention. 
 
 When Selina and Anna walked in to dinner 
 behind the rest of the party, they lamented that 
 they could not sit together. At the bottom of 
 the table they exchanged a squeeze of the hand 
 at parting, and took their places on each side of 
 Mr. Byerley, preparing to keep up an inter- 
 
 D 
 
50 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 course of glances if any thing interesting should 
 be said about Italy. 
 
 Italy was not once mentioned while the ladies 
 were at table ; but Signor Elvi was not there- 
 fore silent. He talked on almost every subject 
 which was introduced; sometimes seeking, and 
 sometimes communicating information. His 
 observations on the effects which followed the 
 repeal of the silk duties of England on the trade 
 of Lyons, interested even Mr. Fletcher; and he 
 also explained, entirely to that gentleman^s satis- 
 faction, a new method of draining marshes, which 
 he had seen practised abroad. All this a little 
 disappointed Anna, who had rather have seen 
 him sit abstracted, unless patriotism and mis- 
 fortune were talked about. 
 
 In the course of the evening, Mary found an 
 opportunity of learning from her father a few 
 particulars about the stranger. Mr. Byerley 
 only knew that he had left a wife and large fa- 
 mily in his own country; that he had filled a 
 very high political station ; and that, by his 
 exertions in that station in the cause of liberty, 
 he was rendered peculiarly obnoxious to the 
 
ARRIVALS. 
 
 51 
 
 usurping government. Sentence of death for 
 high treason had been issued against him, and 
 he had not the remotest prospect of being able 
 to return to his own land, and to all that was 
 dear to him there. 
 
 The party broke up at an early hour, as the 
 travellers were somewhat fatigued, and as great 
 exertions were to be made the next day. The 
 horses and carriage were to be at the door at 
 eight o'clock; for much was to be seen at Aud- 
 ley Bridge, and no day was ever long enough, 
 as every body knows, to fulfil all the purposes of 
 such an expedition. 
 
 When Rose Fletcher had been asked whether 
 she preferred riding, or a place in the carriage, 
 she at once declared that she liked riding above 
 every thing; but that her habit was at the bot- 
 tom of the large trunk, which had gone on to 
 London. This was not allowed to be a difficulty, 
 as Mary's habit was found to fit her sufficiently 
 well to serve for the occasion. Rose and Anna 
 were therefore to ride with Mr. Byerley and 
 either Mr. Fletcher or Signer Elvi, as those 
 gentlemen should determine between themselves. 
 
 d2 
 
52 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 " Well, Mary," said Anna, as she shut the 
 door of her chamber. 
 
 " Well, Anna," said her sister, as she put 
 down the candle on the dressing-table. 
 
 " What a pleasant day we have had!" ex- 
 claimed the one. 
 
 " How unlike one another people are, to be 
 sure!" observed the other. 
 
 " Mr. Fletcher and the Signer, for instance. 
 I can't endure Mr. Fletcher." 
 
 "Why not.P" said Mary, surprised: "he 
 is silent sometimes, certainly ; but when he does 
 talk, he says such very clever things, that they 
 are worth waiting for. Do you know, I am not 
 sure but that I like him better than Mrs. 
 Fletcher." 
 
 " Oh, Mary ! impossible ! She is such a dear, 
 kind lady; and he is so cross, I dare not speak 
 to him." 
 
 "Indeed!" said Mary; "then you must 
 have heard or seen semething that I did not." 
 
 " Nay, Mary; I heard him tell you that he 
 gave it in charge to you to cure Selina of her 
 way of speaking." 
 
ARRIVALS. 53 
 
 " I do not think he was cross when he said 
 that. It was rather odd, perhaps, so short as 
 our acquaintance is ; but Selina really does 
 whine very much ; and strangers are more aware 
 of it, and can put her in mind of it oftener than 
 those who are accustomed to hear it. Besides, 
 Mrs. Fletcher has a good deal of it herself, and 
 Rose too." 
 
 " Well, but he was so prejudiced against the 
 Signor." 
 
 " Was he.'' I thought they seemed to like 
 talking to one another." 
 
 " Aye, afterwards; but you have no idea how 
 very rudely he spoke at first." So Anna told 
 what had happened just after their arrival. Mary 
 owned that he had been wrong; but would not 
 agree that there was no merit in his politeness 
 afterwards, because it must all be ascribed to 
 the Signor's irresistible attractions. Yet she 
 liked Signor Elvi quite as well as Anna did. 
 
 Their younger guests were then discussed; 
 honourable mention being made of a large va- 
 riety of fine qualities. In this case, neither sis- 
 ter exceeded the other; for the praise of both 
 
54 FIVE YEAES OF YOUTH. 
 
 was superlative. Beginning with their hair, and 
 ending with their sentiments, it was found that 
 they were altogether delightful. 
 
 " Upon the whole, Mary, has the day been 
 what you expected, what you wished for.'*" 
 
 " In some things, much pleasanter; but 
 
 and yet it was hardly likely that, the very first 
 day, any opportunity should happen for talking 
 
 about what we want Mrs. Fletcher to talk 
 
 to us about." 
 
 " Whenever she does, it will be in a way that 
 we shall like, I know," said Anna. 
 
 " How can you know.^^ Mamma has not been 
 mentioned to-day, nor any subject of that kind." 
 
 " Not of that kind exactly," said Anna; 
 " and yet I am quite sure of it. Selina asked 
 me if there was a church-yard in Audley Park, 
 or within sight of it; and she said, that if she 
 had a fine estate, she would take care to have a 
 church-yard within sight. I said, I supposed 
 she meant for the same reason that some grand 
 prince, I forget who, had a man to put him in 
 mind every day that he must die. Then she 
 began telling me about a mausoleum in the 
 
ARRIVALS. 55 
 
 Duke of D 'spark; but her mother looked 
 
 at her, and she stopped just when she had said 
 that the duchess was buried there. She was 
 going to mention the duchess's children, I know, 
 when Mrs. Fletcher put her in mind that we had 
 no mother. She is a kind, sweet woman; and 
 I love her dearly already."" 
 
 " It would be very strange if we did not," 
 said Mary, " considering whose friend she was 
 before we were born." 
 
 Mary had now opened her Bible, and they 
 read together, as they always did at night, when 
 any thing had prevented their reading with their 
 father below. It was very late, and Mr. Byer- 
 ley had been some time in vain trying to sleep. 
 The conversation in the next room disturbed 
 him; and the continued murmur while Mary 
 read, made him suppose that they were not yet 
 thinking of sleep. He rose and tapped at their 
 door. " Who is there .? Is it you, papa.^" said 
 Anna, opening the door. When Mr. Byerley 
 saw the closing book in Mary's hand, he gave 
 his blessing to his children, and advised them to 
 seek repose. Their minds, as they composed 
 
56 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 themselves to rest, were full of thankfulness for 
 the new pleasures of companionship which the 
 day had brought them; and Anna began, for 
 the first time, to be aware of the blessing of 
 having a father whom she could love without 
 fearing in any painful degree. 
 
57 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 i^kagucf or ^ain? 
 
 At the sight of four saddle-horses and a car- 
 riage at Mr. Byerley''s door, the population of 
 
 A began to assemble for the purpose of 
 
 speculation as to what sort of a journey was 
 about to be undertaken. That part of the popu- 
 lation is meant, which was dressed and on foot 
 by eight o'clock; for the grooms and the coach- 
 man were very punctual. Here, a workman with 
 his frail basket of tools on his shoulder, stood to 
 see the provision packed in under the carriage- 
 seat; there, a boy who had been birds '-nesting, 
 passed so close before the pony's eyes, that it 
 reared. Here, a milliner's apprentice lingered 
 in hopes of a glimpse of the riders for whom the 
 side-saddles were destined; and there, an old 
 
 d5 
 
58 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 man who was going to sun himself in the church- 
 yard, stood leaning on his staff', to watch the 
 departure of the company. Presently the young 
 ladies were mounted, and patting the necks of 
 their steeds to sooth them till the signal of de- 
 parture should be given. Then was heard the 
 slam of the carriage-door, the crack of the whip, 
 and the crash of the wheels on the gravel. The 
 cavalcade gradually disappeared at the turn of 
 the road, and the gazers looked at one another, 
 and betook themselves their several ways. 
 
 It was a beautiful morning: no cloud in the 
 sky, no dust on the road ; but all fresh, fragrant, 
 and green, in the meadows and hedges. The 
 carriage-party, consisting of Mr. and Mrs. 
 Fletcher, their daughter Selina, and Mary By- 
 erley, began to talk all at once, as is the natural 
 impulse from rapid motion of an agreeable kind ; 
 and the enquiries went round, " Have you room ':''''' 
 " I am afraid the basket incommodes you :'' 
 " let me put away your shawl, for you will not 
 want it;" and so on. To which Mr. Fletcher 
 added, " Have you provided umbrellas, Miss 
 Mary .?" 
 
PLEASURE OR PAIN? 59 
 
 "Umbrellas!" said Mary; "when there is 
 not a cloud in the sky ?" 
 
 " There was no cloud in the sky at this time 
 yesterday, and what a deluge of rain we have had 
 since !" 
 
 It appeared that the servants had marked this 
 fact, for the handles of a very satisfactory num- 
 ber of umbrellas peeped out when sought for. 
 
 " How well your sister rides!" observed Mary, 
 as Rose Fletcher cantered past the carriage, and 
 waved her hand in passing. 
 
 " Where can Anna be ? She cannot have 
 passed without our seeing her;" said Selina, 
 standing up to look before and behind. Far, 
 very far behind, not cantering, nor apparently 
 dreaming of cantering, was Anna, pacing soberly, 
 side by side with Signor Elvi, either talking or 
 listening very earnestly. 
 
 "O, look! look!" cried Selina ; "they have 
 forgotten every thing but what they are talking 
 about. I wonder whether he is telling her about 
 his poor wife and children." 
 
 " Or about his beautiful estate that he Avill 
 never see again," said Mary. 
 
60 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 " Or about the dear friend he was obliged to 
 leave in prison,"" added Selina. 
 
 " Sit down, Selina!" said her father, in a voice 
 which silenced her. 
 
 After a long pause, Mrs. Fletcher began to 
 talk with Mary about various trifles ; but the 
 conversation was far from amusing till Mr. 
 Fletcher, after a long yawn, took a book from 
 his pocket, and began to read very attentively. 
 Then the two young heads met under one para- 
 sol, and carried on a busy talk, with low voices, 
 and much care to avoid attracting the notice of 
 the reader. Room was presently made for Mrs. 
 Fletcher's companionship, and then the girls 
 forgot to wish the gentleman away, except when 
 a finger was held up to say " hush !" 
 
 It was observed, at length, that Mr. Fletcher 
 had ceased to read. The book was not laid aside, 
 but closed with a finger between the leaves, while 
 he looked oVer the side of the carriage. The 
 three bonnets emerged from beneath the pa- 
 rasol, and every body cried, " How beauti- 
 ful !" 
 
 " I was wondering," said Mr. Fletcher, 
 
PLEASURE OR PATN ? 61 
 
 laughing, " whether you would actually pass 
 by this view without looking about you." 
 
 " You would not have allowed us, surely, 
 sir," said Mary. 
 
 " Nay; no doubt your fine imaginations were 
 furnishing you with something much more 
 beautiful than any thing vulgar eyes can look 
 upon." 
 
 Mary, young as she was, and modest as be- 
 came her youth, was little daunted by Mr. 
 Fletcher's rough manner and speech. It was pro- 
 bably because she was more humble than Selina, 
 that she was less mortified by any rebuke or sign 
 of contempt. Selina's silence was not that of 
 humility. If not allowed to be sentimental in 
 speech, she did not change her style of conversa- 
 tion, but indulged her dreams of the imagination 
 in silence ; while her very silence expressed that 
 she did not think her father worthy to sympa- 
 thize in her pleasures. Mrs. Fletcher never in- 
 terfered between them, or attempted to make her 
 husband and children understand one another 
 better. She was very timid, rather indolent, and 
 somewhat inclined to be sentimental, though not 
 
62 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 in the childish way in which she encouraged her 
 daughters to be so. 
 
 " This place is very much altered within a 
 few years : I should scarcely have known it 
 again," said Mr. Fletcher to himself, as they 
 passed a gentleman's estate. 
 
 " Yes,'' said Mary ; " even I can remember 
 the time when there were no corn-fields where 
 they now stretch almost as far as we can see.'' 
 
 " This was all common: was it not.^*" said 
 Mr. Fletcher. " I think it was a very bleak 
 common, with nothing but furze growing upon 
 it, when I saw it last." 
 
 " Yes, sir ; and the owner of it had a great 
 deal of trouble about the alterations he wished 
 to make. But you see he persevered." 
 
 " What sort of trouble .?" 
 
 "• The poor people were discontented when 
 their cows were not allowed to graze, and when 
 they could not cut their turf on the common any 
 longer." 
 
 " Well ; do not you think it was very hard 
 upon them .'*" 
 
 " I dare say it was, at first ; but papa says it 
 
PLEASURE OR PAIN ? 63 
 
 is much better worth while to grow corn enough 
 to maintain a great many men, than only grass 
 enough for a few cows." 
 
 Mr. Fletcher nodded ; and Selina observed 
 that all the rest of the way he enquired of Mary 
 who lived at every gentleman's seat they passed. 
 Sometimes she knew, and sometimes she did not ; 
 but he did not sneer when she had no satisfactory 
 answer to give. One mansion, which stood on a 
 lawn a little way back from the road, appeared 
 in a state of lamentable ruin. It was unroofed, 
 and the stone pillars and doorways, and naked 
 window-sills, were blackened with smoke. In 
 answer to Mr. Fletcher's question, " When was 
 this burned down ?" Mary told all that she knew 
 of the when and the how ; and then turned to 
 the ladies to relate some circumstances of a dif- 
 ferent kind. Notwithstanding Selina's excla- 
 mations of admiration and pity, and his wife's 
 heightened colour, which testified to the deep 
 interest of the story, Mr. Fletcher also for once 
 seemed inclined to listen. 
 
 " Eh ? What was that ?''' said he, after lean- 
 ing forwards, in vain, to hear. 
 
64 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 " I was telling what happened at the fire," 
 said Mary. " There was a poor old man in the 
 house at the time, who had arrived only the day 
 before to see Colonel Osborne. He had belonged 
 to his regiment, I believe. He was sleeping 
 fliigh up stairs, at the back of the house, and 
 nobody remembered him when the fire was dis- 
 covered. Miss Osborne recollected him at last, 
 and while every body was busy, she wrapt a 
 blanket round her and flew up the back stairs. 
 The curtains of the old man's bed were on fire, 
 and he was fast asleep when she burst in. She 
 thought he was suffocated; but as soon as she 
 dashed some water on his face, he roused him- 
 self enough to let her put the woollen coverlid 
 over his shoulders, and lead him down the burn- 
 ing stairs. While she was helping him, the 
 blanket slipped, and her gown-sleeve caught fire. 
 She was dreadfully burned; but she scarcely 
 felt the pain, while the stairs cracked and crack- 
 ed again at every step they took, and the flames 
 rushed and roared all round them. At the foot 
 of the stairs she met her father, coming in des- 
 pair to look for her ; but though he saw how she 
 
PLEASURE OR PAIN ? 65 
 
 was blackened with smoke, he asked no questions 
 till he had helped her to get the old man beyond 
 the reach of the burning rafters which fell on the 
 lawn." 
 
 "Bravo! Like daughter, like father," cried 
 Mr. Fletcher. " But what became of her .?*" 
 
 " Her face was so much burned that nobody 
 could know her for the Miss Osborne that used 
 to be so much admired ; and what is worse, her 
 left arm is so shrunk up, that she never can use 
 it again. As for the poor old man, between the 
 fire, and the fright and the grief, he was quite 
 worn out, and he died the next week." 
 
 " What a disastrous fire !" exclaimed Mr. 
 Fletcher. " How the young lady must wish 
 that she had staid where she was safe !" 
 
 " O ! no, sir," said Mary, in a low voice. 
 
 " Why, you say she did not save the old man 
 after all." 
 
 "No ; but what a conscience she would have 
 had all her life long! Do you think all her 
 beauty and the use of all her limbs would have 
 made up for that ?''"' 
 
 " Well then, she must wish that the fire had 
 
66 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 never happened. Why do you shake your head 
 now ?"" 
 
 " Because it is worth all she suffered, and 
 more, to know what she can do on such an oc- 
 casion. She need never be afraid again that she 
 shall not be able to do her duty, or to bear the 
 consequences." 
 
 " Her father, at least, must be very sorry that 
 the fire happened."" 
 
 " I think not still,'" said the persevering Mary. 
 " If you were to see him with his daughter for 
 only one half hour, you would find out how he 
 loves her, and tries to make her feel what has 
 happened as little as possible ; but he can never 
 be sorry that it has been proved what a daughter 
 he has. When she begins to repent of what she 
 did, he may begin to be sorry for the occasion ; 
 but that will never, never be." 
 
 " Well, you shall have it all your own way, 
 because you are right, I believe," said Mr. 
 Fletcher. " But I hope, my dear, ymcr father 
 will have some pleasanter proof that you have a 
 strong mind and a willing spirit." 
 
 Mary could not answer, as Mr. Fletcher looked 
 
PLEASURE OR PAIN ? 67 
 
 kindly at her. He soon opened his book again, 
 and nobody spoke till the carriage stopped at the 
 door of the Audley Arms. 
 
 The party presently dispersed themselves in 
 groups about the park. Anna and Selina, of 
 course, flew to each other, as soon as the one had 
 alighted from her pony, and the other from the 
 carriage. Arm in arm, they wandered away un- 
 der the shade of the avenue. Rose and Mary, 
 with their sketch-book, explored their way to the 
 Ruin, to which the people of the inn had directed 
 them ; and they were immediately followed by 
 Mrs. Fletcher and their Italian friend. Mr. By- 
 erley also seemed disposed to accompany them ; 
 but Mr, Fletcher persuaded him to go round a 
 longer way, for the purpose of witnessing the re- 
 sult of an experiment in tillage, which he knew 
 to have been made on a piece of land adjoining 
 the park. At the Ruin they were all to meet at 
 two o'clock ; by which time the servants were to 
 have spread the dinner at the precise point of 
 view where prospect-hunters were wont to feast 
 body and soul at the same time. 
 
 The members of the three detachments all en- 
 
68 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 joyed themselves in their several ways ; the four 
 who were together, perhaps the most. Signor 
 Elvi could draw well, and he superintended 
 Mary's sketch, to her great profit and pleasure. 
 He advised her not to attempt the more exten- 
 sive view which, though spread temptingly before 
 them, could not easily be transferred to paper 
 with all its flitting lights and shadows, its sloping 
 lawns and wooded banks, and streams that peep- 
 ed out where the sunshine fell brightest. He 
 rather recommended a particular angle of the 
 Ruin, whose massy stone-work was finely con- 
 trasted with the light birch which waved near. 
 He took her pencil, and on the back of a letter 
 showed her, with a few rapid strokes, what kind 
 of effect he thought might be produced. When 
 he had seen her make a successful beginning, he 
 carried off" Rose to a little distance, that she 
 might attempt the same subject from a different 
 point of view ; to which her only objection was, 
 that she should be too far off" to hear the conver- 
 sation. 
 
 "Oh! that will be too sad," exclaimed he: 
 " no lady must feel forlorn to-day. Mrs. 
 
J'age eS 
 
PLEASURE OR PAIN ? 69 
 
 Fletcher and I will sit between you, and tell 
 you tales to beguile your tasks." 
 
 Mrs. Fletcher was willing, but observed that 
 her daughter scarcely understood French well 
 enough to enjoy a narrative related in it. The 
 good-natured Signor therefore attempted to make 
 himself understood in English, which he spoke 
 better than might have been expected from his 
 very short practice, but yet so as to render it 
 very difficult for the hearers to maintain their 
 gravity long. From the beginning of his tale, 
 his auditors imagined that it was to be of a me- 
 lancholy cast ; but as soon as the narrator be- 
 came aware that his broken language was an 
 impediment to the serious impression he meant 
 to produce, he dexterously placed his personages 
 in new situations, and gave so strange a turn to 
 the incidents he had related, that the whole be- 
 came comic, and the girls were supplied with a 
 good reason for the mirth which they could not 
 have suppressed. Their drawing, meantime, 
 went on but slowly ; for they sat, pencil in hand, 
 looking towards their companions instead of the 
 Ruin, and when they began to laugh, all hope 
 
70 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 of Steadying their hands again speedily was 
 over. 
 
 " Eh ! well,'" said he, rising at length, " laugh 
 as you will, but draw also." And with all gravity 
 he began to criticise; but again and again, as 
 often as they looked towards one another, or 
 some odd phrase which they had just heard oc- 
 curred to them, there was a fresh burst. It 
 ended in their being too weak, with hunger and 
 mirth, to do any thing more before dinner, while 
 their friend's politeness could not allow him to 
 leave their sketches unfinished. 
 
 In a little v/hile, the whole party being assem- 
 bled, except Anna and her friend, and the cloth 
 being spread temptingly on the turf, every body 
 sat down to eat. When, however, knives and 
 foi'ks were laid across, and the empty bottles out- 
 numered the full ones, and still the two girls did 
 not appear, Mrs. Fletcher and Mary grew rather 
 uneasy. Mr. Byerley went to the brow of the 
 eminence on which they sat, and looked round in 
 vain. Signor Elvi rose to go in search of them, 
 but Mr. Fletcher prevented him, declaring it im- 
 possible that any harm should befall them in the 
 
PLEASUKE OR PAIN ? 7^ 
 
 park, and that nothing was so probable as that 
 they should forget the time. On enquiry it ap- 
 peared that neither of them had a watch. 
 
 "• No matter," said Mr. Fletcher ; " which 
 of them would think of using it if she had ? De- 
 pend upon it, they are reclining under a tree or 
 beside a brook, wondering if ever mortals felt 
 such friendship for one another before ; or per- 
 haps weeping over the tales Miss Anna heard 
 from the Signor this niorning."" 
 
 Signor Elvi looked very grave, but said no- 
 thing. 
 
 " It is time they were dining, however," said 
 Mrs. Fletcher; " and if they have lost their way, 
 they must be quite exhausted." 
 
 " My dear," said her husband, " I thought 
 you had known better than to suppose they can 
 care about eating when they have something so 
 much better to do. I think, sir," turning to Mr. 
 Byerley, " that it is time we were finding our 
 way to the bridge, unless the ladies require a 
 longer rest." 
 
 He rose and sauntered away; and his wife im- 
 mediately, by Mr. Byerley 's advice, dispatched 
 
72 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 two of the servants different ways, in search of 
 the lost companions. Mary sent some biscuits 
 by each ; and having left orders with the remain- 
 ing servant to make the young ladies comfort- 
 able when they should arrive, and to direct them 
 towards the bridge, the rest of the party followed 
 Mr. Fletcher. 
 
 Anna and Selina were soon found, within half 
 a mile of the place of rendezvous, walking as 
 leisurely as if the sun had just risen, and they 
 had had the whole day before them. They were 
 both sad and disinclined to eat ; and in a very 
 few minutes they followed the party to the bridge. 
 Very little notice was taken of them there but 
 by the anxious mother and sister, who having 
 satisfied themselves that nothing disastrous had 
 happened, tried to cheer and amuse them ; but 
 they were still silent and sad. They saw, like 
 every body else, how majestically the river wound 
 round the bases of the hills, now darkened by 
 overhanging thickets, now gleaming as a flood 
 of light fell upon a reach of it, now sweeping by 
 the terrace of a lordly mansion, and now bend- 
 ing round the promontory on which was a single 
 
PLEASURE OR PAIN ? ^3 
 
 cottage, with its one willow dipping into the 
 water. They saw, like every one else, how the 
 far-distant city rose to shut in the view at the 
 further limit of the valley ; and, like every one 
 else, they listened to the many sounds which 
 came from far and near. The chapel-clock in 
 the park was heard to strike ; the creaking wag- 
 gon, with the jingling harness of the team came 
 down the steep slope from the farms ; the lapse 
 of the river under the arches of the bridge gave 
 out a never-ceasing sound ; and the cawing of 
 the rooks as they sailed round the tree-tops 
 suited well with it. The merry voices of chil- 
 dren came from behind the laurel-hedge which 
 separated the parsonage from the road. Anna 
 and her friend saw, heard, and felt the beauty 
 of all this ; but it seemed to them a melancholy 
 beauty, because their minds were melancholy. 
 It grated upon their feelings to hear any observa- 
 tions made on the scene before them ; and when 
 Mr. Fletcher laughed loudly, they left the balus- 
 trades of the bridge, through which they had 
 been gazing, and went down to find a seat on the 
 sloping bank, where they might sit with their feet 
 
 E 
 
74 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 touching the brink of the river. Mrs. Fletcher 
 followed, and as soon as the girls perceived her, 
 they ran to take each an arm. She soon dis- 
 covered what was in their minds, and Anna could 
 not have desired a more ready listener to the tale 
 of sorrow which she had heard that morning, and 
 which had affected her very deeply. 
 
 "Did you see, Anna," said Selina, " how he 
 turned to listen when the children in the parson- 
 age-garden shouted at their play.''" 
 
 " O, yes," replied Anna ; " and he says it 
 gives him pleasure to see us and talk to us, be- 
 cause he can think of his own daughters all the 
 time. What charming girls they must be ! and 
 just our age, Selina V 
 
 " I wish we could make ourselves so like them 
 that we could comfort him better than we can do 
 now." 
 
 " We must be very unlike them, I am sure, 
 Selina; for he says they are very gay and lively. ' 
 
 " I always thought you had been so, Anna," 
 said Mrs. Fletcher. Anna sighed, and replied 
 that she was merry when she had nothing to 
 make her sad. 
 
PLEASURE OR PAIN ? 'JB 
 
 " But, my love," said Mrs. Fletcher, " you 
 must endeavour not to give way so much. You 
 must take the Signor himself for an example 
 there. If you had seen him two hours ago, you 
 would scarcely believe that he had ever felt me- 
 lancholy in his life." 
 
 Selina and Anna were both rather dismayed 
 when they heard of their foreign friend's genius 
 for comic narrative. " How could he forget so 
 soon ?'' thought they. 
 
 Mrs. Fletcher was surprised that he should 
 have told his domestic tale to one so young as 
 Anna ; but it appeared all very natural when she 
 explained how it happened. He spoke of the 
 young ladies of Italy as the subject which he 
 thought would most interest his companion ; this 
 led to some mention of his own children : and as 
 there was a full share of curiosity in Anna, and 
 an interest and sympathy far more engaging 
 than curiosity, he had gone on to tell one circum- 
 stance after another, till she had heard enough to 
 fill her whole soul with admiration and pity. 
 Her feelings were strong, and she had never tried 
 to restrain them ; and as this was the first time 
 
 E 2 
 
76 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 she had ever heard so sad a tale from the actual 
 sufferer, and that sufferer was pecuHarly inte- 
 resting and amiable, she was in danger of being 
 more strongly excited than her health and spirits 
 would bear. If she had had a judicious friend 
 at hand to have directed her feelings aright, she 
 might have derived much benefit from the new 
 views of human suffering which were now opened 
 to her ; but this was not the case. Mrs. Fletcher 
 seemed, in the education of her own daughters, 
 quite unaware that a feeling, innocent or amiable 
 in itself, may be indulged to an injurious excess. 
 On the present occasion, she was delighted to 
 witness in Anna indications of the sensibility she 
 had loved in her mother ; and though she did 
 not exactly tell her so in words, she made her 
 understand it by kissing her, and whispering 
 how she loved to be reminded of her early friend, 
 whose congeniality of feeling with her own was 
 perfect. This led to a long conversation, which 
 at some other time would have been as useful as it 
 was delightful to Anna, by softening her heart 
 and exercising her tenderest affections. Just now, 
 however, when her heart was already melting. 
 
PLEASURE OR PATN ? 77 
 
 and her imagination highly excited, this further 
 stimulus was not only needless, but very hurtful; 
 and the youthful mind which should have been 
 this day open to enjoyment, was tormented with 
 tender sufferings, and weakened by a melancholy 
 which it had never experienced before. Some 
 of the natural evil consequences followed imme- 
 diately. Mr. Byerley, seeing traces of tears on 
 his daughter's cheeks, and thinking them par- 
 ticularly ill-timed, was provoked to speak hastily 
 to her. Anna was seldom or never known to be 
 sullen, but to-day she was sunk below all power 
 of instant recovery ; and her temper gave way at 
 the first irritation. Mary gave her an affectionate 
 hint to try to be cheerful ; but, for once, she re- 
 ceived a pettish answer. The Signor himself 
 was not quite in her good graces, for he was dis- 
 posed to be agreeable. He sang, and his song 
 was indeed plaintive as she could wish ; but long 
 before she had recovered it, and while his tones 
 of deep feeling yet thrilled in her heart, he was 
 talking with her father as if nothing had hap- 
 pened. The pleasures of the ramble through the 
 park, on the return of the party to the inn, were 
 
78 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 lost on her, and the amusing bustle of departure 
 was also unheeded ; but horse-exercise is so ex- 
 hilarating as to lighten the deepest depression, 
 as even Anna found. When they had left behind 
 the melting sunlights on the woods, and when the 
 cool evening breeze blew in their faces as they 
 crossed a heath in the twilight, she willingly 
 obeyed her father's signal to hasten on, shook 
 the bridle, urged on the race, and, for a time, 
 forgot her sensibilities. 
 
 Every body was tired, dull, and sleepy, when 
 the carriage stopped at Mr. Byerley's door. 
 Nobody relished the candle-light : no lady wish- 
 ed for supper, or refused to retire when the gen- 
 tlemen had dispatched their sandwiches. When 
 Mrs. Fletcher had bade her children good-night 
 up stairs, it appeared that the young folks were 
 pairing off, according to a new arrangement. 
 Mary and Rose, Anna and Selina. 
 
 " My loves, it really makes me uneasy,'*" ex- 
 postulated Mrs. Fletcher ; " you will talk half 
 the night, I know, tired to death as you are." 
 
 " No, mamma, we will not indeed." 
 
 " Then what is the use of being together if 
 
PLEASURE OR PAIN ? 79 
 
 you do not talk ? Do be persuaded. I can 
 trust your sisters to take care of you ; but you 
 two will wear each other out." 
 
 A repeated promise, liowever, won her con- 
 sent. They kept their promise. Having kissed 
 with melancholy smiles, and promised each other 
 never to forget this never-to-be-forgotten day, 
 they lost all remembrance of it, and of every 
 thing else in sleep. 
 
80 
 
 CHAPTER y. 
 
 jFricntJ^Mp not altoagg iSligg. 
 
 There had, as yet, been no time for due honour 
 to be paid to the favourite green parlour ; but 
 early the next evening, those of the party who 
 were the most likely to appreciate its peculiarities, 
 were assembled there. The harp-lute caught the 
 eye of the Signor as soon as he entered. " Ah, 
 ah !" cried he, pointing to it with delight, " may 
 I .''" and he took it down, and tuned it. Just 
 when he was about to begin, his heart seemed to 
 fail him. He laid it down, with a sigh, saying, 
 
 " It is long " A glance between Anna 
 
 and Selina supplied what he would have said. 
 Mary felt it all, as much as they ; but she did 
 not content herself with a sympathizing sigh. 
 She took the instrument, and struck up her 
 
FRIENDSHIP NOT ALWAYS BLISS. 81 
 
 father's favourite Spanish song of Liberty. As 
 she hoped, the exile''s current of feeling was 
 diverted from melancholy objects. "Libertu! 
 liberta !" he echoed, starting up and waving his 
 hand, while his eyes sparkled ; and as often as 
 the Signor looked up and smiled, he joined in the 
 burden, " Liberta ! liberta!" 
 
 He was delighted with Mary's singing, which 
 was very unlike what he had heard from any 
 other young lady since he had been in England. 
 She had been well taught ; but she had that 
 natural taste for music — the ear and the soul for 
 it — without which no teaching is of any avail. 
 She sang much and often, not because she had 
 any particular aim at being very accomplished, 
 but because she loved it ; or, as she said, because 
 she could not help it. She sang to Nurse Rick- 
 ham's children ; she sang as she went up and 
 down stairs ; she sang when she was glad, and 
 when she was sorry ; when her papa was at home, 
 because he liked it ; when he was out, because 
 he could not be disturbed by it. In the woods, 
 at noon-day, she sang like a bird, that a bird 
 micfht answer her; and if slie woke in the dark 
 
 E 5 
 
82 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 night, the feeling of solemn music came over 
 her, with which she dared not break the silence. 
 Every thing suggested music to her. Every 
 piece of poetry which she understood and liked, 
 formed itself into melody in her mind, without 
 an effort : when a gleam of sunshine burst out, 
 she gave voice to it ; and long before she had 
 heard any cathedral service, the chanting of the 
 Psalms was familiar to her by anticipation. 
 
 Anna had as good an ear, and a much richer 
 voice, but not quite so prevailing a love for the 
 art : if art it may be called, in such a case as 
 theirs. She was always able and willing to sing, 
 l)ut not so continually and spontaneously alive 
 to music as her sister. She would join in when 
 her sister began ; and whenever they sat at work 
 in the balcony, their voices would ring clear and 
 sweet, through the house, by the hour together. 
 Their father loved to hear them, and the servants 
 themselves were never tired. 
 
 When Signor Elvi had heard several songs 
 for which he had asked, (scarcely witl) the hope 
 that Mary would be able to gratify him,) he 
 mentioned at last a duet, which she had never 
 
FRIENDSHIP NOT ALWAYS BLISS. 83 
 
 seen or heard of. It seldom happened that she 
 could not sing whatever was asked for; for her 
 father took care that she was supplied with good 
 niiusic of all kinds, ancient and modern; and 
 when she had once noticed a melody, it was 
 never forgotten, or might be revived on the 
 slightest suggestion. The duet now mentioned, 
 she knew nothing about; but thought she and 
 Anna might learn it if the Signor would sing it to 
 them. He was well pleased to do so, and they 
 established themselves in the balcony, sitting at 
 his feet, and learning almost as much from his 
 countenance as his voice. The thing was ac- 
 complished presently, as much to his amazement 
 as pleasure; and he sat with his head on his 
 hand, listening with delight to the music of' his 
 own land. Mrs. Fletcher understood and felt 
 the pleasure too ; and their father, who was 
 walking in the garden with Mr. Fletcher, stop- 
 ped and listened, without remembering to apolo- 
 gize to his companion for the sudden interrup- 
 tion of their conversation. No new air was lost 
 on him, especially when sung by his daughters. 
 " How sweet, how wild, Mary's voice is!" 
 
^4 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 observed Mrs. Fletcher to her daughters, as they 
 sat within. " I have not heard such another 
 since her mother sang to me." 
 
 " Which is the most Uke Mrs. Byerley.'*" 
 asked Rose. 
 
 "I scarcely know," replied her mother: "they 
 both remind me of her perpetually. Anna has 
 her mother's countenance, and I catch occasional 
 glimpses of the mirth which I used to love." 
 
 " And the sensibility," said Selina. 
 
 " Mary has the sensibility to an equal de- 
 gree." 
 
 "Oh mamma! no." 
 
 " I discover as great a depth of feeling in 
 Mary as in Anna, with a stronger judgment. 
 Yes, Mary is the most like her mother. They 
 are charming companions for you, my dears, in 
 most respects, and I am very glad you have 
 met." 
 
 " In most respects!" repeated Selina: " in 
 every respect. They are every thing that is dear 
 and delightful!" 
 
 " Take care, my little enthusiast," said her 
 mother, laying one hand on Selina's shoulder. 
 
FRIENDSHIP NOT ALWAYS BLISS. 85 
 
 and pointing with the other to the balcony: 
 " look at your friends now, and tell me if 
 you would like to make exactly such an ap- 
 pearance." 
 
 Selina saw that Mary's hair, disordered and 
 out of curl, hung in a very slovenly way about 
 her face; and that Anna's silk frock was stained 
 from top to bottom with something which had 
 been thrown over it. 
 
 " Oh ! mamma," exclaimed Selina, " how 
 can you expect them to be quite neat and 
 handy, when they have no mother to teach 
 them?" 
 
 " I do not expect it, my dear ; I only point 
 out to you that they are not quite perfect. If 
 we could carry them away with us, I think we 
 might soon correct these bad habits; and they, in 
 their turn, might improve you in some things of 
 more importance." 
 
 Rose and her sister besought Mrs. Fletcher 
 to try to induce Mr. Byerley to part with them 
 for a while; and as Mr. Fletcher had himself 
 proposed it, believing that Mary would be a 
 valuable companion to Rose, it was agreed that 
 
86 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 Mr. Byerley's consent should be asked without 
 delay. 
 
 While this matter was under consideration, 
 Mr. Byerley entered and seated himself by Mrs. 
 Fletcher. The girls presently withdrew. 
 
 " Can you guess what we were talking of 
 when you came?" said Mrs. Fletcher. 
 
 " Your countenance tells me," replied Mr. 
 Byerley, nodding towards the balcony. " There 
 is much to be said on that subject, my dear 
 madam; and I do assure yovi that the best kind- 
 ness you can show us all, is to tell me truly and 
 exactly what impression my poor motherless 
 girls have made upon you." 
 
 " I will do so with the greatest pleasure,'" re- 
 plied Mrs. Fletcher, smiling ; " for the impres- 
 sion is very much like what I know you wish it 
 to be." And while she praised, the father listen- 
 ed with pleased attention. 
 
 " I have tried to make them good," he said, 
 when there was a pause: " they are affectionate, 
 and they are simple. There is little in their 
 conduct to myself which I wish otherwise; and 
 no sisters were ever more attached to one ano- 
 
FRIENDSHIP NOT ALWAYS BLISS. 87 
 
 ther than they. But there is much which wants 
 correction ; and more evil in prospect, I am 
 afraid." 
 
 " Their personal habits want correction, I 
 grant, without dispute," replied Mrs. Fletcher; 
 " and I have a plan to propose for that purpose : 
 but what further evil is in prospect I do not 
 see." 
 
 " An evil of much greater magnitude than 
 their sad external habits, which, however, are 
 grievous enough," replied their father. " You 
 know my hatred of all schools, and of the usual 
 method of female education." 
 
 " Oh ! yes," said Mrs. Fletcher, smiling : 
 " your prejudices on that subject are completely 
 identified with yourself" 
 
 " The reason of that hatred, which may have 
 some prejudice mixed up with it, is, that almost 
 all the women whom I have known to have 
 much feeling, have been victims to feeling. 
 It seems to me, that through some grand error 
 in education, women become either unfeeling 
 or sentimental — given either to levity or ro- 
 mance." 
 
88 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 " I cannot agree with you at all," said Mrs. 
 Fletcher; " and I am very sure you have been 
 unfortunate in your experience of female society; 
 or that one beautiful example of sobriety and 
 depth of feeling united, has made you imagine 
 that the method of education adopted in that 
 particular case, must be the only good one." 
 
 " I have indeed wished that my girls should 
 be placed, as nearly as possible, in the circum- 
 stances which made their mother what she was; 
 but I begin to have my fears. Their minds are, 
 in some respects, too forward for their age; their 
 imaginations are growing too fast." 
 
 " If you think so of your own children," said 
 Mrs. Fletcher, " what must be your opinion of 
 mine.''" 
 
 " I judge in no case but that in which I am 
 most nearly concerned," replied Mr. Byerley. 
 " How your daughters act and feel I pretend 
 not to know; and if I knew, I should not inter- 
 fere with criticisms or advice. But, as to my 
 own girls, I have seen Mary often lately so ab- 
 sorbed in her book of poetry or in a reverie, that 
 it is difficult to recall her attention to necessary 
 
FRIENDSHIP NOT ALWAYS BLISS. 89 
 
 things; and Anna's red eyes and melancholy 
 countenance have really distressed me the last 
 two days." 
 
 " I am sure their feelings are of a most amia- 
 ble kind," said Mrs. Fletcher ; " and such as I 
 would not repress for the world." 
 
 " Amiable, I grant, and natural," replied the 
 father; " but I think they come too early, and 
 that there is too much of them. Nobody values 
 more than I do the lofty and deep emotion 
 which prompts to the most vigorous and benevo- 
 lent action; but feeling of this kind cannot sub- 
 sist in the mind in mature years, if an excessive 
 sensibility be allowed early and idly to excite 
 the imagination. If Anna's compassion for Sig- 
 nor Elvi's misfortunes could lead her to active 
 exertions on behalf of him and his family, let 
 her pity him as much as she will; but as she 
 can do nothing, and tries to do nothing, I am 
 afraid of the consequences of so many sighs and 
 tears, natural and amiable as they may be in 
 themselves." 
 
 " I believe Mary feels quite as much," ob- 
 served Mrs. Fletcher, " and to better purpose, 
 
90 FIVE YKARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 for she tries to amuse him, instead of awakening 
 painful feelings." 
 
 " If that was the case always, I should fear 
 nothing," replied Mr. Byerley; "but I dread 
 the effects of the reveries over Paradise Lost, 
 and " 
 
 " Paradise Lost will do her no harm," said 
 Mr. Fletcher, who had joined them unperceived, 
 and was leaning over the back of the sofa : " no 
 imagination was ever the worse for being early 
 nourished on that book. It is the flimsy, love- 
 sick, sentimental poetry of modern times, which 
 makes women so weak and tiresome, as those of 
 them are who pretend to be bookish, or to have 
 line feelings." 
 
 " 1 should not have thought," said Mr. Byer- 
 ley, smiling, " that you would have admitted 
 poetry under any shape into your daughters' 
 library." 
 
 " You do not know me then," replied Mr. 
 Fletcher. " If you and I were to compare our 
 notions of a perfect woman, 1 believe they would 
 be found pretty much alike. She must have an 
 intellect capable of grasping high thoughts, and 
 
FRIENDSHIP NOT ALWAYS BLISS. 91 
 
 a heart expanded by boundless feelings, or reli- 
 gion cannot have done all it may do for her. 
 It is because I value the noble faculty of ima- 
 gination so highly, that it grieves me to see 
 it weakened and perverted by early indul- 
 gence." 
 
 " As it is in my girls," said Mr. Byerley, 
 gravely. 
 
 " No," said Mr. Fletcher, " not in your girls; 
 at least, not in Mary; and not to an irremedia- 
 ble degree in Anna: but it is time you were 
 taking care." 
 
 " If I had Mr. Byerley 's fears, (which I have 
 not,)" said Mrs. Fletcher, " I should take the 
 girls into the world; or, at least, let them see 
 more society here. If they had a greater variety 
 of realities to think about, they would have 
 fewer imaginations." 
 
 " I agree with you perfectly, my dear," said 
 Mr. Fletcher. And now it was most clearly 
 proved, in various ways, to Mr. Byerley, that 
 the best possible plan he could pursue with his 
 daughters, would be to let them join their friends 
 in a journey to the Continent, where they were 
 
92 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 going to reside for two or three years. Not- 
 withstanding so many arguments, however, the 
 father could not be persuaded of the possibility 
 of parting with his children; and the most he 
 could be brought to say was, that he would en- 
 deavour so to arrange his plans, as to join Mr. 
 Fletcher's family in the south of France in the 
 course of a few months. He laughed as he ad- 
 verted to the remarks which might very fairly 
 be made on this new proof of his eccentricity, if 
 his neighbours should lay hold of the idea that 
 he went abroad for the moral improvement of 
 the girls; as if they could not be made wise and 
 good in their own country. 
 
 " The difference of country has nothing to do 
 with it," said Mr. Fletcher: "if we were going 
 to Dublin or Edinburgh instead of Tours, you 
 would come to us as you intend doing now. 
 Your object is change of society more than of 
 place, as far as your daughters are concerned. 
 As for your own peculiar tastes, you can gratify 
 them more easily abroad than you could in Lon- 
 don, where such a politician as yourself can 
 never be left long unmolested. But, Byerley, 
 
FRIENDSHIP NOT ALWAYS BLISS. 93 
 
 you surely do not regard what any body says 
 about your domestic plans !" 
 
 " Nobody so little,'' replied Mr. Byerley, 
 "as my practice has proved; but I sometimes 
 amuse myself with the remarks which are made 
 on my oddity. I hope my girls will never suffer by 
 the reputation of that sort which I have gained.'' 
 
 " Not they : it is more likely they should 
 suffer by our leaving them for the hour together, 
 as we are doing now, to listen to the Signor's 
 pretty, soft sentiments." 
 
 On approaching the balcony, it was found, 
 however, that though the Signer was holding 
 forth on a pretty subject, it was "by no means 
 a sentimental one. He was describing the pro- 
 cess of rearing silk-worms in Italy, and of ob- 
 taining and managing their produce. Thence 
 he proceeded to answer some questions of Rose's 
 about the silk manufactory at Lyons, of which 
 he had talked with her father at dinner on the 
 day of their arrival. Anna had not listened, 
 and was not therefore much interested in what 
 was now said. 
 
 The evening sun shone bright and warm into 
 
94 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 the balcony, when Mary gave up her seat there 
 to Mrs. Fletcher, while she took her place at the 
 tear-table. Remarks were made on the luxury 
 of such an assemblage in such a place, on the 
 beauty of the prospect, the fragrance of the 
 flowers, and many other causes of enjoyment; 
 when Mr. Fletcher, ever afraid of sentiment, 
 cried out : " Pray, Miss Mary, do not let the 
 tea be the worse for every thing else being so 
 charming. Not all the prettiness in the world 
 will make up for the tea being spoiled.'' He 
 appealed to the Signor, who did not appear to 
 share Anna's indignation ; though he smiled 
 while he replied, that he liked perfection of com- 
 fort when if could be had; and that, if he were 
 an Englishman, he did not doubt that it would 
 be a drawback to his pleasure to be disappointed 
 in the strength and flavour of his tea. 
 
 Selina and her friend thought this was over- 
 strained politeness, till they perceived that their 
 foreign friend sipped his excellent coffee with 
 real relish. They forgot to drink theirs till it 
 was celd; but as they probably did not notice 
 the fact, it did not signify. 
 
FRIENDSHIP NOT ALWAYS BLISS. 9-5 
 
 Signor Elvi did not appear at the breakfast- 
 table the next morning; and, on enquiry, it was 
 found that he had gone out very early, leaving 
 word that he should not return till night. No 
 one could imagine whither he had departed : he 
 knew not one person in the neighbourhood, and 
 had no connexions of business or pleasure out of 
 London. Had he gone in one of the coaches.'' 
 No : it was not coach time when he went out. 
 He took no parcel with him; nothing but his 
 hat and stick, and a book which peeped out of 
 his pocket, the servant said. She could not tell 
 in what direction he had turned his steps. No 
 further information was to be obtained, and the 
 plans for the day were laid without any reference 
 to their stranger guest. 
 
 The principal plan was for a long afternoon 
 visit to the farm, to drink new milk, play with 
 the children, and see all that was to be seen. 
 Mrs. Fletcher had known Nurse Rickham in 
 former days: she had now seen her at Mr. Byer- 
 ley's house, but had promised to visit her in her 
 own homestead, where she might see all the chil- 
 dren gathered together, and make some acquaint- 
 
96 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 ance with the husband. At a little past four, 
 accordingly, Kitty stood by the farm-yard gate, 
 dressed in her best, to open it for the ladies to 
 enter. Tommy pulled his fore-lock without 
 ceasing, when they came in sight; and Nurse, 
 with her starched mob and clean white apron, 
 advanced smiling and blushing to welcome her 
 guests. In answer to her respectful enquiries 
 about Mr. Byerley's health, Mary told her that 
 he would follow presently with Mr. Fletcher, to 
 join them in time for tea. Nurse thought her- 
 self only too much honoured, but had not ex- 
 pected any but the ladies, as the gentleman from 
 abroad had passed through and far away so early 
 in the morning. Had he been at the farm.^ it 
 was eagerly asked. Yes: as Robin was leading 
 out the team, the gentleman who spoke so very 
 strangely, asked leave to pass through the yard 
 and the paddock behind, as this seemed the 
 shortest way to the hills he wished to reach. 
 Robin could scarcely understand one word of his 
 enquiries ; so he called Nurse Rickham, who, 
 having been more used to gentlefolks, was able 
 to afford him more satisfaction. She described 
 
FRIENDSHIP NOT ALWAYS BLISS. 97 
 
 the paths among the hills to him, and led him 
 through two fields, so that he could not possibly 
 mistake his way. All this was very strange. 
 Anna was sure that he was gone into solitude to 
 compose a poem : — who knew what might be in 
 it! Selina having perceived that her mother 
 looked somewhat grave, formed the horrible con- 
 jecture that he meant to destroy himself, as she 
 had heard some of his countrymen had done 
 under the pressure of distress. It was in vain 
 that she was reminded how cheerful he was the 
 night before; how he had mentioned his plans 
 for the next week ; and how little reason there 
 ' was to suppose that he was now oppressed by 
 any new or overwhelming grief or difficulty. 
 Still Selina was persuaded in her own mind that 
 he would be found weltering in his blood, or 
 hanging from a tree. What other supposition 
 was at all probable.'' How did her mamma, or 
 Rose, or Mary, account for his absence .? Her 
 mamma left it to be explained by time; Rose 
 ventured no conjecture; and Mary gently asked 
 if no instance had ever been known of people 
 retiring into woods, wildernesses, and fields, for 
 
 F 
 
98 FIVE YEAKS OF YOUTH. 
 
 the sake of solitude, and the employments which 
 belong to solitude. 
 
 " You do not know all that I could tell you," 
 said Selina, sadly and mysteriously, " or you 
 would not think he could have any such pur- 
 pose." 
 
 " I should like to hear, if you can tell me,'" 
 said Mary. " Do tell me." 
 
 Selina drew her aside, and whispered: "Signor 
 Elvi is not a Christian." 
 
 " I know it," replied Mary : " I heard papa 
 say so." 
 
 " Then how can you think he can like to be 
 alone as a religious' man would?" 
 
 " Because I think he is a religious man." 
 
 Selina looked very much puzzled. Mary 
 said: " Some other time I will tell you what 
 papa told me about this, and then you will under- 
 stand what I mean." 
 
 " Does your papa think that Signor Elvi is 
 religious.''" 
 
 " Yes, he does; but do not fancy that papa is 
 not a Christian. And I do assure you that you 
 may make yourself quite easy about Signor !Elvi. 
 
FRIENDSHIP NOT ALWAYS BLISS. 99 
 
 He is too wise and good to throw away his life 
 as soon as misfortunes happen." 
 
 " I do not blame people for destroying them- 
 selves so much as you do, Mary. They only do 
 it when they are very miserable. I am more 
 sorry for them than you are." 
 
 " Not more sorry, I hope," said Mary. " I 
 am very sorry for their misery, and I am more 
 sorry still that they have not strength to bear it. 
 They are, indeed, more to be pitied than one can 
 imagine." 
 
 " Not strength!"" repeated Selina. " Well, 
 now, I cannot help admiring their courage. I 
 think it shows such great courage to leave every 
 thing that they know, and go they do not know 
 where — to take the leap in the dark, as some- 
 body says." 
 
 " Do you not blame people then, for destroy- 
 ing themselves.''" enquired Mary, perplexed in 
 her turn. 
 
 " Oh yes, to be sure. It is very wrong, be- 
 cause ^because " 
 
 " Because of what.''" 
 
 Selina did not seem quite ready with a reason. 
 
 f2 
 
100 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 Presently, however, she answered: " Because it 
 offends God." 
 
 " Certainly," said Mary: " it offends God to 
 refuse to bear whatever he appoints. It shows 
 that we do not trust in him; it shows that we 
 are very cowardly." 
 
 "Cowardly!" exclaimed Selina: "what! to 
 do such a bold act as that.^" 
 
 " Such a rash act," said Mary: " it is not 
 the less cowardly, on the whole, for being rash. 
 I know it must require some sort of vehement 
 resolution to do the very deed — to cut one's 
 throat across, or fire a pistol through one's 
 brains." 
 
 " That is what I mean," interrupted Selina. 
 
 " But a man who shows this sort of courage, 
 only has it because he wants a greater; he only 
 chooses the shortest way of getting rid of his 
 troubles, because he cannot bear the longer trial. 
 I am sure, Selina, you must admire the courage 
 that can bear on, and bear on, happen what 
 will." 
 
 • " Like the martyrs, and like the prisoners in 
 the Inquisition. Oh yes!" 
 
FRIENDSHIP NOT ALWAYS BLISS. 101 
 
 " And like many who never heard of the In- 
 quisition, but who endure worse things than they 
 could ever meet with there; troubles and griefs 
 which last from year to year, and which oppress 
 their wives or their children, or somebody else 
 whom they care more about than themselves." 
 
 Selina looked doubtful. 
 
 " I do not know any thing so grand," con- 
 tinued Mary, " as to see any body — man, wo- 
 man, or child, patiently and cheerfully bearing 
 one aifliction after another, witlioui wanting any 
 one to see or adm.ire; giving up every thing 
 most precious, as soon as required to do so, and 
 growing more and more careful to make other 
 people happy as they are less so themselves. 
 How very selfish, how very cowardly, is the 
 boldest man that ever cut his throat, in compa- 
 rison with such a one !" 
 
 Selina felt this; but enquired: "Do you 
 think Signor Elvi could be such a one if he is 
 not a Christian .P" 
 
 Mary pondered awhile before she answered: — 
 " I do not know: I will ask papa what he 
 thinks. But I am very sure that a person so 
 
102 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 kind-hearted to every body, so fond of his wife 
 and children, and so very serious, as papa says 
 he is about religion, could never, in his right 
 senses, plunge himself into destruction, and 
 every body that he cared for into misery." 
 
 This last sentence furnished Selina with a new 
 scheme. If Signor Elvi would not, in his right 
 senses, hang himself, he might do so if driven 
 mad by his misfortunes; and who could wonder 
 if such should prove to be the case? It mat- 
 tered not that he had been not only sane but 
 cheerful the night before, and that Nurse Rick- 
 ham was pleased with all that he had said, and 
 with his manner of saying it, that morning; 
 Selina was determined to be apprehensive: who 
 or what, therefore, could prevent her being so ? 
 
 Mary, on her part, was resolved to ascertain 
 what Signor Elvi's principles were with respect 
 to the duty of bearing the troubles of life with 
 patience and cheerfulness. If she might judge 
 from what she had seen, those principles were 
 good ; but she did not know how much allow- 
 ance to make for differences of national character, 
 and for constitutional temperament. She hoped 
 
FRIENDSHIP NOT ALWAYS BLISS. 103 
 
 to obtain satisfaction for herself, and instruction 
 for Selina, by telling her father her wishes, and 
 requesting him to engage his foreign friend in 
 conversation on such topics as might lead to an 
 explanation of those of his opinions which she 
 v/ished to ascertain. 
 
 In the meanwhile, she was glad to see how 
 Anna had recovered her spirits. At the farm it 
 was her wont to be gay, and the well-known ob- 
 jects there brought back the cheerfulness with 
 which she was accustomed to view them. When 
 in a merry mood, Anna was almost wild: she 
 was so now. A spirited game at prison-bars was 
 going on in the paddock, and Anna and Mr. 
 Fletcher were the most daring and active of the 
 players. Nobody excelled Mr. Fletcher at this 
 kind of sport; and he was glad when an oppor- 
 tunity offered of engaging his girls in amuse- 
 ments which they relished far less than was 
 natural at their age. Rose had now thrown 
 aside her bonnet, and was as eager to break the 
 bounds of her prison as little Tommy Rickham 
 himself; but Selina, who was disappointed to 
 find that Anna's sympathies were not as true to 
 
104 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 her own as the needle to the pole, turned away 
 with a sigh, and sought a shaded alley in the 
 garden, where she nourished her tender fears in 
 solitude, and grew more melancholy with every 
 shout of laughter which reached her from the 
 paddock. She could not forget Anna as she 
 had just seen her, panting with heat and fatigue, 
 her face flushed, her hair blown back, her eyes 
 almost starting with eagerness as she turned, and 
 wound about the palings, fled round and round, 
 crossed and crossed again in the agony of escape, 
 which left her no breath to cry out as her pur- 
 suer came nearer and nearer, and at last exactly 
 missed her in his last attempt to catch her as she 
 leaped over the boundary. How different from 
 the Anna who wept under the trees in Audley 
 Park ! Selina was afraid that, after all, she had 
 not found the friend after her own heart, whom 
 she had congratulated herself on securing. 
 
 " My love," said her mother, when she saw 
 that her bowl of new milk stood untasted before 
 her, while the rest of the party were enjoying 
 the meal they had earned by exercise, " I am 
 afraid you are not well, Selina." 
 
FRIENDSHIP NOT ALWAYS BLISS. 105 
 
 There was visible agitation about the lower 
 part of the face while she replied, in a low voice, 
 that she was not ill. Her father, whose back 
 was towards her, turned suddenly round and 
 looked her full in the face, while he felt her pulse 
 with mock gravity, observing that there was no 
 distemper but on the nerves, which certainly 
 wanted bracing. In an instant, before she was 
 aware, he held her hands behind her with one 
 hand, and with the other dragged her to the 
 very brink of the pond, as if he would throw her 
 in. Selina screamed and struggled; every body 
 else laughed, Anna rather more loudly than was 
 accordant with her friend's sympathies. Mr. 
 Fletcher let his prisoner escape, ran after her, 
 and when he had given her such a chase as ex- 
 hausted her breath, caught her, and whispering 
 a few words, led her back to her seat at the table 
 under the tree ; he helped her plentifully with 
 cake, thus giving her an opportunity of attesting 
 his skill in restoring an appetite. 
 
 There was so much amusement afterwards for 
 the gentlemen in accompanying the farmer 
 through some of his fields — for JMrs. Fletcher in 
 
 F 5 
 
106 
 
 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 quietly talking over old times with Nurse Rick- 
 ham — and for the young people, in seeing the 
 dairy-woman finish her milking, that it was dusk 
 before they left behind them the bows and curt- 
 seys of the household at the farm, and quite 
 dark when they reached home. 
 
 In the parlour was Signor Elvi, perfectly safe, 
 reading very intently, and looking so placid, that 
 it was evident no such direful thoughts as Selina 
 had imagined, had disturbed any mind but her 
 own. Anna retained, for the present, her con- 
 jecture about the poem; but, though all were 
 full of curiosity respecting his day's adventures, 
 no one made any allusion to them, except Mr. 
 Fletcher, who observed on the universal predi- 
 lection of patriots for the wilds of nature, for 
 hills, heaths, and caves. 
 
 " It is universal because it is natural," said 
 Signor Elvi. "When men cannot breathe freely 
 in despotic courts, they love to lay bare their 
 bosoms to the winds. If they must be dumb 
 before tyrants, they love to shout their songs of 
 liberty in the depths of caverns. If they must 
 smile falsely when the eyes of traitors are upon 
 
FRIENDSHIP NOT ALWAYS BLISS. 107 
 
 them, they love to drop their tears into the 
 mountain stream, while none look on but the 
 faithful and silent stars. Nature is the heaven 
 of patriots." 
 
 " But, my dear sir, here are no tyrants to 
 constrain you to silence; and it is to be hoped 
 we are not traitors. Weep as much as you 
 please, and I, for one, will promise not to report 
 your tears." 
 
 " You spoke of patriots," said the foreigner, 
 smiling ; " could I guess that your thoughts 
 were of myself?" 
 
108 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 39cpartureg. 
 
 The next day was Sunday. Signer Elvi, whe- 
 ther a Christian or not, went to church with the 
 family, apparently as a matter of course. Mary 
 and Selina stole a glance at one another when 
 the text of the sermon was given out: "Afflic- 
 tion worketh patience; and patience experience; 
 and experience hope." 
 
 How often it happens, that when the attention 
 has been fixed on any idea or feeling, or train of 
 ideas and feelings, some circumstance, or a great 
 variety of circumstances, happens to illustrate 
 or impress yet more deeply the subject of our 
 thought! How eminently useful, in this way, 
 is public worship ! for it is scarcely possible that 
 the subject of discourse should not have pecu- 
 
DEPARTURES. 109 
 
 liarly engaged the attention of some one among 
 the hearers so recently as to secure a preparatory 
 interest which must give double effect to what is 
 declared and enforced. This was the case in the 
 present instance. The excellent sermon which 
 Mary and Selina now heard, not only enlarged 
 their views of the subject on which they had 
 talked the day before, but was so fixed in their 
 memories that it recurred to them for a long 
 time afterwards, whenever suffering, fortitude, 
 self-destruction, and even Signor Elvi and his 
 countrymen were talked about. 
 
 The party returned from church by the longer 
 way through the fields, which extended to the 
 back gate of Mr. Byerley's garden. Mary had 
 put her arm within her father's, as the Signor 
 walked beside him. These three paced along 
 slowly, while the rest went forward. 
 
 Mr. Byerley hoped that his friend had follow- 
 ed his own inclinations about attending worship, 
 and had not accompanied the family merely out 
 of complaisance and observance of custom. 
 
 " Convince yourself, from my freedom of yes- 
 terday," was the reply. " If I withdrew myself 
 
110 FIVE YEARS OP YOUTH. 
 
 freely for my own pleasure, think you not I 
 would likewise withdraw rather than dishonour 
 the worship of God by entering his temple with 
 an unwilling heart?" 
 
 " I did not know that you could join in Chris- 
 tian worship with a willing heart." 
 
 " In some worship which is called Christian, I 
 join not, because its superstition is greater than 
 I can bear. Where the priest offers for the 
 people prayers which they cannot understand, 
 and makes them worship a dressed doll, and 
 rings bells, and burns candles in the daylight, 
 I feel no more that it is my God whom they wor- 
 ship, and I turn away as from idolatry. Such is 
 the Christianity of my country. Far better is 
 the simple homage of the spirit among the 
 hills." 
 
 " Far better, indeed," said Mr. Byerley : 
 " but why should not that simple homage be 
 Christian ? You have till lately seen no worship 
 but the Catholic worship of your own country, 
 where it is more grossly superstitious than al- 
 most any where else ; but if you love truth, if 
 you love religion as much as I believe you do, 
 
DEPARTURES. Ill 
 
 you will not be satisfied till you have learned a 
 little more what Christianity is. You have al- 
 ready found that Latin prayers, wax lights, and 
 incense make no part of it ; and if you will go 
 into our meeting-houses, you will find external 
 observances more simplified still. From the so- 
 lemn Easter service of our cathedrals, which you 
 acknowledge to be impressive, down to the silent 
 worship of the Friends'' meeting-house, which 
 you would perhaps find no less so, you might, 
 by discovering what Christianity is not, become 
 better informed than you now are what it is." 
 
 " I own, my friend, that this diversity is too 
 perplexing for me. I meet many Christians ; 
 and they all tell me differently of their faith. 
 I ." 
 
 " Look to the records of their faith, and judge 
 for yourself, instead of taking any man's word."" 
 
 " I was about to say, that I look into the 
 Scriptures and find many things which I cannot 
 understand or believe ; but much, very much, 
 which is more pure in morals, more lofty in feel- 
 ing, more grand in piety to God, and more 
 winning in love to man, than I can find in any 
 
112 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 Other religion, whether in the heart or in books. 
 Therefore I read very often the words of Christ 
 with veneration, and therefore I attend the wor- 
 ship of your churches. I believe that all things 
 come from God, the consolations of all religions, 
 and of your best religion among others ; and as 
 long as I make use of it and give thanks for it, it 
 matters not to me to enquire about those parts 
 which I cannot believe." 
 
 " You cannot be sure whether you can believe 
 them or not till you do enquire," observed Mr. 
 Byerley, " as you would yourself remark in any 
 other case; and as I think you will admit here- 
 after, when you have learned more of our faith, 
 as separate from the superstitions with which 
 you have hitherto seen it united. If you will only 
 study this subject as fairly as you do any other 
 which interests you, you will find Christianity 
 far more precious to you than you can conceive : 
 more precious than the religion which you now 
 value above every thing. It is, in fact, the same 
 religion, enlarged and enriched." 
 
 " Ah ! what is man without religion ?" ex- 
 claimed his friend. " I believe not myself to 
 
DEPARTURES. 113 
 
 have suffered more than many others ; but what 
 but rehgion could have strengthened me to live ? 
 My country, my beautiful Italy, is spoiled and 
 trampled on by tyrants ; and I, her son, who 
 loved her so much, how should I escape ? I have 
 given in sacrifice all I have ; but neither myself 
 nor her many devoted children have ransomed her 
 from her slavery. Our struggles to set her free 
 have doubled her chains ; and her oppressors 
 laugh at her miseries and insult her defenders, 
 who, torn from her bosom, mourn eternally their 
 exile." 
 
 " The wrongs of your country, Elvi, afflict 
 you more than your own. This is patriotism." 
 
 " Give me no unjust praise, my friend : my 
 own sorrows find fewer words because they lie 
 deeper. My home, and they who dwell there, 
 shall see me no more ! When I saw my son fall 
 on the field ; when his generous spirit escaped 
 before he could speak the last words of love to 
 me ; when, again, the sea rolled between me and 
 my own land, and I had not given my wife one 
 farewell, I thought that fate had heaped her last 
 injuries upon me, and I trusted that I could not 
 
114 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 live under so many griefs. But I talk no more 
 of fate, but rather think of God ; and though I 
 live, and ray griefs live also, and make a resting- 
 place in my heart till death, I am content to re- 
 main till affliction has made me patient, and my 
 patience has made me hopeful, as your apostle 
 has wisely said. Now, what but religion could 
 give me this content and this hope ?" 
 
 " Nothing, my friend. No other spirit of 
 peace is always awake and always nigh. But 
 whence did you derive your religion?"" 
 
 "When, in my youth, I ceased to be a Catho- 
 lic, I did not cease to regard God ; but not till 
 I became helpless and friendless did 1 know the 
 full worth of piety. When I looked round and 
 found no home, I humbly sought my home in 
 the Presence which is every where ; when there 
 was no one near to mourn with me, or to love 
 me, it was my true relief to pray ; and when I 
 have hope for my children and for my country, 
 it rejoices me to commit it to Him who can fulfil 
 what I can only hope. And above all, when I 
 hear my countrymen curse the authors of their 
 sorrows, it comforts me to disarm those curses 
 
DEPARTURES. 115 
 
 with more kindly prayers. Oh ! that they would 
 learn that revenge is not for man." 
 
 Mary thought that their friend had learned 
 more from the gospel than he himself was aware 
 of. So thought their father. 
 
 " I have been grieved, though not much sur- 
 prised," said he, " to perceive how your country- 
 men long for revenge, and how bitterly they 
 curse their oppressors." 
 
 " Alas !" replied Elvi, " it makes me mourn 
 for them and for our cause. They desire to 
 crush their enemies under their feet, to shed 
 their blood as a welcome libation to freedom, to 
 hunt them as blood-hounds follow their prey ; 
 but the noblest hearts feel not thus. The 
 strongest sight looks furthest, and sees a nobler 
 issue than this. I ask them where is their 
 faith, if not in Providence — in liberty. The 
 chains of tyranny are strong, but the consuming 
 power of time is yet stronger. Tyranny now 
 puts forth her force to desolate the lands ; but 
 there is an immortal vigour in liberty which shall 
 make her the queen of the world, when prisons 
 shall be razed, and when blood shall cease to be 
 
116 FIVE YEAKS OF YOUTH. 
 
 poured out like water. This is the faith which I 
 would give to those who will not receive a better. 
 Yet some of them will not live, even by this faith." 
 
 Mary anxiously listened for what was to come 
 next. 
 
 " If they have no higher faith than this," ob- 
 served her fither, " I do not wonder that they 
 obey the impulse to cast off' life and sorrow to- 
 gether." 
 
 " Nor I, my friends; for the temptation is in- 
 deed strong." 
 
 " You have felt it to be so." 
 
 " Once : one bitter hour — let us not speak of 
 it. Now I am beyond its reach. I see how 
 poor is the courage which cannot long endure. 
 I see how impious is the impatience which will 
 not wait till the designs of Providence are made 
 known. I pity those who are thus weak, more 
 than they pity me for what remains to me ; and 
 for myself — if my lot be to die for my own land, 
 I am ready : if it be to suffer yet many years 
 for her, I am willing. These vows I repeat, as 
 yesterday, on the days which number my years 
 since my birth." 
 
DEPARTURES. 117 
 
 " Was yesterday your birth-day ?" 
 
 " It was. In my own country, I went among 
 the mountains — among the Alps, which as a 
 child I climbed. There I was alone on that 
 day. Here, no Alps are before me, but I go out 
 alone to remember, and to meditate, and to hope; 
 for while my heart beats, I cannot but remem- 
 ber : while there is a world around me, and a 
 spirit within me, I must meditate : while there 
 is a providence to be discerned, and a God to be 
 hearkened to in all these things, I am apt to 
 hope, and I cannot but pray." 
 
 " Your faith is now your best blessing, and 
 will prove your ample reward," said Mr. Byer- 
 ley, " whatever lot may befall your country and 
 yourself ; but tell me, honestly, if those of your 
 countrymen who are without your faith do not 
 look on you as almost a Christian ?''' 
 
 " I own they do ; but they know as much less 
 of your gospel than I, as I than you." 
 
 Mary fell into a reverie about what she had 
 heard ; and when she listened again, her father 
 and his friend were speaking of the political 
 state of Italy. Having made sure of the facts 
 
118 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 that Signer Elvi, so far from excusing the act of 
 suicide, held it to be impious, selfish, and cow- 
 ardly, she took the first opportunity, after her 
 arrival at home, of communicating her discovery 
 to Selina, who was never again heard to ad- 
 mire, even in the very lowest degrees of com- 
 parison, the resolution shown in the act of self- 
 murder. 
 
 This was the last day of the Fletchers' visit — 
 the last day of the intercourse which all the girls 
 enjoyed, and which Anna thought she could 
 scarcely live without. She had come to an ex- 
 planation, and almost an apology, with Selina, 
 for her mirth the preceding evening. She owned 
 that it was very provoking, when inclined to be 
 sad, to see one's dearest friend particularly 
 merry ; and she thought she should be more 
 observant of Selina's mood another time. She 
 just hinted, however, that some accommodation 
 from the other party was very possible; and that 
 it might be desirable to meet half way. If Selina 
 had looked a little more cheerful, she might have 
 been more moderate in her laughter. " How 
 was it possible, dear, to be cheerful, when I sup- 
 
DEPARTURES. 119 
 
 posed that Signor Elvi had shot himself?" was, 
 however, an unanswerable question. 
 
 Long was the talk this night, when the friends 
 should have been fitting themselves, by sleep, for 
 the fatigues and various emotions of the next day. 
 When the midnight clock told them that the 
 last Sabbath they were to be together was gone, 
 they had too much to say about the way in 
 which they were to remember each other, to 
 close their eyes. It was dawn before they slept. 
 The next morning came the melancholy busi- 
 ness of packing, and the disagreeable sight of 
 corded trunks in the hall. Though the dinner 
 was ordered very early, the hours hung heavily ; 
 for no one thought of doing any thing but wan- 
 dering round the garden, and sitting in the bal- 
 cony, and bidding farewell to every place. 
 
 While Rose, Selina, and Anna were standing 
 idly by the brink of the pond, they saw Mary 
 running nimbly down the steps, and hastening 
 towards them, evidently bringing good news. 
 She had just heard of her father's promise to 
 take them abroad to join their friends, as soon 
 as they should be settled at Tours. Joyful 
 
120 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 news indeed ! and well-timed to cheer the part- 
 ing. Months must pass away before they would 
 meet ; but that there was any certain prospect 
 of meeting was delightful. Mary was older than 
 her companions, and very much wiser in propor- 
 tion, so that she could look forward with greater 
 ease : she was therefore the happiest of the 
 party; rather happier than her sister could un- 
 derstand. 
 
 Anna's heart smote her when she felt, from 
 time to time, a fear that she should not find her 
 sister all she had found her — a fear that they 
 might be dull together. She loved her father 
 and sister very much ; but she no longer looked 
 forward to her daily occupations, and to daily in- 
 tercourse with the household, with the pleasure 
 and alacrity which had been habitual to her. 
 This painful feeling, made up of regret and self- 
 reproach, was at its height when Mr. Fletcher's 
 carriage drove from the door. She was so pos- 
 sessed with the idea that Mary would not feel 
 the separation as she did, that she ran away at 
 once to shed her tears in silence. If she had had 
 any thought for any one but herself, she would 
 
DEPARTURES. 121 
 
 have perceived that her sister was also in tears, 
 and that they did not flow the less amply because 
 Anna broke from her, refusing to be comforted. 
 After a while, Anna stole into the room her 
 friends had occupied, for the purpose of feeding 
 her grief with the visible signs of their former 
 presence. Mary was already there, sitting on 
 the chair on which a bandbox had stood to be 
 packed, and twirling on her fingers a rejected 
 piece of string. The sympathy which thus 
 brought them together cheered them both, and 
 they resolutely went the round of the apartment, 
 to gather up every memorial of their departed 
 guests. In a half-opened drawer, they found a 
 note for each — notes which afforded abundance 
 of painful pleasure, and which were immediately 
 destined, by vow, to be kept for ever. 
 
 There is something so truly painful in part- 
 ings, that no length of time, no frequency of the 
 occasion, can reconcile us to them. The sight 
 of the deserted room strikes gloom upon the 
 heart, even if its inhabitant intends to return in 
 a very few days or weeks. We sigh over every 
 memorial we happen to meet with, even if the ab- 
 
 G 
 
122 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 sent one is to return presently to claim it. The 
 grief of a really terrible parting is transferred, by 
 association, to the least important ; and every 
 body feels pretty much alike about them all. It 
 is not to be wondered at that Mary and Anna, 
 who were just beginning to taste the pleasures of 
 friendship with new minds, and who were inex- 
 perienced in the regrets which attend such con- 
 nexions, should be really and deeply melancholy 
 during the first hours of separation ; especially 
 as they had the prospect of undergoing some- 
 thing of the same kind the next day, when Signor 
 Klvi was to bid them farewell. 
 
 He was now with their father in the study, 
 transacting the business which brought him to 
 
 A . He appeared no more to them the 
 
 whole day, except at tea-time, when he was so 
 busy talking politics that he had no more leisure 
 than Mr. Byerley for taking further notice of the 
 girls than his habitual politeness prompted. The 
 sisters, feeling somewhat forlorn when again left 
 together, sat down, face to face, to talk over the 
 past week; and they comforted one another as 
 well as they could, till sleep performed the office 
 of comforter better still. 
 
DEPARTURES. 123 
 
 The next afternoon, when the Signor had be- 
 stowed on them his last smile, and with foreign 
 politeness and native feeling kissed their hands 
 at parting, they went to their father's study to 
 get rid of their ennui. 
 
 Mr. Byerley was, fortunately, in particularly 
 good spirits. Much as he esteemed his late 
 guests, and had on the whole enjoyed their 
 society, he preferred his own quiet study, and 
 the liberty to pursue his daily plans. To be 
 gowned and slippered was quite a luxury ; and 
 to shut the door on all the world but his children, 
 gave him a satisfaction which he was not unrea- 
 sonable enough to expect to see reflected in the 
 faces of his young companions. It was well that 
 he was in a bright mood, for all his patience was 
 needed to-day. Virgil could not be made to 
 utter poetry, or even sense, this afternoon ; and 
 Fenelon's French was far less intelligible than 
 Signor Elvi's. Anna's memory furnished her 
 with one provoking rhyme, 
 
 " The rule of three doth puzzle me," 
 
 which was the only product she could obtain 
 
 G 2 
 
124 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 from her sum. Her father took pity on her 
 perplexity, and explained once more what he 
 knew she understood very well. He pointed 
 with his finger to the place where the answer was 
 to be written down, when lo ! a huge tear-drop 
 fell on it. Then came another, and another, till 
 the divisor and the quotient became ahke indis- 
 tinguishable. 
 
 " What is all this about .^" said her father, 
 making her sit on his knee. " What makes you 
 so unhappy this afternoon.''" 
 
 Anna had so many reasons to give, that she 
 did not know which to produce first. Before she 
 could find voice to reply, her father's attention 
 was called away by stiffled sobs from the other 
 side of the table. 
 
 " You too, Mary ! Come here, my dear, and 
 tell me what has happened to you both." 
 
 Mary came, and as she was wont, told her 
 father all that she herself knew of what was in her 
 mind ; ending by owning, with a half-smile, that 
 she should not have shed any tears if Anna had 
 not ; but that now she had once begun, she did 
 not know when she should be able to leave off. 
 
DEPARTURES. 125 
 
 Her father, hasty as he was sometimes, was now 
 full of tenderness, though he did not weakly en- 
 courage their overflow of melancholy. He said 
 no more about study, but talked to them of the 
 prospect of meeting their friends again, and of 
 much which was to be done in the mean time. 
 He showed that he fully understood the new 
 pleasure of companionship which they had just 
 enjoyed, and that he shared their sympathy with 
 his foreign friend's misfortunes, and their ad- 
 miration of his conduct under them ; but he 
 led them to perceive how wrong it is to allow 
 inactive sympathy to interfere with active duty. 
 
 When the tears had disappeared, and smiles 
 came forth again, he sent them to put on their 
 bonnets, that they might have a walk together 
 once more. 
 
 As soon as the fresh air blew on her face, 
 Mary's impulse was, as usual, to sing ; but cry- 
 ing is a bad preparation for singing, and she was 
 obliged to keep her music till her voice, as well 
 as her spirit, had recovered its tone. 
 
 Anna was too much absorbed to observe where 
 her father was leading her, till they entered a 
 
126 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 narrow, dark alley, and turned up a broken, 
 winding stair. When they had reached the top, 
 Mr. Byerley desired them to wait outside a door 
 at which he knocked, till he should come to 
 them. When the door was opened from within, 
 the girls obtained a view, for an instant, of a 
 wretched apartment inhabited by a sick man, 
 who was stretched on a low bedstead, without 
 curtains, and furnished only with a rug. Pain 
 and want were visible in the face of the sufferer; 
 and the boy who opened the door likewise ap- 
 peared half-famished. 
 
 " O, papa!" said Mary, when Mr. Byerley 
 joined them again in a few minutes, " who are 
 these poor people ?" 
 
 " They are foreigners, my dear, in the extreme 
 of distress." 
 
 Anna's attention was immediately fixed. 
 
 " Foreigners, papa .'' Where do they come 
 from .'*" 
 
 " From Italy. The man is an image-maker, 
 whom you may have seen about the streets with 
 his board. He maintained himself and his son 
 by his ingenuity ; and even contrived to put the 
 
DEPARTURES. 127 
 
 boy to school, where he made good progress; 
 but it is all at an end now. The poor man was 
 seized with a rheumatic fever some weeks ago, 
 and when he will be better there is no saying ; 
 for no complaint is more tedious. His money is 
 all gone; and they have both parted with all 
 their clothes but what they had on before they 
 applied to any body for assistance. When I 
 first saw them, yesterday, they seemed almost 
 starved." 
 
 " Why did you not tell us, papa ? We 
 might have done a great deal for them by this 
 time." 
 
 " I wished first to learn all the particulars of 
 their story, and at the same time to give them 
 the pleasure of conversing with a countryman ; 
 and therefore I took Elvi to see them last night. 
 He is satisfied of the truth of their statements, 
 and will obtain some relief, if possible, from the 
 fund for the relief of distressed foreigners in 
 London. He had nothing else to give, I am 
 sorry to say ; but his kindness and his promise 
 have cheered his poor countryman, and done 
 him more good, he says, than medicine. You 
 
128 
 
 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 see, Anna, we must not bestow all our com- 
 passion on Elvi: he is not the most unfortunate 
 of emigrants, hard as is the emigrant's lot." 
 
 Anna shook her head. Her father conti- 
 nued. 
 
 " Elvi himself said that such a scene as this 
 made him ashamed of dwelling on his own sor- 
 rows." 
 
 " He does not," exclaimed Anna : *' he thinks 
 of every body sooner than himself." 
 
 " He does, my dear, to all appearance — to 
 admiration ; but I believe he has very severe 
 struggles to undergo when no human eye sees, 
 and none are near to feel with and for him. I 
 will not say that he reproaches himself for this, 
 but he is anxious to bear in mind that others 
 suffer more than himself. ' I am not sleepless,' 
 he says, ' from hunger and pain, like this man. 
 I can see the sun shine and be consoled. I am 
 soothed by friendly words and kind deeds, and 
 my poverty is not real, but only future, since I 
 have clothes and food ; but this man tosses on his 
 straw bed through the night, and groans in anguish 
 through the day. He has no bread nor clothes, 
 
DEPARTURES. 129 
 
 nor is any one near to give. His son too is 
 wasting before his eyes; and they have nothing 
 but their faith to make them dare look forward 
 one single day. I must think of them when I am 
 sad.' Elvi is right." 
 
 " Certainly, papa," said Mary ; " but still I 
 think we cannot judge of a person's griefs by what 
 their condition seems to be. Do not you think 
 some people may feel exile and disappointment 
 more than other people feel sickness and want?" 
 *' I do, my dear. The degree of suffering 
 depends more on the state of the person's mind 
 than on his outward circumstances : a very re- 
 fined and amiable person may suffer more from 
 the disappointment of his affections and the ruin 
 of his country, than a very stupid and ignorant 
 person from actual want. All these evils are 
 equally real ; but there are these differences — 
 that we can understand and estimate the one 
 kind better than the other ; and we can always 
 relieve the one, and scarcely ever the other : and 
 of course, our first concern is with that which we 
 can measure and relieve." 
 
 " That is, we shotdd think more of this poor 
 
 G 5 
 
130 FIVE YEARS OF VOrXH. 
 
 man, and of what we can do for him, than of 
 Signor Elvi, this afternoon. So we will." 
 
 " Happily there is no occasion to feel less for 
 Elvi because we can do more for his poor country- 
 man," said her father : " if we are but careful 
 to do what we can and what we ought, we may 
 make ourselves sure that our feelings will be 
 right. We are to take care of our actions, and 
 to leave our feelings to take care of themselves." 
 
 This doctrine did not quite suit Anna's taste. 
 She made no objection to it in theory; but when 
 she had made sure of the image-man being taken 
 care of by other people, she lapsed into her re- 
 veries about patriotism and friendship ; or rather 
 about one patriot and one friend. 
 
131 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Sontion. 
 
 Instead of a few months, it was full two years 
 before Mr. Byerley and his daughters set out on 
 their promised journey to the continent. Mr. 
 Fletcher's plans had been changed from time to 
 time, so as to delay the arrival of his family at 
 Tours; and Mr. Byerley was too fond of his 
 home to be persuaded to leave it till the last 
 minute, though every body saw how necessary 
 some change of plan with respect to his daughters 
 was becoming. To this he was not himself to- 
 tally blind, though he was scarcely sufficiently 
 aware of the danger in which Anna stood of losing 
 all energy of character, all vigour of body as well 
 as of mind, through an unbounded indulgence of 
 the imagination. Mary was generally thought 
 
132 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 very romantic; but the few, the very few, who 
 knew her well, never applied the term to her. 
 No weak, no romantic person was ever capable 
 of the silent, perpetual self-denial which Mary 
 practised. No romantic person was ever so en- 
 tirely devoted as Mary to the welfare of every 
 body about her. It is true she did not make 
 much use of the common rules of common people 
 for judging of herself, still less of others : per- 
 haps she overlooked these inferior rules too 
 much. She thought and she felt on a large 
 scale; and when she had laid hold of a good 
 principle, she made it serve small as well as great 
 occasions, in a way that little minds would have 
 found it difficult to comprehend. Nobody doubt- 
 ed that on great occasions Mary would act nobly ; 
 but they supposed her unfit for the purposes of 
 common life : they supposed her 
 
 " too bright and good 
 For human nature's daily food." 
 
 They were quite mistaken, as they would soon 
 have found by living in the same house with her. 
 
LONDON. 133 
 
 They would have seen how capable she was of 
 forbearance in trifles, of patience under daily 
 trials, of the careful performance of irksome du- 
 ties. Her mind was matured so far beyond her 
 years, that a stranger who knew her age and not 
 her circumstances, would have accused her of an 
 affectation of womanishness It was because she 
 thought and felt like a woman^ however, and not 
 because she wished to be thought one, that her 
 manner was that of a woman. It was peculiar, 
 certainly; unlike that of any other girl of her age, 
 which was a disadvantage in some respects ; but 
 there was nothing in it which a kind-hearted per- 
 son would find fault with ; it would rather please 
 him. Knowing, as Mary did, that it was pro- 
 bable that their seclusion from female society 
 had left them ignorant of many of the important 
 proprieties of life, she was particularly watchful 
 to obtain all the light she could on a subject of 
 such great practical consequence; and her inces- 
 sant observation and anxious desire proved excel- 
 lent teachers. The very nicest sense of propriety 
 grew out of the discipline she imposed on her- 
 self, and was now operating rapidly on the faulty 
 
134 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 external habits of her early years, and from the 
 desire of doing right — a much better motive 
 than the desire of being pleasing — Mary was 
 becoming elegant and lady-like in her dress and 
 appearance. And how went life with Anna all 
 this time.? Alas! very diiferently. She was de- 
 licate in health, and weak in spirits: all the in- 
 struction, all the discipline which had so remark- 
 ably improved her sister, seemed to fall short of 
 its due effect on her. It taught her what was 
 right, and gave her a tormenting, impotent wish 
 to do it; but to do it, she seemed to have no 
 power; and therefore the wish was tormenting. 
 Her time was ill-employed, she could not tell 
 how or why; for she was very sorry for it, and 
 was always ready to own she was wrong, and 
 profuse in her promises that she would mend; 
 but no amendment followed. She presented the 
 singular phenomenon of a strong understanding, 
 which seemed of no use to any body ; of a clear 
 knowledge of what was right, which did not pre- 
 vent her doing wrong; of a lively sympathy for 
 other people's feelings, which did not prevent 
 her irritating and wounding them perpetually; 
 
LONDON. 135 
 
 of a temper gentle and amiable on the whole, 
 but liable to sudden and unaccountable disturb- 
 ance. It is needless to say that she was not 
 happy, and that she did much to prevent her 
 sister being so. Her father had many an anx- 
 ious hour on her account, though he still hoped, 
 that as she was so young, she would conquer the 
 irresolution which seemed the origin of all her 
 faults. He did not sufficiently remember that, 
 owing to the peculiarity of their situation, time 
 had done more than remained to be done in de- 
 ciding the cast of character of his children. He 
 did not enquire sufficiently into the cause of the 
 irresolution of will, which, if he had so enquired, 
 he would not have been so sanguine in the hope 
 of curing: it proceeded from a premature and 
 excessive exercise of the imagination. Whether 
 Anna would, like Mary, prove herself great on 
 great occasions, nobody could decide; but it was 
 evident to every body that she was not great on 
 small occasions. She met with much allowance 
 on account of her health; but more than one 
 who made this just allowance, felt convinced 
 that her delicacy of health was as much the 
 
136 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 effect as the cause of her faulty state of 
 mind. 
 
 Nurse Rickham was perhaps as good a judge 
 of her case, as many a one whose education and 
 intercourse with the superior classes of society, 
 might seem to qualify for a more accurate ob- 
 servation and judgment. 
 
 "I am glad, sir," said she one day to Mr. 
 Byerley, " that you are going to take the young 
 ladies out to see the world a little, though I am 
 sure I shall count the weeks till they come back 
 again." 
 
 " Thank you, nurse. I hope they will enjoy 
 themselves ; but I shall count the months as 
 anxiously as you. I am not fond of wandering, 
 and I am afraid I shall miss the quiet I have 
 been accustomed to." 
 
 " But you will have the satisfaction, I hope, 
 sir, of seeing that it does the young ladies good 
 to travel. Miss Anna especially. I am sorry to 
 say so, sir ; but it makes my heart ache to see 
 her so different from what she used to be."" 
 
 He shook his head, and nurse went on: 
 
 " Miss Mary sings about the house like a 
 
LONDON. 137 
 
 nightingale, for all she is full of care sometimes, 
 as I know; but Miss Anna, who used to be as 
 high-spirited as a child need be, is so downcast 
 now, that no one would think her to be the 
 same."" 
 
 " What strikes you as the reason, nurse?" 
 " She seems to me to think too much: I don't 
 pretend to know how much she studies from 
 books, and no doubt you look to that, sir; but 
 she seems to me to be always thinking and think- 
 ing; and 'tis that hurts her health, I do believe, 
 more than any thing else. When she comes to 
 our farm, I don't expect or wish that she should 
 play with the children as she did when she was 
 a child herself; but I don't like to see her stand 
 for hours together, looking up at the tree tops 
 as if she was watching the rooks, when it comes 
 out at last that she never saw one of them, nor 
 thought about them at all." 
 
 "If any thing came of all this reverie, I should 
 be less uneasy about it ; but while she becomes 
 more unfit for common life, I do not perceive 
 that her understanding improves like her sister's. 
 It is time something was done, nurse; and I 
 
138 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 hope the experiment has not been delayed too 
 long." 
 
 A month was to be spent in London, previous 
 to their leaving England. It was now the gay 
 season in town : the exhibitions were all open : 
 and as the girls had lived in almost entire seclu- 
 sion, their father wished to embrace the present 
 opportunity of gratifying that love of the fine 
 arts with which he had taken pains to inspire 
 them. They could both draw well, having been 
 well taught and long-practised; but they had 
 never seen any picture-gallery, but one. There 
 was a fine collection at Audley Castle, and there 
 Mary had gazed and studied till she knew every 
 picture by heart, and had copied all the best 
 into her mind, and some few into her portfolio. 
 She had an earnest desire to see other works of 
 her favourite masters, and to become acquainted 
 with the productions of many whom she yet 
 knew only by name. The time too appeared at 
 hand, when they should hear such music as their 
 hearts told them of by anticipation, but as their 
 ears had never heard. The most ancient edifice 
 they had ever seen was the market-cross of 
 
LONDON. 
 
 139 
 
 A , which bore date 1521. No; not the 
 
 most ancient, for Mary had once been in a cathe- 
 dral, when she was only four or five years old. 
 She remembered dimly the chill grandeur of the 
 aisles, and the music of the choir, as it swelled 
 from the soft breathings of a single voice, to the 
 pealing harmony which rang again from the 
 roof. She remembered enough to make her 
 long intensely, and to communicate to her sister 
 an equal impatience to see Westminster Abbey. 
 Mr. Byerley had many political connexions in 
 London, but they were not persons with whom 
 he wished to form more than an acquaintance; 
 and as it was necessary that they should hold 
 their time at their own disposal, he refused seve- 
 ral invitations to take up an abode at the houses 
 of friends, and requested Signor Elvi to engage 
 lodgings in a favourable situation. He was very 
 happy to receive such a commission, and on the 
 evening when they were expected, awaited their 
 arrival in the apartments, which he was resolved 
 they should not enter without meeting with a 
 welcome. 
 
 A doubt had been started, whether or not the 
 
140 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 girls should take their maid Susan with them. 
 It seemed probable that in France she would be 
 an incumbrance more than a help; but their 
 father dreaded the effects of their inexperience 
 in the ways of travelling, in the little circum- 
 stances of a journey in which he could not help 
 them, and on which its comfort and pleasure so 
 much depended. It was resolved, at last, that 
 she should accompany them to London, and then 
 proceed or not, as might appear desirable at the 
 end of a month. On the appointed morning, 
 therefore, Susan having looked into her young 
 mistresses' drawers, to see that the packing, 
 which was managed in their own very original 
 style, was complete, and that nothing needful 
 was left behind, appeared in her new straw bon- 
 net and shawl, ready to mount the box when the 
 carriage drove up to the door. It was hard to 
 say who looked the most grave and sad — Mr. 
 Byerley, who was whirled away in opposition to 
 his inclinations if not to his will ; or Nurse 
 Rickham and the remaining servant, who were 
 left behind, to comfort one another as they best 
 might. 
 
LONDON. 141 
 
 The travelling party reached their lodgings in 
 town in time for a late dinner; — their pretty, 
 convenient apartments, looking out upon such a 
 scene of organized bustle as the girls had formed 
 no idea of. When they had been welcomed by 
 Signor Elvi, and had in turn welcomed him 
 to dinner, when they had followed their civil- 
 spoken hostess to their apartment, and been 
 introduced to all its advantages of prospect, air, 
 quiet, &c. and when they had dismissed fish dnd 
 fowl, the question arose, what was to be done 
 next? Mary replied, by taking down from the 
 mantel-piece the notes which had awaited them 
 
 from Mr. B , the professor of music, and 
 
 Mr. D , the drawing-master, who appointed 
 
 certain days and hours for giving the desired 
 lessons. Mr. B was to come the next morn- 
 ing ; so Mary lost no time in trying whether the 
 instrument provided by Signor Elvi was in tune. 
 It satisfied her perfectly, and she was then ready 
 to accompany the party in a drive round Re- 
 gent's Park. It was not the hour for seeing the 
 throng of company with which it is crowded at 
 an earlier period of a fine spring day; but the 
 
142 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 splendour of the buildings afforded quite enough 
 interest for the first visit. The wonders of the 
 Colosseum, the Diorama, and the Zoological 
 Gardens, were reserved for another day; and 
 before it grew dark, the party were glad to return 
 to tea and to bed. They set down Signor Elvi 
 at his lodgings, having agreed upon the time 
 which should be devoted to their lessons with 
 him. 
 
 At breakfast the next morning, the girls heard 
 with consternation, that their father was going 
 out immediately on business, and would be ab- 
 sent for some hours. 
 
 " But, papa, Mr. B is coming at eleven 
 
 o'clock, to give me my music lesson." 
 
 " Well, my dear, what of that.'* you do not 
 think I can assist your music, do you.-*" 
 
 " And Mrs. Boyer, and the Nicholsons, will 
 most likely call this morning, ' said Anna; " and 
 you know we are quite strangers to them." 
 
 " They will not be strangers when they have 
 been here five minutes ; and if they were, I do 
 not know what you should be afraid of, or how 1 
 could be of any use to you." 
 
LONDON. 143 
 
 So saying, and knowing that his daughters 
 might reasonably remonstrate further, he pushed 
 away his cup and saucer, nodded, and left them. 
 
 " What are we to do ^ How very awkward!" 
 exclaimed Mary. " Let us keep together, Anna: 
 stay in the room when Mr. B comes." 
 
 " Certainly, unless there should be company 
 in the back drawing-room. Happily, we shall 
 both draw ; so it will not signify so much if papa 
 should be out when Mr. D comes." 
 
 It happened, as usual, that Anna forgot her 
 promise. The clock struck eleven, and Mr. 
 
 B made his appearance when Mary was 
 
 alone. She was afraid of him at first sight, for 
 he was so stiffened, so be-coUared and be-curled, 
 as to be unlike any body she had ever seen. She 
 thought it would be foolish to ring for her sister, 
 though she had now little hope of seeing her in 
 the course of the lesson. She therefore explain- 
 ed that her father had been obliged to go out 
 early, and volunteered all the necessary inform- 
 ation about her musical studies thus far. She 
 did not play her best, when called upon, and 
 was, at first, deterred by her master's pompous 
 
IM FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 manner, from asking many things which she 
 wished to know. By degrees, however, her 
 habitual interest in her music overcame her un- 
 comfortable feelings, and she played her part of 
 
 a duet with so much spirit, that Mr. B 's 
 
 formality gradually gave way, and he began to 
 speak less like an oracle, and to tap his snuff- 
 box less incessantly. When the lesson was about 
 half over, Mary heard a rapping at the door, and 
 the admittance of company into the back draw- 
 ing-room. She supposed that Anna had received 
 
 them ; and when Mr. B had made his three 
 
 bows in acknowledgment of her single curtsey, 
 she ran up stairs for her gloves, that she might 
 join her sister and their guests. To her sur- 
 prise, she found Anna sitting at the foot of the 
 bed, with a book in her hand. 
 
 " Why, Anna, don't you know there is some- 
 body in the drawing-room.''" 
 
 " Yes, I am going directly," said Anna, 
 rising, and showing that her gown was unfasten- 
 ed; "I am only going to change my gown, and 
 I will come directly." 
 
 Mary rang for Susan, and entreating her sister 
 
LONDON. 145 
 
 to follow with all speed, ran down to apologize 
 to Mr. and Mrs. Nicholson for her father^s ab- 
 sence and her own delay. They staid long, but 
 Anna came not; and the arrival of the drawing- 
 master sent them away without having seen her. 
 When again hunted up, she was found preparing 
 her drawing-board, which ought to have been 
 ready before. 
 
 "This will never do," thought Mary: " I 
 must ask papa not to go out again at this time 
 of day." 
 
 Anna woke up at the sight of her master's 
 beautiful portfolio, and appeared to have enjoyed 
 her lesson so much, that Mary had not the heart 
 to reproach her for her desertion in the morning. 
 She forgot it herself when the carriage came to 
 the door, and their father stepped in after them 
 to take them to the Abbey. 
 
 There they remained for hours. They wan- 
 dered silently through the intricacies of the side 
 chapels, and retired from the crowd of visitors 
 into the solemn stillness of Henry the Seventh's 
 chapel. There was no motion but the waving 
 of the ancient banners of the knights; no sound 
 
 H 
 
146 
 
 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 but the softest melody of the organ ; no sunshine 
 but the one gleam which fell athwart the deep 
 arch from the high windows. The partial gloom, 
 the grandeur, the silence, thrilled the very souls 
 of the strangers, and hushed their voices. After 
 they had gone the round of the edifice, and spent 
 a long hour in the Poets' Corner, they, with one 
 consent, returned to the chapel, that they might 
 bear away with them the impression they most 
 wished to preserve. 
 
 " Where next, my dears.''" said Mr. Byerley, 
 as they emerged into the warm sunshine. 
 
 " Is not this enough for to-day.'*" said Mary: 
 " I am afraid we should enjoy nothing after 
 it." 
 
 "Oh! let us get away from shops and peo- 
 ple,"" said Anna, looking as if she were going to 
 cry: " I cannot bear them to-day.'*'' 
 
 " No work of art will do after what we have 
 seen," said their father; " but you shall see 
 what will refresh instead of disgusting you." 
 
 He gave orders for a drive over Hampstead 
 Heath; and the freshness and natural beauty 
 which they found there, softened without im- 
 
LONDON. 147 
 
 pairing the impressions which they had previous- 
 ly received. 
 
 They were alone in the evening; and after 
 tea they sat down quietly to talk. Mary would 
 have wished to practise, and Anna to read; but 
 their father looked round him with a sigh, as if 
 regretting his own study. Mary therefore gave 
 him a description of her music-lesson and of Mr. 
 
 B , entreating him to be at home the next 
 
 time her master should come. 
 
 " That is as it may happen, Mary: I will take 
 you to-morrow where you will learn what I was 
 about this morning, and then you will not be 
 sorry that I left you to take care of each 
 other." 
 
 " I cannot let you suppose that we did that," 
 said Anna, blushing: " I left Mary to manage 
 every thing ; but I will be more ready to- 
 morrow." 
 
 "Will you?" said her father: "how often 
 have you promised this, Anna.? and have you 
 ever kept your promise.? You are not aware 
 how you deceive yourself."" 
 
 " You have not told us," said Mary, after a 
 
 h2 
 
148 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 painful pause, " where you are going to take us 
 to-morrow." 
 
 " You have never heard good public speak- 
 ing " 
 
 " O yes, papa ! we heard you speak at Hert- 
 ford, about reform in parliament."" 
 
 " You call that good public speaking, do 
 you.^" said Mr. Byerley, laughing: " you will 
 find your notions a little exalted by what you 
 will hear to-morrow. The meeting is to be at 
 
 Freemasons' Hall ; and B , and W . 
 
 and P , will speak ; and the subject 
 
 is ^' 
 
 " Not politics, I do hope," said Anna. 
 
 " The subject is political, but it involves 
 much besides politics, or I should not think of 
 taking you there, my little hater of politics. 
 It cannot be said of us, Anna, ' like father like 
 child:' you will feel differently, when you grow 
 older and wiser." 
 
 " If she does not," said Mary, laughing, "she 
 and I shall lay all the blame on you. But I 
 doubt whether we shall ever think, as you wish 
 we should, that it is necessary or desirable for a 
 
LONDON. 149 
 
 ■woman to care about what seems to be no con- 
 cern of hers." 
 
 " I have not adopted the right method, I be- 
 lieve, to interest you in what interests me so 
 much," said Mr. Byerley: " I dare say you are 
 quite tired of hearing of public meetings, and 
 petitions, and of reform in parliament, at the 
 very name of which I observe you sigh. I see 
 you never look at a newspaper, except to dis- 
 cover notices of new music or books; but this is 
 all because you do not know the importance of 
 the subjects you despise." 
 
 " But," said Anna, " I thought every body 
 disliked female politicians. I remember your 
 looking very much disgusted when you heard 
 how the Blakeleys bestirred themselves in Mr. 
 Harmer's election; how Mrs. Blakeley helped 
 to canvass for him ; and how her daughters drop- 
 ped a laurel crown by a red ribbon on his head, 
 when he was chaired. They stood on a scaffold- 
 ing, you know, where every body in the market- 
 place could see them ; and I remember your 
 saying, that if your daughters had done it, 
 you should have wished the scaffolding to fall 
 
150 FIVE YKARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 in with them before the member"'s chair came 
 round." 
 
 " True, Anna, I remember saying so ; and 
 my feeling is much the same now, though I 
 would not express it so extravagantly. I know 
 few things more disgusting, than to see women 
 pushing forwards in matters where they have no 
 business, and inflaming themselves with party 
 spirit. But all this has nothing to do with 
 such an interest in the welfare of your coun- 
 try and your race as I wish to awaken in you. 
 1 think, Mary, you liked the chapter of the 
 ' Wealth of Nations,' which you read to me 
 lately." 
 
 "On Bounties, and Restraints on Importation; 
 yes, I liked it particularly, and mean to read 
 more, if I may." 
 
 " Well, that very question of Free Trade is 
 one of the most important that our politicians 
 are busy about now." 
 
 " But what have we to do with it.^" persisted 
 Anna. 
 
 " As much as any body who cares for the con- 
 dition of the labouring classes, to say nothing of 
 
LONDON. 151 
 
 the state of all the farmers and merchants in the 
 kmgdom. Is it not worth knowing why they 
 are sometimes prosperous, and sometimes dis- 
 tressed? Would not you like to be able to 
 know whether their prospects will probably im- 
 prove or grow worse?" 
 
 " Is this learned by studying the question of 
 Free Trade?" 
 
 " It cannot be learned by other means, at 
 any rate." 
 
 " But is it not better to help the poor people 
 about us, than to learn what is likely to happen 
 to poor people in general?" asked Anna. 
 
 " It certainly vi^ouid be, if we could not do 
 both ; but I am firmly convinced that benevolent 
 persons, women as well as men, may do more 
 good by giving their poorer neighbours right no- 
 tions about their own interests, than even by 
 bestowing money or clothes. Do you remember 
 the account Mr. Bland gave us of the turn out 
 at Manchester?" 
 
 " Yes; I shall never forget it." 
 
 " Well, however much good was done by the 
 benevolent persons who gave soup and blankets 
 
152 FIVE YEAHS OF YOUTH. 
 
 to the starving weavers, Mr. Bland did more 
 good than all the other people together, by 
 proving to those who struck for wages that they 
 were hastening their own ruin. His wife helped 
 him very much by her influence among the 
 weavers' wives; and she could not have done 
 this if she had known nothing of the politics of 
 the case. We hear too of the occasional de- 
 struction of machinery in the manufacturing dis- 
 tricts; and this mischief will not cease till the 
 people are taught that they injure their own in- 
 terests by such violence. Why should not ladies 
 help to teach this as well as other truths.'' and 
 how should they teach it, unless they under- 
 stand the matter well themselves.'"' 
 
 "Is there any thing about that in the 'Wealth 
 of Nations,' papa.''" 
 
 " Yes; and you shall read it. There are 
 other political subjects, on which there is no 
 occasion to bid you feel an interest." 
 
 Anna looked at Mary in unbelief. 
 
 " Nobody is more indignant at slavery than 
 you are, Anna." 
 
 Anna's colour rose at the mention of slavery. 
 
LONDON. 153 
 
 *' But that has nothing to do with parlia- 
 mentary reform, and those tiresome subjects, 
 papa." 
 
 " More than you are aware of, my dear; or 
 than I can explain at present : but however 
 closely connected with the interests of religion 
 and humanity, it is still a political subject, as 
 you wUl learn to-morrow; for the object of the 
 meeting I am to take you to, is to petition for 
 the abolition of colonial slavery. Perhaps, when 
 there, you may wish that you knew something of 
 the history and present state of the question, 
 which would enable you to enter into much 
 which will now be lost upon you." 
 
 " Will you, can you tell us about it now?" 
 said both the girls, eagerly. 
 
 Mr. Byerley began from the point to which he 
 knew their study of history had led them, and 
 gave them a clear account of the struggles, suc- 
 cesses, and reverses, which the great slavery 
 question had passed through up to the present 
 day. For the first time, Anna felt an interest 
 about philanthropists and statesmen, of whose 
 names she had long been weary, while she knew 
 
 H 5 
 
154 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 nothing of them beyond their names. She was 
 unwilling to go to bed when ten o"'clock struck. 
 
 " Why, I thought bed had been better than 
 politics, at any time," said her father. 
 
 "It depends upon what the politics are," said 
 Anna, laughing: " I should have been asleep 
 over the corn laws an hour ago." 
 
 " We will try some night," said her father. 
 
 " Let it be in the 'Wealth of Nations,' then," 
 said Mary. 
 
 " Or in a more entertaining book still," added 
 her father: " you like books of travels, Anna." 
 
 Anna stared. 
 
 " They will give us excellent information on 
 the corn question; particularly one about a fa- 
 mily of back settlers in America, and another 
 about the Japan islands." 
 
 Anna was obliged to carry away this riddle 
 unsolved: she determined to look into Johnson's 
 Dictionary for the word politics on the first op- 
 portunity. 
 
155 
 
 CHAPTER VTII. 
 
 SiGNOR Elvi breakfasted with Mr. Byerley the 
 next morning, as the girls were to receive their 
 Italian lesson before they attended the meeting. 
 They understood the grammar of the language 
 well, and had read many good Italian authors. 
 Their purpose in learning of Signor Elvi was to 
 improve their pronunciation, and to accustom 
 themselves to converse in his language. He 
 brought with him a volume of Alfieri, thinking 
 that nothing could afford a better preparation 
 for the speeches they were going to hear. There 
 was no opportunity for Anna to fall into a reverie. 
 Each of the three took a character of a tragedy, 
 and the dialogue was kept up briskly, ' liberta, 
 liberta,' being still the theme. When Mr. By- 
 erley looked up from his newspaper, he was 
 
156 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 amused to see the eagerness of each — his friend 
 declaiming with all his natural volubility, and 
 his pupils, scarcely able to keep up with him, 
 yet catching the spirit of the sentiment, and 
 charmed with the grandeur of the expression. 
 They were taken by surprise when the carriage 
 drove to the door, and they found it was half- 
 past ten o'clock. While they hastened to put 
 on their bonnets, their father remarked to his 
 friend, that they seemed to have enjoyed their 
 lesson. 
 
 " Ah, yes! and I also; for they have a mind 
 and soul for what they do. It is as great a plea- 
 sure to me to teach such as they, as it is a toil 
 with some others of my pupils. There will be 
 no need to take strong coffee before sitting down 
 with your daughters." 
 
 " Strong coffee!" 
 
 "Yes; you will wonder, perhaps, but you 
 have no idea how great is the drudgery to a 
 teacher, how trying it is to his nerves, to teach 
 those who have no mind, or who will not use it; 
 who are for ever careless about necessary rules, 
 and whom there is no chance of leading on be- 
 
PROFITABLE PLEASURE. 157 
 
 yond the rules. I have now one pupil, I might 
 say several, but I will instance one, who writes 
 exercises, month after month, and makes as 
 many gross mistakes now as at first; and all my 
 efforts to make her think and observe are in 
 vain; and so we shall go on till she thinks her- 
 self too old to be taught, or fancies she has 
 learned enough because she is grown up, and all 
 this time she will never read Alfieri.'''' 
 
 " I was afraid you might find such a kind of 
 pupil in Anna." 
 
 " No ; Miss Anna is sometimes absent, but 
 she is so from the fulness, not from the emptiness 
 of her mind. Not that I would excuse the 
 habit, for it is very fatal to improvement at her 
 age." 
 
 " Show her that you think so; have no mercy 
 on her if she does not attend to you as she ought." 
 
 " I will try," said the Signor, laughing, "how 
 severe I can be, if there should be reason for 
 complaint." 
 
 The scene of the meeting was one of great 
 animation. The place was nearly full when our 
 party arrived, and the assemblage was gayer and 
 
158 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 more various than any the girls had ever seen. 
 There were parties of fashionably dressed ladies, 
 seated beside families of Friends in their neat 
 white shawls and drab bonnets. Members of 
 parliament, country gentlem.en, and city mer- 
 chants, met on the hustings, and shook hands, 
 and consulted, and handed papers about, and 
 looked full of business and cheerfulness. Mr. 
 Byerley longed to be among them; and his 
 daughters remarked, as soon as they entered, 
 how well he seemed to be known there. He in- 
 troduced his daughters to the family of one of 
 his friends, who made room for them on tlieir 
 bench, and requested Mr. Byerley to leave 
 them under their care, as they knew he was 
 wanted on the hustings. The girls found so 
 much to observe, that they could scarcely keep 
 up a conversation with their new acquaintances, 
 and had almost forgotten the object of the meet- 
 ing in the bustle of the preparation. They 
 watched their father''s progress through the crowd, 
 as he turned to one, made a sign to another, was 
 heartily welcomed by a third, and was held by 
 the button by a fourth. 
 
PROFITABLE PLEASURE. 159 
 
 " Your father will speak, I suppose," said 
 Miss R to Mary. 
 
 " I believe not; at least, I heard nothing of 
 his having such an intention." 
 
 "Oh! he certainly will. Look! Mr. B 
 
 is putting one of the resolutions into his hand." 
 
 " Is that Mr. B ?'' exclaimed Mary, start- 
 ing from her seat. " Anna, that is Mr. B 
 
 that papa is talking to." 
 
 " Hush ! you must sit down," said Miss 
 
 R , laughing: "you must come and see us 
 
 some day, and we will introduce you to him, if 
 you wish it." 
 
 "Wish it!" thought Mary: "to hear him 
 speak once in public and once in private, will 
 give us enough to think about till we go to 
 France. I do believe papa will speak," she 
 continued aloud : " he is sitting down among 
 the speakers, to the left of the chair." 
 
 "Certainly," replied Miss R : "my fa- 
 ther says, that none of the movers of this meet- 
 ing have been more active than Mr. Byerley." 
 
 At length the speakers in posse made room 
 for the noble chairman, and installed him in the 
 
160 FIVE YEARS OP YOUTH. 
 
 usual form ; and the business of the day began. 
 For the first half hour, every thing went on 
 much as Anna and Mary had been enabled to 
 anticipate, from their having once attended a 
 public meeting. The chairman began with com- 
 mon-places, and the first speakers were not yet 
 warmed, and had the fear of the audience before 
 their eyes : they stopped for words now and 
 then, and said nothing which had not often been 
 said before ; but every good sentiment they 
 uttered, was well received by the audience, and 
 a glow of feeling began to spread through the 
 place, and to prepare the way for the mighty 
 movers of the heart who were to follow. When 
 
 Mr. B rose, Mary forgot to observe, as she 
 
 had intended, the features and lines of his coun- 
 tenance, and the peculiarity of the little action 
 he used: the harshness of his voice even was 
 soon forgotten, and her whole soul was at the 
 mercy of his deep and varied thoughts, and his 
 vivid, passionate, burning words. If slavery had 
 before appeared to her the most crying abomina- 
 tion which subsists on the earth, she now felt 
 astonished that the earth remained with such 
 
PROFITABLE PLEASURE. 161 
 
 an abomination upon it; she felt at one moment 
 ashamed, at the next proud of her race, accord- 
 ing as she heard of the crimes of slave-holders, or 
 of the virtuous efforts of our philanthropists at 
 home. She felt, for the first time in her life, 
 the noble excitement of sharing with a multitude 
 in successive and strong emotions — emotions 
 which are not appropriate to the public services 
 of religion, but which are not therefore incon- 
 sistent with their spirit. She was sorry when 
 
 Mr. B gave place to a speaker of a totally 
 
 different stamp; but the soft, persuasive elo- 
 quence of the next friend of the slave who spoke, 
 soon engrossed her again. She was so intent on 
 his words, that she gave no heed when her arm 
 was twice touched by the lady who sat next her; 
 when, at the third hint, she turned, she was 
 shocked to see that Anna was sobbing and trem- 
 bling violently, and that every body near was 
 observing her. The place was so full, that it 
 was nearly impossible for any one to get out; 
 and besides, she was unwilling, in the extreme, 
 to break up the party who had kindly taken her 
 and her sister under their protection. There was 
 
162 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 no overpowering heat, and she knew Anna well 
 enough to be assured that this was only a pa- 
 roxysm which she had herself excited, or which 
 she might at least have checked. She ventured 
 therefore on speaking very decidedly to her, 
 though in a voice which could not be overheard. 
 She told her that she could not think of disturb- 
 ing Mrs. R and her family ; gave her the 
 
 vinaigrette she carried, and advised her to con- 
 trol her feelings, and fix her attention on the 
 speaker as soon as she could, while she would sit 
 so as to screen her from observation as much as 
 possible. Anna thought all this very bad treat- 
 ment of such delicate feelings as hers ; but her 
 indignation helped to restore her, which was the 
 object most to be desired. Her sobs soon ceased; 
 and if not ashamed at having been so full of her- 
 self, and so troublesome to others, she at least 
 was quiet for the rest of the time. 
 
 Mr. Byerley spoke, briefly and plainly. He 
 stated a few facts, and explained his own senti- 
 ments on the resolution he held, and then made 
 way for those whom he believed more worthy of 
 the attention of the meeting. There was nothing 
 
PROFITABLE PLEASURE. 163 
 
 to be ashamed of in the part he took, and little 
 to be proud of besides the propriety of his feel- 
 ings, and the modesty which led him to be satis- 
 fied with being useful behind the scenes, rather 
 than brilliant on the stage. 
 
 Mary had for some time been annoyed by the 
 disturbance of persons going out — why so soon 
 she could not conceive — when her own party 
 
 rose also. Miss R tapped her on the 
 
 shoulder, and laughingly asked if she could listen 
 for a moment. Mary turned. 
 
 " Your father will be detained till the meeting 
 is over; but if you will go out with us, my bro- 
 ther will see you into your carriage, which must 
 have been waiting some time. You must be 
 quite faint with weariness and hunger." 
 
 " No, indeed," said Mary and Anna ; " we 
 cannot go till it is over, thank you. We shall 
 not mind sitting here till papa comes." 
 
 " Do you know what o'clock it is .'' It is just 
 five." 
 
 " Is it possible ! But we do not mind that : 
 we had rather stay, thank you.*" 
 
 So with many acknowledgments to Mrs. R 
 
164 FIVE YEARS OP YOUTH. 
 
 for her protection, they persisted in remaining 
 by themselves. They looked round for Signor 
 Elvi, but he too was gone. It was not long, 
 however, before the vote of thanks to the chair- 
 man was passed, and the meeting broke up. 
 Their father came to give them each an arm, 
 took them to the carriage, nodding to this side 
 and that as he went, and hastened them home, 
 being sure, as he said, that they must be quite 
 exhausted. No such thing. They found, when 
 dinner was before them, that they were very 
 hungry ; but they never ceased talking of what 
 they had heard, and were sanguine as to the 
 success of a petition which had been prepared 
 and advocated by such wise heads and warm 
 hearts. 
 
 After dinner, Mary looked at her piano, re- 
 membering that much practice was required in 
 preparation for her next lesson. It was with 
 some dismay that she heard from her father that 
 he had made an engagement for them for the 
 evening. What a bustling life was theirs just 
 now ! The carriage was to be at the door at 
 nine. The girls met to dress while their father 
 
PROFITABLE PLEASURE. 165 
 
 rested on the sofa, and jNIary afterwards prac- 
 tised till it was time to go. 
 
 "We shall not stay long," said Mr. Byerley, 
 as he led his daughters up the staircase at Mr. 
 Nicholson^s, where he met a larger company 
 than he expected : " an hour will be as much as 
 we shall wish for." 
 
 So thought his daughters, who had not much 
 inclination to enter a crowd of strangers. They 
 found it pleasanter, however, than ihey expected. 
 Mrs. Nicholson introduced them to some young 
 ladies who were looking over fine prints, and 
 who seemed to understand drawing. There was 
 some good music ; and, what was still better, 
 Signer Elvi was there. He soon made his way 
 to them, and entertained them, as usual, with 
 his lively and refined conversation. Anna over- 
 heard him tell INIrs. Nicholson that Mary sang 
 and played very well, and she hoped that an 
 opportunity would offer for her sister's talents 
 being called out. Anna had as little vanity on 
 her own account as most girls ; but she was very 
 proud of Mary. This was rather an annoyance 
 to Mary, who would have been better pleased if 
 
166 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 Anna had taken less pains to tell how well her 
 sister could play and sing, and more to contri- 
 bute to her daily comfort. In due time, Mrs. 
 Nicholson approached with a request that Mary 
 would take her seat at the piano. Mary gently 
 but decidedly declined. " But why ? But why.'*"" 
 exclaimed her sister and her friend. Mary gave 
 her reasons; viz. that she had not been accus- 
 tomed to sing in so large a company, and that 
 the attempt would give no pleasure to any body. 
 She would, with pleasure, sing to Mrs. Nicholson 
 as long as she pleased, in a more private way; 
 but begged to be excused this night. Mrs. 
 Nicholson was politely sorry ; Anna muttered, 
 "Provoking!" the Signor whispered "Right, 
 quite right." 
 
 Their engagements seemed still to multiply 
 as the number of their acquaintance increased. 
 Exhibitions in the morning, concerts in the even- 
 ing, a day at Richmond and Hampton Court; a 
 dinner-party here, an evening-party there, were 
 fixed ; and they returned home with their heads 
 in a whirl. 
 
 " Light your candles, my dears ; and to rest 
 
PROFITABLE PLEASURE. 167 
 
 as soon as possible," said Mr. Byerley, holding 
 up his watch, whose hands pointed to midnight. 
 
 " Nay, papa, just five minutes," said Mary, 
 drawing a chair beside him. " I like to call back 
 old thoughts before we say good-night. If I left 
 you with my head full of all we have seen and 
 heard, I could not sleep."" 
 
 " Our present way of life will do you no harm 
 while you preserve this feeling," rephed her 
 father. " But tell me, are you not surprised at 
 my making so many engagements for you?" 
 
 " Not so much as other people," said Anna; 
 " because we know that it is for our good, and 
 not to gratify your own taste. Mrs. Nicholson 
 looked quite surprised at your making every 
 thing so easy about Richmond ; but I told her 
 that it was because we had never seen it." 
 
 " It certainly is not the pleasantest thing in 
 the world to me to hurry from one engagement 
 to another, so that I cannot call an hour my own; 
 nor would it be pleasant to you, for any length 
 of time. But our stay in London is short ; and 
 I wish to show you, wherever you go, the dif- 
 ferent kinds of life that people lead, that you 
 
168 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 may be able, in case of losing my guidance, to 
 make a wise choice, which you could scarcely do 
 if you knew of no other method of employing 
 your days than that to which you have been ac- 
 customed, and which would no longer be suitable 
 to your altered circumstances. In case of my 
 death, you would live in rather a gay circle in 
 London; and my object is to show you how your 
 best occupations may be reconciled with the gra- 
 tifications of taste, while they are wholly incom- 
 patible with mere dissipation." 
 
 " I think,"'' said Mary, " that the pleasures of 
 to-day, of the morning especially, may and ought 
 to give a new spring to our best feelings and 
 wishes." 
 
 " And yesterday's too," added Anna. " I 
 have felt like a different person since I saw 
 "Westminster Abbey." 
 
 " I hope you will find the same influence 
 from the natural beauties of Richmond, and the 
 delights of the Dulwich gallery; ever remember- 
 ing that moderation is especially necessary in 
 pleasures of taste. If you went so often from 
 one of these places to the other as to leave no 
 
PBOFITABLE PLEASURE. 169 
 
 interval for the serious business of life, there 
 would soon be an end alike of enjoyment and 
 improvement. It is because I trust these plea- 
 sures will furnish you with serious occupation, 
 that I offer them to you. If I thought they 
 would afford you merely subjects for talk, and 
 reverie, and drawing, I would carry you away 
 from them all to-morrow." 
 
 " Thought and feeling — deep study — purified 
 tastes : these ought to be ministered to by inno- 
 cent pleasures," said Mary, thoughtfully. 
 
 " No pleasures can be innocent which do not 
 thus minister," observed her father; " and I 
 trust, my dears, that you will so rouse your fa- 
 culties, as to make the most of your present op- 
 portunities." Here he addressed Anna par- 
 ticularly. " Observe keenly, and lay yourself 
 open to the full relish of every beautiful object 
 which is presented to you ; and refer it perpetu- 
 ally to your best ideas and feelings. So, in some 
 far distant place or time, in the midst of the sea, 
 or after the lapse of years, alone among strangers, 
 or on a sick bed, the bright and beautiful objects 
 which are now new to you, will come, like fami- 
 
 I 
 
170 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 liar friends, to cheer you, and help your grati- 
 tvide for the blessings which have strewed your 
 path of life." 
 
 After a pause, Mary asked if it could be sup- 
 posed that many persons cultivated their tastes 
 with such an object as this. 
 
 " I trust that many do," was the reply ; " but 
 we must not suppose that the greater number 
 who spend their lives in flitting from pleasure to 
 pleasure, have any genuine taste to cultivate. 
 The influence of all objects depends mainly upon 
 the sort of mind which is exposed to it; and there 
 may be as wide a difference in the innocence of 
 purpose of two persons who enter the Dulwich 
 gallery at the same moment, as between the state 
 of mind of the Christian who enters a church to 
 worship, and the wretch who goes to scoff". The 
 one may carry away from this sanctuary of taste, 
 a mind softened and refreshed ; while the other 
 is burdened with an additional account of time 
 wasted, and levity encouraged. And now, whe- 
 ther these thoughts be old or new to you, they 
 are such as you may carry into private. So good 
 night, and quiet rest to you." 
 
PROFITABLE PLEASURE. I7I 
 
 While Anna listened to her father it was ever 
 her full intention to adopt the principles to the 
 truth of which she assented ; but her power over 
 her own thoughts was too far gone to be easily re- 
 gained. Instead of keenly observing the new ob- 
 jects which were placed before her, she was com- 
 monly lost in dreams which might just as well 
 
 have been dreamed at A . The advantages 
 
 which she knew she could only enjoy for a few 
 weeks were neglected, through the same per- 
 nicious habit. She sat for hours with her pencil 
 in her hand, and her drawing-board before her, 
 v/itliout putting in a stroke ; and she commonly 
 spent the hour when Signor Elvi was with them 
 in pondering his fate, while he himself was en- 
 joying the facility with which he could impress 
 her sister's more healthful mind. She carried 
 away from every new scene feeble impressions, 
 old ideas, and useless or morbid feelings ; and 
 when the last day of their stay in London had 
 arrived, she might have seen, if she had been 
 disposed to observe, that her father looked at her 
 with grief in his countenance; and that when 
 Signor Elvi returned her mournful farewell, 
 
172 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 there was moi-e of compassion than respect in 
 his words and manner. Dead as she was to ex- 
 ternal things, she could not but feel that she was 
 and must be regarded a useless thinff. 
 
 Mary had arranged with her father the plan 
 for their voyage and abode abroad : Mary had 
 received and dismissed their various masters : 
 jMary had made their acknowledgments to their 
 many kind friends who had noticed and assisted 
 them. As to their musical accomplishments, 
 every body knew that no comparison could be 
 drawn ; but Mary's portfolio was that to which 
 the drawing-master referred Mr. Byerley with 
 pride and satisfaction ; and with her did their 
 foreign friend converse, in his own langviage, 
 upon the subjects nearest his heart. This was 
 too mortifying to be borne with patience ; and in 
 the midst of all her other business, Mary was 
 obliged to try to soothe her sister's pettish tem- 
 per, and to conceal its infirmities, if possible, 
 from her father. To do this entirely was, how- 
 ever, impossible. 
 
 " I know how much you are engaged," said 
 he, on the morning when they were to depart ; 
 
PROFITABLE PLEASURE. 173 
 
 but I have omitted one thing which must be 
 clone, though I cannot do it myself. Which of 
 you will write a letter of business for me ?" 
 
 " Oh ! the woman of business, to be sure," 
 said Anna, waving her hand at Mary. " When 
 you have a letter of a different sort — to Signer 
 Elvi for instance — to be written, let me do it; 
 but I defer to Mary in matters of business." 
 
 " If Mary undertake the task of writing to my 
 bailiff, she shall have the pleasure of writing to 
 my friend." 
 
 " She will not thank you for it, sir." 
 
 " She will, and Signor Elvi too. He knows 
 what precious qualities are necessary to consti- 
 tute what you call a woman of business ; and 
 that such qualities make the most faithful and 
 the tenderest friend." 
 
 Anna looked contemptuous. 
 
 " I should be pleased with your humility in 
 deferring to your sister, if I did not see that you 
 despise the qualities you disclaim. I hope you 
 will meet with such experience as shall make you 
 wiser and more amiable."" 
 
 " My dear sir, I am in no wise inclined to 
 
174 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 quarrel with Mary for her superior cleverness. 
 She is quite welcome to it. I am content with 
 my lot — 
 
 ' The world forgetting, by the world forgot.' 
 
 Yes ; I have no particular desire to be remem- 
 bered by your bailiff or your lawyer, even for 
 writing about leases as well as if I had been a 
 very Nerissa — a lawyer's clerk." 
 
 " If you go on forgetting as you have done 
 latterly, you will soon be forgotten, to your 
 heart's content. You will be forgotten when 
 Elvi sits by his wife's side, and tells his children 
 of his faithful English friends. You will be for- 
 gotten when your father stretches out his hand 
 from his death-bed to give his last blessing — or 
 remembered in such a manner that you will pray 
 to be forgotten." 
 
 " O papa !" cried Mary, imploringly. Anna 
 burst into tears. 
 
 " You would ask for forgiveness, I see," said 
 her father, laying his hand on her shoulder. 
 " Your sister forgives you, as she is in the 
 
PROFITABLE PLEASURE. 17-5 
 
 hourly habit of doing ; and so do I. Do not be 
 in too great a hurry to forgive yourself." 
 
 Anna was in despair as he left the room ; but 
 before he returned, she had apparently lost all 
 remembrance of his rebuke and of its cause. 
 
176 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ®]^c ©onbfnt. 
 
 It was Mr. Byerley's wish to avoid Paris on his 
 way into Touraine, as it had been agreed with 
 the Fletchers that they should spend three 
 months there together, on their return to Eng- 
 land. Mr. Byerley therefore took a passage in 
 a Rochelle packet, for himself, his daughters, 
 and their maid, whom they could not resolve to 
 leave behind. Mr. Byerley had political friends 
 in every country, and especially many in France, 
 who were discontented with the government, as 
 most sensible and upright men at that time were. 
 They were not engaged in any plots or under- 
 hand doings, but were glad to cultivate a cor- 
 respondence with the friends of freedom, and to 
 learn every thing which such men as Mr. Byerley 
 
THE CONVENT. 1^7 
 
 could communicate respecting the best institu- 
 tions of a more favoured country. With some of 
 these friends Mr. Byerley had planned a meet- 
 ing ; and his dislike of leaving his own country 
 was softened by the hope of doing something 
 abroad to forward his favourite objects. His 
 daughters were aware of this, and would have 
 dreaded the policical discussions which they 
 knew must take place, if they had not hoped 
 to find a refuge with Mrs. Fletcher and her 
 daughters, from company which at home they 
 could not have escaped. It was not till their 
 father took out the packet of letters with which 
 he was charged, while sitting on deck, the day 
 they sailed, that the girls were aware how nu- 
 merous were his connexions abroad. 
 
 " If you were sinking, papa, which would you 
 try hardest to save, me or those letters .''" said 
 Anna, laughing. 
 
 " If I could burn the letters first, I would 
 save you, my dear ; but I should not like the 
 risk of their floating." 
 
 " Then I wish they were at the bottom of the 
 sea,'' said Mary. " I am afraid of them.'" 
 
 I 5 
 
178 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 " There is no occasion, Mary. There is no- 
 thing in them that I should hesitate to show 
 you ; but they are too good to fall into hands 
 which might do harm to the writers. There is 
 no treason, privy conspiracy, or rebellion in 
 them : nothing more than an Englishman may 
 write and pvit in the newspaper any day if he 
 chooses.''' 
 
 Mary was satisfied. 
 
 The voyage was very pleasant to all the party 
 but Susan, who was the only one who suffered 
 much from sickness. There were no cabin-pas- 
 sengers but two or three French merchants, who, 
 being known to each other, readily took the hint 
 given by Mr. Byerley's somewhat unsociable man- 
 ners, that he wished for no other intercourse than 
 that of his daughters. The girls had seen so little 
 of their father during their late bustling life, that 
 they enjoyed the present opportunity of being 
 always together. They had never before been 
 at sea, and no minds could be better prepai*ed to 
 feel the delicious pleasures of the first short, fa- 
 vourable voyage. All day they were on deck, 
 talking, singing — sometimes reading, but suffer- 
 
THE CONVENT. 179 
 
 ing no new object to pass unnoticed. Late at 
 night, they were still leaning over the vessel's 
 side, no longer singing, for fear of disturbing 
 those who were gone to rest, but talking in low 
 voices of things high and deep, far and near. 
 When the moon shone, they traced her silvery 
 path over the billows : when obscured, they look- 
 ed with awe on the tossing surface round them, 
 and felt their solitude on the watery waste. In 
 a very short time, Anna's imagination, which 
 had received a new direction from the new scene 
 in which she was placed, returned to its accus- 
 tomed trains of images, and she saw little and 
 heard nothing of what passed near her ; while 
 Mary, who (whatever Anna might think) pos- 
 sessed the same faculty in much greater strength 
 and perfection, learned and experienced some- 
 thing new every hour. There was not a passing 
 cloud in the sky, or a purple shadow on the wa- 
 ters, not a drifting weed or a sprinkling of foam 
 which escaped her glance, or failed to awaken 
 some thought or feeling. She was the first to 
 mark the rising star, and to understand the inti- 
 mation that some far-distant beacon might be 
 
180 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 discerned. Yet she never forgot the pleasure of 
 others while experiencing her own. When Anna 
 raised her head and saw how her sister pointed 
 out to Susan such objects as she could under- 
 stand, she owned it was very well for poor Susan 
 that somebody tried to amuse her, but wondered 
 how it was possible under such a moon, amidst 
 such a scene, to let down the i.one of feeling so 
 far as to talk with a servant. The cabin was 
 surely the place to talk to Susan. She forgot 
 how 
 
 " the sun is fixed, 
 And the infinite magnificence of heaven 
 Within the reach of every human eye ; 
 The sleepless Ocean murmurs for all ears." 
 
 Mary remembered this, and was not so pre- 
 sumptuous as to pretend to an aristocracy of 
 mind in scenes where the Creator ordained that 
 there should be none. Their father knew their 
 different feelings by their different conduct. 
 " My dear Anna," said he, " if you want to en- 
 joy your aristocracy, go down to the cabin. That 
 is the only place where there is room for it." 
 Anna took him at his word ; not because she 
 
THE CONVENT. 181 
 
 assented to what he said, but because, having 
 been once disturbed, she thought she could re- 
 sume her reverie best in her berth. Susan, who 
 was always glad of something to do, ran to assist 
 her; and Mary returned to her father's side. 
 
 It will be easily supposed that Anna's thoughts 
 were much with her friend Selina, all this time. 
 Every circumstance of their meeting had been 
 often planned and anticipated, and had been so 
 exalted in her imagination, that the reality fell 
 somewhat short of her expectation. Yet it would 
 have satisfied any reasonable person. The jour- 
 ney from Rochelle was prosperous throughout, 
 , and the rich province of Touraine presented 
 many pleasures and much prospect of future 
 enjoyment to our travellers. The approach to 
 the fine city of Tours charmed them, animated 
 as they were with the expectation of presently 
 meeting the friends they sought. They bowled 
 along the wide, straight road, planted like an 
 avenue, and leading to the eminence on which 
 stood the city; crowning with its picturesque 
 buildings the green slopes which descended to 
 the ample river. The sun was just setting, and 
 
182 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 its golden light gleamed through the arches of 
 the magnificent bridge, and poured in a flood of 
 radiance through the stems of the trees. The 
 pleasure was enhanced, especially to Mr. Byer- 
 ley, by the expectation of seeing English faces, 
 and receiving an English welcome in a foreign 
 land. As the clatter of their horses' hoofs re- 
 sounded between the rows of high houses, he 
 believed that, though so far from home, listening 
 ears were watching their approach, and friendly 
 hearts were beating with expectation. He was 
 not mistaken. The moment the carriage stopped 
 Mr. Fletcher appeared at the door of his house, 
 and glancing eyes and smiling faces flitted past 
 the windows. Then followed the greetings which 
 filled many hearts with perfect pleasure — every 
 heart but Annans; and she could have given no 
 better reason for the passing cloud that came 
 over her spirits, than that there was rather too 
 much joy to be quite consistent with the tender- 
 ness of sympathy. 
 
 The evening was passed, as the first evenings 
 of meeting generally are, in talking of a multi- 
 tude of unconnected and unimportant things. 
 
THE CONVENT. 183 
 
 Subjects of a deeper interest are naturally de- 
 ferred till the mind and heart are more tranquil — 
 till there is time and opportunity for full and 
 uninterrupted communication. Opportunity was 
 found, however, for mutual congratulation among 
 the parents upon the apparent improvement of 
 their children. Rose and Selina were grown 
 into fine young women ; and Mrs. Fletcher was 
 amazed at the change of manners and appear- 
 ance in her young friends — Mary especially — 
 which she had believed covild be only effected by 
 their residence abroad. 
 
 " Somebody has taken my task out of my 
 hands," said she: " I am afraid there is nothing 
 left for me to do." 
 
 " More than you are prepared for, I am 
 afraid," replied Mr. Byerley. " But I will not 
 turn informer against my children. I will leave 
 it to your judgment (a better jvidgment in many 
 respects than mine) to discover whatever de- 
 ficiency or excess there may be." 
 
 " I know what that word ' excess' means," re- 
 plied Mrs. Fletcher, smiling : " by and bye we 
 will resume our old argument upon it." 
 
184 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 The next day, in the course of communication 
 between the young people respecting their va- 
 rious occupations and pursuits, it appeared that 
 Rose and Selina had frequently visited a convent 
 in their neighbourhood, and were well acquainted 
 with the abbess and some of the nuns. Mary 
 and Anna were equally anxious to see the inte- 
 rior of a convent, and to converse with persons 
 who had had a fair experience of a monastic life. 
 It was settled that they should be gratified that 
 very day. Mary began to pour out questions 
 respecting the nuns ; but her father, smiling, 
 forbade Rose Fletcher to answer any of them, as 
 he wished that Mary should form her own judg- 
 ment, unbiassed, of what she should see and 
 hear ; observing that he was aware Mary had 
 some romantic notions about a monastic life. 
 
 Mary hoped her notions were not romantic 
 now ; for as she had grown up, she had learned 
 more of the nature of religion than she knew 
 when she longed, in her childhood, to be a nun. 
 
 " Had she never, since her childhood, longed 
 to be a nun.'*" her father enquired. 
 
 Mary blushed, and owned that, notwithstand- 
 
THE CONVENT. 185 
 
 ing her knowledge that the duties of Christians 
 lie in society, and that the purest affections of 
 the heart — the devotional feelings themselves — 
 must languish in a life of perfect exclusion, she 
 had never yet been able to divest a monastic life, 
 in idea, of peculiar purity and peace. She would 
 not, even if she were a catholic, and free from 
 family ties, become a nun ; but she still felt a 
 kind and degree of respect for religious devotees, 
 which she felt for none besides. Anna and Selina 
 nodded assent; the rest of the party smiled; but 
 Mrs. Fletcher said she believed all thoughtful 
 young people felt like Mary. 
 
 " Do you remember Felicia Haggerston?" 
 enquired Mr. Byerley. 
 
 " Oh ! yes, papa; I always think of her when 
 nuns are mentioned : it is a very useful case to 
 know of." 
 
 " Who is Felicia Haggerston?"" enquired Mrs. 
 Fletcher. 
 
 " A young lady of a high catholic family, 
 whose character was oddly made up of devotion 
 and family pride. Her mother was left in poor 
 circumstances, with this one daughter and seve- 
 
186 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 ral sons. It became necessary for Felicia to re- 
 lieve her mother of the burden of her mainte- 
 nance. Slie might have been happily placed as 
 a governess; but a fit of devotion came in the 
 way of her mother's wishes, and Felicia took the 
 vows in a convent abroad." 
 
 " Had she never thought of being a nun be- 
 fore lier friends thought of her being a go- 
 verness ?'''' 
 
 " Never; and it appears equally strange that 
 she should mistake her motive for one of pure 
 piety, and that her mother should object to her 
 choice, believing, as she professes to do, in com- 
 mon with all catholics, that devotees are sure of 
 heaven." 
 
 " There is always," said Mrs. Fletcher, " a 
 hope that, though they do live in the world, they 
 may reach heaven; and one cannot wonder that 
 a widowed mother should rest on this hope, 
 rather than be severed for life from an only 
 daughter. But what has become of Felicia.''" 
 
 " I do not know," said Mary: " I saw Mrs. 
 Haggerston in London, and she did not look 
 happy; so that I dared not make any particular 
 
THE CONVENT. 187 
 
 enquiries. But I am afraid Felicia's was not 
 a mind fitted to be quite happy in a convent."" 
 
 "What sort of mind is. '^" said Mr. Fletcher. 
 
 " I should think a really humble, benevolent 
 heart, might find much ease and many blessings 
 in the best kind of convent-life ; not in those 
 where the discipline is very severe, and the whole 
 time must be passed in devotion or idleness ; but 
 where the rich, and the poor, and the young, are 
 taken care of, and the hands, as well as the 
 lips, are allowed to praise God and bless man- 
 kind." 
 
 " Are you aware that it is more difficult to 
 be humble and benevolent where the sole busi- 
 ness of life is to be so, than in the world, where 
 there is a greater variety of objects.'^'" 
 
 Mary looked doubtful. 
 
 " It is one of the clearest possible proofs," 
 continued Mr. Fletcher, " that God designed 
 man for a social state — that in all very small 
 communities separated from the world, envy and 
 pride have ever subsisted, and that utter selfish- 
 ness is the consequence of entire seclusion." 
 
 The girls would not readily believe this in its 
 
188 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 full extent: they were aware that the intellect 
 must be weakened by unsocial habits, and that, 
 therefore, it was impossible for the best homage 
 of the heart and mind to ascend from monastic 
 retreats; but they could scarcely imagine any 
 scope for pride or envy in a state of such perfect 
 equality; and as for selfishness, how could it 
 consist with perpetual self-mortification?" 
 
 " Of the first case you shall judge from your 
 own observation by and bye," said Mr. Fletcher; 
 " and as for the other, you need only read the 
 records which remain of some of the most sainted 
 anchorites to be convinced. But, tell me now, 
 what is your notion of the life of a nun; what 
 picture have you in your mind's eye of one day 
 of a convent life?" 
 
 " The having one's time and one's cell to 
 oneself," said Anna, " is a pleasant idea. The 
 sun shining in through a high window, and one's 
 own bed and chair, and chafing-dish in winter; 
 and one's own table with the book and skull and 
 crucifix that nobody touches, and the certainty 
 that nobody will come to interrupt one's reading 
 or thinking." 
 
THE CONVENT. 189 
 
 " Abundance of selfishness to begin with," 
 said Mr. Fletcher, laughins'. 
 
 " And then to feel such satisfaction with one's 
 own lot," continued Rose, " to look down from 
 such pure solitude upon the world, and pity 
 those who are struggling and toiling there; and 
 to remember that one's safety is owing to ones 
 virtuous resolution." 
 
 " Selfishness again, and more pride," inter- 
 rupted her father. " But, Selina, which is the 
 greatest charm in your eyes? for you look as if 
 the very thought of it inspired you." 
 
 " I was thinking of the grandest day of a 
 whole life — the day of taking the veil. What a 
 tide of feelings must rush in upon the young 
 creature's mind when she sees her family for 
 the last time, they grieving to part with her, 
 but admiring her for her piety! And then the 
 glow of resolution, the noble contempt of the 
 world, and the delight of setting such an exam- 
 ple, at such an age! The old priests admiring 
 and blessing her, the music, sometimes wailing 
 and sometimes triumphant, as if it would cele- 
 brate her funeral and her marriage at the same 
 
190 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 time; and the crowd pressing to catch a ghmpse 
 of such a holy heroine " 
 
 SeUna stopped short, struck with the expres- 
 sion of disgust in Mary's countenance. 
 
 " Mary sees what you are blind to," said Mr. 
 Fletcher: " she sees that half of this is enthu- 
 siasm, and the other half vanity. Mary, I had 
 rather hear what would be most tempting to 
 you." 
 
 " No part would be tempting," said Mary, 
 "unless I could have one dear friend with me; 
 but if there was one to whom I might speak and 
 listen about those human sympathies which feed 
 the life of our minds, I could be happy, I think, 
 in praying and meditating, and doing all the 
 good my heart and hands could effect. But I 
 must also be free from all spiritual domination : 
 I would never give up my soul in slavery to ab- 
 bess or confessor. Unless I might worship as 
 my spirit prompted, unless I might do good as 
 the gospel enjoins, and love as human hearts are 
 made to love, my devotion would be worthless, 
 and I should be fit neither for heaven nor 
 earth." 
 
THE CONVENT. 191 
 
 " You will make a poor devotee," observed 
 Mr. Fletcher, smiling. 
 
 " There is no convent on earth that would 
 admit you," said her father : " you would not 
 be pure enough ; you do not go far enough be- 
 yond the gospel: you must be content with try- 
 ing to be above the world while you are in the 
 world." 
 
 The happy father silently observed how his 
 last words called up, as such thoughts never 
 failed to do, the flush of strong emotion into his 
 daughter's cheek. Mary was not unfrequently 
 inspired with a resolution quite as holy, and much 
 more rational and modest, than animates a de- 
 votee in taking the veil. 
 
 When they were going out, Mr. Fletcher 
 desired Anna, in case of strong temptation from 
 what she should see to become a nun, to remem- 
 ber, that in the new jails in England every in- 
 mate has a cell, a bed, and a high window, all to 
 himself; and that he is quite sure of his reveries 
 being uninterrupted. There was no use in Anna's 
 looking indignant, the laugh was against her. 
 At the convent gate, the gentlemen left their 
 
192 FIVE YEAK6 OF YOUTH. 
 
 party, and proceeded to make some visits. Mr. 
 Fletcher wished to introduce his friend to such of 
 the inhabitants of Tours as he was acquainted 
 with, and among others, to a gentleman who 
 held a high office among the magistracy of the 
 city. 
 
 Mary and Anna could scarcely believe, when 
 the portress opened the gate, that they were 
 actually entering a convent. A feeling of awe 
 crept over them, as if they had set foot in some 
 sacred enclosure; and this feeling was not les- 
 sened by the first view of the flitting figures 
 which disappeared before them wherever they 
 went — figures clothed in a dark and most unbe- 
 coming costume, which did not appear so re- 
 markably convenient as to make up for its want 
 of beauty. When the abbess joined them in 
 her parlour, however, there was nothing particu- 
 larly venerable in her appearance: she seemed 
 very glad to see Mrs. Fletcher, (who was pro- 
 vided with a plea of business,) and inclined her 
 head politely when introduced to the strangers. 
 She asked some questions about their voyage, 
 and their opinion of France in general, and 
 
THE CONVENT. 193 
 
 Tours in particular, and astonished them by 
 laughing very loud and heartily when there was 
 any opportunity for laughing at all. 
 
 " While you are busy with mamma, ma mere, 
 we will seek Sister Celestine," said Rose: "come, 
 Mary, we will leave our two mothers together." 
 
 "Oh! she is a little heretic!" exclaimed the 
 abbess, laughing, as the girls left the room. 
 
 They first entered the refectory, where the 
 nuns were talking in groups, having just finished 
 their dinner. One and another ran to meet their 
 heretical acquaintance, while others stood at a 
 distance, and stared in a manner which rather 
 abashed the strangers. Some withdrew, with an 
 appearance of propriety, and two or three stood 
 reading at the windows, which looked into the 
 convent-garden; but the greater number were 
 evidently remarking on the dress and counte- 
 nances of the English girls. Sister Celestine 
 and Sister Priscille after a while led the way up 
 stairs to their cells. The first cell looked just 
 like what Anna expected, except that there was 
 no skull on the table. The book was turned 
 down open : it was a book of devotion, and in 
 
 K 
 
194 FIVE YKARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 Latin, and the page at which Mary looked con- 
 tained a marvellous account of the miraculous 
 deeds of a female saint. Mary, with some hesi- 
 tation, enquired of Sister Celestine if she be- 
 lieved every part of it. She looked rather 
 shocked at the question, as she replied that, of 
 course, she believed the whole of it. 
 
 " Had she known the book when she was 
 young.''" Anna enquired, thinking that this might 
 account for her credulity. 
 
 " No; it was given to her when she entered 
 the convent."" 
 
 She had previously learned to read Latin, 
 they supposed. 
 
 " Oh dear no ! they none of them thought that 
 necessary. The priest read it over to them first, 
 so that they knew what it was about, and no- 
 thing more was required than that they should 
 read it over very frequently, so as not to forget 
 it."" This cell had now lost its charm for Anna. 
 
 In the next, they found some disorder: cut- 
 tings and snippings of gay silk were lying beside 
 the crucifix on the table. Sister Priscille, laugh- 
 ing and blushing, swept them away, owning that 
 
THE CONVENT. 195 
 
 she had, contrary to the rules, carried work into 
 her cell. 
 
 " The truth is," said she, " that poor little 
 Calistc, whom I was teaching to dress a doll in 
 the school-room this morning, was obliged to go 
 before we had finished the cloak, and I brought 
 it here, that she might not be disappointed. 
 But, sisters, I trust to you not to complain of 
 me to la mere." 
 
 Celestine looked grave, but promised to let 
 her off this time. Anna could not join Selina's 
 laugh. 
 
 One lively little nun, Soeur Agathe, was very 
 impatient for the strangers to be conducted to 
 some place at the top of the building, which she 
 seemed to think better worth seeing than any 
 thing else. " Presently," said Celestine, re- 
 peatedly; but she would not let them alone for 
 five minutes together. They looked into seve- 
 ral cells as they passed, in some of which the 
 nuns were reading intently. Mary would rather 
 have staid behind in one of these than have pro- 
 ceeded, if she could have done so without dis- 
 turbing their inmates; but when, at last, they 
 
 k2 
 
196 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 burst in upon one who was on her knees at 
 prayers, she recoiled in great distress, and beg- 
 ged that no more disturbance might be caused 
 on their account. 
 
 " Oh ! it does not signify," said Agathe: " she 
 will know where to follow us when she has 
 done." 
 
 Mary resolved to say nothing more till she 
 should meet with one whose countenance and 
 manner should promise better things. At length 
 they reached the last staircase which Agathe was 
 so anxious for them to climb : it was steep, and 
 opened out upon some leads on the roof of the 
 bviilding. Agathe skipped up before them, and 
 handed out first one and then another, and then 
 looked eagerly for their admiration. 
 
 "What a fine view!" exclaimed Mary, as 
 her eye wandered over the rich fields and woods, 
 and the verdant hills of Touraine, which were 
 spread out before her, 
 
 " How you must long "" said Anna — but 
 
 she checked herself, as she was going to remind 
 the recluses what pleasures they lost by behold- 
 ing this fair scene only from a distance. 
 
FagclgS 
 
 Tapt 230 
 
THE CONVENT. 197 
 
 " Oh no! we long for nothing," said Agathe, 
 lightly: "a holy life, you knovr, and certainty 
 of heaven, are far better than the sin and misery 
 of the world. But look on this side : you have 
 not seen what I brought you to see yet." 
 
 They looked, and saw a multitude of the 
 chimneys of Tours, but little besides. Perceiv- 
 ing them at a loss, Agathe pointed between two 
 piles of building, crying, " Mais voyez done ! 
 you do not look. There is the great road from 
 the north; and there is not a carriage which 
 comes from Paris that we may not see from this 
 place as the road winds." 
 
 "This exceeds everything," thought Mary: 
 " to talk one moment of a holy life, and the 
 next to be proud and pleased to see the car- 
 riages come from Paris! I wish we could get 
 away." 
 
 Her composure was somewhat restored, how- 
 ever, by a conversation which she contrived to 
 obtain with one of the more serious nuns whom 
 she met in her way down. In her she found 
 neither enthusiasm nor levity: she did not pre- 
 tend to despise or to fear the world, or believe 
 
198 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 that she must be perfectly holy and safe, be- 
 cause she had left it. She was thankful, she 
 said, for peace and freedom from care; she had 
 no family ties to bind her to society, and had 
 felt so forlorn in her youth, from being an or- 
 phan, that she had longed for an asylum above 
 every thing; she had obtained her desire, and 
 was satisfied. Mary wished to know how far 
 the improvement of the intellect was checked, 
 and how soon the natural feelings were deaden- 
 ed or perverted by the discipline and influences 
 of this strange community; but this was tender 
 ground. She could scarcely make herself under- 
 stood without wounding the feelings of the per- 
 sons she compassionated. She enquired, how- 
 ever, whether there was not a great difference of 
 rank and education among the young persons 
 admitted. Not so much, she was told, as ap- 
 peared to be generally thought. 
 
 " Since you took the vows, have the candi- 
 dates been, for the most part, companions to 
 you.?" 
 
 " Yes. We have two or three who are sadly 
 vulgar ; but the rest have been educated in a 
 
THE CONVENT. 199 
 
 convent like myself, except poor Sister Therese 
 and Sister Magdalen, whom you might see going 
 to her cell as you came in." 
 
 " Why poor Therese.'^ what became of 
 her r 
 
 " She died, poor thing, four years after she 
 came in. I was really relieved when she was 
 gone, for I am sure she was very wretched. 
 Some of the sisters said she must have been in 
 love when she took the vows ; but I believe she 
 was not." 
 
 " What made her wretched then.'*" 
 
 " La mere said that it was the pride and wan- 
 tonness of her own heart, that made her hanker 
 after the world, and would not let her be satis- 
 fied with being the spouse of Christ. I dare say 
 it might be so; but it always seemed to me that 
 she made a mistake in coming here at all. She 
 expected that she should find companions who 
 would feel holy raptures like her own ; and that 
 was too much to expect. She was never happy 
 but when she was alone, and of course the sisters 
 did not like her the better for that. She kept 
 her place in the chapel till she could stand no 
 
200. FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 longer; and yet Father Ambrose was not pleased 
 with her: he said she was high-minded." 
 
 " That was indeed the truth/'' murmured 
 Mary, who thought of a different kind of high- 
 mindedness than Father Ambrose had any idea 
 of. 
 
 " Perhaps it was; yet she was lowly in her 
 prayers: I know this, because I nursed her when 
 she could not leave her cell; prayer was like 
 meat and drink to her. ' I have no stay but 
 Thee,"' was on her lips perpetually in the long 
 nights when her sickness wasted her." 
 
 " What was her disease.^" 
 
 " We never could find out. Father Ambrose 
 told the sisters that it came from the Evil One, 
 to show that, though a nun, she was not safe. 
 I hope he did not really think this; but it was 
 very strange, as he said, that it always loosened 
 its hold upon her when the holy bell rang. At 
 the first sound of the matin bell, she would look 
 so peaceful; and often fell asleep presently, 
 though she had been tossing through the whole 
 night." 
 
 "And how long did this last.'^" 
 
THE CONVENT. 
 
 201 
 
 "Oh! many months: it was four years after 
 she came in, as I told you, when she died. 
 But,'"' after a pause, " let me request you to tell 
 no one here that I have said so much about poor 
 Therese; for la mere thinks so ill of her, that 
 she does not like we should mention her name.'" 
 
 The request was needless: Mary would almost 
 as soon have thought of taking the vows, after 
 what she had heard, as of speaking to any one 
 of the sisterhood about poor Therese. 
 
 "And did Sister Magdalen, whom you men- 
 tioned, know Therese.''" she enquired. 
 
 " No ; and 1 have sometimes wondered wlie- 
 ther it would have been a good thing for them 
 if Sister Magdalen had entered a year sooner. 
 I think she might have saved Therese, or per- 
 haps she might have gone the same way herself. 
 They were a good deal alike in some things ; 
 but, happily, Magdalen is not so high-minded; 
 she knows better how to submit." 
 
 " Then she has submitted.'"' 
 
 " Yes: when she first took the vows, she used 
 to write a great deal in her cell; and la mere 
 found that it was sometimes poetry. Then she 
 
 K 5 
 
202 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 used to sing, sometimes in the night, and very 
 often indeed in the day ; but they were not al- 
 ways hymns that she sang. Now, la mere said 
 this would never do, and that nobody must bring 
 the vanities of the world within these walls; so 
 she took away the ink and paper she had, 
 and put the oldest of the sisters into the next 
 cell, to inform her if she heard her sing any 
 thing but what we all sing." 
 
 "And how did she bear this?" cried Mary, 
 indignantly. 
 
 " She took it very quietly, which was the best 
 thing she could do ; for there was no help for it, 
 you know. At first, she was rather unsociable, 
 though never so much so as poor Therese; but 
 she came round by degrees, and now, though 
 the sisters still joke her about her gravity, she 
 is very like the rest, and can be as droll as the 
 merriest of them : there is no occasion to pity 
 Sister Magdalen now." And the nun looked 
 amazed at Mary's expression of grief. 
 
 " You do not mean," she continued, " that 
 you pity Magdalen as you pity Therese.^" 
 
 " More, a thousand times more!" 
 
THE CONVENT. 203 
 
 " Mais cela est inconcevable ! when I tell you 
 that Sister Magdalen is so happy! c'est incon- 
 cevable!" 
 
 And inconceivable it remained to her, while 
 she followed Mary's hasty steps down to the 
 abbess's parlour, where her party were waiting 
 for her. Lively tongues were busy on all sides, 
 exchanging adieus, and uttering last jokes. La 
 mere herself rallied Mary on her gravity, ob- 
 serving that she was almost solemn enough to 
 ,be a nun. Mary escaped as soon as she could. 
 While within the gates, a sense of oppression 
 weighed upon her, as if she were in a prison : 
 when she trod the grass on which shadows from 
 the trees were dancing, and felt the breeze blow 
 in her face, tears sprang forth, and she thought 
 with a less tumultuous grief of the fate of poor 
 Tlierese, and even of Sister Magdalen. 
 
204 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 It was evident to all observers, from the clay 
 that Anna and Selina met, that they were not 
 the friends they had been and had intended again 
 to be. No complaint was made by either, and 
 their manner of speaking of and conducting 
 themselves towards each other was affectionate, 
 though somewhat melancholy. In their souls, 
 however, they mourned over the change in each 
 other : Anna thought Selina grown cold and 
 w^orldly; Selina thought Anna mysterious and 
 very selfish. The fact was, as Mr. Fletcher de- 
 clared to his wife, and as she could not deny, 
 that Anna was too much engrossed with her own 
 thoughts, and too dead to realities, to perceive 
 
SENSIBILITY WITHOUT SENSE. 205 
 
 the improvement which change of circumstances 
 had really wrought in her friend. 
 
 It was not long before Anna experienced 
 the usual painful consequences of her strange 
 habits ; and the fact that such consequences 
 overtook her wherever she went, might have 
 convinced her how preposterous was her pre- 
 vailing idea that all the world was in league 
 against her, because her character was not under- 
 stood. At first, the young people paired off as 
 formerly. Rose and Mary, Selina and Anna; 
 but this arrangement was soon found undesirable 
 on many accounts. Though Rose was a very 
 good, and, in some respects, a very superior girl, 
 she was not such a one as Mary could like to be 
 with all day long while Mrs. Fletcher was within 
 reach, and while there were points of sympathy 
 between Selina and herself which seemed to 
 strengthen daily. Neither could Mary see the 
 use or pleasure of splitting so small a family 
 party into coteries; she therefore diffused the 
 blessing of her society (and a great blessing it 
 was) among all, and was duly prized by all but 
 her own unaccountable sister. Anna, on tlie 
 
206 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 contrary, had no idea of enjoyment in any but a 
 tete-a-tete conversation; and her mode of con- 
 ducting a tete-a-tete had become so strange, that 
 it was no wonder her companion preferred draw- 
 ing in her chair among the cheerful circle who 
 were talking or reading with lightness of heart 
 and forgetfulness of themselves. Add to this, 
 that Anna's habits were now such as to disqualify 
 her for feeling on an equality in well-bred socie- 
 ty — that she was too late for breakfast, too late 
 for dinner, too late for tea, never ready to walk 
 when others were waiting, and unable to attend 
 when others were reading or speaking to her — 
 and it cannot be surprising that, though treated 
 with great kindness, she was left alone in this, 
 little world, where she had expected to find so 
 much happiness. Mr. Fletcher was the only 
 person who lost patience with her. Her father 
 saved her from disgrace as often as he could; 
 and Mary was devoted to her, though she re- 
 ceived no thanks. She spent more time in dress- 
 ing Anna, in working for Anna, in helping 
 Anna, in one way or another, than on her own 
 affairs. It was well they had brought Susan; 
 
SfENSIBILITY WITHOUT SENSE. 207 
 
 for there was full employment for her also in 
 taking care of her helpless young lady. As for 
 Mrs. Fletcher, she watched tenderly over her 
 health, which was becoming very infirm; but of 
 what use were all endeavours to cheer her spirits 
 and revive her health, when she had no mercy 
 on her own nerves.^ It frequently happened, 
 that she came out of a reverie flushed and fever- 
 ish, or that her hands were damp and cold, and 
 her voice broken and almost lost. " What could 
 she be thinking of?" was a frequent subject of 
 speculation with her friends ; but they could 
 never discover which of the thousand agitating 
 scenes of human suffering and delight were 
 oftenest presented in vivid apparition to the poor 
 girl's diseased imagination. She started in such 
 a terrified way if spoken to, that Mary had in- 
 sensibly adopted the practice of breaking every 
 thing to her, even if the plan were only for an 
 evening engagement. This was a pity, for the 
 precaution was useless, as she was startled with 
 less and less things perpetually. 
 
 " Anna,"" said her sister one day, when she 
 found her leaning over her drawing-board, doing 
 
208 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 nothing, "I have something to propose to you — 
 a little plan which I hope you will not object 
 to." 
 
 Anna looked troubled and bewildered. 
 
 " I do not know what you will think of be- 
 ginning to travel again already." 
 
 " To travel!" repeated Anna: "to Italy .P" 
 
 " Oh no!" replied Mary, " not nearly so far; 
 only to Paris. Papa has just told me that he 
 must go to Paris for a week or so, on business. 
 Now, I think he is not very well, and we know 
 he dislikes being alone among strangers, and I 
 think we ought to go with him. I have not 
 said so to him yet; I thought I would ask you 
 first." 
 
 " What can he be going to Paris for? What 
 can be the reason? Oh, Mary!" 
 
 " Never mind the reason now," said Mary, 
 observing how her sister's hand trembled; " I 
 dare say he will tell us the next time he comes 
 in; but he was going out and in a hurry when 
 he told me his plan. You will like to go, will 
 not you?" 
 
 "Oh yes! I am ready to go any where, to do 
 
SENSIBILITY WITHOUT SENSE. 209 
 
 any thing," said Anna, looking as intrepid as if 
 she were trying to be like Jephtha's daughter. 
 
 " I do not know what the Fletchers will think 
 of our seeing Paris before they do, after all; 
 but I am sure they will wish us to go and take 
 care of papa; and there can be no doubt that he 
 will like to have us." 
 
 Here however Mary was, for once, mistaken : 
 Mr. Byerley would not hear of any one accom- 
 panying him; and, moreover, communicated not 
 a syllable respecting the business which called 
 him away. When Mary was packing his port- 
 manteau, he came himself to see that his pre- 
 cious packet of letters was put in safe. Mary 
 observed, laughing, that she hoped he would 
 bring her some new music, for the letters took 
 up so much room, that it would require a large 
 parcel to fill up their place when they were left 
 behind. Her father observed that these letters 
 would afford him abundance of engagements, 
 and that Mary must not be uneasy if he did not 
 return at the end of one week, or even two. 
 
 " If it should be three," said Mary, " I think 
 we must follow, and find you." 
 
210 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 " Do not think of such a thing, I charge you," 
 replied her father, seriously. 
 
 " O no ! papa. I did not seriously think of 
 going to Paris by ourselves ; much less of watch- 
 ing any of your proceedings." 
 
 Mr. Byerley's first letter came as soon as ex- 
 pected, and told of a pleasant journey : but it 
 contained nothing besides, except the address to 
 the hotel where he resided. The second letter 
 was longer in coming, and it seemed to his 
 anxious children as if the third would never 
 arrive. 
 
 But for this anxiety, the time of his absence 
 would have passed quickly and cheerfully. The 
 tyranny of custom, by which French young 
 ladies are made mere cyphers in company, was 
 somewhat relaxed in the case of the English 
 girls. They attended several evening parties, 
 where they were not condemned, as they pro- 
 bably might have been in Paris, to sit beside 
 Mrs. Fletcher or one another, for a whole even- 
 ing, without being spoken to. The Protestant 
 clergyman, whose church they attended, had 
 been in England ; and his knowledge of our cus- 
 
SENSIBILITY WITHOUT SENSE. 211 
 
 toms, as well as his kindness of heart, prompted 
 him to converse with the young strangers as if 
 they were rational beings, and to endeavour to 
 draw out their talents. 
 
 At first, Mary could scarcely reconcile what 
 she saw of this gentleman in company with her 
 judgment of his pulpit services. She had been 
 almost disgusted, the first Sunday, with his ser- 
 mon, and with the manner in which it was deli- 
 vered. She was not sufficiently aware how the 
 varieties of national taste extend to the modes of 
 conducting public worship ; and the delivery, 
 which to the usual attendants of M. Mesnil 
 appeared grave and emphatic, was to her almost 
 theatrical. Out of the pulpit, nothing of this 
 was discernible. He was ready, on every fair 
 occasion, to advert to the subjects most closely 
 connected with his profession, and Avhich were 
 evidently nearest his heart ; and the growing 
 intimacy between his family and that of Mr. 
 Fletcher was founded and cherished by their 
 sympathy in their religious principles and senti- 
 ments. 
 
 M. Mesnil had married a very young and 
 
212 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 lively lady of Paris, whose friends were surprised 
 that one so gay and accomplished should have 
 lost her heart to a grave clergyman, and been 
 ready to make up her mind to live in the pro- 
 vinces for the rest of her days. She proved, how- 
 ever, to all who cared to know, that though her 
 choice was made under the influence of love, it 
 was not made in folly. She proved an excellent 
 wife, and was an exemplary pastor's lady. Fond 
 as she was of her harp, she liked still better the 
 music of grateful voices ; and her smiles wore as 
 sweet, and her eyes sparkled as brilliantly in the 
 cottages near Tours, as in the saloons of Paris. 
 Her tastes wore as refined as ever, while more 
 simple ; and their gratification was promoted by 
 her husband more eagerly than they ever were 
 by her admirers in the great city. Her flower- 
 garden was the delight of them both, and was 
 embellished by their own hands. They sang 
 together ; and each, for the sake of the other, 
 embraced every opportunity of enjoying the 
 pleasures of cultivated society, and the delights 
 of natural beauty. Their children were young — 
 a noble boy of five years old, and two little girls 
 
SENSIBILITY WITHOUT SENSE. 213 
 
 of three and two. They were well-managed, 
 healthy, happy children — the best of amuse- 
 ments to the Enghsh girls, who were never weary 
 of the oddity of hearing a foreign language lisped 
 by infants, and of observing wherein children are 
 alike all over the world, and wherein natural dif- 
 ferences introduce a variety, even from birth. 
 
 The two families were more together than 
 ever after the arrival of the Byerleys. M. 
 Mesnil undertook to convince his foreign friends 
 that they were prejudiced against the pulpit ora- 
 tory of France, and that it was not enough to 
 venerate Fenelon, whom no one could help vene- 
 rating. He made them familiar with the most 
 eminent French divines, and brought them to ac- 
 knowledge that there was more common ground 
 between pious and enlightened Protestants and 
 Catholics, than they had previously believed. 
 They walked together very frequently, the chil- 
 dren accompanying them. Little Charles rode 
 a stately goat, as is not uncommon with children 
 abroad ; and this picturesque steed was harnessed 
 with an elegance answerable to the appearance 
 of his young rider. Charles's mamma, however 
 
214 FIVE YEARS OP YOUTH. 
 
 o-rave she might look while teaching him to read, 
 looked much more like his eldest sister than his 
 mother when they played in the fields, or sat 
 down to rest in the woods. 
 
 It seemed strange that Anna should be struck 
 by one so gay, so totally the opposite of herself, as 
 Madame Mesnil ; but it was evident, from their 
 first meeting, that she was more awake to what 
 was said, more attentive to what was done by this 
 lady, than by any body else ; and this circum- 
 stance gave Mury a gleam of hope of her sister's 
 restoration to mental health. On her part, Ma- 
 dame Mesnil, though she admired and approved 
 Mary to a high degree, attached herself more to 
 Anna ; whether through compassion, or genuine 
 sympathy, or by dint of imagining qualities 
 which did not exist, Mary sought not to know, 
 so delighted was she with the fact. She con- 
 trived, as often as possible, to send Anna alone 
 to M. Mesnil's; encouraged her to accept invi- 
 tations to dine tete-a-tete with Madame, when her 
 husband was out ; and, in short, to throw them 
 together as much as possible. The self-com- 
 placency caused in Anna's mind by these cir- 
 
SENSIBILITY WITHOUT SENSE. 215 
 
 cumstances, proved an impulse for a time. It 
 was but a short-lived impulse ; but it inspired 
 her sister with hope, and herself with a pleasure 
 long lost. 
 
 " Where is Anna .^" was the enquiry one day, 
 when it was time she should be urged to dress for 
 her visit to Madame Mesnil. 
 
 •' She is gone/^ said Mrs. Fletcher : " dressed 
 and gone half an hour ago; and the volume of 
 Boileau with her that I -eee you are looking for. 
 She has finished it." 
 
 " And look at her drawing," said Selina: " it 
 promises well ; does it not .^" 
 
 " Beautiful !" exclaimed Mary. " O, I won- 
 der when papa will come back !" 
 
 " Make no observations to him, Mary : let 
 him discover it for himself." 
 
 " Certainly," replied Mary ; " I will antici- 
 pate nothing. But I long to see the\hope break- 
 ing in upon him." 
 
 There was no need to explain what the " it" 
 and the " hope" meant. There was a perfect un- 
 derstanding in the family, and the great anxiety 
 of one was the great anxiety of all. 
 
216 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 Mary flew to meet her sister when she came 
 home, for once, not afraid of starthng her by 
 sudden intelligence. Before she could speak, 
 however, Anna cried out, " A letter from 
 papa ? O, say yes !"" 
 
 " Yes,"" said Mary, joyfully, drawing her sis- 
 ter's arm within her own. " He will be home 
 to-morrow ; so you must tell us to-night every 
 thing about your visit." 
 
 It was delightful to hear her once again speak 
 gaily, and without reserve. It was evident that 
 she had played with the children, and remarked 
 what passed around her. 
 
 No one enquired into the particulars of her 
 conversation with Madame Mesnil. It had evi- 
 dently done her good, and that was enough. 
 
217 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 Mr. Byerley returned somewhat fatigued with 
 his journey, but in high spirits. He said but 
 little respecting his doings and the persons he 
 had seen in Paris, but was very communicative 
 about all that happened on the road. He had 
 been much entertained by one man in parti- 
 cular, who had sat beside him all the way from 
 Paris, and been very anxious to make acquaint- 
 ance with the Englishman. He appeared to 
 have very strange, erroneous notions of England, 
 its government, and political parties. 
 
 " I hope he did not lead you to talk too free- 
 ly," interrupted Mr. Fletcher. 
 
 " O, no !" replied Mr. Byerley ; " and if I 
 had talked treason it would hardly have signi- 
 
218 FIVE YKARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 fied. You have no idea of the man's simpli- 
 city." 
 
 " Not so good a one as he has of yours, 
 perhaps. But what are this simple man's po- 
 lities r 
 
 " Just what one might expect from such a per- 
 son. He is not very well contented with the 
 state of things in this country, but does not see 
 how it is to be improved. He seems one of the 
 grumblers, who set other people to work, but do 
 nothing themselves." 
 
 " What sort of looking man is he ?'' 
 
 " A very common looking person, with a black 
 coat and vigly brown wig." 
 
 " Well, Byerley, simple as he may be, you 
 are quite as much so, depend upon it, to talk 
 politics in a diligence." 
 
 " Oh ! it all depends upon who listens. This 
 was a good-natured creature as could be. He 
 was very civil about my accommodation, and 
 enquired what luggage I had, that he might 
 have an eye to its being stowed away in the right 
 place." 
 
 " Is your portmanteau safe .''"''' enquired Mr, 
 
A NEW ABODE. 219 
 
 Fletcher. Mr. Byerley only answered by point- 
 ing to it as it lay in the hall. 
 
 " Your civil friend examined it, I dare say." 
 
 " Yes, such people are always curious. I 
 saw him spelling out my name and feeling the 
 weight of the trunk ; and he remarked the roll 
 of paper (music for Mary) peeping out of my 
 coat-pocket. He began fishing to discover what 
 it was." 
 
 " And did you show it him ?" 
 
 " No: I thought it was time to check his curi- 
 osity, so I put it out of sight." 
 
 " Well, you had better have had your girls 
 with you. I will answer for it they would know 
 better how to conduct themselves in a diligence 
 than their father. But come, I have made an 
 appointment for you at Beranger's. He is to 
 show us the plan of the new Institute ; and it is 
 time we were gone." 
 
 When the gentlemen returned from the house 
 of M. Beranger, (the magistrate to whom Mr. 
 Byerley had before been introduced,) Mr. 
 Fletcher looked very grave, while his friend 
 was laughing. 
 
220 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 " Whom do you think we met, just now ?" 
 said he. 
 
 " The man in the brown wig ?'' 
 
 " Yes ; a perilous looking personage, is he 
 not, Fletcher?" 
 
 " How oddly Beranger behaved to you !" was 
 Mr. Fletcher's only reply. 
 
 " Yes, he was as stiff and formal as an Eng- 
 lishman ; but I suppose that is his magisterial 
 air." 
 
 " M. Beranger stiff and formal !" exclaimed 
 Mrs. Fletcher: " I never saw him so." 
 
 " Nor 1 till to-day," replied her husband. 
 " Did you see where your brown-wigged friend 
 came from, Byerley ?" 
 
 " I saw him come out of a house, but I did 
 not observe the house particularly." 
 
 " He came out of Beranger's office-door.'"' 
 
 " Indeed !" exclaimed Mr. Byerley, starting: 
 " and yet he told me that he knew no one in this 
 place, and should proceed on his journey south 
 in a few hours." 
 
 While this conversation passed, the girls were 
 dressing to go out. Mx. and Mrs. Fletcher were 
 
A NEW ABODE. 221 
 
 glad of this, as they did not wish to communi- 
 cate to Mary and Anna the vague uneasiness 
 they began to feel respecting the consequences 
 of this journey. 
 
 Mrs. Fletcher walked out with the young- 
 people. They were tempted to prolong their 
 ramble till past the hour of dinner ; yet when 
 they came in, the cloth was not laid, no servant 
 was visible, and no one answered the bell. Mrs. 
 Fletcher caught a glimpse of her husband in the 
 garden behind the house. He was pacing back- 
 wards and forwards with hurried steps. She 
 went to him, trying in vain to prevent Mary 
 from following her. The truth was soon out. 
 Mr. Byerley had been arrested during their ab- 
 sence, and conveyed first to a magistrate and 
 then to prison, without being able to learn the 
 nature of the accusation against him. 
 
 Mary strengthened herself for a few moments 
 with the belief that this proceeding originated in 
 a mistake, which would be presently rectified; 
 but when Mr. Fletcher made no reply to her ex- 
 pression of hope, she remembered the packet of 
 letters, the mystery of the journey to Paris, the 
 
222 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 Strange behaviour of the fellow-traveller, and his 
 egress from the magistrate's office, and, finally, 
 the deportment of M. Beranger himself; and no 
 doubt remained that some political offence was 
 imputed to her father. 
 
 Her first desire was to go to him ; and she ran 
 into the house that she might communicate to 
 Anna what had happened, and lose no time in 
 proceeding to the prison with her sister, who, she 
 could not doubt, would be eager to accompany 
 her. Anna was, however, in no condition for 
 such an exertion. Though Rose had communi- 
 cated the fact as gently as possible, the feeble- 
 minded girl was frightfully agitated. She had 
 sunk shivering on the ground, and clung so con- 
 vulsively to the sofa, that it was impossible to 
 raise her. 
 
 " Anna," said her sister calmly, " have you 
 not always said that on great occasions you could 
 command yourself.^ This is a great occasion."" 
 
 " O, my father ! my father !" cried the tremb- 
 ling girl ; and the voice of her wailing thrilled 
 every nerve in Mary's frame. 
 
 " Listen, Anna ! My father is, no doubt, 
 
A NEW ABODE. 223 
 
 looking for us, expecting us every moment. 
 Will you not go to him .''"" 
 
 " Go to him !" cried Anna, springing up. 
 " Let us go instantly, and never leave him. Yet — 
 Oh ! to see him in a dungeon, among the wretches 
 there, shut up, perhaps, for life — I cannot, no, I 
 
 cannot " and she sank down on the sofa, 
 
 utterly exhausted. 
 
 Mary looked at her sister, and then at the 
 door : her feelings were harrowed by what she 
 saw and heard. She longed to restore her sister, 
 iind yet was impatient to be gone. 
 
 "Leave your sister tons," said Mrs. Fletcher: 
 " you see she cannot go." 
 
 " But what shall I say to my father, Anna.''" 
 said her sister in a broken voice, as she bent over 
 her. " Look up, and speak to me, or how shall 
 I comfort my father ?" But still Anna did not 
 unclose her eyes. 
 
 " She will soon be better," said Mrs. Fletcher, 
 trying to smile : " leave her to me, and go where 
 your heart bids you." 
 
 Mr. Fletcher drew Mary's arm within his, and 
 hastened with her to the prison, preparing her 
 
224 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 by the way for the probable disappointment she 
 would meet with in being refused admittance. 
 Mary declared that she would get in, by some 
 means or other ; and in answer to the objection 
 that it might be impossible, she declared that, in 
 such cases, women had been known to conquer 
 what are often called impossibilities. 
 
 As Mr. Fletcher expected, the jailer had re- 
 ceived strict orders to admit no person whatever 
 to Mr. Byerley's presence. There was no use in 
 entreaty, or in any mode of representing the 
 case. He must obey orders. lie did not refuse, 
 however, to answer questions. The gentleman 
 seemed in good spirits, he said, except that he 
 was vexed at not having an apartment to himself. 
 
 " Not an apartment to himself! Where was 
 he then ?'' 
 
 " In the same room with some debtors." 
 
 "Any body else.'^" 
 
 " Yes; two or three felons, for whom there 
 was not room elsewhere." 
 
 Mary's heart sickened as she turned away. 
 
 " I will go to M. Beranger's," said she : " he 
 will not, he shall not deny me." 
 
A NEW ABODE. 225 
 
 " This is the way," said Mr. Fletcher; " you 
 are turning homewards." 
 
 " Perhaps Anna is able to go now," replied 
 Mary. " She shall have her choice, at least ; and 
 she will help me to plead with M. Beranger.'" 
 
 Anna was better. She lay quietly weeping on 
 the sofa, and scarcely looked up as her sister 
 entered. 
 
 " I have not seen him : they will not let us 
 in, without leave, Anna. Will you go with me 
 to obtain leave from M. Beranger ? It will do 
 you good, if you can exert yourself so far." 
 
 Anna looked bewildered. Mrs. Fletcher, un- 
 wisely, as Mary thought, objected that she was 
 unequal to the exertion. This observation, how- 
 ever, had the eifect of rousing Anna. 
 
 " Why should not I as well as Mary .^" de- 
 manded she, starting up. " He is my father as 
 well as Mary's. Who shall prevent my dis- 
 charging a daughter's duty to him .'' It is very 
 
 unjust: it is very unkind ." While thus 
 
 exclaiming, Mary tied her bonnet for her: her 
 own hands trembled too much. 
 
 Mr. Fletcher's stronger voice now prevailed. 
 
 I. 5 
 
•226 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 He declared decidedly that Anna's appearance 
 would, without doubt, injure her father's inte- 
 rests. To a cool and wary magistrate, who did 
 not understand the vehemence of her feelings, 
 her agitated appearance would give the idea 
 that there was reason for apprehension that the 
 result of an examination was dreaded. " We 
 believe your father to be innocent," said he; 
 " and the calmness of our manner ought to testify 
 the confidence of our belief. Look at your sister, 
 Mary, and say if any stranger would believe that 
 she had any present confidence whatever to re- 
 pose upon." 
 
 Anna's face, flushed with anger and convulsed 
 with fear, was indeed ill-fitted to enforce any 
 plea founded on a consciousness of innocence. 
 She was left behind, exclaiming against the in- 
 justice, but, in reality, relieved at being spared 
 the necessity of exertion. 
 
 M. Beranger, guessing the nature of Mary's 
 errand, declined seeing her, on the plea of busi- 
 ness ; but Mary, who felt that the part she now 
 had to take was that of decision, or what would 
 be called obstinacy by the persons she had to 
 
A NEW ABODE. 227 
 
 deal with, replied that she would wait till M. 
 Beranger was at liberty. She took her seat in 
 the office, and remained two long hours ; at the 
 end of which time, the magistrate, having no 
 hope of getting quit of her, admitted her and 
 Mr. Fletcher to his presence. Again and again 
 he answered, that his directions were positive, to 
 allow no access to persons imprisoned for poli- 
 tical offences. Mary reasoned on the impossi- 
 bility of her affording any advantage to her 
 father's cause by being with him, or of her op- 
 posing any hindrance to the course of justice : 
 she only wanted to be let in alone; she would 
 submit to be searched; she would carry in nothing 
 but linen; she would not ask to come out asrain 
 till her father should be also released. The 
 magistrate gently represented, that she seemed 
 to consider the last circumstance as far more 
 probable than the facts warranted, and that she 
 did not know what she was engaging for, in offer- 
 ing to stay in prison as long as her father. Mary 
 smiled as she observed, that where there was in 
 reality no offence, there could be no doubt of 
 the issue, if justice were done, of which she en- 
 
228 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 tertained no fear; but that, if she knew her father's 
 imprisonment to be for life, she should be no 
 less earnest than now to be with him on the terms 
 she proposed. When she pleaded her father's de- 
 licate health, and the ease and careful attendance 
 to which he was accustomed, the magistrate was 
 evidently touched and disturbed ; and as she 
 went on, (the more urgently as she began to see 
 hope of success,) he stopped her with a promise 
 to consider what could be done, and to send to 
 her in the morning. No, she replied; she could 
 not wait; she wished to join her father this night. 
 M- Bcranger's next resource was to pace the 
 apartment ; and a glance from Mr. Fletcher, 
 (who wisely forbore to interfere,) told Mary that 
 her cause was prospering. 
 
 It was late, and quite dusk, before the anxious 
 family learned what had detained the absent 
 members so long. Anna had consented to go 
 to bed, and it was hoped she was asleep, that 
 she might be spared the struggle of parting with 
 Iier sister, who only returned for the necessaries 
 she was to convey to her father. Mrs. Fletcher 
 made her sit down and eat, while Rose and the 
 
A NEW ABODE. 229 
 
 maid Susan went to put up her parcel for her. 
 It was necessary that they should enter Anna's 
 room with a candle: she started up, and poured 
 out questions so fast, that Rose was obliged to 
 tell her the state of the case, and to promise that 
 her sister should come up to bid her farewell. 
 
 " Just one kiss and then leave her,"" said Mrs. 
 Fletcher, as Mary took the candle to go to Anna: 
 " do not let her agitate you or herself." 
 
 This, however, it was in the power of no one 
 to prevent. It will scarcely be believed — Anna 
 herself could scarcely credit it afterwards — that 
 her last words to her own sister on such an occa- 
 sion as this, were words of jealous reproach. 
 
 " Do not dwell on any thing unpleasant, my 
 love," said Mrs. Fletcher, as she saw, by Mary's 
 quivering lips, that something had been said to 
 wound her: " your sister is not herself to-dav ; 
 she will soon be better." 
 
 " How shall I know that she is.''" 
 
 " M. Beranger will convey a message to you, 
 I am sure. I will call and ask him ; or perhaps 
 he will allow Anna to come and tell you herself 
 that she is better." 
 
230 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 " Madame Mesnil," said Mary- 
 
 " She shall see Anna to-morrow, my love; 
 and never fear but that, among us, we shall be 
 able to comfort her." And after a mournful 
 farewell, Mary again set forth, with Mr. Fletcher 
 and Susan. 
 
 M. Beranger's order procured them immediate 
 admission to the jailer's apartment, where Mary's 
 bundle having been tossed over by the jailer's 
 wife, and found to contain nothing suspicious, 
 she took leave of her friend and of the weeping 
 Susan, and followed her conductor to the apart- 
 ment which contained her father. Hers was not 
 the soul to recoil at the sights and sounds which 
 met her every where in this dismal abode. The 
 passages were empty and cold, and echoed back 
 their footsteps. They met one or two turnkeys, 
 who stared at the unusual sight of a lady, out of 
 visiting hours, and looked back to see which of 
 the cells she was about to visit. At length they 
 stopped, and the jailer gave her the light to hold 
 while he unbarred and unlocked the door. He 
 observed that her hand was steady. 
 
 " One would think that Mam'selle had been 
 
A NEW ABODE. 231 
 
 used to the inside of a prison," he ob- 
 served. 
 
 Mary replied, that she had never before en- 
 tered one. 
 
 " Nor Monsieur.?" 
 
 " Yes; my father has been accustomed to 
 visit the prisoner." 
 
 "Ha! what a strange amusement! We do 
 not allow of such curiosity here." 
 
 Mary was sorry to hear this: she thought it 
 promised ill for the comfort of the prisoners; 
 and it was evident that the man had no idea 
 that any one would voluntarily enter a prison 
 from any motive but curiosity. 
 
 He opened the door cautiously, and made her 
 enter first. The room, which was very large, 
 was so dark that she could not see either end of 
 it; she discerned many moving figures, but not 
 distinctly enough to recognize her father. 
 
 " Mais ou est il.''" said the jailer, holding the 
 dim light above his head: " call him yourself, 
 Mam'selle; I know not these English names." 
 
 Mary pronounced the name, but the low sound 
 was not heard. There was no need, for her fa- 
 
232 FIVE YEARS OP YOUTH. 
 
 ther, mistrusting his own eyes, came forward to 
 see whether or not it were indeed his daugh- 
 ter. 
 
 Mary seized his arm, and was, for the pre- 
 sent, happy. The jailer favoured them with the 
 use of the light for a short time, saying that he 
 would return for it himself. 
 
 Before she would indulge in any conversa- 
 tion, she examined into the nature of the accom- 
 modations which had been provided for her 
 father. They were wretched enough. A screen 
 was placed across one corner of the dreary apart- 
 ment, and behind it was placed the mattress on 
 which he was to sleep. A bench was the only 
 piece of furniture allowed him besides. The 
 other corners were partitioned off in a similar 
 manner for other unhappy inmates of this place; 
 and during the day, her father told her, many 
 more were admitted, so that there was no hope 
 of peace and quiet. Some effort must be made 
 to obtain a separate apartment; if this could not 
 be done, Mary must make up her mind to leave 
 him the next day. Mary smiled, in a firm reso- 
 lution to do no such thing: she had, however, a 
 
A NEW ABODE. 233 
 
 Strong hope that a separate cell might be ob- 
 tained. 
 
 She observed that her father's supper stood 
 untasted : she urged him to eat while she ar- 
 ranged his bed comfortably; observing that she 
 had supped before she came. She judged rightly, 
 that example would be better than entreaty: her 
 father ate because she had eaten. 
 
 By the time she had laid on the sheets she 
 had brought, and made herself somewhat at home 
 in what she called their own apartment, the 
 jailer came for the light; and in return for a 
 handsome fee, promised Mary the comfort of an 
 occasional retreat to his wife's apartment, if her 
 father should be obliged to remain where he was. 
 He further favoured them by drawing up a huge 
 table outside the screen, by which fortification 
 they felt themselves secure from interruption; 
 but no intreaties could prevail on him to leave 
 the light. 
 
 Mr. Byerley refused to sleep while Mary 
 watched beside him, but consented at last to lie 
 down, though declaring that he was not so weary 
 as she said he appeared. She sat down beside 
 
234 
 
 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 him, and they talked long in whispers, inter- 
 rupted only by the slight noises which told 
 them that there were sleepers within hearing. 
 At length, Mr. Byerley, overcome by the fa- 
 tigues of his journey, and of all that he had since 
 gone through, fell asleep with his daughter's 
 hand clasped within his own. During the suc- 
 ceeding hours, a world of ideas passed through 
 Mary's wakeful mind. Seated as she was, in 
 solitary watchfulness beside her suffering parent, 
 amidst strangers, in the very room with crimi- 
 nals, with whom she was shut up for she knew 
 not how long, she was easy and happy in com- 
 parison with her sister, who, in her comfortable 
 apartment, carefully tended by servant and 
 friends, was restlessly miserable, not only on her 
 father's account, but through jealousy of her 
 sister, and the reproaches of her own conscience. 
 In a few hours Mr. Byerley awoke; and his 
 daughter, perceiving that he was really refreshed, 
 and that he would not sleep again, consented to 
 repose in her turn. She felt safe in the guardian- 
 ship of her parent, and slept till it was broad 
 daylight. 
 
A NEW ABODE. 235 
 
 This day was spent by the friends of the pri- 
 soner in active exertion to learn the nature of 
 the accusation against him, and the probable 
 issue of the affair, and to secure for him such 
 temporary comfort as might by any means be 
 obtained. INIr. Byerley employed Mary in draw- 
 ing up memorials to be presented in every quar- 
 ter where there was any hope of their being of 
 use. This exertion, and the hope which it ex- 
 cited, were cheering to them both. At one sen- 
 tence, which strongly expressed the prisoner's 
 consciousness of innocence, Mary staid her pen, 
 and looked up in her father's face. 
 
 "Speak, my dear," said he; "tell me what 
 you are thinking of: if you have any doubt of 
 my innocence, say so." 
 
 " I do not, of course, suspect you of any 
 moral guilt — of any act which you would not 
 pronounce to be virtuous ; but, excuse me, be- 
 cause I know nothing of the purpose of your 
 going to Paris; — has nothing been done which 
 the laws or the government of this country would 
 declare to be wrong?" 
 
 " Nothing, my love, which the laws do not 
 
236 FIVE YEARS OP YOUTH. 
 
 sanction; something, perhaps, which the govern- 
 ment may not like, and for which it may choose 
 to punish me; but nothing for which it can 
 bring me to trial,, or which any lawyer in the 
 kingdom can declare to be unconstitutional." 
 
 The full explanation into which Mr. Byerley 
 now entered, satisfied Mary that she might with 
 a safe conscience speak and write of her father's 
 entire innocence, though it left considerable ap- 
 prehensions of the consequences of these strange 
 events. She was glad to divert her thoughts 
 from the dark future, by busying herself as much 
 as possible; but her attention was perpetually 
 recalled to her present situation by the disagree- 
 able sounds which reached her from the wretched 
 inmates of their apartm.ent. She was hidden 
 from their observation by the screen; but their 
 coarse jests, their oaths, and vehement com- 
 plaints, offended her ears perpetually, though 
 she gave no outward sign to her father of having 
 heard them. It was not many hours before one 
 change for the, better took place in their situa- 
 tion. When the turnkey brought their dinner, 
 he informed them of the magistrate having order- 
 
A NEW ABODE. 237 
 
 ed that they should be allowed a separate apart- 
 ment, which would be ready for them before 
 night. 
 
 This cell was found to contain a smaller one 
 within; and Mary had no doubt that the jailer 
 had had her accommodation in view in conduct- 
 ing her father hither in preference to other cells. 
 This symptom of humanity raised her spirits, 
 and she spread her little mattress with almost as 
 much satisfaction as if it had been in a better 
 place. Here she and her father passed a week — 
 a long week, unvaried by any circumstance but 
 an occasional message, transmitted through M. 
 Beranger and the jailer, that all their friends 
 were well, and were employing their energies on 
 Mr. Byerley's behalf. They could comfort 
 themselves on Anna's account only by hoping 
 that she was included among the friends who 
 were well; for it was impossible to obtain a more 
 particular report of her. 
 
 About noon, on the eighth day of their con- 
 iinement, the door was unbarred and thrown 
 open, and Mr. Fletcher and Anna entered. The 
 surprise of this meeting was almost too much 
 
238 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 for the prisoners. When they could enquire 
 what turn their affairs had taken, they heard 
 joyful news. The worst charges against Mr. 
 Byerley, those of sedition and conspiracy against 
 the government, were relinquished through in- 
 ability to substantiate them; and it was now 
 hoped, though with no degree of certainty, that 
 the accusation would amount to nothing worse 
 than carrying sealed letters, an act forbidden by 
 the Post-office laws, and punishable by a short 
 imprisonment only. 
 
 Mary's heart felt suddenly lightened of the 
 weight of a calamity; but she could control her- 
 self in joy as well as in grief; and the calm of 
 her manner and countenance showed whither she 
 referred her feelings of gratitude and joy. 
 
 " Come, come," said Mr. Fletcher, when the 
 first burst of intelligence had been received and 
 discussed, " we must lose no time in making 
 our arrangements, for our lawyer friend will be 
 here presently, and I shall take my departure 
 to-morrow." 
 
 " What arrangements .'*' 
 
 " Anna will remain with her father; and you, 
 
A NKW ABODE. 239 
 
 Mary, must go with me. Make no objection, 
 my dear: on all accounts it is desirable that the 
 exchange should be made, and my wife and 
 daughters are looking anxiously for you." 
 
 Mary was so far from making any objection, 
 that she was rejoiced at the opportunity thus 
 afforded to Anna of taking her share of the duty 
 in which she felt so much pleasure. She with- 
 drew with Anna into her own little cell, to pre- 
 pare for her departure, and to introduce her sis- 
 ter to the scanty accommodations the place af- 
 forded. Anna shuddered as she looked round, 
 and seemed more than half inclined to draw 
 back; but of this her sister took no notice, 
 though she inwardly compassionated her fears. 
 
 " Can you sleep here.''" enquired Anna. 
 
 " O yes ! very well. It is a very good mat- 
 trass, and the room quite undisturbed by noise. 
 There is no access to it, you see, but by my fa- 
 ther's room. I never slept better, though I had 
 not such an easy mind as we may all have now." 
 
 " You will come to-morrow, will not you.'*" 
 
 " Certainly, as soon as visiters are admitted. 
 Our best way will be to take our place here by 
 
240 FIVE YKARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 turns, day and day about. This will amuse my 
 father most, and be best for us." 
 
 Anna made no reply but by another timid 
 look round. 
 
 Mary smiled as she continued: " You will 
 find that my father has much to relate as well 
 as you: I will leave it to him to tell you what we 
 have been doing all this week. I shall think of 
 you this evening talking so busily and comfort- 
 ably together. It will do my father more good 
 than any thing else could do, to hear all you 
 have to tell him ; for we know scarcely any thing 
 yet of what our friends have been doing for 
 us." 
 
 " Oh! what is that.^" cried Anna, at the 
 sound of the unbarring of the outer door. 
 
 " I suppose it is the lawyer who was to come. 
 Yes, it is," continued Mary, after a peep into 
 her father's room; " so we must be gone. Fare- 
 well, till to-morrow morning." 
 
 Anna's eyes were swimming in tears when her 
 sister left her. If the smallest choice had been 
 allowed her, she would have gone home with 
 INIr. Fletcher. As it was, she said, in her per- 
 
A NEAV ABODE. 2'41 
 
 verse heart, that Mary was so wonderfully ready 
 to depart, that it was clear she did not like the 
 prison; so she made up her mind to dislike it 
 too, and to think it hard that she, delicate as 
 she was, should be left there. 
 
 As soon as the lawyer was gone, she joined 
 her father. He did not wonder at the visible 
 constraint of her manner; but the greater the 
 cause for it, the deeper was his compassion for 
 her. Never, perhaps, even to Mary, had his 
 words and manner been so tender as now to his 
 conscious and unhappy daughter. He succeed- 
 ed, at length, in raising her spirits; and there 
 was so much to relate on each side, and now so 
 great cause for hope, that this evening proved 
 nearly as cheerful as Mary hoped it might 
 be. 
 
 To her, this day afforded much enjoyment. 
 The air, sunshine, and verdure, were delicious 
 after a week's seclusion within stone walls. She 
 passed the afternoon in the garden with her 
 friends, listening and relating by turns, and en- 
 joying the delights of their affection, and of 
 vivid hopes for her father; these delights being, 
 
 M 
 
242 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 unconsciously to herself, enhanced by the satis- 
 faction of her own reflections on past duties. 
 
 M. and Mde. Mesnil came to see and congra- 
 tulate her, and to offer to go and visit her father. 
 It was settled that the pastor should accom- 
 pany her the next day. Madame Mesnil, whose 
 influence had done more to tranquillize Anna 
 than any which the Fletchers could exert, de- 
 clared her intention of taking her young friend 
 home to dinner v.ith her to-morrow, that she 
 might hear what sort of a heroine she had made 
 in prison. 
 
 No one was ever, in truth, less like a heroine. 
 Anna started at every sound, and appeared in 
 perpetual terror, even while her hand was clasp- 
 ed in her father's. In vain he smiled, and 
 assured her that no persons were ever more 
 secure from interruption than they were till sup- 
 per time; in vain he urged her then to eat, and 
 conversed with the turnkey, to prove to her that 
 the man was civil, and that there was nothing to 
 fear. She was somewhat relieved when they 
 were locked in for the night, but more nervous 
 than ever when she found herself alone in her 
 
A NEW ABODE. 243 
 
 dismal little cell. She crept shivering into bed, 
 and cried almost the whole night. Of course 
 she looked, in the morning, little fitted to cheer 
 a prison; and breakfast passed almost in silence. 
 As soon as it was removed, her father took her 
 hand, saying: — 
 
 " My child! you are very unhappy." 
 
 At the first word, Anna laid down her head 
 on his knee and wept bitterly. All attempts to 
 soothe her being vain, her father continued: — 
 
 " Surely all this grief is not for me; there is 
 now no cause for it, for my safety is certain. 
 You must have some secret trouble, which you 
 conceal from me. Why will you not give me 
 your confidence?" 
 
 " You know you know,"" said she, in a 
 
 broken voice, " that I am miserable : j^ou know 
 why I am miserable." 
 
 "I see that you are unhappy; but, unless 
 there be something that I am ignorant of, I see 
 no reason why you should not be as happy as 
 other people if you choose it." 
 
 " No, never; nobody loves me; people pity 
 me, and look down upon me, and do what they 
 
 m2 
 
244 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 can to help me; but they do not love me, and I 
 cannot live without being loved." 
 
 " Supposing all this to be true, which I think 
 it is not, how happens it?" 
 
 "Ah! that is the misery of it. I know you 
 think I deserve it; and 1 do in part; but in- 
 deed, indeed I am not understood." 
 " If so, I ask again, how happens it.-^" 
 Anna was silent. 
 
 " Think and speak honestly," continued her 
 father, after a pause : " this is too serious a 
 matter to be trifled with. If you are indeed 
 misunderstood by all the world, where does the 
 fault lie ? is all the world to blame, or are 
 you?" 
 
 " I am partly, I own; I have made some 
 great mistakes about myself, which I can never 
 
 repair, and " 
 
 " Stop, my love; I never sanction the belief 
 that any mistakes are quite beyond reparation. 
 You have committed errors in your management 
 of yourself; but, while you live, you have the 
 power of retracing your steps. Go back to the 
 point where your errors began, and then you can 
 
A NEW ABODE. 245 
 
 proceed in the safe and right way in which it has 
 ever been my wish to guide you."" 
 
 "I cannot, 1 cannot,''"' cried the unhappy girl: 
 " I am altogether disappointed in myself; every 
 thing has turned out differently from what I 
 
 expected; I thought I should have been " 
 
 She could not command her voice. 
 
 " You thought you should have been some- 
 thing unlike — something far beyond what women 
 generally are. I saw what your ambition was, 
 and, as you well remember, warned you from 
 the first that you mistook the way to gratify it. 
 While you should have been exercising yourself 
 in the virtues you wished to attain, you spent 
 your energies in dreaming about them, and the 
 consequence is " 
 
 " Oh ! do not reproach me with it ; I know 
 too well what it is. I am fit for nothing — equal 
 to neither great occasions nor small. I am al- 
 ways in the way of other people when they do 
 not want me; and when they do, I fail them 
 utterly. Oh! do not reproach me with all this." 
 
 " Not for the world, my love! What heart 
 could that father have who would reproach you 
 
246 FIVE YKARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 as you reproach yourself? I will allow some 
 truth hi v/liat you have said; but I must add, 
 that with so clear an apprehension of the evil as 
 you have shown, and so noble a candour in 
 acknowledging it, there is strong reason for 
 hoping that you may get the better of your trou- 
 bles entirely." 
 
 " No; I shall never have strength now; you 
 do not know how often I have resolved and 
 failed. I will make no more resolutions, and 
 then I shall not incur the sin of breaking them."" 
 
 " Anna, I am now convinced of what I have 
 long feared. What you have just said is more 
 painful to me than all that has passed: it proves 
 to me that you depend on the strength of your 
 unassisted will — that you have ceased to seek 
 help where you know you may ever find it. I 
 see, by your silent shame, that it is so. And 
 have you really made no further use of your 
 religion than to feast your imagination, while 
 you were daily experiencing the weakness of 
 your own will?" 
 
 Anna turned away in agony. 
 
 " Tell me, my child, if I do you injustice. 
 
A NEW ABODE. 247 
 
 Give me but one sign that I too have misunder- 
 stood you. If you have indeed continued to 
 study the Scriptures with intentness of heart, if 
 you have, to this day, sought relief and strength 
 in prayer, turn to me, and I will entreat your 
 pardon for my harshness." 
 
 Anna turned not, and her emotion was fearful : 
 her father's was scarcely less. 
 
 " It is not too late, be the case what it may : 
 while the stray sheep lives, it may be brought 
 back. But is it possible, that while we have 
 read and prayed together, your heart was far 
 from your lips.'' Was your fancy busy even 
 then, with the applause of the world.?" 
 
 " Yes; it is that which has ruined me," said 
 Anna at length. " For years my chief motive 
 has been praise, human praise; and now I can- 
 not act against my inclinations from any other. 
 And I have lost all power over my thoughts: 
 they wander away at all times : the attempt to 
 restrain them made me miserable ; and now that 
 I have given it up, I am more miserable still." 
 
 " No doubt, my child; and the only way to 
 recover your peace is to resume your efforts — 
 
248 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 not with a vague wish merely, or an unassisted 
 resolution to govern yourself better. You must 
 gather motives from a renewed study of your 
 Bible ; you must obtain strength from prayer ; 
 and you must also exercise yourself perpetually 
 in action. Circumstances occur every hour 
 which may afford you an opportunity of break- 
 ing in upon your reveries, and doing something 
 which your inclination would prompt you to leave 
 undone. There is more efficacy in attempts to 
 act^ in a case like yours, than you have any 
 idea of." 
 
 Anna knew this, but doubted her own power. 
 Her father suggested various helps to her own 
 feeble resolution, of which she might make use; 
 the chief of which was an increased confidence 
 in her sister. From this, her father saw with 
 anguish that she recoiled: there was no use in 
 arguing against so unnatural a feeling; he could 
 only pray that it might be changed into a more 
 kindly and generous emotion, by the discipline 
 to which he hoped his unhappy child would 
 henceforth subject herself. 
 
 He perceived that, painful as this conversation 
 
A NEW ABODE. 249 
 
 was, it had been a relief to Anna, who had 
 not for many long months opened her griefs to 
 any one. Her emotions had, however, so totally 
 enfeebled her, that her father found it necessary 
 to assist her to her room, where he laid her on 
 her bed, and saw her fall asleep almost instantly, 
 thus proving that the exhaustion of her body 
 was greater than the disturbance of her mind. 
 
 When Mary and M. Mesnil entered the cell, 
 they found Mr. Byerley leaning over the table, 
 his face covered with his hands. They made no 
 very close enquiries respecting the cause of his 
 grief; but as, at the end of an hour, Anna was 
 still asleep, Mary proposed that she should not 
 be disturbed, and that they should both remain 
 through the day and night. In answer to all 
 objections about want of accommodation, she de- 
 clared, that if there was not room for both to 
 rest, she would watch, as she had done before. 
 Any thing, she said, for the sake of their passing 
 a day together once more. 
 
 This arranged, Mary told her father how she 
 had enjoyed the preceding day and this morning. 
 
 " It is a fine morning, I see," said he, looking 
 
 M 5 
 
250 riVK YEARS OP YOUTH. 
 
 up to the high grated window which admitted — 
 not sunshine — but such hght as told that there 
 was sunshine abroad. 
 
 " A fine, fragrant, summer morning," said 
 Mary, taking from her bosom some field-Howers 
 which she had gathered in the meadows : " I 
 have brought you these; I wish I could bring 
 you the sunshine which painted them." 
 
 As her father looked fondly at her, he thought 
 within himself, that to him she had ever brought 
 sunshine. 
 
 Anna awoke refreshed, and, to her sister's 
 relief, appeared to have no objection to remain 
 another day and night where she was. They 
 spent the day in greater comfort and confidence 
 than had been their wont of late, and at night 
 slept and watched in turn; Anna managing to 
 control her fears while her sister was beside her, 
 though asleep. 
 
 To their astonishment, this proved the last day 
 of Mr. Byerley's imprisonment. The strenuous 
 exertions of his friends, the interference of the 
 English ambassador, and especially, the im- 
 portant fact that there was no evidence against 
 
A NEW ABODE. 251 
 
 him beyond the suspicions of a spy, availed to 
 release him from his jail ; but not altogether 
 from injustice. He was ordered to quit Tours 
 in twenty-four hours, and to embark immediately 
 from the nearest port, whither he was to be 
 escorted by two gens d'arme. 
 
252 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 It was not till Mr. Byerley had returned to his 
 friend's house, and was placed in the midst of its 
 quietness and comforts, that he became aware 
 how his health and spirits had been shaken by 
 the events of the last fortnight. He felt weary 
 and feverish, and the excitement of his nerves 
 was evident to every one near him. Mr. Fletcher 
 was anxious that his departure should be de- 
 layed till he should be better able to bear the 
 fatigue of travelling; but Mr. Byerley would 
 not allow any mention of the subject to be made 
 to M. Beranger, or to any of the authorities. 
 He would ask no favour where he knew himself 
 to be treated with injustice ; and besides, he was 
 impatient to leave a place where he had suffered 
 
SENSE WITH SENSIBILITY. 253 
 
 SO much. Mary also advocated his departure, 
 knowing that his health was always benefited by 
 a voyage. She intended, of course, to accom- 
 pany him. The most difficult question was, 
 what should be done with Anna.'' There was 
 no hope of her being of any use, and her pre- 
 sence was now agitating to her father. Her re- 
 turn would also preclude all hope of the benefit 
 to be derived from change of scene and society, 
 and would put an end at once to Madame Mes- 
 niPs influence over her. The Fletchers urged 
 her remaining with them ; declaring that the 
 late events had disgusted them with their present 
 abode, and that they should soon proceed to 
 Paris, and in a few months afterwards, to Eng- 
 land. It was determined that, if Anna would 
 consent, she should be left behind, under the 
 care of her kind friends, and attended by Susan. 
 The mere proposal of any plan was now cer- 
 tain to rouse Anna's opposition; but, though 
 she wept over the hardship of being separated 
 from her father, she was, in reality, glad to be 
 relieved from the responsibilities of her filial 
 duty, and to remain, for a time, near Madame 
 
254 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 Mesnil. Saying, therefore, that she would sub- 
 mit if she could, and really mistaking her sel- 
 fishness for resignation, she showed her filial 
 affection by making her father miserable with 
 her inexhaustible tears. Mary, mean while, 
 having established her father on a sofa, was pack- 
 ing up, and settling all their little affairs, while 
 Mr. Fletcher procured passports, and his wife 
 made every provision for the comfort of the 
 voyage which the shortness of the time allowed. 
 
 A letter arrived this day from Signor Elvi, 
 who had heard with consternation of the arrest 
 of his friend. His purpose in writing was to 
 cheer the prisoner with hopes of release and of 
 a return to his own free and happy country, 
 whose institutions were praised as they deserved 
 to be by one who had suffered so cruelly from 
 the despotism which desolated his own land. 
 Though Mr. Byerley was no longer a prisoner 
 when this letter reached him, he was not the less 
 in need of being cheered ; and he was cheered, 
 except by one passage, which it afflicted him to 
 read, while he reproached himself for his selfish 
 regret. 
 
SENSE WITH SENSIBILITY. 255 
 
 " I have earnestly desired, my friend, to aid 
 you ; I have mourned that I could not aid you, 
 by hastening to fling wide your prison doors. 
 There is but one way in which such exiles as I, 
 stripped of all we possessed, can aid those who 
 suffer injustice. It is by struggling for liberty, 
 wherever a struggle can be maintained. Such 
 assistance I am hastening to give. I cannot re- 
 lease the victims of tyranny from their chains, or 
 recall the spirits of the martys to liberty ; but I 
 can defend those principles by whose prevalence 
 the captivity of the innocent shall, at length, 
 cease, and the heads of the noble shall be crown- 
 ed with honour instead of being rolled in the 
 dust. I go to defend these principles in another 
 land, in a distant continent of the globe. Should 
 you set your foot in safety once more on your 
 native strand, as I trust you will, I shall not be 
 there to welcome you, as your friendly hand 
 once welcomed me. It may be that you will 
 hear of me no more, though I will not willingly 
 relinquish the privilege of your correspondence. 
 If you should hear of my fall, mourn not for me ; 
 for you know that I look for better things beyond 
 
256 FIVE YEARS OF YOtJTrt. 
 
 the grave than rest for the weary, and a release 
 from the troubhngs of the wicked : yes — for per- 
 fect love and perfect peace. What would our life 
 below become without the love of the virtuous, 
 and the peace which it instils ! So deeply am 
 I conscious of this, that I cannot feel myself 
 wholly unhappy while I bear with me the re- 
 membrance of your friendship and of the sym- 
 pathy of your daughters. Confiding that it will 
 be mine while I live, it is with mingled pleasure 
 and regret that I dwell on the hours that I have 
 spent with you and them ; and bid you all a 
 present — it may be a long — farewell." 
 
 " He will fall, like hundreds of his compa- 
 nions, obscurely, and perhaps uselessly," cried 
 Mr. Byerley. "Oh! what an insatiable Moloch 
 is war !" 
 
 " So," thought Mary, " pass away the plea- 
 sures of this world. We shall see Elvi no more ; 
 but, thank God ! we have known him, and may 
 recognize him hereafter, when it may be our de- 
 light to sympathize more warmly in his joys than 
 hitherto in his griefs." 
 
 Towards evening, Mr. Byerley 's indisposition 
 
SENSE WITH SENSIBILITY. 257 
 
 appeared to increase, so that it was determined 
 that he should not pass the night unwatehed. 
 As this was Anna's last opportunity of minister- 
 ing to him, and as Mary had the fatigues of an 
 anxious journey in prospect, it was agreed that 
 Mr. Byerley should be given into Anna's charge. 
 Mary retired to rest early, and her sister sta- 
 tioned herself with Susan in a dressing-room 
 which opened on one side to her father's apart- 
 ment, and on the other to the stairs. About mid- 
 night, her charge appeared, at length, to sleep 
 quietly ; and when one and two o'clock struck, 
 the watchers still heard, through the open door, 
 that his breathing was that of deep repose. 
 Anna was reading, or seeming to read, and her 
 attendant at work ; and neither of them spoke 
 or made the slightest noise. After a while, it 
 seemed that Mr. Byerley was stirring ; and in a 
 moment, before Anna could rise from her seat, 
 he stood in the doorway, looking wildly about 
 him, and making confused attempts to speak. 
 
 Anna fell back in her chair, and her shriek 
 rang through the house. Susan scarcely knew 
 which to attend to first, the nurse or the patient ; 
 
258 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 but Mary was on the spot instantly to assist. 
 Mr. Byerley had risen in his sleep, as his children 
 knew he occasionally did when under nervous 
 indisposition. Anna's shriek awoke him effectu- 
 ally, and shook him much more than his sudden 
 appearance had disturbed her. Mary reproached 
 herself with having left him, and sat by his bed- 
 side till Mrs. Fletcher came at six o'clock to in- 
 sist on her taking a few hours' rest before her 
 departure. 
 
 Mr. Fletcher, a more welcome companion than 
 the two gens d'arme, accompanied the travellers 
 to Rochelle, and having seen them safe on board, 
 and out of the surveillance of the government, 
 carried home better tidings of Mr. Byerley than 
 were expected. He had appeared to breathe 
 more freely, and to recover composure, as soon 
 as they left the city of Tours behind them, and 
 entered on the vine-covered hills and fertile 
 plains which surround it ; and had uttered an 
 exclamation of delight at the first view of the 
 blue expanse which was stretched before them as 
 they descended to the coast. An English vessel 
 was on the point of sailing when they arrived ; 
 
SENSE WITH SENSIBILITY. 259 
 
 and from the first heights which their friend 
 reached on his return, he could just discern its 
 white sails disappearing on the far horizon. Mr. 
 Fletcher, unused as he was to testify emotion of 
 any kind, could scarcely restrain his indignation 
 and grief that such a man as his friend should be 
 thus thrust out of a country where he had com- 
 mitted no offence, and where none was charged 
 upon him but that of associating with the 
 choicest of her citizens. The ladies, however, 
 merged their political in their private feelings. 
 " How did Mary look at the last .?" 
 " Look ! like what she is — a heroine." 
 " Do you use that word in irony or in respect, 
 papa .'•'" said Rose, being sure of a gratifying 
 answer, though he was not wont to speak re- 
 spectfully of heroines. 
 
 " My dear, I speak in irony of would-be he- 
 roines — of women who are heroic when opportu- 
 nity is wanting, and who, when opportunity 
 comes, want heroism. But a real heroine, a 
 woman who not being above small occasions is 
 equal to the greatest, is the noblest spectacle 
 that human life affords. 
 
260 FIVE YEARS OP YOUTH. 
 
 " This from our father !" thought Rose and 
 Selina, as they looked at each other with de- 
 light. 
 
 Meanwhile Mary was totally unconscious of 
 the feelings she inspired, desiring nothing more 
 than to love and be beloved. This desire she 
 felt to be amply gratified, this golden evening, 
 while her father continued to revive under her 
 cherishing care. He was lying on deck, where 
 she had persuaded him to repose himself on the 
 couch she had spread. The melting sunlight 
 bathed the receding shores of France, and ren- 
 dered visible the spires of her towns and vil- 
 lages, and the verdure of the heights beyond. 
 The breeze fanned the still feverish brow of 
 the invalid, and the gentle motion of the ves- 
 sel lulled him to a repose more refreshing than 
 sleep. 
 
 " Shall I sing to you, papa.'^" 
 
 For the first time in her life, her father said 
 " No," to her offer. She had sung to him last 
 in prison, and he wished to banish all jail-asso- 
 ciations till he should be stronger. He smiled 
 while he confessed his reasons. They directed 
 
SENSE WITH SENSIBILITY. 261 
 
 Mary's conversation to widely different subjects. 
 She told him of her wish to proceed immediately 
 
 on their landing, to A , which she knew he 
 
 would prefer to remaining in town ; and the 
 images she called up of home and its quiet plea- 
 sures — of the study, and the farm, and their 
 evening rambles — were delightful to her home- 
 loving father, who went abroad unwillingly, and 
 would gladly have vowed to seclude himself for 
 the rest of his days, except on the occasion of 
 public meetings. 
 
 " My only regret is for your disappointment, 
 my love. When I interested myself first in 
 politics, I made up my mind to all the inconve- 
 niences which might ensue, and therefore ought 
 not to complain of what has happened. But it 
 is hard upon you. You have shared all my 
 fears and fatigues, and have had none of the 
 pleasures I intended for you. No Paris, no 
 Switzerland, no brilliant society : — ^it is a sad 
 disappointment." 
 
 " No, indeed, papa. I have not gained what 
 I expected ; but I have gained something much 
 better — something," she continued, smiling, 
 
262 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 " which it is your boast cannot be had in Eng- 
 land." 
 
 " What good thing cannot be found in Eng- 
 land, my dear?" 
 
 " I do not know that you will call it a good 
 thing, though I have found it so; I mean, the ex- 
 perience of such gross injustice as has been done 
 to you. I have often wondered how we could en- 
 dure — how we could preserve our composure — 
 whether we could keep our charity entire, and our 
 peace unbroken under grievous wrong." 
 
 " And what is the answer you have found ?"" 
 
 " Father ! I would not exchange the expe- 
 rience of the last fortnight, with all its suffering, 
 all its humiliation, for the best advantages of 
 Paris, and the divinest delights of Switzerland. 
 ])o not think me proud ; for, God knows, it 
 has humbled me not a little to discover how 
 feeble one may be in action, how cowardly in 
 suffering, when one means the best ; but 
 yet — what we have felt together and apart will 
 make us happier as long as we live : will it 
 not? And could any thing at Paris have done 
 more ?*' 
 
SENSE WITH SENSIBILITY. 263 
 
 " My child," said her father, " my only 
 child !" 
 
 Mary saw that tears trickled through his 
 fingers as his hand covered his eyes. She could 
 not allow him to suppose that she assented to 
 the expression which a moment of strong feeling 
 had wrung from him. Hers was a soul to hope 
 against hope, and she yet trusted that Anna's 
 restoration was probable. She had never flat- 
 tered her sister, or striven to deceive herself; 
 but, clear-sighted as she was to the difficulties 
 of the case, it was one of which she never des- 
 paired. She now reasoned with her father upon 
 it, and ended by inspiring him with something 
 of her own cheerful faith, and thus disposing 
 him to join the names of his children in his 
 thanksgivings as well as in his prayers. 
 
 When the evening star had risen high, Mary 
 returned from receiving her father's nightly 
 blessing, to watch yet awhile for the influences 
 which came to the wakeful spirit from the sky 
 and from the deep. To such as she, these in- 
 fluences impart fervour without enthusiasm, and 
 a confidence in which presumption has no part ; 
 
264 FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH. 
 
 and her steadfast soul looked abroad on the 
 temporary agitations of human life, as calmly as 
 her eye surveyed the rise and fall of the billowy 
 expanse before her. If it be true that " to the 
 pure all things are pure," it is equally true that 
 to the peaceful all things breathe peace. 
 
 THE EXD. 
 
 Josepli Uickerb;-, I^rlnter, SherVourn Lane. 
 


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