The Fairchild Family

by Mary Martha Sherwood

The History of Little Bernard Low

THE STORY IN HENRY'S BOOK

"Mr. Low was a clergyman, and had a good living in that part of this country where the hills of Wales extend towards the plains of England, forming sweet valleys, often covered with woods, and rendered fruitful and beautiful by rills which have their sources in the distant hills.

"

Mr. Low never had but one brother; this brother had been a wild boy, and had run away many years before, and never had been heard of since.

"The name of the valley in which Mr. Low's living was situated was Rookdale; his own house stood alone amongst woods and waterfalls, but there was a village nearer to the mouth of the valley, and in that village, besides some farmers and many cottagers, lived another clergyman of the name of Evans. He was a worthy humble man, and came from the very wildest parts of Wales. He was a needy man, and was forced to work hard to get a decent living for himself, his sister, Miss Grizzy Evans, and an orphan nephew, Stephen Poppleton. Mr. Low gave him fifty pounds a year to help him in the care of his parish, which spread far and wide over the high grounds which surrounded Rookdale; and he added something to his gains by teaching the children of the farmers in the parish, and by taking in two or three boys as boarders; he could not take many, because his house was small and inconvenient. We shall know more of Mr. Evans when we have read the few next pages.

"Mr. Low's living was a very good one, and brought in much money. The house too was good, and he kept

several servants, and lived handsomely. He had had four children, but two of them were dead. Mr. Low had but one daughter, her name was Lucilla; and the two eldest were sons, Alfred and Henry. Henry died a baby, but Alfred lived till he was eight years old, and then died, and was buried by the side of his infant brother. The fourth and last child of Mr. and Mrs. Low was Bernard; he was more than five years younger than Lucilla.

"When Bernard was born, it seemed as if no one could make too much of him. The old woman, Susan Berkley, who had been Mr. Low's own nurse, and had always lived in the family, was so fond of Bernard that she could not refuse him anything; and Mrs. Low was what people call so wrapped up in her boy, that she could never make enough of him. In this respect she was very weak, but those who have lost children well know how strong the temptation is to over-indulge those who are left. At first Mr. Low did not observe how far these plans of indulgence were being carried; indeed, he did not open his eyes fully to the mischief till Bernard was become one of the most troublesome, selfish boys in the whole valley. At five years old he was the torment of the whole house, though even then he was cunning enough to hide some of his worst tempers from his father. He had found out that when he pretended to be ill, mother, nurse, and sister were all frightened out of their senses, and that at such times he could get his way in everything, however improper. He did not care what pain he gave them if he could get what he wanted.

"His father, however, did at length find out the mischief that was going on; and as he feared that his wife and nurse would not have the firmness to check the boy if he remained always at home, he proposed that Bernard should be sent as a day boarder to Mr. Evans.

His father wished that he should go every morning after breakfast, dine at school, and return to tea.

"'I have been much to blame,' said Mr. Low, 'in not speaking before of the way in which Bernard has been managed. I blame myself greatly for this neglect, and I now feel that no more time must be lost; and I think it will be easier for us to part with him for a few hours every day, than to send him to a distance.'

"Mrs. Low was a gentle person, and wished to do right; she shed tears, but made no resistance. Lucilla thought that her papa was right; she had lately seen how naughty Bernard was getting; so Mr. Low had no opposition either from his wife or daughter. When nurse, however, was told that her darling was to go to school to Parson Evans, she was very angry; and though she did not dare to speak her mind to her master, she had no fear of telling it to her mistress and the young lady.

"'Well, to be sure,' she said, 'master has curious notions, to think of sending such a delicate babe as Master Bernard to be kicked about by a parcel of boys, and to be made to eat anything that's set before him, whether he likes it or not. So good a child as he is too: so meek and so tender, that if he but suspects a cross word, he is ready to jump out of himself, and falls a-crying and quaking, and won't be appeased anyhow, till the fit's over with him. Indeed, mistress, if you give him up in this point, I won't say what the consequences may be.'

"'But, nurse,' said Lucilla, 'really Bernard does want to be kept a little in order.'

"'And that from you, Miss?' answered the nurse; 'what would you feel, was you to see him laid in his grave beside his precious little brothers?'

"Lucilla could not answer this question, and Mrs. Low could not speak for weeping; so nurse was left to say all

she chose; and as Bernard came in before she had cooled herself down, she told him what was proposed, and said it would break her heart to part with him only for a few hours every day.

"On hearing this, Bernard thought it a proper occasion to show off his meek spirit, and so much noise did he make, and so rebellious and stubborn was his behaviour, that his father, who heard him from a distance, made up his mind to go that very evening to speak about him to Mr. Evans. Mr. Low did not find the worthy man at home; he had walked out with his nephew and three boys who boarded in the house; but Mr. Low found Miss Evans in a small parlour, dressed, as she always was in an evening, with some pretensions to fashion and smartness: she was very busy with a huge basket of stockings, which she was mending.

"When Mr. Low told her his business, she was quite delighted, for she had lived in that humble village till she thought Mr. Low one of the greatest men in the world, because she never saw any greater. She answered for her brother that he would receive Master Bernard and give him every care; 'and for me, sir,' she added, 'I promise you that the young gentleman shall have the best of everything our poor table will afford.'

"'I wish,' replied Mr. Low, 'that he may be treated exactly as the other boys, my good madam, and no bustle whatever made with him.'

"Soon after Mr. Low was gone, Mr. Evans and his nephew, and three pupils, passed the parlour window. Miss Grizzy tapped on the glass, and beckoned to her brother to come to her, which he did, immediately followed by his nephew.

"'Who do you think has been here, brother, whilst you have been out?' said she; 'who but Mr. Low?' and she

told him what Mr. Low had come for, and that she had undertaken that Master Bernard should be received.

"'Very good, sister,' replied Mr. Evans, 'all is well;' and he went out again at the parlour door, seeming to be much pleased. Stephen remained behind, and the moment the door was shut, he said:

"'You seem to be much set up, Aunt Grizzy, at the thought of this boy's coming; you must know, surely, that he is a shocking spoiled child, and that there will be no possibility of pleasing him.'

"'We must try, however,' answered Miss Evans; 'I know, as well as you can do, what he is, a little proud, petted, selfish thing: for is he not the talk of the parish? I have often wondered how Mr. Low could have been so long blind to the need of sending him to school; but then think, nephew, Mr. Low offers as much as if the boy boarded here entirely, and he is only to dine; and I doubt not but that there will be pretty presents too—you know that both Mr. and Mrs. Low are very thoughtful in that way.'

"'But if you can't keep the little plague in good humour,' answered Stephen, 'instead of presents we may have disputes and quarrels; and where will you be then, aunt?'

"'I hope, Stephen, that you will not be creating these quarrels; that you will bear and forbear, and pay Master Low proper respect, and see that Meekin and Griffith and Price do the same: you know well that not one of them are of such high families as Master Low.'

"'You had best not say that to Griffith, aunt,' answered Stephen; 'he has a very high notion, I can tell you, of his family, though his father is only a shopkeeper.'

"Miss Evans put up her lip and said:

"'Well, mind me, Stephen, no quarrelling, I say, with

Master Low, at least on your part; so now walk off to your place.'

"When nurse had said all that was in her mind, she became more calm upon the subject of Bernard's going to school; and so thoroughly did the child tease during the few days that passed before he went, that she was almost obliged to confess to herself that it was not altogether a very bad thing that he was to have lessons to learn, and some employment from home during part of every day.

"But when Bernard was actually to go, there was such a to-do about it, that he might just as well have stayed at home, as to any good which might be expected from it in the way of making him think less of himself.

"But when Bernard was actually to go there was such a to-do about it."—[Page 332].

"Lucilla had had a little pony for several years; this pony was to be saddled for Bernard, and he was to ride to and from school, whilst a servant attended him. His mother took the occasion to send a present of fruit and nice vegetables by this servant to Miss Grizzy; and there was a note written to Mr. Evans all about Bernard, and a great deal said in it about getting his feet wet; and shoes were sent that he might change them when he came in from play. Nurse also was sent down about two hours after him, with some messages to Miss Evans and to hear how the darling got on.

"Bernard was very sulky all that first morning. He was quite eight years old; Mr. Evans therefore was much surprised at his being a very poor reader. Indeed he could not in any way stammer out the first chapter in the Bible, and Mr. Evans was obliged to put him into the spelling-book at the first page. He called him up between each Latin lesson he gave, but found that each time he called him, he read rather worse than the time before. The simple truth is that he did not choose to do better.

"Griffith whispered to Meekin, the last time Bernard was up, 'Mind what I say, he is no better than a fool;' and Meekin passed the same words to Price, and then it was a settled thing with these three boys, that Bernard Low was a fool, and a very proper person to play any fun upon.

"But whilst these boys were settling this matter amongst them, Miss Grizzy had sent for Stephen into the parlour, and given him some of the fine pears and walnuts which Mrs. Low had sent.

"'Here, nephew,' she said, 'is the earnest of many more little presents which we may expect; but everything depends on your behaviour to the boy. We must keep him in good humour—we must show him every possible favour in a quiet way, and you must not let Griffith and the others tease him.'

"'This is an uncommon good pear,' said Stephen, as he bit a great piece out of one of them.

"'Is it not?' replied his aunt; 'but, Stephen, do you hear me? you must not let Griffith be playing his tricks on Master Low.'

"'I understand,' answered Stephen, taking another bite at the pear. 'Don't you think I know on which side my bread is buttered yet, aunt?' he asked; 'though I am near fifteen years of age, and half through Homer? but you must allow that Bernard Low is an abominably disagreeable fellow, and one that one should like to duck in a horse-pond—a whining, puling, mother-spoiled brat; however, I will see that he shan't be quizzed to his face, and I suppose that's all you require, is not it?'

"So he put all that remained of what his aunt had given him of the fruit into his pocket, for himself, and left the room. He went straight to the yard where the boys played, and scarcely got there in time to hinder Griffith

from beginning his tricks with Bernard, for he had got a piece of whipcord, and was insisting that the boy should be tied with it between Meekin and Price, and that they should be the team and he the driver; and a pretty run would the first and last horse have given the middle one, had Griffith's plan been executed.

"Bernard was already beginning to whine and put his finger in his eye, when Stephen came in and called out:

"'Eh, what's that there? David Griffith, let the child alone; he has not been used to your horseplay.'

"And as Stephen was much bigger and stronger than the other boys, they all thought it best to give way.

"Bernard was let off, and he walked away, not in the best of tempers, into the house, and into Miss Evans's own parlour, where she was seated at her usual employment, darning stockings.

"'Well, Master Low,' she said, 'I hope you find everything agreeable; I am sure it shall not be my fault if you do not; you have only to say the word and anything you don't like shall be changed, if it is in my power.'

"'I don't like that boy,' answered Bernard; 'that David Griffith.'

"'Never mind him, never mind him, Master Low,' replied Miss Evans; 'any time that he don't make himself agreeable, only come to me; I am always glad to see you here to sit in my parlour, and warm yourself if it is cold. You know how much I respect your papa and mamma; there is nothing I would not do for them.'

"Bernard had been so much used to flattery and fond words, that he did not value them at all; he thought that they were only his due; and he did not so much as say 'Thank you' to Miss Evans, nor even look smiling nor pleasant; but he walked up to her round table, and

curiously eyed the large worsted stocking which she was darning—'Whose is that?' he said.

"'My brother's, Master Low,' she answered.

"'Does he wear such things as those?' said Bernard; 'but I suppose he must, because he is poor, and a curate, and a schoolmaster—my papa wears silk.'

"'Your papa,' said Miss Evans, 'is a rich man, Master Low, and a rector; and he can afford many things we must not think of.'

"'When shall we dine?' asked the boy.

"'Very soon, my dear,' answered Miss Evans.

"And then Master Bernard turned off to some other question, as impertinently expressed as those he had put before.

"The dinner was set out in the room used for a schoolroom; an ill-shaped room, with walls that had been washed with salmon colour, but which were all scratched and inked. Each boy had a stool to sit upon; the cloth was coarse, though clean, and all the things set upon the table were coarse also.

"When called to dinner by a rough maidservant, Miss Evans led Bernard in by the hand, and set him by herself on a chair at the head of the table.

"'Sister,' said Mr. Evans, in a low voice, 'last come, last served—Master Low should sit below Price.'

"'Leave me to judge for myself, brother,' answered Miss Evans; 'you may depend on my judgment.'

"And Bernard kept his seat, and had the nicest bits placed on his plate.

"Bernard would have been quite as well contented, or, perhaps we may say, not in the least more discontented, had he been set down at once in his proper place, and served after the other boys.

"Then the other boys were not quite pleased; but

Stephen was told to tell them that Master Low was a parlour-boarder; and though they did not quite understand what a parlour-boarder meant, they thought it meant something, and that Bernard was to have some indulgences which they were not to have.

"Many a trick would they have played him, no doubt, if Stephen had not watched them. But as Stephen hated the spoiled child as much as they did, he never hindered their speaking ill of him, and quizzing him, when he did not hear or understand.

"Griffith soon gave him a nickname—this name was Noddy; there was no wit in it, but the boys found great amusement in talking of this Noddy, and of all his faults and follies, before the face of Bernard himself. When he asked who this Noddy was, they told him that they were sure he must have seen him very often, for his family lived at Rookdale.

"Mr. Evans himself was the only person in the family at school who really strove to do his duty by Bernard—he gave his heart to improve him; and he did get him on in his learning more than might have been expected. But there were too many things against the poor child to make it possible for him to improve his temper and his character.

"He went to school from the autumn until Christmas: at Christmas he was at home for a month, and made even his nurse long for the end of the holidays; and then he went again after the holidays, and continued to go every day till the spring appeared again. There was no intention then of changing the plan, though Mr. Low was not at all satisfied with him.

"Bernard was now become so cunning that he did not show the worst of his tempers before his father, nor even before his mother; but to his sister he appeared just as he

was, and he often made her very, very sad by his naughty ways.

"Lucilla was one of those young people who love God and all their fellow-creatures, and desire to do them good. She had always loved Bernard, and she loved him still, though she saw him getting more and more naughty from day to day. She believed, however, that he still loved her as well as he could love any person besides himself, and she thought a long time of some way which she might take to make him sensible of his faults.

"During that winter she had often spoken to him in her kind and gentle way, and shown him the certain end of evil behaviour; but she felt that he paid no more attention to her than he would have done to the buzzing of a fly; but now that the spring was come, and they could get out together into the fields and gardens and woods, before and after school-time, and on half-holidays, she thought she might have a better chance with him, and she formed a thousand plans for making the time they might thus pass together pleasant, before she could hit upon one which she thought might do.

"In a shadowy and sweet nook of the garden was an artificial piece of rock-work, which her mother, when first married, had caused to be made there, the fragments of rock having been brought from a little distance. There Lucilla, with the gardener's assistance, scooped a hollow place, a few feet square, and arranged a pretty little hermitage: dressing a doll like an old man, and painting a piece of glass to fix in the back of the hermitage, to look like the window of a chapel. She next sent and bought a few common tools, and thought, as Bernard was very fond of clipping and cutting, she could tempt him to work to help finish this hermitage. There was a root-house close to the place, where she thought they might

set to work at this business. 'And if I can but engage Bernard,' she said to herself, 'to use his fingers, I might perhaps now and then say something to soften him, and make him feel it is wrong to go on as he does.'

"Mr. Evans always gave a week's holiday at Whitsuntide, and Lucilla thought that this should be her time for trying what she could do with Bernard."

---

Second Part of the History of Little Bernard Low

SECOND PART OF HENRY'S STORY

"Meekin and Griffith and Price went home to spend the Whitsun holidays on the Saturday evening, and Bernard came home also, with the expectation of an idle time, which was to last till the Monday after the next.

"The weather was very fine; all the early shrubs and flowers were in bloom, the cuckoo was still in the woods, and the leaves had not lost their tender young green.

"The young men in Rookdale were very fond of ringing the bells when there was a holiday, and they rang away great part of Sunday and of Monday also.

"The bells were soft and sweet, though rather sad; but the lads in the belfry found nothing sad in pulling at the ropes, and going up and down with them.

"Lucilla missed Bernard during several hours of the Sunday; she did not guess that he had gone into the belfry with the young men, and that he had persuaded the cook to give him a jug of beer to send to them. The

men would not let him pull a bell, as he was not strong enough—even the beer would not tempt them.

"The Monday morning was as bright as the Sunday had been, and it was enough to make the old young again to hear the man who was mowing the lawn whetting his scythe whilst the dew was on the grass, and the various songs of the birds in the trees.

"Lucilla had fixed upon this day to show Bernard the hermitage; but she was rather put out, when she came down to breakfast, to see that there was a very sulky flush on his cheeks, and that he was complaining of his father to his mother, whilst his father was not in the room.

"'Now, mamma,' said Bernard, 'do ask papa; it's a holiday, and a fine day, and I want to go. And why can't I go? Papa is so cross.'

"'My dear, you can't go to L—— (that was the nearest town to Rookdale) to-day,' replied his mother; 'your papa is too busy to ride with you.'

"'Can't John go?' asked Bernard.

"'He is engaged also,' said Mrs. Low.

"'Can't Ralph go?' returned Bernard.

"'Ralph is too young to be trusted with your papa's horse,' said Mrs. Low.

"'But I must go.'

"'But indeed you can't.'

"'I can walk. What's to hinder my walking?'

"'Now do be content, my dear—stay with your sister—she has nothing to do but to be with you;' and thus the mother and son went on until Mr. Low came in, and then Bernard became what Griffith would have called glum, for Griffith used many odd words.

"There was no more said about going to L—— after Mr. Low came in; but it was quite certain that Bernard's sour looks were not lost on his father.

"When breakfast was over, Lucilla said:

"'Now, Bernard, come with me—I have a pleasure for you.' When she had put on her bonnet she led him to her grotto, and showed him what she had done already, and gave him the tools and some little bits of wood, and said, 'Now you must make my hermit a table and a chair—he must have a table; and whilst you make these I will finish his dress, and fasten the flax on for his beard, and make him a rosary with beads.'

"Lucilla watched her brother's face whilst she showed him the things, and told him what she hoped he would do; and she saw that he never smiled once. Spoiled children sometimes laugh loud, but they smile very little; they have generally very grave faces.

"When they had looked at the grotto, they went into the root-house; there were seats round it, and a table in the middle. Lucilla sat down, and pulled her needle and thread and beads and bits of silk and cloth out of her basket; and Bernard sat down too with the tools and bits of wood and board before him.

"He first took up one tool and then another, and examined them, and called them over. There was a nail-passer, and a hammer, and a strong knife, and one or two more things very useful to a young boy in making toys, or anything else in a small way; in short, everything that was safe for such a one to have. But Bernard was out of humour, and looked for something to find fault with, so of course he could find nothing to please him.

"'This nail-driver is too small, Lucilla,' he said; 'where did you get it?'

"'At L——,' she answered.

"'What did you give for it?' he asked. 'If you gave much, they have cheated you; and the hammer, what did you give for that?'

"Lucilla either did not remember, or did not choose to tell him; and, without noticing his questions, she said:

"'What will you make first?'

"Bernard did not answer.

"'Suppose you take this little square bit of deal,' said Lucilla, 'and put legs to it, Bernard?'

"The boy took up the deal, turned it about, and, as Lucilla hoped, was about to prepare a leg; for he took up a slender slip of wood, and began paring it. She then went on with her work, looking up from time to time, whilst Bernard went on cutting the slip. He pared and pared, and notched awhile, till that slip was reduced to mere splinters. Still Lucilla seemed to take no notice, but began to talk of anything she could think of. Amongst other things, she talked of the pleasant week they had before them, and of a scheme which their father had proposed of their all going to drink tea some evening at a cottage in the wood; she said, how pleasant it would be for them all to be together. No answer again—Bernard had just spoiled another slip of wood, which he finished off by wilfully snapping it in two; after which he stared his sister full in the face, as if he was resolved to make her notice him.

"She saw what he was about, and therefore seemed as if she did not even see him. She was sad, but she went on talking. The bells had struck up again: they sounded sweetly, and they seemed sometimes to come as if directly from the church, and then again as if from the woods and hills on the opposite side. Lucilla remarked how odd this was, and said she could not account for it; and then she added, 'Do you know, Bernard, that I never hear bells ring without thinking of Alfred? he used to love to hear them; he called them music, and once asked me if there

would be bells in heaven. I was very little then, only in my seventh year, and I told him that there would be golden bells in heaven, because the pilgrims had heard them ring when they were waiting in the Land of Beulah to go over the River of Death.'

"'I say,' said Bernard, 'these bits of wood are not worth burning.'

"'You cut into them too deeply,' answered Lucilla.

"'There goes!' returned Bernard, snapping another; then, laying down the knife, he took up the nail-passer, using it to bore a hole in the board which formed the table of the root-house.

"'You must not do that,' said Lucilla, almost drawn out of her patience.

"'Who says so?' answered Bernard.

"'It is mischief,' said Lucilla. 'It is papa's table; he will be vexed if he sees it.'

"'What for?' said the tiresome boy.

"Lucilla did not answer.

"'What for?' repeated Bernard, throwing down the nail-passer, and taking up the hammer, with which he knocked away on the place where he had made the hole.

"'Oh, my beads!' cried his sister; for the hammering had overturned the little box in which they were, and she had only time to save them, or most of them, from rolling down on the gravel.

"'Well,' said Bernard, 'if that does not please you, what can I do next?'

"Lucilla sighed; she could not speak at the moment, she was so very sad, and so much disappointed.

"'I thought,' said Bernard, after a minute, 'that you promised me a pleasure. What is it?'

"Lucilla's eyes filled with tears; she rubbed them

hastily away, and went on working, though without any delight in her work.

"Bernard yawned, then stretched; and after a while he said:

"'Come, Lucilla, let us have a walk.'

"'Anything,' thought Lucilla, 'that will put you into a better state of mind.' So she gathered up her work, put it into her basket, and arose, leaving the tools and the work on her table; then, giving one sad look at her grotto, she led the way to a wicket not very far off, which opened on a path made by her father through some part of the large and beautiful wood which skirted part of the garden. Bernard followed her, and they went on together for some time in silence.

"The path first led them down into a deep hollow, through the bottom of which ran a pure stream of water, which had its source in the hills above. The rays of the sun, which here and there shone through the trees, sparkled and danced in the running stream. A gentle breeze was rustling among the leaves; and besides the song of many birds, the clear note of the cuckoo was heard from some distance.

"The path led them to a little bridge of a single plank and a hand-rail, over which they crossed, and began to go up still among woods to the other side, where the bank was very much more steep.

"Still they spoke not: Lucilla was thinking of Bernard, and grieving for his wayward humours; and Bernard was thinking that Lucilla was not half such good company as Ralph the stable-boy, or even as Miss Evans or Stephen; and yet he had some sort of love for Lucilla, though he did not like her company. He was, however, the first to speak.

"'Lucilla,' he said, 'do you know a lad in the parish called Noddy?'

"'Noddy?' replied Lucilla.

"'There is such a one,' said Bernard; 'Griffith knows him well, and they say he is the oddest fellow—a sort of fool, and everybody's laughing-stock. They will have it that I have seen him often; but if I have, I don't know him.'

"'There may be many boys in the parish unknown to me,' answered Lucilla.

"'I have asked Ralph about him,' said Bernard; 'but I can't get anything out of him; he always falls a-laughing when I speak the word.'

"Lucilla felt herself more and more sad about her brother, and said to him:

"'Really, Bernard, you are too intimate with Ralph; he may be a very good boy, but you ought not to be so free with him as you are.'

"Bernard walked on, and made no answer.

"It was rather hard work, even for these two young people, to climb this bank, which was, indeed, the foot of a very steep hill; at last they came out on one side of the wood, on a very sweet field, covered with fine grass, but nearly as steep as the path by which they had come. The prospect from the top of this field was very lovely, for immediately below was the deep dell in which the water flowed, and up a little above it their father's house and garden, and beyond that the tower of the church and the trees in the churchyard were seen; and still farther on, hills of all shapes, near and far off, and woods, and downs, and farmhouses. What pleased the little girl most was a road which looked like a white thread winding away over the heights, and passing out of sight near around hill, with a clump of firs at the top.

"'Let us sit down here under the shade of a tree,' said Lucilla; and she sat down, whilst Bernard stretched himself by her side.

"Lucilla began to speak, after their long silence, by pointing out the different things which they saw before them, telling the names of the hills, and showing the farm-houses.

"'And there,' she said, 'look at that winding road and that round hill. Beyond that hill is a common covered with gorse, where there are many rabbits, and also many sheep. Nurse's son lives on that common: he was papa's foster-brother. You know he is nurse's only child, and has got a pretty cottage there. When poor little Alfred was beginning to get weak and unwell, soon after Henry died; and mamma was ill too, and obliged to go somewhere for her health, it was advised by the doctors that Alfred should also change the air: and as the air of that common was thought very fine, I went with my brother and nurse to spend the summer at her son's cottage; and, Bernard, though I was then but six years old, I remember everything there as if I had left it but yesterday, for nurse has so often talked about that time to me.

"'Sweet little Alfred! He seemed to get quite well and strong; he rode about the common on a donkey sometimes, and sometimes he played with me, and sometimes we used to sit on the little heaps covered with sweet short herbs, and talk of many things.

"'His chief delight was to talk of some place far away, where he always fancied we were to go soon: he was to see Henry there, and Henry would have wings, and his Saviour would be with them to take care of them, and I was to come, and papa and mamma. I suppose that he spoke the words of a baby; but the thoughts which were in his heart were very sweet. He was merry, too, Bernard, more merry than you are, and full of little tricks to make me laugh. But when we had been three months at the cottage he grew languid and pale again; he was brought home, and from that time grew worse and worse; and he

died before Christmas. Oh, Bernard, he was the gentlest, sweetest child—so pale! so beautiful!'

"Lucilla for a minute could say no more; she covered her face with her hands, and large tears fell from her eyes. Bernard did not speak, but he had an odd feeling in his throat, and wished that Lucilla was not there to see him cry, for he felt he wanted to cry.

"Lucilla soon spoke again, and went on in the kindest, most gentle way, to tell her brother how much more bitter his ill-behaviour was to their mother than even the death of her elder boys; saying everything which a loving, gentle girl could say to lead him to better behaviour.

"Suddenly, whilst she was speaking, she saw her father and mother coming from the little wicket which lay in full view below them, and taking their way slowly, and as if talking to each other, along the path in the wood. Sometimes the trees partly hid them, then Lucilla saw them clearly again, and then not at all. She pointed them out to Bernard, and said:

"'Now, now, dear brother, is your time; you can run down one bank and up another in a few minutes; you can run to mamma, and beg her pardon for being sullen and disobedient to her this morning at breakfast; and then, my dear, dear brother, you will have made a good beginning, and we shall all be so happy.'

"Bernard had laid himself at full length on the grass, amusing himself, whilst his sister spoke, with kicking his legs. He was trying with all his might and main to harden himself against what she said; and succeeded in making himself as stupid as a mere brick.

"When she pressed him to run to his father, he drew up his legs and lay with his knees above all the rest of him, and his eyes staring up to the tree above his head, so that an owl could not have looked more stupid.

"Lucilla felt more sad than she had done before, when she saw how determined he was not to listen to her. She knew not what next to do or say; but whilst she was thinking, a dog was heard to bark on the other side the hedge which was behind them, and a voice saying, 'Be quiet, Pincher.'

"'Why, that is Stephen,' cried Bernard, jumping on his feet; 'what can he be doing here?'

"He flew to the hedge, he sprang up the bank, and called to Stephen, who was walking along the path on the other side with his dog Pincher.

"'Stop, stop!' cried Bernard; 'stop and I will come to you. Good-bye, Lucilla, you can go home by yourself;' and the next minute the rude boy had tumbled over the fence, and was running after Stephen.

"Poor Bernard little thought what he lost when he refused to listen to Lucilla, and what great pleasure he would have gained, had he done what she required of him, and run to beg his father's pardon.

"No one can say what a day may bring forth; and who could have foreseen the very strange thing which had happened whilst Lucilla and Bernard were out that morning? It was an affair of very serious business, which must be told: but as most young people hate business, it shall be told as shortly as possible.

"Mr. Low's brother had been a very wild boy, and had run away; so that for many years Mr. Low had heard nothing about him. At last he got a letter; it was a kind and humble one: in this letter Mr. John Low sent word, that after many adventures he had made some money, and bought a farm in America, on the banks of the Hudson, above New York; that he was doing very well, that he had never married, and only wished that his brother would come and see him. Mr. Low had answered this

letter as a brother should do; and every year since, they had written to each other, and sent each other presents. But this morning a letter had come from Mr. John Low, entreating his brother to come to him, if possible, and to bring his family; stating that he had a disease upon him that must soon finish his life; and telling him that he had engaged the captain of the Dory, who brought the letter, to take him and his family back with him to America, he having undertaken to pay all the costs. The letter finished with the most earnest entreaties that they would all come.

"With Mr. John Low's letter came another from Captain Lewis, of the Dory, saying he should go back in less than a fortnight, and pressing Mr. Low to attend to his brother's request; adding that he almost feared that his friend, Mr. John Low, would hardly be found alive when they reached New York.

"Mr. and Mrs. Low were talking over this letter, and forming their plans about it, when their children saw them walking so gravely in the wood. They had come to the resolution to go with Captain Lewis, and they had a long discourse about Bernard. They resolved at once to take Lucilla with them; they wished her to see her uncle, and to see the New World, and her company would be pleasant to them; but they had many doubts about Bernard. Mr. Low was quite against taking him, and he took this occasion to tell his wife that they had both been to blame in spoiling him as they had done, and that he considered his present ill-behaviour as a punishment which he himself deserved, for having suffered his boy to be so spoiled.

"Mrs. Low had not much to say; she thought her husband was right.

"Now, had Bernard listened to Lucilla, and had he come just at that minute before his parents and begged

pardon for his ill-behaviour, he might have changed his father's determination—for fathers are very forgiving—and then his mother, too, would have been on his side; and so he might have got the pleasure of going that long journey into the New World.

"Everything was settled after Mr. Low had made up his mind, even before Bernard returned; for Stephen was going a long walk to see Meekin's father, who was a farmer in the next parish, and Bernard went with him. Stephen would not take him, however, till he had come back to where Lucilla was, to ask her if she thought Mr. Low would be pleased if he took him.

"Stephen could speak very properly and well, when it served his turn to do so; and Lucilla thought him a very nice person, and to be trusted, for he was older than Bernard, by several years, and was often trusted to walk with the boys. She could not say that she could give leave, but she promised to tell her father where Bernard was gone, and with whom. Everything was therefore settled before the spoiled boy came home late in the evening. Mr. Low agreed with Mr. Evans that he should take care of his church; and as Mr. Evans was going to have his house painted and a new schoolroom built, it was also settled that he should come and reside at the rectory until Mr. Low returned. Miss Evans was immensely pleased at the thought of this. Bernard was to remain under Mr. Evans's care; Mr. Low's servants were all to be put on board wages and sent home, excepting the gardener. Even nurse was to go to her son, for Mr. Low said that nurse was the one who spoiled Bernard most. The boys were to have a large laundry, which was in the yard, for their schoolroom, and the drying yard for their play-ground; and Mr. Evans and his family were to come in the day Mr. Low left.

"Mr. Low had also to ask leave for being absent from his living, and Mrs. Low had packing to do; so that there was a vast deal to get through, for it was necessary for them to be in London, where Captain Lewis was, in a very few days.

"As Lucilla, who had not yet heard of all this great bustle, walked quietly home, her heart was very sad on account of her brother. She came back by the grotto, and took up her work-basket, putting away the hermit and the tools and bits of wood in a corner of the little cave out of sight; and taking her basket in her hand, she walked towards home, thinking to return to her little hermitage the next day at latest.

"Poor Lucilla could not help shedding a few tears as she passed slowly along the shrubbery, to think how all her little plans had ended in nothing. She did not just then remember that verse, 'Cast thy bread upon the waters, and after many days thou shalt find it.'"

"He took up a slip of wood."—[Page 344].

---

Third Part of the History of Little Bernard Low

THIRD PART OF HENRY'S STORY

"As this history has been very long, and there is more to write about it, we will not say much of what happened the next seven days; for both houses, that is, Mr. Low's and Mr. Evans's, were all in a bustle, and everybody was pleased at the changes which were coming. Even Bernard, after he had roared, and cried, and sulked for the first two days, had altered his manner, and taken up the behaviour of Harry in the old spelling-book—what we may call the don't-care behaviour—for, as he told nurse, if his father did not love him enough to take the trouble of him in the voyage he was taking, he did not care, not he; he should be very happy at home without him. He should cry no more: he wondered why he cried at first, for he had not cared all the while; and so he went whistling about the house the tune of the 'Jolly Miller' which he had heard Ralph sing:

"'There was a jolly miller once
Lived on the River Dee;
He work'd and sang from morn till night,
No man so blithe as he.

"'And this the burden of his song
For ever used to be—
I care for nobody, no, not I,
And nobody cares for me.'

"Bernard, however, did not let his father hear him whistling this tune, nor did he say, 'I don't care,' before him.

"The Monday following that in which he had walked with Lucilla was the day fixed for the many changes. Very early in the morning, nurse's son brought a donkey for his mother. The old woman cried, and said she should have no peace till she came back again, and told Mrs. Low that she was sure she should never live in comfort with her son's wife Joan. She kissed Bernard twenty times, and begged him to come and see her; and Bernard did his best not to cry. There was an early breakfast, but nobody sat at the table two minutes together; something was to be done every moment. Mr. Low walked in and out five or six times. The housemaid and the cook came in to say good-bye; they were going to walk to their homes; and Ralph was to go with his sister, the cook. People, too, were coming with packages from Mr. Evans's, and the bustle kept Bernard from thinking very deeply on what was going to happen; and yet he could not eat his breakfast, nor whistle, for he was not in his usual spirits.

"At length the chaise came from the inn, and the trunks were brought down to be fastened on.

"Bernard placed himself at the window to look at what was being done without; and again he felt the same choking he had had on the hill.

"He heard his mother say, 'When shall we start, my dear?' and his father answer, 'In less than half an hour.'

He saw his mother look at him with tears in her eyes. He could bear it no longer—he rushed out into the shrubbery, and having got behind a laurestinus, he gave full way to his tears—he could not then say, 'Who cares?'

"Lucilla saw him run out and followed him; she was weeping very bitterly; she threw her arms round him, and they both cried together. She kissed him many times, and they would not have parted then, had they not heard themselves called. Lucilla hastily then put a very pretty little Bible in his hand, and gave him another kiss.

"There only remained a tender parting between the boy and his parents; and whilst they were still blessing him they were driven away, and the poor child was left standing alone on the gravel. His eyes followed the carriage as long as it could be seen from that place; and then, observing some people coming in at the gate, he ran away. He took the path through the shrubbery, and across a field, to a high green bank, from which he could trace the road a long way, even as far off as where it passed under the round hill with the clump of firs on it, near to nurse's son's house.

"He sat down on the bank, waiting until the carriage should come in sight again: for when it got down into the bottom of the valley, where there were many trees, it was hid from his view.

"This was perhaps the first time in Bernard's life in which he ever had any really useful thoughts. He was made then to have some little notion that he owed his present trouble to his having been a very

rebellious naughty boy; but with this good thought came also a bad one: 'But if papa loves me as he ought to do, he would not have been so cruel as to leave me. He would have forgiven me and overlooked the past, and tried me again.'

"Bernard did not consider that it would actually have

been very dangerous to have taken a disobedient boy to sea, for no one could tell what mischief he might have got into on board ship.

"When Bernard saw the carriage again, it looked like a speck on the white road. The speck seemed to grow smaller and smaller, and at last it disappeared round the foot of the little hill. Then the poor boy cried and cried again, until he could cry no longer, and every tear seemed to be dried up.

"No one can say how long he sat there, but it was a long time; at last he heard a voice, saying, 'Master Low! Master Low! where are you?' and the next minute old Jacob, the gardener, appeared.

"Now Jacob was the only servant who had not helped to spoil Bernard, and therefore Bernard had never liked him, but always called him cross old Jacob. He was glad, however, to see him then; and yet he did not speak first to him.

"'I am glad I have found you, Master,' said the old man; 'I have been hunting you everywhere; and so has Mr. Evans. They be all come—Miss Grizzy herself, and the two maids, and Master Stephen, and a power of traps; and the lad that cleans the shoes and knives. But I shan't let him meddle with the horses, which he is forward enough to do. But you must come along with me. Master; they are all in trouble about you.'

"'Surely,' said Bernard, forgetting that one good thought which he had had a little before, 'I may go anywhere I please on my own papa's grounds; everything here is papa's, Jacob, and I am at home here.'

"'True,' replied Jacob, 'and so am I too; but neither you nor I is master here.'

"'That is just like you, Jacob,' answered Bernard; 'but I am the master's son, and you are a servant.'

"'I could answer you from Scripture,' said Jacob, 'if I would.'

"'Do then!' cried Bernard.

"'Now I say, that the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; but is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father' (Gal. iv. 1, 2).

"Bernard made no answer to this, but, getting up, walked before Jacob to the house. At the door he was met by Mr. Evans, who spoke to him kindly, said he hoped to make him happy, and to do everything for his good in his father's absence. He added also that Griffith and Meekin and Price were come, and were in the laundry, which was then to be called the schoolroom; but that he should not call any of them that day to lessons; only he hoped that he would not go far from the house, as he was now accountable for his safety.

"Mr. Evans then walked away, and Bernard went to his own room, where he had much difficulty to prevent himself from crying again; but happening to light upon some penny pictures and a pair of scissors, he amused himself with cutting them all to pieces; first cutting out the figures, then the houses, and then the trees, till he had spoiled them all.

"At one o'clock the bell rang for dinner. Bernard did not stir till somebody had had the trouble of coming up to call him. The dinner was laid in the family dining-room. Miss Grizzy was seated at the head of the table when Bernard came in; she was in very good humour, and smart as usual. Mr. Evans was in Mr. Low's place at the bottom; the boys on each side.

"'Master Low,' said Miss Evans, as he came in, 'I hope you are well; here we are, you see, in your papa's handsome room, and here is your chair by me. I don't ask

you to sit down, for who has such a right to sit here as you have? Make room, Meekin. Surely there is room enough at this large table? Sit a little lower, Griffith; and now, Master Low, what shall we give you?'

"All that was proud and selfish in the heart of poor Bernard was awake and busy long before Miss Evans had finished her speech. The boy looked round the table for what he liked best; but instead of asking, told the servant to take his plate for it, saying:

"'Don't give me fat, I don't like it.'

"'No fat for Master Low,' cried Miss Evans: and then again speaking to the boy, 'You have a charming house here, Master Low; I had no notion how good it was till I went over it this morning. I tell the young gentlemen here that they must be very careful not to do mischief.'

"'They cannot do any, sister,' said Mr. Evans, 'if they keep to their places. They must not go into the garden, there is abundant room for them to play in elsewhere, and they shall have as much fruit as is good for them. Mind, boys, on honour, no going into the garden. You shall not need, for as Mr. Low kindly leaves us the use of the fruit, you shall have your full share.'

"'You hear, young gentlemen,' said Miss Evans; 'Master Meekin, Master Griffith, Master Price——'

"'And Master Low,' added Mr. Evans, 'you are, on honour, not to go into the garden.'

"'Master Low!' repeated Miss Grizzy; 'Master Low not to go into his papa's garden?'

"Mr. Evans never disputed with his sister before the boys, and not, indeed, very often when alone with her, for he loved peace and quietness, and she would always have many last words; so he said no more; and she, tapping Bernard gently on the back, said, in a low voice:

"'That would be hard, would not it, to keep you out of your dear papa's own garden?'

"'I should think so,' answered Bernard, in the same low voice.

"This was only the beginning; and as Miss Grizzy went on as she had begun, in setting up Bernard, and flattering him to the very utmost in her power, there is much reason to fear that he was not likely to be the better for being left with her.

"Griffith, with his friends Meekin and Price, would soon have given him a lesson or two of another kind, had not Stephen watched them; but Stephen had been well tutored by his aunt, and as much was gained them from Mr. Low's friendship, besides the honour of having Master Low at school, they cared for nothing so much as keeping the naughty boy in good humour.

"As to Mr. Evans, he was a simple, earnest man, not suspecting evil of others, and anxious to do good. He was kind to all his pupils; he never made a difference: and it was for his sake that any boys remained in the house; so that he really caused the family to prosper, whilst his sister fancied it was all her own doing.

"The next day Mr. Evans began to give his lessons; and kept them on most regularly till the Midsummer holidays. He was not aware that Bernard had any other indulgence but being helped first at table, which he did not quite like; and he kept him as close as the others at his lessons.

"But Miss Grizzy, and Stephen, and Bernard were too deep for him; and there was no end of the indulgences given in private to the boy. He had cakes, and puffs, and strawberries and cream given him, when nobody saw it, by Miss Evans.

"Stephen never took notice when he went beyond

bounds unless his uncle was likely to catch him. He helped him privately at his lessons; and when set to hear him, often let him slip them altogether; and always took his part when there was a quarrel between him and the other boys. The holidays made but little difference with Bernard. Mr. Evans gave him a daily lesson, because he wanted to get him on. And as to other things, he could not be more spoiled and stuffed by Miss Grizzy at one time than at another.

"Miss Grizzy all this while disliked him as much as Stephen did, and that was with their whole hearts.

"Stephen called him a little proud, insolent puppy. And Miss Evans said he was the most greedy child she ever saw, and so wasteful and thankless, and one of the worst-mannered boys she ever had to deal with.

"Stephen said the same to Meekin and Griffith and Price; he laid all the partiality with which they charged him on his aunt, and said he only wished he could have his way with him, and he would soon bring down his airs, and teach him what he was made of.

"The same boys met again after the holidays, and things went on much in the same way.

"Several letters were received from Mr. Low from different places; at length one came, stating their arrival in New York, and their being about to go up the Hudson to Mr. John Low's house.

"The great indulgence with which Bernard was treated, and the bustle that was made about him, together with the real kindness of Mr. Evans, made him very hard and careless about his parents.

"He used often to say, 'I do very well here; if papa stays longer than he at first intended I shall not fret after him, and I dare say he will not fret after me, for if he had loved me so very much he would not have left me behind.'

"Bernard could not forgive his father for leaving him; but whenever he talked in this way not even Stephen could keep Griffith from speaking his mind to him.

"'There you go again,' Griffith would say; 'always blaming your father, when the fault is all your own. Don't you know, Bernard, that there is nobody that can bear with you who thinks they have not something to get by you?'

"The name Noddy, which Stephen had forbidden, was got up again after the Midsummer holidays; and everything that Bernard did to make himself disagreeable was set down to this Noddy.

"At last Bernard got to the truth of this matter by being told by Meekin that if he wished to see Noddy, he must take a peep in the looking-glass. On hearing this, Bernard struck Meekin, and if Stephen had not come in, the spoiled boy for once would have got his deserts.

"Letters were again received from Mr. Low about December; he said in them that his poor brother was very ill, not likely to live through the winter; that it was impossible for him to leave him, and that at all events he meant to stay till the season for crossing the sea should be better. Lucilla at the same time wrote a long letter to her brother.

"The Christmas holidays passed, and nothing particular happened; the same boys met again after Christmas, and another boy came also; but Bernard despised him as much as he did Meekin and Griffith and Price, because he had heard it said that his father kept a shop.

"January passed, and February, and March; another letter had come from Mr. Low; poor Mr. John Low was dead, and Mr. Low was busy settling his affairs. Mr. John Low had left his brother a good deal of money, but Mr. Low did not say anything about that; Miss Grizzy therefore made it out that there was none.

"Another letter arrived at the end of March to say that Captain Lewis was to sail for England in the Dory in a few days, and that Mr. Low hoped to come with him. There was another sweet letter from Lucilla, telling how many pretty things she had collected for her dear brother.

"It was about four weeks after these two last letters had been received, when one morning Mr. Evans came in a great hurry, and with a face of much trouble, into the school-room, and called out Stephen. Stephen came back five minutes afterwards, and told the boys that his uncle had been called suddenly away, and they had leave to play.

"'Good news—good news!' cried Griffith, and away ran the four pupils, with Stephen after them; whilst Bernard went into the house to see what he could get.

"As he came into the hall he saw that the parlour door was open, and he heard people talking within. Miss Grizzy was in the parlour, and she was talking to a neighbour who had dropped in. The coming of that neighbour, Bernard thought, had something to do with the holiday so suddenly given, and by listening he thought he might find something out about this holiday.

"The words Bernard heard were these:

"'I know, Mrs. Smith, better than most, that the family had nothing to depend upon but the living. To be sure, the living is very good, and much might be saved out of it for the children, but if what we hear is true they will come but poorly off, I fear.'

"'You forget, Miss Evans,' answered Mrs. Smith, 'that if what we hear be true—and I fear it is—there is only one left to provide for.'

"As Bernard drew closer to the door to hear more, he knocked his foot against it, and Miss Grizzy called out:

"'Who is there?'

"Bernard walked into the parlour at the call, in his usual manner, and without taking any notice of Mrs. Smith, he said:

"'I want some bread and butter.'

"'What, already?' cried Miss Grizzy tartly; 'don't you see that I am talking business with my neighbour, Master Low? Come, you had best go to play, and mind to shut the door after you.'

"Bernard looked at her with a look which seemed to say, 'What's the matter now?' and walked away, leaving the door as wide open as he could push it.

"He walked into the garden, but old Jacob was not there, and then he went to the back of the house to look for the other boys. He had heard their voices at a distance, when he got there, and saw them in the very field where he had sat with Lucilla. Their voices came straight over the valley; but it was a long way to go, down first and up again, to them. However, he set out to go, and in his way had to pass by the door of a cottage near the brook. In this cottage lived an old woman, who had been supported for some years by his father's family, though she could do little in return. She was sitting on the step, with her face on her knees, crying bitterly.

"'What now, Betty?' said Bernard.

"'Ah, Master Low!' she said, looking up, 'is it you, my precious master, and do you say, what's the matter now? Have not they told you? The hardened creatures to keep such news from you!'

"And she then told him the real cause of the breaking up of the school, the absence of Mr. Evans and Jacob, and the visit of Mrs. Smith. News had come that day to Rookdale, that the Dory had been lost at sea, and gone down with every creature on board: having been seen to

founder by some other vessel, in a dreadful squall off some island.

"Mr. Evans had gone immediately to discover the truth of this account, which was in a newspaper. It is not known where he went, or to whom he wrote letters; but this is certain, that he only obtained confirmation of the dreadful news, and as weeks passed, and nothing was heard from Mr. Low or of the Dory, every one, of course, believed that poor Bernard was an orphan.

"Miss Grizzy began to think where the money was to come from to pay for Bernard's keep; for what had been said was very true, Mr. Low had had little to depend upon but his living; or if he had saved anything, it could not be known where his savings were, till his papers could be looked up, and that could not be done until it was as certain as might be that he was really dead.

"Poor Bernard!—now his time of trial had come: he was quite unprepared for the story old Betty told him. Mr. Evans had wished it might for the present be kept from him. He fell down like one struck with death when he heard the story.

"The old woman screamed; at her cry, Stephen and the boys, who were not far off, came running to her; more help was called, Bernard was lifted up, and carried to the house and put to bed.

"When laid on his bed, it was found that the sudden shock had made him very ill, and there was fear of inflammation of the brain. The doctor was sent for, he was bled more than once, his head was shaved, and a large blister put upon it. He was reduced to be as weak as a baby: he called often, when he knew not what he said, for his father and his mother, and his own sweet Lucilla; and when he recollected that he had heard they were dead, he called for his nurse.

"Nurse came the moment she heard of his illness; but Mr. Evans was not come home, he was absent more than ten days, and Miss Grizzy would not let nurse see him.

In grief and anger the old woman went home, and took to her bed almost as ill as poor Bernard.

"Miss Grizzy was the person who watched by Bernard's bed, and saw that everything the doctor ordered was done; but Bernard fancied she was not the same Miss Grizzy that used to smile upon him and flatter him in past times, she looked so grave, and said so often, 'That must be done, Master Low.'

"Bernard, however, did not think much about her; his whole mind was filled, till his head got well, with thoughts of his parents and sister, and even of his little brothers, whom he had never seen. And in this time of suffering and weakness he began to be sincerely sorry for his past naughtiness.

"Mr. Evans came back without any hope respecting Mr. Low. He was very much grieved, especially for Bernard, and showed his kindness by visiting him often in his room; and when the boy was better, another friend showed himself; this was Griffith, who had made up his mind never again to quiz Bernard so long as he lived. He came often to him, and even read to him in the Bible Lucilla had given. Jacob too showed his deep affection for his little master. But Jacob himself was soon afterwards taken ill, and Miss Grizzy contrived that he should be sent away till he got better. So Bernard was made to feel that those were not his real friends who flattered him when all seemed to be well with him.

"Time passed on, Bernard's health was restored, and he was able to come down as usual. He went down to dinner the first day on a Sunday. He had been well enough to go down the Monday before, but Miss Grizzy

had fixed on Sunday for the day; perhaps because her brother, who had two churches to serve, would not be at dinner. When Bernard came into the room, he looked at the place where he used to sit, but Master Larkin, the new pupil, was in it. There was a place kept for him by Stephen at the bottom of the table.

"'You are older than Larkin, Low,' said Stephen, 'and must give up the place of pet to him.' Bernard sat down. He did not just then understand the reason of being put out of his place—he had this to learn amongst other things. He was not asked what he would like, but helped in his turn; and when dinner was over, he was not asked if he would like to stay in the parlour, but told, if he felt tired, to go and lie on his own bed. At tea he was treated like the other boys, and at supper also, and from that time this went on. If Mr. Evans saw it, he did not interfere; but this good man was very absent, and many things passed before him which he did not notice.

"After a few days, one would have thought that Miss Evans and her nephew had ceased to care altogether about Bernard's feelings; they began to talk before him of who was to have the house and living, and that it was necessary to take great care of the house and furniture; and Bernard was told that he must not run rampaging about as he had done formerly; for, as Miss Grizzy said, there was little enough left, she feared, for his maintenance, and there was no need to make things worse.

"It was a hard lesson for the spoiled boy to be taught to be patient under these mortifications, and never to fire up and answer these cruel hints; but he was patient, he bore much and said little. He felt that he deserved to be humbled in this way, and he tried to be submissive.

"Another month or six weeks went, and Bernard had only two earthly comforts: one was from the gentleness

of Mr. Evans, and the other from the rough kindness of Griffith, who gave Meekin a sound drubbing one day for calling Bernard Noddy.

"'Why,' said Meekin, 'did not you give him the name?'

"'I did,' answered Griffith; 'but he shan't hear it now, never again.'

"The season of Whitsuntide had come round, and the boys were to go home for a week, and only Meekin, Low, and Stephen were left. The bells were not set to ring as usual on Sunday morning; the ringers were thoughtful enough to refuse to ring; but Stephen was resolved to have a peal, and he and Meekin and the big boy who worked about the place, and one other whom they contrived to muster, had one peal on the Sunday, and several others on the Monday.

"The return of Whitsuntide made Bernard more unhappy than he had been for many days. He remembered that time a year ago so very exactly, and what everybody had then said and done—his own bad behaviour especially. He had a very sad Sunday, and got up even more sad on the Monday morning.

"Miss Grizzy had put him out of his old sleeping-room after his recovery, into a little room which looked over the stable yard. Before he was dressed he heard talking in the yard. He dressed in haste, and ran to the window, and there he saw just below him a young man called Benjamin, the same who had helped to ring the bells with Stephen and Meekin and the servant boy—all gathered together examining Lucilla's pony. Bernard could not hear what they said, and the bell rang for breakfast before he had time to ask.

"When he came down, he was sorry to find that Mr. Evans was gone out. He asked Meekin how long he was to stay from home; and Stephen answered:

"'Maybe all the week; maybe a month; maybe he

wishes to try what sort of a schoolmaster I should make in his absence.'

"'Oh! I hope not,' said Bernard, speaking hastily and without thinking.

"'You do, do you?' answered Stephen spitefully; 'well, we shall see.'

"'It don't become you, Low, to speak in such a way now,' said Miss Grizzy, 'you are not master here, now. You can't count upon this place being yours more than my brother's any longer; it is just as well that you know the truth, and know at once what to expect. The living went from the family when your father died, and it is feared that there will not be much left for your keep when the things are sold, and everything paid.'

"The tears stood in Bernard's eyes—not that he attended to all the words Miss Grizzy said; he was thinking of that day a year ago, of his own ill behaviour, and of the kindness of his sweet Lucilla.

"'Oh!' he thought, 'how could I have run away from my gentle sister to go to that cruel Stephen?'

"Stephen and Meekin walked off in a hurry, after they had breakfasted, and Miss Grizzy sent Bernard after them. He followed them slowly, and yet did not like to stay long behind them.

"They were gone again into the yard, and there was Benjamin, and the servant boy, and the pony. Stephen was talking of the pony, and giving his orders: the pony had a long tail, and his mane wanted putting in order.

"'You must dock the tail close, Ben,' were the words that Bernard heard; 'she will sell for nothing in that fashion.'

"'Oh, no, no!' cried Bernard, running forward, 'Lucilla would not like it; she said she would always have it long to flitch away the flies.'

"'Who bid you speak?' said Stephen.

"'Is she not my horse now?' cried Bernard.

"'No more yours than mine,' replied Stephen.

"'Don't cut her tail, Benjamin,' returned Bernard.

"'Hold your peace,' said Stephen.

"'Only stay till Mr. Evans comes home,' said Bernard.

"'Do it now,' said Stephen.

"Bernard was beside himself; he called Stephen cruel, deceitful, and anything else he could think of, and he tried to seize the halter of the pony.

"Stephen dragged him away, and in the scuffle thought Bernard had struck him; Meekin swore that he did.

"Stephen, when set up, was furiously passionate, and without taking time for thought, he snatched a switch from the hand of Ben, and laid it on Bernard till his back and even the sides of his face were covered with wheals. The poor boy ran, and Stephen after him. Stephen was even the more provoked because Benjamin cried to him to desist.

"Bernard at last got away from him by a little gate which led into the garden, and he continued to run until he had come to the arbour and the grotto. He had never gone to that corner of the shrubbery since the news had come of the loss of the Dory; and at first, when he almost dropped down on one of the benches, he scarcely recollected where he was. He was seated exactly where he had sat with Lucilla on the last Whitsun-Monday. The mouth of the grotto was exactly before him; the winter's wind had driven the dead damp leaves into it, and there had been no one to clear them away. The highest point of the little window in the back, which Lucilla herself had painted on a piece of board, just peeped above the heap of leaves. Bernard thought of the tools Lucilla had bought; they were lying, no doubt, rusting in a corner.

"'Oh, Lucilla!' he cried; and bursting into tears, he laid his hands on the table, and stooped his face upon them: the board was quite wet with his tears when he looked up again.

"He was startled by the sudden ringing out of the bells. Stephen and the boys had gone to cool themselves in the belfry, after leaving the pony undocked in the field.

"How did those bells remind the unhappy boy of the year before, for he had heard them when sitting in that very place with Lucilla! He remembered his hardness and pride at that time, and like the Prodigal Son to his father, he cried to his God, 'I have sinned against heaven and before Thee, and am not worthy to be called Thy son.'

"Could Lucilla have foreknown in what spirit her dear brother would have spoken those words in that place, at the end of twelve months after she had brought him there, she would have been filled with joy, and would have said, 'My God, I thank Thee, for Thou hast heard my prayers.'

"When Bernard was getting more calm, his tears were made to flow again by the sight of the broken splinters and one of Lucilla's beads on the gravel at his feet. He took up the bead, wrapped it in a bit of paper, put it into his waistcoat pocket, and went out of the shrubbery by the wicket close by into the wood.

"As he walked along his wandering eye at last settled upon that spot of ground, at the foot of the round hill with the crown of fir-trees, where the carriage which had taken away his parents had disappeared. He thought then of his nurse, and that she had been one of those to whom he had behaved ill.

"'Poor nurse!' he said to himself, 'I will go to beg her pardon, and I will get her to let me live with her, and never let me come back to this place again. Nurse will

give me bread, and I shall want nothing else. I will go;' and he got up and looked to see which was the shortest way to get to the round hill. When he fancied he had made this out, he got up and set off slowly, for by this time the stripes given him by the switch had got stiff; but he had set his mind on going to nurse's, and, indeed, he did not dare to go home.

"Oh, what a long and dreary way did he find it! The first half-mile was tolerably level, but the next two miles and a half were all uphill, only with a very little going down sometimes. The sun was shining without clouds, and his bones were sore, and he was getting hungry; and what was worse than all, his heart was very sad, and the road was solitary. He scarcely met anyone, excepting a party of people with asses; still he often caught sight of the round hill, and found himself getting nearer to it: he thought it looked higher, and higher, and higher as he went on, and he had to go beyond it. It was quite noonday before he reached the foot of it; and there he had to ask a man, who was breaking stones on the road, the nearest way to the common. The man showed him a deep lane a little further, up which he was to go, and when he had got to the end of it, he saw the common and the rabbit-burrows, and sheep, and geese, and many cottages. He asked at many doors before he could learn where nurse lived; but when he saw her house he was pleased, because it looked larger and neater than the others, and he thought there would be room for him. It stood in a pretty garden, surrounded with a neat quickset hedge, nicely shorn.

"He opened the wicket-gate without fear, and walked up to the door. He saw a neat kitchen within, for the door was half open; he knocked, and called, 'Is nurse at home?' No one answered at first, but soon he heard a step, and nurse's daughter-in-law appeared.

"She was a tall, hard-looking woman, and the first words she said, were:

"'Surely it is not you, Master Low, and in such a plight? Why, you have been a-fighting.'

"'I want nurse,' said Bernard.

"'What, mother-in-law?' answered the woman; 'you can't see her.'

"'Why?' answered Bernard.

"'She is sick in bed,' said the woman.

"'Let me go up and see her, if you please,' said Bernard.

"'You can't do no such thing,' said the woman; 'she is not in the house, and if she was she could not have much to say to you. Has not Miss Grizzy forbid her to come about you? and times are hard, Master Low. You has run away from school, I doubt not, by the look of you. You has been a-fighting. Don't think that we shall go to harbour you here, and get nothing but cross words for our pains. Miss Grizzy told mother that there would be nothing a-coming to you when all was paid. So go back as fast as you can; you can't come in. Go back, there's a good lad.'

"She then, in her great goodness, handed him a crust and a bit of dry cheese, and pushed him from the door; for she was afraid that her husband and his mother, who were both out, might come in before the child was gone.

"Bernard hardly knew what he did when he took the bread and cheese, and felt the hand of the woman pushing him out. He could not eat what was given him, for he was parched with thirst, and his young heart was almost broken by his disappointment. Even to nurse he had behaved ill, and now he thought that even she had forsaken him. He dragged himself back through the deep lane, and being again in the highroad at the foot of the

hill, he sat, or rather stretched, himself on a green bank under a hedge; and having cried again till he could cry no longer, he fell into a sort of stupor, neither asleep nor otherwise, quite worn with tiredness, and thirst, and sorrow.

"About the time when Bernard was turned from nurse's door, the dinner-bell at his papa's house was ringing, and Miss Evans waiting at the head of the table ready to carve.

"Before the bell had done tinkling, Stephen and Meekin came in, and Miss Grizzy said:

"'Where is Low? I suppose he does not expect us to wait for him.'

"Stephen looked at Meekin, and Meekin looked at Stephen. Stephen was not quite easy in the thought of the severe beating which he had given Bernard; but as it was expected that Mr. Evans would not return till the evening of the next day, he trusted that there would be nothing about Bernard to lead his uncle to inquire about what had happened in his absence.

"'The boy is sulking somewhere,' he thought, 'and when he is hungry he will show himself;' and with this thought he went to the bottom of the table; and they had all just seated themselves, when in walked Mr. Evans.

"Miss Grizzy set up a shriek of wonder, and Stephen turned scarlet.

"Mr. Evans had set out with the intention of going to the Bishop, under whom he and Mr. Low lived, to ask him about some little difficulty which had arisen in the management of the parish, and to beg that things might remain as they were, until more decided news could be got of the loss of the ship.

"The worthy man was not thinking of himself, but of poor Bernard. He had hardly gone ten miles of the thirty

he had to go, when he met the Bishop's coach, and had the opportunity of settling his business in a few minutes. And what had he then to do but to stop at a little inn by the wayside to refresh his horse, and go quietly home, much pleased by the kindness of the Bishop?

"When he had, in a few words, explained how it happened that he was at home so soon, he was preparing to sit down to dinner, when he missed Bernard.

"'Where is Master Low?' he said, looking round. 'Where is Bernard, sister? Stephen, where is the child?'

"There was a certain something in the flushed features and stammering answers of Stephen which struck even the unsuspicious Mr. Evans, and when he was once roused he could show great firmness. He insisted that the little boy should appear; and when he did not answer to any call, or to the repeated ringing of the bell, he ordered the dinner away.

"'No one in the house shall dine, sister Grizzy,'

he said, 'till the orphan is found. Mind what I say. Do you, boys, run in all directions; let the women go also, and bring the poor child to me. You, Stephen, have been quarrelling with him.'

"'Sir,' said Meekin, 'he struck Mr. Stephen.'

"'No, Master Meekin,' said the boy who was waiting at table, 'I did not see as he did; nor Ben neither, and he was by.'

"'No matter now,' said Mr. Evans; 'be off, all of you, and bring the child to me.'

"And Mr. Evans sat down, having no expectation but that Bernard would be brought in, with the tear in his eye, but safe and sound, in a few minutes. He waited alone, maybe a quarter of an hour, and then went out, becoming more frightened every moment.

"There was a set of people, such as sell pottery,

happening to pass up the road at the minute Mr. Evans went out of the gate; and he bethought himself of asking them if they had met a little boy in their way, describing Bernard.

"The old woman of the party told him that they had met such a boy, and told him also exactly where. It struck Mr. Evans at once that the child had set out to go to nurse's; and without losing another minute he called Tom, ordered him to saddle the pony, and was on his way towards nurse's not ten minutes after he had spoken to the old woman. He made the pony go at a very brisk trot, wherever the steepness of the road would allow.

"Bernard had really fallen asleep under the hedge after some time, and had only just awakened when Mr. Evans came trotting round the foot of the hill.

"The worthy man no sooner saw him than he came almost cantering up, sprang from the quiet pony, and caught him in his arms.

"'My son! my child!' he said, whilst his eyes filled with tears; 'my poor boy, why are you here? What has happened? Do you not know that when you lost a better father, you became to me like a son, and that I then resolved to be a father to you so long as you needed one? If anything goes wrong with you, my boy, under my roof, come to me and tell me, as you would have done to your own father, and be sure that so long as I have a loaf you shall have a son's portion of it.'

"No one can describe the effect of Mr. Evans's kindness on the heart of poor Bernard; again and again he fell on his neck and kissed him; and so full of love and gentleness was the child that he whispered:

"'Don't ask me why I ran away; I promise you that when I run again from the same people, I will run to you;

and if you are out, I will only hide myself till you come back.'

"'It shall not happen again,' said Mr. Evans, who had observed the marks of the strokes on the child's face; 'it shall not happen again; I will prevent it; but I will ask no questions.'

"So saying, he lifted Bernard on the pony with the long tail, and taking the bridle in his hand, they set off together down the hill.

"Mr. Evans had gone off in such a hurry that he had not told anyone that he had heard of Bernard; and therefore, without planning any such thing, he had left the people at home in the greatest trouble, their alarm becoming more and more every minute in which the child could not be found.

"Mr. Evans and Bernard had first, in their way from the round hill, to go down a very steep bit of road, into a kind of hollow where were a brook and many trees, and then beyond which was a rise, and then another deep descent. When Bernard came to the brook, he begged that he might get off and drink a little water in the hollow of his hand; and when he had done so, he tried to make Mr. Evans mount the pony whilst he walked. But the kind man would not hear of any such thing; he lifted Bernard on the horse again, and they were just going to ascend the bank, when they heard a voice behind them, crying: 'Stop, stop, Master Bernard.'

"They looked back, and there was nurse; she had come home about an hour before, and having heard by some chance who had been at the cottage and been sent away, she had had a violent quarrel with her daughter-in-law, and had come posting after her boy.

"But before Mr. Evans and Bernard knew the voice, there was a sound of carriage-wheels coming from behind

nurse; and so quick upon her was the carriage, that the horses' heads were in a line with her, when Bernard and Mr. Evans turned to see who called them. The road just there was not only steep but narrow.

"'That is nurse,' said Mr. Evans; 'but we must not stop just here, or the carriage will be upon us; a little above there is room for the pony to stand aside, and the ground is there more level for the feet.'

"So for the next minute or more the three parties all went on, Mr. Evans and Bernard going up slowly towards the level place; the carriage coming rapidly down the road, being drawn by horses used to steeper hills than that; and nurse behind at the top of her speed after the carriage.

"Those in the carriage had known nurse as they passed, though she never once looked up to them; and they knew also Bernard, and good Mr. Evans, and the long-tailed pony.

"When Mr. Evans had reached the bit of level ground, which might have been fifty feet, or more, from the bottom of the valley, he stopped, and lifted Bernard off the pony to wait for nurse.

"The carriage, too, stopped at the brook, and there was a cry from it. 'Bernard, Bernard! It is our dear, dear Bernard; open the door, open the door.' The door was burst open from within, and out sprang Lucilla, flying forward to her brother. She was followed by Mr. and Mrs. Low, as soon as the postboy could let down the steps.

"Bernard made one effort to rush to meet Lucilla, and then fell unconscious upon the ground.

"It is impossible to give an account of such a scene; the people who were present could tell nothing about it themselves. Mr. and Mrs. Low and Lucilla could not

understand why everyone should be so surprised to see them; why Bernard should faint, why nurse should scream, and why Mr. Evans should look so white.

"They had suffered much in a terrible storm, and been driven far out of their course, and been obliged to lie for months in some far-off harbour for repairs, and had had a long and weary voyage. But they had written letters, and supposed all this was known at home. The letters, however, having been sent from a very out-of-the-way place, had never arrived, but this they could not know.

"They were not surprised at anything, when they found that all their friends and neighbours had thought them dead; and when Bernard, having had his temples bathed with water, opened his eyes and recovered his colour, and began to shed tears, they were no longer frightened about him. He was then lifted into the carriage, and held in the arms of his own father; nurse got upon a trunk behind, Mr. Evans mounted the pony, and on they went, having now only down hill to go to the village.

"'Let us pass quietly, if possible, through the village,' said Mr. Low, 'that we may get our dear boy home as soon as possible;' but Mr. Low could not have everything as he wished. The news was told at the very first house, which was the turn-pike, by Mr. Evans before the carriage, and by nurse behind it; and the whole street was up in a moment. There was such joy, that men, women, and children set up shouts; and four young men, who were enjoying the Whitsun holidays, flew to the church and set the bells a-ringing before the carriage came in sight of the rectory.

"'Surely,' said Miss Grizzy to the dairy-maid, 'those lads are not gone off to the belfry, and that plague of a boy, young Low, not found yet! I always said he was the most ill-conditioned child that ever lived; and I

know now he is only hiding out of malice to my poor Stephen.'

"Before she could finish her speech there was a sound of wheels and of horses, and the barking of all the dogs about, and of doors opening; and the very next minute in came nurse with the news into the dairy.

"Miss Grizzy was almost as ready to faint as Bernard had been—but not from pleasure; all her unkindnesses to the child rose before her mind, and it was with the greatest difficulty that she could put on even the appearance of being glad, whilst her worthy brother's heart was lifted up with joy.

"When Stephen heard the news, as he came skulking in to tell his aunt he could find Bernard nowhere, he walked himself off with Meekin, and did not return till night; but he need not have done so, for Bernard never uttered a complaint against him or anybody else, though he spoke continually of the very great kindness of Mr. Evans.

"The happiness of Lucilla that evening was complete. Bernard had hardly spoken to her before she found how changed he was.

"Mr. Low was equally thankful; and Mrs. Low and nurse, though they did not understand the cause of the change so clearly, yet felt that their darling was a new and improved creature. Mr. Low, having it now in his power, did much to assist Mr. Evans in many ways; he felt all his kindnesses; he helped to furnish his new rooms, and raised his salary as a curate.

"Miss Grizzy and Stephen left him almost immediately. Miss Grizzy went to keep the house of a cross old uncle, and Stephen went to his parents. Mr. Evans took nurse for a housekeeper, and whether she managed well or ill for him people do not agree; but this is certain, that all the boys, especially the little ones, liked her so much that Mr.

Evans soon found even his larger house too small for his pupils.

"The last we heard of Mr. Low's family was that Bernard and Lucilla had furnished the grotto so beautifully that every person in the neighbourhood came to see it; and that this brother and sister were the delight of their parents, and the comforters of every poor old person or orphan child in the parish."

---

The Birthday Feast

"Well," said Henry Fairchild, "it is just as I knew it would be;

mine is the prettiest story, and it is the longest, and that is something."

"No, no!" replied Emily; "if a story is stupid, its being long only makes it worse."

"But it is not stupid," says Henry, "as it comes in at the end so nicely, and in so much bustle. I do love a story that ends in a great bustle."

"Well," said Emily, "my story finishes with as great a bustle as yours; and we must say that Lucy has chosen two very nice books; so, Lucy, we thank you with all our hearts."

We have been so busy over the stories which Lucy brought, that we have taken no notice of the note and parcel which came from Miss Darwell.

The note was to invite the Misses Fairchild and Master Fairchild to spend her birthday with her. She asked them to come very early, and they were to come in their playing dresses, and then they could bring others with them,

because in the evening there would be company. She offered to send a carriage for them; and she said that a note would come to invite their parents to dinner. The little lady seemed to have thought of everything to make the day pleasant to them.

Mrs. Fairchild's children were not so rich as Miss Darwell, but they were as well brought up; and Mrs. Colvin had heard this, and was glad to have the opportunity of seeing these children.

The parcel contained a few small presents, which Emily and Lucy thought a great deal of, and put by amongst their treasures.

The day of Miss Darwell's birthday came, after what Henry called a very long time. Time seems very long to children; they think a month as long as old people think a year. Henry talked of a year or two past as of a time a long while ago.

Lucy and Emily looked out the very first thing that morning to see what weather it was; but Henry did more, he got up and went out as soon as he heard anyone stir, and saw John cleaning the horse, that he might be ready for Mr. and Mrs. Fairchild in the afternoon.

Soon after breakfast Mrs. Fairchild got the children ready, in their neatest morning dresses, according to Miss Darwell's desire; meaning to bring their evening things when she came. But they were hardly ready when a little pony-carriage, driven by a careful old man, came for them from Miss Darwell; for this young lady never forgot the chance of doing a kindness.

They got into the little carriage, and were driven away. Henry sat by the servant in front, and his sisters in the seat behind.

"My little lady," said the servant, "bade us be sure to bring you all safely, and very soon, Master Fairchild."

And then he went on to say what a dear, good young lady she was. "But she bade me not tell what is to be done this evening; and you are not to ask anybody about it."

"Then I will not," said Henry; "though I want to know very much."

"To be sure you do, master,'" said the man; "but you will know by-and-by."

As they came near the park, they saw several fine carriages drawing towards the house.

"We are going to have a world of company," said the man; "but Miss Darwell has no visitors in her own rooms but you and your sisters, Master Fairchild. My lady would have had more invited, but Mrs. Colvin begged off; and so you and the young ladies are much favoured."

And then, giving his horse a fillip, away they went, bowling along over the park amid high fern brakes, lofty trees, and many deer.

"I see something white through the trees," said Henry; "look, look, all along under the branches—see, Lucy—see, Emily!"

"Do you, master?" answered the servant; "well, that is unaccountable; but look before you—what do you see there?"

"Only trees," replied Henry, "and fern."

"Look again, master," said the man.

And Henry looked again till he had quite passed the place where the white things might be seen, and indeed had forgotten them.

When they came to the house and drove to the door, a footman appeared, and was directed to lead the little ladies and gentleman to Miss Darwell's rooms. The man went before them upstairs and along the galleries to the door of that very room where they had been received by poor Miss Augusta Noble.

As the footman, having opened the door, mentioned their names, they saw that everything within the room was just the same as it had been. But there was a nice elderly lady, dressed in black silk, who sat near the open window. She seemed, by the book in her hand, to have been reading to a pretty fair girl, nearly of the age of Lucy, who sat on a stool at her feet.

These were Mrs. Colvin and Miss Darwell; and when they heard the names announced, they both rose and came to meet their visitors. They both smiled so sweetly, and spoke so pleasantly, that they took all fear at once from the children.

Mrs. Colvin herself took off the bonnets and tippets, and laid them aside; and Miss Darwell said, "I am glad you came so soon; I told Everard to make haste."

As soon as they were ready, Miss Darwell began to talk of what they were to play at. Mrs. Colvin gave them leave to go out for a time to play in the shade of what they called the cedar-grove, a place near the house, but they all begged her to go with them.

"Not to play, my dears," she said; "I can't run."

"No, ma'am," said Lucy; "but you can have a book and sit down and read, as then you can see us at play."

"Well, then," said Mrs. Colvin, smiling, "I will come." And away they all went to the cedar-grove.

As they were going Henry said:

"I am not to ask what is to be done this evening."

"No," replied Miss Darwell; "you ought not even to say, 'I am not to ask.'"

When they had got into the grove, and Mrs. Colvin was seated, they began to consult about what they should play at. As Miss Darwell had not often any children to play with, she did not know of half the games that others did.

"Let us play at Little Edwy and the Echo," said Lucy.

"But we have no echo here," said Miss Darwell.

"Then Henry shall be Edwy, and I will be the echo: and it is me you shall try to catch," replied Lucy; "and you shall have to run for it. Henry, you must call, and I will answer, but they shall not find me."

Lucy could run almost as quick as a greyhound, and she managed the game so well, that it took up the whole time Mrs. Colvin allowed them to stay out of doors. It was getting hot, and they went back into the house, and to their room.

"Now," said Mrs. Colvin, "you shall take your visitors into your play-room, Miss Darwell, and leave the door open, my dear, that I may hear you and see you; I know you like to have me near you."

"Yes, I do, dear Mrs. Colvin," said Miss Darwell; and she put her arms round the excellent governess's neck and kissed her; and then, running and opening a door, led her visitors into a large room which they had not seen before. It was furnished with shelves, on which many books and toys were ranged in order—for it was one of Mrs. Colvin's wishes to make her pupil neat.

Mr. Fairchild's children quite cried out at the sight of these things; there were enough to furnish a toy-shop, besides the books.

Miss Darwell said, "Which would you like?"

Henry fixed upon a large Noah's ark, and when it was reached down, he placed himself on the floor, and made a procession of its inmates. He placed Noah himself in front, with his little painted wife, and Shem, Ham, and Japhet, and their wives after him. Then came the beasts, and then the birds, and then the insects and creeping things. Lucy chose a dissected map of England and Wales, and another which formed a picture; and Emily,

a box of bricks and doorways, and pillars and chimneys, and other things for building houses.

Mrs. Colvin had told the children that they were to keep themselves quiet till dinner-time; so Miss Darwell took her doll, and for a long time they were all very still with their toys: they were to dine at half-past one, and Henry had not done with his ark when a female servant came into the outer room to lay the cloth.

"For a long time they all very still with their toys."—[Page 389].

"It is time to put up now," said Mrs. Colvin, calling from the next room.

Lucy and Emily and Henry began immediately to put the things they had been playing with into the cases, and Lucy was putting her dissected map into the place from which she had taken it, when Miss Darwell said:

"Don't put it away, Miss Fairchild; it shall be tied up ready to go with the carriage."

Lucy did not understand her.

"Did you not choose it, Miss Lucy?" said Miss Darwell; "if you please to accept it, I will send it in the carriage to-night with the bricks and the ark."

"Thank you, dear Miss Darwell," Lucy answered; "but we must not take anything, unless your mamma and my mamma give leave."

At that instant Mrs. Colvin called Lucy.

"I called you, my dear, to tell you that you are quite right: you ought never to receive a present without your mamma's leave, and ought never to desire to receive one. But I have no doubt that Miss Darwell will remember to ask Mrs. Fairchild this evening if you may have them."

"I will," said Miss Darwell; "I hope I shall not forget it in the bustle."

"Shall I tell you of it?" said Henry.

Lucy and Emily got as red as scarlet when Henry said these words; but Mrs. Colvin whispered:

"Let him alone, he is very young, and he will get wiser as he gets older."

"I shall be obliged to you to remind me of it, Henry," said Miss Darwell; "and I will speak the moment I see Mrs. Fairchild."

How happily did the four children and the good governess dine together that day before the open window, where they could smell the sweet flowers in the garden below, and see a large pool which was beyond the trees, and still beyond that the green heights of the park.

"I see people," said Henry, whose eyes were everywhere, "going up the park by that pretty white building which looks like a temple with a porch—there they go—I see women and children—and there are men carrying baskets. What are they doing, ma'am?" he added, looking at Mrs. Colvin.

"Taking a pleasant walk this fine afternoon," she answered; "and we will walk too by-and-by, but upon one condition, as it is so very warm, that after dinner you will each of you take a book and sit quite still, until I speak the word for all to move."

"Might I play with Noah's ark, ma'am, instead?" said Henry; "I will not move."

"Very well," said Mrs. Colvin; and when they had dined, she directed Lucy and Emily to choose their books and sit down in any place they chose.

Miss Darwell also took a book, as did Mrs. Colvin; and so still was everyone, that it might have been thought that there was not a creature in the room but the Seven Sleepers, unless it might be two or three bees which came buzzing in and out.

"How pleasant," thought Mrs. Colvin, "it is to have to do with well-behaved children! I should not mind

having these little Fairchilds always with me, at least till Henry is fit only to be managed by men."

Lucy and Emily wished much to know what was going to be done in the park, but they did not find the time long. Lucy had chosen the History of Mrs. Teachum, and Emily the Adventures of Robin, Dicksy, Flapsy, and Pecksy, quite a new book, which she had never seen before. The great people in the parlour were to dine at four o'clock, that they also might go into the park afterwards; and a little before four the waiting-maid came up with the best things for Master and the Misses Fairchild, packed in a bandbox, the pretty presents of Miss Crosbie not having been forgotten.

When Mrs. Colvin saw the box she called the children to her; they all came running but Henry.

"Now, my dears," she said, "you have been very quiet, and it is time to dress;" and she offered the maid's help to dress Lucy and Emily.

"No, thank you, ma'am," said Lucy; "we have no one to wait upon us at home; we always dress each other."

"I wish," said Miss Darwell, "that I had a little sister whom I might dress; but Mrs. Colvin always dresses me," she added in a whisper to Lucy, "because she loves me, and I love her."

"But where is Henry?" said Mrs. Colvin.

They went to look, and there was he, sound asleep on the floor in the play-room, with Shem, Ham, and Japhet in his hands, and all the birds and beasts about him.

"Well," said Mrs. Colvin, "I did think he was the quietest boy that I had ever known, but he has lost a little credit with me now; most boys are quiet when they are asleep."

Emily stooped down and kissed him, which caused him to wake; but when he was aroused he looked about him in

such a surprised way that all the little girls laughed heartily, and he looked as if he felt ashamed.

Mrs. Colvin set him to pack up his ark, whilst she showed Emily and Lucy into a room to dress, saying:

"When you are ready, come to me, that I may see that all is right."

When they were dressed they called Henry, who was yet to be dressed, and then sought Mrs. Colvin; she, too, was ready, and Miss Darwell was standing by her.

The little lady, according to the taste of her mother, was set off with lace on her sleeves and feathers in her hat, and coloured shoes, and everything which could make a child fine; but her manner was not the least changed; she only seemed anxious that Lucy and Emily should look well. Mrs. Colvin turned them about, examining them, and made some amendment in the tying and pinning.

"Well," she said, "you look very nice; little girls should always attend to neatness; it is a compliment due to those who care for them; and now each of you give me a kiss, and we will be off, as I see Henry is now ready, and Everard is waiting." They all then went down, and found Everard at the hall-door with the pony-carriage. A boy was holding a small horse by the carriage. "Now," said Mrs. Colvin, "how is it to be managed, Miss Darwell? Suppose I walk?"

"No, no!" cried Miss Darwell; "Henry is to ride; I know he will like it, and Joseph shall walk by him, and you shall sit in front with Everard, and we little ones will go behind. There is quite room, and it is a very little way, and it will be so pleasant;" and thus it was settled, to the immense joy of Henry.

Away they went through one gate and another gate, till they came upon the green smooth drive which went quite round the park.

"Is not this pleasant?" said Miss Darwell, taking the hand of Lucy and Emily on each side; "but please first to call Henry, and tell him that I have settled about the things. I sent a note to Mrs. Fairchild whilst you were dressing, with a pencil to write yes or no, and she wrote the right word; so Henry will not have to remind me. Mrs. Colvin always tells me not to put things off. But now you shall know what we are going to do. Mamma lets me have a pleasure on my birthday, so I asked to have all the children in the parish invited to have tea in the park; and mamma has had tents put up, and we have got music, and the children are to play, and the old people are to come with the children. I was only afraid it would not be fine, but it is fine," she added, clapping her hands in her great delight; "but I would not tell you, that you might have something to guess about."

They first went up a rising ground, then they came to a grove; then they passed under the white building which Henry called a temple. Then they saw a lovely sparkling waterfall; then they came to an open place, green and smooth; then they came to another grove, and there they found that they were getting amongst the people, some of whom Henry had seen going to that place three or four hours before. When country people have a holiday, they like to make the most of it; and very soon they saw the tents through the trees.

Henry was first, and he looked back to his sisters as if he would have said, "These are the white things I saw this morning." There were four tents; they had pointed tops, but were open on the sides; tables were spread in each of them, and also under the trees in various places round about; and there sat several musicians on a bank. The people all about, men and women and children, were like bees swarming about the tents. There were parties of

young people and children who had been playing and amusing themselves, but they all stood still when they saw the carriage coming, and the music struck up a fine merry tune to welcome the little lady.

There were none of the grand people from the house yet come; those that were there were chiefly the cottagers, but they had all their very best dresses on, and all the poor children were dressed exactly alike. They wore dark blue cotton frocks with white tippets, and aprons, and caps. There were a few persons present, seated in one of the tents, who were not among the poor. Henry immediately saw Mrs. Burke and her daughters, for Mrs. Burke smiled kindly at him; the boys were somewhere among the people.

But though there were so many, there was no fear that the feast would run short, for the tables were heaped up with bread and butter and cakes, and fruit, and tea and sugar, and there were pails of milk standing under the trees, and more bread, and more fruit, and more of everything. It was settled that when Miss Darwell came, the feast was to begin.

"Oh!" cried Lucy, "how pleasant everything looks!"

There was not time for any more to be said, for the carriage was getting close to the tents; it stopped, and Mrs. Colvin and the young people alighted.

Miss Darwell was received by many smiling faces; every child looked at her with innocent delight, and the women murmured, "Bless her sweet face!" And then orders were given that the feast was to begin, and the people settled themselves on the grass in small parties.

Mrs. Colvin having given Miss Darwell a hint, she went to speak to Mrs. Burke, and invited her and her daughters to come and assist in serving the people, and seeing that everyone had as much as they wished.

Kind Mrs. Burke was the very person to like to be asked to do such a thing, and the Misses Burke could not be offended when they saw Miss Darwell as busily engaged as she possibly could be.

"Now," said she to Lucy, and Emily, and Henry, "now you are to come with me; look at that little party under that oak; there is a very old woman and two children. There are more people near, but I don't want you to look at them—come close to them." And they all four walked towards them.

"Do not stir, do not speak," said Miss Darwell, to the two children and the old woman; "let Master and the Misses Fairchild see if they recognise you again."

The little ones under the tree entered into the joke, and sat quite still. The boy, indeed, laughed and chuckled; but the little girl kept her countenance. The old woman did not know Mr. Fairchild's children, so she had no trouble to keep herself from smiling.

All these three were neatly dressed, and their clothes looked quite new. The boy had a suit of what is called hodden-gray, with a clean shirt as white as the snow.

"I do not know them," said Lucy.

"But I do," cried Henry.

"And so do I," said Emily; "they are Edward and Jane."

"Yes, Miss," said the two little ones, jumping up.

"And it is all through you," added Edward, "that the good little lady has done everything for us: and the house is new thatched, and the walls made as white as paper; and more money given to grandmother; and me cowboy at Squire Burke's; and Jane in the school—don't Jane look well in them clothes, sir? Oh, that was a good day when we lighted on you, Master and Miss!" And the poor boy pulled the front lock of his hair and bowed I know not how many times.

When every person had as much as was good for them, and a few persons, perhaps, a little more, orders were given that what remained should be set in order in the tents for supper; and then the music struck up. And whilst the elder people were amusing themselves in other places, Miss Darwell called all the little girls to follow her into a pretty green glade among the trees, and hidden from the rest of the company.

Mrs. Colvin went with her, for she was never willing that her good governess should lose sight of her; and Lucy and Emily were equally anxious for her presence. Henry was the only boy allowed to come.

"Now, Lucy," said Miss Darwell, for she was getting quite fond of her, "now there is to be some play, but I do not know many games; so you and Emily must lead. What shall we have?"

"Lucy knows a thousand thousand games!" cried Henry.

After some talking, "Hunt the Hare" was chosen; and Lucy, who was a particularly quick runner, was chosen for the hare, and everyone was to follow Lucy in and out wherever she went.

All the children were to stand with joined hands in a circle; Lucy was to be in the middle. They began with dancing round her, and when they stopped she was to begin to run, and after ten had been counted, one other was let loose to follow her, and then the whole pack, as Henry called them, at a signal given.

Miss Darwell got between Henry and Emily in the circle; Lucy was put into the midst; and they danced round her, singing, "My leader, my leader, I will follow my leader wherever she goes!" Then they stood still, and Lucy began to run out under one pair of hands and in under another, and back again, and about and about like a needle

in a piece of cloth; and when ten had been counted, Henry was let loose, and then the sport really began. They expected he would have caught her immediately; he was as quick as ever his little legs would allow, and as true to all her windings as the thread is to those of the needle. But when he was following Lucy the last time through the middle of the circle, he gave the signal for the whole party to loose hands and follow him, and away they all went. But they could not get on for laughing, for Lucy had as many pranks as Harlequin himself, so that several of the children, and amongst these Miss Darwell herself, fairly stood still to laugh.

This game lasted for some time. Then came "Puss in the Corner"; and then, as Mrs. Colvin thought there had been strong exercise enough, the evening being very hot, she made all the children sit down, and asked who could tell a story.

"Lucy can," said Emily; and Lucy then, without hesitation, told the story of "Edwy and the Echo," by the particular desire of Miss Darwell.

Lucy had one particularly pleasing quality, which arose in some degree from the habit of quick obedience in which she had been brought up; this was, that when, in company, desired by a proper person to do anything she could to make herself agreeable, she immediately tried; and when Mrs. Colvin had said, "If you can tell the story, Miss Lucy, do favour us with it," she took her place, and did it as easily as if Emily and Henry only had been by. Emily had the same wish to make herself pleasant as Lucy had, but she was naturally more shy. Everybody was so pleased with Lucy's story that she told another, and that was the story of "Margot and the Golden Fish," which delighted everyone, and was a useful story to the poor children.

But now the sun was beginning to dip its golden disc below the hills, and the sound was heard of carriages. Mr. and Mrs. Darwell, and those who had dined with them, were come up into the park.

Mrs. Colvin called on all the village children to put themselves in the neatest order, and to take their places two and two, she herself arranging Lucy and Emily and Miss Darwell in their bonnets and tippets; and then walked with her train to join the company.

A great number of fine ladies and gentlemen were in the midst and within the tents, and there were Mr. and Mrs. Fairchild.

Mrs. Darwell spoke civilly, but very coldly, to Lucy and Emily. Mr. Darwell spoke kindly. The ladies and gentlemen had a great deal to say to Miss Darwell, but she was become very reserved among so many strangers, and seemed to cling close to Mrs. Colvin.

The village people were then offered more refreshments, and as they could not take much, everything that was left was ordered to be given amongst them; but none of them had gone, when all who had come from the house returned to it.

"I am very sorry you are going, dear Lucy and Emily and Henry," said Miss Darwell; "I have had the happiest day I ever had in my life. I thought I should like you, but I did not know how very much it would be."

The little girls then kissed each other, and Mrs. Colvin gave them a note for their mother.

"This," she said, "is to tell Mrs. Fairchild, that I care not how often you and Miss Darwell meet. I can add no more to that."

The children were to go home with their father and mother; and if they loved Miss Darwell much already, they loved her more for her kindness when they saw three

large brown paper parcels under the seat of the little carriage.

They had a sweet drive home, though they had not time to tell all that had happened to their mother till the next day; but their parents knew, from Mrs. Colvin's note, as soon as they got home, that their children had behaved very well.

"In their neatest morning dresses."—[Page 383].

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Grandmamma Fairchild

After this very pleasant day at the park, and long before Lucy and Emily had left off talking about it, a note came from Miss Darwell, to say that they were all going to the sea, for which she was sorry, because she wanted to see them all again.

Lucy answered the note, and said that she and Emily were also very, very sorry; and this they truly were. Several weeks then passed, and nothing particular happened, till a letter came from their grandmamma, saying that her grand-daughter was very ill, and much desired to see her uncle. "Indeed," added the old lady, "I feel that I shall be required to give up my Ellen also; but God does all things well."

The letter came at breakfast-time, and Mr. Fairchild resolved to set out as soon as he possibly could get ready. There was a great bustle for the next hour, and then Mr. Fairchild took leave of his family, and was driven by John to the town—he was to go on from thence by the coach.

The children stood to see them off, and then walked back into the house. Their mother told them to take their needlework and sit down in the parlour; and she gave Henry a book to read whilst she was busy in another part of the house. It was a very hot day, the window was open, and all was still—even the children did not speak for some time; at last Lucy said:

"I hope poor cousin Ellen will not die.

What will grandmamma do if she dies?"

"If she did not live so far off," said Emily, "perhaps we might comfort her."

"I never remember seeing her but twice," said Lucy, "and you never saw her, Henry."

They went on talking about their grandmother till Mrs. Fairchild came in and sat down with them, and they still went on with the subject, asking her many questions, especially wherefore their grandmother had come so seldom to see them, and why they had not been asked to see her. From one thing to another they went on till they heard a much more regular account of the history of their family than they had ever heard before.

"When I first knew your father's family, my dears," said Mrs. Fairchild, "your grandmother was living in Reading with two sons: the elder brother soon afterwards went to the East Indies, where he married and had several children. Your father was intended to have been a clergyman, but before he could be ordained he was attacked with an illness, which finished with such a weakness in the chest, that he knew he could never read the Service without danger. We had enough to live on, and we settled here, and here you were all born."

"Yes," said Lucy, "and we love this dear place. We shall never like another so well; it would grieve me to leave it."

"We must take things as they come," said Mrs. Fairchild, going on with her history. "Your uncle was abroad several years, and was enabled to make a very good fortune. Whilst you were a very little baby, Lucy, he returned to England, and then purchased that place where your grandmamma now lives, a place known by the name of The Grove, between Reading and London, on the banks of the Thames. His wife had died abroad, and several children also in infancy. He brought with him two little girls, of five and six years of age, Emily and Ellen; and they were lovely little creatures then," said Mrs. Fairchild; "their very paleness making them only look the more lovely. When I saw that sweet little Emily, I resolved, that if ever I had another girl, it should be an Emily.

"My nieces lost their father only one year after they came to England, and then their grandmother settled herself quite down to give all her attention to them; and truly, from the extreme delicacy of their health, they needed all the care that she could give them. From the very earliest period of their lives they were invariably gentle, humble, and attentive to the comfort of every person who came near to them."

"Were not they like Miss Darwell?" said Henry, who had dropped his book, and was listening with all his attention.

"I think they were, Henry," replied Mrs. Fairchild; "and their outward circumstances were much alike—they were, like her, the daughters of a rich man, and brought up very tenderly. It was about four years since," she continued, "that your lovely cousin Emily died of a rapid decline. A little before her death, seeing her sister weeping bitterly, she said, 'Do not cry, gentle sister, we shall not be parted long.' Ellen never forgot those words, though it was not

till some time afterwards that she reminded your grandmamma of them."

"And do you think she will now die, mamma, and go to her Emily?" said Lucy.

"I cannot say," replied Mrs. Fairchild; "but she has certainly been gradually falling off ever since she lost her sister."

Mr. Fairchild wrote every day; his accounts from the first were bad; they became worse and worse as to the hopes respecting the poor young lady, and her grandmother's anxiety. At last a letter came to say that she was dead, but had died in great peace.

The children cried very much, but more for their grandmother than for their cousin; for they had not a doubt that she was happy. Then, too, Lucy and Emily began to think how they could make up the loss to the old lady, if she would but come and live with them; and then they began to plan what rooms she could have, and were a little puzzled because the house was very small; yet Lucy said she thought it might be contrived.

The next letter from Mr. Fairchild said that he had persuaded his mother to leave The Grove for a few weeks; and that she was to set out the next day with her maid, whilst he remained to settle everything.

The old lady was expected to come the day after the next, as she would sleep on the road; and there was much to be done to get everything ready, and to see after mourning.

Lucy and Emily had many plans for comforting their grandmother; and as the old lady was used to be wheeled about in a Bath-chair, John was sent to the Park to borrow one which had belonged to Sir Charles Noble's mother.

The elder Mrs. Fairchild was old, and had long been

affected by lameness, which prevented her from walking with ease; and this her daughter-in-law knew. There was nothing she would not have done to make her comfortable. Henry cheerfully gave up his room for the maid, and had a little bed put up for him in the play-room. He had settled that he was to be his grandmother's horse as soon as he saw the Bath-chair.

The children had not known much of their cousins; they had been at their grandmother's only once since they could remember, for the very bad health of their cousins had prevented their going with their father when he went to see his mother; they could not therefore feel for their cousins as if they had known them well, but they thought very much of their grandmother's loss.

Mrs. Fairchild had settled that the old lady was to have the use of their little drawing-room, and no one but herself was to go to her in that room unless she wished it; and she told the children they must expect her to be very sad indeed till after the funeral, and that they must be very quiet, and not come in her sight unless she desired it.

She was not expected until the evening of the third day after they had heard she was coming; and then Henry went up to the top of the round hill to watch for the carriage, and to be the first to give notice of it.

It was not far from six o'clock when he first saw it coming down the hill towards the village, and he was not sure of it for some time; he then ran in, and went up with Lucy and Emily to their window to wait till it came.

After a while they heard the sound of it; then they saw John go to the gate and set it open; then they drew back a little, not to be seen, and came forward when the carriage stopped, but they did not see the old lady get out. Mrs. Fairchild was below to receive her, and to lead

her into the house: but they saw the maid busy in seeing the things taken out of the carriage, and they heard her giving her orders. This maid was not the same who had for years waited on the old lady, but one who had taken the place whilst the old waiting-maid stayed behind to take care of the house. This new maid called herself Miss Tilney: her mistress called her Jane, but no one else took that liberty. She was dressed as smartly as she could be in deep mourning; and she gave orders in such a sharp tone that the children could hear every word she said.

She called Betty "young woman," and bade her carry up some of the parcels to her lady's room. She asked John his name; and told the postboy he was not worth his salt.

"Well," said Henry, "there will be no need for my making a noise to disturb grandmamma; that woman would make enough for us all."

"That woman!" cried Emily; "don't speak so loud, she will hear you."

In a few minutes the boxes were all removed, and the carriage driven away; and then the children heard the maid's voice talking to Betty in the next room, which was the only spare room in the house. They heard her say, "Well, to be sure, but our rooms at The Grove are so large, that one is not used to such bandboxes as these."

"I am sure," said Henry, "the room is good enough for her:" and he was going to say more, when his sisters stopped him, and begged him not to listen. "I don't listen," he answered; "I hear without listening."

They were interrupted by Mrs. Fairchild, who came to tell them that their grandmother had asked for them. Mrs. Fairchild walked first, and opened the drawing-room door; there they saw their grandmother. She was a neat little old lady in black, exactly such as they fancied

Mrs. Howard had been. She was seated, and looked very pale. At the sight of them she became paler than before; she held out her hands to them, and they all three rushed into her arms.

"My children, my precious children!" said the old lady, kissing one and another as they pressed forward.

"We will be your own grandchildren," said Lucy; "we will comfort you and read to you, and do everything for you. Do not be unhappy, dear grandmamma, we will all be your own children."

The old lady was scarcely able to speak, but she murmured to herself:

"Yes, my God is good, I am not left without comfort."

"Stand back, my dears," said Mrs. Fairchild, "and let your grandmamma look at you quietly—you overpower her."

They drew back. The old lady wiped away a tear or two which dimmed her sight, and then, with a gentle smile, she looked first at Lucy.

"She has the oval face and gentle look so dear to me," said the old lady; "this is Lucy. Will Lucy love me?"

The little girl, being thus called upon, fell again on grandmamma's neck, and quite sobbed with feeling; she soon, however, recovered herself, and pointing to her sister:

"This is Emily, grandmamma," she said.

"Another Emily!" replied the old lady, "I am rich indeed!" and, fixing her eyes on the younger little girl, "I could almost think I had my child again. Daughter," she added, speaking to Mrs. Fairchild, "do my eyes deceive me? Is there not a likeness? But your little girls are such exactly as I fondly wished them to be. And this is Henry, our youngest one;" and she took his hand in hers, and said, "Did you expect to see grandmamma looking so very old, my little man?"

"No, ma'am," replied Henry, "not quite so old;" and the little boy made a bow, thinking how very civil he ought to be to his own father's mother.

"He does not mean to be rude, ma'am," said Lucy.

"I see it, my dear," replied the old lady, smiling. "Do not, I pray you, say anything to destroy his honesty—the world will soon enough teach him to use deception."

Henry did not understand all this, but fearing, perhaps, to lose his place as grandmamma's horse, he took the occasion to ask if he might not be her horse.

"What is it, my child?" said the old lady.

"May I be your horse, ma'am?" he said.

"My horse?" repeated the old lady, looking for an explanation from Lucy; and when she had got it, she made him quite happy by assuring him that no horse could please her better.

She did not drink tea that evening with the family, and went very early to bed; but having seen them all that evening, she was ready to meet them more calmly in the morning, and quite prepared to rejoice in the blessing of having such grandchildren to make up her losses.

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Great Changes

Henry arose the next morning as soon as he heard the step of John in the garden, and was very soon with him, asking him what he could do to help him. Henry loved to help John.

John did not answer in his own cheerful way, but said:

"I don't know, Master Henry; it can't much matter now, I reckon, what we do, or what we leave undone."

"Why, John?" said Henry.

"You will know soon enough," John answered, "but it shan't be from me you shall learn it. I suppose, however," he added, "that we must get the peas for dinner; folks must eat, though the world should come to an end next Michaelmas."

"What is the matter, John?" said Henry; "I am sure something is."

"Well," replied John, "if there is nothing else, is it not enough to have that lady's-maid there in the kitchen finding fault with everything, and laying down the law, and telling me to my face that I don't understand so much as to graff a tree?"

"Who says so, John?" asked Henry.

"Why, my lady's maid," replied John; "that Miss Tilney or Tolney, or some such name, as is written as large as life on her boxes. As to the old lady, she has a good right to come here, but she did very wrong to bring that woman with her, to disturb an orderly family. Why, Master Henry, she makes ten times the jabbering Mag does."

"I wish, then, she would fly away over the barn," said Henry, "as Mag did."

"We would none of us go after her," replied John, "to bring her back; but I am a fool," added the honest man; "here have I lived ever since master came here, and most of these trees did I plant and graff with my own hands, and made the sparrow-grass beds and all, and now this woman is to come with her nonsense, and turn everything topsy-turvy."

Henry was quite puzzled; he saw that John was vexed, and he knew that the words topsy-turvy meant upside-down; but he could not understand how the lady's-maid could turn the roots of the trees up in the air. He was going to ask an explanation, when a very shrill voice was heard screaming, "Mr. John, Mr. John!"

"There again!" cried John, "even the garden can't be clear of her—there, Master Henry, put down the basket and be off, she is no company for you. If you see her, and she asks for me, tell her I am gone to clean the pig-sty; she will not follow me there." So off ran John one way, and Henry another.

But Henry was not so lucky in his flight as John was; he ran into a narrow walk enclosed on each side with filberts, and before he was aware came quite opposite to the lady's-maid. He thought she looked very fine—quite a lady herself; and he stopped short, and wished her

good-morning. Had she been the poorest person he would have done the same, for his parents had taken great pains to make him civil to everyone.

"Master Fairchild, I presume," cried the maid. "A charming morning, sir. I was looking for Mr. John, to ask him if he would please to select some flowers to arrange in my mistress's room: she always has flowers in her dressing-room at The Grove."

"John," said Henry, "is gone to clean the pig-sty."

The lady's-maid drew up her lip, and looked disgusted.

"Faugh!" said she, "I shall not think of troubling him to cull the flowers."

"Shall I get some for grandmamma?" asked Henry.

She thanked him for his politeness, and accepted his offer.

The little boy walked before her to where there was a bit of raised ground covered with rose-bushes.

"There, ma'am," he said, "you can gather any you like."

"Upon my word, Master Fairchild, you are uncommon polite," she said; "I shall tell our people at home what a handsome genteel young gentleman you are. They will be so desirous to know all about you—and not at all high and proud neither, though you have such great prospects."

"What do you mean by great prospects, ma'am?" asked Henry; "I do not understand you."

"That is your humility, Master Fairchild," said the maid; "to be sure, this place is but small, and I wonder how you could have managed in it so long, but it is neat and very genteel; yet, when you have seen The Grove, you will think nothing of this little box here."

"What box?" asked Henry.

"This house, Master Fairchild," she answered; "you might put the whole place into the hall at The Grove."

"What an immense hall!" said Henry in amazement.

"Poor Betty, as I tell her," said the maid, "will be quite out of her place amongst so many servants; she can't bear to hear it talked of."

"What talked of?" answered Henry. "But please not to gather the rose-buds; mamma does not like them to be gathered."

"To be sure, Master Fairchild," said the maid, "and that is just right. In a small garden like this one should be particular; yet, at The Grove, a few rose-buds would never be missed. But you are a very good young gentleman to be so attentive to your dear mamma; I am sure I shall delight our people by the account I shall have to give when I go back; and I am to go back when Mrs. Johnson comes, and that will be in a few days. I shall tell them there that you are not only very good, but vastly genteel, and so like pretty Miss Ellen—and she was quite a beauty—dear young lady! You will see her picture as large as life in the drawing-room at The Grove, Master Fairchild."

Henry did not understand one-half of what the maid said to him, and was very glad when he heard the step of someone coming round the little mound of rose-bushes. It was Emily's step; she came to call him to breakfast; she was dressed with a clean white pinafore, and her hair hung about her face in soft ringlets; she looked grave, but, in her usual way, mild and gentle.

When she saw the maid, she, too, said, "Good-morning."

"That young lady is your sister, no doubt, Master Fairchild," said the maid.

"It is Emily," said Henry.

"I should have known the sweet young lady anywhere,"

she answered; "so like the family, so pretty and so

genteel. Miss Emily, I wish you health to enjoy your new place."

Emily was as much puzzled as Henry had been with Miss Tilney's speeches. She said, "Thank you, ma'am," however, and walked away with Henry.

Their grandmother had slept later than usual; she had not rested well in the early part of the night, and had fallen asleep after the rest of the family were gone down.

She was not, therefore, present in the parlour; and when Henry came in, and had gotten his breath—for he and Emily had run to the house—he began to repeat some of the things which the maid had said to him, and to ask what they meant. Emily also repeated her speech to herself; and Lucy looked to her mother to explain these strange things.

"Cannot you guess, my children?" said Mrs. Fairchild, rather changing countenance; "but I had hoped that for a few days this business might not be explained to you. Our servants would not have told you, but I see that others will, so perhaps it is best that you should hear it now."

"What is it, mamma?" said all three at once; "nothing bad, we hope."

"Not bad," replied Mrs. Fairchild, "though it is what I and your dear papa had never wished for."

"Oh, do tell us!" said Lucy, trembling.

Mrs. Fairchild then told them that, by the death of their poor cousin, their father had come into the possession of the house and estate at The Grove, and, in fact, the whole of his late brother's fortune.

The children could not at first understand this, but when they did, they were much excited.

Their mother, after a while, told them that it would probably be necessary for them to leave that dear place, and go to The Grove, their grandmamma wishing to be

always with them, and having her own comfortable rooms at The Grove.

Lucy and Emily began to shed tears on hearing of this, but they said nothing at that time.

Henry said:

"But John, mamma, and Betty—what can we do without them?"

"Can't they go with us, my dear?" said Mrs. Fairchild.

"And John Trueman, and nurse, and Mary Bush, and Margery, and—and—and——" added Henry, not being able to get out any more names in his impatience.

"And the school!" said Emily.

"We do not live in the same house with these persons last mentioned," answered Mrs. Fairchild, "and therefore they would not miss us as those would do with whom we may reside; we must help them at a distance. If you, Lucy and Emily, have more money given you now, you must save it for these poor dear people. Kind Mrs. Burke will divide it amongst them as they want it; and she will look after the school."

"Oh, Emily!" said Lucy, "we will save all we can."

Emily could not speak, but she put her hand in Lucy's, and Lucy knew what that meant.

Who could think of lessons such a day as this? As soon as breakfast was over, Henry ran to talk to John about all that he heard: and Lucy and Emily, with their mother's leave, went out into the air to recover themselves before they appeared in the presence of their grandmother. They were afraid of meeting the maid, so they went up to the top of the round hill, and seated themselves in the shade of the beech-trees.

For a little while they looked about them, particularly down on the house and garden and the pleasant fields around them, every corner of which they knew as well as

children always know every nook in the place in which they have spent their early days. They were both shedding tears, and yet trying to hide them from each other. Lucy was the first who spoke.

"Oh, Emily!" she said, "I cannot bear to think of leaving this dear home. Can we ever be so happy again as we have been here?"

The little girls were silent again for some minutes, and then Lucy went on:

"Oh, Emily! how many things I am thinking of! There—don't you see the little path winding through the wood to the hut? How many happy evenings we have had in that hut! Shall we ever have another? And there is the way to Mary Bush's."

"Do you remember the walk we had there with Betty a long time ago?" said Emily.

"Ah! I can remember, still longer ago, when you were very little, and Henry almost a baby," said Lucy, "papa carrying us over the field there to nurse's, and getting flowers for us."

"I should like," she added, "to live in this place, and all of us together, just as we are now, a hundred years."

"I feel we shall never come back if we go away," said Emily.

"We shall never come back and be what we have been," replied Lucy; "that time is gone, I know. This is our last summer in this happy place. Oh, if I had known it when we were reading Henry's story at the hut, how very sad I should have been!"

"I cannot help crying," said Emily; "and I must not cry before our poor grandmamma."

"These things which are happening," said Lucy, "make me think of what mamma has often said, that it seldom

happens that many years pass without troubles and changes. I never could understand them before, but I do now."

"Because," added Emily, "we have lived such a very, very long time just in the same way."

The two little girls sat talking until they both became more calm; but they had left off talking of their own feelings some time before they left the hill, and began to speak of their grandmother; and they tried to put away their own little griefs, as far as they could, that they might comfort her. With these good thoughts in their minds, they came down the hill and returned to the house.

"It was Emily's step."—[Page 411].

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Grandmamma and the Children

"I don't care so much now," said Henry, meeting them at the door; "John says he will go with us, if it is to the world's end, or as far as the moon; and Betty says she will go too; and we can take the horse and Mag—so we shall do. But grandmamma is up and has had her breakfast, and we have got the Bath-chair ready, and she says that she will let us draw her round the garden; and I am to pull, and John says he will come and push, if the lady's-maid is not there too. He says that the worst thing about going with us, is that lady's-maid; and he hopes, for that reason, that the house will be very large."

Lucy and Emily ran to their grandmother; she was in the drawing-room; she kissed and blessed them, and looked at them with tears in her eyes.

"Grandmamma," said Lucy, "we have thought about it, and we will go with you to The Grove, and be your own children; only we would like you best to stay here."

"My own sweet children," replied the old lady, "we will

refer all these things to your papa and mamma. I am too old, and you are too young, to manage worldly matters; so we will leave these cares to those who are neither so young nor so old; God will guide them, I know, to what is best."

"Come, grandmamma," said Henry, putting his head only into the room, "the carriage is ready."

"And so am I," said the old lady, and she stepped out into the passage, and was soon in her Bath-chair.

John was ready to push, but seeing the maid come out to take her place behind the chair, he walked away without a word.

Miss Tilney, as she called herself, had not much to say before her mistress, so that she did not disturb the little party.

They did not go beyond the garden, but stopped often in shady places, where one of the children sat at their grandmother's feet, and the others on the grass.

The old lady seemed sometimes to have difficulty to be cheerful. She was often thinking, no doubt, of what was going on at The Grove, for the funeral was not over. She could not yet speak of the children she had lost.

Lucy guessed what made her sad, and for some minutes she was thinking what she could say to amuse her; she thought of several subjects to speak about; and, young as she was, settled in her own mind she must not speak of anything sad. At last she thought of what she would say, and she began by asking her if she saw a high piece of ground covered with trees at some distance.

"I do, my dear," replied the old lady.

"Would you like to hear about an old house which is beyond that wood?"

The grandmother was not so desirous of hearing about the old house, as she was to hear how her little grand-

daughter could talk. By the words of children we may learn a great deal of their characters, and how they have been taught; and so she begged Lucy to tell her about this old house.

It was Mrs. Goodriche's house that Lucy meant: and she began by telling what sort of a house it was; and who lived in it now; and what a kind lady she was; and how they went often to see her; and what pretty stories she could tell them, particularly about Mrs. Howard.

"Mrs. Howard!" repeated old Mrs. Fairchild, "I have heard of her; I knew the family of the Symondses well. Do, Lucy, tell me all you know about that good lady."

How pleasant it was to Lucy to think that she had found out the very thing to amuse her grandmother; and she went on, and on, until, with a word or two now and then from Emily, she had told the two stories of Mrs. Howard, and told them very prettily and straightforward—not as Henry would have done, with the wrong end foremost, but right forward, and everything in its place. Mrs. Fairchild had always accustomed her little girls to give accounts of any books they read; and Lucy had always been particularly clever in doing this exercise well.

Grandmamma was very much pleased with Lucy's stories—pleased every way; and it might be seen that she was so by her often asking her to go on.

The maid was also much amused, and when Lucy had told all, she said to her mistress:

"Indeed, ma'am, Miss Lucy is a most charming young lady, as agreeable as she is pretty, and I am sure you have the greatest reason to be proud of her; and, indeed, of the other young lady, too, Miss Emily; and Master Fairchild himself, he does honour to his family."

"None of this, Tilney, I beg," said the old lady; "I rejoice in what I see of these dear children, and I thank

God on their account; but we must not flatter them. I thank my Lucy for her stories, and her wishes to amuse poor grandmamma; and I thank my gentle Emily for the help she has given; but as to little boys in pinafores doing honour to their families, you must know that is quite out of the question. It is enough for me to say that I love my little boy, and that I find him very kind, and that I think his dear papa and mamma have, so far, brought him up well."

About noon the little party went into the house: the old lady lay down to read, and the rest went to their own rooms. They met again at dinner, and at tea; then came another airing; and they finished the day with reading the Bible and prayers.

Several days passed much in the same way, till Mr. Fairchild returned. He brought grandmamma's own servant with him; and Miss Tilney, to the great joy of John and Betty, went the next day.

Mr. and Mrs. Fairchild had much business to do, for it was settled that they were all to move to The Grove in the autumn; but the old lady, having her own maid with her, and having become very fond of the children, did not depend on her son and daughter for amusement.

After Mr. Fairchild returned, she went out much farther in the Bath-chair, and was drawn to many of the places loved by the children. That summer was one of the finest ever known in the country, and many were the hours spent by the little party about the Bath-chair, in the shade of the woods.

At these times grandmamma would often speak of the children she had lost, and of the happy years which she had spent with them. How very pleasant good and cheerful old people are! They are pleasanter than young ones, because they have seen so much, and have so many

old stories to tell. Grandmamma remembered the time when ladies wore large hoops and long ruffles and lappets, and when gentlemen's coats were trimmed with gold lace. She could tell of persons who had been born above a hundred years ago, persons she had herself seen and talked to; and her way of talking was not like that of many grown-up people who make children covetous and envious. That was not grandmamma's way; she was like the eagle in the fable, always trying to encourage her eaglets to fly upwards; and she did this so pleasantly that her grandchildren were never tired of hearing her talk. One of grandmamma's stories is so interesting that we will relate it in this place.

"A hundred years ago."—[Page 420].

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Grandmamma's History of Evelyn Vaughan. Part I.

"Will it not sound very strange to you, my dear children," said old Mrs. Fairchild, "to hear me talk of people, whom I knew very well, who were born one hundred years or more ago? But when you know that I can remember many things which happened seventy years ago, and that I then knew several people who were more than seventy years old—even Henry will be able to make out more than a hundred years since the time that they were born."

"Stop, grandmamma," said Henry, "and I will do the sum in the sand."

Henry then took a stick and wrote 70 on the ground.

"Now add to that another seventy, and cast it up, my boy," said grandmamma.

"It comes," cried Henry, "to a hundred and forty; only think, grandmamma, you can remember people who were born a hundred and forty years ago: how wonderful!"

"And the odd years are not counted," remarked Emily: "perhaps if we were to count them they might come up to a hundred and fifty."

"Very likely, my dears," said the old lady; "so do you all sit still, and I will begin my story.

"One hundred and, we will say, forty years ago, there resided near the town of Reading, in which I was born, a very wealthy family, descended from the nobility, though through a younger son.

"There are some reasons why I shall not mention the real name, or rather the first name of the family, for it had two; I will therefore give the second, which was Vaughan. They had many houses and fine lands, amongst which was The Grove, the place which we have now.

"The Mrs. Vaughan who was married one hundred and forty years ago was a very particular woman, and insisted on abandoning all her pleasant places in the country, and residing in a very dull and dismal old-fashioned place just at the end of one of the streets at Reading. I shall tell you more about that place by-and-by.

"This lady had four daughters before she had a son; not one of these daughters ever married. They were reared in the greatest pride, and no one was found good enough to marry them. There was Mistress Anne, and Mistress Catherine, and Mistress Elizabeth, and Mistress Jane, for in these old days the title of Miss was not often used.

"After many years, Mrs. Vaughan added a son to her family, and soon afterwards became a widow.

"This son lived many years unmarried, and was what you, my children, would call an old man, when he took a young and noble wife. The daughter and only child of this Mr. Vaughan was about my age, and she is the person whose history I am going to tell you.

"There is a picture of her at The Grove in the room in which your dear cousins spent many of their early days. It is drawn at full length, and is as large as life. It repre

sents a child, of maybe five years of age, in a white frock, placing a garland on the head of a lamb; behind the child, an old-fashioned garden is represented, and a distant view of The Grove house in which she was born."

"But, grandmamma," said Henry, "you have not told us that little girl's name."

"Her name was Evelyn," answered the old lady; "the only person I ever knew with that name."

"But it is a pretty one," remarked Lucy.

"There were a great many people to make a great bustle about little Evelyn, when she came: there were her own mother and her father, and there were the four proud aunts, and many servants and other persons under the family, for it was known that if no more children were born, Evelyn would have all her father's lands, and houses, and parks, and all her mother's and aunts' money and jewels.

"But, with all these great expectations, Evelyn's life began with sorrow. Her mother died before she could speak, and her father also, very soon after he had caused her picture to be drawn with the lamb."

"Poor little girl!" said Lucy; "all her riches could not buy her another papa and mamma. But what became of her then, grandmamma?"

"She was taken," added the old lady, "to live under the care of her aunts, at the curious old house I spoke of as being close at the end of the town of Reading; and she desired to bring nothing with her but the pet lamb, which, by this time, was getting on to be as big as a sheep, though it still knew her, and would eat out of her hand, and would frisk about her.

"The four Mistresses Vaughan were at the very head and top of formal and fashionable people. As far as ever I knew them, and I knew them very well at one time, they were all form, and ceremony, and outside show, in what

ever they did, until they were far, very far advanced in years, and had been made, through many losses and sorrows, to feel the emptiness of all worldly things. But I have reason to hope that the eyes of some of them were then opened to think and hope for better things than this life can give; but I shall speak of them as they were when Evelyn was under their care, and when I was acquainted well with them.

"The entrance to the house where they lived was through heavy stone gates, which have long since been removed; and along an avenue formed by double rows of trees, many of which are now gone.

"I have often, when a little child, been taken by my nurse to walk in that avenue; and I thought it so very long, that had I not seen it since, I could have fancied it was miles in length."

"That is just like me, grandmamma," said Henry; "when I was a little boy, I used to think that the walk through Mary Bush's wood was miles and miles long."

"And so did I," added Emily; and then the story went on.

"At the farthest end of this avenue," continued grandmamma, "the ground began to slope downwards, and then the house began to appear, but so hidden by tall dark cypress-trees, and hedges, and walls, I may call them, of yew and box and hornbeam, all cut in curious forms and shapes, that one could only here and there see a gable, or a window, or door, but in no place the whole of the front. The house had been built many, many years before, and it was a curious wild place both within and without, though immensely large. The way up to the door of the principal hall was by a double flight of stone steps, surmounted with huge carved balustrades. Nothing could, however, be seen from any window of the house but trees;

those which were near being cut into all sorts of unnatural forms, and those which were beyond the garden growing so thickly as entirely to shut out the rays of the sun from the ground below."

"I should like to see that place, grandmamma," said Lucy.

"You would see little, my child," replied the old lady, "of what it was seventy years ago. I am told that it is altogether changed. But if the place was gloomy and stiff without, it was worse within, where the four old ladies ordered and arranged everything. I can tell you how they passed their days. They all breakfasted either in their own dressing-rooms or in bed, being waited upon by their own maids."

"Why did they do that, grandmamma?" asked Henry.

"I will tell you, my dear," answered the old lady. "At that time, when I was a little girl, and knew those ladies, people dressed in that stiff troublesome way which you may have seen in old pictures.

"The ladies wore, in the first place, very stiff stays; and those who thought much of being smart, had them laced as tight as they could well bear. Added to these stays, they wore hoops or petticoats well stiffened with whalebone. Some of these hoops were of the form of a bell with the mouth downwards—these were the least ugly; others were made to stand out on each side from the waist, I am afraid to say how far; but those made for grand occasions were nearly as wide as your arm would be, if it were extended on one side as far as it would go. Over these hoops came the petticoats and gowns, which were made of the richest silk—for a gown in those days would have cost thirty or forty pounds. Then there was always a petticoat and a train; and these, in full dress, were trimmed with the same silk in plaits and flounces, pinked and puckered, and I know not what else. The sleeves were made short and

tight, with long lace trebled ruffles at the elbows; and there were peaked stomachers pinned with immense care to the peaked whalebone stays. It was quite a business to put on these dresses, and must have been quite a pain to walk in the high-heeled silk shoes and brilliant buckles with which they were always seen. They also wore watches, and equipages, and small lace mob caps, under which the hair was drawn up stiff and tight, and as smooth as if it had been gummed."

"Oh, I am glad I did not live then!" said Lucy, fetching a deep breath; "yet it is very pleasant to hear these stories of people who lived just before we did; and there is no harm in liking it, is there, grandmamma?"

"None in the least, my child," said grandmamma; "the persons who remember anything of those times are getting fewer and fewer every day. If young people, then, are wise, instead of always talking their own talk, as they are too apt to do, they will have a pleasure in listening to old persons, and in gathering up from them all they can tell of manners and customs, the very memories of which are now passing away. But now, Henry, my boy, you may understand why the Mistresses Vaughan always breakfasted in their own rooms; they never chose to appear but in their full dress, and were glad to get an hour or two every morning unlaced, and without their hoops.

"About noon they all came swimming and sailing down into a large saloon, where they spent the rest of their morning. It was a vast low room, with bright polished oaken floors, and with only a bit of fine carpet in the middle of it. They each brought with them a bag for knotting, and they generally sat together in such state till it was time for their airing.

"This airing was taken in a coach-and-four; and they generally went the same road and turned at the same

place every day but Sunday throughout the week. They dined at two, and drank tea at five; for though they had some visitors who came to tea, they were too high to return these visits. They finished every evening by playing at quadrille; supped at nine, and then retired to their rooms."

"What tiresome people!" said Henry; "how could they spend such lives? I would much rather live with John Trueman, and help to thatch, than have been with them."

"But how did they spend their Sundays, grandmamma?" asked Emily.

"They went to church in Reading," answered the old lady; "where they had a grand pew lined with crimson cloth. They never missed going twice; they came in their coach-and-four; they did not knot on Sundays, but I can hardly say what they did beside."

Lucy fetched a deep breath again, and grandmamma went on.

"It was to this house, and to be under the care of these ladies, that little Miss Evelyn came, the day after her father's funeral. She was nearly broken-hearted.

"The Mistresses Vaughan were not really unkind, though very slow in their feelings; so, after the funeral, they soothed the child, taking her with them from The Grove to their own house, where she afterwards always remained. But they did another unfeeling thing, without seeming to be aware of it: Evelyn's nurse had been most kind to her, but she unhappily spoke broad Berkshire, and was a plain, ordinary-looking person; so she was dismissed, with a handsome legacy left by her master, and the poor little girl was placed under the care of a sort of upper servant called Harris. Harris was charged never to use any but the most genteel language in her presence,

and to treat her with the respect due to a young lady who was already in possession of a vast property, though under guardians.

"Three handsome rooms in one wing of the house on the first floor were given to the little lady and Harris; and an inferior female servant was provided to wait upon them in private, and a footman to attend the young lady in public. It was not the custom for young children then to dine with the family; the only meal, therefore, which Evelyn took with her aunts was the tea, when she saw all the company who ever visited them; her breakfast and dinner were served up in her own rooms.

"She was required to come down at noon, and to go down and salute her aunts and ask their blessing; and whenever any one of them declined the daily airing, she was invited to take the vacant place as a great treat.

"Her education was begun by Harris, who taught her to read, to use her needle, and to speak genteelly; it was afterwards carried on by masters from Reading, for her aunts had no sort of idea of that kind of education which can only be carried on by intellectual company and teachers. Harris was told that no expense would be spared for Miss Vaughan; that her dress must be of the first price and fashion; that if she desired toys she was to have them, and as many gift-books as St. Paul's Church-yard supplied.

"As to her religious duties, Harris was to see that she was always very well dressed, and in good time to go to Church with her aunts; that she was taught her Catechism; and that she read a portion every day of some good book; one of the old ladies recommending the Whole Duty of Man, another Nelson's Fasts and Festivals, a third Boston's Fourfold State, whilst the fourth, merely, it is to be feared, in opposition to her sisters, remarked, half

aside to Harris, that all the books above mentioned were very good, to be sure, but too hard for a child, and therefore that the Bible itself might, she thought, answer as well, till Miss Vaughan could manage hard words. As Harris herself had no particular relish for any of the books mentioned, she fixed upon the Bible as being the easiest, and moreover being divided into shorter sections than the other three.

"So Evelyn was to have everything that a child could wish for that could be got with money; and though Harris minded to the letter every order that was given her, yet she thought only of serving herself in all she did. In private with the child she laid praises and flattery upon her as thick as honey in a full honeycomb; she never checked her in anything she desired, so long as she did nothing which might displease her aunts, should it come to their knowledge; she scarcely ever dressed her without praising her beauty, or gave her a lesson without telling her how quick and clever she was. She talked to her of the fine fortune she would come into when she was of age; of her mamma's jewels, in which she was to shine; of the fine family houses; and, in short, of everything which could raise her pride; and there was not a servant about the house who did not address the little girl as if she had not been made of the same flesh and blood as other people."

"Poor little girl!" said Lucy.

"I am sorry for her," remarked Emily; "she must have been quite spoiled by all these things."

"We shall see," continued the old lady. "It was in a very curious way that I, many years afterwards, learned many particulars of the ways and character of this little girl in her very early years, before I was personally acquainted with her. After my eldest son was born, being in want of a nursemaid, Fanny, the very servant

who had waited on Miss Evelyn and Mrs. Harris, offered herself; and as I had known her well and loved her much, though I had lost sight of her for some years, I most gladly engaged her. She told me many things of Mrs. Harris and her little lady, which I never could have known otherwise. She said that Mrs. Harris was so much puzzled at the ways of the little girl, that she used often to speak of it to Fanny.

"'Miss Evelyn,' she said one day, 'is the queerest little thing I ever met with; I don't know where her thoughts are. When I am dressing her to go down to tea in the saloon, and putting on her nice smart dresses, and telling her to look in the glass and see how pretty she is—and to be sure she is as pretty as any waxwork—she either does not answer at all, as if she did not hear me, or has some out-of-the-way question to ask about her lamb, or some bird she has seen, or the clouds, or the moon, or some other random stuff; there is no fixing her to any sense.'

"'Perhaps, Mrs. Harris,' Fanny said, 'she has heard your praises, and those of other people, till she is tired of them.'

"'Pish!' answered Mrs. Harris; 'did you ever hear of anyone ever being tired of their own praises? The more they hear of them the more they crave them; but this child has not sense enough to listen to them. Do you know what it is for a person to have their wits a wool-gathering? Depend on it that Miss Vaughan, with all her riches and all her prettiness, is a very dull child; but it is not my business to say as much as that to the ladies; they will find it out by-and-by, that is sure. But it is a bad look-out for you and me, Fanny, with such chances as we have; for if Miss Evelyn was like other young ladies, we might be sure to make our fortune by her. I have known several people in my condition get such a hold on

the hearts of children of high condition, like Miss Vaughan, that they never could do without them in no way, in their after lives. But I don't see that we get on at all with this stupid little thing; though for the life of me I cannot tell what the child's head is running upon. She never opens out to me, or asks a question, unless it is about some of the dumb animals, or the flowers in the garden, and the trees in the wood.'

"I cannot tell what the child's head is running on."—[Page 433].

"'Or the moon or the clouds,' Fanny added. 'She asked me the other day who lived in the moon, and whether dead people went there.'

"It is very clear, from the conversation between Mrs. Harris and Fanny, that Evelyn passed for a dull child, and had very little to say, because she had not found anyone since she had left The Grove who would talk to her in her own way and draw out her young ideas, and encourage her to tell her thoughts. Her father had encouraged her to talk to him in her own way whilst he was spared to her; and her nurse had been the kindest, best of foster-mothers. Though, to be sure, she did speak broad Berkshire, and though she was what learned people would call an ignorant woman, nurse had the strongest desire to do right, for she had been made to feel that God was the friend of His creatures. She felt sure that He would help those who behaved well; and she did what she could to teach what she knew to her little girl. She told her that she must be good, and not proud, or she would never go to the happy world where angels are. She told her also, that though her mother was gone into another world, she knew and was sorry when she was naughty.

"Nurse was a particularly generous woman, and was always teaching the little lady to give things away; and she took great pains to make her civil to everybody, whether high or low.

"Nurse had loved to be much out of doors, and Evelyn loved it as much; and the two together used to ramble all about the place, into the fields and yards where animals were kept, and into the groves and gardens to watch the birds and butterflies, and to talk to the gardeners and the old women who weeded the walks. Nurse was always reminding Evelyn to take something out with her to give away; if it was nothing else than a roll or a few lumps of sugar from breakfast; for Evelyn's mother, just before her death, had said to her nurse:

"'My child may be very rich, teach her to think of the wants of the poor, and to give away.'

"But the more happy Evelyn had been with her nurse, the more sad she was with Harris. There was not anything which Harris talked of that the little girl cared for, and the consequence was that she passed for being very dull; because when Harris was talking of one set of things, she was thinking of something very different.

"When Harris wanted her to admire herself in her new frocks, when she was dressed to go down to tea, or at any other time, she was wishing to have her pinafore on, or that she might run down to her lamb, which fed in a square yard covered with grass, where the maids dried the clothes.

"Mr. Vaughan had died somewhat suddenly in the spring; the lamb was then only six weeks old. Evelyn came to live with her aunts immediately after the funeral; and the summer passed away without anything very particular happening.

"It was Harris's plan to indulge Evelyn as much as she possibly could, though she did not like the child; and therefore, when she asked to go out, which, by her goodwill, would have been every hour of the day, she went with her. When she went to take anything to her lamb,

and to stroke it, or to hang flowers about its neck, Harris stood by her. But if Harris did not like Evelyn, she hated her pet still more; she pointed out to Evelyn that there were young horns budding on its brow; that it was getting big and coarse, and, like other sheep, dirty; and said that it would soon be too big for a pretty young lady like Miss Vaughan to stroke and kiss.

"'But I must kiss it,' answered Evelyn, 'because I got poor papa once to kiss it; and I always kiss it in the very same place, just above its eyes, Harris—exactly there.'

"'Just between where the horns are coming, Miss Vaughan,' said Harris; 'some day, by-and-by, it will knock you down when you are kissing it, and perhaps butt you with its horns, till it kills you.'

"That same day Mrs. Harris told Fanny that she would take good care that Miss Vaughan's disagreeable pet should be put beyond her reach before very long—and, indeed, one fine morning, when Evelyn went down to the yard, the lamb was missing. There was much crying on the part of the little girl, and much bitter lamentation but her footman, having been told what to say by Harris, said to his little lady, that the young ram had got tired of the drying-yard, and had gone out into the woods to look for fresh grass and running water, and that he was somewhere in the park.

"'And is he happy?' asked Evelyn.

"'Very happy,' answered the footman; 'so don't cry about him, Miss.'

"'I will go and see if I can find him,' said the child.

"'You had better not go near him now,' said Mrs. Harris; 'when pet lambs become large sheep they often turn most savage on those who were most kind to them.'

"'He knew me yesterday,' replied the child, 'and let

me stroke him. Would he forget me in one day?' and she burst into fresh tears."

"I am sorry for her," said Henry, rubbing the sleeve of his pinafore across his eyes.

"And there was one person who heard her," said grandmamma, "who was sorry for her also, and that was Fanny; but she did not dare to say anything because of Mrs. Harris."

The old lady then went on:

"When the summer was past, and the weather less pleasant, Mrs. Harris pretended to have a pain in her face, and instead of going out always with Evelyn, she sent Fanny.

"This was a pleasant change for the little lady. She found Fanny much more agreeable to her. And Fanny was surprised to find how Evelyn opened out to her during their walks.

"For several days Evelyn led Fanny about the groves and over the lawns of the park to look for the lamb. They could not find him, but the child still fancied that he was somewhere in the park.

"One morning Evelyn proposed that they should try the avenue, and look for the lamb in that direction. Fanny had no notion of contradicting Evelyn—indeed Harris had told her to keep her in good humour, lest she should tell her aunts that Harris seldom walked with her; so that way they went. They had scarcely got to one end of the long row of trees when they saw a plain-dressed woman coming to meet them from the other. Evelyn uttered a joyful cry, and began to run towards her; Fanny ran, too, but the little girl quite outstripped her.

"It was nurse who was coming; she had been forbidden the house; but she had often come to the lodge, and often walked a part of the way along the avenue, if it were only for a chance of seeing her child.

"Nurse was a widow, and had only one child living. He had a good situation in the school on the London road, which anyone may see at the entrance of the town. So nurse then lived alone, in a small house on that road.

"How joyful was the meeting between Evelyn and her nurse! how eagerly did the little girl rush into those arms which had been the cradle of her happy infancy!

"After the first moments of joy were past, they sat down on a fallen and withered bough, between the rows of trees, and talked long and long together; so long, that Evelyn was almost too late to be taken to her aunts at noon. They talked of many things; and the good nurse forgot not to remind Evelyn of what she had taught her by the desire of her mother; especially to remember to give; to be civil to all persons; to speak when spoken to; to say her prayers; and not to be proud and haughty.

"The nurse also took care to tell Evelyn, that when she talked of giving, she wanted nothing herself, being in her way quite rich, through the goodness of Mr. Vaughan.

"'So don't give me anything, my precious child, but your love.'

"This meeting with nurse served the purpose of keeping alive all the simple and best feelings of Evelyn. The little one told her how her lamb had left her, and that they had been looking for it that very morning.

"'Well, my dear,' said the nurse, 'the poor creature is happier in the fields, and with its own kind, than you can make it; and if you are not too young to understand me, I would advise you to learn, from this loss of your lamb, henceforth not to give your heart and your time to dumb creatures, to which you can do little good, but to your own fellow-creatures, that you may help. Now, to make what I say plain, there is, at this very time, at the lodge, a pretty orphan boy, maybe two years of age, who has been

taken in for a week or so by Mrs. Simpson, at the lodge. She means to keep him till the parish can put him somewhere, for she cannot undertake to keep him without more pay than the parish will give, having a sick husband, who is a heavy burden upon her. Now, if you have—as I know you have—the means, why not help her to keep this little boy? Why not get some warm comfortable clothing for him, with your aunts' leave, and so help him forward till he wants schooling, and then provide for that?'

"'I will do it, nurse; I will do it,' answered Evelyn.

"'God bless you, my lamb!' said nurse.

"And soon after this nurse and Evelyn parted; but they both cried bitterly, as Fanny told me.

"The name of the baby at the lodge was Francis Barr; and, as Fanny said, he was a most lovely boy, with golden hair curling about his sweet face.

"Evelyn had only to mention him to her aunts, and they immediately ordered their steward to pay so many shillings a week to Mrs. Simpson, and to give another sum for his clothing; and this was, they said, to be done in the name of Miss Vaughan.

"They would have done better if they had let Evelyn look a little after the clothes, and, indeed, let her help to make them; but such was not their way; perhaps they thought Miss Vaughan too grand to help the poor with her own hands. But it is always easier for the rich to order money to be paid than to work with their own hands.

"Mrs. Harris was told of the meeting with the nurse by Evelyn herself; but the little girl did not tell her all that nurse had said, not from cunning, but because she was not in the habit of talking to Harris. She could not have told why she did not; but we all know that there are some people whom we never feel inclined to talk to, and we hardly know why.

"Mrs. Harris was, however, jealous of nurse, and thinking to put her out of her young lady's head, she used the liberty allowed her, and went one day to Reading, and bought a number of toys and gilt books."

"I wonder what they were, grandmamma," said Henry.

"Fanny did not tell me," answered the old lady, "and I had all this part of the story from Fanny.

"Evelyn, she said, was pleased with them when they came, and put them all in a row on a side-table in her sitting-room, and changed their places several times, and opened the books and tried to read them; but she was hardly forward enough to make them out with pleasure. However, she picked a few out from the rest, and told Fanny to put them in her pocket; for her plan was, that Fanny was to read them to her when they went out, which was done.

"The day after she had picked out the books, she asked for some paper and a pen and ink, and set herself to write, by copying printed letters. It was well she was in black, as she inked herself well before she had finished her letter.

"Harris did not ask her what she was doing; that was not her way; but she looked at what she had written when it was done, and found it was a letter to nurse, blotted and scrawled, and hard to be read. When this letter was finished, the child asked Fanny for some brown paper, and in this she packed most of the toys and the letter, and having sent for her footman, she told him to get a horse and ride to nurse's and give her the parcel and the letter.

"The man looked at Mrs. Harris, as doubting whether he was to obey. Mrs. Harris was sewing, and looked like thunder.

"'Miss Vaughan,' she said, 'did I hear aright? Is that parcel to be taken to nurse's?'

"'Yes, Harris,' answered Evelyn; 'those things are mine, and I am going to send them to nurse.'

"'Upon my word, Miss Vaughan, you have chosen a very proper present for the old woman; she will be vastly amused with all those pretty things.'

"This speech was made in much bitterness, and meant the very contrary to what the words expressed; but Evelyn thought she meant what she said, and she answered:

"'Yes, Harris, nurse will be so much pleased; I think she will put the things in a row on her chimney-piece.'

"Harris, as Fanny told me, did not answer again immediately, but sat with her head stooped over her work, whilst Evelyn repeated her directions to Richard; and Richard looked for his orders to Mrs. Harris.

"'Don't you hear what Miss Vaughan says, Richard?' she at length said, as she looked up with very red cheeks and flashing eyes; 'what do you stand gaping there for? Don't you know that all Miss Vaughan's orders are to be obeyed? Make haste and carry the parcel.'

"'And tell nurse to read my letter,' said Evelyn; 'and to send me word if she has read it; she will be so glad, I know.'

"As soon as Richard was gone, Harris called Evelyn to her, and, lifting her on her knee, she began to kiss and praise her, and to coax her, but not in the old way by telling her of her beauty and her grandeur, but by flattering her about her kindness and her gratitude to nurse.

"'I love nurse, Harris,' answered Evelyn.

"'And she deserves it too, Miss Vaughan,' replied Harris; 'she took care of you when you could not have told if you were ill-used. Little ladies should always remember those who were kind to them in their helpless years. Come now, tell me what nurse said to you when

you saw her last. I am sure she would tell you nothing but what was very good.'

"'She told me,' said Evelyn, 'about my mamma being an angel; and she told me that if I was good, and not selfish, and gave things away, that I should go to heaven too; I should then, she said, be like a lamb living under the care of a good shepherd.'

"Harris, on hearing this, as Fanny said, looked about her in that sort of wondering way which people use when they are thoroughly surprised; but it being very near twelve at noon, she had no time to carry on the discourse further then. Evelyn's frock required to be changed, and her hair put in order; and then, as the custom was, Mrs. Harris had to lead the child into the saloon to make her curtsey, and leave her till the bell rang to recall her.

"When Harris had left the child with her aunts, she came up again to her own apartments. She came with her mouth open, being all impatience to let out her thoughts to Fanny.

"'Who would have guessed,' said she, 'that the wind blew from that quarter, Fanny? and here I have been beating about and about to find out the child, and trying to get at her in every way I could think of, all the while missing the right one.'

"'What do you mean, Mrs. Harris?' said Fanny.

"'What do I mean?' answered Harris; 'why, how stupid you are, girl! have I not been trying to get to the child's heart every day these six months, by indulging her, and petting her, and talking to her of her pretty face and fine expectations, and all that? and has she not all along seemed to care as little for what I said as she would for the sound of rustling leaves?'

"'Will you deny that it is very true?' answered Fanny;

'I think she has heard of her grandeur and those things, till they are no news to her.'

"'Maybe so,' answered Harris; 'but I never yet met with the person, young or old, who could be tired out with their own praises, however they may pretend.'

"'I was never much tired in that way,' answered Fanny.

"'Maybe not,' said Mrs. Harris; 'what was anyone to get by honeying one like you? Well, but to return to this child. I did set her down to be none of the sharpest; but for once I think I was mistaken. It is not often that I am; but I have got a little light now; I shall get on better from this day forward, or I am much mistaken.'

"'What light is it?' said Fanny.

"'Why, don't you see,' answered Harris, 'that young as Miss Evelyn is, that old nurse has managed to fill her head with notions about death, and heaven, and being charitable, and giving away; and that the child's head runs much, for such a child, on these things?'

"'I cannot wonder at it,' answered Fanny, 'when one thinks how much the poor orphan has heard and seen of death.'

"'And who has not heard and seen much of death, Fanny?' answered Mrs. Harris: 'but for all that we must live and make our way in life.'

"Then, as if she thought that she might just as well refrain from opening herself any more to Fanny, she sent her away on some errand, and there the discourse ended. But not so the reflections of the young servant on what she had said; she had let out enough to make her quite understand a very great change, which took place from that day, in the behaviour of Harris to Evelyn.

"She never spoke to her again about her beauty and riches; she never praised her on these accounts; but she

constantly spoke of her goodness in giving away, of her civility and courtesy, of her being so humble, of the very great merit of these things, and of the certainty that these things would make her an angel in glory."

"Oh, the cunning, wicked woman!" cried Henry.

"Was not this sort of flattery more dangerous, grandmamma, than the other?" asked Lucy.

But Emily said nothing; for Emily's besetting sin was vanity, and she felt that she should have been more hurt by the praises of her beauty than of her goodness.

"By this new plan Harris gained more on Evelyn," continued grandmamma, "than she had done by the first, and the child, as time went on, became more attached to her.

"Two years passed away after this affair of sending the toys to nurse, without many changes. Nurse was not allowed to see Evelyn again, though the little lady often sent her a note, and some little remembrance to nurse's son. Masters came from Reading to carry on Miss Vaughan's education; and she proved to be docile and industrious. She still kept up her love of being out of doors; and being of a friendly temper, she often visited the cottages close about, and took little presents, which caused the poor people to flatter her upon her goodness, as much as Harris did. She had no pet animal after she had lost her lamb; but she became very fond of Francis Barr, and often walked with Fanny to see him. He soon learned to know her, and to give her very sweet smiles in return for all her kindness; and when he could walk by himself, he always hastened to meet her.

"He was nearly six years younger than Evelyn, and was, therefore, not much more than four during the summer in which she was ten.

"In the early part of that summer she used to go with Fanny most days to the lodge, to teach little Francis his

letters, and talk to him about God; and they used to hear him say his prayers. Evelyn loved him very much, and Harris praised her before every one for her goodness to this poor orphan.

"It would have been strange if all this dangerous flattery, together with the pleasure the dear child had in bestowing kindnesses, which, after all, cost her but little, had not so worked on her mind as to make her vain and self-satisfied.

"But her heavenly Father, who had guided her so far, was not going to leave her uncared for now. He who had begun the work with her was not going to leave it imperfect.

"I am now come nearly to what I may call the end of the first part of my story, and to the end of the young, and sunny, and careless days of the life of dear Evelyn Vaughan.

"These careless days, these days of young and comparatively thoughtless happiness, were suddenly finished in a very sad and awful way.

"I will not enter into many particulars of that affair, because it will give you pain. In a few words it was this: Late one evening, in the summer, little Francis Barr was playing in the road, when a carriage, coming along at a full gallop, the horses having taken fright and thrown the postillion, came suddenly upon the poor child, knocked him down, and killed him on the spot. There was no time to send the news to the great house; and, as it happened, Evelyn and Fanny went the next morning, before breakfast, to give the little boy his lesson. When arrived at the lodge, they found the door open and no one within. Mrs. Simpson had just gone into the garden to fetch more flowers to lay over the little boy. Not seeing anyone in the kitchen, they walked into the parlour, and

there poor Evelyn saw her little loved one cold, yet beautiful, in death, having one small hand closed upon a lily, and the other on a rose.

"Evelyn could not mistake the aspect of death; she uttered a wild shriek, and fell senseless to the floor. She was carried home, but she was very ill for many days; and I may truly say never perfectly recovered from that time.

"But now, my dear children," added grandmamma, "I begin to feel tired, and have only finished half my story; if all is well, we will come here to-morrow, and then I shall hope to finish it."

"I wish it was to-morrow," said Henry: and his sisters joined in the wish.

"To hang flowers round its neck."—[Page 435].

---

Grandmamma's History of Evelyn Vaughan. Part II.

When they were all seated, the next day, in the shade of Henry's arbour, grandmamma began her story without more delay.

"I am now," she said, "come to the time when I became acquainted with Evelyn Vaughan myself."

"I was left early without parents, my dear children; for my father died when I was a baby, and my mother when I was ten years of age. I was sent, after her death, being of course in deep mourning, to the school kept in the old Abbey at Reading, and there was then a very full school, above sixty girls. It was a large old house, added to a gateway which was older still; and it was called The Abbey, because it lay within the grounds of the ancient monastery, the ruins of which still remain, the gateway itself being a part of this very ancient establishment."

"The school was kept by certain middle-aged unmarried sisters; and we had many teachers, and among these a Miss Latournelle, who taught us English after a fashion,

and presided over our clothes. I was under her care, and slept in her room, which was one of those in the gateway; and though she was always scolding me about some untidiness, she was very kind to me. She was young then, but always in my eyes looked old, having a limping gait, and a very ordinary person.

"I cannot say what we were taught in that house beyond a few French phrases and much needlework. I was not there many years, but my school-days passed happily, for we were not exhausted with our learning, which in these days often destroys the spirit of children. We spent much time in the old and pleasant garden; and I had several dear friends, all of whom are now dead.

"The first time that I saw Miss Evelyn was on the first Sunday I went to church with the school. We went to St. Lawrence's, which is near The Abbey, and we sat in the gallery, from which we had a full view of the pew then occupied by the Vaughans. They always came there, though not the nearest church, because they could not please themselves in seats in any other church in the town, and regularly came in their coach-and-four, and a grand footman went before them to open the door. Their pew was square and lined with crimson, and they always came rustling in, and making a knocking sound with their high heels on the pavement; they walked according to their ages, with this difference only, that the eldest Mistress Vaughan present always brought Evelyn in her hand.

"We sat in the gallery just opposite to this pew, and I was in the first row; and as there was no teacher nor governess near us, I could whisper to the little girls near me about these ladies. 'Don't you know,' my next neighbour in the pew answered, 'that those are the Mistresses Vaughan, who live in the house beyond the lodges on the

Bath road; and that little one is Miss Vaughan, and she will have the largest fortune of any lady

in England—and see how beautifully she is dressed?' We could not see her face, as she stood, but we could see her fine clothes."

"Do tell us how she was dressed, grandmamma," said Emily.

"She wore a pink silk slip, with small violet flowers, or spots, and a laced apron, with a bonnet and tippet of violet silk. Oh, we did admire it! If she had not a hoop, her skirts were well stiffened with whalebone."

"How curious!" said Lucy. "She must have looked like a little old woman."

"The delicate fairness of her neck, and her lovely auburn curls, prevented that mistake, Lucy," replied grandmamma; "and then her way of moving, and her easy, child-like manner, showed her youth, if nothing else would have done so.

"I had heard of Miss Evelyn before, but I had never seen her so near; and all the rest of that day I could think and talk of nothing but Miss Vaughan; and how I did long for a pink slip with violet spots.

"The Sunday on which I saw Miss Vaughan for the first time at church was the first day of that week in which little Francis Barr was killed.

"We did not see her again for many weeks. We were told of the sad accident, and of the severe illness of Evelyn which followed; and we all entered into the feelings of the little lady with much warmth.

"It was late in the autumn when she appeared again at church; but, though we did not see her face, we could observe that she sat very still, and seemed once, whilst the psalm was being sung, to be crying, for she stooped her head, and had her handkerchief to her eyes. We were very sorry again for her, but our French teacher, when we

came home, said, 'Let her weep; she will console herself presently.'

"It was, maybe, ten days after we had seen Miss Evelyn the second time at church, as some of us were sitting, on the eve of a half-holiday, on a locker in a window of the old gateway, that we saw the coach-and-four, with the Vaughan liveries, wheeling along the green open space before The Abbey gate; half a dozen of us at least were standing the next minute on the locker to see this wonder better.

"Nearer and nearer came the carriage, with the horses' heads as if they were a-going through the arch; and when we were expecting to hear the rolling of the wheels beneath our feet, the carriage suddenly stopped right in front of the garden-gate.

"Next came loud knockings and ringings without, and the running of many feet within the house, one calling to another, to tell that the Mistresses Vaughan were come, and had asked to see our governess.

"We strained our necks to see, if we could, the ladies get out, but we were too directly above them to get a good view; and if we could, we were not allowed, for our French teacher came up, and made us all get down from the locker, shutting the window which we had opened, and saying a great deal about 'politesse' and the great vulgarity of peeping.

"The house was as still as the mice in the old wainscot when they smelt Miss Latournelle's cat, whilst the ladies were in the parlour, for our teachers insisted on our being quiet; but as soon as we saw the coach bowling away, we all began to chatter, and to speak our thoughts concerning the occasion of this visit, which was considered a very great honour by our governesses."

"Did the Mistresses Vaughan come to speak about

putting Evelyn to your school, grandmamma?" asked Emily.

"Not exactly so, my dear," replied the old lady; "I will tell you what they came for. Poor Evelyn had never recovered her quiet, happy spirits since the fright and the shock of her little favourite's death. Her mother had had a very delicate constitution, and had died early of consumption. Perhaps Evelyn had inherited the tendency to consumption from her mother, though neither her aunts nor Mrs. Harris had thought her otherwise than a strong child till after her long illness.

"After she recovered from this illness, however—or rather seemed to be recovered—her spirits were quite gone; and she was always crying, often talking of death and dying, and brooding over sad things. When the family physician who attended her was told how it was, he advised that she should go to school, and mix with other children, and he recommended The Abbey.

"The Mistresses Vaughan thought his advice good, so far as that Evelyn might be the better for the company of other children. But they said that no Miss Vaughan had ever been brought up at a school, for there were sure to be some girls of low birth, and that they could not think of their niece being herded with low people.

"After a long discussion, however, the old ladies yielded so far to the opinion of the physician, that they determined to ask our governess to permit Miss Vaughan to come to them every dancing day, and to join in the dancing with the other girls.

"It was to ask this favour that the four old ladies came to the Abbey; and it was then settled that Miss Vaughan was to come on every Friday evening to dance with us, and to take her tea in the parlour with the mistress.

"This high honour was made known through the house

immediately after the ladies were gone. Miss Evelyn was to be brought the first time by her aunts, and afterwards by Mrs. Harris; and she was to come the very next Friday.

"From that day, which was Wednesday, until the Friday afternoon, what a bustle were all in; what trimming, and plaiting, and renewing, and making anew, went forward! I was in deep mourning; and as Miss Latournelle kept my best bombazine, and crapes, and my round black cap, in her own press, I had nothing to think of; but our governess insisted that all the other young ladies should have new caps on the occasion; and as these were to be made in the house, there was enough to do.

"I could smile to think of the caps we wore at that time; our common caps fitted the head exactly, and were precisely in the shape of bowls. They were commonly made of what is called Norwich quilt, such as we now see many bed-quilts made of, with a little narrow plaiting round the edge. My common black caps were made of silk quilted in the same way. Our best caps were of the same form: the foundation being of coloured silk or satin, with gauze puffed over it, and in each puff either a flower or a bit of ribbon, finished off to the fancy, with a plaited border of gauze, and larger bunches of flowers peaked over each ear."

"Oh, grandmamma!" cried Emily, "how strange! Did not the children look very odd then?"

"The eye was used to the fashion," said the old lady; "there is no fashion, however monstrous, to which the eye does not become used in a little while.

"By the time that all the caps were made, and all the artificial roses, and lilacs, and pansies duly disposed, it was time to dress. You have never been at school, or you would know what a bustle there is to get all the little misses ready on a dancing day.

"What a bustle there is to get ready on a dancing day."—[Page 453].

"It was time to light the candles long before Miss

Latournelle mustered us and led us down into the dancing-room. This was a long, low room, having a parlour at one end of it, and at the other a kind of hall, from which sprang a wide staircase, leading to the rooms over the gateway; the balustrades of the staircase still showed some remains of gilding.

"We were ranged on forms raised one above another, at the lowest end of the room, and our master was strutting about the floor, now and then giving us a flourish on his kit, when our youngest governess put her head in at the door, and said:

"'Ladies, are you all ready? You must rise and curtsey low when the company appears, and then sink quietly into your places.'

"She then retreated; and a minute afterwards the door from the parlour was opened, and our eldest governess appeared ushering in the four Mistresses Vaughan, followed by other visitors invited for this grand occasion. There was awful knocking of heels and rustling of long silk trains; and every person looked solemn and very upright.

"Miss Anne Vaughan, who came in first, led her niece in her hand, and went sweeping round with her to the principal chair, for there was a circle of chairs set for the company. When she had placed the little lady at her right hand, and when the rest of the company were seated, we on the forms had full leisure to look at this much envied object. There was not one amongst us who would not have gladly changed places with the little lady.

"Evelyn Vaughan was an uncommonly beautiful girl; she was then nearly eleven years of age, and was taller than most children of her age, for she had shot up rapidly during her illness. Her complexion was too beautiful, too white, and too transparent; but she wanted not a soft pink bloom in her cheeks, and her lips were of a deep coral.

She had an oval face and lovely features; her eyes were bright, though particularly soft and mild; her hair of rich auburn, hanging in bright, natural ringlets; whilst even her stiff dress and formal cap could not spoil the grace and ease of her air.

"Indeed, persons always accustomed to be highly dressed are not so put out of their way by it as those who are only thus dressed on high occasions; and dressed she was in a rich silk, with much lace, with a chain of gold and stud of jewels, silken shoes, and artificial flowers. We on the forms thought that we had never seen anything so grand in our whole lives, nor any person so pretty, nor any creature so to be envied.

"The ladies only stayed to see a few of our best dancers show forth in minuets before tea, and then they withdrew: and as the dancing-master, who had always taught Miss Vaughan, was invited to join the tea-party, we went into the schoolroom to our suppers, and to talk over what we had seen. After a little while, we all returned to the dancing-room to be ready for the company, who soon appeared again.

"We were then called up, and arranged to dance cotillons, and whilst we were standing waiting for the order to take our places, we saw our master go bowing up to Evelyn, to ask her to join our party. I saw her smile then for the first time, and I never had seen a sweeter smile; it seemed to light up her whole face. She consented to dance, and being asked if she would like any particular partner, she instantly answered:

"'That young lady in black, sir, if you please.'

"There was but one in black, and that was myself. The next moment I was called, and told that Miss Vaughan had done me the honour to choose me for a partner; and it was whispered in my ear by my governess, when she

led me up, that I must not forget my manners, and by no means take any liberty with Miss Vaughan. This admonition served only to make me more awkward than I might have been if it had not been given to me.

"Evelyn had chosen me because she had heard it said in the parlour that the little girl in black was in mourning for the last of her parents. And I had not begun the second cotillon with her before she told me that she had chosen me for a partner because, like herself, I had no father or mother.

"After this I was shy no longer; I talked to her about my mother, and burst into tears when so doing, for my sorrows were fresh.

"Evelyn soon made herself acquainted with my name—Mary Reynolds—and we found out that we had been born the same year; and she said that it was very odd that she should have chosen a partner who was of her own age.

"I remember no more of that evening; but the next Friday Miss Vaughan came again, accompanied by Mrs. Harris.

"Harris played the great lady quite as well as the Mistresses Vaughan had done, acting in their natural characters; as she always, at home, took her meals with her young lady when in their own rooms, she was invited to tea in the parlour; and to please Evelyn, I was also asked, for I had been again chosen as her partner.

"Our friendship was growing quickly; it was impossible to love Miss Vaughan a little, if one loved her at all. She was the sweetest, humblest child I had ever known; and she talked of things which, although I did not understand them, greatly excited my interest.

"It was in October that Evelyn first came to dance at the Abbey, and she came every Friday till the holidays. We thought she looked very unwell the last time she came;

and she said she was sorry that some weeks would pass before she saw me again; she repeated the same to Mrs. Harris.

"All the other children went home for Christmas, but I had no home to go to; and I saw them depart with much sorrow, and was crying to find myself alone, having watched the last of my school-fellows going out with her mother through the garden-gate, when Miss Latournelle came up all in a hurry.

"'Miss Reynolds,' she said, 'what do you think? You were born, surely, with a silver spoon in your mouth. But there is a letter come, and you are to go from church on Christmas Day in the coach to spend the holidays with Miss Vaughan. It is all settled; and you are to have a new slip, and crape tucker and apron, and a best black cap. Come, come, we must look up your things, and we have only two days for it; come away, fetch your thimble; and don't let me see any idleness.'

"The kind teacher was as pleased for me as I was for myself; though she drove me about the next two days, as if I had been her slave.

"When I found myself in the coach, on Christmas Day, all alone, and driving away with four horses to the great house at the end of the avenue, I really did not know what to make of myself. I tried all the four corners of the coach, looked out at every window, nodded to one or two schoolfellows I saw walking in the streets, and made myself as silly as the daw in borrowed feathers."

The children laughed, and the old lady went on:

"When I got to the lodge and the avenue, however, I became more thoughtful and steady. Even in that short drive, the idea of riding in a coach-and-four was losing some of its freshness, and deeper thoughts had come. I was a little put out, too, at the sight of the fine man-servant who opened the doors for me and led me upstairs.

The moment I entered Miss Evelyn's sitting-room, she ran up to me, and put her arms around my neck, kissing me several times.

"'Dear, dear Mary,' she said, 'how very glad I am to see you! I shall be so happy! I have got a cough; I am not to go out till warm weather comes; and it is so sad to be shut up and see nothing but the trees waving, and hear nothing but the wind whistling and humming. But now you are come I shall be so happy!'

"'I hope you will, Miss Vaughan,' said Mrs. Harris; 'and that your head will not always be running, as it has been lately, upon all manner of dismal things. Miss Reynolds, you must do your best to amuse Miss Evelyn; you must tell her all the news of the school, and the little misses; I dare say you can tell her many pretty stories.'

"Evelyn did not answer Harris, though she gave her a look with more scorn in it than I had ever seen her give before.

"Miss Vaughan had shown symptoms of great weakness in the chest—that is, Henry, in the part where people breathe. She had been directed by the physician to be kept, for some weeks to come, in her own rooms; and when this order was given, she had begged to have me with her.

"I believe that I was a comfort to her, and a relief to Harris; and Fanny, also, rejoiced to see me. I was with Evelyn several weeks, and the days passed pleasantly. I had every indulgence, and the use of all sorts of toys; dolls I had partly put aside; but there were books, and pictures, and puzzles; and when I went back to school I was loaded with them; not only for myself, but for my schoolfellows.

"Evelyn seemed to be pleased to see me delighted with them, but she had no pleasure in them herself, any more than I have now; and once, when Harris said: 'Come,

Miss Vaughan, why can't you play with these things as Miss Reynolds does?' she answered: 'Ah, Harris! what have I to do with these? I know what is coming.'

"'What is it?' I inquired.

"'Don't ask her, Miss Reynolds,' said Harris hastily; 'Miss Vaughan knows that she should not talk of these things.'

"'Oh, let me talk of them, and then I shall be more easy!' Evelyn answered. 'It is because I must not that I am so unhappy. Why have you put away my Bible and the other good books?'

"'Because your aunts and the doctors say you read them till you have made yourself quite melancholy, Miss Vaughan; and so they have been taken away, but not by me. I have not got them. You must not blame me for what others have done; you know my foolish fondness, and that I can deny you nothing in my power to grant.'

"We had two or three conversations of this kind; but Harris watched us so closely, that Miss Vaughan never had an opportunity of talking to me by ourselves; so that we never renewed, during those holidays, the subjects we had sometimes talked of at the Abbey.

"I stayed at that time about six weeks with Miss Vaughan; and as she appeared to be much better and more cheerful, I was sent back to school, with a promise from my governesses that, if Miss Vaughan desired it, I was to go to her again at the shortest notice.

"The spring that year was early, and some of the days in March were so fine, that the Mistresses Vaughan presumed to take their niece out in the coach without medical advice. Deeply and long did the old ladies lament their imprudence; but probably this affliction was the first which ever really caused them to feel.

"About six days after the last of these airings, the coach

came to the school, bringing a request that I should be sent back in it instantly.

"Miss Vaughan had been seized with a violent inflammation in the chest, attended with dreadful spasms. She had called for poor dear Mary, as if Mary could help her; and I was told that she was in a dying state. I sobbed and cried the whole way, for where were the delights then to me of a coach-and-four? I was taken immediately up to her bedroom, for she had called again for poor dear Mary. But, oh, how shocked was I when I approached the bed! Fanny was sitting at the pillow, holding her up in her arms: she was as pale as death itself; her eyes were closed, her fair hands lay extended on the counterpane, her auburn ringlets hanging in disorder. She was enjoying a short slumber after the fatigue of acute pain, for she then breathed easily. Near the bed stood Harris, with the look of a person at once distressed and offended. Miss Vaughan had preferred, in her anguish, to be held by Fanny rather than by her. She had often suspected Evelyn of not liking her, and the truth had come out that morning during her sufferings.

"In the next room I could see the figures of the four Mistresses Vaughan, all in their morning dresses. The physician was with them; and when he saw me he arose, and came and stood by the bed.

"I know not how long it was before Evelyn opened her eyes.

"'Thank God,' she said, in a low, weak voice, 'it is gone for this time;' then added, as she saw me, 'Mary, Mary dear, don't go again. Fanny, is it you? but you will be tired. Might not nurse come, poor dear nurse?'

The physician asked Harris what the young lady said. Harris pretended not to have heard. Fanny looked to me to speak, and I said:

"'She wants her nurse, sir, her own nurse.'

"'And where does this nurse live?' he inquired.

"I told him, on the London road; I told him also her name. I spoke out boldly, though I felt the eyes of Harris upon me.

"'I know the woman,' the doctor answered: 'she is a worthy person; she must be sent for.'

"When Harris heard this she left the bedside and went to the ladies, to prevent, if possible, this sending for nurse. The reason she gave for its not being right to have the poor woman brought there was, that she was the first to put melancholy thoughts in the head of Miss Evelyn, and would be quite sure to bring the same things forward again. Mrs. Harris would have got her own way, if the physician had not insisted that Evelyn ought to see her nurse if she desired it; and he himself undertook to send for her. He had not far to send. Nurse had heard of her child's violent attack, and was no further off than the lodge.

"From the time that Evelyn had mentioned her nurse, she had lain quite still, with her eyes closed, till the worthy woman came in. At the sound of the soft step with which the nurse came forward, she opened them and saw the person she loved best on earth. A sweet bright glow arose in her cheeks, and she extended both her arms as if she would have risen to meet her.

"Though poor nurse, at the first glance, had seen death in the sweet features of her child, yet she commanded herself.

"'I am come, my love,' she said; 'and rejoice to find you easy.'

"'Yes, it is gone—the pain is gone,' replied Evelyn: 'when it comes again I shall die. I know it, nurse; but come, and never go away. Take poor Fanny's place, and lay my head there—there,' she added.

"'On my bosom,' said the nurse, 'where you used so often to sleep;' and she placed herself on the bed and raised her child so that she rested on her arm.

"At this moment Harris, whose eyes were flashing with every evil passion, brought a vial containing a draught which had been ordered.

"Evelyn took it without a word, and then, laying her sweet head on nurse's bosom, fell into a long deep sleep—long, for it lasted some hours, and during that time only nurse and I were with her; nurse holding her in her arms, and I seated at the foot of the bed.

"I had many thoughts during these hours of stillness—thoughts more deep than I had ever had before, on the vanity of earthly things and the nature of death.

"The sun was descending behind the groves when Evelyn stirred, and began to speak. I arose to my feet; she still lay with one side of her face upon the nurse's bosom—that side, when she stirred her head a little, was warm and flushed; the other cheek was pale and wan.

"'Nurse, nurse,' were the words she uttered.

"'I am here, my child,' was the good woman's answer.

"'You will not go,' said Evelyn; 'and Mary must not go, and Fanny must not go.'

"The nurse raised her a little, still supporting her, whilst she asked me to ring the bell, and gave notice that Miss Evelyn was awake and was to have some nourishment which had been ordered.

"Harris came in with something on a salver, Evelyn received it in silence, but did not forget to thank Harris, though even whilst taking it she whispered, 'Don't go, nurse.' Mrs. Harris heard the whisper, as I could see by the manner in which she went out of the room.

"I was called away just then, to take some refreshment, and for this purpose I was taken to the room of Mistress

Catherine. She was there, and had been crying bitterly; she spoke kindly to me, and said she hoped that the sight of me would be a comfort to Miss Vaughan; but she seemed to be unable to talk much.

"When I returned to Evelyn's room, I found that she had fallen again into a doze, and it was thought best for me to go to bed. I slept, by my own desire, with Fanny; but Fanny left me about midnight, to take her turn in attending the little lady.

"She died at last somewhat suddenly, and very peacefully, like one falling asleep. The last word which she was heard to utter distinctly was the name of her Saviour.

"I was present when she died, and went with her aunts to the funeral, where I cried till I was quite ill.

"A few days before her death, she had asked to be left with her Aunt Catherine, and got her to write down several things which she wished to be done after her death. It was found, when the paper written by Mistress Catherine was read, that she had remembered everyone, and desired that Harris, and Fanny, and nurse's son, should all have something very handsome. All her toys and gayest dresses, and many ornaments and books, were to be given to me: and the poor whom she had loved and visited were all remembered.

"That death was the cutting up of all the worldly prospects of the old ladies, for Evelyn was the last of that branch of the family. At the death of the youngest Mistress Vaughan, who lived to a very great age, the estates went into other hands, and The Grove was sold, and purchased by a gentleman whose son parted with it to your uncle. The very name of Vaughan is now nearly forgotten in that part of the world, excepting it may be by a few very old persons like myself."

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Farewell to the Old Home

Michaelmas was the time fixed for their all moving to The Grove, and leaving that sweet place which was the only one the children had learned to love. Mrs. Fairchild had let August pass without saying much to her children about the moving, though she and Mr. Fairchild had been busy with many settlements.

Mr. Fairchild had been at The Grove again, and come back again. He had settled that John was to have a part of the large garden under his care, and that no one was to meddle with him; and that he was to take charge of the old horse and carriage, and to go out with the children when they went abroad in it. Henry was to have leave to go to John, when he wished to work in the garden.

Mrs. Fairchild fixed on Betty to wait upon the children; she knew that they must have a maid, and she soon settled who that maid should be.

"I know Betty," she said; "and I know I may trust her with my children."

Miss Tilney was very angry when she heard of this.

"Well, to be sure," she said, "so Betty is turned into a young lady's governess; who could have thought it? How very ridiculous some people are!"

When September came, Mrs. Fairchild reminded her children how near the time was come, and that they must think of preparing to move. When Lucy and Emily heard this, which they did one morning at breakfast, they could not help shedding a few tears.

Their mother sent them out into the fresh air, saying she would have no lessons that morning, but giving no particular reason. The little girls were glad to be left to themselves, and they put on their bonnets and walked out, taking their way to the hut in the wood.

It may be supposed what they talked of; they talked of the change that was coming, and the time which was gone. They made each other cry more by trying to remember things which had happened in every place they passed through. They went as far back as the time when Mr. Fairchild used to carry Henry in his arms when they went out, and only now and then set him down to walk. They had a story belonging to almost every tree, to the brook and the bridge, to each little path, and many for the hut at the end of their walk.

In this hut they sat down and began to ask each other what neither could answer, whether it was likely they should ever come back to that dear place.

"It is papa's, we know," said Lucy; "but then he will let the house, and we don't know who will have it; people always let houses which they don't live in. He said, one day, that he should let it. But," said Lucy, with a deep sigh, "I do not think we ought to cry so much; if grandmamma sees our eyes red, and asks the reason, we shall be obliged to tell her, and then she will think we do not like going with her."

"Henry does not mind going," said Emily; "he likes it now John is to go."

They were talking in this way, and had not yet succeeded in quite stopping themselves from crying, when they thought they heard a voice from the wood on the other side of the brook. They listened again, and plainly heard these words: "Lucy! Emily! where are you?"

They came out to the mouth of the hut, and listened, but could not hear the voice again. Then there came the sound of steps, and they were frightened and ran back into the hut. The steps were heard more plainly as they pattered over the bridge, and, not a minute afterwards, who should appear before the hut but Bessy Goodriche! She was quite out of breath and all in a glow with running; her hair all in disorder, and her bonnet at the very back of her head. She could not speak for a moment, but her face was bright with joy. Lucy and Emily ran to her and kissed her, and said how she had frightened them.

"Poor little things!" she answered: "you would not do to be lost in a wood on a dark night. But I am come to tell you it is all settled, though, to be sure, you know it already; I am so glad and my aunt is so glad. No more chimneys to come down and clatter over our heads;—and then, you know, you can come whenever you like, the oftener the more welcome, and stay as long as you like, the longer the better. Aunt will have such pleasure in taking care of your poor old women—the pin-cushion and the housewife woman, I mean. But I am much afraid that I shall not make up your loss, good little things as you are, I shall never manage it; but I must try. I hope I have got the goodwill, though I have nothing else."

In this place Bessy stopped for actual want of breath.

"What is it?" said Lucy; "what do you mean, dear Bessy?"

"What is it? don't you know? How strange—no, it is not, neither; Mr. Fairchild said he should not tell you till it was settled; and so there can be no harm in telling it. And are you not delighted?—you don't look delighted. Your papa said that there could be nothing which would please you so much."

"But what is it?" asked the little girls; "how can we be delighted, when we do not know what it is?"

"Have not I told you?" asked Bessy; "I thought I told you at first. Why, we are to live in this place, and take care of it, and see that everything is kept in order; every tree, and every bench, and everything you love. How you stare!" added Bessy; "how round your eyes are! I don't mean this hut; did you think I meant that my aunt and I were to live in it, and take care of the benches?"

"The house, the house?" answered Lucy, with a cry of joy; "are you and Mrs. Goodriche to have the house and the garden; and to take care of the poor people, and the school, and the hut, and the arbour, and the benches, and our little room, and the parlour, and the roses? Oh, Bessy, Bessy, dear Bessy, now am I glad indeed! and we will come to you here, and you shall come to us there. Oh, Emily, Emily, I am so happy!"

The gentle eyes of Emily sparkled as brightly as Lucy's did, when she heard this news, though she said little; but she whispered to her sister, the next minute: "Now, Lucy, we should not have cried so much, it was not right."

Lucy answered aloud: "No, Emily, we should not; but I hope that we shall cry no more. If the whole world had been picked, we could not have found any people we like so well to live here as Mrs. Goodriche and Bessy."

"Aunt is at the house, she is come to spend the day here; and Mr. Fairchild sent me here to look for you; and we shall come in when you go out; and things are to

be left as they are now, only a few to be moved. Aunt will sell her rubbish furniture, and we are to be so tidy, and I am to have your little room and bed."

"And you will feed our poor robin," said Emily; "he has come every winter for a great many years, and he knows that window; but you must shut it after you have put out the crumbs, for fear of the cat. He knows us, and he will soon know you."

As the three girls walked back to the house, they were quite busy in telling and hearing what things were to be attended to. Lucy and Emily felt like people who have had a tight cord bound over their hearts, and that cord had been suddenly cut, and they were loose.

The three weeks which followed that day were a time of great bustle. On one evening all the children of the school came and had tea in the field behind the barn; and Mrs. Goodriche and Bessy came, that they might get acquainted with them.

Another day all the old people whom the children loved were invited to dinner; and Mrs. Goodriche came also to make their acquaintance. No one went away without some useful gift; but these meetings and partings were sad, and made some wish they were in that blessed state in which there shall be no more sorrow, nor any more tears.

Mary Bush, and nurse, and Margery, however, said that if Mr. and Mrs. Fairchild must go, they could not have chosen anyone they should have liked so well as Mrs. Goodriche.

All this bustle caused the few last days in the home of their childhood to pass more easily with the little girls; but when they rose for the last time, from that bed in which they had slept so long as they could remember, they both felt a sadness which they could not overcome.

The breakfast was to be at an early hour, but, early as

it was, Mrs. Goodriche and Bessy had come before it was ready. They were to return again to their old house for a day or two, but they wished to see the last of their dear friends before their departure. Mr. Somers also came in immediately after breakfast.

The coach from The Grove also arrived at the same time with Mr. Somers, for the horses and coachman had rested during the night in the village. Old Mrs. Fairchild always liked to be driven by the man she knew, and drawn by the horses she had often proved; and they were to travel slowly, and be three days on the road. Henry came flying in when the coach arrived; and Lucy and Emily ran up once more to their little room to cry again. Bessy followed them to comfort them, though she herself was very sad.

John Trueman, who was at the house with his wife to take care of it till Mrs. Goodriche took possession, now brought out the old horse and carriage, in which John and Betty were to travel; and there was a great deal of packing and settling before anybody got in, for there were nine persons to go. The two Mrs. Fairchilds, and the two little girls, went inside the coach; Mr. Fairchild sat with Henry in an open seat in the back; and Mrs. Johnson was to go with Betty, John, and the magpie, in the old carriage. It was large and of the old fashion. When the old lady had taken her place, Lucy and Emily were called: they kissed Bessy again, and Henry reminded her of the robin. Then they ran down and kissed Mrs. Goodriche, and without looking round at any dear tree or window, or garden-seat or plot of flowers, they sprang into the coach, and felt for the first time that riding in their father's carriage was no cure for an aching heart. Their hearts ached, and their eyes continued to flow with tears, till they had passed the village and left it at some distance behind them; but as they were dragged

slowly up the steep hill, beyond the village, they took courage and looked out, and could just see a number of persons standing beneath the beech-trees on the top of the round hill. Someone was waving something white, and Henry was answering it by waving his handkerchief. Tears soon blinded the eyes of the little girls, and they drew back again into the coach, and did not look out again till they had got beyond the places which they had been well acquainted with in the young happy days which were now shut up in the past.

When we leave a place which we have long lived in and much loved, how very soon do all the things which have passed begin to seem like dreams and visions; and how will this life, with all its pains and pleasures, troubles and distresses, seem to us when death is swallowed up in victory, and we shall be with the Saviour where sorrow never more can come?

"Someone was waving something white."

Wells Gardner, Darton and Co., 3, Paternoster Buildings, London