With no other notice from her father's family, Emmeline had attained her twelfth year; an age at which she would have been left in the most profound ignorance, if her uncommon understanding, and unwearied application, had not supplied the deficiency of her instructors, and conquered the disadvantages of her situation.
Mrs. Carey could indeed read with tolerable fluency, and write an hand hardly legible: and Mr. Williamson, the old steward, had been formerly a good penman, and was still a proficient in accounts. Both were anxious to give their little charge all the instruction they could: but without the quickness and attention she shewed to whatever they attempted to teach, such preceptors could have done little.
Emmeline had a kind of intuitive knowledge; and comprehended every thing with a facility that soon left her instructors behind her. The precarious and neglected situation in which she lived, troubled not the innocent Emmeline. Having never experienced any other, she felt no uneasiness at her present lot; and on the future she was not yet old enough to reflect.
Mrs. Carey was to her in place of the mother she had never known; and the old steward, she was accustomed to call father. The death of this venerable servant was the first sorrow Emmeline ever felt: returning late one evening, in the winter, from a neighbouring town, he attempted to cross a ford, where the waters being extremely out, he was carried down by the rapidity of the current. His horse was drowned; and tho' he was himself rescued from the flood by some peasants who knew him, and carried to the castle, he was so much bruised, and had suffered so much from cold, that he was taken up speechless, and continued so for the few hours he survived the accident.
Mrs. Carey, who had lived in the same house with him near forty years, felt the sincerest concern at his death; with which it was necessary for her immediately to acquaint Lord Montreville.
His Lordship directed his attorney in London to replace him with another; to whom Mrs. Carey, with an aching heart, delivered the keys of the steward's room and drawers.
Her health, which was before declining, received a rude shock from the melancholy death of Mr. Williamson; and she and her little ward had soon the mortification of seeing he was forgotten by all but themselves.
Frequent and severe attacks of the gout now made daily ravages in the constitution of Mrs. Carey; and her illness recurred so often, that Emmeline, now almost fourteen, began to reflect on what she should do, if Mrs. Carey died: and these reflections occasionally gave her pain. But she was not yet of an age to consider deeply, or to dwell long on gloomy subjects. Her mind, however, gradually expanded, and her judgment improved: for among the deserted rooms of this once noble edifice, was a library, which had been well furnished with the books of those ages in which they had been collected. Many of them were in black letter; and so injured by time, that the most indefatigable antiquary could have made nothing of them.
From these, Emmeline turned in despair to some others of more modern appearance; which, tho' they also had suffered from the dampness of the room, and in some parts were almost effaced with mould, were yet generally legible. Among them, were Spencer and Milton, two or three volumes of the Spectator, an old edition of Shakespeare, and an odd volume or two of Pope.