AGNES APPEARS LIKELY TO PROFIT BY THE CHANGE OF AUNTS.
The first waking under the consciousness of new, and not yet familiar happiness, is perhaps one of the most delightful sensations of which we are susceptible. Agnes had closed her eyes late, and it was late when she opened them, for Peggy had already drawn her window curtains; and the gay hangings and large looking-glasses of the apartment met her eyes at the first glance with such brilliant effect, that she fancied for an instant she must still be dreaming. But by degrees all the delightful truth returned upon her mind. Where was the blank, cold isolation of the heart, with which her days were used to rise and set? Where were the terrors amidst which she lived, lest her protectress should expose herself by some monstrous, new absurdity? Where was the hopeless future, before which she had so often wept and trembled? Was it possible that she was the same Agnes Willoughby who had awoke with such an aching heart, but four-and-twenty hours ago?... All these questions were asked, and gaily answered, before she had resolution to spring from her bed, and change her delightful speculations for a more delightful reality.
Notwithstanding the various fatigues of the preceding day, Miss Compton was not only in the drawing-room, but her letter to Lady Elizabeth Norris was already written on the third side of a sheet of letter paper, thus giving Agnes an opportunity of explaining everything before her own lines should meet her ladyship's eye.
The meal which has been slandered as "lazy, lounging, and most unsocial," was far otherwise on the present occasion. The aunt and niece sat down together, each regaling the eyes of the other with a countenance speaking the most heart-felt happiness; and while the old lady indulged herself with sketching plans for the future, the young one listened as if her voice were that of fate, declaring that she should never taste of sorrow more.
"The carriage will be here at twelve, Agnes," said Miss Compton, to "take us into what our books tell us is called THE CITY, as if it were the city of cities, and about which I suppose you and I are equally ignorant, seeing that you never did take that pleasant little walk the dowager Mrs. Barnaby so considerately sketched out for you. So now we shall look at it together. But don't fancy, my dear, that any such idle project as looking at its wonders is what takes me there now.... I have got a broker, Agnes, as well as the widow, and it is quite as necessary to my proceedings as to hers that I should see him. But we must not go till our partnership letter is ready for the post. Here is my share of it Agnes ... read it to me, and if it meets your approbation, sit down and let your own precede it."
The lines written by Miss Compton were as follow:—
"Madam,
"Permit a stranger, closely connected by the ties of blood to Agnes Willoughby, to return her grateful thanks for kindness extended to her at a moment when she greatly needed it. That she should so have needed it, will ever be a cause of self-reproach to me; nor will it avail me much either in my own opinion, or in that of others, that the same qualities in our common kinswoman, Mrs. Barnaby, which produced the distress of Agnes, produced in me the aversion which kept me too distant to perceive their effects on her respectability and happiness.
"I am, Madam,
"Your grateful and obedient servant,
"Elizabeth Compton."
Agnes wrote:—
"My kind and generous Friends!
"Lady Elizabeth!... Lady Stephenson! I write to you, as I never dared hope to do, from under the eye and the protection of my dear aunt Compton. It is to her I owe all the education I ever received, and, I might add, all the happiness too, ... for I have never known any happy home but that which her liberal kindness procured for me during five years spent in the family of my beloved instructress Mrs. Wilmot. For the seven months that have elapsed since I quitted Mrs. Wilmot, my situation, as you, my kind friends, know but too well, has been one of very doubtful respectability, but very certain misery. My aunt Compton blames herself for this, but you, if I should ever be so happy as to make you know my aunt Compton, will blame me. Her former kindness ought to have given me courage to address her before, even though circumstances had placed me so entirely in the hands of Mrs. Barnaby as to make the separation between us fearfully wide. But, thank God! all this unhappiness is now over. I did apply to her at last, and the result has been the converting me from a very hopeless, friendless, and miserable girl (as I was when you first saw me) into one of the very happiest persons in the whole world. I have passed through some scenes, from the remembrance of which I shall always shrink with pain; but there have been others ... there have been points in my little history, which have left an impression a thousand times deeper, and dearer too, than could ever have been produced on any heart unsoftened by calamity. And must it not ever be accounted among my best sources of happiness, that the regard which can never cease to be the most precious, as well as the proudest boast of my life, was expressed under circumstances which to most persons would have appeared so strongly against me?
"My generous friends!... May I hope that the affection shewn to me in sorrow will not be withdrawn now that sorrow is past?... May I hope that we shall meet again, and that I may have the great happiness of making my dear aunt known to you? She is all kindness, and would take me to Cheltenham, that I might thank you in person for the aid so generously offered in my hour of need, but I fear poor Mrs. Barnaby's adventures will for some time be too freshly remembered there for me to wish to revisit it...."
When Agnes had written thus far, she stopped. "Where shall I tell them, aunt Betsy, that we are going to remain?" she said.... "If ... if Colonel Hubert" ... and she stopped again.