"I may thank our Percy for this excellent friend," he wrote. "He tells me his brave and honest avowal of those verses, which had given him so much pain, attracted him more toward me and mine, than even my own efforts to obtain his friendship. Percy little thought when he so conquered himself the help he would give his father—so little do we know to what hidden good, the straightforward, honest performance of a duty, however painful, may lead."
"My father should thank you, mother, not me," was Percy's rejoinder, with a flushed cheek and eye sparkling with animation, as his mother read the passage to him.
"No such thing, Percy; I will not have you give me all the merit of your good deeds. I did but try to guide you, my boy; neither the disposition to receive, nor the fruit springing from the seeds I planted, is from me."
"They are, mother, more than you are in the least aware of!" replied he, with even more than his usual impetuosity, for they happened to be quite alone; "I thought I knew all your worth before I went to Oxford, but I have mingled with the world now; I have been a silent listener and observer of such sentiments, such actions, as I know would naturally have been mine, and though in themselves perhaps of little moment, saw they led to irregularity, laxity of principle and conduct, which now I can not feel as other than actual guilt; and what saved me from the same? The principle which from my infancy you taught. I have questioned, led on in conversation, these young men to speak of their boyhood and their homes, and there were none guided, loved as I was; none whose parents had so blended firmness with indulgence, as while my wild, free spirits were unchecked, prevented the ascendency of evil. I could not do as they did. Mother! love you more, perhaps, I can not, but every time I join the world, fresh from this home sanctuary, I must bless and venerate you more! To walk through this world with any degree of security, man must have principle based on the highest source; and that principle can only be instilled by the constant example of a mother and the association of a home!" Mrs. Hamilton could not answer, but—a very unusual sign of weakness with her—tears of the most intense happiness poured down on the cheek of her son, as in his impetuosity he knelt before her, and ended his very unusually grave appeal by the same loving caresses he was wont to lavish on her, in his infancy and boyhood.
The letters from Mr. Hamilton, of course, greatly increased the general hilarity, and the arrival of Mr. Grahame's family about the same time, added fresh zest to youthful enjoyment. In the few months she spent at Moorlands, Annie actually condescended to be agreeable. Percy, and some of Percy's boyish friends, now young men, as himself, were quite different to her usual society, and as she very well knew the only way to win Percy's even casual notice was to throw off her affectation and superciliousness as much as possible, she would do so, and be pleasing to an extent that surprised Mrs. Hamilton, who, always inclined to judge kindly, hoped more regarding Annie than she had done yet. Little could her pure mind conceive that, in addition to the pleasure of flirting with Percy, Annie acted in this manner actually to throw her off her guard, and so give her a wider field for her machinations when Caroline should enter the London world; a time to which, from her thirteenth year, she had secretly looked as the opportunity to make Caroline so conduct herself, as to cover her mother with shame and misery, and bring her fine plans of education to failure and contempt.
Mrs. Greville and Mary were also constantly at the Hall, or having their friends with them; Herbert and Mary advancing in words or feelings not much farther than they had ever done as boy and girl, but still feeling and acknowledging to their mutual mothers that, next to them, they loved each other better than all the world, and enjoyed each other's society more than any other pleasure which life could offer. Excursions by land or water, sometimes on horseback, sometimes in the carriages, constant little family reunions, either at Oakwood, Moorlands, or Greville Manor, passed days and evenings most delightfully, to all but Ellen, who did not dare stay at home as often as inclination prompted, and whose forced gayety, when in society, did but increase the inward torture when alone. Mrs. Hamilton had as yet refrained from speaking to her—still trying to believe she must be mistaken, and there really was nothing strange about her. One morning, however, about a month after the young men had been at home, her attention was unavoidably arrested by hearing Percy gayly ask his cousin—
"Nelly, Tiny wrote me such a description of your birthday watch, that I quite forgot, I have been dying to see it all the time I have been at home; show it me now, there's a dear; it can not be much use to you, that's certain, for I have never seen you take it from its hiding-place."
Ellen answered, almost inarticulately, it was not in her power to show it him.
"Not in your power! You must be dreaming, Nell, as I think you are very often now. Why, what do you wear that chain, and seal and key for, if you have not your watch on too?"
"Where is your watch, Ellen? and why, if you are not wearing it, do you make us suppose you are?" interrupted Mrs. Hamilton, startled out of all idea that Ellen was changed only in fancy.