"Now, Blanche, dear, haven't I contrived to make our new abode look wonderfully homelike? Ellis and I have had quite a hard morning's work, unpacking and arranging, I assure you."
A knot rose in poor Blanche's throat as she looked blankly round. There, sure enough, she could see, through her tear-dimmed eyes, an exact reproduction of the London school-room, which she hoped she had left far behind. On the wall hung the familiar maps and black-board, and the table was covered with the well-known physiognomies of the school-books of which she had taken farewell for many a day. Every trace of the glen was effectually excluded; a low window looked out on the green slope, and a rising knoll of grass almost shut out the sky.
"I had such difficulty in selecting a room," said Miss Prosser, with a satisfied glance round her; "but I think I have made a happy choice. Ellis found one at the other side of the castle, which seemed habitable enough, but it looked out on that dreary moorland, so I avoided it."
"How can you call it dreary, Miss Prosser? It is the most glorious, beautiful land I ever saw. Do take a window that looks on it. But I'm sure papa never meant me to have lessons—I shan't; I can't really stay indoors; I shall go out and seek papa;" and Blanche finished with a wild burst of tears, while Miss Prosser sighed over her naughty pupil.
It is very plain to see that Blanche was by no means a perfect little girl; and as we follow her, we shall be obliged to acknowledge that she was wilful and wayward often enough. But we are not going to make a catalogue of Blanche's faults; they will peep out at intervals, and stare out occasionally, as little girls' faults are apt to do, and not theirs only; so that we must quite shut our eyes, if we are not to see them. We need not do that, but with open eyes—though true and kind as well as open—we shall follow Blanche through these autumn days, and see what they brought to her.
[II.]
BLANCHE CLIFFORD.
N one of the southern counties there stood a stately English home, with silent halls and closed gates, awaiting the time when Blanche Clifford should be of age. It had been her birthplace, though she never remembered having seen it. Her young and beautiful mother had died there on the Christmas Eve when Blanche was born, and her father had not cared to revisit it since. Even his baby-daughter had been only a painful reminder of his loss, and he had left her in his great dreary London house, with a retinue of servants to wait upon her, and had gone away for years of travel in many lands.