A HAPPY FAMILY.
CHAPTER I.
"If solid happiness we prize,
Within our breast this jewel lies.
From our own selves our joys must flow,
And peace begins at home."
Cotton.
The family—our family, not the Happy Family—consisted of me and my brothers and sisters. I have a father and mother, of course.
I am the eldest, as I remind my brothers; and of the more worthy gender, which my sisters sometimes forget. Though we live in the village, my father is a gentleman, as I shall be when I am grown up. I have told the village boys so more than once. One feels mean in boasting that one is better born than they are; but if I did not tell them, I am not sure that they would always know.
Our house is old, and we have a ghost—the ghost of my great-great-great-great-great-aunt.
She "crossed her father's will," nurse says, and he threatened to flog her with his dog-whip, and she ran away, and was never heard of more. He would not let the pond be dragged, but he never went near it again; and the villagers do not like to go near it now. They say you may meet her there, after sunset, flying along the path among the trees, with her hair half down, and a knot of ribbon fluttering from it, and parted lips, and terror in her eyes.