Matilda received this act of kindness from her good friend with real gratitude; and when she had committed it to memory, and adopted it in addressing Almighty God, she found her spirits revive, with the hope that she should one day prove worthy of that kind parent, whom, when she lived with her, she was too apt to slight and disobey. As her judgment became more enlightened, she saw more clearly into the errors of her past education, and became perfectly aware that the love of her too-indulgent father had been productive of innumerable pains, as well as faults. She found herself much more happy now than she had ever been in her life; yet she had never so few indulgences—she had no slaves to wait on her, no little black children to execute her commands and submit to her temper; she was not coaxed to the dainties of a luxurious table, nor had costly clothes spread before her to court her choice, nor any foolish friend to repeat all she said, as if she were a prodigy of wit and talent; and all these things, she well remembered, were accorded to her as a kind of inheritance in Barbadoes; but, along with them, she remembered having violent passions, in which she committed excesses, for which she afterwards felt keen remorse, because she saw how they wounded her mother, and shamed even her doting father—ill-humour and low spirits, that rendered every thing irksome to her, and many pains and fevers, from which she was now entirely free; and she found, in the conversation, books, and instructions of her young friends, amusement to which nothing she had enjoyed before would bear comparison; for what in life is so delightful as knowledge, except the sense of having performed some particular benefit to our fellow-creatures?
CHAPTER VII.
IT will be readily supposed that, with the hopes now entertained of Matilda’s conduct, Mrs. Harewood did not hesitate to provide the governess we have spoken of, and accordingly Miss Campbell was soon established in the family.
She found Matilda rapid in her ideas, persevering in her pursuits, but prone to resentment on every trifling occasion, and still subject to finding herself cause for repentance. On these occasions Miss Campbell conducted herself with composure and dignity, as if she considered a petulant child below the notice of a sensible woman: by this means the pride of the culprit was humbled; she was taught to retread her first steps, and perceive that she was an insignificant being, obliged to the suffrage of her friends, and only capable of being valuable in proportion to her docility and amiable conduct.
Mrs. Harewood had been accustomed to give her children the treat of a ball at Christmas; but on this year she put it off until midsummer, partly because she was afraid, in so large a party, and with such various dispositions, Matilda might not be able to conduct herself with perfect propriety during a whole evening, and partly because she wished her to learn to dance; for although this was, in her eyes, a very secondary accomplishment, when compared to solid knowledge, yet, as a healthful and innocent amusement, and called for in order to form the person in that station of life in which Matilda was likely to move, she desired to see her acquire at least as much of it as would preserve her from the appearance of awkwardness. It was an object of anxiety with this truly maternal friend to save her from all unnecessary mortification, at the same time she earnestly desired to see her tractable, humble, and gentle.
Time now passed away pleasantly, for all were occupied, and therefore happy: the idle are subject to many errors, and therefore many sorrows, from which the busy are exempt.
The good governess studied the temper and disposition of her pupils, and drew them forth in the happiest manner; not by making exhibitions of their attainments to others, but by showing them what was necessary to themselves for their improvement. She considered the work of education as sowing good seed, which shall spring up with vigour in advancing life, in proportion to the depth of the soil and its preparation for receiving it.
Whilst Miss Campbell inculcated those branches of polite learning which give a grace to virtue, she was still more desirous of inculcating virtue itself, by grafting it on religious principle, and that “fear of God, which is the beginning of wisdom.”
The children of Mrs. Harewood had been taught, from their earliest days, that prudence and charity must go hand in hand; but it remained for Miss Campbell to impress this salutary truth on the mind of Matilda, who was naturally very generous, but debased that feeling by ostentation, and ever sought to indulge it with a vain and hurtful profusion, until she became enlightened by her young preceptress, who likewise, in many other points, regulated those desires in her pupils which blend good and evil, and require a firm and delicate management. She was very solicitous to render them active, both personally and mentally, knowing that the health of both body and mind depends upon their due exercise, and that a taste for study is yet perfectly compatible with those various exertions to which the duties of a woman always call her, in whatever sphere she may have occasion to move.