A Peep Behind the Scenes

by Mrs. O. F. Walton

'Aren't you going to begin, mammie?' said Rosalie at length.

'I almost wish I hadn't promised to tell you, child,' said her mother hurriedly; 'it cuts me up so to think of it; but never mind, you ought to know, and you will know some day, so I had better tell you myself. Rosalie, your mother was born a lady.

'Yes,' said the poor woman, as the child did not speak;

'I was never born to this life of misery, I brought myself to it. I chose it,' she said bitterly; 'and I'm only getting the harvest of what I sowed myself.'

When she had said this, she turned deadly pale, and shivered from head to foot. Rosalie crept still closer to her, and put her little warm hand in her mother's cold one. Then the poor woman by a strong effort controlled herself, and she went on.

'So now, darling, I'll tell you all about it, just as if I was talking about some one else; I'll forget it is myself, or I shall never be able to tell it. I'll try and fancy I'm on the stage, and talking about the sorrows and troubles of some one I never knew, and never cared for, and of whom I shall never think again when my part is over.

'I was born in a country village, hundreds of miles from here, in the south of England. My father was the squire of the place. We lived in a large mansion, which was built half way up the side of a wooded hill, and an avenue of beautiful old trees led up to the house. There was a large conservatory at one side of it, filled with the rarest flowers, and in a shady corner of the grounds my mother had a kind of grotto, filled with lovely ferns, through which a clear stream of water was ever flowing. This fernery was my mother's great delight, and here she spent much of her time. She was a very worldly woman; she took very little notice of her children; and when she was not in the garden, she was generally lying on the sofa in the drawing-room, reading novels, which she procured from a London library.

'My father was a very different man; he was fond of quiet, and fond of his children; but he was obliged to be often from home, so that we did not see as much of him as we should otherwise have done.

'I had one brother and one sister. My brother was much older than we were; there had been several children between us, who had died in their infancy, so that he was in the sixth form of a large public school whilst we were children in the nursery.

'My sister Lucy was a year younger than I was. She was such a pretty child, and had a very sweet disposition. When we were children we got on very well together, and shared every pleasure and every grief. My father bought us a little white pony, and on this we used to ride in turns about the park when we were quite small children, our old nurse following, to see that no harm came to us.