But Christian has other duties now. A heavier step has entered the dwelling, and she goes calm and cheerful again, and hastens to take her seat at the merry table, where the father of the family now sits; their only parent, for they are motherless. Mr. Melville is a good man. There are none more regular, more exemplary, in the whole ranks of the town’s respectability; his pew has never been vacant in the memory of church-going men; his neighbours have not the shadow of an accusation to bring against him; his character is as upright as his bearing; his conscience as pure as his own linen. It has been whispered, that his heart has more affinity to stone than is befitting the heart of a living man; but Mr. Melville is a gentleman of the highest respectability, and doubtless that is a slander. He is of good means, he is just in all his relations, he is courteous, and if he be not pitiful withal, how can so small an omission detract from a character otherwise so unexceptionable? His wife has been dead for two or three years, and he speaks of her, as “his excellent deceased partner.” Christian says, her mother had the spirit of an angel, and her memory is yet adored by all the household; but Mr. Melville is a calm person, and does not like raptures. His family consists of five children. Christian—whose history we have already glanced at, summed up in her precious relics—is the eldest; then, there is the bridegroom, James, an excellent well-disposed young man, just about to form a connection after his father’s own heart; next in order comes the genius of the family, gay, talented, excitable, generous Halbert, over whose exuberance of heart his correct parent shakes his head ominously. This Halbert is a student, and absent from home at present, so we cannot present him to our readers just now. Robert is the next in order, a blithe careless youth, having beneath his boyish gaiety, however, a good deal of the worldly prudence and calculating foresight of his father and eldest brother; and little Mary, the flower of all, finishes the list. Mary is the feminine and softened counterpart of her genius-brother; there is light flashing and sparkling in her eyes that owns no kindred with the dull settled gleam of the paternal orbs. There is a generous fire and strength in her spirit which shoots far beyond the coolness and discretion of prudent calculating James, and in her school attainments she has already far surpassed Robert—much to the latter’s chagrin and annoyance at being beaten by a girl—and these two, Halbert and Mary, are Christian’s special care.
It is quite true, that her watchful attention hovers about her cold father in a thousand different ways. It is quite true, that there cannot be a more affectionate sister than Christian to her elder and younger brothers; but little anxiety mingles with her affection for, and care of, them. Their names are not forgotten in her frequent prayers, and her voice is earnest and fervent, and her heart loving, when she craves for them the promised blessings and mercies of the Almighty; but her accents tremble in her supplications when those other names are on her lips, for visions of snares and pitfalls laid for their beloved feet have darkened her foreboding fancy with visions of shipwrecked faith and failing virtue, of ruined hopes and perverted talents, until the very agony of apprehensive love has invested its objects with a higher interest than even that of closest kindred. It is hers to watch over, to lead, to direct, to preserve the purity, to restrain the exuberance of these gifted spirits, and therefore is there a dignity in Christian’s eye when she looks on these children of her affections, that beams not from its clear depths at any other time, and an unconscious solemnity in her pleasant voice when her kind and gentle counsel falls upon their ears, that strangers wonder at—for Christian is young—to be so like a mother.
Such is the family of Mr. Melville, of the prosperous firm of Rutherford and Melville, merchants, in the great English town, to whom we beg to introduce our readers.
CHAPTER II.
Yes, the year is growing old,
And his eye is pale and blear’d!
Death, with frosty hand and cold,
Plucks the old man by the beard
Sorely,—sorely!—Longfellow.
