"Mary my dear niece," said Charles Adams, as he seated himself by her side; "my dear, dear niece, can you fix your thoughts, and give me your attention for half an hour, now that all is over, and the demands of the world press upon us. I want to speak about the future. Your mother bursts into such fits of despair that I can do nothing with her; and your brother is so ungovernable—talks as if he could command the bank of England, and is so full of his mother's connexions and their influence, that I have left him to himself. Can you, my dear Mary, restrain your feelings, and give me your attention?"
Mary Adams looked firmly in her uncle's face, and said, "I will try. I have been thinking and planning all the morning, but I do not know how to begin being useful. If I once began, I could go on. The sooner we are out of this huge expensive house the better; if I could get my mother to go with the little girls to the sea-side. Take her away altogether from this home—take her"—
"Where?" inquired Mr. Adams; "she will not accept shelter in my house."
"I do not know," answered his niece, relapsing into all the helplessness of first grief; "indeed I do not know; her brother-in-law, Sir James Ashbroke, invited her to the Pleasaunce, but my brother objects to her going there, his uncle has behaved so neglectfully about his appointment."
"Foolish boy!" muttered Charles; "this is no time to quarrel about trifles. The fact is, Mary, that the sooner you are all out of this house the better; there are one or two creditors, not for large sums certainly, but still men who will have their money; and if we do not quietly sell off, they will force us. The house might have been disposed of last week by private contract, but your mother would not hear of it, because the person who offered was a medical rival of my poor brother."
Mary did not hear the concluding observation; her eyes wandered from object to object in the room—the harp—the various things known from childhood. "Any thing you and your mother wish, my dear niece," said her kind uncle, "shall be preserved—the family pictures—your harp—your piano—they are all hallowed memorials, and shall be kept sacred."
Mary burst into tears. "I do not," she said, "shrink from considering those instruments the means of my support; but although I know the necessity for so considering, I feel I cannot tell what at quitting the home of my childhood; people are all kind; you, my dear uncle, from whom we expected so little, the kindest of all; but I see, even in these early days of a first sorrow, indications of falling off. My aunt's husband has really behaved very badly about the appointment of my eldest brother; and as to the cadetship for the second—we had such a brief dry letter from our Indian friend—so many first on the list, and the necessity for waiting, that I do not know how it will end."
"I wish, my dear, you could prevail on your mother, and sister, and all, to come to Repton," said Mr. Adams. "If your mother dislikes being in my house, I would find her a cottage near us; I will do all I can. My wife joins me in the determination to think that we have six additional children to look to. We differ from you in our habits; but our hearts and affections are no less true to you all. My Mary and you will be as sisters."
His niece could bear no more kindness. She had been far more bitterly disappointed than she had confessed even to her uncle; and yet the very bitterness of the disappointment had been the first thing that had driven her father's dying wail from her ears—that cry repeated so often and so bitterly in the brief moments left after his accident—"My children! My children!" He had not sufficient faith to commit them to God's mercy; he knew he had not been a faithful steward; and he could not bring himself from the depths of his spiritual blindness to call upon the Fountain that is never dried up to those who would humbly and earnestly partake of its living waters.