There is no virtue in remembered pain,
The past is sleeping. Watching its repose
I shudder, lest those weary lids unclose,
And I be folded in its coils again.
ONE evening the children were gathered in the drawing-room, and Miss Ross sat among them working at her tambour frame. She wore a slender gold thimble set with corals, and in a slanting, almost obliterated handwriting, the posie, “Use me, nor lose me,” was writ around its base. This thimble had been her mother’s, and when her work was done for the evening, she would shut it away in a narrow case that held her scissors, and needlecase, and bodkin; and this case was lined with velvet that had faded to the colour of silver weed when the wind reverses it.
“We should feel indebted to Mrs. Inchbald,” she was saying, “for telling us so spirited a tale. I found my share of entertainment in watching your faces the while. Bimbo, I take it, will do well in life to set himself a fine example, for his sympathies are sufficiently fluid to shape themselves according to their groove. Let him see that they flow in a fine mould. While Mrs. Inchbald spoke of Ratface, his chin receded, his eyes narrowed, and I momentarily expected his ears to change their position on his head. Later, when she sketched for us the brave Thurot, his very shoulders broadened, his eye lightened, and his jaw set square. None of you, I noticed, found it in your heart to compliment her on the picture of Miss Augusta Noble’s cousin, the spoilt child.”
“I wish I’d asked her, though,” said Christopher, “what they did to smugglers when they were caught.”
“I can tell you,” said Miss Ross. “They were forced for five years into the service, as either soldiers or sailors; but as they nearly always deserted, this was changed, and smugglers were sent to prison instead. As for the smuggling vessels, when these were taken, they were sawn through in three places.”
Bimbo groaned aloud.