The innocent vanity which Mrs. Hartland had formerly felt at finding herself a wife, dwindled into insignificance in comparison with the elation of her spirits when the dignity of mother was added to her former honours; and the words "son and heir" might be read in every look, and traced in every gesture in characters which seemed to say, that none but herself had ever produced this mighty combination.
We have formerly stated, that literature was not the prevailing taste of the neighbourhood in which Henbury was planted, and as it is a common rule "to do as the Romans do while one is at Rome," Mr. and Mrs. Hartland may, for all we can tell to the contrary, have suppressed their own inclination to accommodate their manners and habits to the fashion of those amongst whom they dwelt. Certain it is that, from whatever cause it proceeded, there was an abstinence from books at Henbury till the birth of Algernon Robinson Goodman Hartland, and though his father had gone through school and university, and his mother played well enough for carpet dancers, sang a little, painted birds and flowers on velvet, and worked like a Moravian, neither the one or the other found time, amid the multiplicity of their daily pursuits, for reading.
The revolution which was effected by the little stranger's arrival was therefore the more striking. Every thing now was made subservient to the one great leading object. During the first year after this agreeable surprise, Henbury appeared a temple dedicated to Lucina, in which all the insignia of a new birth were displayed in cradle and pillows, saucepans and panada, blankets and wraps. Whichever way the eye were turned, the present deity of the place reigned from the attic to the basement story; and all distinct purposes, and applications of the several apartments were set aside for a season, to render the dwelling a universal nursery. Then came on the time of go-carts and corals; and every publication on teething, vaccination, and each disease to which infant flesh is heir, poured from the press by all the coaches, as if authors and printers were in league to pay their court to Mr. and Mrs. Hartland.
Three years passed away, and with them the scaffolding which, becoming unnecessary, was now thrown aside. The young Algernon, who, it must be confessed, was beautiful as we are taught to believe the little god of love, happily surmounted the host of enemies who take their stand at the entrance-gate of life to oppose the mortal wayfarer, and was the admiration of all beholders, as well as the centre of all joy and pride to his parents. He was a child of extraordinary loveliness and most noble bearing; and fortunately for him his father and mother had often remarked, that the peasant children were a healthier race than the offspring of a higher class, which procured for him the inestimable privilege of breathing fresh air, and exercising his little limbs out of doors.
The cares of home became gradually so engrossing as to wean Mr. and Mrs. Hartland from the social circle, of which they had hitherto been the chief pillar and support, in their neighbourhood. They were now employed from morning till night in studying plans of education, mooting the comparative merits and demerits of schools, canvassing the question of public and private instruction, discussing the respective characters of Oxford and Cambridge, and laying schemes for futurity, as though time were to have no end.
The natural consequence of these things was a considerable loss of popularity. People began to think both Mr. and Mrs. Hartland, who had been prime and general favourites, grown dull and selfish, forgetting that it was selfishness which passed the rigorous decree in adjudging that disagreeable quality to them. Mrs. Hartland, who never till now talked of books, soon obtained the opprobrious appellation of a Blue, and all Miss Ferret's efforts were unavailing to conciliate those who could not bear to think that the Hartlands were happy enough to do without them.
Jemima, however, though she did her best to obtain forgiveness for her friends, did not fail to warn them in private of their improvidence. "Out of sight out of mind," was an apothegm which she urged with reiterated pathos, to deter the inhabitants of Henbury from renouncing the world, which she assured them "could not be drawn on and off like a glove." Nothing, in fact, could be more hostile to Miss Ferret's views than divisions and schisms, which, by splitting a neighbourhood into parties, diminished its general hospitality; or those withdrawings from society through sickness or sorrow, which lessened the gregarious tendencies of the people amongst whom she lived. We may therefore give her full credit for not leaving, as she herself expressed it, "a stone unturned" to bring our pair of recluses to reason, and induce them to seek their felicity where she found her own, namely, in the festive coterie. But Mrs. Hartland in the course of her new studies had, some how or other, stumbled upon the remarkable sentence which Charles the Twelfth of Sweden, when a boy, wrote with a pencil at the bottom of a map of Riga, demonstrative of those talents which were one day to astonish the world: "Dieu me l'a donnée et le diable ne me l'otera pas," and with maternal energy she replied in these celebrated words, intimating by their appropriation to her own case, the same heroic resolutions which inspired the Swede, to preserve that which had been granted to her arms.
"My dear Jemima," added she, unconsciously drawing up her head as she spoke, "there is nothing easier than for people to talk who are not mothers. I cannot perform by halves, the momentous duty which it has pleased heaven to devolve upon me. The sacred task can only be fulfilled by an entire devotion, and we must give ourselves up to the faithful discharge of this awful trust. Lady Goodman, too, has never known what it is to be a mother (raising her head still higher); and really, my dear, it is impossible, even for the best intentioned of one's friends who are inexperienced, to enter into the tremendous responsibilities of a parent."
"No, thank heaven," answered Miss Ferret; "I know only by hearsay of the great pangs and perils, through the martyrdom of which you boast your new title; though our curate Mr. Pew, who had been but just appointed before your confinement, seeing me at your side when I accompanied you to the communion-table, stupidly churched me also, and gave me a share in all your thanksgivings for a son and heir. But depend upon it, my dear friend, that you will be tired of all this sort of thing by and by, and wish that you had not affronted your neighbours. Remember, after all said and done, that there cannot be any great distinction in bringing a bantling into the world, when every beggar-woman in the parish has a troop at her heels. Your child will fare the better for not being thought so much of. I always say that 'the watched pot never boils,' and people are constantly disappointed themselves, besides being intolerable to others, when they make too great a fuss about any thing that belongs to them."
Mrs. Hartland was deeply offended, and thus ended an intercourse which had ceased to please on either side, and the go-between quitted Henbury and its inhabitants for ever, enlisting herself from that moment amongst the most active of the oppositionists, who ridiculed their folly and resented their pretensions.