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FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH.

Page [2]

Page [35]

London. Published by Harvey & Darton, 1831.

FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH;
OR,
SENSE AND SENTIMENT.

BY HARRIET MARTINEAU.

London:

PRINTED FOR HARVEY AND DARTON,

GRACECHURCH STREET.

1831.

PRINTED BY JOSEPH RICKERBY,

SHERBOURN LANE.

PREFACE.

It is undoubtedly true, that, as a general rule, tales which are intended for the use of young persons, should contain delineations of character as formed by ordinary influences, and a picture of circumstances which are not uncommon. It is desirable, however, occasionally to represent the developement of virtues of every-day use, (and therefore of the highest value,) by peculiar influences, as well as the extraordinary beauties of character which may be made to grow out of the common experience of life; since there are always some who are remarkably placed, and, alas! very many who appear to suppose that, in common circumstances, they may be content with a common character. It is possible that, in reading books like the following, not only motherless daughters may be interested by a narrative which comes home to their feelings; but that some who have mothers may be roused to such reflection, to such comparison of their own situation and character with those of others, as may be of no little benefit to their affections. Such, at least, is the effect of the comparison in actual life, of which it is the highest ambition of this little work to be a faithful transcript.

Norwich, 1830.

CONTENTS.

FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH.

CHAPTER I.
The Sisters at Home.

Near the small town of A——, distant thirty miles from London, stood a farm-house, surrounded by a few acres of well-cultivated ground. There was a green before the door; and in the midst of the green stood an old elm, and under the elm was a pump. There was a sort of basin under the pump, and there were gathered together the goslings as soon as hatched, leaving the large pond in the farm-yard for the use of the ducks and ducklings, and the larger birds of their own race. There were hen-coops placed on the grass, which were furnished with an abundant population; and there was a constant fluttering of wings about the pigeon-house, where the old ones of the flock would perch at one of the entrance holes, and glance up and down and around, perching their heads, and making their beautiful necks glitter in the sunshine with twenty different colours. At a little distance was a rookery, a scene of incessant activity, as the eyes and ears of all who were within hearing could testify. The farmer’s children were generally in the farm-yard, seeing the cows milked, or playing duck-and-drake on the pond; and the boys followed the team with their father, or went into the field with old Robin, the hedger and ditcher, trying to help him with their little spades and wheelbarrow; while the girls fed the chickens, or stole into the dairy behind their mother.

It sometimes happened, that two little girls, who were evidently not of Farmer Rickham’s family, were seen playing with the children on the green. From their dress alone, no one would have supposed them to be young ladies; but their manners and conversation proved them to be, in some respects, well educated. All strangers who saw them looked again, wondering who could have the care of them, and what sort of management they had been subjected to. Their frocks, made sometimes of silk, and sometimes of calico, as it might happen, were generally torn, and always dirty; their shoes were all, from the sky-blue kid to the coarse black leather, down at the heel, so as to display a large round hole in the stocking. If Mary had a silk bonnet, and Anna a straw, the one was used as a cradle for the kitten, and the other as a basket to hold strawberries. Of course, all this inspired a stranger with disgust; but if occasion led him to speak to either sister, he was favourably impressed by the modesty of manner, and simplicity of speech, by which they were distinguished from many young persons more fortunate in their external appearance. They were the only children of Mr. Byerley, who lived at A——.

One fine May morning they went, as they often did, to see Nurse Rickham, as they called the farmer’s wife. While Mary was looking for eggs among the nettles, Anna amused herself with helping nurse to get dinner ready. When she came up from the potatoe hole with her apron full of potatoes, (for nurse had insisted on tying on an apron,) she stood in the middle of the kitchen for a minute or two, looking closely at Mrs. Rickham’s gown. Mrs. Rickham turned round surprise.

“I never saw you in this gown before, nurse,” said Anna.

“’Tis a very old gown, Miss Anna; I’ve worn it this many a year.” And nurse coloured, and looked uncomfortable.

“I have seen it before, I am sure, nurse; though not on you; and yet I thought it had been blue. I don’t remember mamma in any thing green. Was it not mamma’s?”

“My dear, it was. But who could have thought of your remembering that, so many years as it was ago? I have always kept it out of your sister’s sight, because she, being older, might perhaps remember it; but to-day you took me by surprise with it on, and I persuaded myself there was no need to change it.”

“No need at all, nurse; but I should just like to see if Mary would know it again.”

When Mary was called in, she did not remember having ever seen the gown before.

“Well, how odd that is!” said Mrs. Rickham, “that Miss Anna should remember better than you do, when she was only three years old when my mistress died, and you were five.”

“Oh! but I remember many things that Anna cannot,” said Mary: “I remember my coming to stay here when papa and mamma went to London. How long ago is that, nurse?”

“Let me see: my mistress died seven years ago, and she went to London every year for three years before she died, and it was the first visit when you came to me, the year Miss Anna was born. My dear, you can’t possibly remember so long ago as ten years, when you could only just go alone.”

“Oh! but I do,” said Mary; “and it is just the trying to run about the green by myself that I remember. You had a wooden step at the door then; and I used to take fast hold of the door-post, and put down first one foot and then the other; and when I could not reach the ground, I sat down on the step and slid, so that I fell softly on my hands and knees.”

“Bless the child!” cried the nurse; “’tis all true; but what can make you remember it?”

“Ah! that I don’t know; but I can tell you of some other things. Do you remember whether I cried the first night you put me to bed?”

“Yes, Miss, you did; for I said to my husband, that you had got into a bad habit with your new maid, of crying when you went to bed. However, it was only for that night, I think.”

“It was because the bed creaked, and frightened me; and the feel of the coarse sheets was not like what I had been accustomed to. And that old elm too, how its rough bark hurt my little hands when I used to try to get round it.”

“Well, I will never say again that children can’t remember back to two years old,” said nurse.

“I think I could not have been older than that when I cut off the fingers of Miss Oliver’s gloves,” said Anna. “Do you remember that, Mary?”

Mary laughed heartily at the recollection.

“What a little rogue you looked, Anna, peeping from under the table between the folds of the cloth; while Miss Oliver was so busy talking to mamma about the patterns, and unrolling and drawing on her gloves in an absent fit! And poor mamma tried to look grave, and could not, when the fingers’ ends came through.”

“Miss Anna was always the child for fun,” said nurse.

“There was as much fright as fun in that joke, however,” said Anna. “When I had done my cutting, I could not roll up the gloves again for a long time; and I felt so sure of being punished, that I heartily wished the finger tips on again. I shall never forget how glad I was to see mamma laugh.”

Mrs. Rickham turned away and sighed, and Mary and Anna looked at one another with sadness in their faces.

“I know, nurse,” said Mary, “that you do not like to hear us talk in this way about mamma. But only consider how very little we remember of her, and how trifling that little is. We only talk about it because we would not forget even this much.”

“It is all very natural, my dears; but when I think about her, as I do every day, and when I see how like her you are, Miss Anna especially, I can’t help grieving when I think how much more chance there would be of your growing up to be like her, if you could remember for yourselves what she was.”

Here nurse Rickham stood and looked at the young ladies from head to foot, and began to smooth down their rough hair with her hand. They knew well enough what would come next to be anxious to make their escape; so, to avoid a lecture on tidiness, one ran to help little Tommy to pump, and the other to gather some flowers for papa.

Mary had not finished gathering her flowers when the farmer came in to dinner; and when Tommy was called away from the pump to eat his dumpling, Anna thought it time to set about the recovery of her bonnet, which hung, out of reach, from the branches of the elm. When she had used stick, rake, and pole to no purpose, she climbed the tree far enough to be able to shake the bough on which the bonnet hung, and from which it presently fell into the pool. In her haste down to snatch it out of the water before it should be wet through, she tore her frock-skirt almost from top to bottom.

“Mary! Mary!” cried she, running to the garden, with her dripping hat in one hand, and the terrible rent gathered up in the other, “can you give me some pins to make my frock tidy till we get home?”

“Tidy!” said Mary, laughing: “nurse will think it an odd sort of tidiness; but let us see what we can do.”

“Please to wipe my bonnet then, while I pin up this great hole, and then let us go home directly.”

When they went to bid nurse good bye, she begged them to wait a few minutes, if they could, as she wished to walk to the town with them as soon as her husband should have dined. This delay gave Anna an opportunity of hanging up her bonnet and handkerchief to dry in the sun; so she stuck them on a bush, and amused herself with watching the bees till nurse was ready.

It appeared that her errand was to their father’s house, and her business with the young ladies’ maid, whom she blamed for allowing them to appear as they had come to the farm that morning. Every body in Mr. Byerley’s house knew that Nurse Rickham was privileged to say and do what she pleased when the young ladies were in question, and that she was as capable as any body about them of deciding what it was proper for them to be, and to do, and to wear. The maid therefore only justified herself by saying, that the young ladies were more troublesome about their things than any children she ever had to wait upon, pleasant and good as they were in other matters; and that she thought they were really too old to need to have a servant to tell them always what to put on; though, to be sure, it made a great difference their having no mother to teach them such things. Nobody knew, she said, how anxious she was to do what was proper for them; and as a proof, she would beg Mrs. Rickham’s opinion about some purchases she was going to make for them.

It always grieved Mrs. Rickham that Mr. Byerley should have resisted the advice of all his friends in so important a point as the domestic education of his children. He was known to have so strong a prejudice against schools, that no one thought of persuading him to place his daughters in one. Besides, his health was infirm, and his spirits variable, so that it would have been too hard upon him to have relinquished the society which alone could make his home cheerful to him. It appeared to all sensible people, that the best plan would have been to have invited some respectable elderly lady to take up her abode with his daughters, and supply, as far as might be, that guidance which the best of fathers cannot afford. To this plan, however, as often as proposed, he refused to listen, declaring his determination to educate his daughters himself, independently of all assistance but that of masters for accomplishments.

For such a task he was well qualified by high principle and extensive information, and by his full appreciation of what is valuable and beautiful in female character; but he had some eccentricities which were likely to impair the effects of his most earnest and judicious endeavours. He was also much engaged in public life, and had therefore less command of his time than was desirable on account of his children, who were allowed to dispose of their leisure more freely in his absence than was at all consistent with those habits of regular industry, which, at their ages, (ten and twelve,) ought to have been formed and confirmed. A great deal was accomplished by means of the close application to which they were accustomed while pursuing their studies in his presence; but much valuable time was wasted by bad management in his absence.

Dinner waited long this day, as was often the case: Mr. Byerley was engaged in his study with a gentleman, whom he was assisting to draw up resolutions for a public meeting. When he entered the dining-room, he saw his girls sitting close together, reading out of the same book so intently, that they did not hear him approach. Standing behind them, and looking over their heads, he read aloud,

“‘No fear lest dinner cool.’

Aye, that was a dinner in Eden—a dinner very unlike ours, which is probably cold by this time. Come, come, ’tis very late.”

The girls, who had started and closed the book hastily at the sound of his voice, ran to take their places at the table.

Mary remarked that her papa had not been out, if she might guess by his gown and slippers being still on, as at breakfast. Anna supposed that it was because he wore his slippers that he had startled them, though they had been watching for him just before.

“Mary,” said Mr. Byerley, “what made you shut your book in such a hurry when I put my head in between you?”

“I hardly know,” said Mary; “but I believe I was not quite sure whether you wished us to read Paradise Lost yet.”

“You might have known in a moment by asking.”

“Yes; but Mr. Wilkins was with you, and I knew you were busy; and the book was lying open, and we did not mean to read on, only we could not help it.”

“It has done you no harm, I dare say, my dears; and if it had, it would have been my fault for leaving such a book in your way. Would you like to see more of it?”

“I like the little I read, papa; but I do not know how I should like the whole.”

“The whole! I should be sorry to be obliged to read all that,” said Anna. “I like the Arguments best. Why are they called the Arguments, papa?”

“Because, by Argument, is properly meant a subject of thought. The Argument of a poem is the subject, the story; and in Paradise Lost, and most long poems, it is given in prose, like a table of contents.”

“I like getting at the story at once, instead of fishing it out from the poetry.”

“If the story is all you care about, you are very right,” said her father; “but the story is the last thing people of taste think about in a fine poem.”

“Then Mary is a person of taste, I suppose; for she was in a great hurry to get to the grave part.”

“If she likes the grave part, she may go to it again,” said Mr. Byerley. “She would not like it if she did not understand it; and the more she understands and relishes it, the more likely she is to become a woman of taste. But I have another argument to propose to you both. Bid you ever hear me speak of Mrs. Fletcher of Southampton?”

“Yes, papa: you showed us a letter of her’s once: you remember it, Anna.”

“About her little girl that died? O yes, I remember that letter, and I want to see it again.”

“You shall, my dear; and you will soon see Mrs. Fletcher too. She is coming to stay with us for a few days.”

“Any body with her, papa?”

“Yes, her husband, of course; and perhaps two of her daughters. They come on Wednesday; so you must consult Mrs. Rickham how you are to make room for them all, and I am sure you will try to make their visit pleasant.”

Mary and Anna were troubled with no fears on the subject, for they were accustomed to receive their father’s friends, and had never been conscious of any awkwardness in doing so. If they had now any doubts, it was about the pleasure they might have in Miss Fletcher’s society; for they had never had any companions of their own age, or any playmates except the farmers children.

When their father called them into his study to repeat the lessons which had been omitted in the morning, Anna stretched herself and yawned, preparatory to collecting her books and exercises.

“What, Anna! yawning at the very idea of being employed! Better wait till you are tired, surely.”

“I can stretch again then, papa. I wonder whether you ever do. I never saw you; but I suppose you are tired sometimes, like other people.”

“Very tired, my dear; and never more so than when you are rattling nonsense, instead of opening your books. There is a time for all things.”

It was now Anna’s time for looking grave; and she read her page of Virgil as steadily as if she had been ten years older. Nothing was heard in the study for the next two hours, but the single voice of the reader, and the scratching pen of the writer. When the last school-book was closed, the girls looked at their father. He pointed to the book-case, where the large Bible was placed; and while Mary took it down, Anna drew a seat to each side of her father’s large study-chair. They read and talked, and read again, till the servant came to say that tea had been ready some time. Anna forgot her intention of yawning again. They never remembered having been weary of reading the Bible with their father; for he made them understand it clearly, as far as they went: he talked and encouraged them to talk freely on the thousand subjects which made religion interesting; and his voice was never so soft, or his manner so tender, as at those times.

After tea, Mary, who saw that her father was troubled with headache, as was often the case, pointed to the field, where the evening shadows were lengthening in the golden light of the setting sun, and asked him if a walk would not do him good. He was too tired to go out, he said; but he should like some music, which generally refreshed him more than any thing. So he established himself on the sofa; and Mary, who played very well, opened her piano, and amused him till it was quite dark. Before he dismissed his children for the night, he called Anna to sit on the low stool beside him.

“Our days fly away fast, Anna; do not they?”

“Yes, papa; but not so fast as I should like. I want to be older, that I may have more of my own way.”

“You unreasonable child! People tell me I let you run wild already. What more do you want?”

“I want to take journeys, and to leave off learning some things that are tiresome, and to learn others that must be very entertaining; and I want to send Farmer Rickham’s children to school, and to build an hospital here, and several other things. What a will I would make, if I was a woman!”

“If you had any thing to leave, I suppose you mean,” said her father, laughing. “But, seriously, my dear, don’t you think it as well that people should be taught to do no harm before they form grand schemes for doing good; and that they should learn to do good in a small way, before they form plans too large for them to manage?”

“Like Sally Benson and her bird.”

“What was that?”

“She thought she should like to help her brother’s birds in building their nests; (you know he has three pairs, in a very large cage;) so she got them some moss that she thought better than what he had provided, and she went a great distance to get it; and she was a long time searching for a plant that she was told they would like to eat; and she watched and watched them, and was very busy trying to make them build. But O, papa!”

“Well, what happened?”

“Why, she frightened them so with putting her fingers between the wires, that they would not make their nests properly; and she had got the wrong plant after all, and one of them died from eating it. And what was far worse, she forgot, all the time, to feed her own canary; and she found it dead at the bottom of the cage one day.”

“Aye, that is the way with young minds till they get experience; and I am afraid it would be the way with you, if you had more of your own will, as you say.”

“Why, papa, what harm do you think I should do?”

“Consider whether you do none already. Have you done nothing on this one day that can be hurtful to anybody? You need not tell me, if you find you have; but satisfy yourself—that’s all.”

“I will tell you, however, papa. I ran away when nurse was going to say something I did not wish to hear. I saw she looked vexed, and I am afraid little Kitty saw it too; and perhaps I have put it into her head to do the same.”

“You must put a better behaviour into her head as soon as you can, then. Now try and recollect if you have done any good to-day.”

Anna thought some time, and looked sad when she owned she could recollect nothing.

“I am afraid you are hardly fit for building an hospital yet, Anna,” said Mr. Byerley. “However, to comfort you, I can assure you that you have done me some good to-day.”

“You mean, by making you forget your headache. But that was accident, so it does not suit what we were talking about; but I will try to make it better another time, for fear you should be the first person to go into my hospital, when I build it.”

Mr. Byerley smiled as he kissed her and sent her to bed.

CHAPTER II.
Preparation.

The next morning, Mr. Byerley, who was a bad sleeper, was wakened very early by the murmur of voices from the next room, which was occupied by his daughters. Though the partition between the chambers was very slight, he was not usually disturbed by noise; for the girls were asleep before he retired to rest, and he arose as early as they in the morning. Now, however, he heard the never-ceasing sound of low tones from four o’clock till six; but not a single word could he distinguish of all that was said. The girls could not be learning lessons, for it was Sunday morning; and, as he heard no tread, he thought they could not have left their beds. They were evidently stirring, however, as soon as he had rung his bell; and from behind his blind he saw them afterwards in the garden, not running or gathering flowers, as usual, but in earnest consultation. They stood before a certain balcony, looking at it from all sides, and presently from all distances; for Mary would have walked backwards into the fishpond, if her sister had not caught hold of her. Then, with each a bough, they attempted to disperse the chickweed which had overspread the pond; and then they repaired to the arbour where the honeysuckle trailed on the ground, and a film of gossamer overspread the entrance. When they met their father at breakfast, they looked heated and exhausted. He told them there was no occasion to toil so hard, as he should give direction to John, the gardener, to put the garden and court in good order before the arrival of their expected guests. Part of their weighty business was taken off the girls’ hands, but apparently no great deal; for they were found, more than once that day, in the little parlour which opened upon the balcony, as eager in consultation as they had been before breakfast. This parlour was so small that it might almost have been called a closet; but the balcony was larger than the room, and communicated so easily with it, by means of a French window, that the deficiency of size was a small objection. The parlour would just contain Mr. Byerley, his daughters, and a tea-table; and when they had guests with them, the balcony held the visitors and their host, and the green parlour the young tea-maker and her apparatus. It was a favourite place, the view from it being particularly pretty, and its retirement complete. The simple ornaments of the dwelling were all collected there; Mary’s harp-lute, Anna’s flower stands, and the precious picture of their mother. The room was so darkened by the colour of its furniture, by the roof of the balcony, and the creepers which hung thickly about it, that the picture conveyed no very distinct impression to strangers. Mr. Byerley, however, liked it better in this obscurity than in a fuller light: the girls had long been too familiar with its features not to feel as if they had been equally familiar with the original.

While they were drinking tea in this place on the Sunday evening of which I speak, Mr. Byerley told the girls that he was going, in the morning, to London, to attend a public meeting, and that he should not return till the Tuesday night, or perhaps the Wednesday morning; but that he would take care to be at home when their guests arrived. Mary asked what should be done for their entertainment; for she thought the house must be very dull to strangers. Her father thought not, as their friends came to see and talk with friends, and not to see sights and be entertained as they might be in the house of any stranger. Mary knew her father’s dislike of bustle, and of any interruption of his daily plans which was not caused by public business; but she felt quite sure that Mr. and Mrs. Fletcher and their daughters would enjoy seeing more of the pretty country near, than could be brought within the limits of a walk; and she therefore pressed the point. “You shall have no trouble, papa, but just to get on your horse and go with us.”

“Where, my dear? I will go to the world’s end if you show me that it will do any good; but you know I dislike frolicking.”

“It will do a great deal of good to make Mrs. Fletcher admire Audley bridge and the castle; and you need not call it frolicking, but only a morning’s ride.”

“A morning’s ride stretched out till near midnight! Think of the distance, my dear.”

“Suppose it should be past midnight,” said Anna; “it would still be a morning’s ride.”

“We will be home as early as you please, papa, if we can but set out early enough; and we have planned it all so completely——.”

“Well, well; don’t talk to me any more about it, but settle it all your own way. I have no time for such nonsense.” So saying, Mr. Byerley took out of his pocket his list of resolutions for the public meeting, and began to read very attentively. He soon seemed sorry, however, for his hastiness; for he folded up his paper, drew his girls to him, and put an arm round each of them as they stood.

“I hope, my dears,” said he, “that your heads have not been quite full of these little plans all this day.”

“No, papa, not quite full; not at church-time, nor while Tommy Rickham was saying his lessons; but yet——.”

“Are you quite sure what you were thinking of when Tommy was reading?” asked Anna. “Did you make no mistake that you remember?”

“Mistake! What mistake?”

“When he was reading about little Will’s giving all he had to the old beggar, he stopped at the word penny, and you told him it was pony: the little fellow stared, and I dare say he wondered how little Will could toss his pony into the old man’s hat.”

“I must have been thinking of the pony you are to ride; but you should have told me.”

“I set it right with Tommy afterwards; but I did not want to make Kitty laugh, so I let it pass at the time.”

“Then, papa,” said Mary, “I am afraid I can’t answer for not having had any silly thoughts about this at church.”

“It is always wisest not to answer for any such thing, Mary; for the wisest and best of us are troubled with vain thoughts at the most solemn times, and in the most sacred employments.”

“The very wisest and best, papa?” said Mary, looking at her mother’s picture.

“Your mother used to say so,” said Mr. Byerley, as his eyes followed Mary’s and rested on the picture. “If ever there was an example of entire self-command, it was she; and if ever there was one who fully understood and felt the blessings of this day, it was she: and yet she used to make the same complaint that we have made.”

“I remember,” said Mary, in a low voice, “that I thought she looked differently on a Sunday from every other day; and I felt differently. The feeling comes over me now, of those bright summer mornings when I used to be taken up earlier than on weekdays; and the washing, and the clean frock and pinafore, and mamma making breakfast, in her neat white gown. And then, after breakfast, she used to take me into the garden, and let me gather a flower for her. I don’t know what makes me remember crocuses so particularly; but I never see a gay crocus bed without thinking of one of those bright old Sunday mornings.”

“She loved to make you particularly happy on Sundays, because she thought the feeling of pleasure might last through life, as it did with her. Her parents made her love the Sabbath, and the power of the feeling was once shown very remarkably——.”

He stopped, but the girls looked at him so earnestly that he soon went on.

“You know, though you cannot remember, that you once had a little brother: nurse often tells you about him, I know, and how he died. Nothing could be more sudden than the accident, and, of course, neither your mother nor any body else could be at all prepared for such a shock; for a heartier child could not be. It happened on a Friday afternoon, and all that night and the next day the struggle which your mother underwent was fearful. Early on the Sunday morning, she slept for the first time since the accident, and I would not have her wakened when it was broad day. She started up, at last, with the confused feeling of something very dreadful having happened; but when the tide of grief was just flowing in upon her again, the church-bells rang out. She was calm instantly; and that day did more towards restoring the tone of her mind than any previous exertion, though she had striven hard for composure. She walked in the garden with me, and sat by this very window, sometimes reading, and sometimes listening to the chimes; but looking so like herself that I was no longer anxious about her.”

“She was ill then, nurse says.”

“Yes; her strength had declined very much, and that was the reason why I was so uneasy about her. While she was in health, she was the one to give, not to need, support; and, to the last, the strength of her mind never failed.”

“Nurse told us once what mamma said the day before she died, about us, and about every body who depended on her for any thing.”

“I gave nurse leave to repeat it to you when she thought you could understand and feel it properly; and I am glad she has, because Mrs. Fletcher can tell you much more which you are now prepared to hear. She will tell you how your mother and she used to study together; perhaps she will show you the bible, marked by themselves for their own use.”

“I have often wanted to know,” said Mary, “what parts my mother was most fond of, and read the oftenest; but I never asked you, because I thought you would tell me when the right time came.”

“It is the right time now,” said her father, kissing them both; “bring the bible from below, and we will read a portion to which she used to turn perpetually when she was in any trouble.”

The next morning, the girls were ready dressed to make breakfast early for their father, that he might be in time for the coach to London. But anxious as they were to make him comfortable on all occasions, they did not understand the way, and knew nothing about the many little niceties on which domestic comfort depends. How should they, when there was nobody but servants to teach them? They were very quick of observation, and if their father had allowed them to visit his friends, and to see what was done in other houses, their wish to learn, and their affection for him, would have enabled them to improve their domestic notions and habits; but Mr. Byerley was, as we have said, sadly prejudiced in some respects; and he would allow of no intercourse between his daughters and any of their neighbours. The neighbours thought it very odd, of course. Mr. Wilkins was wont to shake his head when he told his wife how poor Byerley’s children were being spoiled for life by being so shut up as they were; and Miss Pratt, their opposite neighbour, was much scandalized at their method of romping with Nurse Rickham’s children; and the young Grants, who, to the number of eight, were boating, riding, and driving every day and all day long, supposed that the poor Miss Byerley’s were intended to be very learned, as they could read Latin, it was understood, and had been seen, one day when the blind was open, poring over a globe. It did not, of course, signify what such neighbours as these thought of Mr. Byerley’s method of education; but there were two or three families of a better class as to sense and merit, with whom the girls might have associated with great advantage to themselves; and the very commonest circumstances which take place in a tolerably well-regulated family would have conveyed much instruction to these motherless children, which could in no other way be supplied. Mrs. Rickham had taught them to sew, and that well; but about the management of the kitchen and larder she knew little, and next to nothing of the customs of the parlour. Their father often sighed when he contrasted the appearance and manners of his children at table, with what they would have been if their mother had lived; and sometimes he sent them to smooth their hair or change their frocks before he would sit down with them; but it was beyond his power to establish regular habits of neatness and method, and he trusted that this would be done by their own observation and care when they should, at length, see something of the world. He found that the servants grew more and more awkward and remiss from the inability of the young ladies to direct them steadily and with propriety, as children as young as themselves are able to do when well taught. He was partly to blame himself, for his habits were, in some respects, eccentric.

On this morning, he called from his chamber-door to desire the servant to run and take his place in the coach. This ought to have been done on the Saturday; and the maid was obliged to leave the fire, which had been badly lighted, and could not be coaxed into a blaze. Mary saw that the kettle would not boil in time unless she took the bellows, while the cook dusted the parlour-furniture, and Anna brought up the bread and the eggs and the butter from the larder. When their father came down, he looked displeased to see them so employed, and wondered why, with two servants in the house, breakfast could not be prepared without so much confusion. After all, the kettle would not quite boil, so the tea was not fit to be drunk, nor the egg to be eaten; and there had been so much delay, that the horn sounded at the end of the street before Mr. Byerley had half finished breakfast. He stuffed his papers into his pockets; pulled on the boots for which he had waited till the last moment, and which were only half cleaned after all; pushed aside the umbrella which Anna offered him, with “Pshaw, child! where’s the ring? I can’t carry it unfastened in that manner;” kissed his daughters hastily, and ran off just in time to overtake the coach, which had been driven on in disregard of the maid’s protestations that her master was coming.

When she came back, she sat down to make a comfortable cup of tea for herself and the cook, while the young ladies finished the cool beverage in the parlour. They were not long in doing so; for they were eager about the schemes which were next to be undertaken. They heard John, the gardener, whetting his scythe; so they went first to see how the garden could be beautified. When they had ranged the walks with John, shaken their heads over the weedy pond, got their shoes thoroughly wet in the dewy, new-mown grass, and then thoroughly soiled on the flower-beds, they came in again, and mounted to the lumber-garret, leaving in the housemaid’s eyes very strong evidence where they had gone. She followed them with dry shoes, and found them trying to bring down, from a high shelf, a looking-glass which was placed with its face to the wall.

“Stop, Miss Mary,” cried the maid; “you will be down, and the glass after you. Let me reach it, or whatever else you want.”

“We want only the glass, thank you. There, down it comes, safe. But, O dear, what a tarnished, battered old frame it has!”

“You can never use that glass, Miss Mary. It cannot have been used these fifty years.”

“Not quite,” said Mary; “for I remember nurse’s dandling Anna before it. But I had no idea it was so shabby. Let us take it down and dust it, however: it may look better then.”

Just as they reached the head of the stairs, the maid holding one end, and the girls the other, the part of the frame which they held gave way, and it was a wonder the glass was not broken.

“I had like to have fallen down stairs, glass and all,” exclaimed the maid. “Here’s an end of the matter, young ladies; so let us put it where we found it.”

No: Mary thought it would answer their purpose better than ever now; so she pulled off the rest of the frame, which split with a touch. She desired the maid to rub up the glass, while she and Anna went back into the lumber-room to find some paper, the same as the hangings of the green parlour. This they found; and when they had called John in to nail up the glass in the little room, opposite the balcony, and sufficiently low to reflect the landscape beyond, and sent down into the kitchen for some paste, they began to cut out the trailing pattern of the paper, and so fixed it on the edge of the glass as to make a very pretty border, and one more corresponding with the rest of the furniture than a gilt frame would have been. Even the maid admired what she thought, at first, a mere fancy; and the girls saw their own faces oftener that day than on any preceding day of their lives. Mary thought that one ornament more was wanted to make all complete: she asked Anna if a white cast of some sort—a vase or a bust—would not look very well in the corner where the harp-lute rested. Anna agreed, and inclined for a vase, which they might fill with flowers. Mary thought the head of a poet or a musician would be more suitable. Who should it be? The only musician she remembered to have seen on the Italian’s board was Handel; and Handel was sadly fat and ugly. She did not know who it could be but Milton; and that face, beautiful as it was, was known to every body by this time. It reminded her, however, that she might perhaps get some hints about ornamenting their bower from “Paradise Lost;” for she liked what she had read of Eve’s preparation of a repast for the angel. So, while Anna ran to the window to watch for the Italian with his image-board, who was sure to pass, Mary settled herself in the balcony to read about Paradise.

As soon as she was fairly lost to all outward things, and present only with Adam and Eve, seeing how

“raised of grassy turf

Their table was, and mossy seats had round,”

she was roused by somebody standing before her. It was Mrs. Rickham, who came to ask something about clean sheets for the best bed.

“Clean sheets!” exclaimed Mary. “Oh, ask Anna to give Susan the keys, and then you can find what you want.”

“Very well, Miss. But there wants a new ewer and basin for the room the young ladies are to have; and I doubt if there are towels enough.”

“We will see about that to-morrow, nurse. I must make this room complete now I am about it.”

“Perhaps that will do as well to-morrow, Miss Mary, if indeed it wants any thing more; but the first thing to be done is to make the sleeping-rooms comfortable, and to see what condition your frocks are in, Miss.”

This was too true to be denied; so Mary left her book in the balcony till her provision for the comforts of her guests should leave her at leisure to plan luxuries for them.

There was time, however, for all; and the manifold luxuries of an excursion in search of the picturesque were duly cared for. The fowls, the cakes, the wine, the sketch-books, the telescope, were appointed and hunted up; and Anna put on her habit and went to the farm, to try the grey pony which the farmer was to lend her. The pony carried her round the twelve-acre field, and up the green lane, and down the mill-lane, with the utmost propriety, and promised to be a great ornament to the cavalcade.

On Tuesday night the girls sat up for their father till the last coach had passed through the town at eleven o’clock. They were a little disappointed at not seeing him, but had no doubt of his arrival before noon the next day.

CHAPTER III.
Arrivals.

“Here comes papa!” cried Anna, as she rose from the breakfast-table, “and a gentleman with him! Can it be Mr. Fletcher already?”

“O, no!” said Mary; “how should it be, without Mrs. Fletcher and their daughters? He is coming in, however. I do hope it is not a political person. I had rather hear any thing than politics from London people.”

Anna agreed that they had quite enough of politics every day of their lives, without hearing more from strangers. When their new guest entered the room, Mr. Byerley introduced him to his daughters as Signor Casimiro Elvi. He did not at all answer to Mary and Anna’s notions of a politician, as they assured one another by a glance of congratulation. If he had been twenty-five years younger, he might have been taken for a poet; and though he was too old for that, he might well be supposed a great man of some kind or other; for he had a profusion of black hair, curling back from his prominent forehead in a manner which is uncommon among Englishmen. His countenance was bright with intelligence, but mild, and sometimes deeply melancholy. The girls answered his greetings, which were those of a foreigner, with much respect; and while they prepared a fresh breakfast, wondered what topics of conversation would succeed the usual hopes and fears about fatigue, and invitations to eat and drink.

“As we were saying, sir,” observed their father at length, “if we cannot induce the minister to regard public opinion when it is so plainly expressed as in this case, what is to be done but to petition, and petition again, till the House forces the matter upon his attention?”

To the great disappointment of the girls, the Italian gentleman listened, not only with politeness, but with eager interest, and replied with such animated volubility, as to leave no doubt of his being a politician after all. They could not make out much of what he said, though they understood French very well; but his rapid utterance did not prevent their discovering that he spoke of the ruin of his own country as owing to the obstinate disregard which a despotic government had shown to the interests of the people, and the establishment at length of a military government, to the destruction of all freedom and peace. Anna was soon tired of stretching her attention to listen to what did not interest her to hear, and she therefore slipped out of the room. Mary was obliged to remain, to pour out the tea; and presently, as soon as there was a sufficient pause, Signor Elvi addressed her in French, which it appeared he always spoke, though he understood English pretty well. Mary liked all he said; and he gave so entertaining an account of his late perilous journey across the continent, that she was quite sorry when her father refused a fourth cup of tea, and it became necessary to offer to the Signor the refreshment of his own apartment.

She ran to find her sister, and relate all that she had heard. The story was interspersed with many remarks on Signor Elvi, and many conjectures respecting his rank and circumstances, which excited Anna’s active imagination to an unusual degree; and by the time Mr. Fletcher’s carriage drove up to the door, her mind was so occupied with the adventures of the Italian gentleman, that she could think of nothing else.

Mary looked anxiously to see if there were any young faces in the carriage. That the Miss Fletcher’s were there, there was evidence in the straw bonnets and pink ribbons which appeared when the glass was let down; and the young ladies had no sooner alighted, than Mary and Anna had decided that they might become very charming companions, and perhaps friends for life. Even Mr. Byerley wished that the appearance of his daughters was equally prepossessing, both as to countenance and dress.

Mr. Fletcher was as remarkably decided in manner and abrupt in speech; as his lady was soft and mild. It seemed as if he was somewhat out of patience with the tone of sentiment which distinguished his wife’s conversation, and had therefore run into the other extreme. His daughters, who much resembled their mother, stood so much in awe of him, that they spoke as little as possible in his presence, so that he probably knew much less about what was in their minds than many comparative strangers; but he concluded them to be weak and romantic, as he was pleased to say women in general were; and by thus concluding, he adopted the most likely method of rendering them so. The Byerleys, of course, knew nothing of all this; and as they were in the habit of opening their minds freely to their father, they were very slow in making the discovery that a similar degree of confidence did not prevail in all families.

Soon after their arrival, Anna was sitting near Mr. Fletcher and his daughter Selina, who appeared about her own age. Amidst the many enquiries which she made of Selina about the journey and other subjects of discourse, she looked perpetually to the door, in hopes that Signor Elvi would enter. When there had been a short pause, she said: “There is such an interesting gentleman here now! I am glad you will see him, and hear his adventures.”

“Adventures!” said Selina: “oh! what adventures?”

“Oh! so interesting! He had to fly for his life, and to put on a disguise; and he has been shipwrecked.”

“Delightful! Did he tell you about it himself?”

“He told my father and sister when I was out of the room; but I dare say my father will draw him out again; and we must take care to be in the way.”

“Certainly; one would not miss such an opportunity for the world. But what is his name, and where does he come from?”

“His name is Casimiro Elvi, and he comes from Italy.”

“From Italy! the very country one would guess, to be sure.”

“Pray, why?” asked Mr. Fletcher, who had overheard the whole. “Does nobody put on a disguise, is nobody shipwrecked, that does not come from Italy?”

Selina made no attempt at an answer, which surprised Anna, who said, she supposed Selina meant that the refugees, of whose misfortunes we hear so much, were generally from Italy; and that she therefore concluded Signor Elvi to be an Italian.

“Find out what she means if you can,” said Mr. Fletcher, as he turned his back upon them both.

“Tell me the rest when we go to take off our bonnets,” said Selina, in a whisper.

“Let us go now then,” said Anna, “unless you would like some more cake first.”

Selina refused the cake, and they moved towards the door; but as Anna put her hand on the lock, Signor Elvi entered. The girls delayed a moment to see how gracefully he paid his respects to the strangers, and then looking at one another for consent, they returned to their seats.

“Does Mr. Fletcher understand French?” enquired Anna, at the end of half an hour, during which every body had conversed with the stranger but Mr. Fletcher.

“Yes,” replied Selina; “but my father does not like foreigners generally. There is an Italian gentleman in our neighbourhood, who brought letters of introduction to my father; but we can only ask him when papa is out, or when we have company, because papa never speaks to him.”

“What can be his reason?” asked Anna.

Selina shook her head, and Anna sat in a reverie, till she saw the ladies about to leave the room. She was made very uneasy by what she had seen and heard. She was sure that there must be something wrong, to occasion so strange a want of sympathy among members of the same family; and she began to be afraid that she might not like Selina so well as she at first thought she should. She hoped that their guests would wish to be left to themselves when they entered their own apartments, that she might consult Mary, and learn the result of her observations. But the Miss Fletchers said, “Don’t go;” and Mary seemed quite inclined to stay, having ascertained that Mrs. Fletcher’s maid was in attendance on her mistress.

Dressing went on slowly; for there were frequent and long pauses, during which Selina stood with the comb suspended, and her sister Rose with the key unturned in the lock of her trunk, while they talked of many things. When they descended to the drawing-room, Anna wondered whether the same restraint was to be imposed by Mrs. Fletcher’s presence as by her husband’s. To her great relief, the girls showed at once that they had no reserves with their mother. They made her rest on the sofa, as she was in delicate health, and somewhat tired with her journey. The four girls then gathered round her, and held what Anna thought the most delightful conversation she had almost ever enjoyed. She was quite sorry when dinner-time approached, and the gentlemen dropped in, one by one, and engaged Mrs. Fletcher’s attention.

When Selina and Anna walked in to dinner behind the rest of the party, they lamented that they could not sit together. At the bottom of the table they exchanged a squeeze of the hand at parting, and took their places on each side of Mr. Byerley, preparing to keep up an intercourse of glances if any thing interesting should be said about Italy.

Italy was not once mentioned while the ladies were at table; but Signor Elvi was not therefore silent. He talked on almost every subject which was introduced; sometimes seeking, and sometimes communicating information. His observations on the effects which followed the repeal of the silk duties of England on the trade of Lyons interested even Mr. Fletcher; and he also explained, entirely to that gentleman’s satisfaction, a new method of draining marshes, which he had seen practised abroad. All this a little disappointed Anna, who had rather have seen him sit abstracted, unless patriotism and misfortune were talked about.

In the course of the evening, Mary found an opportunity of learning from her father a few particulars about the stranger. Mr. Byerley only knew that he had left a wife and large family in his own country; that he had filled a very high political station; and that, by his exertions in that station in the cause of liberty, he was rendered peculiarly obnoxious to the usurping government. Sentence of death for high treason had been issued against him, and he had not the remotest prospect of being able to return to his own land, and to all that was dear to him there.

The party broke up at an early hour, as the travellers were somewhat fatigued, and as great exertions were to be made the next day. The horses and carriage were to be at the door at eight o’clock; for much was to be seen at Audley Bridge, and no day was ever long enough, as every body knows, to fulfil all the purposes of such an expedition.

When Rose Fletcher had been asked whether she preferred riding, or a place in the carriage, she at once declared that she liked riding above every thing; but that her habit was at the bottom of the large trunk, which had gone on to London. This was not allowed to be a difficulty, as Mary’s habit was found to fit her sufficiently well to serve for the occasion. Rose and Anna were therefore to ride with Mr. Byerley and either Mr. Fletcher or Signor Elvi, as those gentlemen should determine between themselves.

“Well, Mary,” said Anna, as she shut the door of her chamber.

“Well, Anna,” said her sister, as she put down the candle on the dressing-table.

“What a pleasant day we have had!” exclaimed the one.

“How unlike one another people are, to be sure!” observed the other.

“Mr. Fletcher and the Signor, for instance. I can’t endure Mr. Fletcher.”

“Why not?” said Mary, surprised: “he is silent sometimes, certainly; but when he does talk, he says such very clever things, that they are worth waiting for. Do you know, I am not sure but that I like him better than Mrs. Fletcher.”

“Oh, Mary! impossible! She is such a dear, kind lady; and he is so cross, I dare not speak to him.”

“Indeed!” said Mary; “then you must have heard or seen something that I did not.”

“Nay, Mary; I heard him tell you that he gave it in charge to you to cure Selina of her way of speaking.”

“I do not think he was cross when he said that. It was rather odd, perhaps, so short as our acquaintance is; but Selina really does whine very much; and strangers are more aware of it, and can put her in mind of it oftener than those who are accustomed to hear it. Besides, Mrs. Fletcher has a good deal of it herself, and Rose too.”

“Well, but he was so prejudiced against the Signor.”

“Was he? I thought they seemed to like talking to one another.”

“Aye, afterwards; but you have no idea how very rudely he spoke at first.” So Anna told what had happened just after their arrival. Mary owned that he had been wrong; but would not agree that there was no merit in his politeness afterwards, because it must all be ascribed to the Signor’s irresistible attractions. Yet she liked Signor Elvi quite as well as Anna did.

Their younger guests were then discussed; honourable mention being made of a large variety of fine qualities. In this case, neither sister exceeded the other; for the praise of both was superlative. Beginning with their hair, and ending with their sentiments, it was found that they were altogether delightful.

“Upon the whole, Mary, has the day been what you expected, what you wished for?”

“In some things, much pleasanter; but——and yet it was hardly likely that, the very first day, any opportunity should happen for talking about——what we want Mrs. Fletcher to talk to us about.”

“Whenever she does, it will be in a way that we shall like, I know,” said Anna.

“How can you know? Mamma has not been mentioned to-day, nor any subject of that kind.”

“Not of that kind exactly,” said Anna; “and yet I am quite sure of it. Selina asked me if there was a church-yard in Audley Park, or within sight of it; and she said, that if she had a fine estate, she would take care to have a church-yard within sight. I said, I supposed she meant for the same reason that some grand prince, I forget who, had a man to put him in mind every day that he must die. Then she began telling me about a mausoleum in the Duke of D——’s park; but her mother looked at her, and she stopped just when she had said that the duchess was buried there. She was going to mention the duchess’s children, I know, when Mrs. Fletcher put her in mind that we had no mother. She is a kind, sweet woman; and I love her dearly already.”

“It would be very strange if we did not,” said Mary, “considering whose friend she was before we were born.”

Mary had now opened her Bible, and they read together, as they always did at night, when any thing had prevented their reading with their father below. It was very late, and Mr. Byerley had been some time in vain trying to sleep. The conversation in the next room disturbed him; and the continued murmur while Mary read, made him suppose that they were not yet thinking of sleep. He rose and tapped at their door. “Who is there? Is it you, papa?” said Anna, opening the door. When Mr. Byerley saw the closing book in Mary’s hand, he gave his blessing to his children, and advised them to seek repose. Their minds, as they composed themselves to rest, were full of thankfulness for the new pleasures of companionship which the day had brought them; and Anna began, for the first time, to be aware of the blessing of having a father whom she could love without fearing in any painful degree.

CHAPTER IV.
Pleasure or Pain?

At the sight of four saddle-horses and a carriage at Mr. Byerley’s door, the population of A—— began to assemble for the purpose of speculation as to what sort of a journey was about to be undertaken. That part of the population is meant, which was dressed and on foot by eight o’clock; for the grooms and the coachman were very punctual. Here, a workman with his frail basket of tools on his shoulder stood to see the provision packed in under the carriage-seat; there, a boy who had been birds’-nesting passed so close before the pony’s eyes, that it reared. Here, a milliner’s apprentice lingered in hopes of a glimpse of the riders for whom the side-saddles were destined; and there, an old man who was going to sun himself in the church-yard, stood leaning on his staff, to watch the departure of the company. Presently the young ladies were mounted, and patting the necks of their steeds to sooth them till the signal of departure should be given. Then was heard the slam of the carriage-door, the crack of the whip, and the crash of the wheels on the gravel. The cavalcade gradually disappeared at the turn of the road, and the gazers looked at one another, and betook themselves their several ways.

It was a beautiful morning: no cloud in the sky, no dust on the road; but all fresh, fragrant, and green, in the meadows and hedges. The carriage-party, consisting of Mr. and Mrs. Fletcher, their daughter Selina, and Mary Byerley, began to talk all at once, as is the natural impulse from rapid motion of an agreeable kind; and the enquiries went round, “Have you room?” “I am afraid the basket incommodes you:” “let me put away your shawl, for you will not want it;” and so on. To which Mr. Fletcher added, “Have you provided umbrellas, Miss Mary?”

“Umbrellas!” said Mary; “when there is not a cloud in the sky?”

“There was no cloud in the sky at this time yesterday, and what a deluge of rain we have had since!”

It appeared that the servants had marked this fact, for the handles of a very satisfactory number of umbrellas peeped out when sought for.

“How well your sister rides!” observed Mary, as Rose Fletcher cantered past the carriage, and waved her hand in passing.

“Where can Anna be? She cannot have passed without our seeing her;” said Selina, standing up to look before and behind. Far, very far behind, not cantering, nor apparently dreaming of cantering, was Anna, pacing soberly, side by side with Signor Elvi, either talking or listening very earnestly.

“O, look! look!” cried Selina; “they have forgotten every thing but what they are talking about. I wonder whether he is telling her about his poor wife and children.”

“Or about his beautiful estate that he will never see again,” said Mary.

“Or about the dear friend he was obliged to leave in prison,” added Selina.

“Sit down, Selina!” said her father, in a voice which silenced her.

After a long pause, Mrs. Fletcher began to talk with Mary about various trifles; but the conversation was far from amusing till Mr. Fletcher, after a long yawn, took a book from his pocket, and began to read very attentively. Then the two young heads met under one parasol, and carried on a busy talk, with low voices, and much care to avoid attracting the notice of the reader. Room was presently made for Mrs. Fletcher’s companionship, and then the girls forgot to wish the gentleman away, except when a finger was held up to say “hush!”

It was observed, at length, that Mr. Fletcher had ceased to read. The book was not laid aside, but closed with a finger between the leaves, while he looked over the side of the carriage. The three bonnets emerged from beneath the parasol, and every body cried, “How beautiful!”

“I was wondering,” said Mr. Fletcher, laughing, “whether you would actually pass by this view without looking about you.”

“You would not have allowed us, surely, sir,” said Mary.

“Nay; no doubt your fine imaginations were furnishing you with something much more beautiful than any thing vulgar eyes can look upon.”

Mary, young as she was, and modest as became her youth, was little daunted by Mr. Fletcher’s rough manner and speech. It was probably because she was more humble than Selina, that she was less mortified by any rebuke or sign of contempt. Selina’s silence was not that of humility. If not allowed to be sentimental in speech, she did not change her style of conversation, but indulged her dreams of the imagination in silence; while her very silence expressed that she did not think her father worthy to sympathize in her pleasures. Mrs. Fletcher never interfered between them, or attempted to make her husband and children understand one another better. She was very timid, rather indolent, and somewhat inclined to be sentimental, though not in the childish way in which she encouraged her daughters to be so.

“This place is very much altered within a few years: I should scarcely have known it again,” said Mr. Fletcher to himself, as they passed a gentleman’s estate.

“Yes,” said Mary; “even I can remember the time when there were no corn-fields where they now stretch almost as far as we can see.”

“This was all common: was it not?” said Mr. Fletcher. “I think it was a very bleak common, with nothing but furze growing upon it, when I saw it last.”

“Yes, sir; and the owner of it had a great deal of trouble about the alterations he wished to make. But you see he persevered.”

“What sort of trouble?”

“The poor people were discontented when their cows were not allowed to graze, and when they could not cut their turf on the common any longer.”

“Well; do not you think it was very hard upon them?”

“I dare say it was, at first; but papa says it is much better worth while to grow corn enough to maintain a great many men, than only grass enough for a few cows.”

Mr. Fletcher nodded; and Selina observed that all the rest of the way he enquired of Mary who lived at every gentleman’s seat they passed. Sometimes she knew, and sometimes she did not; but he did not sneer when she had no satisfactory answer to give. One mansion, which stood on a lawn a little way back from the road, appeared in a state of lamentable ruin. It was unroofed, and the stone pillars and doorways, and naked window-sills were blackened with smoke. In answer to Mr. Fletcher’s question, “When was this burned down?” Mary told all that she knew of the when and the how; and then turned to the ladies to relate some circumstances of a different kind. Notwithstanding Selina’s exclamations of admiration and pity, and his wife’s heightened colour, which testified to the deep interest of the story, Mr. Fletcher also for once seemed inclined to listen.

“Eh? What was that?” said he, after leaning forwards, in vain, to hear.

“I was telling what happened at the fire,” said Mary. “There was a poor old man in the house at the time, who had arrived only the day before to see Colonel Osborne. He had belonged to his regiment, I believe. He was sleeping high up stairs, at the back of the house, and nobody remembered him when the fire was discovered. Miss Osborne recollected him at last, and while every body was busy, she wrapt a blanket round her and flew up the back stairs. The curtains of the old man’s bed were on fire, and he was fast asleep when she burst in. She thought he was suffocated; but as soon as she dashed some water on his face, he roused himself enough to let her put the woollen coverlid over his shoulders, and lead him down the burning stairs. While she was helping him, the blanket slipped, and her gown-sleeve caught fire. She was dreadfully burned; but she scarcely felt the pain, while the stairs cracked and cracked again at every step they took, and the flames rushed and roared all round them. At the foot of the stairs she met her father, coming in despair to look for her; but though he saw how she was blackened with smoke, he asked no questions till he had helped her to get the old man beyond the reach of the burning rafters which fell on the lawn.”

“Bravo! Like daughter, like father,” cried Mr. Fletcher. “But what became of her?”

“Her face was so much burned that nobody could know her for the Miss Osborne that used to be so much admired; and what is worse, her left arm is so shrunk up, that she never can use it again. As for the poor old man, between the fire, and the fright and the grief, he was quite worn out, and he died the next week.”

“What a disastrous fire!” exclaimed Mr. Fletcher. “How the young lady must wish that she had staid where she was safe!”

“O! no, sir,” said Mary, in a low voice.

“Why, you say she did not save the old man after all.”

“No; but what a conscience she would have had all her life long! Do you think all her beauty and the use of all her limbs would have made up for that?”

“Well then, she must wish that the fire had never happened. Why do you shake your head now?”

“Because it is worth all she suffered, and more, to know what she can do on such an occasion. She need never be afraid again that she shall not be able to do her duty, or to bear the consequences.”

“Her father, at least, must be very sorry that the fire happened.”

“I think not still,” said the persevering Mary. “If you were to see him with his daughter for only one half hour, you would find out how he loves her, and tries to make her feel what has happened as little as possible; but he can never be sorry that it has been proved what a daughter he has. When she begins to repent of what she did, he may begin to be sorry for the occasion; but that will never, never be.”

“Well, you shall have it all your own way, because you are right, I believe,” said Mr. Fletcher. “But I hope, my dear, your father will have some pleasanter proof that you have a strong mind and a willing spirit.”

Mary could not answer, as Mr. Fletcher looked kindly at her. He soon opened his book again, and nobody spoke till the carriage stopped at the door of the Audley Arms.

The party presently dispersed themselves in groups about the park. Anna and Selina, of course, flew to each other, as soon as the one had alighted from her pony, and the other from the carriage. Arm in arm, they wandered away under the shade of the avenue. Rose and Mary, with their sketch-book, explored their way to the Ruin, to which the people of the inn had directed them; and they were immediately followed by Mrs. Fletcher and their Italian friend. Mr. Byerley also seemed disposed to accompany them; but Mr. Fletcher persuaded him to go round a longer way, for the purpose of witnessing the result of an experiment in tillage, which he knew to have been made on a piece of land adjoining the park. At the Ruin they were all to meet at two o’clock; by which time the servants were to have spread the dinner at the precise point of view where prospect-hunters were wont to feast body and soul at the same time.

The members of the three detachments all enjoyed themselves in their several ways; the four who were together, perhaps the most. Signor Elvi could draw well, and he superintended Mary’s sketch, to her great profit and pleasure. He advised her not to attempt the more extensive view which, though spread temptingly before them, could not easily be transferred to paper with all its flitting lights and shadows, its sloping lawns and wooded banks, and streams that peeped out where the sunshine fell brightest. He rather recommended a particular angle of the Ruin, whose massy stone-work was finely contrasted with the light birch which waved near. He took her pencil, and on the back of a letter showed her, with a few rapid strokes, what kind of effect he thought might be produced. When he had seen her make a successful beginning, he carried off Rose to a little distance, that she might attempt the same subject from a different point of view; to which her only objection was, that she should be too far off to hear the conversation.

“Oh! that will be too sad,” exclaimed he: “no lady must feel forlorn to-day. Mrs. Fletcher and I will sit between you, and tell you tales to beguile your tasks.”

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Mrs. Fletcher was willing, but observed that her daughter scarcely understood French well enough to enjoy a narrative related in it. The good-natured Signor therefore attempted to make himself understood in English, which he spoke better than might have been expected from his very short practice, but yet so as to render it very difficult for the hearers to maintain their gravity long. From the beginning of his tale, his auditors imagined that it was to be of a melancholy cast; but as soon as the narrator became aware that his broken language was an impediment to the serious impression he meant to produce, he dexterously placed his personages in new situations, and gave so strange a turn to the incidents he had related, that the whole became comic, and the girls were supplied with a good reason for the mirth which they could not have suppressed. Their drawing, meantime, went on but slowly; for they sat, pencil in hand, looking towards their companions instead of the Ruin, and when they began to laugh, all hope of steadying their hands again speedily was over.

“Eh! well,” said he, rising at length, “laugh as you will, but draw also.” And with all gravity he began to criticise; but again and again, as often as they looked towards one another, or some odd phrase which they had just heard occurred to them, there was a fresh burst. It ended in their being too weak, with hunger and mirth, to do any thing more before dinner, while their friend’s politeness could not allow him to leave their sketches unfinished.

In a little while, the whole party being assembled, except Anna and her friend, and the cloth being spread temptingly on the turf, every body sat down to eat. When, however, knives and forks were laid across, and the empty bottles outnumbered the full ones, and still the two girls did not appear, Mrs. Fletcher and Mary grew rather uneasy. Mr. Byerley went to the brow of the eminence on which they sat, and looked round in vain. Signor Elvi rose to go in search of them, but Mr. Fletcher prevented him, declaring it impossible that any harm should befall them in the park, and that nothing was so probable as that they should forget the time. On enquiry it appeared that neither of them had a watch.

“No matter,” said Mr. Fletcher; “which of them would think of using it if she had? Depend upon it, they are reclining under a tree or beside a brook, wondering if ever mortals felt such friendship for one another before; or perhaps weeping over the tales Miss Anna heard from the Signor this morning.”

Signor Elvi looked very grave, but said nothing.

“It is time they were dining, however,” said Mrs. Fletcher; “and if they have lost their way, they must be quite exhausted.”

“My dear,” said her husband, “I thought you had known better than to suppose they can care about eating when they have something so much better to do. I think, sir,” turning to Mr. Byerley, “that it is time we were finding our way to the bridge, unless the ladies require a longer rest.”

He rose and sauntered away; and his wife immediately, by Mr. Byerley’s advice, dispatched two of the servants different ways, in search of the lost companions. Mary sent some biscuits by each; and having left orders with the remaining servant to make the young ladies comfortable when they should arrive, and to direct them towards the bridge, the rest of the party followed Mr. Fletcher.

Anna and Selina were soon found, within half a mile of the place of rendezvous, walking as leisurely as if the sun had just risen, and they had had the whole day before them. They were both sad and disinclined to eat; and in a very few minutes they followed the party to the bridge. Very little notice was taken of them there but by the anxious mother and sister, who having satisfied themselves that nothing disastrous had happened, tried to cheer and amuse them; but they were still silent and sad. They saw, like every body else, how majestically the river wound round the bases of the hills, now darkened by overhanging thickets, now gleaming as a flood of light fell upon a reach of it, now sweeping by the terrace of a lordly mansion, and now bending round the promontory on which was a single cottage, with its one willow dipping into the water. They saw, like every one else, how the far-distant city rose to shut in the view at the further limit of the valley; and, like every one else, they listened to the many sounds which came from far and near. The chapel-clock in the park was heard to strike; the creaking waggon, with the jingling harness of the team came down the steep slope from the farms; the lapse of the river under the arches of the bridge gave out a never-ceasing sound; and the cawing of the rooks as they sailed round the tree tops suited well with it. The merry voices of children came from behind the laurel-hedge which separated the parsonage from the road. Anna and her friend saw, heard, and felt the beauty of all this; but it seemed to them a melancholy beauty, because their minds were melancholy. It grated upon their feelings to hear any observations made on the scene before them; and when Mr. Fletcher laughed loudly, they left the balustrades of the bridge, through which they had been gazing, and went down to find a seat on the sloping bank, where they might sit with their feet touching the brink of the river. Mrs. Fletcher followed, and as soon as the girls perceived her, they ran to take each an arm. She soon discovered what was in their minds, and Anna could not have desired a more ready listener to the tale of sorrow which she had heard that morning, and which had affected her very deeply.

“Did you see, Anna,” said Selina, “how he turned to listen when the children in the parsonage-garden shouted at their play?”

“O, yes,” replied Anna; “and he says it gives him pleasure to see us and talk to us, because he can think of his own daughters all the time. What charming girls they must be! and just our age, Selina!”

“I wish we could make ourselves so like them that we could comfort him better than we can do now.”

“We must be very unlike them, I am sure, Selina; for he says they are very gay and lively.”

“I always thought you had been so, Anna,” said Mrs. Fletcher. Anna sighed, and replied that she was merry when she had nothing to make her sad.

“But, my love,” said Mrs. Fletcher, “you must endeavour not to give way so much. You must take the Signor himself for an example there. If you had seen him two hours ago, you would scarcely believe that he had ever felt melancholy in his life.”

Selina and Anna were both rather dismayed when they heard of their foreign friend’s genius for comic narrative. “How could he forget so soon?” thought they.

Mrs. Fletcher was surprised that he should have told his domestic tale to one so young as Anna; but it appeared all very natural when she explained how it happened. He spoke of the young ladies of Italy as the subject which he thought would most interest his companion; this led to some mention of his own children: and as there was a full share of curiosity in Anna, and an interest and sympathy far more engaging than curiosity, he had gone on to tell one circumstance after another, till she had heard enough to fill her whole soul with admiration and pity. Her feelings were strong, and she had never tried to restrain them and as this was the first time she had ever heard so sad a tale from the actual sufferer, and that sufferer was peculiarly interesting and amiable, she was in danger of being more strongly excited than her health and spirits would bear. If she had had a judicious friend at hand to have directed her feelings aright, she might have derived much benefit from the new views of human suffering which were now opened to her; but this was not the case. Mrs. Fletcher seemed, in the education of her own daughters, quite unaware that a feeling, innocent or amiable in itself, may be indulged to an injurious excess. On the present occasion, she was delighted to witness in Anna indications of the sensibility she had loved in her mother; and though she did not exactly tell her so in words, she made her understand it by kissing her, and whispering how she loved to be reminded of her early friend, whose congeniality of feeling with her own was perfect. This led to a long conversation, which at some other time would have been as useful as it was delightful to Anna, by softening her heart and exercising her tenderest affections. Just now, however, when her heart was already melting, and her imagination highly excited, this further stimulus was not only needless, but very hurtful; and the youthful mind which should have been this day open to enjoyment, was tormented with tender sufferings, and weakened by a melancholy which it had never experienced before. Some of the natural evil consequences followed immediately. Mr. Byerley, seeing traces of tears on his daughter’s cheeks, and thinking them particularly ill-timed, was provoked to speak hastily to her. Anna was seldom or never known to be sullen, but to-day she was sunk below all power of instant recovery; and her temper gave way at the first irritation. Mary gave her an affectionate hint to try to be cheerful; but, for once, she received a pettish answer. The Signor himself was not quite in her good graces, for he was disposed to be agreeable. He sang, and his song was indeed plaintive as she could wish; but long before she had recovered it, and while his tones of deep feeling yet thrilled in her heart, he was talking with her father as if nothing had happened. The pleasures of the ramble through the park, on the return of the party to the inn, were lost on her, and the amusing bustle of departure was also unheeded; but horse-exercise is so exhilarating as to lighten the deepest depression, as even Anna found. When they had left behind the melting sunlights on the woods, and when the cool evening breeze blew in their faces as they crossed a heath in the twilight, she willingly obeyed her father’s signal to hasten on, shook the bridle, urged on the race, and, for a time, forgot her sensibilities.

Every body was tired, dull, and sleepy, when the carriage stopped at Mr. Byerley’s door. Nobody relished the candle-light: no lady wished for supper, or refused to retire when the gentlemen had dispatched their sandwiches. When Mrs. Fletcher had bade her children good-night up stairs, it appeared that the young folks were pairing off, according to a new arrangement. Mary and Rose, Anna and Selina.

“My loves, it really makes me uneasy,” expostulated Mrs. Fletcher; “you will talk half the night, I know, tired to death as you are.”

“No, mamma, we will not indeed.”

“Then what is the use of being together if you do not talk? Do be persuaded. I can trust your sisters to take care of you; but you two will wear each other out.”

A repeated promise, however, won her consent. They kept their promise. Having kissed with melancholy smiles, and promised each other never to forget this never-to-be-forgotten day, they lost all remembrance of it, and of every thing else in sleep.

CHAPTER V.
Friendship not always Bliss.

There had, as yet, been no time for due honour to be paid to the favourite green parlour; but early the next evening, those of the party who were the most likely to appreciate its peculiarities, were assembled there. The harp-lute caught the eye of the Signor as soon as he entered. “Ah, ah!” cried he, pointing to it with delight, “may I?” and he took it down, and tuned it. Just when he was about to begin, his heart seemed to fail him. He laid it down, with a sigh, saying, “It is long——” A glance between Anna and Selina supplied what he would have said. Mary felt it all, as much as they; but she did not content herself with a sympathizing sigh. She took the instrument, and struck up her father’s favourite Spanish song of Liberty. As she hoped, the exile’s current of feeling was diverted from melancholy objects. “Libertà! libertà!” he echoed, starting up and waving his hand, while his eyes sparkled; and as often as the Signor looked up and smiled, he joined in the burden, “Libertà! libertà!”

He was delighted with Mary’s singing, which was very unlike what he had heard from any other young lady since he had been in England. She had been well taught; but she had that natural taste for music—the ear and the soul for it—without which no teaching is of any avail. She sang much and often, not because she had any particular aim at being very accomplished, but because she loved it; or, as she said, because she could not help it. She sang to Nurse Rickham’s children; she sang as she went up and down stairs; she sang when she was glad, and when she was sorry; when her papa was at home, because he liked it; when he was out, because he could not be disturbed by it. In the woods, at noon-day, she sang like a bird, that a bird might answer her; and if she woke in the dark night, the feeling of solemn music came over her, with which she dared not break the silence. Every thing suggested music to her. Every piece of poetry which she understood and liked, formed itself into melody in her mind, without an effort: when a gleam of sunshine burst out, she gave voice to it; and long before she had heard any cathedral service, the chanting of the Psalms was familiar to her by anticipation.

Anna had as good an ear, and a much richer voice, but not quite so prevailing a love for the art: if art it may be called, in such a case as theirs. She was always able and willing to sing, but not so continually and spontaneously alive to music as her sister. She would join in when her sister began; and whenever they sat at work in the balcony, their voices would ring clear and sweet, through the house, by the hour together. Their father loved to hear them, and the servants themselves were never tired.

When Signor Elvi had heard several songs for which he had asked, (scarcely with the hope that Mary would be able to gratify him,) he mentioned at last a duet, which she had never seen or heard of. It seldom happened that she could not sing whatever was asked for; for her father took care that she was supplied with good music of all kinds, ancient and modern; and when she had once noticed a melody, it was never forgotten, or might be revived on the slightest suggestion. The duet now mentioned, she knew nothing about; but thought she and Anna might learn it if the Signor would sing it to them. He was well pleased to do so, and they established themselves in the balcony, sitting at his feet, and learning almost as much from his countenance as his voice. The thing was accomplished presently, as much to his amazement as pleasure; and he sat with his head on his hand, listening with delight to the music of his own land. Mrs. Fletcher understood and felt the pleasure too; and their father, who was walking in the garden with Mr. Fletcher, stopped and listened, without remembering to apologize to his companion for the sudden interruption of their conversation. No new air was lost on him, especially when sung by his daughters.

“How sweet, how wild, Mary’s voice is!” observed Mrs. Fletcher to her daughters, as they sat within. “I have not heard such another since her mother sang to me.”

“Which is the most like Mrs. Byerley?” asked Rose.

“I scarcely know,” replied her mother: “they both remind me of her perpetually. Anna has her mother’s countenance, and I catch occasional glimpses of the mirth which I used to love.”

“And the sensibility,” said Selina.

“Mary has the sensibility to an equal degree.”

“Oh mamma! no.”

“I discover as great a depth of feeling in Mary as in Anna, with a stronger judgment. Yes, Mary is the most like her mother. They are charming companions for you, my dears, in most respects, and I am very glad you have met.”

“In most respects!” repeated Selina: “in every respect. They are every thing that is dear and delightful!”

“Take care, my little enthusiast,” said her mother, laying one hand on Selina’s shoulder, and pointing with the other to the balcony: “look at your friends now, and tell me if you would like to make exactly such an appearance.”

Selina saw that Mary’s hair, disordered and out of curl, hung in a very slovenly way about her face; and that Anna’s silk frock was stained from top to bottom with something which had been thrown over it.

“Oh! mamma,” exclaimed Selina, “how can you expect them to be quite neat and handy, when they have no mother to teach them?”

“I do not expect it, my dear; I only point out to you that they are not quite perfect. If we could carry them away with us, I think we might soon correct these bad habits; and they, in their turn, might improve you in some things of more importance.”

Rose and her sister besought Mrs. Fletcher to try to induce Mr. Byerley to part with them for a while; and as Mr. Fletcher had himself proposed it, believing that Mary would be a valuable companion to Rose, it was agreed that Mr. Byerley’s consent should be asked without delay.