a I B RARY OF THE UN IVLR.SITY Of ILLINOIS SmBSs v.l ^^l-:^-^-T.^^:yL^ l^^ THE STORY OF A FAMILY. VOL. I. THE STORY OF A FAMILY. isg ss. m. A.UIHOE OF " THE MAIDEN AUNT," " LAYS AND BALLADS FEOM ENGLISH HISTOKY," &C. &C. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. L LONDON: GEORGE HOBY, (RICE'S LIBRARY,) 123, MOUNT STREET, BERKELEY SQUARE. 1851. London : Printed by Stewakt and Mtjebat, Old BaUey. PREPACK ^- If the writer could flatter herself that this story contained only such defects as would seem to be J inseparable from a tale composed a plusieurs - reprises, she might, perhaps, put in a plea for indulgence. But as she entertains no such corn- er fortable conviction, she thinks it wiser to send ;4t forth without apology, to encounter a judg- ^ ment, which, though it will probably be somewhat less apt than her own to discern merits, can ' scarcely be more alive to imperfections, and "^ assuredly cannot condemn them so unequivocally, because it is impossible that it should feel them . so keenly. CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE L — DISPERSION 1 II.— REUNION 22 III. — A GLIMPSE OF THE PAST .... 47 IV. — THE HAPPY FAMILY 72 v. — THE WILL 101 VL — CHILDHOOD 116 VII. — LAYING A TRAIN.— A CONTRAST . . 146 VIIL — THE FIRST SORROW 162 IX. — THE ARRIVAL 191 X. — THE BIRTHDAY 220 XI. — MAKING ACQUAINTANCE 248 XIL — THE PIC NIC 271 XIIL — A MYSTERY 294 STORY OP A FAMILY. CHAPTER I. DISPERSION. In tlie liall of an old house, on a fair summer afternoon, stood two persons — a clergyman and a lawyer. The former had reached the evening* of life ; his face was full of venerable calmness, the forehead wide and smooth, with white hair flowing* back from it like a natural glory; the eyes clear and tranquil, the lips resolute, though benign — and yet he must have numbered more than seventy years. — How unruffled must have been that Past, whose still waters were not able, during so long a time, to efiace the seal of childhood from his countenance ! Nay, not so ; there had been storm and tempest, danger and distress, but the VOL. I. B STORY OF A FAMILY. bark was in its quiet haven at last j and tlie calm of experience was deeper, and more abiding than that of ig'norance. The lawyer was younger, but every year that he had lived seemed to have graven a furrow upon his face. He looked keen, thoughtful, and wary; not cunning, nor by any means bad, but like one who had learned goodness, not by a loving worship of its beauty, but by a recoil from the known hideousness of evil. This is a modern system of education, and its wisdom is at least questionable. The child who learns grammar by correcting a number of falsely- constructed sentences, submitted to it for that pur- pose, becomes so habituated to the sight of what is wrong, that it is in danger of losing its ready apprehension of what is right. May not that which is true of the intellect, be true also of the conscience ? The house itself is worth a passing description. It was originally something between a castle and cottage : one of those fortified granges of which there are still a few picturesque specimens left in England. The low-arched portal, with its oaken door strengthened and decorated by iron tracery; the corner turret, with its long square-headed loop- DISPERSION. holes; the broad massy buttress, jutting far out into the water of the moat, and lifting- its chim- neyed top through the line of battlemented wall, — all spoke of danger expected, and defence prepared. But the stationary drawbridge, with its supports encrusted by soft green moss, and its broken chain hanging down to sustain a white climbing rose ; the yellow lilies set Hke a coronal on the brow of the sleepy water j the falling tresses of ivy clothing the brown walls, and smoothing away the sharpness of outhne at the angles; the opened windows; the quiet procession of obedient kine coming, after their serpentine and irregular fashion, down the far slope, which once echoed to the measured tramp of horses, and ghstened with the bright array of their martial riders — all seemed to indicate that the danger was now imaginary, and the defence a show. And so the very peacefulness of the place was melancholy; it looked like the sepulchre of a dead Idea, — a fragment of the Past preserved in aesthetic syrup for the antiquarian epicure. Such, in truth, it was : a covered bridge connected this portion of the build- ing, now used only for offices and bed-rooms, with the modern mansion, which, subhme in colossal neatness, stared at it from the opposite side of the b2 4 STORY OF A FAMILY. moat, very mucli as an aristocratic dandy mig-lit survey throug-h his eyeglass some noble of nature's making, who lacked the alloy of fashion and the stamp of birth, to make his pure gold into current money of the realm. The drawing-room windows of this, commonly called, the " habitable portion" of the house opened on a wide terrace, from the outer edge of which a parterre, abundant in flowers, sloped gently downwards till it met the undulating expanse of park, which stretched away as far as the eye could reach, somewhat deficient in timber, but admitting many a peep of the blue distance between its turfy eminences, and one shadowy glimpse of quiet sea, cradled amongst clouds and hills, and glistening in the sunlight. There was, of course, a story belonging to the place : in fact, there was a dungeon still in exis- tence, a haunted chamber, a tapestried wall, and a trap door; so that it was as complete an epitome of the past as any melodrama that ever was written. Only the eastern window of the beautiful little chapel, rich with the thousand colours which the sun kindled upon it as he sank, looking hke an inlet of the eternal splendours through the veil of this earthly and mortal, told of an element in the past, DISPERSION. wliicli melodramas, and popular histories too, are sometimes apt to overlook. Evelyn Manor, — for thus was the house named, — with the fair lands annexed to it, had belong-ed, time out of mind, to the Lees of Evelyn. The family claimed a Saxon orig'in, and boasted that the blood of Alfred still ran in their veins. The ancestral castle had been levelled to the ^ound during the wars of York and Lancaster; the g-rang-e itself dated from the days of Henry VII. Some hundred and fifty years ago, the representative of the family had been in- fected with a building- mania, which he gratified by expending a few thousands more than he pos- sessed, in erecting and duly fitting up the stuccoed palace which we have described. His son and heir, succeeding to an impoverished estate and an extra- vagant disposition, married a penniless beauty, who disputed the palm with Mary Lepel and the too famous Chudleigh, while her husband sought to mend his fortune at the gaming-table. Poorer and poorer grew the Lees of Evelyn. Grove after grove was cut down in the once-umbrageous park, acre after acre parted with j the place and the name seemed to be dying out like an unfed taper. Very sorrowful was the heart of Bernard 6 SrORY OF A FAMILY. Lee, when — more honest, though not more economi- cal, than his predecessors — he came to the resolu- tion of selling the Manor, with the scanty remnant of unalienated land which still belonged to it, about twenty-seven years before the evening to which we have alluded. He had a sickly wife, seven children, and debts which it would have required treble his annual income to pay by instalments in more years than his creditors were disposed to wait ; so perhaps, after all, the merit of his honesty is somewhat questionable. There was nothing else left for him to do, so he made a virtue of necessity, and did what he could not help with a good grace. The younger children ran merrily through the desolate roonis, and wished good-bye to every favourite spot in the garden, and wondered what their new home would be like ; but wondered still more at the quiet tears which stole down their mother's pale cheeks, and at the knitted brow and compressed Hp of their father, usually so prompt to sympathize with their pleasures. To childhood, secure of sympathy, eager for consolation, ready to forget, the silence of grief is its greatest mystery. But the eldest boy looked steadily at the familiar walls and at the gay flower- bed, from which his little brother was carefully DISPERSION. 7 uprooting* some special treasure to decorate their new abode, and said, cheerfully, — ^' Don't cry, mama ; I mean to earn a great deal of money, and I shall be very saving and buy all our property back again, and then I shall let you and papa come and live with me." " Won't you give it to mama for her own, when it is yours, Alic?" inquired the brig'ht-haired gar- dener, looking up from his employment. '^ No, indeed," replied Alic, without a moment's hesitation. " If I earn it, I shall have a right to it for my own, and /shall be master, and papa and mama will be my visitors. I shall like very much to have you all for my visitors, only I sha'n't let you dig up the flowers out of my garden then, little Percy." " But I shall dig them up, if mama lets me," re- turned the undaunted little Percy ; " and I know it micst always be mama's own garden, whether you buy it or not. I know it must," reiterated he, with double emphasis, " for we all belong to mama, and the king could not buy us away from her, if he wanted us ever so much." " That is only while we are children," said AHc, with dignity ; " when we grow up, we shall belong to ourselves." S STORY OF A FAMILY. Tlie sentiment passed unnoticed j it was fast maturing into a principle. " Shall we?" questioned little Percy; " then I shall give myself to mama." And he left his flowers, to run by her side and cover her hand with kisses. " Oh, must we go away ? " sobbed Ellenor, the eldest girl, as she hid her face on her father's arm. " Oh, Percy, dear, don't take up the gentianellas, they will never grow anywhere else but here. We shall never be at home again." "My darling!" said the mother, checking her own grief for the first time, " we carry our home with us you know. As long as we are all together, we are at home anywhere." And they passed where the white spire of the village church stood out against the clear blue sky like a pyramid of ivory, and the cross on the summit glistened in the sunlight, and seemed to pierce the heavens with its sharp point ; but no one spoke of a home there. Yes, as they traversed the church- yard, Bernard Lee looked down upon the quiet graves, and wished himself asleep in one of them ; he thought of no home before, and of none beyond, the grave. The property was bought by a wealthy American DISPERSION. 9 merchant, whose name was Clayton. He sedulously restored and preserved the ancient part of the dwell- ing-house, and seemed to make it his main object to reunite the scattered domains of the exiled family. He was an oddity — a humourist ; this seemed to be but one among* many inexplicable fancies. Some- what parsimonious in general, he became liberal almost to extravagance when the purchase of the merest corner of the alienated lands was in question ; and within ten years of his first coming into pos- session, the Evelyn estates were once more united under a single head, and the goodly park extended to its former limits, though not even 'the omnipo-i />>%^ (( tence of money /could restore the guardian shadow - /' - of its venerable trees. When this g'reat object was achieved, Mr. Clayton, who had hitherto lived in the most inexorable seclusion, astonished the neighbour- hood by giving a dinner party ; no less than thirty guests did he assemble in his spacious hall, culled from the principal famihes around, all anxious to see ■with their own eyes the renovated splendours of Evelyn Manor, and judge for themselves of the singularities of its master. He received them courteously, with an urbane stateliness which suited better his present station than his supposed origin. 10 STORY OF A FAMILY. Lord Pinkney noticed to the honourable Mr. Delanj, that " the elaborateness of his affability betrayed the tradesman — he was as deferential as if he were speaking to a customer." And Lady Pinkney whispered to her friend Miss Wynyard, ^^ that she should have known him for an American anywhere, even by his face ; but of course when he spoke, his intonation put it beyond a question." All looked somewhat wistfully at the portrait of the founder of the Lee family, wliich hung- above Mr. Clayton's chair at the dinner table, scrutinized the aristocratic features and expression of high breeding", and sig-hed over the contrast in the living* face below. In the centre of the table stood a magnificent cup of beaten silver j it was a " peg- tankard," choice in the eyes of the antiquary, the interior being decorated with a series of silver nails or pegs, at regular dis- tances, marking the depth to which each successive person was expected to drink, when it was passed round the board in the old-fashioned manner. The cover bore the royal arms, and the feet were in the form of lions: Mr.Delany, who was somewhat curious in such matters, detained it a moment, to examine the richness of the carving. " How old do you reckon this to be?" inquired DISPERSION. 11 he, addressing his host. " I have one which hears date 1702 5 but I should think yours is older." ^* Bj more than fifty years/' returned Mr. Clay- ton. *' It was presented to an ancestor of mine by Charles I." A slight but instantly repressed expression of amusement and wonder was visible on all the faces round the table, and Lady Pinkney, who had a piquante smile and a sweet voice, and was in the habit of saying the rudest conceivable things to gentlemen, in the full persuasion that she had the gift of graceful badinage, and that they liked to be put out of countenance by her, exclaimed immediately, — ^' Given to an ancestor of yours ! Dear me, how interesting ! What was his name, and why did the king give it to him ?" ^' I believe it was only a matter of personal friend- ship — not the meed of any particular service," said Mr. Clayton. " His name was Alfred." " Yes, but his sirname" persevered the lady. " His sirname ? Oh, Lee, of course — Alfred Lee. You know we boast our descent from the great Saxon, and preserve his name carefully among us. My own first name is Alfred." 12 STORY OF A FAMILY. This speech was followed by total silence ; polite- ness prevented any expression of astonishment, but it was strained to its utmost in so doing", and could attempt no more. Mr. Clayton surveyed his g-uests with a glance of restrained but intense amusement, and then said, addressing himself more especially to Lady Pinkney, — " You are inclined to quiz me a little for my pride of birth, are you not ? Well, I frankly confess to the weakness, if such it be. I am prouder of my name than of anything else that belongs to me." " As proud of your name as young- Lord Moreton is of his new moustachios," replied she, shaking her curls, and looking archly into his face. '* By-the- bye, how pretty they are ! They look just as if they were real." " Like the tinsel which sometimes passes in so- ciety for the gold of wit," was the rejoinder. After a moment's pause, Mr. Clayton continued. " It has been the work of many years to reunite the scattered possessions of my family into one whole. Well, you are all wondering what I can possibly mean ; you are mentally pronouncing me a madman, an impostor — or perhaps that of which impostors are the coimterfeit, namely, a man who speaks a new DISPERSION. 13 and puzzling truth. The father of that Bernard Lee who left Evelyn Manor ten years ago was my brother." Throwing- himself back in his chair, and softly rubbing' his hands tog-ether, the old humourist en- joyed to the uttermost the discomfiture of his fair antagonist, and the amazement of the audience in general. His story was as follows : — When he was one-and-twenty years old, observ- ing with a shrewd and resolute eye the embarrassed state and miserable prospects of his father, and judging that they were not likely to be improved by his elder brother, who had duly inherited the family taste for expenditure, he announced his determination to accept a place offered him in the counting-house of a merchant, whose son was his intimate friend at college. The dismay with which this declaration was received can scarcely be imagined. His mother wept and pleaded ; his father swore to disinherit him, and never to see him more, if he took such a step ; and the son and heir, a petit-maitre of the old school, professed that *^ if it were not for the unfortunate connection between them, he should undoubtedly have demanded the 14 STORY OP A FAMILY. satisfaction of a gentleman for such an insult to the honour of the family." Nothing daunted by these threats, and (outwardly at least) nothing moved by those entreaties, young Lee left his paternal roof, and from that moment his name was interdicted in the shadow of his home and the presence of his nearest kindred, and, save perhaps in some hidden nook of the mother's heart, the very memory of his childhood was turned into bitterness. Gradually, his existence seemed to be forgotten ; and when the fading cheek and wasting form of poor Mrs. Lee were noticed, it was not uncommonly said that she had never recovered the death of her younger son, a regular mauvais sujet, who ran away to America, and died shortly after his arrival there. Report added, that her last illness was occasioned by the shock of receiving some terrible information con- cerning his misconduct ; and the nurse who attended her avouched that in the ravings of delirium— for it was of brain fever that she died — she frequently repeated his forbidden name, and murmured strange sad words about some letter, which, with the most touching expressions of entreaty, she implored her husband to give her. Like most popular rumours, this had a slight DISPERSION. 15 thoug^h imperfect foundation of truth. Five years after Alfred Lee's departure, a letter, bearing his handwriting on the address, and with the post-mark " Quebec," was placed in his father's hands at the breakfast table. The poor mother, who had been so long" enduring the torture of a silent but ceaseless suspense, but who had not dared to break the seal of this the first communication which her son had ventured to make to his family, trembled as she gave it to her husband. Mr. Lee's face flushed crimson as he looked at it, and without a word he flung it, unopened, into the fire. Before night his wife lay on that bed from which she never arose, and such was the blindness of his habitual pride and despotism, that it never once occurred to him that he had killed her — as surely as if he had plunged a knife into her heart, and far more cruelly. But who would not envy that quiet sleep of hers, when the worn and anxious face assumed in a moment the tranquillity of infancy, and the head that once ached so wearily lay still and cold upon the pillow, and the palms were softly folded together upon a bosom that throbbed no longer beneath the burning touch of grief? What a transfiguration — what a visible putting on of immortality is the first hour of death ! 16 STORY OP A FAMILY. Perhaps the first dream that visited her sleep re- vealed to her all that her troubled spirit had so pined to know ; perhaps that instant wherein time passed into eternity united her at once to the child from whom she had been so long* parted ; perhaps that first true silence was more eloquent to her than the speech of a lifetime ! Oh, in how strang-e an alle- gory does our language wrap truth! Life is the sleep — death the true awakening* ! In the mean time, young Alfred Lee had continued steadil}' to persevere in the course which he had chosen. If he had a heart, it was a very orderly, decorous, well-behaved heart, which never g-ave him nor anybody else the least trouble. His object was to make a fortune, and of this he never lost sight for a moment. The pride of family developed itself in him after a somewhat sing-ular fashion ; he re- solved never to assume the name of his ancestors till he had attained wealth enough to reunite their scattered domains. He never for a moment doubted that he should so attain ; and by the strength of an unflagging- and invincible will, his faith became a fact. If the passing' away of those who mig-ht have shared his wealth and restored honours was in any manner grievous to him, he never showed that STORY OF A FAMILY. 17 it was so. He returned to England, when, after a career of successful industry, the uninteresting de- tails of which we shall not record, he had achieved the means of greatness, and then waited patiently till the fortunes of the Lee family had reached their lowest point of depression, and the moment for action had arrived. Little was known of his per- sonal demeanour towards Bernard Lee, beyond the fact that he had placed in the hands of trustees a sum of money which was to be divided in equal portions among the children, with the restriction that as each boy arrived at the age of seventeen, his share was to be expended in establishing him in life, while each girl was to receive hers as a dowry. The total was by no means enormous, and the Lees had still much ado to maintain the appear- ance of gentility, and carry on the necessary expenses of education. The master of Evelyn Manor held no communication with them as a kinsman. Disgusted with the incurable extravagance which seemed to be the inahenable birthright of his race, he resolved to separate himself entirely away from them, doing for them just so much as the narrowest and most worldly view of duty demanded of him, and no more. He would not entangle his feelings in the affairs of VOL. I. c 18 STORY OF A FAMILY. persons whom it was folly to befriend. The exceed- ing care which some people take to protect their feelings from any possible injury is the more notice- able, because it commonly occurs in cases where the feeling's might have been safely left to take care of themselves. The work of a Fra Angelico may well be covered and shielded, lest the mere breath of heaven should sully its marvellous purity ; but would you bestow the same cautious tendance upon a sign- painting? There is one reason, however, which would seem applicable to such a case, and it is this : so long as the said feelings are kept strictly under lock and key, the world may imagine them as luxu- riant as it pleases, for it cannot see the smallness and coldness of the reality ; which is an advantage both to their possessor and to the world. And now this prosperous man was dead, and not a single tear was shed for him, save the few drops which oozed slowly from the eyes of his old house- keeper, as she heard the clock strike nine, and no bell summoned her to carry the chocolate to her master's chamber. Twenty years will invest the commonest habit with a sanctity and pathos which reason may strive to combat in vain. " Never again/' is not a phrase which can be uttered calmly, DISPERSION. 19 though the practice thus eternally forbidden be nothing- greater than the carrying of chocolate ; all through life it is a knell tolling the Present into the Past — never again to see that familiar face, or hear that accustomed voice ; never again to do the trifling service, to offer the poor consolation, to for- give the little wrong — never again ! Yet is there one moment when it breaks into a strain of reverent jubilee, the first note of the chorus which shall be completed in Paradise. That moment is the mo- ment of death to him who has striven to live well. Never again to grieve, to struggle, to be tempted, to sin, to repent in bitterness of heart; never again to lean on breaking reeds and trust to vanishing shadows, and give the whole soul for words which cease and die away into vacancy. — Never again ! We will not undraw the curtains of the deathbed and inquire in what aspect this thought presented itself to him who lay thereon. His life had been without love — how should his death be without fear ? The only hold which he had on the hearts of those among whom he had lived, was a miserable negative. He had not been unkind, — this was all that his best friends could say for him. Every deed of active charity is a seed sown, whose blossoming shall not c2 20 STORY OF A FAMILY. be on the earth — a round added, as it were, to the ladder whereon the spirit may mount heavenwards. It is foolishness, indeed, to leave the ladder unbuilt, in the hope that death will bring you a pair of wings as a substitute for it. The face of the good clergyman was somewhat sorrowful J perhaps he was musing on some such theme as this. It was the day after the funeral, and he had been invited by Mr. Coniston, the solicitor and intimate acquaintance of the deceased, to assist him in receiving the members of the Lee family, who were expected to assemble, in preparation for the reading of the will, a ceremony which, by the express wish of the deceased, was to take place on the morrow. Mr. Clayton or Mr. Lee (we know not which to call him) had left a written paper to the effect that all the survivors of Bernard Lee's family should meet at Evelyn Manor on this day, and that on the day following, Mr. Coniston should read his will in the presence of them all. The funeral he had desired to be quite private and unattended, save by the clergyman and the lawyer. Several of the Lees were married, and he had added a special desire that the children should accompany their parents; the necessary letters had been de- DISPERSION. 21 spatched, and thej were hourly expected. Not one of them had seen the gates of Evelyn Manor since the day when all had passed through them to go forth to exile and poverty. Bernard Lee and his gentle wife werehoth dead, and the children had grownup, and been scattered about the world in all directions, with various fortunes and various characters. Mr. Becket, the vicar, had known them all, and it was strange to him to recall the light-hearted little ones, and wonder how far they were changed, and how each one of them would feel on returning to his old home. He paced the hall for some time in silence, and at last came to the side of Mr. Coniston, who was curiously examining a family picture over the mantelpiece, and who turned to question him as he approached. 22 STORY OF A FAMILY. CHAPTER II. REUNION. "The late Mr. Bernard Lee's seven children, I believe ?" said the lawyer interrogatively. " An in- teresting group — classical, very. Refi-eshing, this glimpse of modern art after the antique horrors against the walls yonder. To be sure our forefathers were a Httle behindhand." " In the art of portrait-painting ? Yes, I think they were," returned Mr. Becket, absently. Mr. Coniston was a man of progress, and his one ruling passion was to divest himself of all out- ward sig-ns or symptoms of his profession. To him it would have seemed the highest possible compH- ment to be mistaken for anything but what he was. The unrealities which arose out of this little monomania (which, by-the-bye, is far from being uncommon), disfigured a character otherwise un- impeachably respectable j he affected a taste for art of which he knew nothing, and assumed a critical REUNION. 23 tone on literary subjects, with whicli he was only acquainted through the medium of an occasional review. " Good likenesses, evidently/' pursued he, still contemplating the picture. " Nothing ideal about these heads — a phrenologist might sketch a charac- ter from any one of them. What a benevolent countenance that eldest boy has! — ^you remember him, of course?" " Alexander ? yes, I remember him," repHed Mr. Becket. " An excellent likeness, and nothing ideal about the head, as you say. He was a clever boy, the cleverest of the family; he was senior wrangler, and afterwards distinguished himself at the bar. I have seen nothing of him since his childhood. That fair, gentle face beside him, is poor little EUenor ; she was the image of her mother, most lovely and graceftil. She married, and went out to India, and has now returned a widow, with two sons. She was the brightest, gayest, most buoyant creature I ever beheld — in that respect very different from her mother ; but I dare say she is more like her now." He stopped and sighed. There came upon him like a dream the memory of a scene which he had once witnessed on board a steamer that was about to start 24 STORY OF A FAMILY. for Malta. He saw how the mother and daughter clung to each other, as though the clasp of those weak arms could have stayed the giant wheel of cir- cumstance, till it was necessary to separate them by force. He saw how the young bride dropped her face upon the breast of him who extricated her from her mother's embrace, murmuring as she did so, " But I have you still — I can bear anything with you^ And then he remembered how soon that young bride was left a widow — how sorrowfully she returned to her mother's grave. But not one word of all this did he say ; the whole history was com- prised in the meagre sentence, " she is a widow with two sons." Conversation often reminds one of a churchyard; ever and anon a cold stone, graven with a few cold phrases, marks the place of a corpse, and chronicles the mystery of a life. Mr. Coniston continued his lucubrations. " That up-turned profile to the left is very nicely touched — the shadow melts into the light so that you can't define the boundary of either. Very much the same features as the eldest girl, but a finer ex- pression. More soul here, I should say — nearly half as much soul again — eh ? am I right ? " " That is MeHnSsa," said Mr. Becket, so following REUNION. 25 the train of bis own reminiscences, that he scarcely gasped the full meaning of his companion's com- ments, and listened to them only as a kind of per- mission to go on soliloquizing aloud. " I wonder how she grew up ; a dull child she was, slow both in learning and in conversation, and rather fretful tempered, poor little thing ! She is single still. And so is that chubby-cheeked fellow there in the corner, who is holding up the cherry before his little sister's eyes — jovial Johnny, as his brothers used to call him ; he was the best-tempered child I ever knew. That Httle sister did not live to grow up — and the baby, too, died in infancy. There are only five of them now." *' But you have passed over the finest head in the picture," suggested Mr. Coniston ; " that dark- eyed boy in the centre ; his face is perfectly Italian, — so full of hfe, fire, and archness. It reminds me of the poet — eh — ah — hem — you recollect ? " Mr. Coniston was very frequently reminded of the poet, but as he invariably broke down before he arrived at the quotation, and finished ofi" by a short series of inarticulate ejaculations, his friends were quite at a loss to discover who this pertinacious and obtrusive minstrel was who seemed to stick to him 26 STORY OF A FAMILY. SO closely, and to thrust himself upon Ms recollec- tion so frequently, without affording any distinct or satisfactory information concerning his name or other qualifications. A cloud settled upon Mr. Becket's face, and his features contracted as if with pain. " Ah, little Percy !" sighed he, shaking his head ; ^^ most love- able of human beings — generous, tender-hearted, high-spirited boy ! His poor mother ! she would have kissed the very dust beneath his feet." " Did he die also ? " asked the man of the world, who could conceive no deeper cause of grief for a beloved one than his death. " I thought letters were sent to five." " No," was the answer, with a sudden change of tone and manner. " He will be here, I suppose, among the rest. He was in India, too, but not in the same presidency as his sister. Your letter must have met him on his return ; he was bringing his little child home, I heard, and they came by the mail which has only just arrived ; he has but one child, and I know not whether it is a boy or a girl — his wife died in giving birth to it." And Mr. Becket sank into deep thought. Pre- sently, rousing himself, he said, " There is a por- REUNION. 27 trait of Mrs. Lee in the library. Shall we g-o and look at it?" They adjourned to the room in question, and Mr. Coniston had full leisure to indulge in the raptures of connoisseurship, for his companion did not utter a word. The face of the picture was very beautiful, with dark pathetic eyes that seemed g-listening through unshed tears, transparent cheeks, and lips soft but pensive ; gentle was it, matronly and tender, yet, if the epithet be intelHgible, intensely human in its expression, like one whom sorrow would rather crush than sanctify. They were still engaged in contemplating it when the servant announced, " Mr. Lee and Mrs. Aytoun." They entered, — a tall, fine looking man, scarcely forty years old, accompanied by a lady some two years younger ; she wore widow's weeds, and per- haps the regularity of her beauty was rendered all the more conspicuous by the plainness of her dress. She seemed strugghng with some emotion, for she trembled, changed colour, and rather clung to than leaned upon her brother's arm ; at last, perceiving Mr. Becket, she held out both her hands to him, essayed to speak, and burst into tears. Mr. Lee gave her into his charge, with a kind of compound 2S STORY OF A FAMILY. smile, betokening the perfection of sympathy and of self-command, and then turned to pay his com- pliments to Mr. Coniston, which he did very cour- teously, but with the air of giving* rather than of receiving a welcome. " I am very happy to make your acquaintance, Mr. Coniston," said he ; "I believe my late relative was much indebted to your kindness during the last years of his life. I shall always be glad to see you at Evelyn." The lawyer bowed with a slight, scarcely percep- tible expression of irony, and they moved together to the window, in order to allow Mrs. Aytoun time to recover herself. " My sister is naturally a good deal overcome," pursued Mr. Lee, lowering his voice. " It is seven- and-twenty years since we were here ; the place is altered much for the better — it is something Hke what it used to be in days very long gone by. My relative must have expended vast sums upon it — how much now do you take his rent-roll to have been at the time of his death ? " " He made no secret of it," replied Mr. Coniston j " it was about twelve thousand." " Clear?" inquired Mr. Lee. REUNION. 29 " Clear ! " responded the lawyer. " I am a good deal overcome myself," resumed Mr. Lee, reverting to the state of his feelings, " but I never give way. In these cases you know, one makes a great effort, and suffers for it afterwards. A little small talk on indifferent topics is the best method of passing it off, and getting the better of one's natural weakness ;" he looked from the window again. " Does the whole of this land," said he, sighing, and speaking with very evident effort, " belong to the Evelyn property?" '' The whole of it," answered the agreeable Mr. Coniston. " Ah, here are the boys — I see them coming up the walk. I am glad they are come to divert our minds from these painful recollections. Ellenor, here are the boys, and they have caught their uncle John somewhere on the road, and are bringing him with them." As he spoke, a stout, ruddy, good-humoured looking gentleman was seen to ascend the slope in front of the terrace, at a kind of agonized trot, being vehemently impelled from behind by two breathless, laughing boys, of nine and ten years old. They did not set him free till they had hurried him as far as 30 STORY OF A FAMILY. the portico, and deposited him with considerable force against the hall door. Here they were joined by a youth of eleven, of somewhat more staid appear- ance, who seemed endeavouring to keep the peace ; an altercation ensued, the subject of which was not audible, but which was cut short by the youngest of the party breaking away from the rest, running with the activity of a greyhound to the terrace, and making one bound through the library window, by which tour deforce his feet came sharply in contact with the shins of Mr. Coniston, who was quite unprepared for so sudden an intrusion. He started back, more hurt than he liked to acknowledge, and brought the confusion to its climax by the overtm-n of a stand which supported a glass bowl filled with gold and silver fish ; the vessel was shat- tered to pieces, the water streamed over the carpet, and the amazed fish flapped and struggled upon the floor. " You little rascal, you deserve to be horse- whipped," said Mr. Lee, who, not having in any manner sufiered himself, was disposed to be more amused than angry at this ebulHtion of his nephew's youthful spirits. Mr. Coniston looked as if it would Jiave afibrded him intense gratification to administer REUNION. 31 the chastisement in person j but the culprit escaped them both, and springing up to his mother with a shout of undiminished glee, exclaimed in the tone of one who offers an unanswerable defence for his conduct, — '^ Uncle John told me not to do it, mama, so I was determined I would ! " " But, my dearest Godfrey, that is not good," re- plied the gentle mother, drawing him towards Mr Becket, and parting the thick curls which hung over his beautiful boyish face, with a most eloquent gesture of love and admiration. " You ought to do as you are told, you know ; you must always mind when you are spoken to, or else you will be a naughty boy. See, now, you have broken the vase, and scattered all the pretty fish about — and they are unhappy because they have no water to play in. That is cruel — and I am sure you don't mean to be cruel." " Oh, the fish, the fish!" cried Godfrey, jump- ing about in an ecstasy. " I didn't see them ; what fun they are ! I am sure they are very happy, they flap their tails so. look, mama, do look — ^look at that little darling in the corner; it has quite a side-face — I didn't know fish had side- 32 STORY OF A FAMILY. faces — what an odd mouth it has ! It is smiling — I'm sure it is — and it is so Hke uncle Alexander; just look at its mouth, and the whites of its eyes — now, uncle Alexander, isn't it like you?" " Hold your tongue, sir," said Mr. Lee ; " you ought to be very sorry for the mischief you have done, instead of standing there talking such absurd nonsense." " But I didn't do the mischief," retorted the undaunted Godfrey ; " it was that strange gentle- man there, who threw it down because he was so cowardly he couldn't stand a kick on the shins! As if a man ought to mind being kicked ! Oh, I must pick up those fish — ha, ha, ha ! how wet they are and slippery! Do let me put one on your neck, mama ! just stoop down, now, will you, for a moment ! It will make you jump so — it is so wet and nice, and it doesn't keep still for an instant: mama, you must let me." Whether Mrs. Aytoun would have yielded the point or not cannot now be ascertained, for the entrance of uncle John, accompanied by the other boys, turned the current of Master Godfrey's thousrhts for the moment ; and he allowed the servant to dry the carpet, collect the broken glas REUNION. 33 and carry off the insulted fish without further disturbance. His tranquillity was perhaps partly the result of uncle John's first words : " Come, come, you rogue," said he, " you must be quiet now. Aunt Melissa is coming, and what will she say to you?" He then advanced to Mr. Becket, who was contemplating the scene in silence, but with rather a grave eye, and saluted him very cordially, telling him in a loud whisper that his sister Mehssa was at the door, and he was anxious 5hat she should not be in any way startled or hurried, for her nerves were very delicate, and she was feeling immensely at coming back to the old place. " She is thinking so much of my mother, you know," he added, with a half laugh and a quiver- ing lip. A sob from Mrs. Aytoun reminded him of her presence, and his countenance fell instantly as he became conscious of the inadvertence of which he had been guilty. " Why, my dearest Ellenor, I didn't know you were here," cried he, kissing her. " And here is Frederick, whom you have not introduced to Mr. Becket yet. Come here, Master Fred., and take VOL. I. D 34 STORY OF A FAMILY. care of your mother; you know you ought to be very attentive to her, for she has nobody but you to depend upon. Crying again! tut, tut, tut!" (making a clicking noise with his tongue, expres- sive of intense vexation with himself), " how badly I do manage, to be sure ! " Frederick, a graceful, fair-haired boy, with an open brow and a countenance full of intellect and sweetness, came to his mother's side, and with in- stinctive delicacy addressed Mr. Becket, so as to give her time to recover from her agitation. God- frey clasped her hand betw^een both his, and looked at uncle John with flashing eyes, as though, if he could only feel sure that he was the cause of those tears, he would have knocked him down in a minute. Uncle John himself began to make an immense bustle, by way of ^^ quieting matters" previously to MeHssa's entrance. He shook hands heartily with his eldest brother, introduced him- self to Mr. Coniston, whom he mistook for the doctor, and to whom — for he piqued himself on always saying something apposite to everybody — ^he addressed a hurried medical remark, re- ducing him thereby, to a state of hopeless be- wilderment; forced his nephew, Alexander, to REUNION. 35 sit down on a footstool beside the window, wMch created the most dire and vengeful feelings in the breast of that young gentleman, inasmuch as his sole object in life was to be esteemed more manly than his years; insisted upon helping the house- maid to collect the broken glass, and overset it upon the floor again in his eagerness ; and finally, in hurrying to open the door for the said house- maid on her departure, rushed violently against his sister Melissa, who was just entering from the head of the stairs. Miss Mehssa Lee, who was gliding forward with a great deal of deliberation and delicacy, and who could neither recover nor conceal her exceeding discomposure at the manner of her reception, was about six- and- thirty years old, and still, in the eyes of some, a very pretty woman. Her figure was light and slender, but without grace ; and she had her sister's well-cut and regular features, wanting, however, the changefulness of colour and expres- sion which lent such a charm to the countenance of the other. Her good looks just stopped short of beauty, — her precision was very nearly elegance. She was dressed in the highest fashion; and the deep velvet mantilla, and rich folds of the black D 2 3o STORY OF A FAMILY. watered silk pelisse, set off her taper waist to advantag-e, and gave lier figure that appearance of roundness in which it was by nature deficient. She had her handkerchief in her hand, and her whole manner was intended to have been refined, gentle, and plaintive; but the intention was altogether frustrated by poor uncle John's awkwardness, and after the portentous frown and indignant outcry into which she had been surprised, it was "difficult for her to resume her original deportment. Her best plan, therefore, was to sink upon the first chair she could find, and become shghtly hys- terical; and this accordingly she did, with entire success. The whole party gathered round her; sympathy and restoratives were duly adminis- tered; and her agitation having gone just far enough to vindicate her claim to sensibility, ju- diciously ceased, without becoming so violent as to disfigure her beauty, or mar the perfection of her toilette. It was fortunate that she recovered when she did, for the repentant uncle John had just arrived to her rescue with a large tumbler of cold water, which in another moment would have in- undated her face and bonnet, and utterly destroyed the spiral elasticity of her sable ringlets. REUNION. 37 There now occurred one of those awkward, re- strained, and unnatural conversations which, para- doxical as it may sound, are far more common amoDg* members of the same family, or very near friends, under particular circumstances, than among mere acquaintance. When there is one subject present in the thoughts of all which all are equally anxious to avoid discussing — when each is specu- lating upon the nature of the other's feelings, and wondering what the others are thinking about himself — when small- talk would be an absurdity because you are too intimate, and argument would be an impertinence because you are too much pre- occupied, and badinage would be a crime because some esteem it the mark of callousness, and ex- pression of feeling would be impossible, either be- cause you could not say enough, or would be sure to say too much, or because your hearers are not congenial, — this is a kind of miniature martyr- dom, the genuineness of which many hearts will re- cognise. In this world, reserve is the law of all deep and delicate feeling — the condition of its existence — the rule of its development. Love dwells among adverse elements 5 she moves like a weary swimmer in deep waters 3 she pants for the 38 STORY OF A FAMILY. free air and the strong pinion ; her utterance is like that of a young child, lisping and stammering imperfect words and half-sentences, for her lan- guage is the language of Paradise, and she cannot rightly learn it out of her native land. So she betakes herself to tones, and looks, and deeds, speaking chiefly by symbols which suggest the unutterable mystery of her fulness. Seeming prodigality and lavishness of expression are no breach of the law of reserve, because the utmost they can do falls so far short of the reaHty. Out- ward coldness and niggardliness are no proof of poverty, but rather of a despairing generousness, which, finding no sufficient outlet for its vast wealth, gi'ows miserly in very scorn of its own incompetence. For Love fears not to reveal her- self; it is only that a full revelation of her is impossible. Judge her not hardly; have faith in her even when her external aspect is least satis- fying; be not wroth with the stranger and the captive ! Of her highest achievement, we can but say compassionately, " she hath done what she could ! " When the necessity for reserve shall be done away, and its very existence obUterated, when spirit shall read the depths of spirit, and full com- REUNION. 39 prehension and perfect sympathy shall he blended in the unity of a speechless eloquence, then shall we see Love face to face, and learn, perchance, how often we have wronged her, so long* as we only saw her in a glass — darkly. " Shall we not have the pleasure of seeing Mrs. Lee ? " inquired uncle John, addressing his brother Alexander. " She was not quite equal to the journey," was the reply ; " she has been out of health for some time. I think of taking her down to Malvern for the summer." " Dear Emily is nervous about herself, I know," said Melissa, between whom and Mrs. Alexander Lee there was a perpetual quiet feud, because each considered herself a genuine invalid, and believed the other to be fanciful and self-indulgent ; " but happily she has an excellent constitution : you should take her to Leamington, — Dr. Jephson would cure her in a week." ^' Ah ! he 's a very clever fellow," interposed uncle John, " and I'm uncommonly deHghted to find that you have come round to my opinion at last, Mehssa. He did you a vast deal of good — why, you were not like the same creature while 40 STORY OF A FAMILY. we were at Leamington. Only, to be sure, he is rather a rough diamond. How he did abuse you ! — positive abuse it was — no words were bad enough for you." MeUssa's face flushed a little, but she continued to address her brother Alexander in her sustained monotonous, but somewhat harsh voice, which re- sembled the prolonged creak of a rusty door-hinge, as though poor uncle John had not spoken at all. " Jephson wholly mistook m^ case," said she, '' but I think he would understand Emily in a moment. He very nearly killed me J' " I think that would scarcely encourage me to take my wife to him," said Mr. Alexander Lee, quietly. Master Godfrey had been tranquil so long, that his mother now began to be afraid he was plotting some mischief. She looked anxiously towards him, and saw him busily engaged with the tumbler of water which had been procured for his aunt, and in which he had placed one of the unhappy gold fish, which he had succeeded in concealing from the vigilance of the housemaid, and purloining for his own especial entertainment. Mrs. Aytoun, who doated upon him, and was in momentary terror of REUNION. 41 his disgracing himself in the eyes of his relations, thought this would be a capital opportunity for beg-uiling- him quietly and happily out of the room with his treasure, before any tremendous outbreak had occurred. The door was half open, and she was stealing towards it, beckoning her son mean- while with an air that promised some mysterious pleasure, to be revealed elsewhere, and hoping to escape unperceived, when uncle John darted before her, and closing the door with a bang ere she could reach it, exclaimed, with a smile of heartfelt polite- ness, " My dear Ellenor ! I know you are afraid of a draught ! Why didn't you ask me to shut the door?" The baffled lady thanked him, and returned to her seat. " And how do my little friends get on with their studies?" said Mr. Lee. "How is Euchd, Frederick ? — can you say the forty-seventh propo- sition without book ? " " I don't like Euclid at all, uncle," rephed Frederick. " I think Virgil is much nicer." " Oh, my dear ! " interposed Mrs. Aytoun, " but you know you are getting on very well with your mathematics, and you ought to take as much pains 42 STORY OF A FAMILY. with what you dislike as with what you like. He is too ima^ative," she added in an apologetic whisper to her brother, " to take much pleasure in that sort of study; but he is such a good indus- trious boy ; all his masters are so fond of him." " Greek and Latin are very necessary/' said Mr. Lee ; " they must be acquired, because they are the stamp which the world has agreed upon, and no education can pass current without them. But mathematics are the real education of the mind : they develope and sharpen the reasoning faculty; they are the only training that can make a philosopher ; the habit of intellect which they produce is the best preparation for every possible species of study to which the mind can address itself. I should be very sorry to think that Frederick was not making pro- gress in mathematics." Frederick, a gentle, timid, sensitive boy, blushed to the temples, and looked down as though he had received a reproof. " But he is making progress," shouted uncle John, clapping him encouragingly on the back ; " I know he is. Don't be afraid, Fred. — speak out like a man! Let us hear you say that same forty- seventh proposition which your uncle asked you for." REUNION. 43 Mrs. Aytoim made a deprecatory sign, and her good-natured brother's countenance fell immediately. " Well, my boy," said he, " I dare say you are shy, and don't like to exhibit your learning before com- pany. All the better — all the better. Conceit would spoil your wisdom, if you were as wise as Solomon himself. But if you can't say it word for word, I am sure you can tell us what it is about ; — now then — now for it — come, make haste, or your mother will be ashamed of you." The poor boy's colour rose till the tears stood in his eyes, and he replied hesitating and abashed, " It is something about — going round — a square." This speech was received with a shout of laughter ; and Master Alexander, who had risen from his foot- stool as soon as he was free of his uncle's eye, came forward and said with a poHshed self-possessed air, " Going round a square! I do believe Fred, thinks he has discovered the quadrature of the circle." " Very fair, AHc — very good indeed, my boy ! '* cried his father, laughing still more j " a very fair hit indeed, that. But you must help your cousin out of his difficulties. Come now, let us hear whether you can recite the forty-seventh proposition, and I dare say he will be able to do it afterwards." 44 STORY OP A FAMILY. " The square of the hjpothenuse of a right-ang-led triangle — " began Alexander, in an easy and assured tone. A loud scream from his aunt Melissa, followed by an agonized " Oh, Godfrey, Godfrey ! " from Mrs. Aytoun, interrupted him. The dreadful catas- trophe had taken place j — poor Mrs. Aytoun's at- tention had been wholly absorbed by the trial of her elder son, so that she had suffered Godfrey, unobserved and unmolested, to mount a chair behind the sofa on which his aunt Melissa was sitting, and then and there to put in execution his cherished scheme, by dropping the little fish, fresh from the water, upon the back of her neck, just where the black velvet mantle allowed a small triangular piece of skin to be visible. He shouted and clapped his hands. " Oh, you dear little thing, how well you did it ! " cried he. " How frig-htened she was ! Didn't she halloo ? Oh, how she jumped ! Oh, what fun ! " Frederick, the dignified Alexander, and even uncle John, joined in the laugh, which indeed the rest of the party found it rather difficult to restrain. But Godfrey's mirth was changed to fury in an instant, when Miss Melissa Lee, who was in too great a passion to faint, having first administered to him a hearty box on the ear, hurled the unhappy REUNION. 45 fish out of tlie window with all her mig-ht. " You wicked^ cruel woman !" cried he, stamping both his feet on the ground, while his mother could scarcely withhold him from returning the blow, "I don't mind your hitting me, but you have killed it— you have killed the poor, pretty little fish, because you were in a wicked passion. You ought to be hanged — that you ought — you cruel, ugly old woman !" " Godfrey, Godfi^ey," cried poor Mrs. Aytoun, almost in tears, " come out of the room with me directly. You are a very naughty boy. You must be punished." Mr. Becket gently, but very decidedly, ofiered his assistance in conveying the kicking, struggling rebel towards the door ; while Miss Melissa, having some- what recovered her composure, began a harangue, with a kind of stately pathos very impressive to her auditors. " My dear Ellenor, you really must allow me to say " She was not fated to proceed any further. " Who is this ? " exclaimed Mr. Coniston, in a tone of surprise ; and everybody, including even the refractory Godfrey, turned to see the cause of the ejaculation. The door had opened, and a new comer had entered during the confusion. It was a little girl of four years old. She wore a 46 STORY OF A FAMILY. white frock, with a blue ribbon round the waist -, her head was uncovered, save by a profusion of golden curls, which fell upon two soft rounded shoulders nearly as white as the dress. Her eyes were dark blue, fiill of that sweet, wistful, wondering expression which is the mystery of childhood — they looked like ghmpses of a summer heaven. Her delicate cheeks were somewhat flushed, yet she seemed rather puzzled than frightened, like one so nourished upon love that she knows of nothing else, and thinks that strife, and trouble, and sin, which she does not un- derstand, must needs be some new and strange form of love which she shall learn to comprehend by-and- bye. Blushing with this natural timidity, yet not hesitating for a moment, she looked around her, and then walked straight up to Mr. Becket, and hfting her clear eyes to his face, and stretching out her little hand, while her sweet lips parted with one of those serene smiles never seen save in childhood; she said, with the tone of one who gives a fall and satisfactory explanation of every possible difficulty — " Papa sent me." A GLIMPSE OP THE PAST. 47 CHAPTER III. A GLIMPSE OF THE PAST. All looked towards the door. On tlie threshold stood a tall pale man, watching, with ejes thai seemed somewhat tearful, the movements of the little child. When he saw that he was observed, the colour came into his face, and his brow con- tracted as with the effort to suppress some strong emotion j he did not advance immediately — he even appeared to hesitate for a moment whether he should advance at allj but he had not more than one moment allowed him for hesitation; the next, the arms of his sister Ellenor were clasped closely about his neck, and her lips were pressed to his, and her tears were falling fast over his cheeks, as she murmured, brokenly but joyfully — " My own — own, darhng* Percy !" The observant Mr. Coniston paid great attention to this little scene, and it did not escape him that the first welcome which Percy Lee received to his '48 STORY OF A FAMILY. long-left home, was also by many degrees the warmest. When he came forward into the room, with one arm still twined round EUenor's waist, his brother John met him with a cordial, but rather embarrassed shake of the hand, accompanied by a doubtful side glance at Miss Melissa, who coldly offered her cheek for a salute, muttering at the same time that it was " a gTeat deal too much for her, and she didn't think she should ever get over it." Alexander's politeness was as distant as though they had only been introduced the day before. The manner of Percy Lee himself was quiet, perhaps a little deprecatory, but perfectly self-possessed after the first moment; he did not betray agitation till he touched the extended hand of Mr. Becket, whom on his entrance he had not perceived. Then, indeed, he seemed much moved — his impulse was to kneel and ask a blessing — nay, yet farther, to kiss that venerated hand, and weep upon it like a child ; but nevertheless he only wrung it with a somewhat tremulous pressure, and walked hastily to the ottoman on which Ellenor had now seated herself, with the golden-haired Ida on her lap, contentedly submitting to her lavish caresses. A GLIMPSE OF THE PAST. 49 Whatever mig'lit have been the cause of so frigid and awkward a reception^ there seemed to be an universal determination on all sides to assume an appearance of ease and friendliness as soon as pos- sible ; perhaps there was not one at whose heart the voices of childhood and of home were not silently pleading*. For all possess in a measure (that is, all who are not utterly reprobate) that inner light which was first kindled in the cradle-days ; in some it has been confined, and stifled, and repressed, till it burns feebly, and scarce perceptibly, so that you can barely say, " it is there !" — in others it has been fostered and cherished till its rays have pene- trated to the outermost layer of the heart, making" the whole transparent, and g-lowing- with the emana- tions of the central fire, which is love itself. Nevertheless, it was a relief to all when they separated to dress for dinner, and to estabhshthe children in the rooms prepared for them. Little Ida, who did not seem to have a particle of shyness in her composition, was soon perfectly at her ease with her young- cousins, specially attaching* herself, however, to Frederick, whose g*entle voice and man- ner were very winning to a young child. She sate on his knee in the window of their parlour, and VOL. I. E 50 STORY OF A FAMILY. prattled to him of the long voyage, and the wide sea which made her giddy by its ceaseless move- ment, and the stars which had looked so bright in the darkness, like a multitude of calm kind eyes watching over her ; and the restless rocking vessel, with its tall spars making a maze of ever-changing lines against the sky; and the rough sailors, who had been all gentleness to her ; and the ladies who had petted her, and the gentlemen who had played with her, and the dear, dear papa who had been always there to love her, and take care of her, and make her happy. " Godfrey," said Frederick, " do you remember the story of that king, Midas, who turned every- thing he touched into gold ?" " To be sure I do," returned Godfrey. " Well, I think Ida is like King Midas." A burst of laughter from Alexander greeted this remark, calling the quick blood into the cheek of poor Frederick, who instantly began to think that he had said something very ridiculous, and lost all power to explain, or even define to himself his real meaning. A great deal of elaborate quizzing fol- lowed; sundry small articles, such as penknives, balls of string, pocket-handkerchiefs, &c., were A GLIMPSE OF THE PAST. 51 brouglit to the puzzled Ida, that she might touch them by way of experiment j for, as Alexander dic- tatorially announced, " it is only stupid people who believe what they can't prove ;" and had it not been for the perfect good -humour of the butt, it is more than probable that a civil war would have ensued in the nurser}^ department. When Mr. Coniston descended to the drawing- room he found Miss Melissa Lee alone. Like many weak persons, this lady was much addicted to a sort of promiscuous confidentialness, very trouble- some to her friends. It was, in truth, a most in- convenient characteristic ; trifles were invested with all the pomp of gratuitous secrecy, and matters of real moment revealed with a freedom, which was, to say the least of it, indiscreet, and in bad taste. In the same breath she would caution you not to repeat that she had said the weather was likely to change, and impart to you her suspicion that her nearest relative had been guilty of a fraud on the exchequer. Nor let such inconsistency be supposed unnatural — it is more than natural — it is nature itself. The sense of proportion, if I may so express it, seems, more than any other faculty of the soul, to depend upon discipHne. The development of e2 UNIVERSIIY OF ILLINOt; 52 STORY OF A FAMILY. this sense in life and action is consistency ; but where it is wanting"^ a whole mass of contradictions appears to be the necessary result. Miss Melissa Lee was therefore consistently inconsistent, and naturally unnatural; and all this simply because she was undisciplined. She was, however, a very good subject to fall into the hands of a judicious experimentalist, and Mr. Coniston did not fail to make the most of her. By force of sympathizing with her nervous depression of the morning, and cordially agreeing in her wholesale condemnation of spoiled children, he soon elicited the ver}^ facts which he wanted to know. " You see," said the lady, ^^ it was very distress- ing to us all to meet my brother Percy again ; you must have observed an awkwardness — indeed, it can- not have escaped you — so perhaps it is better to be candid at once, and say that there are cii'cumstances connected with the past which rendered it a very painful meeting. He has not been what he ought to have been — he has been a great affliction to us all — and then he married very unhappily, and in direct opposition to my poor father's commands." ^^ Indeed!" returned Mr. Coniston, gently. " Mrs. Percy Lee was a foreigner, was she not?" A GLIMPSE OF THE PAST. 53 " Yes ; a Greek g-irl, whom lie fell in love with on his travels. Nothing could be more distressing; she was, of course, wholly uneducated, and not a Christian ; that is to say, not a Protestant. His traveUing at all was against poor mama's wishes, but he was always so restless and unsettled, and this is what it led to. Worse even than her worst fears." " I can feel for you, said the lawyer. " Pray, of what profession is your brother ?" " Percy ? Oh ! it was intended that he should have gone into orders, but he was, I am sorry to say, very wild at college ; in fact — of course, you will never repeat this — he was rusticated ; and so then he came home, and was idle for a long while. He had a great talent for drawing, and he said he would spend his portion, that is, as much of it as was left, on a journey to Rome that he might qualify himself to be an artist. Mama opposed this, so in fact did we all ; but Percy was always the sort of disposition, to take up a notion violently, and carry everything before him. He was so enthusiastic and yet so unstable; and, I suppose, contradiction made him more determined, and he went. When once he was out of England, and away from control, we heard 54 STORY OF A FAMILY. no more of his studying* to be an artist ; in fact, it was not in his nature to study ; he could not keep to any one purpose long* enough, or steadily enough, he was always so wandering" and irregular." " Ah, poor fellow ! I think you are a Httle hard on him," interposed uncle John, who had entered the room during" this speech ; " he is a g-enius, you know, and all that sort of thing, and one mustn't quite expect him to act by common rules. You and I, Melissa, may go on at our comfortable jog-trot, but it 's out of the question for Percy to do any- thing in a common way." Miss Melissa Lee cast up her eyes and was silent, while her brother proceeded : — " Besides, he had a right to take his pleasure in travelling, you know, because, when Ellenor married so well, she made him a present of her portion ; he was always her favourite brother, and she could do just what she pleased with poor Aytoun." " My dear John !" holding up her hands with a deprecatory gesture. " Even with your incaution, I should hardly have expected you to go so far as this. To mention a little private family arrange- ment of this nature ! I hope, Mr. Coniston, you will have the kindness to be very careful in not suf- A GLIMPSE OF THE PAST. 55 fering* Percy to suspect that you know it. I would not have him aware of it, for the world. It would seem so very strange to him." " I 'm sure I 'm very sorry," said good-natured uncle John, looking rebuked ; " I atw a desperately careless fellow. I never think of these things till it is too late. But I fancied you had been telling all the faults in the matter so fully, that there could be no harm in my telling the excuses." There is no satire so keen as perfect simplicity. " Besides/' continued he, much troubled by his sister's pertinacious and obtrusive expression of mild distress, " I am quite sure Percy wouldn't care a straw, if all the world knew it ; his is just the sort of disposition to proclaim an obligation, not to con- ceal it. Now Ellenor, on the contrary, would be very much annoyed. I think she would find it a little hard to forgive me for my indiscretion. She is not one of those who like to have their good deeds trumpeted. The only time she ever quarrelled with me was, when I wrote her name at full length in a subscription list, which I thought there could be no harm in (turning to Mr. Coniston), because Melissa had just done the very same thing for herself." " Oh ! " cried the discomfited Melissa, with a 56 STORY OF A FAMILY. short hysterical laugh, and quick flush of suppressed anger rising to her cheeks, ^' I'm sure I hate pub- licity as much as anybody, and rather more than poor dear Ellenor, I fancy, for she never was the least shy j but there are often circumstances which force one to go against one's nature, and you know, dear John (looking at him as if she could have strangled him), I generally do as I am advised. But," she added, very hurriedly, seeing in her brother's face that he was about to express astonish- ment at that last assertion, and to explain with un- mistakeable clearness that she generally had her own way, — " but all this must be very uninteresting to Mr. Coniston. I am really sorry that he should be bored with these petty details. What was it that you were asking me, Mr. Coniston ? " " I was inquiring," replied the lawyer, blandly, " in what capacity Mr. Percy Lee went to India." " General Aytoun got him the appointment," said the lady. " He married, as I told you, and a very sad aff*air it was j he was bringing his bride home when, at Marseilles, he met General Aytoun and Ellenor on their way out, and the general had the power of ofiering him this appointment, and most kindly did so. Percy had no choice, for he lite- A GLIMPSE CF THE FAST. 57 rally had not a penny in the world, and there was not a day to be lost; he had not even the time allowed him to come on to England, but sailed for Malta by the same steamer which conveyed Ellenor and her husband." " So you never saw your sister-in-law ? " said Mr. Coniston. " No, never, and perhaps it was as well : it would have been very painful not to welcome her into the family ; and yet how could one have done so with- out insincerity ? She was of course not a person with whom one could have had any feeling's in common, though I believe she was very amiable, poor thing." Perhaps Mr. Coniston thought that might be reason enough for her sister-in-law having no feelings in common with her ; he did not, however, express any such idea, but was about to seek a little more information, when Percy Lee himself entered from the garden, accompanied by Mrs. Aytoun. Did you ever, when weary and fevered with a night's festivity, turn from the sultry ball-room, and the noise of instruments, and the sickly glare of lamps, open the window wide, and let in a flood 53 STORY OF A FAMILV. of fresh, quiet moonliglit ? Somewhat like this was it to turn from the face of Melissa, and look on that of her sister. And yet it was strange that it should be so, for there was not much difference in point of beauty, and EUenor was decidedly the less intellectual of the two ; only there was Love in the one face and Self in the other ; therein lay the secret of the contrast. And what was the true history of that marria^ which Melissa had been chronicling for the lawyer's benefit ? for the true history of an event consists no more in the record of its outward lineaments, than the true history of a woman in the description of her complexion. The multitude are content to look upon the outer garment of a deed, and even wise men are for the most part satisfied with dis- covering that it has a real body ; few are those who recognise the soul in it, fewer still, perhaps not more than one in a genei^tion, who penetrate to that soul, and make acquaintance with it. Let us look at a few extracts from Percy Lee's journal, in the fair days of his youth. " Ju?ie 7th, 18 — . — I have seen perfect beauty. Why is it that all things perfectly beautiful, whether in nature or art, have an air of melancholy A GLIMPSE OF THE PAST. 59 when in repose, as though this were the expression which belongs to them, and to which thej inevit- ably recur when not excited or disturbed? Is it that Beauty is not of the earth, and that, whenever compelled to make her tabernacle here, she feels as a captive, and, in silence, sighs to be released ^ Oh, that I could paint what I have seen ! — a profile, drawn as with a pencil of light against the violet sky, severe in feature, but soft as infancy in expres- sion. She was kneeling to receive the blessing of a priest, who, with pale venerable face and flowing garments, approached and placed his hand upon her head. Then she rose, and they walked away to- gether, her large, wistful dark eyes lifted to his face, as she related to him some history, apparently soiTowful ; for tears gHstened on her eyelashes, and her voice faltered, while from time to time he in- terposed, as though giving consolation or advice. They paused, and he sat down : it was on the frag- ment of a prostrate column. She, half sitting, half kneeling at his feet, continued her narration, her slen- der fingers unconsciously busied, meanwhile, in pull- ing to pieces a red pomegranate flower which she held in her hand. To the west the sun was sinking behind Mount Pentelicus, steeping in purple light 60 STORY OF A FAMILY. the groves of pine and olive, .through which the road wound upwards to the marble grotto ; a clear stream, fringed with oleander and myrtle, broke out of the shadow, and came sparkling down the hill-side like a shower of gold, with a gushing joyous sound like the laugh of a young child. What a picture ! . . , , " 28^^. — She does not love me ; I think she is incapable of it. She loves nothing upon earth but the sick mother about whose bed she steals softly and beneficently as a guardian angel, and the good father who comes from his monastery in the shadow of the mountain to teach and comfort her, and the picture of the saint before which she kindles a small lamp every evening, and every morning hangs a fresh chaplet of campanulas, or wild aloe-flowers. What a life is this ! and yet how happy does the soul seem in this garden of its captivity ! — it makes music to itself in the solitude and darkness, like a caged bird that has never known freedom. Yet there must be intellect under the sculpture of that brow ; there must be passion asleep in the depth of those unfathomable eyes. What would they say to her in England ? I will win her if I serve seven years for it The other day I asked her why all the Greek female saints were painted in profile A GLIMPSE OF THE PAST. 61 while the men had full faces? She answered, looking up into my eyes, and speaking* gravely and quietly, as she ever does when the subject of her religion is approached, ' That is because a manly faith ought to face the world boldly, while a woman must be modest and retiring even in her creed.' What a pupil she would be ! Yet, is she not rather a teacher ? I feel abashed in her absence when I think of her, for then I become conscious of the aimless frivolity of my life ? but when she is present I am transformed, and lose all perception of myself, except as I exist in the thought and contemplation of her.— Letters from England again — nothing but reproaches, appeals, and admonitions. I am weary of it all ; I could find it in my heart to build a cottage in the shadow of the plane-trees, and never again see that land of restraints, and convention- alities, and semblances, where the tyranny of custom and the slavery of mere etiquette flaunt in the very face of that shallow mockery which we have en- throned and call freedom. Why must I fulfil the popular definition of industry ? I am living most industriously the life of the heart, and the one sole duty which I omit is the duty of money-making, and why should I make what I do not want ? But 62 STORY OF A FAMILY. I am the mauvais sujet of the family — the black sheep in the fold ; and my brothers sneer at me in their superior virtue, and my sisters make long faces and lament over me, and my mother — yes, even my mother — condemns me. And all this while, what have I done ? If I love to feed the eyes and the soul rather than the body, is that a sin ? But I will write no more 3 1 will go and visit Ida July 2^th. — She is mine ; but by what grief have I won her ? I cannot write of it. Her mo- ther is dead. I stood at the foot of the bed in the early morning ; the sun had just risen out of the waters of the ^-Egean, and, shaking the drops from his refulgent tresses, was sending a flood of glory into the room. The window stood open, for through it they beHeve that the soul of the dying passes to Paradise.* She kneeled beside the pillow on which lay that quiet untroubled face; and, with trembling hands, shut down the wan eyelids on the pathetic vacancy of eyes once so eloquent with gentleness and affection. Then there was a low sound of stifled weeping, and the voice of the aged priest faltered somewhat as he pronounced the simple words, " Her soul is now before God, who judges ! May He pardon her ! " A GLIMPSE OF TUE PAST. 63 It was at daybreak, the next morning-, that I saw the funeral train. A lovely child of eig-ht years walked first, carrying a tall silver cross, which, despite the close grasp of his tiny hands, swayed to and fro occasionally, catching- quick flashes of the early light ; beside and around the young cross-bearer, was a group of somewhat older boys, in white garments j then came the bier, borne and escorted by robed priests. The face of the corpse was uncovered and upturned, having- that unspeakable and serene beauty upon it which seems the special g-ift of the first hours of death : the body was covered with a white cloth, and strewn with newly-gathered flowers; the hands were meekly folded upon the bosom. Winding- over the distant side of a dark hill, the procession looked like a thread of silver. As I drew near, I could hear the sweet solemn murmur of their voices rocking slowly upon the air. Presently, the gathered me- lody of the full chant was audible, in due in- terchange of appeal and answer. There was in- describable stillness in the sound ; a kind of hush, as of peace after trouble. I seemed scarcely to listen to it, but to apprehend it by some new and pecuHar sense, bringing the heart in absolute con- 64 STORY OF A FAMILY. tact with the melodj. First came the deep tones of the priests, subdued and accordant, full in volume, but low, almost suppressed in pitch, like the grave, mellow colours of a g-ray evening- sky, when the pomps of sunset have just departed. They sang these words : — • When thou wert born, With tender touch upon thy lucid brow Was sign'd that Cross, which now Into thy heart its bleeding trace hath worn. It was to be A warning sliadow for tliy sunny years, A refuge for thy tears, A banner for thine hour of victory. It was to ti7 Thy human weakness by its strength divine ; And it is now the Sign To seal and judge thine immortality. We cannot trace Thy sentence ; but we kneel, and wait, and hear A sound of hopeful cheer, " The Sign of judgment is the Plea for grace ! " The bird-like voices of the children now took up the strain, alternately sinldng in pathos, or soaring up in triumph : — A GLIMPSE OP THE PAST. 65 One more place is void By the bright hearth, and in the House of Prayer ; One more link destroyed Of the soft chain which binds us everywhere. A sigh is blended with the morning's breath, For in the midst of Life we are in Death. One more name to pass Into the kingdom of the Church asleep ! Dimly through a glass We see Thy glory, and Thou see'st us weep. When wiU the sound of tears on earth be stilled ? When, Lord, the number of Thy saints fulfilled ? One more prayer hath ceas'd To mingle in the incense of our shrine, Where the weeping priest Gives to one less the mystic Bread and Wine ; The Altar lacks a lamp, the wall a wreath : For in the midst of Life we are in Death ! One more voice to swell The anthem of the everlasting choir Around, invisible. Touching our lips with their celestial fire, Lifting our hopes and covering our sins ; Lo, in the midst of Death our Life begins ! " As we entered the little chapel, a woman was en- gaged in kindhng- a small lamp of tarnished silver, which hung' before the Altar. Her face was palHd VOL. I. F 66 STORY OF A FAMILY. and worn, and the heavy braids of hair twisted with ribbons, fell from her low olive-tinted forehead upon her shoulders, leaving bare the straight features and deep-set melancholy eyes peculiar to her people. She had come forty miles on foot to do this Httle office of affectionate devotion — a strange and solitary journey, very moving to think upon, for the only wealth of the poor is their time and their labour. What dim thoughts must have floated in her half-developed mind, as she walked alone on the hill- paths and by the wandering streams, watching the grey openings of dawn, or the majestic splendours of sunset ! Nothing perhaps clear, or defined, or reasonable ; no light burning in that lonely cavern of thought, save only the star of love shining down upon it from heaven ! " They laid the body before the altar, there to rest, as in God's special keeping, till it should be com- mitted to the earth. One by one, those who had known and loved her came forward to press the last kiss upon her unreplying lips, and seal the farewell to humanity, so long as it continues earth-bound and sense -encumbered. Ida was amongst them , I sprang involuntarily forward to support her ; how should she endure such a trial ! But her face was as A GLIMPSE OF THE PAST. Q'^ that of a prophetess, and her eyes full of hope. As I led her back, she murmured in my ear, ' T must wait for the answer to that kiss — wait for the first time — wait long- j but I shall receive it at last ! ' and, breaking- into sudden tears, she dropped her face upon the shoulder of the woman who accompanied her. That kiss, awaiting* its answer through a life-time — how sure a link it seemed between earth and paradise ! ***** " They gave her to me with many cautions and entreaties , she was poor and unprotected, they said, but she had been used to kindness, and they charged me to be gentle with her. I loved them for their anxiety, though I could not but laugh at its needless- ness. — Again letters from England — what a time to summon me back ! They must wait a v/hile, and when I return I shall indeed bring them a treasure, to excuse my delay. How my mother will love her ! — and EUenor too ! — I fancy I see her gliding into the little parlour at Woodholme, with folded hands and head slightly drooping, and all looking upon her with doubt and wonder, as though a visitant from some higher world ! How sweetly will she learn domestic life among them ! How hap])y will be my task in the training of her mind ! . . . . 68 STORY OF A FAMILY. " Sept. 2. — Hateful, oppressive, prosaic reality ; just imagine living- only that one may procure the means of life ! Wearing- away one's time in the in- cessant learning of languag-es, without once being- permitted a glimpse at the literature for which lan- guages were only created as vehicles ! Always on the road — never resting ! Yet this is what man — free, rational man — must needs be in these miserable days, if he would be at all. The mere permission to exercise my powers of enjoyment — that is all I want, and that, it seems, is not to be achieved. Immortal souls, angelic capacities, illimitable desires, omnipo- tent intellect, be satisfied ! A sum in arithmetic, a recipe in cookery, a contrivance for bodily comfort — these are the triumphs of your science, to these servilities must your genius stoop. Or else — the alternative is a simple one — you must die ignobly, and no man weep for you. No man — nevertheless there shall be tears shed upon your unregarded grave, each one of which is worthy having died to obtain. " my Ida — for you, I can endure it all ! To come down to plain English, I have barely money enough left to pay for our journey home — and then — what is to become of us ? She looks brightly into A GLIMPSE OF THE PAST. 69 my face and says, like a child, ' I know you will take care of me.' What care have I taken ? Have I, indeed, been guilty towards her? No — it is that traitor, circumstance, not I . . . . '* Oct. 2. — Marseilles. — It is all settled, I have no alternative ; yet even now it does not seem like reality, and I pinch myself to discover whether I am dreaming or not. India — and without having even seen my home once more ! Ah, I never knew what it was to have a home, till now that I carry it about with me ! How little of real sympathy is there in the ordinary ^ domestic happiness,' as it is called! For I do not call that sympathy which is only excited by feelings which it can understand, coincide with, and appreciate — this is an easy love truly, and may grow and flourish side by side with the wor- ship of self. But that is a true sympathy which is warm, and constant, and delicate where it under- stands noty where it differs, where, perhaps, but for love, it would condemn. This is what the soul needs — tenderness for its own peculiar sufferings, pity for its own peculiar wants, care for its own peculiar tastes, satisfaction for its own peculiar appetites. Not a cool taking for granted that it is to have no sufferings, wants, tastes, or appetites, but such as 70 STORY OF A FAMILY. have been foreseen for it, but such as its companions have, or as they are able to comprehend, and to agree in. This is true love — kindling- not for the sake of the thing- felt, but for the sake of the person who feels it; not vigilant of weakness, not greedy of proof, not argumentative, not jealous — but ever taking" all that the beloved does, says, or thinks, upon tmstj and believing that it is g"ood, till it shall be irrefrag- ably proved to be bad; ever acquiescing in diffe- rences ; ever accepting mysteries ; ever ready, if pain be given or dissatisfaction felt, to suspect the cause to lie in itself; ever seeking to nourish the beloved on the aliment which he has chosen for himself, not on that which it esteems most palatable for him ; whose impulse is to agree and approve, and who, if it refuse, or criticise, or censure, can only do so by doing violence to itself! How different is such a sympathy as this, from the chill and meagre tolera- tion which is generally love's highest practical achievement, in cases where tastes and tempers are unlike by nature ! " My own gentle mother! Not one profane thought against your tenderness will I harbour — nor against yours, my sweet Ellenor ! Why have you been taught to think ill of me ? Nevertheless, you A GLIMPSE OF THE PAST. 71 love me still, and one day we shall meet again, and then perchance you will do me justice (An interval of four years.) " Belgaun, 3Iarch 10. — At length I am the father of a Hving child ! I have held the little mystery in my arms, trembling lest I should breathe too strongly and scare away the new, feeble, fragile life. Born too on my father's birth-day ! Surely this is a pledge of forgiveness and reconciliation. I must write to him ; I may now venture to do so. In the presence of this little angel, all bitterness must be forgotten. Her eyes are as blue as two forget- me-nots. The nurse says they are the same shape as Ida's — I must go and compare them. May they be alike in everything, and then truly my daughter will be perfect in beauty, gentleness, and goodness. Oh happy, happy life ! . . . ." [Note.l No further entry was made in this book, but the Gazette of the ensuing week contained the following notice : — " Died at Belgaun, March 10th, Ida, wife of Percy Lee, aged 20." 72 STORY OF A FAMILY. CHAPTER IV, THE HAPPY FAMILY. At dinner there was a decided diminution of the restraint under which the members of this sing-ular family party had previously laboured. Somewhat of the old Eastern sanctity of the bread and the salt yet lingers in the spirit, though it may have utterly departed from the forms, of English hospitality. You do not willingly keep a man at a distance after you have eaten with him. In the present instance, there was more than ordinary difficulty to be con- tended with, inasmuch as the cure of a disease is a harder task than the maintenance of health. These all had once loved each other, or rather, I should say, there had once been among them that habit of familiar kindliness, which is all that some natures know of love. There were therefore memories to be stifled, allusions to be avoided, wounds scarcely closed to be touched cautiously and tenderly ; there was anxious tact, conscious and elaborate dehcacy, THE HAPPY FAMILY. 73 fear, effort, silence. How unlike that service wliich, human as well as divine, is truly *^ perfect freedom " ! Even this difficulty, however, gradually wore away, and by the time that the cloth was removed, and the table, spread with wine and fruit, drawn to the open window, throug-h which the children could be seen at play on the sunny terrace, they were all conversing together quite as freely and easily as if they were acquaintances of three months' standing ! " Clever boy of yours that ! " said uncle John, ad- dressing his elder brother ; " what do you mean to do with him, Alexander? make a lawyer of him, eh ?" Mr. Lee looked forth upon the gambols of his son and heir, with a smile at once significant and benign, and replied, " I have scarcely yet determined ; if he has talent, I should be very sorry not to give it full development ; but he is very young as yet, and we can scarcely tell what he will be. Certainly his reasoning powers do surprise me a little now and then — they are beyond his age — and he is so ready and fearless with them. His mother can do no- thing with him, literally nothing ; he is never without an argument, and I do assure you his logic is so plausible that he constantly puts her to silence, and she is obliged to call me in to carry the point." 74 STORY OF A family: ^' Which you do, I conclude, with the strong- hand of authority ?" interposed Mr. Becket. " To that I have never yet been obliged to have recourse/' replied Mr. Lee, complacently. " He is always amenable to reason ; explain your order, and he obeys you directly ; but he won't stir a finger unless he knows why he does it. A strong- will, a calm temper, and a clear head — I think I may ven- ture to pronounce that he possesses those three gifts in no inconsiderable measure." " Half a perfect character, I should say," ob- served Mr. Becket. " And pray how would you define the other half?" inquired the father, a little sharply. ^' A reverent spirit, a warm heart, and a powerful imagination." " Scarcely very necessary qualifications for a Lord Cbancellor," remarked Mr. Lee. " Very good things in their way, though," chimed in uncle John, "all except the last. I never in my life before heard it said that a powerful imag-ination was necessary to anybody. I should think Alexander would be a vast deal safer without it." " If safety were the principal question," rejoined THE HAPPY FAMILY. 75 Mr. Becket, smiling, ^^ he might perhaps be safer without remarkable abilities of any kind ; but where the reasoning- faculty is unusually strong, imagina- tive power would seem, I think, to be indispensable in order to preserve the balance." " Imagination preserving- the balance ! " mur- mured the puzzled uncle John. ''^Well, that's a new view of things, certainly. Why, it's com- mon sense that preserves the balance. I should think imagination would be rather puzzled to know how to set about it. Quite out of his line — of imagination's that is — [ should say, anything so sublunary and practical as that. He — that is, ima- gination, you know — is busy in making poems, and allegories, and castles in the air, and all that sort of thing. I wouldn't trust my balance to imagination, J promise you. Queer work he'd make of it ; odd sort of accounts he'd keep, I fancy; to be sure, if one could pay one's bills by imagination, that might be pleasant enough, but there's no other mode that I can conceive for imagination to keep the balance. Ha, ha, ha!" " Except in the case of a tipsy man," replied Mr. Becket, joining the laugh, " who imagines he keeps his balance, while in reality he is falling into the 76 STORY OF A FAMILY. gutter. However, don't suppose I give up my principle; there are two scales to a balance, you know, and as long as either is in the ascendant, you can't say that the balance is even." This was far too abstruse for uncle John, and while he was trying to discover the application of it, the fair Melissa interposed. " I entirely agree with Mr. Becket," said she. " Want of imagination is the great defect in our Enghsh character ; we are so matter of fact ; and we cling to forms, and laws, and creeds, instead of letting the imagination have free scope to wander and luxuriate without a fetter or a restraint. I express myself very badly, I know ; but that is what you mean, is it not ?" turning to Mr. Becket. He looked a little confounded. "Why, not exactly," he replied with much courtesy of manner ; " I think obedience comes before imagination in importance, but then I think the imaginative tem- per the most likely to be obedient. Moreover, I do not think that an over-submissiveness to forms and creeds, except, perhaps, to such as are self-imposed, has been generally found to be the weak side of the English character." " No, indeed," cried Mr. Lee, " it is our privilege THE HAPPY FAMILY. "^1 to think for ourselves, to walk by the light of our own reason, and to g'overn ourselves, both as indi- viduals and as a nation." " God forbid !" hastily exclaimed Percy Lee, who had hitherto taken no part in the discussion ; then colouring and looking as though he would fain have withdrawn the ejaculation, he added play- fully, " Don't look frightened at me, good friends ; I was only speaking as an individual who feels most particularly incompetent to the task of self-govern- ment." " But, Alexander," remonstrated Mrs. Aytoun, ^^ is poor dear Alic really to be brought up without any indulgence in a little romance ? Is it to be all work and no play for him ?" " Yes, indeed," said Melissa, seconding her sister ; " life without romance would be but a withered twig 5 it would be like a wounded bird, or a piano- forte out of tune. I don't know how to express my meaning, but I think I make myself understood. A little judicious cultivation now — a little care and watchfulness — might do a great deal. You should make him learn poetry by heart ; make it one of his regular lessons to learn so many lines a day, and I dare say he would soon acquire a taste for it." 78 STORY OF A FAMILY. " I am Happy to deserve your approbation in this, my dear ladies," answered Mr. Lee, with a slightly satirical bow of deference to his sisters. " Alic is in the habit of learning stated portions of the standard poets by heart among his other studies, and I have never found him at all backward in this. The very last task of the kind which he achieved was learning* the whole of the second Canto of the ' Lay of the Last Minstrel,' — no trifle, I can assure you. And, to show you how much interest he took in the matter, I found, to my surprise, that he had amused himself by parsiiig it from beginning- to end, and had detected no less than eight grammatical in- accuracies ! " ^^ Poor Sir Walter Scott ! '' said Percy Lee, with much fervour. " That is what I call turning the study of poetry to some profit," said the contented father of this intellectual prodigy. " Ah ! " cried Melissa, " poetry is profit enough in itself; we want nothing else. It is, if I may so express it. the very acme — the keystone, of itself; it speaks to the heart. There is nothing Hke it." "I can't tell you how it surprises me to hear THE HAPPY FAMILY. 79 you standing up for poetry in this way, Melissa ! " observed uncle John; " I always thought you were so excessively unpoetical." "//" exclaimed the indignant lady; "what can you possibly mean ? " For it is very observ- able that this is an accusation which the most mat- ter-of-fact person in the world does not hear with equanimity. A mathematician might possibly say it of himself; but we doubt whether even a stock- broker, or a railroad speculator, could patiently endure to hear it said of him. This is, perhaps, the unconscious testimony of the multitude, which is worth a thousand arguments. " Well," said uncle John ; " I don't know ; it is my mistake, I suppose; but I think anybody would have thought the same. You don't give one the least idea of being a romantic person ; you don't care for fine scenery ; you never w^alk out by moon- light ; you haven't any taste for music ; you never read poetry; in short, you do none of the things which I always fancy a romantic person doing." Melissa's colour rose higher and higher, but she forced a laugh. " My dear John, you are so simple!" said she; "it is really quite amusing; you never see an inch below the surface. One 80 STORY OF A FAMILY. is naturally very reserved in the expression of one's tastes and feelings, and you fancy directly that one has neither tastes nor feelings to express. My health is too delicate to allow of my indulging" myself in many of my natural predilections; but I only wish I were what you fancy me; I only wish I had not that tendency to romance and love of poetry which was born with me, and which makes me feel such privations so very keenly ! As to your saying that I don't admire scenery, and never read poetry, I really can't imagine what you mean, — it is so very strange of you." " Upon my word, my dear," responded uncle John, in a tone of the kindest sympathy, " I only say what I think ! — I don't think you liave that tendency at all by nature. When we were travel- ling in the north, you know, you always had your newspaper or your carpet-work, while the rest of the party were looking at the lakes and mountains \ and, to my certain knowledge, you have had Shak- speare and Scott in your own private bookcase for two years and a half, without ever cutting the leaves — except of Hamlet, which, you know, you had down when Mr. Wharton was lecturing on the subject, because you wanted to prove him THE HAPPY FAMILY. 81 wrong in his view of the character. And then " " Oh, pray, let us talk of something" else ! " interrupted Melissa. " It is very unpleasant to be discussed in this manner; do, please, choose some more profitable subject! You never did un- derstand me, and never will, if we were to live together for a century." And she wound up her speech by an appealing and victimised look at Mr. Coniston, which she trusted might neutralize the effect of these untoward revelations. Uncle John looked rebuked, but evidently did not quite understand the nature of his offence. Poor uncle John ! This was often the case with him. Children were the only creatures with whom he '^ got on," as the phrase is, perfectly well. He was like a great caricature of themselves ; wanting, perhaps, in delicacy and tenderness of detail, but very like in rough outline and general features. There was now a great commotion among the children on the lawn. The ^^ Midas" joke had been revived, and Alexander had insisted upon ascertaining whether the ass's ears were concealed under Ida's profuse curls. As she stood there, a little frightened, with all her golden ringlets VOL. I. a 82 STORY OF A FAMILY. ruffled and disordered, Godfrey undertook her de- fence, and an argument ensued, terminating in a burst of anger on tlie part of the little knight- errant, so tremendous that interference was un- avoidable. Mrs. Aytoun and her brother Percy hurried to the field of battle; perhaps they were not sorry for any cause which enabled them to escape from the party within doors. Percy laid a strong hand upon the struggling Godfrey, and effectually prevented him from making a second onslaught upon his cousin Alic, who, with torn collar and flushed cheeks, but undiminished dignity, marched away to report his wrongs to his father. " He said — he said," cried the unsubdued rebel, as, quivering from head to foot with passion, he tried to extricate himself from his uncle's hands, " he said that mama was more Hkely to have the ass's ears than anybody ; he said it of you, mama! He meant that you were stupid! — Let me go ! — let me go !" Mrs. Aytoun could not help laughing, though she coloured a good deal as she whispered to her brother, " Alic's good-breeding was a little at fault there ! A little piece of home-teaching slipped out by mistake, I suspect." THE HAPPY FAMILY. 83 Peace was with difficulty establislied ; Godfrey having been soothed, coaxed, and kissed into good- humour by his mother, was sent off to amuse him- self with Frederic ; and little Ida, who had with- drawn from the tumult, and was very happily gathering flowers in the distance, was summoned to bed. She came the instant she heard her father's voice, though the chain of daisies and blue-bells, which she was busily manufacturing, hung, half-finished, over her arm; she stood at his feet, lifting up her fair, innocent face for a kiss, and putting back the curls from her forehead with one tiny white hand. He raised her in his arms, and dismissed her with a fervent embrace and blessing. ^' Do you trust that little creature to go by her- self ?" asked EUenor in a tone of wonder. Her brother smiled, but did not immediately reply. After a moment's pause he said, with great earnestness, "My dear EUenor, — forgive me for saying it — but I fear that boy will cost you many and bitter tears!" "Oh! Percy, how can you say so?" she re- plied, with flushing cheeks and glistening eyes. " Is it possible that you can be so severe a judge G 2 84 STORY OF A FAMILY. of a little childish impetuosity ? He has the most noble disposition, the most affectionate heart ; when once his ang-er is over, a word or a look can melt him. It is only that he has such quick, enthu- siastic feelings j faults of temper always go with excessive warmth or keenness of feeling* 5 and, as he g-rows older, he will learn self-command. It is useless to appeal to the reason of a mere child." ^' Quite useless," returned Percy ; " but quite possible to subdue the will. I do not question the truth of a word you say, but these are the very reasons why discipline is so necessary for him. God knows it is not for me to teach ; but I should grieve to think," he added, in a quick and slig'htly tremulous voice, ^' that he would ever feel what I feel now." : His sister passed her arm through his, and laid her cheek upon his shoulder. " Dearest Percy," said she, " why should you think of anything* painful in the past? There are so many happy things to remember — so much love and peace — all the offences given were mere misunderstandings — and you know, you must know, what perfect for- giveness there would be if — " she hesitated and paused. THE HAPPY FAMILY. 85 He bowed his face upon his hands for a moment, and then spoke very quietly and gently. ^' No, my beloved one, do not tell me to put away painful thoug-lits. By God's mercy, I trust they may be ever present with me. And do not suffer love to teach you gentle names for sin. I did what, if possible, I would at any cost prevent your Godfrey from doing. I made self my idol, and worshipped it, dethroning thereby both duty and love." " Self ! " repeated she, wonderingly j ^' how angry should I be with any one else who dared to say that of my generous brother ! " " There is another idolatry of self," he replied, "besides that which is deliberate and conscious. To spurn away the circumstances which God has assigned to you, and violently shape a new environ- ment according to your own will, what is this but rebellion ? To burst the meshes of that golden network which love has woven for your soul, and insist upon an unrestrained development according to the measure and manner of your own choice, what is this but selfishness ? Oh, for my lost fetters ! Oh, that I were a very prisoner and slave in the home I left!" ¥" ""tV J / / ^' ■ > 86 STORY OF A FAMILY. The voice of Ellenor's sobs broke gently upon the silence, like the pulsations of a quiet and sorrowful heart. It is strange how the mere pre- sence of sympathy causes the shyest feelings to come forth and show themselves, like sensitive children who will run to the veriest stranger that smiles on them lovingly, yet who shrink even from a mother, if her face be stern and her voice cold. No word of his penitence had Percy Lee ever spoken till now, except when seeking the conso- lations of religion 5 and now it seemed as though he could have poured out the whole of it. There is no sign of love so true, so unmistakeable, so blessed to him who receives it, as confidence in sorrow. Smooth and cheerful of aspect are the familiarities of daily Hfe, but who can mistake / their roving glances for the stedfast, tearful, un- fathomable eyes of friendship ? That laughingl. springing infant, with noble limbs, and cheeks ruddy with health, you may exhibit in the face of the world, and there are few who will not welcome and admire him ; but it is only a true brother or sister whom you would lead into the shadows of the still chamber, and place beside the bed where lies the deformed or sickly child, THE HAPPY FAMILY. 87 perhaps far dearer to your aching" heart than the other. There was everlasting* truth in the words of that woman, who, when asked why her love and interest clung so closely, so ohstinately, so unceasingly, around one whom the world neglected, and who, perchance, deserved its neglect, said, for all answer, " I have wept with him." And who questions the eternity of a tie thus cemented? We are joined together as by nails, which pierce while they unite, but which cannot be extracted without shivering the wood which they have pene- trated. " Ellenor," continued Percy, after a pause, in a low, terrible voice, " I do not believe that I am forgiven." She looked up anxiously into his face ; he could not meet her eye, but went on hurriedly. *' On that night— you know when I mean — the night when she died " — he stopped ; he perceived that she was thinking of his wife; after a short silence, he said, trembling- with the effort which it cost him, and in a tone of the profoundest reverence, "my mother." Ellenor clasped his hand in hers to let him know that he was understood, and again he proceeded : 88 STORY OF A FAMILY. " I knew it — long- before I heard it : on tlie very night — at the very hour, I saw her, EUenor. She stood at the foot of mj bed, and her face was hidden in her hands. I could not speak or move, but I clasped my hands tog-ether, and my whole being was one supplication for pardon. For the space of some five minutes she stood so, as I have said, with her face hidden. She would not look at me — not one look — not oncj Ellenor, — that face, that lovely, venerable face, upon which I had brought the shadow of so many griefs, that I feared to see what I knew was my own work, she hid it from me. Oh ! could she do so ? And so — she went away — " his voice dropped to a murmur, " and I have never seen her since." His sister was weeping on his bosom ; she knew not how to comfort him. In an instant, however, he had resumed his usual self-command. '^ My love," said he kissing her tenderly, " forgive me for giving you all this unnecessary pain. Even now you see how selfish I am — and look, they are coming to summon us to tea." Oh, that perpetual recurrence of the needs and requirements of common life in the midst of mighty emotions, how unnatural it is ! It is as though a V THE HAPPY FAMILY. 89 man should beat time with an unmeaning and dis- cordant stamp, all through the subduing harmonies of some glorious choir, to which one would hold one's breath to listen ! Ellenor fled to her room ; she could not encounter that tea-party. Will it be thought strange that Percy talked more and more vivaciously that evening than he had done yet? He began to Mr. Becket, speaking of his darling Ida ; and for- getting — as the most reserved will sometimes forget — the presence of uncongenial hearers, he suffered himself to be betrayed into an expression of un- wonted vehemence. " So help me, God !" he cried, *^ as she shall never see the face of evil ! " Mr. Becket smiled gravely, and shook his head, though scarcely in discouragement. '^ If it were possible " said he, gently. " It is — it must be possible !" exclaimed the other, dropping his voice. " Surely, by the energy of the will, by the devotion of a whole life in thought and action, by the omnipotence of prayer — ^Am I wrong?" he added, suddenly checking himself. " Not wrong, perhaps," rejoined Mr. Becket, " but certainly not wise." 90 STORY OF A FAMILY. Percy felt the double meaning contained in this hint, and was silent, colouring- deeply. If the truth of the suggestion required proof, it was supplied the next moment, when Mr. Alexander Lee struck into the conversation, with a certain bland autho- rity of demeanour highly irritating. '' Not wise, indeed," said he ; "I perfectly agree with Mr. Becket. My dear Percy, how is it pos- sible that a man of the world, like yourself, should entertain such a very romantic idea? One would fancy you had been living in a cloister all your life." " Just the reverse, brother," replied Percy, with resolute humility ; "it is the knowing so much of evil which makes one — which makes me — so anxious to shield my child from it." " And how would you put this fair-sounding theory into practice?" inquired Alexander. ''My little niece will be singularly educated. History, of course, she must not read, for by that she would make acquaintance with a host of unknown sins ; society she must renounce, and the feminine recreation of innocent gossip ; she may learn lan- guages, but not study their literature j all poetry and fiction must be forbidden to her, for the THE HAPPY FAMILY. 91 struggle betwixt good and evil is eminently their subject; physical science would, perhaps, be al- lowed, though I could fancy dangers even in that ; painting may be studied under severe restrictions ; and music, I suppose, would be quite admissible, only that it would be advisable to gag the music- master, lest some inadvertent expression of his, when she plays a felse note, should let her into the secret that there is such a sin in the world as anger!" " Eh, Percy ? " interposed uncle John, with great cheerfulness : " I should Hke to hear what you have got to say to that." " Why, you see, it does not exactly touch me," rejoined Percy ; " I never proceeded upon the sup- position that all causes of evil were external. I have blundered as much in my endeavour to explain my meaning, as I am afraid I am likely to blunder in putting it into practice." " Then, pray do explain it a little more clearly, will you," said Melissa, fretfully ; " I really should not fancy you were likely to know much about the proper sort of education for a woman, and I should quite like to hear your system." It is a pleasant thing for a sensitive man to be 92 STORY OF A FAMILY. called upon to explain " his system" to an audience disposed to be captious, sure not to sympathize, and so intimate with him that there is not the slightest restraint either of manner or measure on the expression of their opinions. The agreeableness is increased, if this ^^ system," as it is called, be no neatly-constructed piece of carpentry, partitioned off into cells of uniform shape and dimensions, but an idea which dwells in his heart as in a temple, and which he is in the habit of contemplating with love, and handling- with reverence. Percy Lee was an enthusiast of rather a peculiar stamp, and in some respects he had failed to learn wisdom from expe- rience ; he was still somewhat addicted to trying rash experiments, and suffering acutely from their ill success. " I will tell you a fable," said he, smiling, to his sister, " and leave you to discover the application. Two children were bidden to scale a high and dan- gerous mountain, by a path beset wdth thorns, and infested by serpents. Two angels with bright faces and sober eyes, and tall folded wings, stood before them and offered them guidance. The one child was self-willed ; he meant to do the task appointed him, but to do it in his own way j so he put away THE HAPPY FAMILY, 93 the hands that were outstretched to lead him, and strug-gled up the path hy himself, wounded by the brambles, stung* ever and anon by the snakes, and in much peril of losing* his way. The other child laid fast hold of the angel's hands; and as the angel slowly retreated up the path, the child pur- sued, with upturned eyes, that never wandered from the benign and radiant countenance which bent towards them. Therefore this child could not even see the dangers by which it was surrounded ; but planting its foot it knew not where, only ever in advance, the briars as it trod upon them changed to flowers, whose crushed blossoms sent up the sweetest fragrance, and the serpents drew back abashed from the presence of the angel, and glided away among the brushwood. And so, when the summit was attained, the face of the child was joy- ful, and his garments white and smooth as when he first started on his pilgrimage." "And the other child, uncle Percy?" inquired Frederic, eagerly, and drawing closer to his uncle's side ; " did he get to the top, too, or did he lose his way, after all?" A sudden emotion came into Percy's face, and he could scarcely command his voice, as he replied, 94 STORY OP A FAMILY. " Perhaps ; I do not know. He might do so, after wandering long-, and suffering- many wounds." Then, quickly chang-ing- his manner, he turned to the rest of the company, and inquired, " WeU, do you see my drift?" " Your drift?" repeated uncle John ; " why, no, you haven't come to it yet, have you ? I thought the question was ahout female education, and hoth the children in your fable are little boys, ar'n't they?" " /see what you mean," observed MeHssa, " but I really do not think that it applies." " Well," said Alexander, '^ I confess I am rather in the same predicament as John ; I don't exactly see the drift of the story ; suppose we examine it a little. — And first, what are the angels intended to represent?" " I hope Melissa will be so kind as to answer for me," suggested Percy; "she says she understood my meaning, and I am sure she will explain it a great deal better than I could." " Come, Melissa," said uncle John, " what are the angels?" Melissa felt decidedly uneasy, not having in the least anticipated that her assertion of having compre- THE HAPPY FAMILY. 95 hended the mystery would be broiig-ht to so speedy a proof. However, she summoned courage from the very extremity of the case, and answered, with a kind of intellectual plung-e, " Education, I suppose." " Education !" cried uncle John, " oh, that's all very well. And it is up-hill work with most hoys, that I can avouch. But if you mean, Percy, that my pretty little niece ought to be educated by an angel, I really don't exactly see how *^ " No, no, no !" interrupted Percy, driven from the cautious silence in which he had taken refuge ; " I did not mean that ; I meant to symbolize the two tempers of obedience and disobedience." " Yes," said Melissa acquiescingly, '^ by the two angels." " No," reiterated Percy in a tone of despondency ; " by the two children, Mehssa." " By the two children ! " said Alexander ; " a most approved moral for the nursery. Not exactly new, Percy, but perfectly indisputable. All children are taught that they must mind what is said to them. And by the top of the mountain, I conclude you mean the end of childhood ?" " Entrance into the world," suggested Mehssa. " Into the next world," said Percy quickly. 96 STORY OF A FAMILY. " Death ! " exclaimed uncle John ; '^ entrance into the next world ! Why, Percy, do you mean to make everybody die in childhood ? " '^ My dear Percy/' said Melissa, in a tone of re- monstrance, '^ you could not really mean death ?" " These impromptu alleg'ories are apt to bewilder even their composer a little, when one comes to apply them," remarked Alexander. " We must not be too hard upon him ; we must let him speak for himself. The top of the mountain sig-nifies death. The ascent must therefore be life. But you see, Percy, you should have indicated the point at which childhood ceases, or your allegory would imply that the ' temper of obedience,' as you call it, ought to continue throughout life." This was spoken with mild triumph, as being evidently a pleasant exposition of a result so undeni- ably absurd, that the mere enunciation of it disproved the correctness of the steps by which it had been attained. This is a woful species of argument not uncommonly adopted in society, and few, thus as- sailed, have the courage to avow at the moment, that they believe in the truth of the very idea so unhesi- tatingly proffered to their ridicule. Indeed, unless you have a great deal of presence of mind, it is ten THE HAPPY FAMILY. 97 to one that you are surprised into joining- tlie laug'h ag'ainst your own principles, and then left to the un- pleasant contemplation of your own spiritual minute- ness. Percy would fain have held his tongue, hut they were all looking at him interrogatively, so he heg'an with some hesitation. *^ There is a childhood of the heart " said he. " And of the mind too, I think," interposed Alex- ander. " My dear fellow, you must excuse me, but I am a practical man, and I must tell you, that all these theories and allegories of yours are very pretty thing's upon paper, but utterly unreal, — in fact, mere fancies wherewith to amuse a lively imagination. You must have seen, I think, how, even in itself, your system is not coherent ; far less is it reducible to practice. I should really be sorry to think that you should make that sweet little girl of yours the subject of any romantic educational experiments. But I know enough of the world to be aware how such notions end. Nothing can be more amiable or poetical than 3^our views, but trust my word for it, when Ida is, as T dare say she will be, a fine, lively, light-hearted girl of fifteen, she will be hiding French novels under her pillow, and flirting with her admirers behind your back, just like other young VOL. I. n 98 STORY OF A FAMLY. ladies, and I, for one, shall not think the worse of her." ^' Young" ladies in general," replied Percy, with the first approach to sarcasm in which he had allowed himself, " oug-ht to be g-rateful for being thus made acquainted with a practical man's theories about them. Your system differs from mine, Alexander, for it is not a ^ pretty thing,' even upon paper." ^' Truth, my dear Percy, truth," rejoined his brother, betraying a shade of irritation, as a vague doubt of his intellectual supremacy flitted for one instant across his mind ; " but I see you are de- termined not to confess yourself conquered, — no unusual case in an argument, as Mr. Coniston can tell us." " Uncle Percy," cried little Godfrey, who with fixed eyes and earnest face had been trying to realize to himself the circumstances of the allegory, while his elders were discussing it, " will you tell me one thing ? Was it not very awkward for the angels to walk up that hill backw^ards?" The question was received with shouts of laughter, in which Percy heartily joined. Godfrey was patted on the head, and pronounced to be a most ingenious commentator J indeed, as his uncle Alexander ob- THE HAPPY FAMILY. 99 served, " he was the only person who had discovered the true purport of the fable, which, if reduced to practice, would most undoubtedly be, at this time of day, a going hacTirvards. Mr. Coniston ventured to express his cordial concurrence in this opinion, and Percy, after a moment's silence, said that he agreed in it likewise, which was taken as a sig-n of complete submission. Mr. Alexander Lee always considered, that he had this evening enjoyed a thorough intel- lectual triumph. " Why did you desert me?" said Percy to Mr. Becket, as they moved up stairs ; " I thought myself sure of your support." " You might have been sure of my inaction," re- plied his friend. " Since you are fond of illustra- tions, what would you think of the loyalty of a man, who should proclaim the presence of his queen in the midst of an assembly of rebels prepared to insult her? Don't you think that a faithful servant would be very sedulous, in such a case, to maintain her disguise?" " You are right," said Percy, " and yet there is a difficulty " "Surely not," observed Mr. Becket, *'it is very easy to trust to the holy instinct of silence. How- h2 100 STORY OF A FAMILY. ever/' he added smiling-, " if you think you have done any g'ood by your little alleg-orical sermon " " No, no ! " cried the other in the same tone, " have mercy ! I have suffered enough for one offence." And so they parted for the nig^ht. THE WILL. 101 CHAPTER V. THE WILL. The will was read bj Mr. Coniston, with due solemnity, in the presence of the assembled family, on the following' morning. It was a very singular document, but as we do not possess the legal quali- fications necessary in order to enable us to lay it before our readers with due technical accuracy, we shall endeavour to make them acquainted with its purport as briefly as possible. If any lynx-eyed special pleader should profess himself able to drive a coach-and-four through it (a feat which we have often heard alluded to, but were never so lucky as to see performed, and which we suppose to be some- what analogous to the fairy exploit of drawing a hundred ells of muslin through a ring), we beg to disembarrass ourselves at once of his inconvenient logic by assuring him, that whatever errors he may detect have their origin only in our report of the transaction, and that if he will please to correct 102 STORY OP A FAMILY. them in the manner which his judgment shall most approve, that, and no other, was the manner in which the objectionable phrases were really expressed. We claim for ourselves that fabulous power which the captains of ships tax the credulity of landsmen by assuming, and can make it what o'clock we please at any given hour of the day. Mr. Clayton's principal characteristic had been the love of power, which, existing in a nature of no large proportions or noble stamp, was fain to develope itself in all that minute and harassing su- pervision of detail to which unintellectual despotism is prone. Had he been Emperor of all the Russias, he would probably have spent much of his time in regu- lating the curls of judicial wigs, and apportioning the precise quantity of starch for the stiffening of regi- mental neck-ties. Another spiritual pettiness was eminently his, namely, jealousy of the exertions of others, even when in strict accordance with his wishes, unless they were openly and unequivocally subordinated to his will. He would rather have been thrown by a runaway horse than have the animal stopped by some officious friend, lest the bystanders should think he could not manage it himself; and if he had been thi'own, no injury, short THE WILL. 103 of insensibility, would have prevented him from asserting' that he had done it on purpose. No man was so sure to be considered his enemy, as one who had substantially befriended him in some way not prescribed by himself. These peculiarities may perhaps account for his very elaborate and un- usual provisions for the arrang-ement of his property after his death, many of which would seem to have been suggested solely by the desire of making his authority felt, and compelling his descendants to do by his order what they never would have thought of doing by their own judgment. The preamble commenced by a short review of the past misfortunes of the Lee family, in which the fact was specially noticed, that each successive inheritor of the property had come into full exercise of his rights at an early age, and that under each, debts had increased, and resources diminished. The object of the testator was then stated ; namely, to enable a considerable sum to accumulate before the lands and lordships should ag-ain pass to a new possessor. Next followed the actual arrangement, namely, that the estates and entire income, with the exception of certain specified legacies, should all descend to the youngest member of the Lee family existing at the 104 STORY OF A FAMILY. time of the testator's death. As this '* youngest member" was a girl of very tender years, certain elaborate regulations were superadded. The manor- house, and a moderate but sufficient allowance for its support, were to be committed to the single brother and sister, John and Melissa, till Ida should attain her majority ; the rents, meanwhile, being suffered to accumulate without any further expendi- ture than was absolutely necessary for the proper care of the land, and for the maintenance and edu- cation of its future mistress. Ida was to be under the sole personal guardianship of her father. The marriage and " establishment," as it is called, of the lovely little prattler were, however, contemplated and carefully provided for. The testator gave her the option of remaining single, or marrying one of her cousins; and in order to avoid all suspicion of partiality, he decided that she should be kept wholly without intercourse with the aforesaid cousins till she should have attained the age of eighteen, at which period he determined that all the surviving members of the Lee family should assemble once more at the manor-house, in order that Ida might make her free and uncontrolled choice among her cousins. Should she then insist upon rejecting all, THE WILL. 105 she was to receive as her sole inheritance the manor- house and gTouncls, together with the sum allotted for their maintenance, while the rest of the property was to be sold, and the proceeds equally divided among* the surviving members of the family, without reference to age or sex. Should she, however, marry another, not of the family, she was to forfeit all claim whatsoever, and the whole property was to be sold and divided in the manner before indicated. On her marriage, supposing it to take place as de- sired, with one of her cousins, she was to be consi- dered of age, and to come immediately into full exer- cise of all her rights as heiress of the Lee estates. The countenances and demeanour of Mr. Conis- ton's auditors would have been interesting subjects of speculation to a philosopher, during' the reading* of the will. Mr. Alexander Lee threw himself back in his arm-chair with an expression of pompous nonchalance; he had a new poHtical pamphlet on his knee, and he amused himself with cutting the leaves, as if the whole matter were one in which he took no possible interest. At the same time, his manner expressed so studied a deference — there was in him so conscious an assumption of insig'nificance, that no one could doubt his actual expectations. 106 STORY OF A FAMILY. Melissa exhibited an indifferent copy of him ; she was playing with a bouquet, and occasionally whis- pering* with an affected smile, to her sister Ellenor, whose evident nervousness was irrepressible. She was thinking' of her boys; her own means since her husband's death, were small, and she had learned to be ambitious for their sakes. She long-ed to pro- vide them with every conceivable happiness — to protect them from every possible deprivation. All her visions of the future were comprised in the one idea of their advancement and distinction. Life was to her a fair plant covered with blossoms, all growing' out of her reach, and she would fain have plucked it, but only to wreath it into garlands for those two dear heads. Her anxiety also sought to conceal itself j she changed her posture a dozen times in a minute, and answered her sister's remarks with a hurry and agitation which often caused her to speak aloud when she ought to have whis- pered, and to laugh when gravity would have been the more fitting expression. Uncle John was undisguisedl}^ fussy. He was too honest to affect either indifference or regi'et when he did not feel them, so he bustled about the room, rising and sit- ting down again repeatedly without any apparent THE WILL. 107 reason, causing; each person in succession to change places with him, always on the pretext of resigning* some convenience specially adapted to the individual for whose sake he resigned it, and thrice crying* " hush ! " in a loud voice, when nobody was talking hut himself. Percy was the only member of the party who was really indifferent and preoccupied, and accord- ingly he was the only one who behaved with strict decorum. He assumed an air of grave, quiet atten- tion, and politely assisted Mr. Coniston in turning* the leaves of the bulky document. When first the "youngest member of the family" was mentioned, all Mr. Alexander Lee's habitual presence of mind did not enable him to preserve his equanimity. His face flushed, and he started ; but after one instant he conquered all expression of emo- tion, and, shading his eyes with his hand, listened with a concentrated intensity of attention, of which it would be difficult to convey an adequate idea. "The youngest member of the family!" cried uncle John J "why, that's me, isn't it? Oh, my dear Percy, I beg your pardon — you have been so long away, you know, that really I quite forgot you. It's you, of course. Melissa is older than both of us." 108 STORY OF A FAMILY. '^ Will you allow Mr. Coniston to proceed, John ?" said Melissa, with much emphasis. "Mr. John Lee is imder a slight mistake," observed Mr. Coniston, courteously ; " the provision here comprehends all members of the family, not a single generation only." " May I request you to continue reading ?" said Alexander stiflfly. "Poor Alexander is vexed!" subjoined uncle John, in an incautiousl}'- loud whisper, addressed to EUenor, and expressive of unaffected sympathy. " It is no wonder ; I am sure / always thought he would be the heir." " Mr. Coniston, I beg to apologise for my bro- ther," said Alexander, in a sustained and equable tone of voice, " he does not mean to interrupt you ; I hope you will have the goodness to continue." " I am sure" — began uncle John. " My dear fellow, be quiet, can't you, just for five minutes," whispered Percy, laying his hand upon his arm, and anxious to keep the peace : " we will hear all you have to say afterwards." Thus rebuked, uncle John submitted to be silent, and the reading of the will was completed without further interruption. Mr. Alexander Lee rose at THE WILL. 109 its conclusion. " I suppose/' said he, with a cold bow to Mr. Coniston, " there is nothing* further to detain us." Mr. Coniston acquiesced in this observation, with that deprecatory and uncomfortable manner which a person who has been made, however innocently, the means of conveying very disagTeeable informa- tion to another, can scarcely avoid. " A glorious morning- ! " pursued Mr. Lee, walk- ing to the window, " it is a shame to waste it within doors. EUenor, will you ride to the cHffs ? I shall be delighted to attend you." Mrs. Aytoun withdrew to put on her habit, and there ensued a very awkward silence, which Alex- ander in vain endeavoured to enHven by laborious small talk. Everybody felt so conscious of the annoyance which he was so resolutely determined to ignore, that no one could imitate his mag- nanimous equability, and his own temper began rapidly to fail him under such complicated trials. " Why, Percy," exclaimed he, addressing his brother, who was sitting apart with his face bowed upon his hands, '^ what is the matter ? you seem quite overwhelmed with your good fortune." Percy lifted his eyes, and the sorrowful and per- 110 STORY OF A FAMILY. plexed expression in them was wholly uninteUigible to his companions. He took Alexander's hand in his with a sudden warmth that he had not shown before, and said in a faltering voice, " My dear brother — I beg your pardon — but don't let there be any coldness betwixt us." "Coldness!" repeated the other in a tone of quiet surprise, and extricating" himself from that affectionate g'rasp, " you must excuse me, but really I do not exactly comprehend you. These sentimental reproaches are surely a little misplaced. You are now, of course, the head of the family, at least I conclude you so consider yourself, at any rate for the present. But I do not conceive that my position with regard to you is in any way altered by the fact that I am deprived of what I shall perhaps be considered presumptuous in assert- ing- to be my just rights." " Well, I don't know, Alic,'* interposed uncle John, while Percy, whose self-command seemed almost entirely to have forsaken him, observed a distressed silence, " I don't see that any one of us can be said to have a right to any share of the property, strictly speaking. Old Lee had a right, you know, to leave it to whomsoever he pleased : if THE WILL. Ill he had left it to his housekeeper, I suppose no- body could have found fault with him. As far as regarded right, we were all on a level, and your being" the eldest brother made no difference as to your claim. I must needs congratulate my pretty little niece ; she will be one of the greatest heiresses in the kingdom. Whichever of the boys she chooses, will be a lucky fellow. But, Alexander, though it is quite natural that you should be a good deal cast down, I think, you know, you ought not to visit your disappointment upon poor Percy, who can have had no hand in it, as he didn't know what was in the will till it was read to him." " Your judgment is as profound as usual," re- turned Alexander with a bitter sneer, '^ and it has, at least, the happiness of possessing your own con- fidence. But I must positively request you not to promulgate your groundless assumptions as to the state of my feelings. I imagine that nobody but yourself would think me likely to be cast dowHy be- cause I am made the subject of an injustice. As to the will, there is imbecility upon the very face of it ; Mr. Clayton Lee's intellects " '^ I beg your pardon," interrupted Mr. Coniston, good-naturedly anxious to save him from any un- 112 STORY OF A FAMILY. necessary mortification ; " but I hope you will not think me impertinent for assuring-you beforehand that it is impossible, absolutely impossible, that any plea of that kind could be entertained for one moment." Mr. Lee bowed loftily. " I have no doubt," said he, '^ that very complete arrangements have been made for all emergencies; I shall, however, request a copy of the will, which I don't suppose will be denied me." Percy rose from his seat, and abruptly walked out upon the terrace, followed by Mr. Becket. He cast himself upon a stone bench, and again buried his face in his hands. " Oh ! my father," mur- mured he, ^^ is this my punishment?" The voice, the attitude, the words, all seemed to undo the lapse of years, and renew the time, when in childhood, he had been wont to carry his griefs and his faults to that kind friend and counsellor, and receive from liim comfort, reproof, and direc- tion. Mr. Becket had always loved him with a love proportioned rather to his capacity for virtue than to his attainments in it, and he now spoke to him in the old tone and manner, with a mixture at once of softness and authority, that might have seemed to many fitter for the Past than the Present. THE WILL. 113 " Tell me all that is in your heart, my dear Percy," said he. " It was enough before — and too much," rephed Percy hurriedly 5 "the burden, the responsibility. Too much for me, whose labours are all labours of penitence. God help me; I am not sufficient for these things. My lovely Ida — my little innocent stainless babe — why was she given to such a guardianship, in order to prepare her for such a destiny?" He stopped ; his friend, taking him gently by the arm, led him into the shadow of the trees. A brook flowed beside them, whose harmonious mur- mur, as it chafed against the pebbles of its bed, so blended with their voices, that the words of their conversation were undistinguishable. Ere they parted, however, Percy kneeled down as he had been wont to do in former days, and bowed his head with the humility of a child, as the venerable pastor laid his hands upon it, and solemnly gave him his blessing. That night, long after all the rest were asleep, Percy Lee left his room, and descended softly to the library. He placed the lamp he carried upon the table, and stood for some minutes irresolute, VOL. I. I 114 STORY OF A FAMILY. with eyes fixed upon the ground. Then he ad- vanced a few steps, and with an effort and a deep heavy sigh, lifted up his face, and looked for the first time upon his mother's picture. He stood still, with hands stroBgly clasped together, and the hours passed by him unheeded, while he relaxed not that fixed melancholy gaze, though tear after tear rose bHndingly to his eyes, and rolled slowty down his cheeks. Steadily and unshrinkingly, though with much agony, he went through the past, step by • jgr' ■■■'■ : . step; the early happiness — the warm confiding love — the childish offences — the tender pardons — the never-failing sympathy, and care, and anxious guidance. Then through the boyish days — head- strong, impetuous, disobedient, but still watched over, and nurtured, and tended, with a most gentle and stedfast guardianship. And then came the forgetfulness and ingTatitude of his manhood— the strong selfish will — the pangs inflicted — the heai-t wounded and made desolate — his mother's heart, that never changed towards him. He fell upon his knees, and stretched forth his hands imploringly, but yet ceased not from this bitter retracing of the past. It was daybreak ere he left the room, and then he went not to rest, but to the little cl THE WILL. 115 where, kneeling at the altar-rails, he poured out his soul in silent prayer. What passed then in his thoughts it is not for us to proclaim ; his eyes were still tearful when he took the little Ida in his arms, and carried her into the chapel for the first time, to be present at the service which Mr. Becket daily read there in the early morning. She clung to his bosom, and looked up in his face with a kind of terror; but meeting there the wonted look of per- fect tenderness, her sweet eyes resumed their child- ish calmness, and she watchfully imitated his ges- tures, observing all the while a timid but by no means sorrowful silence. A warm but mute pres- sure of the hand was exchanged between the friends as they quitted the chapel, and Mr. Becket kissed the fair forehead of Ida, as it rested upon her father's shoulder. The lilies that are to crown a bride should be gathered at dawn, ere the dew is dry upon them, or the sun has had time to sully the tender bril- liancy of their first whiteness. I 2 116 STORY OP A FAMILY. CHAPTER VI. CHILDHOOD. What a poem was the childhood of Ida ! It is not to be described. It was like the g-rowth of a flower in some woodland recess by the side of cool waters — free, peaceful, beautiful, — fostered by a thousand tender influences from sky, earth, and air — yet developing into perfect symmetry under the authority of an unchangeable, though invisible law. It was well for Percy that he had such a friend as Mr. Becket, to direct rather than to restrain his ardour; otherwise, his brother's fears, that he would experimentalize a little too freely in the course of realizing his educational theories, might have proved not wholly without foundation. The good old man, being now quite incapable of performing his regular parochial duties, resigned his living, and consented to pass the remainder of his days with his former pupil. They chose a retired and very CHILDHOOD, 117 lovely spot on the coast of Cornwall^ where a small fishing; village stood in a perfect nest of wood be- tween two sloping- downs, which rose steeply on either side, and terminated in precipitous and irre- gular cliffs towards the sea. About half a mile from the hamlet stood a solitary house, which had been built for a whim by the owner of the neigh- bouring estates, and left unoccupied for some years ; it was the only abode above the character of a cot- tage which the country possessed, for Sheldon, the nearest town, though not very distant by actual measurement, could not be reached without crossing the river which flowed through that pleasant valley, and boasted but a single bridge, some three miles from its debouchure into the sea. Percy at once purchased this house and the adjoining land, and speedily enclosed a large garden, extending to the extreme edge of the cliff, and bounded there by a raised terrace-walk, half a mile in length, which commanded a magnificent view of the sea and the curved and rocky line of coast. On the right, the garden was joined by a wide and irregular extent of down, stretching as far as the river, on the opposite bank of which stood Sheldon ; on the left, its fence skirted the top of that green slope, beneath which 118 STORY OP A FAMILY. the tiny village of Croye, embosomed in its trees, and pointing skywards with its slender white spire, looked like the perfect representation of peace. Several other fishing-villages were scattered along the coast at various distances, but they were all comprehended in the parish of Croye, which, small as it was, was yet the most considerable of them. The bending course of the river concealed the town from view, so that the seclusion of the place was complete; and when the first wonder at Croye- house having obtained a tenant had subsided, and gossip had done its worst, in surmising the causes of that tenant's resolute though courteous withdrawal from the social civilities tendered to him, Percy was allowed to enjoy his solitude and indulge his dreams unmolested. Mr. Becket had at first questioned the wisdom of the scheme in some particulars, but it was not difficult to remove his objections. " It is not," said Percy, *^ as though my Ida were to live here all her life, or even any consider- able portion of it. A limit is fixed ; at eighteen she is to be introduced into the world. I cannot help this if I would, and I am by no means sure that I would if I could. But till that time she is my own. I am not going to impose upon her any- CHILDHOOD. 119 thing like loneliness; with our poor neighbours I mean to establish as familiar and affectionate an intercourse as I can, and it will be hard if we can- not find some one among- them near her own age, and sufficiently capable of refinement to be, in some measure, a companion. But her mind, her soul, her spirit — these shall be mine, and yours, and " he looked reverently upward, and did not finish the sentence. After an instant's pause he resumed — " And, please God, we will make her literally as happy as the day is long ; in childhood, at least, this may rightly be attempted, and may even succeed." And they did succeed. Save by sympathy with the distressed around her, by penitence for childish errors, few and far between, by self-denials gently imposed and cheerfully accepted, the child Ida knew not a sorrow. As one soft note may swell gradually into the fulness of a perfect harmony, so did her infancy grow into girlhood, losing no grace, but developing all. Her manner of life was very 8imj)le and regular. Morning and evening were hallowed by worship in the village church, the intervening hours were occupied by study, by sports, by long rambles upon the sea-shore, and kindly visits among the poor inhabitants of Croye. 120 STORV OF A FAMILY. Almost every moment of a life like this mig-ht be said^ in one sense, to be a part of reli<^ious training ; the more direct instructions which she received, were simply and briefly imparted by Mr. Becket, to whom also her tearful acknowledgements of faults committed, or duties forg-otten, were made weekly, as a preparation for the Sunday services. She was most sedulously trained in a habit of reverence j at the name of God her young voice would falter, and her Httle hands involuntarily clasp upon each other, as if in momentary prayer. One room in the house was set apart, and never entered except for prayer, or religious reading and instruction ; the walls of it were hung with a few copies from the finest old paintings, which, in imitation of the remembered habit of her innocent and lovely mother, she was taught on festive occasions to decorate with gar- lands of flowers. Here, sitting at the feet of her father and her venerable teacher, with her whole soul glistening in her upturned eyes, she received humbly such things as she was required to know and to believe, repeated, with timid earnest- ness the lessons she had been taught, or listened, with glowing cheeks and beating heart, to records of holy men of old, " the noble army of martyrs," CHILDHOOD, 121 " the g"oodly fellowship of prophets," ^^ the g-lorious company of apostles/' and of Him in and for Whom these all lived and died. If she needed punish- ment, which was very seldom, none was found so effectual as to exclude her for a season from this chamher; the severe penalty of prohibition to attend the church service was named as a warning but never inflicted. In all her rewards and plea- sures, she was taught, as far as possible, to associate the poor around her; on feast days there was always an assembly of the village children at Croye-house, where it was Ida's delight to preside at the banquet, to distribute presents to the best conducted among her youthful guests, and to join in their games afterwards, which generally were concluded by a dance upon the lawn. Percy's only difficulty was one which did not at first make itself felt, and which afterwards presented itself rather in the shape of a natural fear that some good might be missed, than as an observation that any evil had been incurred. He needed the help of a woman for the due training of a woman, and this he had not. An old servant, who had been housekeeper at Evelyn Manor in the days of his early childhood, who had refused to leave the family 122 STORY OF A FAMILY. in their adversity, and had received with jo3'ful ^•atitude her " darHng* Master Percy's " summons to come and preside over his present estabHshment, suppUed this want for the first few years. She taug;ht the Httle Ida needlework, superintended her toilette, helped her to learn her lessons, and ini- tiated her into sundry aug-ust formahties, which were esteemed inviolable, which were certainly harmless, and which were perhaps (we speak with diffidence) unnecessary. The good lady either possessed natu- rally, or acquired in an atmosphere where it would have been difficult not to acquire it, a refinement above her station ; and she was never obnoxious to her master, except when she expostulated with him concerning the rents and fissures produced in Ida's garments by certain racings and rompings which she deemed superfluous, or mildly withstood the awful suddenness with which he sometimes pro- posed an impossible pic-nic, basing her arguments upon the state of the larder, or the chronology of market days, whereby she rose into a region beyond his reach, and was therefore secure from re- futation. She was honest, industrious, and warmly affectionate, and it was, therefore, not difficult to bear with her little faults of temper, especially as CHILDHOOD. 123 her love of management generally rather showed itself in the form of suggestion than of opposition. If Mr. Becket ever wanted to tease his friend and pupil, it was only necessary to allude to Mrs. Vickar's government of him as an established fact, and the thing was done. There was just enough truth in the accusation to make it unpalatable ; it was, moreover, so utterly inconsistent with all Percy's theories that it should be true, that he never could suffer it to pass without elaborately justifying himself, in the course of which justification some admission seldom failed to escape him, which strengthened his adversary's hands. One fact was certainly remarkable, considering the lofty indepen- dence which he professed. He never changed the dinner hour if he could help it. When such a change was unavoidable, he generally conveyed the intimation of it to Mrs. Vickars through another servant, and went out for a walk immediately after- wards. Ida's capacity for art was perhaps the intellectual faculty which received more assiduous cultivation than any other, and which repaid it most abun- dantly. She was taught music before she began her alphabet. At first, and indeed for some years, 124 STORY OF A FAMILY. she learned solely by ear. When quite an infant, her father would place her on his knee, and play to her simple melodies on the org-an or piano ; after a while he beg-an to accustom her to distinguish notes, and detect intervals by their sound alone. This was a species of g-ame, and in time she became quite expert, her ear being thus trained to a very uncom- mon accuracy and delicacy. Then first her own little hands were placed on the instrument, and care- fully guided for a while, lest she should unconsciously grow accustomed to discords of her own producing. At seven years old, when she began the stud}"' of music in the ordinary manner, she could already play by ear any easy tune that was sung to her, and even accompany it 'vvith some of the simpler har- monies. Art was in Percy's view a great and mysterious instrument in the elevation of the human being ; it was man's creation (let this be reverently understood, coupled with the unfailing knowledge, that the creative power is from above), wherein he is suffered to repair, half by instinct, half by labour, the disorders which the Fall has wrought in God's visible work, and to symbolize, if he cannot produce, perfection. That this instrument should be abused to the service of Satan, and should then become one CHILDHOOD. 125 of the deadliest weapons in the armoury of evil, seemed to him but one among; many illustrations of that g'reat law by which privileges are associated with dangers, and gifts with responsibihties. Is it necessary to understand these things, in order to believe in them ? Do we refuse to walk, because we know not how the will acts upon the muscles ? Life is a climbing upwards by the help of unseen hands ; if we reject these invisible assistants, we are scorning the ministry of angels, and we must needs remain upon the earth, from which they wait to raise us. But here again, as time went on, Percy began to feel a deficiency. He wanted his child to obtain a perfect mastery over the material of her art, and he himself had neither deep science nor manual dex- terity. The idea of a governess once or twice passed across his mind, and was very hastily dismissed. He shrank from it inexpressibly, yet the arguments in its favour were so unanswerable that he did not like to consider them, and was afraid of consulting Mr. Becket. Sheldon was the only resource ; Ida was in the habit of going there once a week under Mrs. Vickar's decorous chaperonage, to receive a lesson in dancing ; if he could find any one there 1*26 STORY OP A FAMILY. whom he thought competent, she might learn music also. But this scheme offered no solution of his other difficulty ; the want of feminine co-operation and superintendence in the training of his darling. He was getting seriously uneasy. He questioned himself sternly whether his scruples were selfish, and on this point could not be quite satisfied. There was the certainty of much discomfort to himself, the doubt of good being eventually attained, the risk of harm to Ida, whose young character was bright and delicate as the wing of a butterfly, ca- pable of irreparable injury (so he feared) from one incautious touch. Then he began to fear that the difficulty foreseen by Alexander was really coming to pass ; his theory was failing, and proving impracti- cable. Yet, if so, he must have unconsciously de- parted from his own principle. He was pacing the terrace in the glorious twilight of a July even- ing, weighing and reweighing all these harassing thoughts, and secretly despising himself for the cow- ardice which he would not confess even to himself, and which prevented him at once from seeking his usual counsellor, and abiding by his decision. The sun had dived beneath the far edge of the broad calm sea, the sky overhead was a vast canopy of pale CHILDHOOD. 127 lustrous blue ; on the western horizon rose a heavy battlement of dark cloud, all penetrated and transformed by the rose-coloiu-ed Hght, and occa- sionally sending" forth a momentary and harmless flash; in the clear heaven above, the moon stood round and white, like a ball of silver. Percy stood still, and dreamily watched the passage of a sea- gull that was skimming the surface of the water; he saw the edge of its beautiful wing, a pure dead white in the shadow, crystal in the moonbeams, and radiant crimson as it crossed the blaze left by the departed sun. " Beautiful in itself," said he, half unconsciously, " and so beautiful under all aspects and under all changes. But if the wing itself w^ere broken or stained, neither sun, moon, nor shadow could restore it. Now it makes each circumstance into a new adornment — then — but, God forbid !" The voice of Ida broke his reverie ; she came bounding along the terrace like a young greyhound, her golden curls still, as formerly, floating all unconfined about her shoulders, her dress white, her face full of bright in- nocent eagerness. She was now just eleven years old. " The post, papa, a letter ! " cried she, holding it forth, but catching him by both hands as she pre- 128 STORY OF A FAMILY. sented it, " only don't read it, please, quite yet. I have something to say of such consequence — there is something- 1 wish so very much to do." " Well, my darling*, don't lose a minute ; never mind stopping- to take breath — now then, what is it?" " It is not a joke, dear papa, it is something quite real. There is that lady, that pale young lady in a black dress, who has come to live at Croye ; I am sure you know who I mean, because she comes to church every day, and you said how beautifully she sang." " Yes, I remember, — what of her ? " " Every day directly after service she goes away," continued the panting Ida, " I do not know where ; but she always goes past the gate of the garden ; I have seen her very often, and she comes back the same way in the evening. And she lodges at Grace Turner's, down close by the sea- side; and I think she is very poor. And, you see, she cannot buy flowers for herself, and Mrs. Vickars won't let me give her some." Here Ida's voice faltered, and her eyes became decidedly " more bright than clear." " But, my dear child " CHILDHOOD. 120 " Oil ! papa, please don't say ' but' till I have explained. I have not explained it yet — may I tell you some more before you say what I am to do ?" " Yes, yes, pray let me have the full explana- tion," returned her father, putting" his arm round her slig'ht waist. " At present I own I am a good deal bewildered. Is it always right to give flowers to poor people when they lodge close by the sea- side ? And what has Mrs. Vickars to do with it ?" Ida laughed. " The reason is," said she, trying" to speak very sedately, " that she has a little tiny box along the edge of her room window, with some mignonette in it ; and I could see inside when I was down on the sands, and I saw two flower-pots, I did indeed, papa, and one of them had some pinks in it, and the other had a dead rose tree. I am sure she was so sorry when that rose tree died. And when she goes past every day, she always has a pink or a little bit of mignonette in her dress, and when she comes back in the evening it is always quite faded. And I am sure she is very poor, because her dress looks very old, and I saw three darns in it — only you don't know what darns are, papa — but they are very tiresome mendings when anything is torn. VOL. I. K 130 STORY OF A Family. And I g-atliered such a beautiful nosegay — look here; all out of my own garden ; roses and pinks, and stocks, and jessamine, and verbena, and a great many more. And I was waiting for her, because it is nearly the time that she always comes, and I was going to run out at the gate and give it to her, and Mrs. Vickars says I must not. She says that you don't visit her, and I mustn't in- troduce myself; and so, papa, I was thinking if you would just visit her only once, you know, it would not be a great deal of trouble, and then I might always do it afterwards. And I never meant to introduce myself, or say anything about who I am ; I wanted her never to know ; I meant to run out quick and give her the flowers without saying a word, and come back again just as if I was a fairy. Grace Turner believes in fairies, I know, and perhaps this lady does too ; so I thought perhaps she might really think I was a fairy." Percy did not think such a supposition quite impossible. " Oh papa, papa !" exclaimed Ida, as he paused, " the time must be so nearly come, and I shall be too late." CHILDHOOD. 131 He kissed her forehead and released her from his arm. " You may g'o, darHng/' said he. " Say nothing to Mrs. Vickars. I will explain it to her." Rapidly returning- his kiss, Ida was gone even more quickly than she came ; and her father having looked after her for a minute in smiling- silence, proceeded to open his letter, which was from the fair Melissa, and ran as follows : — Evelyn Manor j July 3, My dear Percy, — Ellenor wishes me to write to you to explain her very long- silence ; she has been in trouble at home, and you know poor dear Ellenor is not one of those who can exert herself under the immediate pressure of sorrow. She is always amiable — but quite a child where strength is required. Poor Frederick has a terrible inflamma- tion in the eyes, and the doctors fear it will end in blindness. I do not know how it first began, but I suppose it was a cold, and they did not take alarm soon enough ; he is just entered at Oxford, you know, and I fancy boys are grievously neglected at colleges. It often happens that those who are most anxious in trifles are the slowest to open their eyes when there is real cause for fear; and so I sup- K 2 132 STORY OF A FAMILY. pose poor Ellenor fancied it would all go well, till it was too late. Now she is taking- him to London for the best advice ; but I fear, from what I hear, the evil has gone too far to be checked. I only hope, poor dear creature ! she will not reproach herself for not having attended sooner to his very delicate constitution. I have long been quite sure that there was some latent disease. The emotions which this affliction to my beloved sister and her child awaken in me, may be felt, but cannot be described. I doubt whether he feels more from the loss of eyesight, than I feel from thinking of his loss. To one who derives such exquisite delight as I do from the contemplation of nature in all her varying moods — the majestic sun, the timid moon, the glowing stars, it seems scarcely conceivable what life must be without the organ upon which all these glories depend. I trust, under this grievous trial, they will succeed in inducing Godfrey to con- duct himself more amiably towards his brother. That boy is in himself a great trial to poor dear Ellenor, though she doats upon him so much, that I fear her over-indulgence is one great obstacle to his improvement. He is of a most violent and haughty temper, poor fellow ! He needs a father CHILDHOOD. 133 to maintain proper discipline with liim, and between ourselves (only, of course, you will not repeat this), it is said there is some probability that he will not need one long*. Dear Ellenor was always the sort of person with whom emotions were rather transient, you knowj and there is a Mr. Tyrrel, a former friend of General Aytoun's, now an attache to the Portuguese embassy, and home on leave of ab- sence, who seems both willing and able to console her. He is a good deal younger than herself j and it is said that he has not been very steady, but I dare say that is all ill-nature. He came with an introduction to us, and seemed very anxious to be intimate ; but he was not the sort of person to suit me at all, and I am afraid I rather distanced him. You know it is my way to be over-sincere. How- ever, I hope poor dear Ellenor will make up to him for all rebuffs. " Dear John is quite well. He is entirely en- grossed by his country pursuits as mag-istrate and farmer 5 he is growing very stout, and persists in a diet which I cannot help thinking is a little too generous. The acquaintance he has formed here do not suit me very well ; indeed, there is not one congenial person. They are people without refine- 134 STOllY OF A FAMILY. ment — it is all the happier for them — they do not know what it is to be morbid, and to need consola- tion. I spend my quiet life in study in my humble way, music, and the love of nature. But, dearest Percy, it has occurred to me that your sweet Ida is now g-rowing old enough to require female care and companionship, and I fancy that, under your eye, I might be competent to take charge of her educa- tion. John is now quite the old bachelor, and does not need the delicate supervision of a woman in his establishment j indeed, I often painfully feel that I am in his way. I could nccer feel this with you. If you would like it, therefore, I am quite ready to come and share your peaceful retirement. My health does not allow me to enter into much so- ciety, and your quiet lovely sea-side home would just suit me. I send a lock of my hair to my dear little niece, as I think she may like to wear it in a brooch or ring j if you will have one made, and let me know the price, I will pay you when we meet. I hope you will write to me very soon ; my heart has always beaten in unison with yours, and I feel it now more than ever. With best love and many fond kisses to my charming little Ida, and kind regards to that dear respectable Mr. Becket (how CHILDHOOD. 135 old he must be growing !) believe me to remain, mj dear Percy, ^' Your most attached and affectionate sister, " Melissa Lee. " P.S. — I find both John and Ellenor are wi'iting a few lines, so enclose their notes." From Mr. John Lee. '' Dear Percy, — I have scarcely time to write a Hne, as there is a fellow come up out of Norfolk who has a very ingenious new manner of dibbling wheat, and T am to take a lesson of him, and I am afraid of being late for my appointment. I wish you could see this place — it is so improved ; I am taking- the best care of it that I can, for my pretty little niece. I don't quite know how Melissa is writing- to you, but I think it is as well to let you know that she and I have had a little bit of a tiff. It was all my fault — I was always stupid about managing with women. This was how it happened. She walked five miles the other day to call upon Lady Mauleverer, for the chance of being sent back in the carriage ; however, no carriage came, so she walked back again, and in the evening she was just as usual. The next day my good friend Tom 136 STORY OF A FAMILY. Davis — he was a navy captain, and is now retired on half-pay — came over here to plan a little pic-nic. There are two or three sweet girls staying- in the neighbourhood, and they wanted Melissa for a cha- peron, and I don't know how it is, but she never likes being invited as a chaperon. However, I forgot this dislike of hers : and when I heard her declining on the score of not being equal to the fatigue, and they were all going in carriages, and were not to walk above a mile and a half at the outside, in I came and reminded her of her ten miles walk of the day before, and how well she was after it, and so forth. It vexed her very much, and she has been angry with me ever since ; she says it was not so much what I said as the manner in which I said it, which hurt her j but it really was nothing in the world but a blunder, for I thought she had forgotten her walk, and would be glad to be reminded of it. However, she is a good soul, and will soon forgive me, I dare say; I only mention it lest she should have said something a little hasty, and you should fancy that we have quarrelled. Poor Ellenpr — I can't trust myself to write of her. She is off for to^\Ti to-morrow morning. Kiss the little beauty for me, and say CHILDHOOD. 137 everything* that is kind and respectful to my dear old tutor. " Your affectionate brother, " John Lee." The second enclosure was very brief. " My dearest Percy. — Melissa has written to you for me. I really could not. I know how you will feel for us. Pray for me — I am so very weak. This dear boy's patience (which never fails /^r a moment) overpowers rather than strengthens me. Oh ! if it would please God to afflict me instead of him ! I will write from London, as soon as I know anything; for certain. Love to my little Ida. " Yours most affectionately, "Ellenor Aytoun." With these letters in his hand, Percy went direct to Mr. Becket. '^ You know," said he, as his friend finished their perusal, ^' it is quite impossible." " Lnpossible — what?" was the answer. " About Frederick?" " I am still the most selfish person on the face of the earth," cried Percy, colouring. *^ I was think- ing of Mehssa's suggestion — most kindly intended, doubtless; and — and it will be rather difficult to 138 STORY OF A FAMILY. decline it with sufficient decision — but I have quite made up my mind to decline it very deci- dedly." He spoke somewhat uneasily j and; but for the melancholy nature of the news just received, Mr. Becket could almost have laug-hed at his dilemma. They discussed the contents of the packet for a little while, and then Mr. Becket said, — " Curiously enough, while you were out, I had a visit from our friend Mr. Gray, the rector of Croye, the purport of which may, perhaps, remove some of your difficulties. He came to recommend a musical instructress for Ida ; a young widow lady, in re- duced circumstances, who has lately taken lodgings in the village, and who gives lessons in Sheldon. Her taste for retirement brought her here, and she is a regular frequenter of the Church services. He thinks her abilities very unusual, and told me one trait of her which I greatly like — namely, that on hearing that you were about to present an organ to the church, she offered her services as organist, ^/ra- tuitously ; a thought which, coming from a person who earns her bread by her own exertions, has some grace. "We will make her acquaintance," said Percy. CHILDHOOD. 139 "I suspect Ida has already forestalled us. Well, my fairy, what of your mysterious strang-er ?" "Oh, papa!" cried Ida, who entered at that moment, "she was so pleased — only she did not think I was a fairy at all ; and she would not let me run away, but held me, and made me tell her who I was, and thanked me so much, that somehow, I found I couldn't say anything : and so I'm afraid she thoug-ht me very stupid." " Will you like to go with me to-morrow, and call upon her ?" inquired Percy. " I don't know," said Ida. " I should like to know her, very much. She is very beautiful, only pale and grave ; she looks like a marble statue with black eyes. And she has such a deep, sweet voice — ^like F on the organ, so clear and steady. Only, if you think she will thank me any more, I would rather stay away. I do not know why it is so unpleasant to be thanked, for I wanted to ^ive her pleasure ; and I suppose she did it to show she was pleased; but, you know, she could have done that quite as well by looking at the flowers, and smell- ing them ; and I should have liked it a great deal better." The projected visit was paid the next day, and 140 STORY OF A FAMILY. Ida had the satisfaction of seeing- her bouquet, in undiminished freshness, duly installed in the place of the faded rose-tree. She pressed her father's hand to draw his attention to the fact, but did not venture even to glance towards it herself, lest she should incautiously give occasion for the renewal of her unknown friend's painful gratitude. Mrs. Chester, for such was the lady's name, was certainly a singular and interesting- person. She could not be more than twenty- four years old ; her figure was tall and distinguished-looking, stately even in her shabby mourning ; and the plain border of her widow's cap set off to much advantage a marked but beautiful profile. The curved delicate nostril and short upper lip, the small head rising so •gracefully from the symmetrical shoulders, the slender hand and exquisitely proportioned foot, all seemed to bespeak an aristocracy of origin strangely at variance with her present circumstances, which bore every token of the extremest poverty; — at variance too, in some respects with her manner, which, though refined, was embarrassed and con- strained, suggesting the idea either of inexperience in society of a good class, or of a natural shyness so strong that no experience could be sufficient to con- CHILDHOOD. 141 quer it. Her hair and eyebrows were jet black, ber complexion of that clear, pale whiteness which is sometimes seen in brunettes, and her eyes, which Ida had imagined of the same colour as her hair, were in reality of a dark blue gray, somewhat rest- less, very melancholy, and occasionally flashing- with a fire too brilliant and too sudden to be alto- g-ether pleasing*. Perfect melody of voice, and a smile of rare captivation, contradicted an expression which would otherwise have been almost repulsive, in spite of her remarkable beauty. She received her visitors rather stiffly, and in reply to Percy's first courtesies, expressed, quite unmistakeably, her desire for complete retirement. He apologized for his intrusion by saying' that he had understood that she gave lessons in music, and was seeking- an instructress for his little g-irl. Mrs. Chester g-lanced at Ida, and her face softened, and her whole deportment changed. " I shall be very happy to give lessons to Miss Lee," she replied ; " that is," she added, checking herself, " provided, of course, that you are satisfied with my powers." He looked involuntarily round the room. " I have no instrument," said she, very quietly, ^^but 142 STORY OF A FAMILY. I will give you references to my pupils at Shel- don, and I shall be happy to play and sing* to you at any time that you like to appoint." Percy felt no encourag-ement to prolong the interview, and shortly afterwards took his leave, saying that she should hear from him. He sub- sequently ascertained from Mr. Gray, that Mrs. Chester had been introduced to him through the medium of an old and perfectly trustworthy friend, who had vouched for her respectability, but said that she had been singularly unfortunate, and that she wished for profound seclusion. Thus relieved, he invited her to Croye-house, and soon discovered that her musical abihties were of the first order, and had received the highest cultivation j her voice alone — a contralto, clear, sustained, and thrilling as a horn — w^ould have qualified her for a much higher post than that of teacher in a small coun- try town like Sheldon. Ida was enraptured. It was to her a perfectly new pleasure ; and it re- quired the full exercise of her habitual submissive- ness, to keep her from spending her whole time at the piano. Mrs. Chester's cold and languid manner kindled gradually under the influence of her fascinating little pupil. She quitted the ordi- CHILDHOOD. 143 nary school instruction with which she had begun, and played to her some of the finest compositions. One day she played Beethoven's Sonate patMtlqiie. Ida stood by the instrument, her lovely childish face reflecting", as it were, the emotions which the performer called forth ; her cheeks varying* ; her eyes g-listening-, filling-, and finally overflow- ing- with quick tears, of which, truly, she knew not the cause. Mrs. Chester broke off in the middle of the adagio^ and, suddenly clasping her in her arms, kissed her passionately ; then turning- back to the piano, with a half laug-h at her own vehemence, she resumed, not, however, where she had left off, but at the final rondo, which she played with a force and an abandon positively overpowering-. From that day, strange as it may appear, there arose between the mistress and the pupil a sentiment which, notwithstanding the diffe- rence of age and temperament, we can call by no other name than friendship. Towards Ida Mrs. Chester was never cold, though her manner still vibrated rather fitfully between languor and impe- tuosity, habitual melancholy and occasional vivacity. For Ida she displayed her talents 5 she was a good linguist, and a great reader — especially in imagina- 144 STORY OF A FAMILY. tive literature; and Percy foimd her educational assistance so valuable, that he availed himself of it more and more, till she had ^adually established herself as daily governess to his darling. The closest vig'ilance, and not a few misgiving-s on his part, preceded and accompanied this step ; Mrs. Chester became, unconsciously, the subject of many an anxious examination. Much he could not elicit, for there was a reserve about her which the most pertinacious inquirer could not have succeeded in penetrating ; nevertheless, her blameless and regular life, and a certain nobleness and elevation of senti- ment — expressions of which occasionally escaped her, as it were, in spite of herself — satisfied him that Ida was not likely to derive harm from close intercourse with her, carried on under his own eye and that of Mr. Becket, whose great age, though slowly but surely taking from him bodily strength, had not seemed to cast one shadow upon the clear, bright surface of intellect and spirit. There was no process of ruin in that calm decay. Rather was he like the figure in the Etruscan tomb, which stood with outline unimpaired, hues undimmed, and proportions unmarred — seen, one moment in all its original stateliness and perfection, the next, CHILDHOOD. 145 at the opening- of a door, ready to crumble into undisting'uishable dust. Percy answered Melissa's letter, kindly but reso- lutely declining her proposal; and giving, at the same time, so vivid a picture of the profound seclu- sion in which he lived, that it greatly diminished her inclination to come and share it. He inquired anxiously after poor Frederick j alas ! the answer to the inquiry was — the announcement of total and irrecoverable blindness. VOL. I. 146 STORY OF A FAMILY. CHAPTER VII. LAYING A TEAIN.— A CONTEAST. ^^ In every face/' says Coleridg-e, ^^ there is either a history or a prophecy, which should sadden, or at least soften, the heart of the reflecting* observer." It must have been a very tender heart indeed that would have melted at the aspect of the face of Mr. Lee senior, as he sat uprig-ht in his easy chair opposite to his son, while his daughter Agnes presided over the breakfast-table. The expression was hard and dry when we first saw it, and it has been hardening and drying- for twelve years since then. There is the high, smooth, bald forehead, with its air of benign imperturbableness ; the narrow, thoughtful, never-kindhng' eyesj the gentlemanly nose, rising somewhat abruptly at the bridge, and compressed at the nostrils ; the thin, tightly-closed, but rather wide mouth, drooping at the corners, and the square, obstinate chin. The whole face expresses, in the highest degTee, that asceticism of LAYING A TRAIN. A CONTRAST. 147 the intellect which is, perhaps, the most repulsive aspect of humanity. Even the extravag-ances (if such there be) of spiritual self-denial are lovely and venerable, because they speak of the subjection of the body to the heart and soul, which are the hig'her part of man's nature, and suggest that Beyond to which man's nature can never, except by self-denial, attain. But the subjection of the body to the mere mind, and that mind of the earth, earthy, whose end and aim are in the present, is simply hateful; and the power achieved by this misuse of noble instruments differs in degree only, and not in kind, from that which we attribute to Satan. Intellect, be it remembered — that is, pure, dry, unimaginative intellect, " the vase of cold water" — is the one of the Divine instruments which may be turned to evil purposes without degenerat- ing in itself by the misapplication. The intellect of Mephistophiles is as perfect as his wickedness. Mr. Lee sat uprig-ht in his easy chair — he never indulged in unnecessary repose, either of mind or body — and, from behind the folds of the newspaper which he held in his hand, watched, with a kind of pompous stealthiness, the looks and gestures of his son. The latter was a young man of two-and- L 2 148 STORY OF A FAMILY. twenty, unexceptionably dressed, and distingnislied by all that elaborate effeminacy of deportment which a certain class of young men of the present day assume, in the hope, w^e suppose, that it may be considered as the veil cast by modesty over an inconvenient excess of the manly virtues. He spoke with a drawl (not with a lisp, as dandies invariably do in books, and nowhere else), walked with a mitigated swagger, and stood about rooms in attitudes. His features were regular, aristocratic, and slightly supercilious ; he had an abundance of fair hair, which his enemies called sand^^j and he was fully six feet high. In his countenance, lan- guid as it was, the physiognomist might have de- tected signs of an understanding as subtle as that of his father, and more powerful; but its predo- minant expression was a kind of cool, inexorable ease, which seemed to say, " You may assail me as you like — by argument, persuasion, or reproach — you will make nothing of me. I inay sulk, per- haps, if you are very pertinacious ; but that is the only effect you will produce." At the present moment it appeared that somebody liad been suffi- ciently pertinacious to drive him to the extremity of sulking J for a most forbidding scowl disfigured LAYING A TRAIN. A CONTRAST. 149 his handsome features, and he seemed to have made a vow of silence, though his dig-nified ob- servance thereof was somewhat impaired by the fact that nobody spoke to him. The third of this attractive g-roup was Agnes, the only sister of the sublime Alexander. We are sorry to apply the epithet " clumsy" to a young lady, but we fear that no other could adequately describe her. She was immensely tall, and dis- proportionately large, with a thick waist, and huge hands and feet. Her features were insignificant, her expression dull and heavy, her bearing a stoop, her walk a shamble ; a Devi and a Camille united would have failed to impart the smallest grace to her figure, or to soften the hopeless vulgarity of a face which had absolutely nothing to recommend it. Her brother treated her with undisguised contempt — her father with ill-concealed impatience ; her life was a continuous and unsuccessful struggle to avoid rebuke. Indeed, how could she avoid it, when every gesture was an offence against the laws of elegance and fashion ? while the persons whose object it M'as to bring her under the dominion of that august code, visited every violation of it upon her with unsparing harshness, partly in the vain 150 STORY OF A FAMILY. hope of effecting' an improvement, partly to make up to themselves for useless labour, by indulging- the natural irritation of temper consequent upon failure. She was, apparently, as slow in mind as she was awkward in body; condemned to an in- cessant drill of both, she had acquired facility in the exercise of neither. No labour could teach her rebellious tongue to frame itself to French n's and German gutturals ; three hours' daily practice had only sufficed to make her a murderous and violent wrestler with musical impossibilities ; and the woful cadenzas which her restive voice had, by hard driving, been compelled to achieve, were like no- thing upon earth but a street-organ in a state of delirium. Her mother was the only member of the family who treated her with a sort of slothful good- nature; but her mother was a confirmed invalid, and never stirred from the sofa in her boudoir, except for a daily airing. Into that boudoir Agnes was rarely admitted, for the nerves of its occupant were irritable and delicate, and the key in which the poor girl's voice was pitched was enough to make them tremble for an hour afterwards ; more- over, the doors always slammed w^hen she shut them, her shoes always creaked, and she never LAYING A TRAIN. A CONTRAST. 151 turned round without throwing* something- down. To complete her misfortunes, she had been a very pretty child, and her parents had fully intended that she should be a beauty, and should make a *' grand parti^^ ; so that in some far corner of her misty brain there was a bright spot of memory, where caresses, and praise, and gentle tones, and all the thousand kindly seemings of love, must have greeted her like impossible phantoms in some un- forgotten childish dream. Perhaps it was not won- derful that her temper should be sour, and her affections weak and cold. " Alexander," said Mr. Lee, after he had allowed to his son what he considered a sufficient time for indulging- and recovering from his uncomfortable mood, " do you know that your cousin Ida is seven- teen to-day?" Alexander quietly took up the newspaper which his father had laid down, and immersed himself in politics. " One year more," proceeded Mr. Lee, either not perceiving, or determined not to notice his son's dis- courtesy, — ^' one year more, and the independence which you so greatly desire will be ready to drop into your hands, if you will only take the trouble of stretching them out," 152 STORY OF A FAMILY. "Ah, Agnes!" said Alexander, "here is the account of Persianiin the ' Sonnamhula'j — you had a loss, I assure you j her \2^^tJioritura was exquisite. I will give it you as a subject for practice." " Alexander ! Did you hear me ? " inquired the elder gentleman, in a tone of grave upbraiding. " Now, Agnes, attend," said the son -, and in a feeble, but delicate falsetto, he executed an elaborate passage with perfect self-possession, repeating the last phrase, after he had finished it, to enforce a particular accentuation. " Thank you," said Agnes crossly ; " but I assure you I have quite enough to do to practise for Signor Scappa, without learning any extra lessons. Besides, how am I to know that you sang it correctly?" " How are you to know, indeed, my dear!" re- turned her brother -, " for assuredly your ear won't help you to decide the question. Do you ride to- day, sir?" Mr. Lee's face flushed crimson. " I will not be treated with this open disrespect ! " cried he. Alexander put up his eyebrows, and looked inqui- ringly, as much as to say, " You won't ? — well — what then?" ^ "I insist upon receiving the common attention LAYING A TRAIN. A CONTRAST. 153 due from a son to a father/' said Mr. Lee ; ^^ your behaviour is insolent, — absolutely insolent, — I will not endure it ! " "Agnes, my dear!" said Alexander, in a quiet, compassionating* tone, with a slight gesture towards his father, implying that he was not exactly fit company for a young lady at that moment, " I think you had better go up-stairs !" " I have not done my breakfast," replied Agnes, with manifest dissatisfaction. Mrs. Lee's bell rang. " Go directly, Agnes ! " said her father -, " I have something to say to your brother." Agnes rose sullenly, and moved towards the door. " Do, for Heaven's sake, child, try to hold your- self a little less awkwardly ! " exclaimed Mr. Lee, who, for good and sufficient reasons, never vented his wrath on his son, save when tried beyond all power of endurance. " Will nothing break you of that unfortunate stoop ? There — put down your cup aud saucer — Saunders shall bring you your breakfast up-stairs, if that very masculine appetite of yours is not yet satisfied. Don't drink your tea while I am speaking to you, I beg ; — it is most dis- respectful ; — put the cup on the table, and let me 154 STORY OF A FAMILY. see if you can walk across the room a little less like a cow in a farm-yard ! " Ag-nes coloured painfully during this address, and with a mixture of ang-er and shame, being- some- what bewildered, contrived to overset the cream-jug in obeying' orders, and placing her cup on the table. " Upon my honour, Agnes, you are the most in- conceivable gauche person that I ever encountered !" cried her brother, drawing hastily back from the dangerous neighbourhood ; " really, you ought to keep the width of the room between you and civilized human creatures ; one is never safe within a hundred yards of you." ^^ It is almost past endurance ! " said Mr. Lee, indignantly, as the offender escaped from the room. " Really," observed Alexander, " that girl's awk- wardness is positively pitiable. It is difficult to believe that she does not do it on purpose j neverthe- less, I do seriously think," he added, reflectively, " that she can't help it. She is a blunder of Nature : I am sure, sir, I feel for you when I look at her !" Mr. Lee scarcely knew how to encounter his son, who well understood and skilfully used his advan- tage. He was aware that his father's whole ambi- tion was set upon his marrying his cousin Ida, and LAYING A TRAIN. A CONTRAST. 155 SO obtaining' possession of the family property. This fair scheme would be frustated at once by a fit of waywardness on the young* man's part, therefore Mr. Lee, who found to his cost that he had reared in him a will stronger than his own, was forced to the bitter expedient of soothing- his humour, and avoiding", as far as possible, an open outbreak. The present difference had arisen out of Alexander's de- termination to have his allowance raised, — a plan which his father had strenuously resisted, and to which he had not yet yielded. An angry dispute had been the consequence, and now Mr. Lee sought a loophole for concession, without irreparably de- stroying his own authority, — a means of compro- mise which his son was determined not to afford him. The scene which ensued was not pleasing, and need not be recorded. At its conclusion, the young man strolled forth to his day's amusement with a smile of triumph on his lips. It was not that he had obtained, or even sought to obtain, the money for which he originally sued; on the contrary, he had baffled all his father's attempts to return to the subject, risen somewhat abruptly from the table, and quitted the room, turning in the door- way to say, with an air of nonchalance, — 156 STORY OF A FAMILY. "And so, my cousin Ida is seventeen to-day! — Well, it matters very little to me : I would ratlier live on a crust than be dependent on my wife, tlioug'h she brought me the riches of Croesus." When Mr. Lee was left alone, the passion which he had been so laboriously repressing* vented itself in a gesture of impotent wrath. He stretched forth his clenched hands and shook them, as though in actual encounter with some unseen foe ; then shak- ing his head with a half smile at his own vehe- mence, he rose, and twice paced the length of the room with deliberate step and upcast eyes. He felt himself so keenly to be the outraged father, that he was for the moment almost pious, and his views of reverence, duty, and obedience, were alto- gether changed. " He will drive me to it "—such were the words that passed through his mind, as he paused before an escritoire and laid his hand upon the key — "he will drive me to it. Yet it is a tremendous risk. Well, what matter ! Better, as he said himself, better lose all than be dependent on a heartless, undutiful, rebellious son." He opened the drawer, took out Mr. Clayton Lee's Will, of which it will be remembered that he had demanded a copy, and sitting down, perused it, for LAYING A TRAIN. — A CONTRAST. 157 the hundredth time, slowly, intently, and with many intervals of meditation. What he saw there must not now be revealed ; but his countenance presented an expression, strange, and difficult to analyze. It seemed a mixture of triumph, doubt, fear, excitement, and discontent. Only four words escaped his lips, but those four were sufficiently suggestive — "Wellj we must wait!" The street of a great city, at noonday, is a scene of glare, glitter, and bustle; noise, folly,. and as often, perhaps, though not as evidently, of sin. It be- wilders the brain, wearies the eyes, and makes the heart faint as you walk along it. But look at that low arclied portal — it is but stepping across the threshold, and you are in another world. So close does the Pure and Ideal lie to the Earthly and Actual in this world, if we would onty know it ; so easy is it — needing but an effiart and a movement, a will and an act — to pass from the one to the other ! Yet we pause, almost in fear, at the fragile bar which separates the world of din and trouble, vanity and evil, from the world of holy shadows and heavenly radiances, where, under the solemn canopy of silence, the eye moves onward, and re- 168 STORY OP A FAMILY. poses at length in the sugg'estive vagneness of the pillared distance. Let us pause^ though but for an instant; and then enter with reverent boldness and subdued hearts! On the evening* of that same day, Ida's birthday, the second father of her happy childhood lay on his deathbed. Full of peace was that venerable face as it rested upon the pillow, settled into the com- posure of approaching slumber; there was the pallor of death on the cheeks, and the feeble hands could scarce lift themselves in prayer or benedic- tion ; yet no cloud had been suffered to pass upon the mind, no darkness, not even a momentary g-loom, had afflicted the spirit ! The kind arms of Percy supported his drooping form, and Ida was kneeling by the bed-side, bathing with her tears the hand which she held to her lips; her long golden locks lay partly across the old man's bosom, and the white veil by which they had been covered had fallen back upon her shoulders. She had just returned from the solemn rite of Confirmation; how could she more fitly seal the promises she had just renewed, and employ the strength she had just received, than here and thus — hopefully watching the entrance of a soul into paradise ? LAYING A TRAIN. A CONTRAST. 169 The door opened, and Mrs. Chester glided softly into the room. " Mr. Gray is come," said she, put- ting* her arm round Ida's waist, as if to lead her away, and looking inquiringly at Percy. Ida turned her blue, innocent eyes, now glisten- ing' with tears, also upon her father ; she said no- thing, but the look was full of supplication. " She wishes to stay," said he, gently. The dying priest raised his weak hand with an effort, and placed it upon her young bright head. " God bless my daughter ! " said he, in a voice now reduced to a whisper. " Stay, if you have strength." In a moment the tears were wiped from her face, and she looked clearly and calmly, though with pale cheeks and trembling lips, up into her father's eyes. She read permission there, and silently resumed her kneeling posture. Mr. Gray now entered, and of what followed we must not speak here. It was thus that Ida made her first Com- munion. " He seems better," said Mrs. Chester, in a whisper, as Percy gently removed his supporting grasp, and the dying man lay down once more upon the bed. His face was very calm and benign. 160 STORY OF A FAMILY. They knelt around. The breathing- grew fainter and fainter, but still soft and regular; there was no symptom of pain, but it seemed Hke the ceasing of life; and the wan lids closed gradually over the fading eyes. Has not that feeble breathing ceased ? Is it all over ? — rather, is it all begun ? Is the body at rest ? Suddenly he sat upright, and opened wide his eyes, filled with a supernatural brightness, like the last gleam of sunlight through a chancel window, and spoke aloud, in tones clear and steady as the voice of youth, — " Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation !" The accent was so exulting, the gaze so fixed and intense, that the eyes of the watchers involuntarily turned in the same direction. Was that the wav- ing of snow-white wings ? They looked back to the bed ; he was indeed at rest; his hands crossed upon his bosom, and a smile on his colourless lips. " Papa," murmured the weeping Ida, as her father led her to her chamber, " I prayed for you as well as for his spirit. I could not help it. Was it wrong ? " LAYING A TRAIN. A CONTRAST. 161 Percy folded lier to his heart, and kissed her tenderly. He left her with Mrs. Chester, and re- turned to the solemn room of death. That night he watched beside the corpse ; and in a vision between the parted curtains, he saw the face of his mother, with gentle eyes bent upon him, full of love and pardon. VOL I. M 162 STORY OF A FAMILY. CHAPTER VIII. THE FIRST SOEEOW. " Standing with reluctant feet, Where the brook and river meet, Womanhood and childhood fleet." Longfellow. Ida was no longer a child. Seventeen years and six months had done their best to rob her of that sweet name ; yet of the reality which the name im- plies they could not rob her. Her soul was still a clear mirror, unused to reflect anything" but blue skies, shadowy woods and loving faces. She was sitting on the shore at Mrs. Chester's feet, her cheek leaning against the knee of her friend, her lap full of shells and seaweed gathered in the evening's excursion, her eyes fixed upon the waters which were slowly heaving themselves out of purple sha- dow into golden light, under a sky vibrating with the thousand hues of sunset, and sprinkled all over with small bright clouds, some like frosted silver, and some like fragments severed from a rainbow. Her fair hair fell backwards from a face so pure, so THE FIRST SORROW. 163 radiant, so placid, that you might have fancied it the countenance of some guardian angel who had never needed to weep for the sins of its human charge. The deep, almost stern melancholy which was the habitual expression of Mrs. Chester's beau- tiful features, contrasted very painfully with such a vision of peace. Their voices blended in the tones of a solemn melody, to which Percy had adapted words suitable to the time : — SUNSET. Is it the foot of God Upon tlie waters, that they seethe and blaze, As when of old He trod The desert ways, And through the night Fearful and far His piUar poui'ed its light? Oh for quick wings to fly Under the limit of yon dazzling verge, Where bright tints rapidly In brighter merge. And yet more bright, Till light becomes invisible through light ! What wonder that of yore Men held thee for a deity, great sun. Kindling thy pyre before Thy race is run, Casting hfe down At pleasure, to resume it as a crown ? m2 164 STORY OF A FAMILY. Or tliat our holier prayer Still consecrates tliy symbol, that our fanes Plant their pure altars where Thine Eastern gloiy rains, And thy bright West Drops prophet-mantles on our beds of rest ? Here, watching, let us kneel Through the still darkness of this grave-like time, Till on our ears shall steal, A whisper, then a cliime. And then a chorus : earth has burst her prison. The Sign is in the sides ! the Sun is risen ! " The whisper is on the earth ah-eady," said Mrs. Chester in a tone of enthusiasm, as the last notes died away; ^^at least/' she added, sighing-^ ^^for those who can hear it." Ida looked inquiringly into her face. " Dear Madeline," said she, ^' how sad you look to-night ! Is there any reason?" " Yes — no — I don't know," replied Mrs. Chester, absently ; " it is my birthday, Ida, and that is a time to be grave. I am afraid of the day. Every great change which has happened to me throughout my life, has either begun or been completed on this day, and there is scarcely one of them that I would :\ not recall if I could." ^^ _ / /^- ,(^ Ida took her friend's hand hesitatingly between THE FIRST SORROW. 165 her own, seemed about to speak, but checked her- self, and after a moment's pause, said with a man- ner of assumed careless, " Was it to-day that you first came to live at Croye ? " ^^ No, no, — yet my coming* to live here But let us talk of something- else, my Ida." She spoke with effort, and turned away her face. "Why of something- else?" said Ida, persua- sively ; " you said once that the day might come when you would tell me all about yourself. It is not fair to keep from me the privilege of knowing- why you are unhappy, when we love each other so dearly." " But I am not unhappy, love," replied Mrs. Chester; "Why should you think so? I never said so." " Said so ! " exclaimed Ida, " but who is there that would come and look into your face, and spread out his hands, and make a bow, and say, ^ Look at me ! see how unhappy I am ! ' If I were to see such a person, I should not believe that he had the capacity for unhappiness. But you — you are lively in con- versation and grave when you think nobody sees you ; you laugh openly and sigh when you think no- body hears you j and sometimes you start and an- 166 STORY OF A FAMILY. swer sharply when jou are not angry, and tremble when there is nothing to be afraid of. Besides, you never throw out hints that you are not so gay as you seem ; on the contrary, you delight to assure people that you are really cheerful when you seem out of spirits — indeed, I never heard you say as much about yourself before as you said just now. So the time is come, is it not, dearest Madeline ? — (throw- ing her arms caressingly around her) — I am not a child any longer — you are going to make a friend of me?" " You are both my child and my friend," replied Mrs. Chester, a few reluctant tears slowly breaking from her eyes ; " but indeed this is all a mistake 5 you have watched me, out of your fondness, till you fancied what had no real existence. I have every reason to be grateful." " Grateful and happy are not the same, are they? " said Ida, ponderingly. ^' Ought they not to be the same?" inquired her friend. " Why, no, I think not : surely not," answered Ida. "We may be grateful for reproof, and yet sorrowful because we deserve it. 1 am sure that is wHaFl often feel. Wlhy do you smile ? Oh ! you THE FIRST SORROW. 167 are thinking that I deserve it, now, for pressing* you to tell what you do not wish. You are not angT}^ with me, are you?" And taking Mrs. Chester's hand, she kissed it with an expression of the gentlest humility. Madehne embraced her tenderly ; and Ida, fearful lest she was indeed obtruding her sym- pathy, hastened to change the subject. " You were playing Schubert to-day,'' said she ; ^' the ^ Lob der Thranen.' I like no music so well ; why is it that you so seldom play it ? " " It is too exciting for every-day use," replied Madehne. ^^ It would wear me to death. Beet- hoven is like Shakspeare — his music is objective — you are altogether lost in the composition, and in it you forget your own existence. It is as though a giant held j^ou forcibly aloft, so that you see earth and heaven from a new and more commandins: point. But there is always something personal in Schubert. He does not look down upon life, he struggles in the midst of it ; and even in his con- quest you are made conscious of the wounds of the battle. His expression is as intense as it is possible for it to be without losing suggestiveness — after the scena from Faust, or the Ungeduld, I require a 168 STORY OF A FAMILY. composing draught to fit me for the common duties of society." " Oh, it seems so different to me ! " cried Ida. *' I suppose that is because I have not talent for music, as you have. To me, now, such music as that seems like a wild, beautiful fairy tale, some- times very melancholy, but then it is a sort of melancholy which gives pleasure." " That is a child's notion of life and the world, my Ida," said Mrs. Chester, fondly. ^^ It seems a realm of mysterious enchantments, in which the gloomiest parts are but as shadows making pleasant contrast with the light. Nevertheless, they are deep enough to bewilder those who walk among them." " And the child's notion is, as ever," said Percy, who had approached them unobserved, " the germ of a great truth. The utmost reason can do for us is to regain, toilsomely and without loss, some of the jewels which instinct freely offered us at first, but which we suffered to escape from our hands. What could the highest Christian say of life, more than that its griefs are shadows, whose purpose is to make the light stronger and brighter?" THE FIRST SORROW. lf)9 " The hig-liest Christian mig-ht say that," ex- claimed Mrs. Chester, abruptly, ^^ but " She stopped as suddenly as she had spoken. Percy made no comment upon the unfinished sentence. He seemed to be preoccupied with some painful subject of thought, and sat down in silence by his daughter's side, shading- his eyes with his hand. " Papa," said Ida, after a while, as she drew closer to him and laid her head on his shoulder, ^' there is one thing- which you forgot about the shadows." "What do you mean, my love?" inquired her father. " It is very dangerous to walk through them alone," replied Ida. '^ There must always be two, hand in hand, supporting each other. A father and daughter, for example — is not that true, dear papa?" Percy turned his face slowly towards her, and looked at her with a grave smile. " You are right," said he ; " we cannot stand alone. Better to lean on a flower than on nothing." ^^ But the poor flower may be crushed!" said Mrs. Chester. 170 STORY OF A FAMILY. ^^ No fear of tliat ! " exclaimed Ida, ^^ Only try it ! You will find that it is a hardy shrub, and can bear a g-reat deal of leaning upon. It is a very bad plan to give up seeking- for comfort because you are afraid of not finding- it — you can but do without it after all, you know, if your search proves vain. And perhaps, if you try and trust, you will find all you want." " So that is your philosophy, my child," said Percy, with somewhat forced playfulness. "You think it better to make your life a series of disap- pointments than to do without hope." " But would it be a series of disappointments?" asked Ida, looking* into his face with an expression almost of fear. " Oh, papa, how sad that sounds ! Surely, surely you don't mean it? How can we ever be disappointed in those we love ? — unless, indeed," she added, "we begin by loving the WTong people, and then that is our own fault." " But, without being ^ wrong people,' as you call it, the people you love may do wrong," suggested her father j " and would not that be a disappoint- ment ? " " It would, indeed," said Ida, gravely. " I never thought of that. But, you know, that is a THE FIRST SORROW. 171 grief which I might indeed cause you, but which you never could occasion me; so I suppose that is the reason of my forgetting it." Percy coloured deeply, and bit his lip, but said nothing. He was as chary of praise to his daughter as he was lavish of affection. Not that he never praised her, but his commendations were invariably given to some effort or achievement — something which had cost labour or demanded resolution. He was in nowise addicted to those little outbursts of parental admiration which are in some families awarded to the simplest expression of charactei', or the commonest phrase of humility. " My dear, I'm sure /don't know what your faults are." " Well, if yoii can't, nobody else can ! '* ^^ Yes, you might, I dare say ; but then, my love, there are not a great many people in the world like yon,'^ &c. &c. Let me not be supposed to ridicule the veriest extravagance or the merest weakness of real affection. But there is a sort of conventional habit of mutual laudation which sometimes grows up in the midst of an attached family, which is 7iotj in itself, real, which is only a degree removed from egotism, and which is worse than ridiculous. The habit is not real, because it is often found to exist in 172 STORY OF A FAMILY. company with a very keen appreciation of petty faults and personal offences separately, as they occur, which somehow are resented and condemned without affecting' that vague general view of the perfection of the offender which is always ready to hand when wanted; moreover, it is no guarantee whatsoever for that permanent and unobtrusive family union which grows out of forbearance, ten- derness, sympathy, and self- distrust; it is nearly egotistical, because it helps to keep up a sort of common stock of satisfaction upon which each member may draw as he requires it, and which results in a practical contempt for all differences from (not inferiorities to) the home standard ; it is worse than ridiculous, because it seriously injures the characters of those among whom it exists. You can scarcely be perpetually overrated by others without learning at last to overrate yourself, or at any rate to be so accustomed to the stimulus of applause, that all viands seem flavourless with- out it — a great, and in such cases, almost an in- evitable danger. Besides, the practice of humility, always difficult enough, is rendered doubly difficult where every expression of it meets with a pleasant opposition. You must be very clear-sighted and THE FIRST SORROW. 173 self-disciplined indeed to be quite safe from the peril of self-deception — quite guiltless of ever blaming yourself in all candour, and then listening for the sweet melody of contradiction. Woe be to us if ever the arms which we clasp about the necks of our beloved ones, shall draw them back as they labour along the upward path ! Let us not indeed cHng less closely — but let us cling so as to sustain and help ! Mrs. Chester was not always so cautious, but in the present instance she too was silent. She had drawn a few paces apart, and perhaps she did not hear the conversation. Her hands were clasped upon her forehead, and under their shadow she was gazing fixedly at the sea. " Well, but, Ida," resumed her father, " there are other disappointments in affection besides faults. There are separations enough in life, before we come to the last great separation." " Death," said Ida, her soft eyes filling with tears, as leaning on her father's knees she still looked earnestly' into his face. ^^ Oh ! that is solemn and sorrowful, papa — but no disappoint- ment — rather the light and life of hope. It is separation, you know, but not disunion, because 174 STORY OF A FAMILY. we Still pray with each other, and we love more than ever. I was at the g-rave to-day" (happy Ida ! she knew but of one g^ave), ^^ and I watered the myrtle, and hung- a circlet of roses upon the white cross ; so 1 have still that little service to render — and can you doubt that he still loves and prays for us in Paradise !" " You speak bravely and truly, my child," said Percy ; '^ you could then be content to be thus parted from those you love — from me ? " Her face was hidden on his breast, her arms twined closely about his neck, as, nearly inarticu- late with sudden weeping-, she murmured, " Oh ! no, no, no." There was a momentary expression of anguish in his eyes, but it passed as quickly as it came, as, gently disengaging himself from her embrace, he said — *^ God keep my darling from all trials that she has not strength to bear ! Ought I not rather to say, God strengthen her to bear whatever trial He pleases to send? However, I did not mean to bring these foolish tears — there, dry them, and think no more of them — you see it is easier to say than to do. Come, is the sky bright again?" She looked up, smiling. " That is right ; now THE FIUST SORROW, 175 listen attentively, for I have a history to tell you." Ida resumed her former posture, and her father thus continued, speaking" at first rapidly, but after- wards with more deliberation — " You know I have told you before, that in my youth I did much that was wrong-. I pleased myself, and thought only of myself, and forgot God's service. But I never told you how it was that I began to repent." He paused a moment. This was a subject to which he had only once referred, and the shame in his daughter's face was even keener than in his own ; yet she drew closer to him, and put her hands into his, as though she feared it might be possible for him to think that she could feel one instant's tran- sitory impulse of condemnation. " When — when your — your mother died," he proceeded, " I had a very severe illness ; a brain fever. I was for several weeks in great danger, sometimes without consciousness, oftener in a state of delirium. Dur- ing the whole of this time I was sedulously and tenderly nursed by a friend who scarcely ever left my bed-side, thoug-h the fever was supposed to be of an infectious nature. His name was Nesfield. He was a man of high famil}^, good fortune, and 176 STORY OF A FAMILY. very eccentric character; full of warm kind feel- ing, thoiigH, as jou will see from the sequel, desti- tute of principle. He used to spend hour after hour in trying to soothe and relieve me ; he told me afterwards that I kept my hands tightly clasped upon a small hook, which no persuasion would induce me to relinquish — it was my wife's — one of her few English books, a St. Thomas a Kempis. Once when I was asleep he took it out of my hands, and the next time that my delirium re- curred, it came into his head to read aloud a por- tion of this book and see whether it would produce any effect upon me. I wept, laid myself down quietly, and listened like a child — ah, how often I had heard it before ! How often, in the cool night time, I had listened to her voice as she read it aloud, slowly, and with her sweet fo- reign accent, to the maid who was loosening and arranging her abundant hair before she went to rest ! She did not guess that I was hearing ; and I heard only the music of the accents, and thought nothing of the words, which had, however, hidden themselves in some shady nook of memory, and now came forth to move me to tears. One pass- age which she had been accustomed to read oftener THE FIRST SORROW. 177 than the rest came back to me with special force, and fixed itself in my thought, so that, even when my mind was wandering-, I used to repeat it over and over ag-ain unweariedly. She had returned to it so often out of her care for the girl who waited upon her — an Enghshwoman who had suffered much sorrow, and who, when she came first to us, was dejected and gloomy, though not afterwards — how could she he in that sunshine ? These were the words : — ^' ^ There will come an hour when all labour and trouble shall cease, u i Poor and brief is all that which passeth away with time. " ^ Do in earnest what thou doest ; labour faith- fully in My vineyard; I will be thy reward. u c "^Y/iiQ^ read, chant, mourn, heep silence, pray, suffer crosses manfdly ; life everlasting is worthy of all these, yea and greater combats. " * Peace shall come in one day, rvhich is known unto the Lord, and it shall be not day nor night (that is, of this present time), but everlasting light, infinite brightness, stedfast peace, and secure rest.^ " What strength and refreshment to the weary in those words ! what a trumpet-note for the sloth- VOL. I. N 178 STORY OF A FAMILY. ful ', what a solemn organ-strain for the devout ! How her voice rose, how it kindled, as she read them!" He stopped suddenly, and covered his face for a few moments. Rarely, indeed, did he suffer such agitation to be noticeable. Ida was listening too eagerly to weep ; when he paused she covered with kisses the hand which still rested between her own, and soon he turned to her again, smiled, and con- tinued his story in a changed and more self- restrained manner. " Well, dearest, I began to recover. For many days I lay on my bed, powerless as an infant, unable to speak or move, but with those words ringing in my ears like the tones of a low distant chant heard if you stand by the churchyard-gate at the time of evening prayer. I was still outside the gate, but I longed to enter, and a new, living self-reproach was busier at my heart than grief itself. The first news I heard when I was able to leave my room, was that Nesfield was dying of the same disorder — caught, so it was supposed, in attendance upon -me ; and I was not able to go to him. What an ingrate I felt myself!" "Oh, no, no, papa!" cried Ida, "do not use THE FIRST SORROW. 179 such a word; your heart was with him, though your body could not be." " My heart was nearly broken," replied Percy, " I was in utter despondency. I had no physical strength to fig-ht against despair, no habit of faith or discipline to enable me to resist it. I was con- scious of past evil in myself, but felt no courage to amend. I gave myself up without a struggle. A vague heathen notion of doom was in my mind — of doom fixed, inevitable, terrible. I was like one who swims downward in the grasp of some mighty torrent, and knows that the abyss to which he is hurrying is a whirlpool, which will crush him as a child crushes a shell between its fingers. A hun- dred hands are stretched out to help him, but the blackness of darkness is upon the heavens, and he cannot see one of them. A hundred voices cry to him, but the roar of the water is in his ears, and he hears no other sound. Then there comes into the sky one little star, pale and tender, and by its twinkling light he sees the rope on the surface of the waves, grasps it, and is drawn to shore. It was the little star that saved him. They brought you J^ to me, my Ida : when they feared that I was sink- ing into that worst kind of madness, to which n2 180 STORY OF A FAMILY. speech and motion are impossible, and life is nothing* but a dreary stupor, they brought my little star to me. The first pressure of your tiny, aimless fing-ers upon my cheek — the first look into your dreamy, innocent, blue eyes — her eyes — and I was saved. I wept freely, and after that there was no fear of madness, for I felt that there was something to Hve for." Ida's face was hidden in his lap, and she wept unrestrainedly. " Oh, what happiness !" murmured she, as soon as she could speak. "And I was thinking", all the while, what a burden I must have been to you ! " Her father smiled in silence, and after a moment, continued — " As soon as it was practicable I went to Nesfield, and had the happiness of finding him out of danger, though as feeble as I had myself so lately been. I need scarcely tell you, that I did not leave him till he was completely recovered. One day he placed a sealed letter in my hand, de- siring me to keep it, and open it in case of his death. He seemed about to say more, but checked himself, and merely added, that it had weighed much on his mind in the intervals of his delirium, that he had not already taken this step -, but now, THE FIRST SORROW. 181 he was relieved, for that he could trust implicitly to me, to act on the information contained in the paper. I pledg*ed my word to him, and no more passed between us. When he was quite well, I offered to return it to him, but he refused to receive it. " Keep it," said he ; " perhaps, if I die twenty years hence, it will be as necessary as it is now." About a year after this he asked my services as second in a duel. I acceded so long- as there was hope of reconciling the combatants, but when I found this to be quite impracticable, I declined to act any further with him. He was bitterly offended. It was a hard trial to me ; but imagine how g-rate- ful I felt for being- permitted so soon to make a sacrifice — so early in my penitence to be able to make some little atonement for past self-indulgence ! Nevertheless, it was a great grief to me. I tried to obtain his forgiveness in every possible way, but in vain. He would not see me ; he returned my letters unopened, and we have never met since !" " Ah, papa ! " exclaimed Ida, ^' what a hard- hearted, cruel man ! And yet he nursed you so tenderly, I must love him ! How could he be at once so bad and so good ? " ^' 3Iy child, he was without the principle of obe- 182 STORY OF A FAMILY. dience to God's law/' replied Percy ; '^ all that lie did was from feeling; and so when the angry impulse was stronger than the kind impulse, he yielded to it at once." " Papa, I could understand that quite well in a heathen/' said Ida, " but it seems so unnatural for a Christian to live by impulse. Was he a Chris- tian?" she added, with a wondering, puzzled ex- pression. " We will not judge him/' said Percy, solemnly ; " he is in God's hands. He is dead." ^' Dead ! " repeated Ida, with a look of terror, clasping her trembhng hands. " Even so," returned her father, '' he died quite suddenly ; a fit seized him while out hunting — he was brought home and died the next morning. He was perfectly insensible till the very moment of death, when he opened his eyes, and with great effort pronounced my name twice. I trust it was an emotion of forgiveness. One of the persons who was present, and who happened to be a mutual friend, communicated immediately with me. I re- ceived the intelligence a week ago, and, of coiu'se, I then opened the letter, which I have now had in my possession seventeen years." THE FIRST SORROW. 183 ^' And it contained " exclaimed Ida, breath- lessly. " A very few words, but of astonishing- import — I have it here ; " he took the paper from his pocket, and read what follows : — " ^ If I should die, I desire your protection for my wife and child, now resi- dent at the convent of Santa Fe, near——, under the name of Gordon. Their existence is known to no living being- but myself, nor will it be revealed till my death. — James Nesfield.' This was all. The letter which broug-ht the news of his death contained no allusion whatever to his mar- riage, but speaks of a cousin in England as his next heir. It also informs me that among- his effects was found a sealed box, with these words written upon the lid, * To he hurned in case of my de- cease.^ A pencil had been afterwards drawn across this inscription, and my name written below, also in pencil — apparently this was one of his last acts. A very solemn duty devolves upon me, and one which I am of course bound in a special and most impressive manner to execute. I must endeavour to find this unhappy lady and her child if alive, or to procure sufficient evidence of their death. They are given into my charge as it were from the grave, 184- STORY OF A FAMILY. and I dare not neglect, for a moment, the task thus imposed. Of course, my first step must be to visit the convent — it is in Syria — and to learn all that I can on the spot. Afterwards, I must pro- ceed to Delhi, where my friend died, and open the box, which has been kept untouched till my orders are received concerning it, and in which I hope to find the certificate of the marriage." Ida listened with the deepest interest. " And why was the marriage kept secret ? " inquired she. " I fear, from motives of pride ; but, of course, this can only be conjecture," replied Percy hesi- tatingly, and looking at her with an expression of inquiry. Ida mused a little, and then looked up at her father. " And when do we set off? " asked she. Poor Ida ! What a child she still was ! All that careful and tender preparation — all that elabo- rate prelude of supposititious sorrows — it had just gone for nothing! It never occurred to her that her father had been trying to break to her, as cautiously as he could, a piece of sorrowful news ; that he had not been working upon her feelings without cause, but in order to soften, if possible, the blow which he was about to inflict. This could THE FIRST SORROW. 185 not have escaped a woman— one whose education had advanced a Httle way under that stern pre- ceptor, Life — hut Ida was a child. In the interest of the story, she had lost all recollections of its pur- pose, and of the conversation which preceded it. Childhood is supposed to lose much suffering-, be- cause it anticipates none j did those who thus judge ever think of the cruelty and bitter suddenness of a new and unimagined grief? " My dearest child," said Percy, with the quiet and tender firmness habitual to him, and from which there was no appeal, '' I cannot take you with me." Ida started ; the idea of resistance, even of the resistance of supplication, never once occurred to her, but it was very hard to bear. Yet, with her whole heart full of sympathy, love, and obedience, how could she once think of herself? It was of her father she had been thinking', for him she had been feeling", and she could not change in a moment to self-indulgence and self-pity : her im- pulse was to crush by a quick effort every thought that could add to his pain, to conquer her own emotion, as it were by violence, for his sake. She would not let him see that it grieved her — she 186 STORY OF A FAMILY. would put a cheerful face upon her misery; this was a holy deception. So she looked up at him, with eyes straining* to keep themselves free fi*om tears, white cheeks, and lips quivering" with a pain- ful smile, and asked gently, ^^ And where am I to go?" " You will he at Evelyn Manor, my love," replied her father ; " your aunt Mehssa has kindly promised to take charge of you during my absence. I hope to return before that eighteenth birthday of yours, to which we have been looking forward so long, when the whole family is once more to assemble at Evelyn. I shall write to you very often." Ida drew her breath with a quick, sobbing sound, but was silent. Mrs. Chester approached and put her arm round her waist, " My dear Mrs. Chester," said Percy, ^^you will not, I am sure, refuse to accompany Ida. It would be so hard for her," he added, dropping his voice, ^' to go at once among strangers. I am sure I may reckon upon you in this?" Madeline coloured violently, and her manner ex- pressed a singular hesitation. ^' I am so unused to society," said she ; but a look at the wan trembling Ida overcame her reluctance. '^ I will go -, yes, I THE FIRST SORROW. 187 will go/' she added; ^^but I must be allowed to live in retirement, and when you return, I must come home before the family party assembles." She spoke abruptly and with much agitation. " You shall do exactly as you please/' answered Percy with some surprise ; " I am sorry to urge upon you a step from which you appear to shrink, but " Mrs. Chester raised her hand, as if deprecating further discussion of the subject. ^^ It is enough," said she, almost sternly, " I will go." Percy turned to his daughter, and folded her silently in his arms. She shook from head to foot. " When ? " said she hastily, she could articulate no more. " God bless my darling child ! " was his solemn answer. She dropped upon her knees, and once more those dear hands were laid gently upon her head, once more was she clasped in those vene- rated arms and held to that loving heart, and he was gone ! Madeline led her to her room, and wisely judged it best to leave her for a Httle while alone. As she descended the stairs, she saw Percy in the hall; he beckoned to her, and when she came to him, said hurriedly — ^^ I am a coward ; I despise my own weakness, 188 STORY OF A FA3IILY. but cannot conquer it. I cannot tell her — perhaps, too, it is not necessary yet. But, Mrs. Chester, you must pledge me your word not to leave her. I have reason to believe that I carry within me the seeds of a mortal disease : it will, most probably, be long' before it makes itself apparent ; but it is pos- sible that — that — it may be necessary to write to her and inform her of it. You are to her almost a mother \ she is a tender child ; I cannot leave her, even though it is my duty to do so, unless I know that you will be with her. Will you give me your word to remain with her till I return — or, if God will it, till I die ? You understand me \ will you pledge your word for this ? " His manner was almost fierce in the impetuosity of its earnestness, and he had taken both Made- line's hands in his own, and kept his eyes fixed on her agitated face. " I will," said she faintly ; ^^ I do. Wliat am I that I should refuse any sacrifice for her? But God preserve you to her!" Percy wi^ung her hands warmly, and adding a few hasty words about avoiding the pain of a fare- well interview, left her. Madeline was perfectly calm when she joined Ida THE FIRST SORROW. 189 an hour afterwards, and they passed the first part of the night in prayer and weeping*. Towards morning" the exhausted girl fell asleep, and her friend watched by her side : all was still, save for the uneasy breathing- of the slumberer who lay on the bed, her head pillowed on her arm, and the tears still undried upon her burning cheek. The gray light of dawn was beginning to spread its pale, cold tints over the room. Madeline went to the window ; it was a cloudy morning, and a fog lay heavy upon the distant sea, the foliage of the trees was all uncurled by damp, the earth looked black, and the grass sent up a white steam. Before the door a servant was holding a horse, and in another moment Percy came forth. He looked neither right nor left, up nor down, but straight before him; his step was quick and firm; he sprang on his horse touched its shoulder with the whip, and, without a word to the bowing groom, rode off at speed. Madeline looked involuntarily to- wards the bed. Ida had changed her position, and there was a lovely smile on her face, as though her dream was a happy one. She turned and softly kissed the pillow, then crossed her hands over her bosom, and murmured, still sleeping, between her 190 STORY OF A FAMILY. smiling- lips, " Peace, peace ! " It is an angel who guides ! " Now at thy pleasure roam, -wild heart, In dreams o'er sea and land ; I bid thee at no shadows stait : The Upholder is at hand." THE ARRIVAL. 191 CHAPTER IX. THE ARRIVAL. '^ It is half-past six, my dear John/' said Miss Melissa Lee, as she entered the drawings-room of Evelyn Manor, in the most refined of dove-colom^ed silks, and the airiest of Honiton lace coiffures, expressive of a sublime renunciation of the claims of youth at least ten years before the departure of its charms j ^' do you think we need wait for them any longer, as they know our dinner-hour ? " " Oh, give them a little law, Mell — (how in- tensely she hated that abbreviation !) — give them a little law. You see, when I wrote to Mrs. Chester " " When you wrote to Mrs. Chester ! " interrupted his sister amazedly, " what do you mean? " Uncle John's face flushed crimson as he plunged into a blundering explanation. "Why, you see, my dear, when I found that Mrs. Chester was to come with Ida, and Percy had fixed and settled it, you see, so that it couldn't be 192 STORY OF A FAMILY. helped — though^ as you say, it is a very foolish thing, and she is only a companion — in which I quite agree with you, and only wish it wasn't so — hut as it is so, you see, and it can't be helped, wh}', the only thing is just to make the best of it, and be a little civil for once in a way : and so, you see, I thought it was better, don't you see, just to write a few Hues — as she is quite an elderly person, and has most probably been respectable — though I don't suppose she is quite the thing now, as you say, and I quite agree with you — only, don't you think it might be better?" " What might be better ?" asked the bewildered lady. " Why, just to write her a few lines, in a distant formal sort of way, to say we should be very happy to see her, and all that sort of thing — quite distantly, you know — in the third person — I flatter myself I can do a thing of that kind pretty well — I wrote as formally as possible, in the third person, and sigTied myself, * Yours sincerely.' " " It is a most extraordinary proceeding ! " said the indignant Melissa. " Surely, / was the best judge of the degree of attention which this Mrs. Chester is entitled to demand. It is, altogether, THE ARRIVAL. 193 tlie most extraordinary thing-. And what can Ida possibly think — for I own I am not very anxious about Mrs. Chester's opinion, but I feel towards that dear child as if she were my young-er sister — what can she possibly think of your writing in my place?" " Oh, I guarded against thaty^ cried uncle John, triumphantly. "I thought that might seem a little strange, so I said that you would have writ- ten, only you were prevented by some of your in- firmities." "You said !" cried his sister, almost speech- less. John saw the symptoms, and muttering some unintelligible speech about an invisible dog*, darted out upon the lawn. Just so far had he attained in his domestic poHcy. He knew when he had raised a storm, though he did not know how to avoid raising it, and he generally took flight, as now, from the effects of his own rashness. Mehssa was left in an agony of impotent wrath, which only very gradually subsided as it occurred to her that it might be well to reassume the attitude in which she intended herself to be found, and from which in her first indignant surprise she had started — a volume of Dante hanging from her hand, and on VOL. I. 194 STORY OF A FAMILY. the table before her a vase of yellow and white roses, and a sketch in water-colours. She was never discovered at work, because she considered that decidedly old-maidish. This may be called caricature, yet surely there are some who, as they came up the garden-sweep for the morning visit of duty, have seen the hurried movement within, which announced that a book was to be rushed for, and a studious posture assumed, in order to impress the new-comer ! While this Httle scene was taking place, the carriage which contained Ida and Mrs. Chester was rapidly approaching the park gate. Ida, with all the buoyancy of her age, had sufficiently re- covered from the bitter grief of parting to enjoy, though not with that gleeful and cloudless enjoy- ment which had once been hers, all the novelty and interest around her. The ready sigh, the tremulous lip, the half-finished sentence, told most expressively how intimately the idea of her father was connected with everything that she saw, thought, or felt — how painfully she needed him to turn to with each eager question or innocent excla- mation. It is when we are happy that we most earnestly long for the companionship of those we THE ARRIVAL. 195 love; or when they are sorrowful. Nevertheless, she stretched her graceful head from the carriage window, striving to recognise every tree, hedge, and stone; giving herself up to that strange, sweet, dreamy feeling which a visit to the place of our early childhood, from which we have long been separated, never fails to produce. The relics of that bright spring-time, the story-book, the dried flower, the treasured letter — these are melan- choly things : they are, as it were, portions of an inner life which is gone for ever; they are so definite, yet so incomprehensible — ^so famihar, yet so strange — that we instinctively shrink from them as from the presence of a ghost. But it is not quite so with the scenes where these things were sought and valued — with the place where the child played, which, after long years, the man for the first time revisits. Here are no fragmentary recollections, no sharp and bitter contrasts; but rather an entire softened picture, like one of those dissolving views in which the great cities of the primaeval world are presented to our eyes in a visionary splendour, which melts, we know not how, into the ruin and desolation of to-day. The memorials of which we first spoke are but the fragments of a skeleton — they are real 2 196 STORY OF A FAMILY. they have Hvedj but their present deadness is as real as the Hfe that once animated them, and ima- gination sickens as she gathers them, and has no power to reconstruct the whole : the latter are as the garments which the living man once wore, and when we look upon them, a burst of tears proves better than argument the suggestiveness of their present vacancy. We stand still and gaze upon our own childhood as a pleasant spectacle : we see the little figure moving about, laughing, dancing, weeping, quarrelling, repenting*, praying, sleeping, and we smile, sympathize, wonder, and love, and are quite startled to remember after all that we have been looking at ourselves. Is there one among the children of men who, if really he could be a child again, would refuse to become one? Is there one who would consent, if, on leaving the sweet valley, he must cHmb the hill by the self-same path which he has already toilsomely ascended ? " Oh ! dear Madeline, may we get out ?" cried Ida, as the carriage stopped before the gate, " I should so much like to walk, I shall see it so much better. Oh, there is the very terrace where I played with Frederick j and there is the bank THE ARRIVAL. 197 where I found such a number of daisies j and there is the step where poor uncle John fell down, when he was trying- to show us how to waltz ; — in one minute we shall see the house ; there — is it not beautiful?" Mrs. Chester indulged her favourite, and they entered the garden arm-in-arm. Vickars dismounted from the coach-box and followed them j for Vickars, be it understood, had found it quite impossible to allow her dear young- mistress to depart without her, and, with a vast deal of preambling- and apolo- gizing, and an immense amount of humble self- celebration, had volunteered to act as lady's-maid. Ida, whose loving heart was already more than sufficiently wrung, was only too glad to strike one name off the list of those to whom she was com- pelled to say good-bye. The last three days of her sojourn at Oroya had been literally passed in weeping; for there was scarcely a poor person in the village who had not come up to the great house for one last look of a face which had been the very sunshine of the country, and every simple " God bless you" had drawn tears from those gentle eyes. Then there were the children who had grown up with her, and the children she had 198 STORY OF A FAMILY. taug'ht and tended since she grew npj little rosy babies who put up their fearless lips to kiss her, and g-rave, downcast girls who di'opped profound courtesies and blushed crimson when she shook hands with them j a thousand ties, which had been years in forming-, were to be snapped in a few hours. To each, in turn, she said — " I shall be back — be sure, I shall come back"; but the very words, " come back," have a sorrowful sound, for thej are but a disguised farewell. So, when g'ood Mrs. Vickars made her somewhat pompous offer, Ida responded to it with a delight at which she was afterwards surprised herself. But it is no uncommon thing- for a sensitive person to be thought cold at one time, at another too warm to be sincere, by those who cannot follow the changes of a temperament unlike their own. There are moods in w^hich the slightest expression of feeling becomes an impossibility ; when it seems as though every pulse of the heart beat beneath a mountain's pressure : there are other moods in which we could kiss the very grass under our feet. " Look, Madeline ! " exclaimed Ida, " that is the chapel window — there I first went to church. Oh ! how well I remember when papa " She THE ARRITAL. 199 Stopped, her eyes overflowing with tears, which she brushed hurriedly away, that she mig-ht look steadily at those deeply-stained compartments, all glowing in the sunset which poured through the western window and struck upon them from within, causing them to look as though the figures of saint and angel were chiselled from a rainbow, and framed in dark clouds. " May we go in ? " pursued Ida after a pause, dropping her voice almost to a whisper. They entered. The fourteen years which had passed in unbroken neglect since Ida visited those walls be- fore, had done their work of decay unsparingly ; the glass of the western window was broken, and the white stone, thus left undefended from the weather, showed many a gTeen stain and many a blunted edge. Through the aperture, which now admitted the broad red streamer of light which the sun flung from him as he sank, a passion- flower had gTown, and hanging downwards, had cast a rich festoon of its mystic blossoms around the canopy of the font, which stood against the western wall. " Papa planted that," said Ida, as with timid and reverent touch she lifted one of the flowers which rested exactly upon the sacred 200 STORY OF A FAMILY. monogram carved in the moulding of the edge ; and, stooping down, she kissed, not the letters, but the leaves which had concealed them. Then advancing along the uneven pavement towards the eastern end, she kneeled down for a moment, her friend kneeling beside her, and, though neither spoke, each joined the other in a prayer for the absent. Travelling in the far east at that hour, there was the echo of a soft bell murmuring in Percy's ear, and a refreshment upon his heart like the fall of dew upon a thirsty soil. Never let feeble woman mourn for her impotence, so long as she can pray for those she loves ! Who can tell how quickly and how effectually the minister- ing spirits carry upward the fragrance of that prayer? Only let her keep her heart pure and her life holy, for it is the prayer of the righteous which availeth, and she may well believe that every permitted sin of hers may lose a blessing for the friend in whose behalf it were such joy to die. They issued from the door of the chapel, and walked slowly towards the terrace. Mrs. Chester broke the natural silence sooner than she was dis- posed to do, from a fear lest Ida's overstrained THE ARRIVAL. 201 spirits should render her unequal to the excite- ment of meeting her relations, on whom she was most anxious that the first impression should he favourable. ^^ Do you remember your aunt and uncle ? " inquired she. " Oh, uncle John, perfectly," replied Ida ; " he had a round rosy face, and the kindest blue eyes I ever saw. I don't recollect aunt Melissa quite so well j but I recollect dear aunt Ellenor, and poor Frederick who took such care of me, and naughty little Godfrey who foug-ht for me. It is very strange that I was so fond of Godfrey, for he frightened me out of my wits, and he certainly was a very naughty boy." " I wonder you remember any of them," ob- served Madeline, ^' you were a mere baby at the time." " Ah, but it was the grand event of my baby- hood — the epoch from which I dated everything. Besides, I was never suffered to forget ; we were constantly talking of it, and papa used to tell me so much about aunt Ellenor, who would have come to see us, only she never left her sons; and, for some reason which I don't know, it was impossible for them to come. She followed them about, and 202 STORY OF A FAMILY. lived near them, first when they were at school, and afterwards at colleg-e, till poor Frederick was oblig-ed to come home. Oh, Madeline!" Ida stopped suddenly, and g-azed with an intense, fer- vent expression, peculiar to her in moments of strong excitement, upon the distant view ; the slopes of the park were mellowing into the shadowy hues of twilight, while the stripe of sea visible against the horizon between them had caught a fall of light behind a thin rain-cloud, and was glistening Hke molten silver. Mrs. Ches- ter waited for her to speak, and, after a moment's pause, she added, shuddering, " How very dread- ful it must be that a person you love should be blind ! Poor aunt Ellenor !" " And poor Frederick ! " said Madeline. " Ah ! " cried Ida ; " it must be much easier for him to bear than for her. He may be able to gTow used to it, but to her it must always be new. And then, somehow, it seems a simpler duty, I think, to submit to a trial for oneself) than to submit to it for anybody whom one loves. In the first case, it is so manifest that there can be no question about it ; while in the other it must be quite different, and, I think, much harder." THE ARRIVAL. 203 "Ha, you little loiterer! is that you?" ex- claimed the cheerful voice of uncle John, as he caug'ht sight of his visitors, and hurried eagerly forward to meet and welcome them. Ida sprang* to his arms, and, after kissing her warmly, he put her back from him, and deliberately untied and took off her bonnet, that he might see her tho- roughly. " I declare !" said he, joyously rubbing his hands together, as with many blushes she endured this unceremonious inspection, I declare, I think I should have known you ! Why, it is the very same face, only a size or two larger — and not much, either. I protest, Ida, if it were not for the height and the dress, you would look like a little child still!" Ida laughed. " I should have known you any- where, imcle John," observed she. "No! would you though?" cried he, with a burst of ecstatic laughter ; " you don't say so ! And it's fourteen years ago, too! Well, I call that a compliment. But come along with me, my love, and make haste, for your aunt Melissa is. waiting dinner j and, between ourselves, that is a particularly unpleasant thing, though it often happens, which, I suppose, is my fault. Come 204 STORY OF A FAMILY. along". Only to think of your knowing me ! By-the-bye, you have not introduced me to Mrs. Chester." Ida drew her fi'iend forward, and bashfully per- formed the introduction ; but Mrs. Chester's slight yet stately inclination was lost upon uncle John, who, as soon as he had got over the necessary civility, was impatient to hurry his niece into the house, talking the whole way. " I can't be so much stouter as Melissa says I am; that's quite impossible, you know, or you never would have known me. And what sort of a journey did you have? And how do you think the old place is looking ? You would have known tliaty of course. Houses don't get wrinkled and grey-headed, you know" (chuckling at his own wit). " And are you not very tired, my dear, and very hungry? We shall have dinner in five minutes, and you shall go to bed as early as you like. She said I was growing so florid I wasn't like the same man; but I think this is an unmis- takeable proof that I must, at any rate, be Wke the same man, or else you would never have known me, you know." "Oh," said Ida, "you are just like the uncle THE ARRIVAL. 205 John I remember wlio was so kind to me, only you are a little stouter, and have rather more colour." " I have, have I ? " replied he, in a manifestly dismayed tone. ^^ A little stouter, eh ? Only a little ! Ah, well, never mind, if there 's any foun- dation for it at all, it's no g'ood !" Muttering" the last few words, which were wholly unintelligible to Ida, as a depressed soliloquy, he led her up the terrace steps, and into the drawing- room, where Mehssa, who had entirely given her visitors up, and was expecting* the summons to dinner, was really surprised in her attitude, which she had almost unconsciously retained. She rose with a g-enuine start, and, coming" forward, saluted her niece with a cordiality which was not warm, because, it could not be, but which undoubtedly did its best to become so. '^ Ah, you mig-ht have waited for your dinner till midnight, if it had not been for me," cried uncle John. " I found these two fair ladies wandering- on foot about the grounds, hke two distressed prin- cesses in a fairy tale. There they were, looking here and looking there, enjoying themselves as nicely as possible, and never thinking about us. 206 STORY OF A FAMILY. Pretty behaviour to begin with !" shaking his finger at Ida. " Pretty behaviour, indeed ! " reiterated MeHssa, with a kind of sour playfulness, and an acrid glance at Mrs. Chester, which seemed to express boundless amazement that the governess could have allowed such a proceeding. " My dear Ida, how could you do so, when you must have known how impatient I was to see you ? The dinner, of course, is not of the shghtest consequence, but I do not like to think that you were not anxious to see me ! " She squeezed Ida's hand as she spoke, and uncle John, who thoroughly comprehended the expression of her face, winked outrageously, and without the smallest attempt at concealment, and then assured her that the ladies had lost their way when he encountered them, and that was the sole cause of the delay, drowning Ida's gentle assurances to the contrary in a burst of triumphant laughter. " And now, my sweet girl," said Mehssa, with a stern struggle after gentleness, " will you make as rapid a toilette as you can ? Cecile shall show you to your room. But stop — one word." She drew her aside, and asked in a whisper, and with a very expressive elevation of the eyebrows, " Will it not be better THE ARRIVAL* 207 for your governess to dine at table with us this first day, as your journey must have thrown you a little out of your usual hours ? " "Mrs. Chester?" inquired Ida, in a puzzled tone. Then, instantly remembering Madeline's stipulation, that she was not to be compelled to enter into society, and quite overlooking- the im- probability of her having held any communication with Miss Lee on the subject, she added, hastily, " Oh, do you really think she will refuse ? I will ask her directly. Dear Madeline, you don't mean to shut yourself up, do you, except when visitors come ? You are going to dine with us, are you not?" " To-day you will give us the pleasure of your company, I hope?" said Melissa, approaching with that galling graciousness which some persons as- sume when they intend to mark at once tneir own kindness and the inferiority of the individual whom they are addressing ; " to-morrow, if you please, we can resume our usual habits." Mrs. Chester bowed as though she were replying to a courtesy. " I have promised Mr. Lee," said she, very quietly, " to remain with his daughter so long as the party only consists of her family circle j 208 STORY OF A FAMILY. if you should have other visitors, I shall beg* you to have the goodness to excuse me, as I do not wish to enter into general society." Melissa was silent, and felt herself baffled for the moment, though she inwardly resolved to return to the attack at some future period. " I never heard of such a thing-/' said she, mentally, " as a gover- ness not dining at luncheon !" So this was her first grievance ; and many are the domestic wars which have sprung from smaller causes than this. If the grievances of most people could be properly dissected and examined, I verily believe that the majority of them would be found to owe their offensiveness simply to their novelty. Human nature can bear a great deal, but it cannot bear to see a shawl fastened behind instead of in front ! In the evening, Melissa devoted herself to a sort of catechism of Ida, with the object of discover- ing, as far as she could, what were the principal defects in Percy's eccentric system of education. Having ascertained that she drew and played, the next question was, " What sort of a French master could be procured in that out-of-the-way place?" THE ARRIVAL. 209 " I had no French master," said Ida j " papa and Madeline taught me." " No French master ! " cried her aunt ; " dear me ! But how did you acquire the accent ?" " I am afraid I have not acquired it at all," re- turned Ida, smiling". " I cannot speak any language easily except English, because I learned all the languages I know in order to read, not in order to speak. Papa said I should learn to speak very quickly if I went to the country, and that I should not require it till then." Melissa, who thought accent vastly more impor- tant than literature, exercised gTeat self-command, and changed the subject. " I suppose you read a great deal, when you are at home?" said she; ^' you must have had so much time. I quite envy you the repose of your life — the perfect leisure. How often have I sighed for the power to spend weeks and months in uninterrupted study ! " "Have you, indeed ?" asked Ida, looking at her with a kind of awe. " Oh, I should get so tired of it !" Melissa looked a little disconcerted, and her niece proceeded : " But what is it that has pre- vented you from doing so, aunt Melissa ?" " The claims of the world, my love, and a thou- VOL. I. p JIO STORY OF A FAMILY. sand occupations which it would be impossible to explain now. I have been sadly shut out from all my favourite pursuits and tastes, but I have always been literary at heart. Now, I hope I may be able to allow myself a little indulgence ; we will read and draw together. I suppose your father was very particular as to what you read, was he not ? You were never allowed to read any novels, I sup- pose?" "0 dear, yes!" cried Ida, "a great many! I am so fond of them ! " "Indeed!" (with a sorely puzzled expression), " and, pray, what have you read ? " " ' Undine,' and ' Minstrel Love,' and ' Thiodolf,' and ^ Ivo,' and ^ Verena, and ^ The Old Man's Home,' and ' Amy Herbert' " " But, my dear child, " interrupted Melissa, " those are not novels." "Are they not?" asked Ida; "I thought novels were stories. Well, then, there were the Waverley novels, which papa used to read to me. I did not read those to myself. And Miss Austen's novels. Oh, aunt Melissa! how pleasant it is to think about those things, after one has read them ! I can think of them all in this dear old place ; Sir Walter Scott THE ARRIVAL. 211 for the avenue and the moat, and Miss Austen for the parlours and bedrooms^ and La Motte Fouque for the chapel. I think if Sir Walter Scott had been a painter, he would have been just like Catter- mole; and Miss Austen like one of the Dutch painters, only with refinement ; and Fouque— oh ! I don't know what likeness to find for him ! — he is more like a musician than a painter. It is very strange that there should be no painter at once spi- ritual and romantic, like him. I wonder why it should be impossible for painting* to express two lines of thought at once. What is the reason of it, aunt Melissa?" This speech was rather puzzling to Miss Lee, and as she did not exactly know how to answer it, she contented herself with remarking, that she did not perceive anything Dutch about the parlours and bedrooms of Evelyn Manor -, an observation which caused at least as much bewilderment in Ida's mind as Ida had caused in hers. Presently, the elder lady returned to her catechism. " You had not much society at Croye, I suppose ? Were you not rather dull sometimes?" Ida's eyes glistened as she remembered, on the contrary, how perfectly happy she had been. " We p 2 212 STORY OF A FAMILY. had a great deal of society," answered she, gently, " we knew everybody in the village." "But, surely," said the exclusive Miss MeHssa, in considerable surprise, " there were not more than two or three visitable people ?" " Two or three ! " reiterated Ida. " There was the clergyman, and Madeline, and the old sexton, and, let me see, how many — three, four, five shop- keepers, and all the poor people." Melissa stared, and Mrs. Chester laug-hed out- right. " My dear Ida," said she, ^' you have not exactly understood your aunt. You have Hved so out of the world that you don't know that when one speaks of society one does not mean interchange of kindnesses." " No, exactly," interposed Melissa, perfectly un- conscious of the slight tone of sarcasm ; " one means friends and acquaintance — people to visit." " But we did visit them all," persisted Ida ; " and all of them — that is, as many as liked, and had behaved well — used to come to the house on feast da^^s ; and some of them were quite friends, and all were acquaintance." " But not on an equality, my dear ; that is non- sense, you know," said Melissa, quite crossly, op- THE ARRIVAL. 213 pressed by tlie difficulty of combining- a proper degree of refinement with a proper degree of cha- rity, a problem which has puzzled wiser brains than hers." "Oh, no, not on an equality," returned Ida, somewhat thoughtfully ; " very few of them could be on an equality with papa." Mrs. Chester understood perfectly well the grounds upon which Ida was judging, and, afraid lest the next moment she should announce that the old sexton was far superior to herself, and so com- plete the hopelessness of her aunt's confusion, in- terposed with a remark upon the natural beauties of Croye. " Oh, yes ! " observed Melissa, with a faint drawl of sentiment j " among those scenes, such a home circle as Ida's must have left nothing to be wished. But you must have missed that dear, respectable Mr. Becket terribly. With all his eccentricities, he was so thoroughly amiable, that it was impossible not to grow very fond of him ; and when the heart is good, it is so easy to excuse a few errors of the head." Mrs. Chester smiled an artificial smile ; and as for Ida, from the moment in which Mr. Becket's name 214 STORY OF A FAMILY. was mentioned, she had been so busy in restraining her incHnation to weep, that the meaning- of the last part of the sentence was quite lost upon her. This was particularly fortunate ; for if she had under- stood it, it is probable that the burst of her indig- nation might have frightened aunt Melissa. Shortly after this, the clock struck ten j and the party separated for the night. Melissa detained Mrs. Chester as she was about to follow her pupil from the room, and inquired, with a mysterious air, '^how far Miss Lee was aware of the position in which Mr. Clayton's will had left her?" " She is perfectly ignorant on the subject," was the reply. ^^ Her father thought that it would expose her to very painful embaiTassment to know the view with which the family was to assemble on her eighteenth birthday; and as her choice must, after all, be determined by her own feel- ings, it would, moreover, be perfectly unneces- sary." " But does she not know, then," asked Melissa, "to what she exposes herself if she should, by chance, reject both her cousins ? " " It would make no difference if she did," an- swered Mrs. Chester, coldly, "except that she THE ARRIVAL. 215 would protably feel very uncomfortable in their society." " Of course, it would make no difference," echoed Melissa, in a dissatisfied tone. And the two ladies exchanged a somewhat distant " good-night." MadeHne moved slowly up stairs, her hand to her forehead, and an expression of scorn and bitter- ness upon her fine features. What had she not endured that evening ! and with what was she contrasting it ! Yet the scorn was almost more towards herself than towards her hostess; and she felt inexpressibly humiliated in her own eyes, that her position, during that evening should have appeared to her humiliating. " No more freedom ! " said she to herself — " no more beauty ! I am in trammels again ; and these years of peace and purity have done nothing for me; but the body is still stronger than the spirit, and the will is but hke a caged tiger, and ready to assert its unchanged nature the instant the bars are broken. What a life ! And now for the daily encounter with weakness, pettiness, earthliness, and the daily deterioration. Is it then only the cloister and the vow which can keep the heart really pure ? What shall I say to my Ida, and what will she say to 216 STORY OF A FAMILY. me? How repulsive, how inconceivable must all this be to her ! And how will it work upon her ? and how shall I meet her innocent comments ? I suppose I must be charitable — that is, hypocritical ; for it is nothing else in such a case. For the first time, I really dread to see her ! " She entered the room to receive her usual part- ing- embrace, and Ida turned towards her that bright, serene face, and greeted her eagerly. " Oh, Madeline ! " said she, " what self-command my aunt Melissa has!" Madeline opened her dark eyes to their widest extent. " How calmly," pursued Ida, " she spoke of papa, and of — of — Mr. Becket ; and I am so weak, I can scarcely name either of them without crying. Oh ! how I hope I shall gain strength as I grow older!" Madeline's parting embrace was closer than usual. "God bless you, my darling child!" said she, and went to her own room, weeping. Let any one compare his present impression of a book or a person which he has known all his life with the impression which he had of the same book or person in his childhood. What is THE ARRIVAL. 217 the great diiFerence ? It is tlie quantity of evil which he now sees, and which he then did not suspect; — it is the thorn ever springing- up, and no angel's touch to turn it to a flower. For the charity of innocence is perfect j it beholds the shadow, but thinks only of the light which casts it. Yet it was curious to see how an unconscious reserve grew up in Ida towards her aunt* after that first evening, she never prattled before her in the same unrestrained manner; instinct was to her as perfect a guide as the tact which it is generally supposed that long acquaintance with the world must teach. Depend upon it, that the finer feelings have a natural armour, which grows upon them as closely as the epidermis which covers the delicately-tinted shell, and which is, like that, the result of an encounter with rough and in- jurious elements. It is grievous, doubtless, that this should be necessary; yet, surely, it is better that those rainbow colours should be hidden, than that they should be tarnished. The " perfect sim- plicity," as it is sometimes called, which is for ever running its head against the walls of this wicked world, and then craving pity for its wounds, is 218 STORY OF A FAMILY. either half-conscious, and then, of course, not per- fect simplicity, or else wanting* in delicacy of organization. The bee avoids the odour which is too g-ross for her; she does not fly into the midst of it, and then swoon away. And the woman who has once been ridiculed for an un- guarded expression of feeling, has only herself to thank if she a second time encounters the same mockery. It is true that there are many cases in which she must encounter it, either be- cause duty commands her, or because the motive urging' to it is more powerful than that which deters from it. But these are beside the ques- tion. It is true also that impulse is sometimes stronger and quicker than the most sensitive in- stinct, and the evil is done before we are aware of it ; but this will not often be the case where the agony, which results from the blunder, is genuine and keen. So Ida went on unconsciously wrapping all the deep and beautiful things of her heart within its inmost folds, and not know- ing why she felt so weary. " My dear John," said Melissa to her brother, on the first evening, after she had dismissed Mrs. Chester, " I am very anxious to hear your impression THE ARRIVAL. Sl9 of our g-uests. That Mrs. Chester ! I cannot say- that I like her looks at all j she is quite a gentle- man's beauty, of course, but she has a most unplea- sant expression, as g'entlemen's beauties generally have, and I am afraid I shall have a good deal of trouble with her. She is evidently thoroughly im- bued with all Percy's strange notions, and I suspect she is very determined 5 and it is quite clear that she does not know her own position at all. As to our sweet little niece, she is very pretty, and I fancy she is a dear, amiable creature. But, between ourselves, I rather think she has scarcely the usual quantity of abilities. I should not say so to any- body else ; but I am afraid she is deficient. She has evidently no mind at all." " I don't care for mind," was uncle John's only answer. And it was not wonderful that he said so ; for his notion of '^ mind" was — his sister Melissa ! 220 STORY OF A FAMILY. CHAPTER X. THE BIRTHDAY. The letters which Ida received from her father were brief, and came at long intervals. It was beyond the power of his self-discipline to write to her with the fulness and freedom of that affection which had made the happiness of both, when he knew all the while by what a blow the links which had bound them were to be smitten asunder. It was strange to him thus, as it were, to contem- plate his own death in the person of another — to join in the tears that should hereafter be wept upon his grave. For the first time in his hfe he felt actual cowardice — impotence of will — prostration of mental strength; and this was especially painful to him, as it proved the incompleteness of the self-conquest at which he was aiming. Sometimes this view of the subject would press so forcibly upon him, that he would start up and snatch his pen with the sudden resolution to acquaint her at THE BIRTHDAY. 221 once with his state. He would write the first words — ^^ My dearest Ida/' — and then, pausing* as the name brought before his mind in an instant the vision of those young- clear eyes whose foun- tains were scarcely yet opened, of that pure un- sunned heart, of that happy child-nature, he would throw aside what he had written, and bury his face in his hands in a passion of helpless sorrow. Sometimes he would rejoice when he saw the ravages which disease had already wrought in his appearance, thinking that it would thus be easier to break the truth to her — that, in fact, it would reveal itself; at other times he would use every stratagem to conceal those very symptoms, in the dread of shocking her too suddenly, in the utter desolation which overwhelmed his spirit when Le thought how the joy of their meeting would be dashed. Deep was his self-abasement, earnest his entreaty for that strength which is made perfect in weakness ! He, who would have died to save her from sorrow, was now to die in order to inflict sorrow upon her; and in bitterness of soul he prayed that the cup might pass from him ! Meanwhile, Ida heard that the business which had summoned him away was advancing very 222 STORY OF A FAMILY. slowly. He had traced the supposed Mrs. Gordon from, place to place, and finally discovered that she was, beyond a doubt, now residing- in Malta; but ere he returned so far upon his steps, it was ne- cessary for him to go on to Delhi to receive and examine his friend's legacy, as he did not choose to incur the risk of having it sent to him. There had been much delay, and instead of returning home, according to his original intention, to assist in the celebration of his daughter's eighteenth birthday, he was at that very time on his road to Delhi. This was a bitter disappointment to poor Ida ; and, perhaps, when that long-expected birthday dawned upon her, she had never felt so unhappy in her life. No thought so profane as one of blaming her father ever entered her gentle heart ; and when she received one of those unsatisfactory letters, she attributed the chillness and depression which came upon her, to pain at the separation, to weakness in herself, to cmytldng except a want of tenderness in him. Eagerly and eloquently she wrote to him, opening her whole soul, detailing every particular of her new hfe, making humble confession of not loving aunt Mehssa so well as uncle John, — of having gone to sleep in the twilight when the THE BIRTHDAY. 2*23 former was recounting the histoiy of her youth — of having' laughed in spite of all her efforts when the latter was reading- Milton aloud : — no worse sins had she to chronicle. But the correspondence of those we love is a poor substitute for their com* panyj one look is better than a thousand words. The man who said that language was invented to disguise thought, stumbled upon a truth where he only meant a sarcasm; for, indeed, how dense a veil do the simplest words weave around the feel- ing which they profess to exhibit ! Words are the clouds which gather upon the mountain's edge, and suggest the height while they conceal the form; looks and tones are the bright flashes which cleave the vapour, and give a momentary glimpse of the mighty outline beneath it. Ida felt so lonely on this birthday morning! True, she was waked by Madeline's soft kiss upon her cheek; but much as she loved Madehne, it was but a small, weak affection, compared with that which she cherished for her father, and she pined feverishly and hopelessly for the sound of his blessing in her ears. Besides, Madeline had grown graver than ever of late, and would some- times look silently at Ida till her eyes filled with 224 STORY OF A FAMILY. tears; wMcli was not very cheering to spirits al- ready disposed to sink. True, uncle John had taken her kindly in his arms, and presented her with a very pretty bracelet ; and aunt Melissa had touched her forehead with her lips as cautiously as though she feared it would bum her, and had pro- duced her gift also — a sachet of amber satin, em- broidered in green braid by her own fair hands. It was remarkable how pale the green and amber were; indeed, they looked a little faded, — which was not wonderful, as the sachet had reposed in- gloriouslv in a drawer for four years and a half, having been originally manufactured for a friend, with whom the workwoman had unluckily contrived to quarrel just as her labours came to a happy issue. But this history was not to be published ; and aunt Melissa's equivocal little speech — "Will you accept this trifle, my love ? — you may perhaps value it as my work ! " — would have passed exceed- ingly well, and did pass, till uncle John stopped it short by bidding Ida guess why it was lucky for her that Miss Lee and Lady Anne Grimston were not on terms. Ida was altogether puzzled, and, with a merry chuckle, he answered the riddle him- self, unobservant of the battery of frowns which THE BIRTHDAY. 225 was discliarg-ing itself upon him. — ^^ Because, but for that, you wouldn't have got your bag ! " Melissa, as a last resource, hurried the breakfast very much, and flattered herself that Ida had not understood the joke. And Ida strolled out into the hall and arranged the geraniums, and felt that oppressive sense of womanhood, so common when one is still half a child ; and she wondered when the other members of the family party would arrive, and tried to stir herself up to that keen, curious interest about them which she had formerly felt. And good Mrs. Vickars now ventured to approach with her con- gratulations, and her little offering, — a rose-tree from the garden at Croye, brought away privately, and carefully preserved for this grand occasion. "God bless you, Missy!" concluded she, kissing the hand which her young lady had put into hers ; *^ and many happy returns of the day to you ! — Oh, what a pity Master isn't here ! " This little stroke was quite too much for poor Ida, who could bear the multitude of her own thoughts, but not three words from another j and she burst into a flood of tears as free and rapid as ever poured from the eyes of childhood. VOL. I. Q 226 STORY OF A FAMILY. She hastened out into the garden to escape the well-meant condolences of Mrs. Vickars, and pass- ing* rapidly through the shrubbery, seated herself upon the grass in a favourite retreat of hers, at the foot of a fine old beech-tree whose drooping branches formed a natural arbour. "What did papa say was my great fault?" soliloquized she. " Want of power to control my feelings ! Oh, how true ! He did not say temper ; but I think he would have said so, if he had known how cross I sometimes feel when I am wanted to read Dante. Alas, alas ! It is six months since he went" (here her tears began to flow afresh), " and I am not improved. Oh, how I will endeavour ! It is good, I think, to make a resolution on one's birthday ; it seems so solemn — like beginning life again. If, when he comes back, he should find that I have cured my great fault — what happi- ness ! I wonder what it comes from : from selfish- ness, I suppose. Yes, it must be selfish ; because it is indulging my own inclination, and not thinking of others. . I will pray to be quite unselfish., Oh, what a long time I shall have to try ! How I wish one could grow perfect directly, by one great efibrt ! How happy the angels must be, who have THE BIRTHDAY. 227 only to take care that tliey do not fall, instead of perpetually labouring to rise ! A ^ just man made perfect'; quite perfect, — that might be, even on earth. I think papa is, though he is not old ; and I am sure Mr. Becket was. But I shall never be so, I am afraid, if I am six months without im- proving. I will begin to-day. How I must watch for opportunities ! I must practise being unselfish in all kinds of little things, and then I suppose the strength will come to conquer myself in great things. Oh, how much easier it is to be good when one is happy !" As Ida came to this conclusion, in which very few moralists will agree with her, she rose, and slowly and thoughtfully entered the chapel. Kneel- ing down on the pavement, she made her simple confession, and put up her innocent prayer, finish- ing her devotions by an earnest vow against self- indulgence in matters of feeling. She stood a moment in reflection ere she crossed the threshold again. " I was selfish this morning," thought she ; " when aunt Melissa asked me to read Dante, and uncle John said I ought to have no lessons (as he always calls reading) on my birthday, I agreed q2 228 STORY OF A FAMILY. with him directly. Now, I suppose, the best thin^ I can do is to go and ask her to read with me. Doing" right is very disagreeable sometimes ! " (with a sigh). " I hardly know why I dislike it so much ; but I suppose it is because I feel so shy and stupid when aunt Melissa is admiring. I never know what to say when I am told what to admire. And then it is so unlucky for me when she makes mistakes. I don't know how to tell her of them, and yet it would not be sincere to let them pass : and then I always feel inclined to laugh. — How I wish," added Ida, unconsciously uttering' her thoughts aloud, — " how I wish I had never learned Italian!" " What a cross master you must have had," said a voice close to her ear, " if the lessons are so afflicting, even in recollection !" She started, and looking up beheld the face of an exceedingly handsome young man, who was resting* his chin on the sill of the window, and contemplat- ing her very much at his leisure. With an excla- mation of surprise, not unmingled with terror, she ran out. The stranger followed her, his face ex- pressing as clearly as possible, '^ What a timid Httle rustic this is ! How am I ever to tame her ? " THE BIRTHDAY. 209 "Why did you run away?" asked lie, as he strode to her side. '^ Are you fi'ig'htened at me ?" "Oh, no!" returned Ida, stopping and smiling- very composedly in his face ; " only I thought you didn't know it was the chapel." He looked puzzled, and seemed about to speak, but checked himself. Ida held out her hand to him. " Are you Alexander, or Godfrey ?" inquired she. " I will leave you to find that out for yourself," he replied. " Whichever I am, I was so anxious to make my cousin Ida's acquaintance, that I had not patience to wait for the rest of the party j so here I am, to wish you many happy returns of the day, and total ignorance of Italian, since that appears to be the only thing- wanting* to your happiness. I wish you would explain that mysterious sentence." " Oh ! it is quite impossible to explain it ; — it was only nonsense," said Ida, blushing-, and look- ing uncomfortable. " Nay," cried he, " so far from its being non- sense, I think it is the most refreshing sentiment I ever heard from the lips of a young lady of the present day. You wish yourself back again in a state of blissful ignorance j you wish to undo 230 STORY OF A FAMILY. the misdirected labours of the schoolroom. No wonder ! It is the conventional law of to-day, to smother every unhappy female mind under a huge conglomerate of knowledge, swelling and empty like a great air-cushion. We start by saying that women have less intellect than men, and then we teach a girl thirty things in the time which it takes ^ a boy to learn three. It is a very wise piece of consistency." Ida felt rather dismayed, not being in the habit of hearing so long and sudden a disquisition from a new acquaintance. She did not think herself nearly clever enough to reply to such a speech, so she held her tongue. After a short pause, her new cousin proceeded : — ^^ I want to be good friends with you, Ida j you mustn't be afraid of me." "Oh no!" cried she, laughing quite easily; "I am not afraid of you. Why should I be ?" He looked a little disconcerted in his turn, but replied directly : — " You are an enviable person. Many would find your situation overpoweringly nervous, as ladies call it ; and you don't even know why you should be afraid. And you are quite right ; there is no reason THE BIRTHDAY. 231 for you to fear the reception you might meet with from anybody." ^^ Not the reception I may meet with from my own consins, certainly/' answered Ida; either dis- reg-arding-, or not comprehending*, the complimen- tary emphasis and the admiring expression. " I remember so well the few days we spent here together, when we were children. I can't fancy this a first introduction, though in reality you are all strangers to me." ^^ No, no, not strangers," he exclaimed ; " that is a hard word. We can never be strangers to each other. You cannot remember those few happy days so vividly as I do. You cannot fancy the sweet, innocent, peaceful picture which they im- pressed on my mind, and which has remained there ever since through many dark days of trial and trouble. You have been living a happy life ; you have been tenderly cherished, you have breathed nothing but love from your cradle, and you don't know what it is to have to imprison all that you feel in your inmost heart, and never suffer it to see the hght of day, because you live among those who But I must not speak of this." " Ah !" said Ida, ^^ you have lived at school and 232 STORY OF A FAMILY. college. I often tliink how much harder a man^s life must be than a woman's. It is no wonder that men should sometimes be stern — and^ indeed, it seems strange that they should ever be g-entle, when one thinks what strug-g-les they must have with their feelings ! what sorrow and desolation of heart they have to encounter even in boj^hood ! The boy's first going to school — surely it must change and stamp his character for life." " Especially," answered he, " where, as in my case, the boy would rather die than show what he suffers. I have always had a perfect horror of occupying others with my trials and sorrows, — which have not been few, — or, indeed, with myself in any way. Life does not seem to me to be life, unless it is devoted to some one whom we love." " But you form friendships, I suppose," said Ida, rather pursuing the course of her own thoughts than answering the last observation, " which last for life. That must be the happy part of school and coUege." '■'■ Yes," he rephed, " you form friendships — that is, you form a few friendships : for the most part, however, I fear you meet with ingratitude and dis- appointment. But sometimes I think I was parti- THE BIRTHDAY. 233 cularly unfortunate. Some opportunities which I had of serving others, which I was not slack to take advantage of, showed me a very dark side of human nature, and I grew dispirited. It has ended in an unfortunate reserve, which I cannot shake off, though I am conscious that it often prevents me from making friends where I might really do so. I regret it — but I cannot get rid of it; except, indeed, where I feel immediately that I shall meet with comprehension and sympathy, and then the attraction is irresistible. And such moments are the happiest of my life : it is so delightful to con- fide, especially where it is one's habit to withhold confidence." " Hush !" said Ida softly, holding up her hand. He stared. " A nightingale," whispered she ; "don't you hear it?" and she stood still in a listening posture, scarcely drawing breath, that she might drink in that flood of music, that luxury of sound. If her new friend was irritated by the interruption, he was a great deal too well bred to show it. " Ah," whispered he, with a sigh, " it is charm- ing indeed, to retain that keen, fresh enjoyment of nature ! The rough hand of life rubs it away 534 STORY OF A FAMILY. from most of us as soon as we leave our child- hood." *^ How much YOU must lose ! " said Ida simply. ^^ We do^ indeed/' was his answer : '^ I remember well when I returned from college, thinking- that all mj triumphs and all my prizes were dearl}" pur- chased by the loss of the fearless, innocent glee of boyhood." ^^ Are boys so very fond of nightingales ? " asked Ida, demurely. Then blushing with a sudden fear that she had been unpolite, she added in a g-reat hurry : " I was only joking. But do you know, I fancy that gaining of prizes must be such a happy part of a man's life — such a joyful kind of tri- umph. And then, the coming home afterwards — causing such happiness by one's own exertions, and then coming home to see it ! Was it not very delightful?" " How alike we are in our manner of feeling !" he replied, the exclamation escaping him suddenly, and as if unawares. " Yes j that is a very de- lightful part of one's life, and you have exactly expressed the cause and nature of its happiness. It is not the triumph, it is the consciousness of the joy which it creates at home, the bright fireside THE BIRTHDAY. 235 picture wMcli is before the mind's eye, which is so dehg'htfiil ! Yet there is one great drawback — you triumph at the expense of others. I declare to you I have grieved so much over the defeat of a rival, if he was a good kind of fellow and I liked him, that I have lost all pleasure in my own success." "Indeed!" said Ida. " Yes, indeed ! " cried he : " What are you trying- to find out, that you look at me so fixedly with those piercing eyes of yours ? You put me out of countenance." She laughed, but, colouring-, with- drew the oppressive gaze, and he proceeded : " I see you have a great deal of penetration, and in a little while I shall be afraid of you, rather than you of me. I am afraid already — lest — lest — I should miss of one triumph on which I have especially set my heart. But I perceive that nothing escapes you. You have as clear an idea of the inner life which I have led, as if you had watched it and shared in it. How came you by such a gift ? Is it instinct or inspiration ? " Ida laughed her merry silvery laugh, which had still the music of childhood in it. " I am a very innocent witch," said she ; " you told me all about this mysterious inner life yourself. 236 STORY OF A FAMILY. I don't think you are at all reserved ; you have said so much about yourself, — indeed, I have found out nothing- but what you told me." "I could not be reserved with you,^ he an- swered, ^^ and I know not when I have been betrayed into saying* so much. But suppose I were to tell you something- about other people — about all these new relations to whom you are to be introduced? Will you try my skill as a portrait-painter?" " Oh, yes," exclaimed Ida with eagerness ; " I shall like it excessively. I want so much to know them all ; and I do not feel as if I understood much about them from the descriptions which aunt Melissa and uncle John have g-iven me. Now, please, beg-in, and be very accurate." She seated herself on the turf as she spoke, and her cousin threw himself gracefully down at her feet. " Aunt Melissa and uncle John ! " repeated he : " No J I should scarcely put very implicit faith in their delineations. The lady's opinions are regu- lated entirely by the quantity of attention paid to herself J and as to g-ood uncle John, he has no opinions at all. I would lay a wager that I could THE BIRTHDAY. 237 make him contradict himself three times in as many hours, by going the right way to work." Ida's violet-blue eyes opened to their widest ex- tent. "The wrong way to work, you mean/' she replied, smiling, as if certain that he must be in joke, yet with a little hesitation of manner ; " dear, kind uncle John ! He hates to contradict j he is so fond of giving pleasure — so yielding and good- tempered ! " "' His heart is just like a feather-bed," rejoined her cousin, caricaturing her tone of affection ; " so very soft, and yet nothing leaves an impression upon it. And' his dear head, too — that is just the same. That is the reason why he always wears that lovely little cloth cap — the hats hurt him so, that he can't bear them. But to proceed, for I see you are shocked, though you can't help laughing: I am going to begin my portrait-gallery. Please to observe that simple truth — fidelity to nature — is all I aim at; and I shall speak to you with perfect sincerity of those nearest to myself, for I have always thought that the mere fact of relationship does not blind you to faults and foibles: on the contrary, it brings you into such close contact with 238 STORY OF A FAMILY. them that you can't help finding them out. As long as we are contemplating that scraper at a distance, you may maintain that it is sharp, while I protest that it is blunt; but there can be no room for argument after I have broken my shins against it." "Oh, yes, there can," exclaimed Ida; "you know, I may say it was your fault for running up against it, mayn't I ? " "Why — a — yes — you see, there is nothing so fixed but it may be made a subject of discussion." He was again a little disconcerted ; but making sure that she did not see the full force of her rejoinder, and had pursued the metaphor without thoroughly following out its application, he re- sumed. {Nota bene. — When you are conquered in argument, it is excellent policy to take for granted that your adversary has said a better thing than he knows himself, and so to pass it over, and answer on one side of it. If he be a modest man, it is ten to one that he will think he has somehow made a blunder, and you have only to encourage that impression in order to secure your victory.) " We will begin, as in duty bound, with the head of the family — your uncle. THE BIRTHDAY. C;39 Alexander. He is a man of hig'li intellect, culti- vated too, though his life has been chiefly practical. There is the polish of the workshop, you know, imparted by sharp tools and careful labour; and there is the polish resulting from constant friction against other substances : of this last he has plenty. He is like a native diamond, which has been rolled and rubbed till it only needs to be cut into shape to be fit for a lady's finger. Now, please don't tell me that such a phenomenon is impossible. Who cares for truth in a metaphor, so long as it serves one's purpose?" " Especially," observed Ida, " as I have not the least idea whether it is true or false." " Have you not ? I am delighted to hear it. I would not have you literary or scientific, for the world. I would not even have you too accom- plished. A little music and drawing should be the extent of a woman's acquirements, and then she can dream away her existence in a vague sweet poetry, the soul of which is — what I must not say yet, or you will call me impertinent. Why do you smile ? " "Because," repHed Ida, "I was thinking how difierent papa's ideas are from yours; and how 240 STORY OF A FAMILY. lucky, if I may say so without being rude, the difference is for me. I should have missed so much pleasure if he thought as you do." " Ah ! he has tried to make a blue stocking of you then ! You will be terrif^dng me with Greek quotations, or smothering me with the harmless heaviness of German sentiment ! Very well ! I long to recant my heresies — to be convinced how charming all I have most dreaded may be. But we are getting on very slowly with our portraits. I must finish my first sketch, by letting you know that your uncle is extremely fond of young ladies, and that, by a very little coaxing, you may win him to whatever you like." ^^ And my aunt Ellenor ? " cried Ida. " What do you say of her ? I remember such a pretty pale face, and such a musical voice." " The face is still pale and pretty, and the voice still musical. She is a gentle, amiable person, who knows that she has been a beauty, and is inclined to put the verb still in the present tense, not with- out some reason. She is kind and affectionate, and will be very fond of you j but do not make a friend of her ! It hurts me to say so, and I only say it for your sake. She is — not sensible." THE BIRTHDAY. 241 " Oh; then she will siiit me exactly ! " exclaimed Ida quickly. " I know aunt Melissa is a very sensible woman, and " She stopped short, colouring crimson. He burst into a fit of laugh- ter. " How perfectly dehcious ! " cried he. " I would not have missed that for the world. Now, pray do not look ashamed. You seemed a little troubled at my theory, that we are specially quick to find out the faults of our relations j but only see how charmingly you have illustrated it. That sudden silence was more eloquent than a thousand words. But I shall have to take charge of your education, I see; and one of the first lessons I shall teach you is, that your aunt Melissa is a very silly woman. We will put her into the portrait gallery by-and-by. Poor Frederick comes next. He is exactly like his mother, both in person and mind ; perfectly sweet tempered, but with no judg- ment. Of Godfrey, I must say little ; I beheve he is capable of better things than he has ever yet achieved. His unfortunate temper meets him at every turn, and does him irreparable injuries." " And Alexander ? " inquired Ida. ^' Is altosrether detestable." " Oh," said she laughing, " you need not be so VOL. I. R 242 STORY OF A FAMILY. careful to mislead me. I have known for a long- while that you are Alexander." ^^ And you say you are not a witch ! By what necromancy did you discover me ? " '^ I don't know/' she replied, " but I felt quite sure of it from the first. And then, you know, you described aunt Ellenor in language that God- frey could not have used." " Did I ? " cried he. " I thought my description of her was quite couleur de rose. I said she was pretty, amiable, affectionate — what more could a woman wish to be? In what was my portrait deficient ? " " In respect," said Ida, blushing. He looked at her for an instant, as if he felt inclined to laugh, but, quickly changing the ex- pression, replied with an air of conviction, — " You are right. That was a false move of mine. I forgot that the reverence which one must needs feel towards a parent, is altogether difi*erent from the easy familiar affection for any other relation. I could not condemn a mother's faults." Ida looked at him, with an innocent surprise in her face, which plainly showed that she scarcely thought he would find such a condemnation im- THE BIRTHDAY. 243 possible. He rather shrank under the glance^ and said hastily, — " But to proceed — shall I sketch aunt Melissa for you?" " Not for the world ! " exclaimed Ida. "Uncle John, then?" " Oh, no ; please do not describe anybody I know." " That is a singular prohibition," observed Alex- ander ; " well, then, it is now your turn. I want to hear all about the happy, peaceful life you have been leading* ; you must describe your father to me. I have a bright, imperfect recollection of a com- manding* figure and a noble face ; I want to have the outline filled up. And you must tell me all about the garden on the sea-shore, and the village church, and the country walks, and the poor people, — all the thoughts and things that have made up the history of your childhood; and I will shut my eyes, and dream m^'self back into the past, and fancy myself your companion in fact, as indeed I have often been in spirit. You were always with your father, were you not ? " Ida looked about her with a kind of dismay that was positively comic. " I am a very stupid per- son," she said ; " I like listening a great deal better than talking, it is so much easier." R 2 244 STORY OF A FAMILY. ^^ Do you always feel that?" asked Alexander, insimiating'ly, in the hope that a compliment to his powers of conversation was implied. " Oh, no, only sometimes, and with some people. I could talk for ever to Mrs. Chester, but I never can talk at all to aunt Mehssa." '^ Tell me," exclaimed he, seizing both her hands and trying to hide his annoyance at the class to which she seemed to be consig-ning him, under a sudden outbreak of vivacity, — ^^tell me why you cannot talk to me ! " She extricated herself gently, but very decidedly. " One reason is," she said, ^^ because there is no time; the dressing-bell has rung, and I must not be late for dinner on this important day." And she bounded from his side, and was in the house ere he could stretch out a hand to stop her. Alexander felt excessively uncomfortable, though he could not exactly tell the cause. He had planned his part in the conversation which had just taken place with great care and consummate skill, and he had a strong suspicion that somehow or other he had been baffled. He had intended to suit himself exactly to the character which he had imagined for Ida ; avoiding small talk, which THE BIKTHDAY. 245 would have been imintellig-ible, and the ordinarj language of gallantry, which might have proved distasteful; and presenting her with just such a melange of sentiment, philosophy, and frankness, with a softening under-current of compliment, and a stimulating dash or two of satire, as could not fail to win her at once. He had done it all to perfection, but it had somehow turned out quite differently from his intentions. He was hke Ruth Pinch, if the comparison be not profane, and had made a pudding without knowing it. And the worst of all was, that though he could not tell why, some of his strongest misgivings arose from the recollection of the certainty with wliich Ida had guessed him to be himself. He could not understand it at all, and was more than half dis- posed to agTee with aunt Melissa, and pronounce his pretty new cousin " decidedly deficient." " Oh, Madeline ! " exclaimed Ida, when that lady came to inspect her toilette before she descended to the drawing-room, " I have seen my cousin Alexander, and he is such a strange person — I hope he will keep away from me. I am sure we should never get on together. Do you remember laughing at me for saying that nobody ever comes 246 STORY OF A FAMILY, up to you and makes a bow, and says, ^See how- unhappy I am!' Well, that is just what he does ! At least — not the bow, thoug-h I really think he mig-ht do even that. He talked about his feelings for a long- while, and then he asked me to tell him all about mine, and I think I never was so fright- ened in my life. You know it w^ould have been quite impossible — and yet I was so afraid of being- rude, I said I was stupid and could not describe them — which was quite true, for I never can describe what I feel. And he wanted me to talk to him of papa, and I thoug-ht he expected me to talk in the same way that he did, and — oh dear, it was very disagreeable ! I w^as so glad when the dressing-bell rang. But you are not dressed, and it is quite late ! " '• I am not coming down stairs, love," said Madeline. '^ It is too large a party for me." " Must I go quite alone, then ? " asked poor Ida, with a sudden feeling of shyness which most persons will allow to be very natural under the circumstances. Madeline looked at her, and thought she need not fear her reception in any society; and cer- tainly it would have been difficult to find a lovelier THE BIRTHDAY. 247 creature than Ida, with the timid blush glowing* upon her delicate cheeks, the falling curls of sunny brown, the straight nose, the full dark blue eyes and soft childhke lipsj and the simple white dress, relieved only by a knot of choice flowers which she had fastened in her bosom. A form slender and airy, and an expression which seemed to embody that familiar line " a spirit, yet a woman too," completed the picture. " They are all rela- tions, you know," said Madeline soothingly, "and indeed, dearest, I could not come : I assure you it is impossible. Come quickly, and you may be in the room before they assemble." She led the shrinking girl down stairs, and did not part from her till she had opened the awful door; and Ida entered, much as she had entered the same room, to nearly the same party, fourteen years before, pausing on the threshold as if to see who would welcome her. Now, too, as then, the only feeling which gave her courage to advance might have been expressed by those little words — " Papa sent me." 248 STORY OF A FAMILY. CHAPTER XL MAKING ACQUAINTANCE. Ida speedily found herself the centre of a circle whose admiration was so unequivocally expressed, that even her simplicity could not be blind to it. She took it all for affection, and thought she could never be g-rateful enough for the kindness of her relations. Aunt EUenor won her heart at a glance, and so did the gentle and placid Frederick — there was instant sympathy among them, and the sepa- . ration of fourteen years was annihilated at once. Uncle Alexander treated her with that mixture of gallantry and patronage which elderly gentlemen frequently exhibit towards young ladies, which is particularly pleasing to some, and particularly em- barrassing to others. Cousin Alexander took ad- vantage of liis cousinly privilege to be open and famihar in his devotion, and, if the truth must be told, to worry her to death. Had Ida been trained according to common young-lady training, it is MAKING ACQUAINTANCE. 249 probable that this might not have been the case. She might have indulged in a harmless flirtation with her cousin, and found him perfectly endurable, but this she could not do. His armoury of petit soins oppressed her, for each of them was a claim upon her gratitude, and she did not know how to pay the debt ; his compHments put her out of coun- tenance, his wit was too satirical to please her, his sentiment utterly confused and repelled her. She was accustomed never to speak about her feelings except where she gave and received full sympathy j here she had no sympathy at all, and yet she was not allowed the privilege of silence. She did not at all comprehend that artificial upper current with which society busies itself without ever exploring the real depths ; she had no shallow half-thoughts, no polished shells of sentiment in her heart, all was genuine and profound ; she was like a person try- ing to converse in a foreign language of which he does not know the grammar, and cannot catch the accent ; but she was young and light-hearted, and so when she felt puzzled, her ordinary resource was to laugh, which did not please her cousin in the least. He would have been still less pleased could he have heard the tone in which she was apt to say 250 STORY OF A FAMILY. to Mrs. Chester, ^' Poor Alexander ! he is so kind ! " so expressive was it, that I may venture to say, that it would have pretty effectually checked his kindness for some time to come. But he could not believe that he was really repulsive to her, and so he persevered, sometimes finding- her very piquante, oftener in his heart thinking it " sjnw work." 2^ y-^ Agnes was quite impenetrable ^^te was one of w"!^ "^ -^'those unfortunate persons who, born^estitute of \ attractions either external or mental, seem to con- ^ sider it a kind of revenge upon nature to make Hfe as disagreeable as they can, both to themselves and to all who approach them... No charm of manner \ i M atoned in her for repulsiveness of face, no glow and generosity of affection made ample amends for ,] all other deficiencies \ for ever brooding over her j J own defects, she yet resented their consequences as V\ so many injuries to herself; she was at least as ', pitiable as faulty, and the misery which she made '■■, for herself, if it had been accepted as discipline, | would have seemed sufficient to cure every fault » under heaven. No kind word was ever spoken in her presence without causing her to feel a secret and bitter pain that it had not been addressed to herself, yet she passed over with a hurried half- MAKING ACQUAINTANCE. 251 consciousness^ and an immediate forgetfulness, the scanty portion of goodwill that was reall}^ testified towards her by anybody, and took a strang-e plea- sure in denying- herself such comfort as she might fairly have received. She had baffled even aunt Ellenor, whom it was a hard thing not to love, and to whom it was still harder to be refused the privi- lege of loving. She could not be fond of Agues ; she was not suffered to be intimate with her, she was repulsed at every turn • so she had taken refuge in the habit, very unpleasant to her warm nature, of scarcely ever speaking to her niece, though the deprecating gentleness of her manner when she did address her, showed how fearful she was of giving pain, how anxious to give pleasure, yet how utterly ignorant of the means by which the one might be avoided and the other achieved. Poor Agnes ! there is no saying what this chill and stunted plant might have become in a kindlier atmosphere. Now there seemed little hope, for the food which nourishes health only embitters disease. Yet the very perfection of her disagreeableness was in some sense a hopeful sign ; it was such a genuine article, so unmitigated, undisguised, and unconquerable. There she was, a most bitter 262 STORY OF A FAMILY. morsel, neither gilded nor sweetened; you could make no mistake about her, you must needs re- ceive her as a trial, and if any good whatsoever eventually came out of her, it was a surprise to you, and you were thankful for it. And Godfrey ? He was as impenetrable as AgTies, thoug-h in a very different manner. He was so capricious that Ida's opinion of him varied every day, and she was left equally in doubt as to his opinion of her. At their first introduction, and during' the whole birthday evening-, he was polite and gentlemanly, but cold ; he seemed not to desire to remember or renew their childish intimacy, he be- haved to her as any gentleman might have behaved to any young lady whom he met for the first time in society, except that Ida's singular beauty and gracefulness would assuredly have commanded more admiring attention from an ordinary acquain- tance J yet he varied, and she could not but observe and be puzzled by these variations. She did not think he was happy; his habitual expression was certainly one of gloom and preoccupation, he was silent and inanimate, yet when speaking to his brother, to whom his attention was most devoted, his eye kindled, his voice softened, his whole aspect MAKING ACQUAINTANCE. 253 was for the moment transformed. He took no part in the general conversation, and was the only- person who did not thank Ida when she rose from the piano ; yet from time to time she was aware that he was observing- her with an expression that could not be mistaken for disapproval, and though his manner repelled her, she felt excessively anxious that he should like her as well as his mother and brother did, and not quite in despair about it. He was not handsome but distinguished looking, with eyes and forehead full of intellect. Whether he was agreeable or not it was impossible to discover, because,, as has been already said, he scarcely spoke at all, and never on any subject of interest. The change from the boisterous mischief, impetuous glee, superabundant Hfe of his childhood, was so complete that it was impossible for Ida not to be curious as to the cause. Some two or three days after her eighteenth birtliday, Ida had gone out, as was her custom, accompanied only by Madehne, for a morning ramble in the grounds, long before aunt Melissa, and most of her guests, had forsaken their pillows. Her early rising was the result of habit and train- ing, not the voluntary adoption of her own taste 254 STORY OF A FAMILY. or resolution, and, therefore, there was nothing self-gratulatory ahout it, which, let the reader be assured, is a rare merit in early rising. In many cases it seems to be a charter for contra- dictiousness during the whole of the following day 5 and may be said to effect more towards pampering the vanity of those who practise it, and destroying the domestic comfort of those who do not, than any other apparently harmless custom in this civilized country of England. Just think of the officious vigour, the insulting triumph, the outrageous animation of the man who has dressed by candlelight in the month of December. Only imagine his cheerftdness. Is it not enough to set your teeth on edge when you remember what he has gone through? He ought to be in the state of a mild convalescent who has just weathered a sharp attack of ague, and there he is snapping his fingers and laughing in defiance of nature and probability ! Very likely, too, he has done it from no sufficient motive, — in fact, from no motive at all, except that he may read his news- paper, or write his letters some three hom's before ten, instead of some three hours after that rational breakfast-hour. Yet, he is insanely pleased with MAKING ACQUAINTANCE. 255 himself for this; he shakes hands with himself mentally, and thinks he has done a gTeat thing", in thus actively wasting the time which might have been devoted to wholesome and profitable sleep. He takes quite a bird's-eye view of the student, whose midnig*ht lamp has guided him through some labyrinth of thought, the clue where- of shall hereafter be presented to the world, and condescendingly pities the aching brow which seeks a few hours' late repose after many of labour and tension. Two hours at night are no merit at all, — two hours in the morning- are the height of virtue, and quite virtue enough to last you for the whole day, my friend, says Conscience ; you have done your self-denial, and may fearlessly in- dulge youself for the future. But we are forgetting Ida and her early walk; she and Madeline had just left the chapel, where they were in the habit of repairing for their devo- tions, and were proceeding towards the open part of the park, deep in conversation, when they perceived Godfrey at some distance carrying a basket in his hand. Ida bounded over two or three intervening flower-beds, and, running to meet him, exclaimed in 256 STORY OF A FAMILY. admiration at the magnificent Cape jessamines which his basket contained. "They are for Frederick," said he, "it is his favomite flower, and there is no specimen in the greenhouse ; I have brought them from Claxton." This was a country town about five miles from Evelyn Manor. "What a walk!" exclaimed Ida, "and how pleased Frederick will be. Oh! Godfrey, may I have one flower, I want it for the bouquet I am painting for aunt MeHssa's screen ; it would finish the group so beautifully." His hand was immediately on the plant, and, thousrh he winced a little at the name of aunt a Melissa, between whom and himself there was con- stant warfare, he severed one of the finest blossoms, and presented it to her. "Introduce me to Mrs. Chester," whispered he. Ida compHed, and the three were speedily en- gaged in easy conversation. Whether the exercise had particularly agreed with Godfrey, or whether, in general, he was under the influence of some spell which did not begin to act till the day was a certain number of hours MAKING ACQUAINTANCE. 257 old we will not pretend to saj, but he seemed to have thrown aside his melancholy, and was so vivacious that Ida scarcely recognised him. Her doubts of his cousinly disposition to like her vanished in a minute, and her old predilection revived with double force. They talked of all thing's beneath the stars, and a few beyond them ; for the most part sportively, but with an occa- sional touch of deeper thought, indicating many a vein to be explored in future. Oh, those de- licious first conversations ! when you see dimly a hundred half-closed doors, and calculate beforehand on the pleasure of watching their gradual opening. — Pity, that the chambers within so often disap- point you when you enter ! They parted at the house-door the best friends possible, and as Ida took off her bonnet, she men- tally ran over the various topics which they had been discussing, and thought how she would ask this question, and suggest that remark, and how there was a passage she must look for which was exactly applicable to one part of their conver- sation, and how she would ask Godfrey to write down for her the pretty verse which he had quoted from some old Spanish ballad. She went down VOL. I. 8 258 STORY OF A FAMILY. to the breakfast-room, ready, with her characteristic eagerness, to resume at once where they had left off; — and there sat Godfrey, with his ordinary sombre look, and spoke neither to her nor to any one else during- the whole meal, except to take care that Frederick had all he wanted ! She had not courage to address him, and she almost began to feel as though their past famiharity must have arisen out of some forwardness on her part ; she was ashamed of having ventured to feel so inti- mate. She thought it a very dull breakfast-party, for the whole length of the table separated her from Frederick, and she sat between the Alex- anders, father and son. The father Alexander was talking pohtics with perfectly disinterested enthu- siasm, for nobody seemed to be listening to him ; and the son was afflictingly minute in his atten- tions. Agnes sat opposite with a quiet scowl on her face, which it gave you a sick headache to look at, and uncle John was absent on some farm- ing business. It was altogether a deplorable break- fast. However, just as it was completed, uncle John came in, with a face like the concentrated essence of a dozen firesides, and a voice that seemed to MAKING ACaUAINTANCE. 269 be compounded of the singing of kettles upon their hobs, the crowing of vigorous babies on all fours upon their hearth-rugs, and the music of Paddy O'Rafferty played at a rattling pace by drums and fifes, outside the window. He was an embodied laugh — a hurrah personified. It was out of the question for anybody to be low spirited in his presence — he was worth all the camphor julep and sal volatile in the world. "Well, young people!" cried he, rubbing his hands, "I've got a scheme for you !" "Indeed ! and pray what is it?" replied Mehssa, with a good-humour and alacrity which showed that she rather liked the style of his address. " Oh, yes, yes ! " answered he, " you are included too — it is a scheme for us all, old and young, girls and boys. Such splendid weather too — not a cloud in the skyj upon my word and honour it would be a sin if we didn't. I think if we have the chariot and the phaeton — and then there will be the Woodleys' carriage and Alexander's gig : it will look magnificent in this weather, after the rains, too, which are always an advan- tage. Godfrey can steer, you know ; he is a capital sailor : and Kate Wyllys, we mustn't for- s 2 260 STORY OF A FAMILY. g'et lier, you know, for she is the hest hand in the world at the sort of thing-. I don't think we can manage before this day weekj but I dare say we can make up our minds to wait so long*. We must set the cook to work, my lady house- keeper; you know she is famous for her chicken pie. I can't help thinking* how grand it will look at sunset ; and if we should have a rainbow it will be perfect.'* ^^ Chicken pie, with rainbow sauce ! " observed Alexander junior, " quite a novelty in the English cuisine. Pray, sir, be so good as to give me the recipe." "Eh? ah! Ha, ha— very good that! What did I say ? " returned his uncle. " I am sure, my dear John," said Melissa, with that emphasis of special crossness which is so often attached to the epithet ' dear,^ ^' it would be quite hopeless to attempt to tell you what you said, or what you meant. I do wish you would explain yourself quietly — it is very trying to one's nerves to have all this confusion first in the morning, and for my part (putting her hand to her forehead) I have not the slightest idea what you have been talking about." MAKING ACQUAINTANCE. 261 " I beg" your pardon, my dear j I am the most noisy, thoughtless fellow in the world ; I believe I shall be a bo}^ all my life, and I never can recollect that we are not all of us as 3'oung as we used to be." He now lowered his voice, and addressed his irate sister in the quietest and most explana- tory tone, as you might speak to a superannuated person, whose intellect it was extremely difficult to awaken, and whose temper it was necessary to soothe in a very cautious and conspicuous manner. " It is a pic-nic, my dear — a party in the open air." " I believe he thinks I don't know what a pic- nic is ! " said Melissa, turning with a sharp artifi- cial laugh to the rest of the company ; ^' perhaps," she added, ^^ you will be so condescending as to carry your explanation a little further, and tell all present, who I believe are as much in the dark as myself, what expedition it is that you are medi- tating, and who are the persons whom you propose to invite." Poor uncle John felt himself decidedly in dis- grace, though he did not in the least understand the reason. So he made a very quiet jog trot speech in an humble apologetic manner ; unadorned 262 STORY OF A FAMILY. by any of those curvets and caracoles by which his ordinary mode of talk when in high spirits — and it was a very exceptional case when uncle John was not in high spirits — was distinguished. He had planned a day's excursion to Thelwar Castle, a fine Norman ruin about twenty miles jfrom Evelyn. Mr. Woodley, a great crony of uncle John's, his son and daughter, were to join the party, together with any other friends whom Melissa might think proper to ask. Kate Wyllys, for whose presence he had made special stipula- tion, was a young lady of acknowledged fashion and beauty, then irradiating the neighbourhood, and commanding' the attentions of all the dis- posable gentlemen. She was, of course, far more attractive than any resident helle, however supe- rior to herself in natural or acquired qualifi- cations; and being very lively, perfectly fear- less, and rather quick at repartee, was exactly the sort of person to command the attentions of a whole party when present, and their strictures when absent. Gentlemen would engross her for an entire evening', and make her as conspicuous as they could by flirtation ; and then, as soon as she was gone, would betake themselves, with languid MAKING ACQUAINTANCE. 263 zeal to tlie side of some older acquaintance, wlio had been looking* over prints with subHme indif- ference to neglect, and say on approaching her, " I really haven't been able to g-et a word with you this evening ! Miss Wyllys wouldn't let me g-et away for a moment." Of course, it was all her fault — in such cases, it is an axiom in popular philosophy, that the lady is in the wrong-, and deserves all that she encounters. We would not for a moment dispute the axiom — it must be true, because everybody says it, — both the gentlemen who have been encouraged and the ladies who have been neglected j we would only say, that this true view of the matter requires some exercise of faith in those who receive it, inasmuch as reason and observation would commonly lead to a different conclusion. -Thelwar Castle was beautifully situated ; it was approachable by sea, and therefore uncle John projected a boating party for some of the young people; and it was within two miles of a very respectable waterfall, which, as he observed, would be in its best looks after the recent rains. A castle, a pic-nic, and a waterfall! Could any scheme by land or sea be more enchanting ? Ida's 264 STORY OF A FAMILY. face grew brighter and brigliter as the idea de- veloped itself, and the last word had scarcely escaped her uncle's lips, when she exclaimed, with clasped hands, " Oh, how dehg-htful ! Dear aunt Melissa, pra}', say yes ! — you will enjoy it too, because you are so fond of fine scenery, and there will be no fatigue. A whole week ! Oh, how I wish the day were come ! " Melissa, who liked any species of gaiety, relaxed into benign acquiescence j and uncle John, in a per- fect ecstasy at meeting with approval and causing so much pleasure, first kissed Ida out of gratitude for her delight, and then executed a short impromptu polka, of a new and somewhat outrageous pattern, which, happily, did not last above a minute. " And now," said Melissa, " I will write the invitations, and we will settle how the party is to go." " Yes ! " cried Mr. Lee, with assumed nonchalance, " it is always the best way to make one's arrange- ments clearly beforehand, and then nobody is put out. I am quite at your disposal j you may put me just where you please. Alex, can drive Ida, and the rest will easily be settled." '' I hope I may consider this an engagement j I MAKING ACQUAINTANCE. 265 was just going" to offer myself as your charioteer when my father forestalled me/' said the son, with his most elaborate smile and bow. The Alexanders had made a false move there. Melissa was uninterruptedly conscious that she was mistress of the house, and never inclined to agree in any proposition which did not emanate from herself, unless, like the present expedition, the conduct of it were placed at once in her hands. Moreover, to do her justice, she was really fond of Ida, and would not have done anything to annoy her, unless it had been unmistakeably advantageous to herself. A. woman seldom mistakes a woman's feelings, and Ida's face, as she politely acquiesced in her cousin's proposal, was tolerably expressive of dissatisfaction. "Excuse me, my good friends," said Melissa, with her blandest and most obstinate manner, " my little Ida's life is a great deal too precious to be risked by any amateur coachmanship. I consider myself responsible for her, and must have the entire management of her proceedings. When I get the answers to my invitations, and know what our numbers will be, I shall be able to make arrangements definitively." Ida was to go in the boat j she was charmed, and 266 STORY OF A FAMILY. her rapture increased when she found that Frederick was to be of the party. She had been thinking of him, but was afraid to ask, and she now cong-ra- tulated herself that they should be tog-ether, and expressed her liveliest thanks that the plan for her was exactly that which she best liked. She and Melissa (strange companionship !) were the only two persons thoroughly pleased, when, after much shaking and fermenting, the scheme had settled into its final shape. Aunt Ellenor was to chaperone the water-party ; she made no resistance, but suf- fered secretly, inasmuch as she was a great coward, and every minute of her pleasure-excursion was con- sequently a painful and heroic effort at composure. Poor Frederick never felt his privation so keenly as on an occasion like the present, but agreed to go, because he knew that his exclusion would be as painful to his mother as his participation could be to himself. So long as he did everything like other people, she was able to flatter herself with the idea that he was nearly unconscious of his loss ; but the smallest sign of consciousness on his part cost her so many tears, that he would have avoided it by any sacrifice of his own personal comfort. It was touching to see how instinctively he compre- MAKING ACQUAINTANCE. 267 hended her feelings, and how tenderly he cared for them, though he could see no exhibition of them. No inflection of her voice was lost upon him, and so profound was his knowledge of her, that he could divine that she was grieved merely by her silence when he knew that it would have been natural to her to speak. There is no science so deep and so unerring as that of unselfish love ; its perceptions are as supernatural as its origin. And so — as may often be seen when a weak and half- disciplined character sympathizes with one of a higher order than itself — the relative positions of this mother and son seemed to undergo a strange kind of change, and practically it was the consoler who needed support, and the sufferer who gave it. But these two were not unhappy ; there is no un- happiness, properly so called, in the calm harmony of a double sorrow such as theirs. Young Woodley, a gawky personage from col- lege, with a strong fear of the fair sex, taking the outward form and vesture of contempt, was another member of the water-party. He wanted to go on horseback ; but his father, who was trying hard to worry him into premature polish, would not hear of it. He could not bear the arrangement made for 268 STORY OF A FAMILY. him, and submitted with the worst grace possible. Kate Wyllys agreed, with perfect and polite good- nature, to make a third in the chariot with Melissa and Mr. Lee ; but snarled in her heart at a plan so very untoward, when three unattached young men were within reach, any one of whom would have proved a satisfactory companion — two in the capa- city of flirts, the third in that of butt. However, there was no help for it, as she was known to be delicate, and could not be allowed to go by water. When the time arrived she was all smiles and serenity, but it is doubtful whether she felt more amiably than the collegian. Even uncle John was a little downcast, for he shared the phaeton with Mr. and Miss Woodley, and he wanted to have accompanied Ida. Godfrey seemed in lower spirits than usual, kept apart fi'om his companions, and occupied himself with the business of the boat. But the crowning discomfiture was Alexander's, who actually had to drive Agnes. To the very last he manoeuvred to avoid this, but there is no being on earth so helpless as a well-bred man in the hands of a lady who is giving a party. He has neither defence nor redress; his ver}^ remon- strances must be made with fictitious playfulness, MAKING ACQUAINTANCE. 269 as though in reality he were g-rateful for the very things which he deprecates j and his final submis- sion to the most aggravated sufferings must be cheerful and unconditional. Poor Alexander asked Miss Woodley, privately, if she would allow him to drive her ; but Miss Woodley (who, by-the-bye, was a trifle unrefined, and had never received such a compliment from the sublime Alexander before) had been previously told, in confidence, by Melissa, that she was to go in the phaeton, " because it was desirable for many reasons (this with much signifi- cance), and it would be so pleasant for John." The poor girl fancied she was somehow doing a favour, and, besides, would not have presumed to alter Miss Lee's plans for the world; so she declined, graciously and regretfully. Alexander then made a desperate attack on young Woodley, whom he esteemed an utter bore, but this was likewise a failure ; parental authority was too strong for the unhappy youth, and he was compelled to be vic- timized. Eventually, Alexander proposed to drive his father, as a last chance; but his father was afraid of catching cold, and liked the ease of the cushioned chariot, and the pretty face of Kate Wyllys, who understood and responded to his gal- 270 STORY OF A FAMILY. lantries far better than Ida, and thought him a tolerable substitute when originals were not pro- curable. No one who had seen the faces of Alex- ander and Agnes, when they set off for theii' tete- a-tete drive, would have been surprised to hear that a murder had been perpetrated before the end of it — only, fortunately, deeds do not always answer to looks, either good or bad. Is not a pleasure party the most deHghtful thing in the world ? THE PIC-NIC. 271 CHAPTER XIT. THE PIC-NIC. A FEW minutes before the boat landed, Frederick; with some timidity of manner, presented Ida with a pretty sketching apparatus. " She had expressed a wish to sketch the castle/' he said, "and though — " here he paused for an instant, and then abruptly concluded by saying, " that it would be a pleasure to him to think that she could make any use of a gift of his." She thanked him warmly ; but was a little puzzled by remembering that he had not been in the room when the pic- turesqneness of the castle as a subject for sketch- ing was discussed ; she was sure of this, because she had felt a sudden fear lest the conversation should give him pain, and had been relieved to find that he was absent. Thelwar Castle was built on a rock which rose steeply from the edge of a wide and gentle river. In style it blended the Saracen and the Norman, 272 STORY OP A FAMILY. and formed no inapt representation of the age to whicli it belonged J at once massy and graceful, rude, yet full of beauty. There were tall slender turrets of circular form with overhanging parapets broken and encrusted with moss ; huge dwarf towers strongly battlemented and pierced with those cruel loopholes which admit no light save for purposes of destruction, and look like sullen eyes winking at you; great irregular walls of unhewn stone all scarfed and garlanded with ivy and plumed with the airy fern ; green sward in the courts as smooth as though it had been shorn for the feet of fairies, whom you might fancy skimming tenderly over its surface, or perching upon the fragmentary corbels which jutted from the walls, or climbing the shattered tracery of the windows, or swinging* by the green streamers which hung from many a giant arch, and rocked upon the air as though only just loosed from some tiny grasp, or lying' crushed beneath the damp Hchen-covered masses of stone which had fallen from above, and might have been hurled down by some stern mailed ghost upon the battlements to check such unseemly revel in a place so sombre. There were vast hospitable chimneys, calling up strange visions of those old THE PIC-NIC. 273 uncivilized dinner parties, when wayfarers and beggars had their place and their portion, and servants feasted at the same board with their masters ; wonderful little bed-chambers, suggesting the idea that our ancestors slept in one invariable position, and stood upright to dress, having- their clothes let down upon them from the roof j inter- minable twisted staircases, which you must con- vert yourself into a screw to ascend, — painful as one of those miraculous opera cadenzas (named, we suppose, on the lumis-a-^ion-lucendo principle) where, after a certain point, every step seems the highest possible, and yet is succeeded by one higher and more excruciating still, and where the descent is accomplished by a series of accentuated plunges, any one of which is sufficient to break your neck; long shadowy passages through the hearts of the enormous walls, with sharp streaks of light here and there catching the curve under the square head of some narrow door- way, and tempting you to proceed, though you must needs walk trembling, lest at the next opening the ray should be reflected from a stooping- helmet or a poised spear, or lest the hesitating feet which you can scarcely guide along the uneven floor, should VOL. I. T 274 STORY OF A FAMILY. Stumble ag-ainst the coiled-up limbs of an old sentinel sleeping- at his post. There seemed a waste of strength, as thoug'h a g-reat deal of it were built out of sheer symboHsm — a mixture of the jovial and the sombre, so unlike the world in which our own forms of thought are cast, that it was almost impossible to imagine it into any consistent whole, but the ideal picture was for ever resolving itself into a host of outrageous contradictions. One moderate-sized tombstone might have sufficed for the flooring of any bed- room, and the great banqueting-hall looked as if it might have been appropriately papered with a series of " rubbings" from sepulchral brasses. " Oh ! for one day, for one single hour, to see it all alive again ! " cried Ida, as, after a breath- less and eager examination of every attainable nook and corner, she paused at the summit of a winding stair, and, seating herself in the hollow of a battlement, looked out upon the rich valley and the sweet fresh river, "that one could tell how they really lived and thought from hour to hour, those grim soldiers, and graceful knights, and stately ladies ! It is almost painful to have such a strange kind of unseen existence so perpetually THE PIC-NIC. 275 suggested without being able to fill up tbe blanks, and imagine what it actually was. It is like seeing the very corpse of the Past." ^^ Cannot you construct a living character out of these autographs?" asked Godfrey, smiling, as he laid his hand on the summit of a roughly ornamented and overhanging buttress ; " I do not think it would be a very difficult task." He stopped, and Ida looked earnestly in his face as though she wanted him to continue. " An easy one, I should say," observed Alex- ander. "Human nature is always the same in detail as well as in outline. We have a distant twilight view of the man of the middle ages, and he looms upon us, huge, and grand, and vague, till our imagination bows down before him, and refuses to approach and examine more closely. But if we do approach we shall find him flesh and blood after all, perhaps differing only from ourselves in the unavoidable peculiarity that he was a good way behind us in the march of time. He ate and drank, was weary, slept, and was re- freshed, loved and hated like the rest of us. And all those foibles and follies, littlenesses and mean- nesses which distress us in our own day because t2 276 STORY OF A FAMILY. they are close under our own ejes, were just as rife in the Past if we could only see them." "Very true," replied Godfrey; "depend upon it, it was all the same five hundred years ago. The Baron Drog'o de Bracy could never ohtain the entree to the highest society, because it was noticed that he did not always pronounce his H's, and the dame Eleonora de Montauban frowned sorely upon her daughter, the lovely Lady Adelicia, because she had engaged herself for three polkas to a younger son ! Don't be romantic, Ida ! Don't fancy that an external development totally different from that of our own age betokens that there was any difference at all in the inner life — why should it ? Don't we all know that Dr. Johnson was as great a dramatist as Shakspeare, only, somehow or other, he didn't manage to write such good plays?" " You are a worshipper of the Past, I perceive," said Alexander, coolly, as he seated himself at Ida's feet, and looked expressively into her face, though he addressed Godfrey; "as for me, I live in the Present." " I hope the climate suits you," replied God- frey, with an emphasis too marked to be perfectly THE PIC-NIC. 277 polite^ and wliich called the colour to his cousin' cheek. Ida felt uncomfortable, and it was quite a relief to her that Agnes joined them at that moment. " Do come down, Ida," said she, " aunt Melissa is so cross. She is unpacking the baskets, and she says it is a shame that we should leave it all to her, and g'o away to amuse ourselves. For my part, I thought we came here for amusement, such as it is. She is very hungry, and she says we must dine before we do anything else ; and she wants you, but not Alexander Or Godfrey ; because, she says, gentlemen are of no use. She had just upset something when I came away, and that was one reason why I hurried." Ida felt guilty; — she had forgotten all but the enjoyment of the moment ; and she now hastened to accompany Agnes in spite of the remonstrances of the gentlemen. As they descended the stairs, she dropped her sketch-book, and Agnes picked it up for her. " Ah !" said she, " Godfrey was very mysterious about his present." " Godfrey ! " repeated Ida, surprised. " This was Frederick's present." ^^ I beg your pardon," replied Agnes, who took a 278 STORY OF A FAMILY. sour kind of pleasure in tliwarting- any little scheme that came under her notice, whether she under- stood it or not. " I was in the room when God- frey brought it ; and he told Frederick it was for you, and begged him, as a particular favour, to give it as if from himself." There was no time for Ida to express the as- tonishment she felt, as they had now reached the spot where Melissa was awaiting them. She had overset the basin of powdered sug-ar into a dun- g-eon, and was vehemently insisting* that her bro- ther John should descend in search of it, a service which he did not appear to relish, though he made many apoplectic efforts to reach it by stooping over the edg-e. She was making a solemn business of dinner, putting- herself into a fretful bustle about all the adjuncts, necessary and unnecessary, being sentimental about finger-glasses, and highly dig- nified in regard to salt-spoons. It was all to be done in a regular, grand way, as unlike a pic-nic as possible 5 and the feeding- was the main object and purpose, evidently, of the whole party — they came not to see but to eat. It was sad waste of time, indeed, to be sketching and staring about, when the cold chickens were still unpacked, and THE PIC-NIC. 279 the damask napkins undistributed. Ida ran lightly to and fro under her orders, restoring* her to good- humour by the force of her alacrity and readi- ness, and greatly cheering- the spirits of the de- pressed maid, who had been vainly endeavouring to do right in the eyes of her mistress for the last twenty minutes. Agnes moved heavily and awkwardly, never understood anything that she was expected to do; and in making an unwonted effort to be useful, finally set her foot upon a cherry tart. They were a contrast certainly. Poor uncle John, glad to be released, hastened away, and tried to make the agreeable to Mr. Woodley, who was thoroughly tired both of him and of the party, and who responded but feebly to his charitable efforts. " Queer old place, this," said uncle John, who had a vague idea that Mr. Woodley was a politi- cian of the modern school, and wished to propitiate him by some congenial remark. " Now, they wouldn't tolerate such a place in these days. If any one were to run up such a place, public opinion would have it down again in five minutes." " Well— I don't know," said Mr. Woodley, with cautious hesitation concerning the vigour of public 280 STORY OF A FAMILY, opinion;, looking* inquiringly at the stalwart old walls as lie spoke. He was a gentleman who spent his life in the mild excitement of perpetual expectation — in a kind of permanent astonishment which never rose above the fussy point. Every nig'ht in winter he perceived appearances in the heavens which betokened that there would be a fine Aurora Borealis before morning, and fre- quently suggested that his daughter, who had never been so fortunate as to see that pheno- menon, should sit up, and call him when it began. The watching, the ejaculations, the assu- rances that there was a light in the north quite unnatural, and which must terminate in corrus- cations, supplied the substance of his conversation for the evening, and effectually prevented con- versation in others. In summer he was equally far-sighted as to the detection of an approaching storm ; and has been known to prophesy con- tinuousty, for six weeks, the arrival of one, which seldom failed to come in the end and justify his prediction. He now discovered that the tower be- neath which the dinner-party was being arranged was out of the perpendicular, and would assuredly fall in the course of the next twenty-four hours. THE PIC-NIC. 281 He remonstrated so pertinaciously, that good breed- ing* compelled the imhappy Melissa to consent to the removal of her preparations just as they had attained completion, which put the crowning-stroke to her discomfiture for the day. Altogether, I should think there has seldom been a more dis- consolate and dejected repast than that pic-nic. Everything had somehow gone wrong-, and nearly everybody was out of sorts. Ida was as silent as the rest : she was thinking about her sketch-book, and determining to elucidate the mystery. An opportunity occurred soon after they had risen from tahle-cloth. She found herself near Godfrey, and a little apart from the others, and immediately addressed him. "Godfrey, have I done anything to vex you?" she spoke timidly, and blushing. '^ You ! To vex me ! What could possibly make you think so?" '^ Only," said Ida, " that you change so towards me, — and — and — I beg your pardon for mentioning it, as you did not wish me to know it, but I find you were so kind as to think of g'iving me that sketching- apparatus. You must let me thank you for it — and I was afraid I had annoyed you in 283 STORY OF A FAMILY. some manner; as you did not like to give it to me yourself." Godfrey coloured, cast his eyes on the ground, and seemed to find much difficulty in answering this speech. At last he said : " It was such a pleasure to Frederick to give it to you, and he has so few- pleasures." ^^ Dear Frederick ! " said Ida. ^^ Ah ! " cried Godfrey eagerly, " you cannot love him too well j he is absolutely perfect. His intel- lect equals his heart, though it is not so readily discerned. I have never heard him utter a hasty word, nor known him think an unkind thought j and the whole temper of his mind is so beautifid. You must love him, Ida." " I do," replied Ida. " I love him dearly, and aunt Ellenor too. I cannot bear that you should be cold to me, Godfrey, for I feel at home with your family as if I were one of yourselves. It is quite curious — the rest are all like strangers, with whom I have to make acquaintance by degrees, though they are very kind ; but I can't help fancy- ing that you and aunt Ellenor and Frederick have lived with me all my life, and that we have not been separated at all." THE PIC-NIC. 283 Godfrey took her hand between his^ and looked at her with an expression of unspeakable gentle- ness ; it was difficult to believe that those were the same eyes which were ordinarily so downcast and so sullen. " Be one of us, then, dear Ida," said he ; " my mother loves you as if you were her own child, and you and I will be brother and sister — shall we not?" " Oh !" said Ida, " that implies so much !" " Too much for you to grant ! " cried he, in a tone of disappointment. ^^Too much, a great deal," returned she, play- fully, ^^to be granted on one side only. I never had a brother, but I can fancy very well what a brother would be to me. First, he would be quiet and stedfast in his friendship — there would be no changes, and doubts, and mysteries ; then I should know all his sorrows, and he would come to me to console them ; and we should tell each other of faults, and help each other to amend them. He would never give me black looks without an explanation, or " " In fact," interrupted Godfrey, " you think me a savage ; and you cannot think too ill of me. But, Ida, I promise to perform my part of the 284 STORY OF A FAMILY. compact; if you will be faithful to yours. I am only afraid that you will repent when you know me better." ^' If I do; I will tell you so/' she answered ; " but I am not afraid of you, or, at least, only a very little afraid sometimes." ^'And when were you afraid last?" asked Godfrey. " When Alexander " began Ida, but he interrupted her immediately. " Oh ! I was very rude, I know ; but Alexander is perfectly intolerable to me. It's a wonder that I don't insult him every hour of the day j and when he speaks to you in that patronising com- plimentary tone, I assure you, Ida, it is beyond my powers of endurance to be polite." '' But he is very kind," said Ida, thoughtfully, ^' and I beheve he is very clever. I cannot under- stand why he is not agreeable." Had Alexander been in Godfrey's place, he would certainly have told Ida that she was the most piquante person in the world, with her un- conscious sarcasm. Godfrey thought so, but did not say it. It seemed to him that it would have been quite unnatural to pay Ida a comphment. THE PIC-NIC. 285 It is curious how little we praise those whom we love best. We are shy about it^ as though we were speaking of ourselves ; a tone, a look, the mere presence of some unaccountable restraint of manner — these are indications enough for those who are intended to read them, and bystanders may think it all as cold as they like. Our choicest gifts are not for the world to scrutinize ; we put them quietly, and with averted eyes, into the hand that is stretched out to receive them. " Do you like this sort of party, Ida ? " asked Godfrey, after a minute's pause. "Yes; I enjoy it excessively," she replied. " Do not you ? " " I think," said he, " that it is the most ingeni- ous contrivance ever invented for compressing the gTeatest quantity of annoyance into the smallest possible compass. What a dinner we had ! No- thing seems to me so strange a mistake as that a number of people, whose whole existence is made up of commonplaces and decorums, should volun- tarily put themselves into a position where these are absurdities, and yet try to retain them all the while. It is as if one were to go out shooting in a court-dress and put pattens over one's pumps, 286 STORY OF A FAMILY. to prove oneself a sportsman. It is so comic to see how we all behave ; anybody who didn't know the circumstances would make sure that the pic- nic had been inflicted as a punishment, and that, being compelled by force to submit to it, we were trying- to neutralize it in the best manner we could." ^^ Look there, misanthrope ! " replied Ida, laying one hand gently upon his arm, and pointing with the other to the scene before them. A sohtary arch stood up, huge and broken in outline, against the cloudless sky j beneath it, partly veiled by the drooping cloud of ivy which floated about its sides, was visible the smooth soft river, passing through wood and hill, with a steady onward motion, like the flight of a bird, and melting into the vague far distance. A little beyond the arch, at the base of one of those graceful turrets, a group was seated upon the greensward; their figures would perhaps have marred the effect in a picture, but somehow they blended very pictu- resquely with the reality. Kate Wyllys, with bonnet off", dark braided hair, and smiling sunny face, was holding some flowers for Alexander to examine — flirting very prettily under the pretence THE PIC-NIC. 287 of botany. Ag-nes and Miss Woodley stood near, filling- the double office of chaperon and back- ground. Godfrey looked at the picture, and then at Ida. '' Ah ! " said he, we enjoy this thoroughly now; but how was it with us an hour ago ? Is this the mode in which one oug'ht to visit fine scenery or interesting- ruins? Is it pleasant to be oblig-ed either to parade your solitary enthusiasm, or else, by suppressing- it, to lose all enjoyment ? Parties are all very well in ball-rooms, and pic-nics in summer-houses, but I don't like coming* to boil potatoes and provide small-talk among the reliques of the past, any better than I should like to be taken out into the moonlig-ht to dance the polka." " As to making' small-talk," said Ida, laug-hing*, "I can't say you have over-exerted yourself in that particular. But, thoug-h I don't agree with you, Godfi'ey, I do think that one thing* which you said is quite true — I have not enjoyed the beauty and grandeur of this place as I expected to do, except just for the first half-hour. I find it is natural to think more of the party, and less of the place; and it would indeed be delightful to come here quite alone, or with — with — papa. 288 STORY OF A FAMILY. This seems to me the same sort of thing as the having' a regular evening party to read Shakspeare, which you know would be a kind of desecration^ unless they were all poets^, or thorough lovers of poetry." " Heaven preserve me from an evening party where ' they were all poets ! ' " cried Godfrey fervently. " But I see I shall make a convert of you at last. I have gained one step already, and now I shall call for another confession. Don't you think everybody was more or less out of humour ? " '' Not " began Ida. "Not more than usual/' exclaimed he, inter- rupting her. "Well, perhaps that may be true enough, only I think it is a very severe observation of yours." "Oh, but I was not going to say that," said Ida, "nor anything in the least like it. In the first place, I think you have no right to complain, inasmuch as you were the Grossest of the whole party; in the second place, I have no right, be- cause I was rude, and went away to enjoy myself, and forgot that I was wanted. I don't think," she added archly, "that a pic-nic is at all likely to make everybody perfect — do you ? '^ THE PIC-NIC. 289 " Of course not," answered he, a little startled. '^ Well," she said, " but isn't that just what you are expecting* of it ? I think one may have an immense quantity of pleasure in spite both of one's own faults and of other people's, and I should never expect to become faultless because I was at a pleasure party. Now, are you angry ? — for I think I am very impertinent." " Only in calling- yourself so," answered he ; " if your philosophy is impertinent when addressed to me, it can only be because I am not capable of comprehending itj so you see what you make of me." " Was that philosophy ? " asked Ida, " I thought it was only common sense." Godfrey laughed heartily. "You looked quite dismayed at being- brought in guilty of philo- sophy," said he : "I suppose you will expect me to call you a blue-stocking next." " Have you the same horror of learned ladies that Alexander has?" inquired Ida. "Perhaps," replied Godfrey; "but not for the same reason. I hate all things that are false or unnatural in their proportions, and as I hold that a woman's heart should always be larger than her VOL. I. U 290 STORY OF A FAMILY. liead, the instances wherein this true proportion is marred are especially distasteful to me. A learned woman ought to be a most loving and gentle one, or else the woman in her is lost : but I am afraid that you and I look at things and people with very different eyes; you see all the good, and I have the habit of looking at the evil ; your way is both wise and right, but mine is my own, I might say myself, and I cannot change it." '•'' Can you not 1 " said Ida, simply. He felt the unintentional rebuke, and it so hap- pened that it touched him on a peculiarly sensitive point. ^^ Oh, my dear Ida!" cried he, "who is there in the world that ever radically changes his own character? If I could see one complete transformation, one character wherein the original tendencies had been not modified but obliterated, it would do more good to my faith than a miracle, which in fact it would be. And if our religion be indeed the divine reality which we are taught to believe, is it not marvellous that it should not transfigure the human into the divine ? But it seems impotent in this which is surely its own proper sphere. Just think of what we see; a man is bom with a certain fault of character, say THE PIC-NIC. 1^91 feebleness and instability of purpose. He is an earnest christian, be confesses tbis fault, deplores it, strives against it, and sinks under it ! Take bim in the prime of bis vigour, mental and bodily, and set bim beside one born with a strong will, perhaps without faith at all, and — what has his religion done for him ? And yet it is his life, his hope, his rule. — But I ought not to talk to you in this way." ^' But ought you to think in this way ? " ex- claimed Ida, eagerly. " Is it true ? Dear Godfrey, you know it is not true ; have not the weakest and most timid been martyrs, the most violent become meek as infants, the proudest humble, and the meanest abundant in charity? Oh, Godfrey, for- give me ! I am quite unfit to teach you, but surely when we remember our invisible communion, we can never lose our faith in man." ^^ Such things were,^^ returned he, gloomily. " And are and will be, — must be," she rephed ; but even as she spoke, the glow of enthusiasm died away upon her face, and left it in the shadow of a strange new trouble. She looked sorrowful and bewildered, and full of pity. Godfi-ey once more took her hand into his own. " It is I w^ho should u 2 292 STORY OF A FAMILY. ask you for forgiveness/' said lie j "1 have done, as I always do, wrong-. Do not, however, think worse of me than I deserve — I — This is a strange unsuit- able conversation, and I don't know how we came to it ; I wish you would forg"ct it as fast as you can. Look, there is Frederick; shall we join him?" '' I think," said Ida, '' when such ideas as you have been describing come upon you, it ought to be enough to disperse them only to look at Frederick." He smiled. " But Frederick was born without faults," said he. Ida made no answer, and after a little while Godfrey addressed her again, half playfully, yet with a manner sufficiently betokening that he re- proached himself bitterly. " Sister Ida," said he, " I expect you will be more afraid of me than ever now." She looked up into his face with her lovely cloudless eyes that seemed the visible life of a pure spirit. " No," she replied, " not afraid, only sorry. One thing would always keep me from being afraid of you, and that is, the tenderness of your love for Frederick." THE PIC- NIC. 293 He drew his hand fi*om hers with an expression of acute pain, almost of horror, and with a sudden heavy sigh quickened his pace, and in another minute they were at Frederick's side. The rest of the day offers httle worthy of re- cord ; they walked to the waterfall, and uncle John, in his eagerness to bring* each lady of the party in succession to the best point of view, went slipping about over the wet stones with a spasmodic and misdirected agility, had three serious falls, and splashed his sister Mehssa from head to foot. Mr. Woodley made one of the water-party on their return, and never ceased making the others change places in order to ^' trim " the boat, which, if its movements were at all effectual, must have rivalled any court dress in the world by the time it was finished. Alexander steered, and Godfrey drove Agnes; but Alexander was not much delighted with his change of position, for he had never yet found Ida so absent. 294 STORY OF A FAMILY. CHAPTER XIII. A MYSTERY. One morning uncle Alexander made his appearance in a singularly bad humour. It is supposed that he had committed some imprudence with regard to a venison-pie which had decorated the table on the day preceding ; but whether this were the cause or not, the consequence undoubtedly was, that he rose in a state of profound depression, which gradually kindled into active sourness as the day advanced. Now, it is observable that whenever uncle Alexander was more than usually cross, he directl}^ began to talk about the state of the country ; and woe to the hapless individual who incautiously ventured to express any opinion whatsoever on the subject — there was no hope and no escape. If you were silent, he asked you a direct question ; if you differed from him, he became frantic ; and if you agreed with him, he immediately contradicted himself, and then raged over the difference of A MYSTERY. opinion tlius produced. Doubtless, it did him a great deal of g'ood, though not in the pleasantest manner possible for his friends. The most charit- able proceeding" that could be adopted towards him in such cases was to give him a topic to quarrel with, just as you throw a bone to a hung-ry dog ; when the animal has munched it, and mumbled it, and growled over it for a little while, he is ready to wag his tail and lick your hand quite benevolently. But it was almost impossible for this soothing policy to be pursued when Godfrey was by, and disposed, as on the present occasion, to mix in the conversation. Godfrey was not only sincere, but perverse ; if he disliked the general tone of a man's mind he seldom contemplated any individual opinion with the charity which is indispensable to justice J and if he were inclined to demohsh an absurdity, expose a blunder, or contradict a parti- cular view, no reverence for person, time, or place, was likely to deter him from so doing. He just threw the firebrand, and quietly awaited the con- flagration. ^^ Since the principle is now universally recog- nised," said uncle Alexander, '^ that the people are the source of all power, it is a naarvellous instance 296 STORY OF A FAMILY. in the long series of human inconsistencies, that any institution whatsoever should be retained which does not embody the convictions of the people — nay, we even retain such as run counter to those convictions and do them violence. England is fast retrog'rading". I may not live to see her final decay, but I fear that nothing- can avert it." " I should like to know, merely as a matter of curiosity," observed Godfrey, "whether the Nor- mans, who came over with William the Conqueror, did not predict the rapid decay of England? It seems to be an universal instinct ; I dare say Adam prophesied that the world would come to an end in the next generation to himself." " That kind of flippancy," said his uncle, in much wrath, " might be all very well as a repartee, if you were making small talk for a lad}^, but it is as far as possible from being an answer to my argument." " As to argument," replied Godfrey, " I am not quite sure that I saw it. If power signifies might, as distinguished from right, there can be no doubt that it resides in the people ; but so far from recognising this as a principle which needs to be developed, I should call it an unhappy necessity, A MYSTERY. 297 the effects of which one would seek to neutralize by every possible means." " It is ludicrous — perfectly ludicrous ! " cried Mr. Lee, " that a young* man like yourself, who can have no experience, should presume to go against the collective wisdom of ages " "Pardon me, I was going with it," interposed Godfrey. " Upholding despotism " " No — Government." " Government by a majority ; that is the only admissible form." " Well," said Godfrey, " it always strikes me as a strange mode of getting at truth to take the judgment of the majority ; considering what the average intellect of the educated human being is, in the present day, I should think it a far better chance to select that opinion, whatever it might be, which had the fewest supporters." " Preposterous ! " exclaimed Mr. Lee. " My dear Godfrey," said good uncle John, in a perfectly audible whisper, and with a wink so violent and prolonged that it could not fail to attract attention, " don't provoke him, there's a good fellow. He never can stand contradiction." 298 STORY OF A FAMILY. " I really wish, John/' retorted his brother, *^ that you would have the goodness to abstain from interference. I assure you, you only make your- self ridiculous." Uncle John became exceedingly red, and would probably have made some desperately testy answer, had not Frederick, to whom a scene of this kind was especially painful, interposed, anxious to lead the conversation gently away from the subject of dispute. " And you really think, Godfrey," said he, " that the number of men capable of forming a correct judgment is comparatively small? " " Well," said Godfrey, " I think experience leads one to that notion : just think over all your acquaintance; how many are there to whom you would go for counsel in a difficulty, or whose opinion you could take upon trust without scru- pulously examining the matter yourself? I don't know whether a sound judgment is the highest of all intellectual gifts, but I am sure it is the rarest." " You are, perhaps, an example of the truth of your own observation," remarked uncle Alexander, with that serviceable smile which enables a man to A MYSTERY. 299 say the bitterest thing's possible under cover of a jest. Godfrey flushed crimson, and the b'ght in his eye was so sudden and so fierce, that his mother invo- luntarily and timidly laid her hand on his arm as if to restrain him. He took no notice of the action, but remained perfectly silent. Ida, who had been pondering- on his last words so deeply that she had not noticed the inuendo which followed them, now spoke. " I always fancied," said she, " that judgment was a very prosaic matter-of-fact sort of a thing, and had nothing- to do with intellect." Godfrey smiled. " Judgment of prudence or expediency," answered he. " Very true. But you do not know how much I comprehend in those words, ^ a sound judgment.' What is it but clearly and fiilly to see the truth ? and the eyes which can see truth must surely be very calm and pure. There must be that delicate apparatus of instincts which we call tact ; there must be charity, unselfishness, and that repose and elevation of mind which are begotten by communion with high and holy themes. For truth, in whatever garb or class it is found, is, and must be always, divine ; and depend upon it 300 STORY OF A FAMILY. that the eyes which have been exercised only upon the clods of the earth will be bewildered and blinded when they are uplifted to the contemplation of the stars." " Is that blank verse ? " asked uncle Alexander grimly. " It can't be," said uncle John, ^' because I un- derstood it." " Well, but really, my dear Godfrey," said Melissa, ^^ this is quite a new tone. I thought you professed utter contempt for common sense, and considered genius the only guide j that is to say, the only thing of any consequence. You change so perpetually in your ideas, that I assure you it is quite impossible for me to understand you." Godfrey looked as if he had no doubt of the fact, whatever he might think of the cause; and Alexander said aside to Ida, — " How strange, is it not ? to talk of either genius or common sense as the guide of life ! They are both of the liead^ and it is the voice of the lieart to which we ought to listen." ^' Very true, Alex. ! " cried uncle John, clapping bis nephew encouragingly on the back ; " the heart for ever, my boy! Talk of Godfrey's changing! A MYSTERY. 301 when was there ever such a change known^ as to hear that sentiment from you ? Whj, if you go on in this way, I do believe we shall see you like your cousins after all ! " The compliment was so very equivocal^ that it could scarcely he expected to gratify Alexander, who indeed looked at his uncle as if he might have been induced to inflict bodily injury upon him for a very small bribe. The unconscious oflender, how- ever, proceeded in a tone of increased cheerfulness. (Sometimes one could not help wondering where his cheerfulness would end, it was so perpetually taking fresh starts, and accelerating its pace each time.) " How this reminds me," said he, nodding to Ida, " of a conversation in which your dear father took part, some fourteen years ago. He was saying how much better imagination was than reason ; and he compared them to two angels, one of which was always helping you forward, and the other pushing you back. No — let me see — I am not quite sure about that, because I don't suppose it would be exactly in keeping for an angel to push you back. Perhaps it was a devil. However I know he made it into a very beautiful allegory, and good old Mr. 302 STORY OF A FAMILY. Becket said lie would have been much wiser if he hadn't said anything about it. But you see, my quarrel with judgment, which I suppose is just the same thing- as reason, is, that it always makes you see everything that is wrong." '^ Never mind the definition," exclaimed Godfrey, " but tell us what you mean. How does it make you see everything that is wrong ? " " Well, but doesn't it now ? " was uncle John's expressive rejoinder. " Don't ask we," said Godfrey ; " I know nothing about it. The reason why I am such an admirer of judgment is just because I have got so little of it myself." " Well, but doesn't it always show you all kinds of faults and evils ? " asked uncle John • ^^ for example, a poor pale woman with a sickly baby begs of me, and I want to give her half-a-crown. Well, what does judgment say .? ' Take care what you 're about,' says judgment, ^ that baby isn't her own, and might get work if it liked, and support its whole family in respectability and comfort, on the railroad, or in the mines, or anywhere else.' That is to say, the woman or her husband might. And then I don't give the half-crown." A MYSTERY. 303 " Don't you ?" said Ida. ^^ Oh ! I am very sure you do. Because, dear uncle John, you must know, I think, that isn't at all what a sound judg- ment would say. I think it would say, ' Give hy all means; better he deceived a hundred times, than let one real case of misery remain unrelieved.' " " That 's not the sort of thing" that is generally called judgment, my darling,'* said uncle John. "Oh! I don't care at all what it is generally called," rejoined Ida ; " no more does Godfrey, I am sure, because you know he says the majority are always in the wrong." " And then about people," pursued uncle John, " judgment always tells you their faults. Now, I don't want to know my friends' faults, nor to talk about them, nor to hear them talked about." " But nobody ever does talk about a friends faults," said Ida. " Don't they though ?" rephed uncle John; "un- commonly few friends most men must have then ! " " Besides," said Godfrey, " you are generally forced against your will both to hear them discussed and to discuss them. It is strange how, whenever a man forms a real friendship, those who are about him seem to make it a point of conscience to let no 304 STORY OF A FAMILY. defect in the friend escape notice. All that is said may be very true, but the strange thing is, that it should be said. It would seem more natural to think within yourself, ^ Here 1 will be silent, for true as this is, it may give pain to speak of it!' But on the contrary, there is a perpetual blockade laid to the unlucky friendship, and every foible or failing that it can be induced to admit, is considered a sort of triumph. I always feel extra perverse on such occasions ; and I would maintain that a fool was a first-rate genius, if I loved him, and people were always mentioning his folly to me." ^^ The strangest thing of all is," said MeHssa, suddenly assuming the seven-leagued sentimental boots in which she was sometimes wont to outstrip all her fellow-creatures, "■ that one should ever be able to see a fault in those one loves. ' I know not, I ask not, if guilt 's in that heai-t ; I but know that I love thee whatever thou art ! ' " " There 's the dressing bell," cried Godfrey, in a tone of intense relief, and the conversation broke up. Ida had remained behind to put away her port- folio and pencils, and she was still thus occupied when Godfrey returned into the room. '^ Ida," A MYSTERY. 305 said be; " what do you think of that couplet which dear aunt Mehssa quoted just now ? do you agree with it?" " Oh, no ! " said Ida, " who could agree with it ? What kind of love could it be which was able to say, ^ / hww not if guilt '5 m that heart ? ' It is true, of course, that we should not ash, but that would be because we should know that it was 7iot there." Godfrey looked at her with a strange sort of hesitating expression. ^' I once heard," said he, half-laughing-, " a very curious discussion. The question proposed was this — Suppose you were to discover that the person you loved best in the world was guilty of a very great crime — say, murder (everything, you know, is possible), what effect would it produce on your love ? It was an odd idea, was it not? and there were a great many different opinions. One said, the love would be turned into hatred; another said, it would yield gradually to reason ; and I think there was one lady who said that the love would be as strong as ever ; but that it would become a source of misery instead of happiness. What should you have said, Ida?" VOL. I. X 306 STORY OF A FAMILY. " But I never could believe it/' exclaimed Ida, lifting" her larg*e deep eyes to his face. " Yes, but suppose you were forced to believe it." Ida became pale at the thought, and put her hands before her eyes. " Do you think it would be possible to live ? " asked she. " Well/' said he, " but what I want to know is this — Would such a discovery utterly and at once annihilate affection ? " " I don't suppose affection could ever quite be annihilated — could it ? " replied Ida. " It does not seem possible to leave off loving one whom you have really loved." " It does not seem possible ! " repeated Godfrey ; *^ then you would wish it to be possible? you would think it right, and necessary, and proper to erase and smooth away the writing upon your heart, and make it a blank surface ? you would separate yourself, and try to forget, and doubtless you would succeed, and doubtless you would be quite right. One sin lost Paradise in the beginning — so it may well lose the only copy of Paradise that we have left to us." " I cannot think," said Ida, " why you should A MYSTERY, 307 imagine such painful thing's. However, of this I am quite sure, that in such a case I should not think as you do; so far from trying* to destroy love, I think I should be doubly anxious to preserve it — it could never be so needful. For, of course, it must be a noble nature which had done this great wrong, otherwise it could never have won love at all ; — and then, just imagine the remorse ! how much comfort, and help, and tenderness such an one would require ; — oh, no ! I think I should cling closer than ever ! But I believe it would kill me," added she, shuddering ; " and I cannot conceive the possibility of it." " What a child you are, Ida ! " cried Godfrey, laughing, and with an abruptness of manner which might have offended a person with more self-love — " you reahze everything so vividly. I am sure you ought never to see a play acted, it would agitate you quite to distraction; you have been making almost a tragedy to yourself out of these baseless speculations of mine." Ida looked up in his face with a kind of half- timid smile, as if she saw that he was a little cross, and felt quite sure that she must have been very fooHsh. " I am a child, I believe," said she. " It 308 STORY OF A FAMILY. is a sad thing to be as childish as I am at eighteen ; I wonder what I shall be when I am quite an old woman." Godfrey took both her hands in his. " Let us try to fancy it ! " exclaimed he ; ^' my imagina- tion is so vivid that I think I see the wrinkles gathering, and the gold turning to silver (touching one of her long curls with the tip of his finger as he spoke). What a wise, sharp face it will be in a mob cap (whatever that may be) ; and the eyes will have learnt communion with bitterer tears than those which come from ideal sorrows; they will have lost that upward look and that shining light of hope ; they will be used to looking back, and dimmed as if by straining- to see all that has passed away from them. And the lips will have grown charier of their smiles, and familiar with sage and sober words ; and the heart, I verily be- lieve it, will be a child's heart still ! " Ida was prevented from answering this speech, which was delivered with a strange kind of serious playfulness, by the entrance of Melissa, dressed for the evening and apparently much shocked by not finding her niece in a similar predicament. She followed her to her room and administered A MYSTERY. 309 a most bewildering' lecture upon etiquette, poor Ida remaining" from first to last in profound igno- rance of her meaning. Sundry awful hints that it was "not the thing," that "girls couldn't be too careful," that "people were always ready to talk," &G.