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THE DAY OF SMALL THINGS.

THE DAY OF SMALL THINGS.

BY THE AUTHOR OF “MARY POWELL.”

LONDON: ARTHUR HALL, VIRTUE & CO., 25, PATERNOSTER ROW. 1860.

LONDON: PRINTED BY JAMES S. VIRTUE, CITY ROAD.

DEDICATED TO MY TWO DEAR NIECES, FLORENCE AND ELLEN.

THE DAY OF SMALL THINGS.

“I think I have been laid up nearly two years on this sofa, Phillis?” said I.

“Two years, come the 6th of October,” said Phillis.

“And, during that time, what mercies I have received! what alleviations, what blessings!”

“What sea-kale and early spare-o’-grass! what baskets of grapes and pottles of strawberries!” said Phillis.

“What songs in the night, what in-pourings of strength!” said I.

“So many pheasants, too, and partridges!” said Phillis. “Teal, woodcocks, and wild ducks!”

“David might well say, the Lord maketh our bed in our sickness, Phillis,” said I.

“Such a pretty bed as it is, too!” said Phillis. “So white, sweet, and clean! Russia sheets and Marseilles quilt, bleached on a heath common, close by a sweetbriar hedge!”

“Not only that—” said I.

“Not only that,” said Phillis, “but such pretty daisy-fringe to the curtains, and a clean tarletan blind to the window.”

“Such a lovely view from the window!” said I.

“You see everything that goes by,” said Phillis.

“Yes, Phillis. And then the hill! I scarcely ever look at it without saying to myself, ‘I will look unto the hill from whence cometh my help.’”

“The doctor lives the other way, though,” said Phillis.

“I am never weary of watching the continually varying effects of light and shade on it. And yet, how loath I was to settle in this place! But, directly I saw that hill, with its steep, chalky sides, its patches of short turf, its fringe of beeches at the top, and its kilns and lime-burners’ cottages at the base, with the steep bridle-roads and sheep-tracks winding up it, I felt, ‘That hill is my fate: there must be a fresh air blowing over it, a fine view from it; and, with God’s blessing, it may make me wiser, healthier, and happier than I am now.’”

“It hasn’t made you healthier, though,” said Phillis.

“O yes, Phillis, it did. For a long while after I came here, I used to walk to it, and at length up it, every day. At first, I was surprised to find how steep and long the road was, even to its foot.”

“Oh, it’s a goodish step,” said Phillis.

“But I thought nothing of it afterwards,” said I. “At first I used to call it (to myself), the Hill Difficulty. After that, the Hill of Conquered Wishes.”

“Because you couldn’t get to the top,” suggested Phillis.

“Not only that. There were a good many things I wished altered—things that I could not alter for myself, and that I did not feel quite sure it would be right to pray to God to alter.”

“Such as puddles and miry bits of road,” said Phillis.

“No, not things of that sort. And so I used to think them over, as I walked up that hill, and struggle with myself to take them kindly, humbly, and submissively, as they were, such seeming to be God’s will; and at length I succeeded.”

“That was a good job,” said Phillis.

“At the top of the hill, there was a steep patch of turf, on which, as it seemed to me, grew every wild-flower that I knew. I used to call it (to myself), the Garden of the Lord.”

“Wasn’t that rather wicked?” said Phillis.

“Why, whose else was it, Phillis? Man had nothing to do with it.”

“A woman had, you mean,” said Phillis.

“No, I don’t.”

“Why, wasn’t you a woman?—leastways, a lady?”

“But I had not had the planting of it.”

“Oh, I didn’t know it was planted,” said Phillis. “You said the things growed wild.”

“Well, so they did—the Lord planted them. I used to stand there, looking at them, and smelling them, and inhaling the sweet, fresh air, till He seemed nearer to me there than anywhere else.”

“La!” said Phillis.

“Then, if I felt very strong, I used to go on yet further, and climb quite up to the trees at the top. I used to call that (to myself), the Wood of the Holy Spirit.”

“I wonder you wasn’t afraid,” said Phillis.

“No, ‘the voice of the Lord’ seemed walking in the garden, and took away all fear. Of what should I be afraid?”

“Tramps,” said Phillis.

“I never met any.”

“That was a wonder, then,” said Phillis, “for they mostly come right away over that hill, to and from the Fox’s Hole.”

“Stay a minute, Phillis, and I will explain to you why I never was afraid.”

“Dear me! and I’ve been awaiting and awaiting all this time,” cried Phillis, “to baste the chicken! I only stepped away from it for a moment, to give you your medicine!”

“Go, baste the chicken, then, Phillis. I beg your pardon for detaining you. I forgot how many things you have to do, and to think of. Go, Phillis, and baste the chicken.”

This is just the way she goes on from day to day. It is certainly very discouraging. An invalid finds it particularly hard to be without a sympathizer; or, at any rate, a companion that can understand one. As to calling me “ma’am,” she does not—and will not—once a week. But a Norway deal won’t take the polish of mahogany; and a rough, stout, country servant, will not convert into a Mrs. Flounce or a Mrs. Mincing. It is surprising what work she can get through—what weights she can lift. I am sure she could lift me.

The way I came to have Phillis was this. My nice maid, Hannah, married; and Jane, her successor, did not suit me at all. My energetic neighbour, Miss Burt, who is almost too bustling and busy for her friends, came in one day when I was very ill, and told me she had found me a “sterling creature,” who would suit me exactly. I had never empowered her to look out. And when I heard that this sterling creature had only lived in a farm, and afterwards with an old single gentleman, I did not feel very desirous to enter into treaty with her. Miss Burt, however, told me she had told her “there could be no harm in calling,” in which I did not quite coincide; and she enlarged so much on her fidelity, sobriety, honesty, cleanliness, and general proficiency, that I was somewhat overpowered, and agreed to see the young person when she called, if I were well enough. “Young! oh, she won’t see thirty again!” cried Miss Burt, as she swung out of the room; and indeed I believe several more years had been numbered by this “daughter of the plough.” But Phillis is exceeding sensitive on the subject. “My age is my own,” says she, shortly; “my age, and my name.” The latter, however, she told me one day, in an uncommon fit of good humour, had been given her by her father because it was in a favourite old song of his. “And when parson,” pursued Phillis, “objected that it wasn’t a Christian name, father said he should like to know whose business it was to choose the name, his or the parson’s. So there,” added Phillis, triumphantly, “I fancy father had the best on’t!”

I thought of Crabbe:

Rather against the grain, I engaged Phillis. I was too ill to lose time, and too ill to superintend her first start, consequently she fell into her own way of doing things, and will not now adopt any improvement on them without more exertion of authority on my part than I often feel inclined for. I put up with her—and, perhaps, she puts up with me.

After living many of my earlier years neither in town nor country, but in one of the western suburbs of London, I cannot express the pleasure with which I hailed the novelty of a real country life. To exchange a house in a row for a detached dwelling, in the midst of hills, copses, and cow-pastures, was so delightful as to afford some compensation for removing far away from many whom I dearly loved. Seven years my good husband and I shared in tranquil married happiness; and, as he had previously been a busy man in the city, the country was as new to him as to me.

It is a good thing for leisurely people, of whatever age, to acquire the habit of noting down what they observe of interest, in a new position. To such a habit, we owe the rich storehouse of John Evelyn’s “Journal,” and White’s “Natural History of Selborne;” two books which, perhaps, no country but England could have produced. On going to Nutfield, I resolved to observe everything, try many an experiment, keep a note-book, and ask many questions.

We obtained possession of our house at Christmas; but did not go down to it till the middle of February. In that month (as I failed not to enter in my journal) the white wagtail re-appears, the woodlark, thrush, and chaffinch begin to sing, rooks and partridges to pair, and geese to lay. Mr. Cheerlove told me that the clamorous rook, the cheerful cuckoo, the swift-darting marten, and the lively, sociable little red-breast, had been called the birds of the four seasons. We arrived at Nutfield in the rooks’ honeymoon.

The first thing that struck us was the air. How cold, but how fresh it was! How clear and free from smoke the atmosphere! A thin blue mist rose from the ground, but it was but the ghost of a London fog. Then again, as Mr. Cheerlove remarked, the dirt, plentiful as it was, merely consisted of earth and water mixed together, without any abominable additions, and, compared with London mire, might even be called clean dirt. The leafless condition of the trees gave us the opportunity of admiring the forms of their branches—the gradual and beautiful decrease of size and increase of delicacy between the sturdy trunks and the smallest twigs. The landscape was not destitute of green: the grass, though scanty and coarse, still retained its colour, and much of the growing wood was coated with fine moss; while the glossy laurel and cheerful holly contrasted with the sober laurustinus. Here and there, in the garden, we found a snowdrop, a hepatica, a yellow aconite, a Christmas rose, and a few sweet-scented blossoms of the alpine coltsfoot.

When we began to explore the neighbourhood, we found scarcely any wild-flowers, save now and then a daisy or sprig of gorse, or that common-looking nettle that bears the splendid name of white archangel. But we could say “a good time is coming!” and cheerfully await it. Meanwhile the horse-chestnut, hazel, and honeysuckle were budding, and the chickweed was putting forth its small white flowers; while the robin, sparrow, wren, and thrush sang blithely among the bushes, and the lark poured forth a short but lively song over our heads.

Mr. Cheerlove had accumulated a great many books, which, on wet days, it was his delight to arrange. We had two country maids and a boy, who found enough to do, but were not overworked. The first year we made scarcely any acquaintances; but my sister Eugenia, many years younger than myself (now, alas! no more), was frequently with us; and, after our loved mother’s death, lived with us entirely. Before she did so, Mr. Cheerlove and I used frequently to take little journeys in our one-horse carriage, jogging on from one place to another, putting-up, when it suited us, at some neat inn, and there spending a day, half-day, or two or three days, according to the attractions of the neighbourhood. In this way we strayed through many counties, and made acquaintance with many rivers, towns, villages, churches, cathedrals, old castles, and abbeys.

At the end of seven years, my good husband died. He was several years my senior, but I loved him—oh so dearly! and respected him so deeply! He was not what is called a shining man, but with the kindest heart, an equable temper, well-stored mind, a deliberate manner that gave great impression to what he said or read, without being in the least tedious, and a habit of employing himself beyond all praise.

He was gone; and the sunshine of my life was gone too! It seemed to me as though I had never valued him enough while he was alive—might have expressed more demonstrative affection. We never had an unkind word.

Dear man! how I love to think of him! The memory of his dear, placid face, his harmonious voice, his gentle touch, and tread, and tone, makes my heart swell!

Eugenia and I were then left together. She had nothing; I was not rich; and we quitted Nutfield, and went into a country town. We had once been members of a large, cheerful family, but death had mown them all down, and reserved his keenest, most relentless edge for the last. After a few uneventful years, Eugenia became fatally ill. She died; and I was left alone! And then I came here.

People were very kind to me. Miss Burt was my first acquaintance, and I must say she did me good service; never resting till she had fixed me under this roof. Indeed, she is seldom happier than when doing something for somebody; her only faults, that I know of, being a love of vexatious, petty domination, and a great impatience of check. Having nailed me here, as she called it, she next took me round to a few poor people under the hill, whom she put, as it were, under my charge; saying her own hands were full enough, and too full already, and the superintendence would rouse me, and do me good. I shall never forget her tone and attitude when, on entering one of these cottages, and espying a small grease-spot on the floor, she stood transfixed, and tragically exclaimed—

“What’s that I see?”

The poor woman looked cowed; and I am sure I felt so.

When we came out, Miss Burt said to me, complacently and with a little authority, “That’s the way you must do things.” She had looked into every corner, turned up the basins and tea-cups, detected a black-beetle, which scudded away with a very reasonable instinct of self-preservation, and removed the match-box, which she said was too near the fire.

It might be her way, but I could never make it mine. I could not defy the Lares and Lemures of a rustic hearth in that fashion; and never could make myself more at home in a poor person’s dwelling than its owner. But perhaps Miss Burt did most good.

Time had its healing effect. I had practically learnt that here we have no “continuing city,” and the impression of the lesson was perhaps weakening, when I was laid low by a prostrating and painful illness, that at first threatened my life, and then left me in a state of weakness and incapacity that has confined me two years to this sofa.

Thus, the story of my life is comprised in few words. And yet I retain the habit of jotting down its nothings. As a favourite writer of mine in Fraser’s Magazine has said, “There is a richness about the life of a person who keeps a diary, unknown to others. A million more little links and ties must bind him to the members of his family circle, and to all among whom he lives. Life, to him, is surrounded, intertwined, entangled with thousands of slight incidents, which give it beauty, kindliness, reality.”

I wish Harry Prout would leave off writing poetry. He might do something good in prose, but he has a taste, which he mistakes for a talent, for verse. There are many books of the day which he might translate well, if he would but seize the passing moments as they fly.

Harry looked in this evening, and gladly remained to drink tea with me. There was a small iced plum-cake on the tea-table, a present from Mrs. Secker; and I was pleased to see the lad pay his respects to it pretty handsomely. We got quite cozy and confidential over our little meal. He looked about him with satisfaction, and said, “Everything is so trig and tidy here! I wish we were in your easy circumstances, Mrs. Cheerlove.”

I laughed, and said, “My circumstances are very narrow, however easy I may make them—or take them.”

“They may be comparatively easy, though, if not absolutely, I think, ma’am.”

“Yes, there are comparative and absolute values.”

“Compared, for instance, with those of a straitened family like ours.”

“Ah, Harry, there are so many of you! Your father has a larger income than mine, but there is not so much to spend per head. But soon, my dear boy, some of you will be able to increase it; and, meanwhile, comfort yourself with the reflection that the real or imagined necessary expenses of those who have large means, are greater than those of persons who have only small ones.”

“I can’t make the reflection, ma’am, because I don’t believe it.”

“It is so, though, I assure you. Take the case of a number of persons (I quote Archbishop Whately) of each amount of income, from a hundred a year to a hundred thousand, and you will find the preponderance of those who are in pecuniary difficulties constantly augmenting as you proceed upwards.”

“If the fact be so, ma’am, of course I cannot controvert it; but I cannot see how it should be so.”

“And when you come to sovereign states, whose revenues are reckoned by millions, you will scarcely find one of them that is not involved in debt.”

“Ah, they have so many public expenses.”

“And private people have so many private expenses. The temptation to spend increases faster than the wealth.”

“Well, it seems to me, that if I had but competence, I could keep within my income.”

“At first you would; but your ideas of competence would alter. At least, it is the common tendency of people to go beyond their means. I feel it in myself.”

“You?” incredulously.

“Yes, indeed, Harry. Perhaps I think how shabby and faded the crimson window-curtain begins to look, and I find I can afford to buy a new one. Then I consider that the new window-curtain will make the old carpet look very bad, and I find I cannot have that without pinching. Besides, the new carpet would entail the expense of a new rug; and then the fluted silk of the cabinet piano must be renewed; and, after all, how little it would add to the expense to have new chintz for the sofa and chairs! Thus, expenses mount up—expenses I cannot afford.”

“I see.”

“So it ends in my not incurring any of them.”

“Your curtain looks very nice, though, Mrs. Cheerlove.”

“Ah, I had it dipped and embossed.”

“Your chintz, too.”

“That was washed and callendered.”

“Well, I thought only such persons as mamma did those things.”

“There is no need they should be obtruded, Harry.”

“No, that’s what I’m always so afraid of.”

“Nor, if they happen to become known, is there any need to be ashamed.”

“Ah, I can’t help that.”

“Not always, I dare say, being young and thin-skinned; but the less you annoy yourself that way, the better. So you think I am better off than you?”

“O yes, with this nice quiet room. You may smile, Mrs. Cheerlove, but really it’s no joke, when a fellow wants to do a bit of writing, to have a parcel of children swarming about him, making all sorts of noises. It has such an effect sometimes on me, I know, that I am ready to declare the supreme good to be, a quiet room and leisure to use it.”

“To write poetry in it—hey, Harry?”

“Well—perhaps—yes.”

“Meanwhile, the high stool in the office—”

“May better be filled by some one else, ma’am.”

“While you—

Do you admire Coleridge?”

“Oh immensely! Did he make that line?”

“Ah, Harry, you betray your ignorance of your favourite craft! No; the line is Waller’s.”

Harry blushed, and said, “You laid a trap for me.”

“Not intentionally, I assure you. But my transition was rather abrupt. I was going to direct your attention to a favourite passage of mine in Coleridge’s works.”

“Pray do,” said Harry, rising alertly and going to the book-case.

“Bring me the second of those two small volumes, lettered ‘Biographia Literaria.’”

“Oh, it’s in prose!” said Harry, in disappointment.

“Prose by a poet, however—which, by-the-way, was the name of a pretty, though not very shining, little work by James Montgomery, that has now dropped out of sight. Here is the passage: it begins—‘Never pursue literature as a trade. With one exception’ (I think he means Southey) ‘I have never known an individual healthy or happy without some regular employment which does not depend on the will of the moment—’”

“Bah!” muttered Harry.

“‘But can be carried on so far mechanically that an average quantum of health, spirit, and intellectual exertion are requisite for its faithful discharge.’”

“I’m surprised Coleridge should say that.”

“Well, Harry, he was one of the many people who preach better than they practise. Hear me to the end—‘Three hours of leisure, unalloyed by any alien anxiety, and looked forward to with delight as a change and recreation, will suffice to realize in literature a larger product of what is truly genial than weeks of compulsion.’”

“Ay, I never write but when the fit is on me,” murmured Harry.

“‘Money and immediate reputation form only an arbitrary and accidental end of literary labour. The hope of them may often prove a stimulant to industry, but the necessity of acquiring them will, in all works of genius, convert a stimulant into a narcotic.’

“It did in Sir Walter Scott’s case,” I observed.

“‘Motives, by excess, reverse their very nature; and, instead of exciting, stun and stupify the mind. For it is one contradistinction of genius from talent, that its predominant end is always comprised in the means; and this is one of the many points of likeness between genius and virtue.’”

“Then I’ve a genius,” cried Harry, laughing, “for I always write verses for the pleasure of writing, and not for money!”

“Stop, my dear boy, hear him out—‘My dear young friend, I would say to every one who feels the genial power working within him, suppose yourself established in any honourable occupation. From the counting-house, the law-courts, or from visiting your last patient, you return at evening to your family, prepared for its social enjoyments; with the very countenances of your wife and children brightened by the knowledge that, as far as they are concerned, you have satisfied the demands of the day. Then, when you retire into your study—’”

“I wish I had one!” sighed Harry.

“‘You revisit in your books so many venerable friends with whom you can converse. But why should I say retire? The habits of active life will tend to give you such self-command that the presence of your family will be no interruption. Nay, the social silence, or undisturbing voices of a wife or sister, will be like a restorative atmosphere, or soft music, which moulds a dream without becoming its object.’”

“What beautiful English he writes,” said Harry.

I was interrupted where I last left off by the entrance of the three young Pevenseys, with their governess, Mademoiselle Foularde, whom I had supposed still at the sea-side. But it appears that an epidemic had broken out at Hardsand, which occasioned their immediate return to the Stone House. I was very glad to see them all; they seemed to bring sunshine into my shady little room; and I had a toy railway-engine for the amusement of my little friends, which delighted the two young ones exceedingly. Arabella, or, as they frightfully abbreviate her name, Arbell, has grown quite tall and womanly, for a girl of fourteen. She has her mother’s good profile, but is dark, like her father, and the expression of her face is rather stern and repelling. Mademoiselle was charming; but I do not think she and her eldest pupil go on comfortably together. Whenever I addressed a remark to Arbell, Mademoiselle answered it, and went on speaking so as to detain my attention; this occurred three times, and I could observe Arbell look annoyed. As for Flora and Rosaline, they had a regular boxing-match, when they thought I was not looking. I caught Rosaline’s hand in mine, with the little fist doubled up, and said, “Why, Rosaline! you quite surprise me! I did not know you were a pugilist!”

She opened her large blue eyes, as if amazed at my interference, and then seemed disposed to laugh; but I said quite gravely—“No, no, we have no fighting here. If it is allowed at the Stone House, I don’t allow it in my parlour.”

“It is not allowed at the Stone House, but they do it for all that!” burst forth Arbell, and then shut herself up again in rigid silence. Mademoiselle Foularde darted an indignant look at her, and then drew Flora towards her, fondling her, and saying—

“Ah, fi donc, Rosaline! Bonne petite Fleurette! comme je l’aime! I never saw her fight before, did I?”

“How can you say so!” muttered Arbell, and then sighed, and began to play with her little dog Shock.

After this, the conversation rather flagged; but I showed the little ones some prints I was meaning to paste into a nursery picture-book; and when I had quite won their good-will, kissed them, and said, “You won’t fight again, will you?” Both said “No” very cordially; and Mademoiselle and I exchanged looks and smiled, and then I said, “I am sure you remember that pretty verse:

What were they made for, hey?”

Both gave me a quick look, but seemed at fault.

“Why, to work, and to write, and to draw, and to paint pictures, and hold knives and forks, and spoons, and slices of plum-cake, and to give pence and sixpences to poor people, and a thousand other good and pleasant things. Will you remember?”

Both smiled, and said “Yes;” and then I produced slices of the iced plum-cake Harry Prout had cut up, and told them to hand the plate first to Mademoiselle and Arbell, and then to help themselves. This produced general good humour and sociability, and, after the cake had been duly honoured, Mademoiselle rose to take leave, saying she feared they had stayed too long, but that it was so difficult to get away from me, I so charmingly blended instruction with entertainment, &c. &c. &c., which I might have liked better if I had not thought it rather exaggerated and insincere.

I said to Arbell at parting, “I have seen and heard too little of you. What a treat it would be if you would spend a morning with me, and help me to make this picture-book.”

Her face brightened directly, and she exclaimed, “Ah! I only wish I might!” But Mademoiselle interposed with something about Mrs. Pevensey’s wish that the school-room routine should suffer no interruption, with a little smile and shrug to me, as much as to say, “So, of course, we must obey;” and Arbell went away, looking as rigid and uncomfortable as at first, carrying Shock under her arm.

In the afternoon, to my surprise, Mrs. Pevensey’s elegant carriage stopped at my little garden-gate, and Mrs. Pevensey herself came in. She was charming with smiles and good-nature; and, in her delicate silver-grey silk, rich velvet, and blush roses, looked so youthful, that one could hardly suppose her the mother of seven children. She has a well-stored mind, ready wit, or rather, playfulness, good judgment, and everything that contributes to make a delightful companion. As a wife she is admirable, living on the most affectionate terms with a husband who is considered by most people rather hard to please; she has formed extensive plans for ameliorating the condition of the poor, which she is carrying out with great success; and, as a neighbour, she is most thoughtful and kind—as I have good reason to know.

She brought her own entertainment with her; for her conversation was an almost uninterrupted flow of what she had done, whom she had seen, where she had been, interspersed with remarks full of good feeling and good sense. I must say that, to an invalid, this continuous flow is sometimes more fatiguing than if the communications were more reciprocal and broken up. The mind is kept on the full stretch; the eyes gaze on the speaker till they ache, and even the bodily posture becomes wearisome; yet I am sure the kind friend always goes away thinking, in the goodness of her heart, “Well, I have amused her nicely, and given her a good many things to think about,” which is true, too, though they have been purchased rather dearly.

It was only after Mrs. Pevensey had told me a multiplicity of things, and was going away, that I found the opportunity of telling her how glad I had been to see her children quite recovered from the effects of the measles.

“Yes,” said she, with a motherly smile, “they all look well—all, at least, except poor Arbell; and she—” (Here she gave a little shrug, like Mademoiselle, as much as to say, “Something is not quite straight in that quarter.”)

“I told Arbell I wished she might be permitted to spend an hour or two with me some morning,” said I. “If I have more than one companion at a time, I can hardly do them or myself justice.”

“I am sure I wish she would come,” said Mrs. Pevensey, smiling sweetly.

“With your permission, I think she will,” said I. “May I claim it?”

“Ah, I shall be too happy,” said she; “but you don’t know Arbell.”

“Suppose, then, we say to-morrow,” said I, pertinaciously.

“To-morrow the hair-cutter is coming. Any other day.”

“The day after to-morrow, then?”

“With all my heart, if—I don’t know what Mademoiselle will say.”

“Mademoiselle seemed to think the same of you.”

“Of me? Oh, I’ve no voice in the matter! Mademoiselle has unlimited sway in the school-room. Mademoiselle is a most excellent creature. I have unbounded confidence in her. She is quite superior to her position—came to me from the Comtesse de St. Velay—has written an admirable essay on education—her brother is professor of foreign literature at Tarbes.”

“Perhaps Mademoiselle uses your name as a kind of authority.”

“Very likely,” laughing sweetly; “Mamma’s name is probably made free use of, in the school-room and nursery. I remember when, ‘I’ll tell your Mamma!’ was a terror to myself. Oh, we all go through these things in our turn. Poor, dear Arbell! there is excellent promise in her; but at present she is under a cloud. She lives in a world of her own, is proud and stubborn, and Mademoiselle says her spirit must be broken. It may be so, but I don’t wish to stand by and witness the operation.”

“I am sorry to hear you say that,” cried I, anxiously, “for I think the operation so extremely hazardous, that it ought only to take place under the mother’s eye.”

“It would affect me more,” answered she, very seriously, “than a surgical case.”

“I can quite believe it,” replied I, with equal seriousness; “but possibly your sagacity and maternal affection united would enable you to discern that no such painful course was needed. If Arbell were a little more under your eye—”

“My dear friend,” interrupted she, “Arbell is constantly under my eye already. Do you imagine I shut myself up from my children? No, no! that would indeed be neglecting a mother’s first duty. Dry recapitulation of lessons, indeed, and endless practising, fall exclusively to the superintendence of the governess; but Arbell always learns her lessons and writes her exercises in the room with me, for hours every morning.”

“I am heartily glad to hear it,” said I, with a sense of relief.

“We lunch together—that is, they have their early dinner when we lunch,” pursued Mrs. Pevensey; “always except when we have friends. And though my afternoons are generally engaged in drives, and the children of course do not appear at the late dinner, they may always do so at dessert, and the younger ones always do. In the evenings, it is very much at Arbell’s option, or, at least, at Mademoiselle’s, whether they appear or not. Sometimes Arbell has lessons to prepare; sometimes she is engaged in her own devices; and really, I think they are more healthful and suitable for a young girl than large mixed parties, when silly people too often say silly things to children, so that frequently I am not sorry to miss her from the drawing-room. And now, good-by! I have paid an unconscionable visit; but there is no getting away from you. I am so glad you are—I think you are better?”

“Thank you, yes. Then I shall see Arbell the day after to-morrow?”

“Undoubtedly, if she will come. At what hour? They dine at two.”

“Shall I say eleven?”

“Yes, do; and I will send for her at half-past one, because it is nearly half-an-hour’s walk. Good-by, good-by! I must make peace as I can with Mademoiselle.”

And she left me with an engaging smile.

Arbell has been, and gone. She came in rather before eleven, carrying her little white lap-dog, who had a new scarlet ribbon round his neck. I saw directly that the cloud was gone,—she looked as fresh as a rose, and as cheerful as a lark.

“Good girl, for being so punctual,” said I.

“Punctual!” said she. “Why, I hope I’m more than that, or Shock and I have raced in vain! I would not let old John come with me more than half way, and then we took to our heels and ran—didn’t we, Shock?”

“I feel the compliment,” said I, very sincerely. “Perhaps, though, you would as soon have run in any other direction.”

“No, I shouldn’t,” said she, with a bright look, as she untied the blue strings of her large straw hat, and threw it on the ground. The next minute she picked it up, and put it, with her gloves and visite, on a side-table.

“Why did you do that?” said I, curiously.

“Because you are not Mademoiselle. She says I never can be tidy, but you see I can.”

“What people can be, they ought to be,” said I.

“What people can be at some times they can’t be at others,” said Arbell. “Is it not so, Mrs. Cheerlove?”

“Yes, my love, sometimes.”

“Thank you for calling me ‘my love.’”

“By-the-by, why do they abbreviate your name into Arbell?”

“Because an ugly name is good enough for an ugly girl,” said Arbell, quickly; and then, with a little self-reproach for so captious a speech, “No, the real reason is, because it is the abbreviation by which the celebrated Lady Arabella Stuart was called by her grandmother, the old Countess of Shrewsbury. Mamma read about her in Miss Strickland’s “Queens,” I believe, and so took a fancy to call me Arbell.”

“Though you do not like it.”

“I like whatever mamma likes, almost.”

“I am very glad to hear you say so, my love. Are you hungry?”

She looked at me artlessly, and said, “I should like a slice of bread-and-butter.”

“Or jam?” said I.

“No, bread-and-butter. I should only have dry bread in the school-room—and scarcely that, because Mademoiselle says we ought not to be hungry before an early dinner.”

“But you have had a walk,” said I, ringing the bell; “and persons who have left off growing sometimes forget how hungry they were when they were not full-grown.”

“You don’t.”

“Ah,” said I, “young people only come to me by way of a treat—to me and to themselves. If you were with me much, I’m afraid I should spoil you.”

“What is spoiling, Mrs. Cheerlove?”

“Can you ask?”

“I know what it is in the common acceptation of the word—it is what Mademoiselle does to Flora: she spoils her by letting her have her own way; but she spoils me by never letting me have mine!”

“It is easy to see, Arbell, that you are not very fond of Mademoiselle.”

“How can I be?”

“(Some bread-and-butter, Phillis.) My dear, I cannot reply to your question, except by asking others; and I do not feel it quite right to seek a confidence which you do not repose in your own mother.”

“I wish she would let me,” said Arbell, with filling eyes.

“Why, my dear, you spend your mornings together.”

“But how? Dear mamma is always preoccupied—by papa, by the housekeeper, by the gardener, by the nurses, by her own maid. She must always see poor little Arthur’s spine rubbed herself” (here Phillis brought in the bread-and-butter, and went out), “and baby is cutting her teeth; and she has to give orders about her Italian garden, and dinner, and relief for the poor, and the children’s new dresses and her own, and to send baskets and hampers of things to grandpapa. Then, when all this is over, if I venture to begin with ‘Mamma!’ she says, ‘My dear, I am writing a note.’”

A tear dropped on Shock’s white coat, and she turned her head away. “Nobody has so small a share of her as I,” said she; “and I love her so much!”

“My dear Arbell,” said I, after a pause, “I cannot help thinking what an inestimable advantage it may be to you in after-life, to have had this training, this by-play, this insight, as a bystander, into your mother’s life. You may yourself be placed at the head of an equally large establishment: many girls, so placed, after a life exclusively devoted to their own studies and amusements, are completely at sea. They have no practical knowledge, no taste even, for the daily duties which it is a woman’s greatest honour and pleasure to discharge well; they are complete babies. They meet every emergency with a helpless, ‘Well, I’m sure I can’t tell what is to be done!’ and everything is at a stand-still, or goes the wrong way.”

Arbell seemed struck. “That never occurred to me,” said she.

“In spite of the elegancies by which your mother is surrounded, hers is, in reality, what many would pronounce, and find to be, a very hard life. Her cheerfulness, presence of mind, sound judgment, and love of order, enable her to get through its cares gracefully and successfully; so that those who only see the face of the enamelled watch, and not all its interior works and springs, little guess that her head, and even her hands, have more to do, in their own peculiar department, than those of some of her dependents.”

“That may be true,” said Arbell, reflectively. Then, after a short silence, “What would you do in my place?”

“Ah, my love, I should probably not do better in your place than you do, if as well.”

“Oh, Mrs. Cheerlove!”

“The question is not what I, or any other person might do, but what should be done. A very able and excellent author—well known to your mother—John Foster, has said, ‘There is some one state of character, and plan of action, the very best possible, under all the circumstances of your age, measure of mental faculties, and means within your reach; the one plan that will please God the most, and that will be the most pleasing to look back upon at the hour of death.’ Now, should not you aspire to ascertain what is that best possible course, and then most zealously devote yourself to its execution? I believe you to be capable of it.”

Arbell looked full of high and generous resolve. “If mamma had said this to me,” exclaimed she, at length, “I should have been capable of it long ago.”

“Perhaps you have never spoken to her on the subject with the openness with which you have now spoken to me.”

“I have never had the opportunity. However, I will not dwell any more on that. What is the one best course now for me?”

“There need be no marked change in outward performances: only in their spirit. Your mother loves you dearly, but she is too busy to attend to all your little troubles. Do you be too busy for them too! Take an intelligent interest in whatever you are about, be it French, or German, or anything else; and if interrupted in it, and your attention distracted by what is being said to nurse, housekeeper, or gardener,—take an intelligent interest in that too! Think, ‘Ha, here is something worth remembering!’ treasure it, note it, commit it to memory, bear it in mind, lay it to heart; and then return with fresh eagerness to the matter in hand.”

“It sounds well,” said Arbell, thoughtfully; “I’ll try.”

“And if you cannot get others to sympathize with you, why, sympathize with them. It is easy to say, ‘I can’t; their tastes and feelings are so different.’ So are yours from theirs, and yet you expect them to sympathize with you. Don’t get into the way of feeling isolated. Robinson Crusoe really was so, and did not find it very comfortable, in spite of his pretty plantations and snug cave. If you plant yourself on a little island, and break down the bridge to it, you must not expect people to be at the trouble of fetching a boat. Besides, you perhaps seek sympathy at unseasonable times. Your father, in the midst of some profound calculation, would hardly like your mother to come in and claim his attention to some sentimental sorrow: she thought he had looked coldly at her on such and such an occasion; or could hardly have been aware, such another time, that she felt low and unwell.”

“No, indeed,” said Arbell, laughing.

“Nor must you expect Mrs. Pevensey to have leisure or relish for such ill-timed appeals from yourself. Be intent on forming a noble character; and you will be sure to find that character appreciated in after-life.”

“Ha!”

“You will try, will you not?”

“I will! if only Mademoiselle——”

“Ah, let us look on Mademoiselle as some one placed in close relation to you by our heavenly Father for wise purposes of His own, which He does not think it necessary to communicate to her or to you. And now eat your bread and butter.”

She did so, having first given me a hearty kiss.

I am always glad when fine, bright weather on a Sunday morning favours the church-goers, though I am debarred by bodily infirmities from joining the multitude on their way to the house of God, and swelling the voice of praise and thanksgiving among such as keep holy-day. And though my eyes have sometimes swelled with tears, and my heart yearned with vain longings, as I have seen the scattered parties trooping past my gate, yet more often, far more often, I have silently bidden them good speed, and mentally repeated that sweet and soothing sonnet of Mrs. Hemans—

And, since I have been no longer bound to the sick-bed, but only to the house, my thankfulness has deepened under a cheerful sense of alleviated pains and added blessings; so that I may sincerely say my home-kept Sabbaths have generally been very calm and sweet.

I have made out a little routine for myself, which I adhere to pretty closely. Having early in life acquired the habit of rising betimes, I have no temptation to curtail the Sunday by lying in bed; nor is Phillis so overworked as to need, or even to wish for, an extra hour’s sleep. I therefore hear her stirring as soon as the clock strikes six; and, till she comes to afford me a little assistance at seven, I lie tranquilly cogitating on God’s mercies, lifting up my heart to Him, and almost invariably repeating that hymn of Hugh White’s, which so fitly opens the invalid’s Sunday.

Hugh White, himself on the bed of sickness, used to send Mrs. Hemans beautiful flowers in her last illness; and perhaps he may have sent her this pretty hymn too. I should like to know that he did, and that it comforted her with the comfort wherewith he himself was comforted: one Christian poet should fitly thus console another.

Having chewed the cud awhile on this sweet hymn, and possibly on one or two others, I begin my toilette with great deliberation. It is indeed always a lengthy process; not on account of any special self-decoration (of course, the “Sabbath robes of richest dress,” in the hymn, have a purely figurative meaning, though I think respect for the day may be shown in the outward garb too), not because I delight in braiding of the hair and costly array; but on account of downright bodily weakness, which necessitates frequent little rests and intermissions: and as I have no one to hurry for, why should I hurry?

However, by eight o’clock I find my way to my sofa in the adjoining room, with the little breakfast table set near the fire in winter, and near the open window in summer. I read a psalm, collect, and the epistle and gospel of the day, to myself, while I recover myself a little. I have no voice for reading aloud before breakfast. My breakfast is no great matter; it does not take long, neither do I hurry it; but when one has nothing to do but to eat and drink, it cannot be a very tedious occupation. Phillis clears the table, brings in her Bible, we read a portion, verse and verse alternately, and then I offer a prayer, and she then goes to her breakfast. Then I lie and meditate a little.

I have put secular books, newspapers, work-baskets, &c., out of the way overnight; so that the room has an orderly, Sabbath-like appearance. The large Bible and little Prayer-book are on the small table beside me: some other book also at hand, in the course of Sunday reading. My canary-bird must be attended to, Sunday as well as week-day. I give him my attention as soon as I am a little rested; and perhaps remain at the window a little, looking at the flowers in the garden-borders, the little children from the hill trooping to the school with their cold dinners in their bags, and the hill itself, girdling in the prospect, and ever calling to mind the verse, “I will look unto the hill from whence cometh my help.”

A widow woman, who nursed me during part of my illness, always comes to cook my dinner, and take care of me while Phillis goes to church. She gets her dinner for her pains, and sits placidly reading while the meat is roasting, now and then with an eye to the spit. Afterwards, she goes to afternoon service. She is too infirm, and too far from the church to be able to go more than once in the day.

Of course, I always have a few pleasant words with Mrs. Goodey; and sometimes she tells me of some case of distress among the cottagers, which I make it my business to relieve, or get some one to look into, the first opportunity. But punctually, as the clock strikes eleven, I commence my solitary prayer service, feeling it a special pleasure, as well as duty, to offer prayer and praise at the same time that my fellow Christians pray and praise.

Now, as I do not slavishly go through those portions (they are but few), which can only be appropriately used collectively (St. Chrysostom’s prayer, for instance), one would think I should arrive at the end of the morning service a good deal sooner than they do in church. Sooner, certainly, but not so much so as one might suppose. For, when thoughts wander, (and, alas! who is there among mortal men, who, in this respect, sometimes sinneth not?) I feel it incumbent on me to go over the ground again. Thus, if I repeat a clause in the litany mechanically, I feel that the least I can do is to repeat it with more attention, and something of contrition. Even the wicked king in “Hamlet” said:

Thus, of course, the more I detect inattention, the more I lengthen the service. And then again, in the lessons, I frequently read the consecutive chapters, perhaps two or three. So that, sometimes, Mrs. Goodey comes in, to my surprise, to lay the cloth, before I have finished. But, more generally, I have done earlier, and lain back on my sofa-cushion, and taken a good rest, gazing on my Sunday nosegay, and on my dear father’s portrait on the wall. I have no likeness of my mother—not even a silhouette; she never would have one taken: but her face is indelibly stamped on my memory and heart.

Then Phillis bustles in with the one hot dish; and generally has brought home some scrap of news, which she is in haste to impart.

“Master Frank preached to-day.” (The Rev. Francis Sidney is always, with her, Master Frank). “How well he do speak up, to be sure! The deafest in church might hear ’un. Well, I can’t justly mind what ’twas about, but ’twas charity, I think, or else hope. No, ’twas charity; because he brought in, ‘But the greatest of these is charity.’ Yes, I know he did. Yes, yes—’twas on charity.”

Then she adds that Mrs. Stowe’s twins are going to be christened in the afternoon, by the names of Esau and Jacob. And then I observe that Esau and Jacob indeed were twins, but that I hope the little Stowes will love one another more than they did; adding that, as if to show the universal sinfulness of the human heart, a remarkable instance was given us in them, that even the proverbial love of twins for one another was insufficient to prevent one from over-reaching the other. To which Phillis, with a grunt, rejoins, “The young Stowes ha’n’t got no birthright.”

In the afternoon Phillis generally comes in, and we read the prayers, psalms, and lessons together; but sometimes Miss Secker drops in, and then Phillis and I defer our reading till the evening, unless she goes to church. Miss Secker brings a sermon with her, and sometimes I speculate a little, beforehand, whether it will be by Barrow, or Bishop Wilson, or Jeremy Taylor, or by Douglas Forsyth, or Melville, or Henry Vaughan of Crickhowel. We generally talk it over afterwards, and though our remarks may not be very original or deep, they refresh and animate me, being my only intellectual intercourse during the day.

Often our remarks make us turn to our Bibles to verify and illustrate them; which sometimes unexpectedly opens up a new subject fertile in interest. Thus, last Sunday, we lighted on that wonderful statistical account of the ancient glory and wealth of Tyre, as vivid and minute as if the details were of yesterday:—how that its famous merchant-ships, the instruments of its mighty commerce, were built of deal from Senir, i. e. Mount Hermon, and their masts were of cedar from Lebanon, their oars of oak from Bashan, their benches of ivory from Chittim, their sails manufactured in Egypt, their awnings from the isles of Elishah; how that the mariners of these ships were from Sidon, their pilots picked men of Tyre, their caulkers the men of Gebal; and then the details of their armies, their merchants, their great fairs and markets, and the endless variety of merchandize brought to them from all parts of the civilised world. It gave us a great deal to think of:—and very likely it seemed as incredible to the Tyrians, that their proud city should ever become a mere desolate rock, on which the lonely fisherman should dry his nets, as it would to us that London should be reduced to its condition before the days of Julius Cæsar, when old King Lud changed its name from Trinovant to Lud-town.

Another time, finding that Nathanael was by some eminent scholars supposed to be the same with the apostle Bartholomew, we hunted up all we could on the question; and came to the conclusion that, as he was supposed to be the son of Tholomai, or Ptolemy, Bartholomew, or Bartholomai, might be the surname given him by our Lord to signify the son of Tholomai; in like manner as he called Peter, Bar-jona, or the son of Jona. Questions of this sort will continually arise to interested readers of the Scriptures; for the more we search them, the more do little twinkling lights disclose themselves to us, reflecting light on one another.

I happened, unguardedly, to drop something about these pleasant readings to Miss Burt, when she put me into a sad fright by exclaiming, “Oh, I’ll come and read to you some day!” for I did not like her reading, which is too much of the denunciatory sort. However, happily for me, she found it would not consist with her more important engagements; she therefore not only refrained, but took some pains to prevent Miss Secker from coming to me too, telling her that if she had any time to abstract from her own devotional exercises between morning and evening services, she thought she might just as well devote it to some of the poor, who could neither read nor write, as on a friend who could do both, and had every comfort around her. However, Miss Secker did not see it exactly in the same light, and therefore has continued to drop in once every two or three weeks, to my great comfort and obligation. She rarely stays more than an hour; and when she does not come, Phillis and I have our little service together, and then I read or meditate in quiet till tea.

Mary Cole, a great favourite of Phillis’s, then drops in to have tea in the kitchen, and take charge of the house while Phillis goes to church. I can’t say Mary is quite as great a favourite of mine as she is of Phillis’s; but that is no great matter, as she comes to see Phillis, not me. Thus, Phillis has a companion at both her Sabbath meals: it makes a little change for her, and prevents her hankering for more holidays than I can grant. And the visitors, neither of whom are capable of walking a second time to the distant church, get their meal and a little variety in return for their charge. People of their rank are seldom much of readers, and it is well to give them a little sober intercourse in lieu of their falling asleep with their heads on the kitchen-table. To whom little is given, of them will less be required than of others more favoured.

Mary Cole, though a heavy girl, is gifted with a sweet voice and correct ear for music; and as she sits all alone, she beguiles the evening hours by singing hymns, often to my solace and delight. Sometimes it is my favourite “Wiltshire,” sometimes “St. David’s,” another time the plaintive penitential psalm,

to the rare old tune called Irish, which fills my eyes with quiet tears.

In that twilight hour known as “blind man’s holiday,” I lay this evening mentally colouring a picture of what I had just been reading, till it became distinct and real.

A desert place, all sand and stones, with scattered tombs hewn here and there in the rocks, or mere cairns heaped rudely over human remains, gleaming white and ghastly in the fitful moonlight. A single living figure, making night hideous by leaping among these tombs—wildly shrieking as the moon drifts through the clouds and casts strange shadows—yelling in ecstasy of fear, to the dismay of far-off travellers, who hasten on their journey in dread of they know not what. Can anything be more forlorn than the state of this poor wretch? His fellow men, at a loss how to treat him, bound him with strong chains, which he snapped in their faces, and then he fled. And now, unless indeed, some fellow-sufferer be glaring at him, silent and unseen, from among those tombs, he is alone—alone with his tormentors, for he feels possessed by myriads of evil spirits, whom he can no more cast out of his loathing self, than he can tear out his brain. If he can frame a connected thought, it is of despair.

But three little boats are crossing that surging lake, in the darkness of night. When they quitted the opposite shore, early in the evening, the waters of that lake were still. The chief of the little company lay down wearily to rest, and fell asleep, with his head on a pillow. The others toiled at their oars, and looked anxiously about, as clouds gathered, winds rose, and the waves became high and rough, and threatened to engulf their little barks. The night wore on, and became more and more tempestuous; they were, seemingly, in great jeopardy: and all this peril and distress were being incurred that the Son of God might, unsought, go and heal that one poor man.

He recognises the Lord at once. “Oh!” he says, in anguish, “have you come to torment me before the time?” Torment you, poor man! oh, how little you know! You are possessed, you say, by a legion. Well, that legion shall, if you will, take visible possession of those two thousand swine feeding on the mountains—swine, which, they who keep shall deservedly lose, seeing that their own law prohibits them as unclean. There!—the real Master of those swine has driven them all, impetuously, into the sea: and you—feel yourself delivered. Ah, well you may fall at His feet, and look up to Him so meekly, gratefully, and lovingly; well you may suffer yourself to be clothed by His compassionate disciples; and, while they who have lost their swine roughly desire Him to depart out of their coasts, well may you, fearing the evil ones may return unto you in His absence, and make you seven-fold worse, beseech Him to let you ever abide with Him. No safety, no sweetness, like that of being ever with Jesus.

But he mildly forbids, and charges you rather to go and declare to others what great things He has done for you; and you cheerfully, implicitly obey. Strange things have you to relate to those wondering friends and kinsfolk, who lately thought the best thing they could do, was to bind you with chains!

I have often thought how capitally I invested five shillings a few years ago, in two apple-trees, which I gave to two poor women living under the hill. One of the trees produced twelve fine apples the second year; the year following, its owner sold a couple of bushels of the fruit. In a cottage full of hungry children, where meat is only tasted on Sundays, a good apple-pudding is no despicable hot dish on the noon-day board. Blackberries, of the children’s gathering, sometimes make a savoury addition to it.

When my cook Hannah married and settled in a cottage of her own, I gave her a few roots of Myatt’s Victoria rhubarb, and some round, white, American early potatoes, with enough onion-seed for a nice little square bed; a quart of peas, a quart of beans, a few early horn carrots, and a little parsley-seed; also pennyworths of canariensis, nasturtium, escolzia Californica, sweet-pea, candytuft, and red and white malope. Her husband immediately dug, raked, and planted the ground, and at once took to gardening after his day’s work. I need not say they are a respectable couple. He cannot read; but she reads The Leisure Hour and Sunday at Home to him.

Though we had a February of almost unprecedented warmth, I am told the primrose is shyly and charily putting forth its blossoms. But soon the warm banks will be gay with them, while the sweet wood-violet will betray itself by its fragrant breath at the roots of old trees. Among the earliest wayside productions is Jack-in-the-hedge, or sauce-alone; as ugly a Jack as one need wish to see, breathing odiously of garlic. Somewhat later, and rarer, is the perfoliate shepherd’s-purse, with its miniature pouches, that remind one of the scrip wherein a young shepherd, who lived to be a king, put five smooth pebbles from the brook. Its leaves, as I lately showed the little Prouts, are perfoliate, that is to say, they look as though the stem runs through them—a very nice and singular distinction, never to be forgotten after being once seen. A fortnight hence I expect to hear the yellow celandine has made its appearance. Wordsworth, who has immortalized it, as much as a poet can immortalize a flower, says, at first his unaccustomed eye saw it nowhere; afterwards, he saw it everywhere.

If the month be genial, we shall, towards its close, see “God’s hand-writing on the wall” of our gardens, in the opening buds and blossoms of our cherry-trees. Sheep are already turned out on the fresh pasture-land: their bleatings and tinkling bells sound prettily. Here and there may be seen a bee, a small fly, a gnat: how soon shall we see the first butterfly?

Toads are curious creatures: there was one that used to sit watching Mr. Cheerlove at his gardening with its beautiful eyes, and sometimes climb a little way up the paling to have a better view. I suppose it varied the monotony of its life. ’Tis of no use to cart them away in a flower-pot; they will return from a considerable distance to their old quarters. If you hurt them, they will look at you very viciously—and why should they not? We have no call to molest the poor wretches; the world is wide enough for us all. Efts and newts are objectionable: they haunt old drains, dust-holes, and any damp, unaired corners. Moles loosen the soil, and make sad work sometimes with the roots of one’s flowers; but yet, on the whole, they are found to do more good than harm. They make themselves subterranean galleries, and are very methodical, taking their walks at stated times. Hence it is very easy to trap them; but if you take one, you may take two, for they are so affectionate that the mate is sure to follow the leader. Hence I always felt a sort of pang in having them destroyed, especially as they have such human-like little hands for paws; and I was glad to be told that the cruelty was unnecessary, and that their loosening the soil did it good, though it might injure particular plants. In moving a stack of firewood at Nutfield, we found underneath it a rat’s nest, containing fifteen partridges’ eggs. How did the rat convey them there? Did he roll them, or carry them on his fore-paws, walking on his hind legs?

The starry heavens are now very glorious. Jupiter, bright, untwinkling planet, is splendid to behold. There are many more stars to be seen to the east than to the north; no human being knows why. The naked eye beholds what are called stars of the sixth magnitude, whose light left their surfaces a hundred and forty years ago. It is very singular that numerous stars, beyond the range of any but a very powerful telescope, prove to be placed in couples: they are called binary stars. Before Sir William Herschell’s death, he had completed a list of three thousand three hundred double stars. His sister Caroline shared his watchings, and took down the result of his observations in writing.

My dear father gave me a taste for astronomy very early in life; and in later years I have found star-gazing to have a strangely calming effect under the pressure of great trouble. I have looked out on the star-lit sky during Eugenia’s last illness, and after her death, till I felt every grief silenced, if not allayed, and every feeling steeped in submission. The stars make us feel so little! our lives so fleeting to a better world! our souls so near to God! O Cassiopeia, Andromeda, and Perseus, I owe to you many a consoling and elevating thought of your Maker!

My chimney does not smoke once in six months; but to-day, as ill-luck would have it, an unfortunate little puff came out in the presence of Miss Burt, who immediately declared that my chimney wanted sweeping shockingly; and that if I did not immediately put the chimney-sweeper’s services in requisition, I should not only be endangering my own life,—which I had no right to throw away,—but that of my servant, who would not particularly relish being burnt in her bed.

In vain I assured her that the chimney had not long been swept. Miss Burt talked me down, utterly deaf to the reminder that, being on the ground floor, we could easily walk out of the house in case of any disaster.

“As if you could walk out of the house!” cried Miss Burt, indignantly; and just then, Phillis coming in with coals, “Phillis,” cried she, “have you any mind to be burnt in your bed?”

“I should think not, Miss Burt,” replies Phillis, brisking up, and looking secure of some very entertaining rejoinder.

“You hear,” says Miss Burt, nodding triumphantly at me.

“You may go, Phillis,” said I, softly, which she did with some reluctance.

I was in nervous expectation of a fresh puff, when Miss Burt luckily found herself a new subject.

“There goes Miss Sidney!” said she. “How she does poke to be sure. Any one can see she has never had dancing-lessons. I think Mr. Sidney much to blame. By the way, Frank gave us an excellent sermon on Sunday. I wish you could have heard him.”

“I wish I could,” said I.

“Oh, I don’t suppose you care much about it, as you had Miss Secker to read Jeremy Taylor. Doesn’t she read through her nose?”

“Dear me, no!”

“Well, I should have expected it. Young people waste hours on their music now-a-days, but—commend me to a good reader.”

“Then,” said I, laughing, “I really can commend you to Miss Secker, or at any rate, honestly commend her to you; for her reading is neither too fast nor too slow, too loud nor too low; her voice is pleasant and her manner reverent.”

“Ah, I like something earnest.”

“She is earnest too. What a favourite word that is now.”

“Is it? Then I’ll drop it! I hate words that are used up:—suggestive, sensuous, subjective, objective. Bad as Shakspere, taste, and the musical glasses!”

She started up, and was going to take leave, when she stopped short and said—

“What do you think that absurd man, Mr. Hitchin, has done? Painted his cypher on his wheel-barrow!”

“Well,” said I, amused, “I cannot emulate him very closely, as I have no wheel-barrow, but I can put my crest on my watering-pot!”

She laughed rather grudgingly, and said, “I suppose you don’t remember the tax on armorial bearings.”

The chimney-sweeper has just called!—Miss Burt met him, and told him there would be no harm in his just looking in, to know if he were wanted!

Can April indeed be here? Yes, the blackbird wakes me at six o’clock, and the nightingale sings long after the sun has set.

The hedges are beginning to sprout, and the banks are decked with primroses and celandine.

So sings the sweet rural poet, Thomas Warton; of whom I suspect Harry Prout knows as little as of Waller.

Poor Mr. Prout is dead! the father of eight children. Yesterday morning, while it was yet dark, the turnpike-man heard a horse galloping furiously down the hill. On going down, he found the horse stopping at the gate, with Mr. Prout’s foot dangling in the stirrup, and his bleeding body on the ground. His skull was fractured, and he was quite dead. He was praising his new, showy, chestnut horse to me only a few days ago, and saying it was well worth a hundred guineas. It would have been worth a good many hundred guineas to his family had he not bought it. Poor Mr. Prout!

The turnpike-man’s wife, it seems, immediately got up, assisted her husband to carry him in and lay him on their bed, and then washed his wounds; while the man, leading the vicious creature he was afraid to mount, came into the town to tell the news and get assistance. Poor Mrs. Prout and Harry were soon on the spot; Mr. Cecil soon followed. He and Mr. Prout were rivals, and rather cool to one another; but he looked very sorry as he hastened up the hill.

I cannot help constantly thinking of them all. Last night, I dreamt I saw Mr. Prout galloping up the hill, all in the dark, along the edge of that frightful chalk-pit, to the poor woman for whom he had been sent; and then coming home, thinking of his snug house and warm bed, when—off dashed the horse!

I have lost a kind doctor and friend; rich and poor deplore him, for he was sociable, kind, and humane. Often in money difficulties, poor man; though I believe his good wife made every shilling go twice as far as most could. She always kept up appearances, too, so nicely! No finery, no waste; but everything (whatever poor Harry might think) suitable and appropriate.

Every one I have yet seen—not many, to be sure, but every one I have seen—expresses regret, and is eager to show sympathy, and wonders what the widow and children will do. Something for themselves, that is certain—except the little ones, who cannot. Mrs. Prout is hardly capable, I am afraid, of undertaking a school; or that would keep them all nicely together. Therefore, Emily and Margaret must go out as governesses or teachers; Harry must get a place in some office; something must be found for James; Edward must be put to school; and Fanny must make herself her mamma’s little factotum, and look after the two youngest.

Easy to say “must” to all this!

What a change a few hours have made!

Harry has spent more than an hour with me this evening. I never saw a poor lad so overwhelmed with grief. He, the rosy-cheeked fellow! who would have you believe—in his verses—that his tears were his meat day and night, is now positively ashamed of crying bitterly over an irreparable loss. I honour him for so deeply lamenting a good father; it raises him in the scale of human being—as genuine, well-placed affection always does. He will now have to exchange imaginary woes for stern realities.

He came quite at dusk. I did not think, at first, it was his voice, asking if he might come in, it was so subdued. I said, “Ah, Harry!” and held out my hand. He grasped it in his, and then sat down and sobbed. I waited a little while in silence; then, when his emotion had somewhat spent itself, I said—

“I thank you very much for coming—it is very kind of you, for I was longing to hear many things that no one else could so well tell.”

“Oh!” said he, drying his eyes, “the kindness is to myself—I could not stand it at home any longer!”

“How does your dear mother bear up?”

“Wonderfully!”—crying again. “But she quite broke down this evening: so my sisters persuaded her to go to bed; and as they are sitting with her, I was quite alone, and thought I would steal out to you for a little while. What a shocking thing it is!”

I knew to what he referred, and said, “It is indeed, my dear Harry. For your comfort, you must reflect that our heavenly Father is peculiarly the God of the widow and orphan. He makes them his special charge.”

“I can’t think what we shall do!”

“Do your best, my dear boy, and you will be sure to do well.”

“Uncle John will come to the funeral. And Uncle John will very likely provide for James, and take him into his business, which is that of a wholesale druggist; but what is to become of me, I can’t think!”

“Should you be glad if your uncle took you instead of James?”

“Why no, not glad; because it is not a line of business that suits my taste. You know, Mrs. Cheerlove,” said the poor boy, faltering, “I always aspired to be something of a gentleman.”

“And is not your uncle one?”

“Hardly. But I would be anything just now, to be of service to mamma—my mother!”

“That’s right. Perhaps you would like to be in a surveyor’s office.”

“That would be better—only, who is to place me in one?”

“Or should you like to be a medical man, like your father?”

“Ah, Mrs. Cheerlove, his was a hard life! And those hospitals! But have you heard of Mr. Pevensey’s kindness?” cried he, suddenly brightening.

“No!—in what?”

“Directly he heard of what had happened, he sent my mother a note, to say how sorry he was; and that as he was sure she would be glad to part with the horse that had occasioned such a terrible calamity, and he heard my father valued it at a hundred guineas, he inclosed a cheque for that amount, and would take it off her hands.”

“Excellent!” said I. “So opportune! so kindly thought of! And this is the man whom so many think churlish!”

“Ah, he’s anything but that,” said Harry; “and quite the gentleman. Of course mamma—my mother, I mean—was glad to get rid of the brute, and would have been so for half the money. How strange it seems! Only three days ago, my father was patting and praising that animal, and calling him ‘Hotspur,’ little thinking he should so soon be laid low! What an awful thing sudden death is, Mrs. Cheerlove!—here one minute, and the next in the presence of God!”

“Are we not in His presence now, Harry? We cannot see Him, but He sees and hears us. If a person is well prepared, a sudden death is, in my opinion, a great mercy.”

“Oh, how can you think so!”

“Well, I do. The shock is very great, doubtless, to the survivors; but the sufferer is mercifully spared a great deal of painful discipline: and if he be but about his Master’s work, ‘Blessed is that servant whom his Lord, when He cometh, shall find so doing.’”

“My father was about his Master’s work, Mrs. Cheerlove.”

“Certainly he was. He was visiting the sick and needy, in the exercise of his profession. It could never have been without self-denial that he turned out of his bed into the dark, cold night, on such an errand, whether to rich or poor.”

Harry seemed to dwell on the reflection with comfort; and I rang for tea, and gave him a cup that was both hot and strong, which I knew to be good for his poor aching head. We had a long talk afterwards, and he left me in a composed and chastened frame of mind. Certainly, a sudden death, like Mr. Prout’s, may be called a leap in the dark; but the believer leaps into his Saviour’s arms.

This morning, to my great surprise and pleasure, Mrs. Pevensey came in, bright with smiles, and said, “The weather is most lovely! and you know you always promised that I should take you your first drive. It shall be as short as you like; but, if you feel equal to the effort, you cannot have a better opportunity. And as I am just going on to inquire after poor Mrs. Prout, I will take you up on my return, which will give you time to get ready without hurry.”

I felt quite bewildered, for I had not been out for more than two years! If I had had time, I believe I should have said “No,” but as I had not, I said “Yes,” and very thankfully too. All my nervous misgivings about over-exertion and painful consequences were lost sight of in the thought, how delightful it would be to breathe once more the sweet, sweet open air!

Phillis did stare when she heard of the projected attempt. I think her surprise vented itself in the ejaculation—

“Well, I’m sure!——”

But there was no time to say more, for there was a grand hunt to make for carriage-boots, and warm shawls, and gloves, and a certain bonnet that would unquestionably require all Mrs. Pevensey’s self-command not to laugh at—it was so sadly out of date. She did give it one amused look, but that was all; for she is kindness itself, and has too much real wit to depend for it on personal ridicules. She knew she had taken me by surprise, and must make allowances. So, having triumphantly got me into her most easy of close carriages—

“Where shall we go?” said she.

“Oh,” said I, “the turnpike will be quite far enough.”

“Very well. Then, to the turnpike, George,” said she, as the footman shut us in. But the roguish woman must have glanced, I am sure, to the left instead of to the right, as she spoke; for the coachman, doubtless taking his instructions from George, drove us to the farthest turnpike instead of the nearest.

Well, it was very pleasant! I had been so long pent up, that

We are nearly through April; and the hedges are quite green, though the oaks, ashes, and beeches are still leafless, and the meadows are not yet sprinkled with buttercups. But the blackthorn is in full flower. Besides, a great many alterations had been effected since I was last out, which I noticed with surprise and interest; for though hearing of alterations is one thing, seeing them is quite another. My old favourite promenade, the elm-tree walk (sometimes called the Queen’s Walk, though the queen’s name I never could ascertain), was as yet unharmed amid the rage for letting ground on building leases to freehold-land societies; but, beyond it, new houses had sprung up in various directions. When I first came to live in the neighbourhood of Elmsford, there were only four houses between me and the town; and having for some few years been accustomed to live in a street, I used occasionally, on dark nights, to feel rather unprotected. If a dog barked at the moon, I used to think of thieves, and remember that some suspicious-looking man had begged at the door; or I thought of fire, and ruefully considered the scarcity of water. Besides, where were we to get help?—Why, in heaven, where I may ask for it at once, thought I, and for freedom from all disquieting alarms. So I used to seek it, and then yield to the quiet, dreamless sleep that was sent.

Now, in place of four houses, I saw a dozen, with stone porticoes to the doors and heavy architraves to the windows, and very little green about them higher than three-foot laurels, which the cows had evidently nibbled, as they do mine, on their way to and from milking.

At one of these houses we stopped, while the footman carried a beautiful basket of hothouse flowers to the door, and delivered a message. While we waited, I heard the sound of a harp, and listened to it with pleasure.

“How pretty!” said I.

“Ah, you may well say so,” said Mrs. Pevensey, with a sigh. “The player is soothing a much afflicted father, who, in his day, was an accomplished musician, and a man of fine intellectual taste. I shall take her a drive to-morrow; it will make a little change for her, which is better than none. ‘He that contemneth small things shall fall by little and little.’”[1]

A door or two off, we left a little flat round basket, containing about two dozen large hothouse strawberries—scarlet, ripe, and tempting, as they peered out of their coverlet of dark green leaves. Several such little baskets had, during two or three springs, found their way to me.

“That is for poor Miss Peach, who is dying of consumption,” said Mrs. Pevensey. “Arbell set them out so nicely. My dear Mrs. Cheerlove, whatever you said to Arbell the other day, has had magic effect! She has been quite a different girl ever since!”

“That is more to her praise than mine,” said I. “What I said was very little.”

“All the better, perhaps, since it was to the purpose. She is now brisk, pleasant, and active—has found her way out of dreamland into the affairs of daily life. Mademoiselle is highly satisfied with her; and Mr. Pevensey, finding she was writing a little summary of Italian middle-age history for her own amusement, was so pleased at it, that he told her he would give her five sovereigns, if she did it well by Christmas. So she is carrying it on with double spirit, ransacking the library for materials about the Guelfs and Ghibelins, the Neri and Bianchi, instead of moping; and is glad to refresh herself afterwards with a good wholesome game of play with Rosaline and Floretta.”

“Ah, a golden spur sometimes pricks the best,” said I. “Small premiums for small achievements are better than competitions for a prize, which must disappoint one or many. A rivalry with one’s self is the only safe rivalry.”

“I think so too. And five pounds is nothing, you know, to Mr. Pevensey.”

“No, but a hundred pounds may be more so. Harry Prout gratefully told me of his buying the horse.”

“Mr. Prout had over-estimated it,” said she, quietly smiling.

“I guessed as much.”

“In fact, if it cannot be thoroughly broken, by Rarey’s means or others, Mr. Pevensey will have it shot; for he says it is better a showy horse should be killed, than another father of a family.”

“Surely.”

“And the money, you see, won’t be wasted, because it was useful where it was sent. There is some thought of quietly getting up a subscription, under the name of a testimonial. Mr. Secker, the suggestor, will acquaint Mrs. Prout with it, and ask whether she would like a silver cup or the money; and of course she will prefer the latter. Only half-sovereigns will be asked, but those who like to give more may do so unknown to all but Mr. Secker, as there will be no published subscription list.”

“All the better,” said I. “There are too few who—

“More than you think, though, perhaps. There!—now you get a glimpse of the church. Your next wish will be to be in it; but you must not attempt too much at first. In a little while, I hope you may manage it.”

Having nearly reached the turnpike, we turned about on our homeward course. And thus ended my pleasant drive. Had I had my choice, my frame of mind would have been serious; as it was, it was cheerful. I felt tired and shaken, but less so than I expected. On saying so to Phillis, she remarked—

“Said so—didn’t I? My ’pinion is, if you’d gone afore, it never would have hurted ye.”

Kind words cost little: and I had had a good many. I could not help thinking, had Eugenia been alive, how she would have sped me forth with fond solicitude, and tenderly hailed my return!—with some word of thankfulness, too, to Him in whose hand are the issues of life and death—some cheery gratulation that we were to be spared yet a little longer to each other.

But I called to mind the substance of a nice little tract called “The Scales Adjusted.” Things are often equalized by roughs and smooths being set against one another. And, though snubbed by my maid, I felt that in this instance my good things predominated.

“So you’ve been and seen them big stone houses at last!” said Phillis, as she wheeled my little tea-table up to my easy-chair. “They do make ours look small, don’t they?”

Now this was a very disagreeable view of the subject. Of course, a little house does look smaller than a large one, turn it which way you will; but mine—Whiterose Cottage—was quite large enough for me, and could not be turned in a prettier direction. As we lost sight of the tall, shapeless stone houses, and came first to the graceful elm avenue, and then to—

I could not help thinking how snug and suitable for its mistress it looked.

True, it has only one sitting-room, save a little snuggery eight feet by ten; true, it is all built on one floor, and that on the ground: every room in it, but the first and last, opening into a narrow matted passage, or gallery. But to me this seems the very prettiest, most convenient plan, for a single woman with one servant, that could possibly be desired; and my only wonder is, that instead of there not being such another, perhaps, in England, there are not dozens, or hundreds. How many a rich man, now, might run up a little place like this, on some corner of his estate, for a widowed aunt, or old maiden sister or cousin, where she might be as happy as the day is long, and live on next to nothing, quite respectably; and, when she dropped off, like a ripe acorn from the oak, and almost as noiselessly, the “Old Maid’s Home” might revert in perpetuity to a succession of decayed gentlewomen, whose simple, yet genteel tastes would thereby be met by their modest means.

Not that I would have them called old maids’ homes, for that would stamp them at once, like a workhouse woollen waistcoat, or a charity cloth cloak. No; they should be Sweet Homes, or have other such pretty significatives; giving them rank with the best Rose Cottages, Myrtle Cottages, and Laurel Cottages, in the land. They might prettily be called after their fair owners—Julia’s Cottage, Maria’s Cottage, Helen’s Cottage, and so forth. Mine is Whiterose Cottage. It has not an exterior like a long, narrow knife-tray, or candle-box: on the contrary, though its rooms lie parallel, they are not of an uniform width or length; consequently, the walls have what Mary Russell Mitford called “a charming in-and-outness;” and there is not a straight line or “coign of vantage,” that is not draped by some gay or graceful climbing plant—rose, jessamine, lophospermum scandens, morandia Barclayana, ecremocarpus, nasturtium, and callistegia, or Romeo’s ladder.

The dwelling was built by a retired tradesman of good taste, and some originality as well as education. He was a widower, without children, determined to have everything comfortable for his old housekeeper as well as himself—consequently, the kitchen, though small, is as complete in all its appointments, as can possibly be wished; with water laid on, and a little oven in the kitchen-range—in which, as the furnishing ironmonger triumphantly says, you may bake a pie, a pudding, and a pig. Phillis, I believe, enjoys her kitchen quite as much as I do my parlour. Kitchen and parlour stand sentries, as it were, at each end of the house. There is hardly a hall worth speaking of—only a little vestibule built on, that will just hold a mat, a flower-stand, a hall-chair, and an umbrella-stand. Over the threshold, the quaint old man has carved “parva, sed apta,” which, I am sure, is true enough. And on one of the panes of the high lattice-window, with its eight compartments, in the parlour, is written with a diamond ring—

On another, “Know Thyself.” The good man, though much respected, was accounted rather crotchety—and, perhaps, I am so too; for, certainly, I no sooner saw these little whimseys, than I took a fancy to the place, and was quite thankful to find the rent within my means. It was not till I had taken it, that I remembered (towards night) the possibility of alarms from thieves and sturdy beggars. A kind friend suggested a fierce dog; but, to confess the truth, I am also much afraid of fierce dogs. So then, the same kind friend suggested a kennel without the dog, a man’s hat hung up in the hall, and a large bell—adding, that, with these defences, I must be safe. I trusted I might be so, even without them. So here I am thus far in safety. And often, as I lean back to rest towards sunset, letting harmless fancies have their course, I picture to myself the old recluse, seated, like brave Miles Standish, with his Cæsar’s “Commentaries,” at the lattice, poring over some huge old book—Bunyan’s “Holy War,” suppose—