me. Your mother was a good woman, but she had a deal of foolish pride. She ought never to have sunk that last five hundred." I shuddered, I felt myself turn deadly pale; for I knew full well the bitter struggle she had endured, the daily increasing poverty that menaced us, the lingering hope with which she had endeavoured to stave off the evil day; and I thought of her vain, vain sorrow, the tears she had shed, the anguish with which she would exclaim, "What will become of you, Dorothy, when I am gone?" and now to hear her blamed! My cousin saw the agony depicted on my countenance, but he mistook its cause, and said in a softened tone: "Nay Dorothy, don't be uneasy; you shall not starve: yet tell me, my dear, what can you do? I fear you are not fit for a governess; can you play the piano?" "A little, a very little,-I am out of practice; it is long since we have had an instrument." 66 Ah, it won't do, I fear. You can parley-vous it, I suppose ?" "I understand French well," I replied, "but I do not speak it fluently." My cousin Charles looked puzzled, he shifted his spectacles, wiped them thoughtfully, and rubbed his brow as though seeking for inspiration; he was driven to a nonplus, stranded, wrecked; at length he said, "Well, cousin Dorothy, what is there that you do know?" I could have told him that I knew Shakspeare and Milton almost by heart; that there was scarcely an old chronicle, or older ballad in which I was not versed, and I might have added, that I was tolerably well acquainted with most literary works of any eminence ; but I had an instinctive feeling that Mr. Sidney would not consider this knowing anything, and therefore I said humbly, almost tearfully, "I believe I am reckoned expert in needlework."" "Ah well, ah well, that's something;" rejoined Mr. Sidney. Then, after a pause, "Do you know, cousin Dorothy, what there is left for you?" 66 66 No; how should I?" Twenty pounds per annum is all you have to depend upon. It will barely find you in washing and clothes; hem- hem- I'll see about it; you shall hear from me soon. Don't fret, my dear, or you'll make yourself ill again. Indeed, Dorothy, you have cause to be grateful for your recovery. The doctor says it was quité a toss up." 66 Oh, I wish, I wish I had died! why was I spared ?” It was wrong, very wrong of me to say this; I feel it now, and my cousin sharply rebuked me. "For shame! Dorothy," he said; "you are arraigning the decrees of Providence." Then, in a milder tone, he added, "I have a scheme for you, so don't despair; but I must first consult my wife; only rely upon it you shan't want." "Alas! I was not thinking of myself," I replied; "I was thinking on the lost-the dead! "But this is foolish; said Mr. Sidney, as he rose from his chair. "Your mother had but an unquiet time of it here; she is happy now, and it is selfish of you to take on thus. Good-bye, Dorothy, you shalł hear from me soon; in the mean time keep up your spirits." He was gone-and the tears I had restrained in his presence burst forth. "Happy !—is she indeed happy?" I exclaimed-" she, who, but a short while since, hung over me in agony, and whose last moments were embittered by the thought of leaving me to pine and struggle in this vale of misery, unsoughtuncared for unprotected. Dost thou not see me now, my mother?" I asked in reckless anguish. "Dost thou not see me forlorn-destitute-broken-hearted? Dost thou not watch over me from that supernal world whither thou art gone; or is there a dark veil drawn between me and thee, so that my tears fall unheeded, my sighs unregarded? Then why do I sorrow all the day long? Why do I weep and watch the live-long night? But if, O my mother! from thy throned sphere, thou art permitted to view me prostrate in body, desolate in spirit, then is heaven no heaven to thee!" These were frantic, impious ravings: I have learned better things since then. On the morning after the conversation above referred to, the nurse came to me. "You seem now so much better, Miss," said she, "that I may safely leave you to shift for yourself. I am wanted by Mrs. Enfield to take charge of her husband. He has gone clean out of his mind; it is a troublesome job to be sure, but then those sort of things pay so well; and there is never any stint of beer-two pints a day at the very least." "Oh yes! you may go, nurse;" I replied. The woman paused, moved the chairs and table only to replace them-the furniture of that small apartment was soon arranged-yet still she stayed. Fidgeted and annoyed by these manœuvres, I said, somewhat impatiently, "Do you want anything, nurse?" "Only, Miss," replied the woman, pertly, "when you can pay me my wages I shall thank you; there was one week's attendance on the poor old lady, the laying out, and— "Oh don't give me the items! let me have the sum total;" I exclaimed. She put a paper into my hands: I was aghast. I felt in my purse; it was almost empty. Must I then, I thought, apply to my cousin for the loan; must Í hear him, in his slow, business-like style descant on each separate article; note that nothing was overcharged, nothing had for her comfort but what was indispensable? I was lost in these ruminations, when a letter was put into my hands: the contents were as follows: DEAR COUSIN DOROTHY, If you will come to us on the 3rd instant (two days hence) there will be a room vacant for you, as James will be off for school. We purpose making further arrangements so that you may reside with us until you are fortunate enough to secure a home of your own. Send the apothecary and nurse to me; I will settle with them: also, you will forward me an exact account of any other trifling debts you may have incurred. I need not, I am sure, impress upon your mind the imperative necessity of strict economy for the future, and I feel confident you will not object to making yourself generally useful when you come to reside among us. We shall expect you at dinner, at six o'clock, counting-house time. My wife and daughters send kind regards, and I am ever, dear cousin Dorothy, Your sincere well-wisher, CHARLES SIDNEY. It was kind, very kind, of Mr. Sidney thus to offer me an asylum. What claim had I-a second cousin ? -that degree of relationship which varies with the rank and station of the kinsman; which in the peer or peeress is brought into such close consanguinity, but which, in the humble dependant like myself, is ever regarded as "a distant branch of the family." It was with a heavy heart that I put myself and my very small packages into the hackney-coach which was to convey me to my cousin's. I arrived there at eleven o'clock at night, although I had been invited to dinner. Let none marvel that governesses, dependent relatives, and humble companions,-all indeed who come on sufferance, should select that same late hour for entering on their strange abode. They come in the hope that the friendly obscurity may conceal the swollen eyelid, the cheek yet blistering with the tears they have shed on quitting the paternal roof for the first time, or on leaving the adopted home dearer to them, perchance, than the home of their youth: there is the hope too, they may escape, for that one night at least, the peering gaze of curiosity, or the cold supercilious glance of fancied pre-eminence, or inflated self-satisfaction; above all, there is the hope of being at once ushered to their own room, for even in the stranger's house there is one apartment such dare call their own, the room sacred to repose, the penetralia into which none may intrude, where, unheeded and unrebuked, their tears may flow;-and in that solitary chamber did I weep as none but those who have lost their all can weep. CHAPTER II. Casa mia, casa mia But to live With those, whose ev'ry word and gesture thrill With heaven-ward patience and submission meek; This earth were heaven, and nothing left to wish. BUT with the coming day, brighter, happier thoughts arise. The room looks more cheerful when the warm rays of the morning sun are beaming on it; yet, far more than aught else, the necessity for exertion, the feeling that there are duties to perform, preliminaries to be adjusted, and a thousand details to be entered into, alike call on us imperiously to brace |