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 UNIVERSITY 
 
 or ILLINOIS 
 
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 iHblwtbi?rii €iiti^r6Uimi. 
 
 ni
 
 T/l^^^' " ^'
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD, 
 
 A TALE.
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 A TALE. 
 
 BT . 
 
 THE AUTHOR OF " EMILIA WYNDHAM, 
 " THE WILMINGTONS, ' &c. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER 
 
 GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 
 
 1850.
 
 LONDON : 
 PRINTED BY HAKRISON AND SON, 
 
 ST. martin's lane.
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 It is the generous spirit, that, when brought 
 Unto the task of common life, hath wrought 
 Even upon the plan which pleased the childish 
 thought. 
 
 •X- * * * Jf- * 
 
 Who, doomed to go in company with pain, 
 And fear, and ruin — miserable train ! — 
 Makes that necessity a glorious gain, 
 By actions that would force the soul to abate 
 Her feeling, rendered more compassionate. 
 
 More gifted with self-knowledge — even more pure 
 As tempted more — more able to endure. 
 As more exposed to suffering and distress j 
 Thence, also, more alive to tenderness. 
 
 Wordsworth. Happy Warrior. 
 
 "No, dearest mother, no! I cannot. Wliat! 
 after all the tenderness, care, and love, I have 
 VOL. I. B
 
 2 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 received from you, for now one and twenty 
 years, to leave you and my father, in your old 
 age, to yourselves! Oh, no ! Oh, no !" 
 
 "Nay, my child,^' said the pale, delicate, 
 nervous woman, thus addressed by a blooming 
 girl, whose face beamed with every promise for 
 future happiness which health, and cheerful- 
 ness, and eyes filled with warm affections, 
 could give ; " Nay, my child, don't talk so. You 
 must not talk so. It is not to be thought of" 
 
 And, as she said these words with effort, 
 her poor heart was dying within her, not only 
 from sorrow at the thought of the parting 
 from her darling ; but with all sorts of dreary, 
 undefined terrors at the idea of the forlorn 
 deserted life before her. Abandoned to her- 
 self and to servants ; so fearful, so weak as she 
 was, and with the poor invalided and crippled 
 yeteran her husband, a martyr to that long 
 train of sufferings which honourable wounds, 
 received in the service of country, too often 
 leave behind them, — A man at all times so
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 3 
 
 difficult to sootlie, so impossible to entertain — 
 and old age creeping upon tliem both. The 
 little strength she ever had diminishing ; the 
 little spirit she ever possessed failing ; Tvhat 
 should she do without this dear, animated; 
 this loving, clever being, Tvho was, in one 
 word, everything to her ? 
 
 Yet she held to her resolution, — no martyr 
 ever more courageously than did this trembling, 
 timid woman. A prey to ten thousand 
 imaginary fears — and, let alone the imaginary 
 fears, placed in a position where the help 
 she was now depriving herself of was really so 
 greatly needed ! But what will not the strong 
 love of a mother do ? 
 
 " No, my dear," the mother repeated, 
 " don't think of it ; — don't speak of it. You 
 distress me very much. Pray don't, my 
 dearest Catherine." 
 
 "But I should be a shocking creature, 
 mamma, to forsake you. And I am sure 
 Edgar would despise me as much as I should 
 
 b2
 
 4 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 despise myself, if I could think of it. I 
 cannot — loiiglit not to leave you/' 
 
 The gentle blue eye of Mrs. Melwyn ^vas 
 fixed upon the daughter's generous, glowing 
 face. She smothered a sigh, and waited a 
 while to steady her faltering Toice. 
 
 She wished to hide, if possible, from her 
 daughter, the extent of the sacrifice she was 
 making. 
 
 At last she recovered herself sufficiently to 
 speak with composure, and then she said : — 
 
 " To accept such a sacrifice from a child, 
 I have always thought the most monstrous 
 piece of selfishness of which a parent could be 
 guilty. My love, this trial does not come 
 upon me unexpectedly. I have, of course, 
 anticipated it. I knew my sweet girl could 
 not be long known and seen without inspiring 
 and returning the attachment of some valuable 
 man. I have resolved — and God strengthen 
 me in this resolve,'' — she cast up a silent 
 appeal to the fountain of strength and courage
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 5 
 
 — "that nothing should tempt me to what 
 I consider so base, as conduct such as mj 
 own Catherine would tempt me to, would, in 
 mj poor opinion be. What ! a parent accept 
 the sacrifice of a whole life in exchange for 
 the poor remnant of her own ! A parent 
 who has had her own portion of the joys of 
 youth in her day, deprive a child of a share 
 in her turn ! No, my dearest love, never — 
 never ! I would die, and I will die first." 
 
 But it was not death that she feared. It 
 was not the idea of death that appalled her. 
 Weak as were her nerves, delicate as was her 
 frame, she had escaped that dread, among the 
 many evils which flesh, susceptible to every 
 impression as hers was, is heir to. What she 
 dreaded was melancholy. 
 
 She knew the unsoundness of her own 
 nerves. She had often felt herself, as it were, 
 trembling upon the fearful verge of reason, 
 when the mind, unable to support itself, is 
 forced to rest upon another. She had known
 
 D LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 a feeling, common to many very nervous 
 people, I believe, as though her mind must 
 inevitably be overset T^hen pressed far, if it 
 were not helped, strengthened, and cheered 
 by some more wholesome mind ; and she 
 shrank appalled from the prospect. 
 
 But even these terrors, great as they con- 
 fessedly are, and peculiarly great in the in- 
 stance before us, could not make her waver in 
 her resolution. She was a generous, just, dis- 
 interested woman ; though the exigencies of a 
 most delicate constitution, and most suscept- 
 ible nervous system, had too often exposed 
 her, from those who did not understand such 
 things, to the reproach of being a tiresome, 
 whimsical hypochondriac ; — from those whose 
 iron nerves, and vigorous spirits, rendered sym- 
 pathy in such distresses impossible. 
 
 Poor thing, she knew this but too well. It 
 was the difficulty of making herself under- 
 stood ; the want of sympathy — the impos- 
 sibility of rendering needs, most urgent in her
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 7 
 
 case, comprehensible bj lier friends, wliich had 
 added so greatly to that timorous cowardice, 
 that fear of circumstances — of changes — which 
 had been the bane of her existence. 
 
 And, therefore, this kind, animated, affec- 
 tionate daughter, whose tenderness seemed 
 never to wearj in the task of cheering her ; 
 whose activity was never exhausted in the 
 endeavour to assist and serve her ; whose good 
 sense and spirit kept everything right at 
 home, and more especially kept those terrible 
 things, the servants, in order — of whom the 
 poor mother, like many other feeble and lan- 
 guid people, was so foolishly afraid ; — there- 
 fore, this kind daughter was as the very 
 spring of her existence ; and the idea of part- 
 ing with her was really dreadful. Yet she 
 hesitated not. So did that man behave, who 
 stood firm upon the rampart till he had 
 finished his observation, though his hair turned 
 white with fear. Mrs. Melwyn was an heroic 
 coward of this kind.
 
 8 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 She had prayed ardently, fervently, that 
 day, for courage, for resolution to complete 
 the dreaded sacrifice, and she had found it. 
 
 " Oh, Lord ! I am thy servant. Do with 
 me what thou wilt. Trembling in spirit, the 
 victim of my infirmity, a poor, selfish, cowardly 
 being, I fall down before Thee. Thou hast 
 showed me what is right, the sacrifice I ought 
 to make. Oh, give me strength in my weak- 
 ness to be faithful to complete it ! " 
 
 Thus had she prayed. And now, resolved 
 in heart, the poor sinking spirit failing her 
 within; but, as I said, steadying her voice 
 with an almost heroic constancy, she resisted 
 her grateful and pious child's representation : 
 " I have told Edgar, — dear as he is to me, 
 strong as are the claims his generous affection 
 gives him over me, — that I will not, I cannot 
 forsake you." 
 
 ** You must not call it forsake," said the 
 mother, gently. " My love, the Lord of life 
 himself has spoken it : * Therefore shall a man
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 9 
 
 leave his father and his mother, and shall 
 cleaye unto his wife/ " 
 
 " And so he is ready to do," cried Catherine, 
 eagerlj. 
 
 " Yes, mother, he desires nothing better — 
 he respects mj scruples — he has offered, dear 
 Edgar ! to abandon his profession, and come 
 and live here, and help me to take care of jou 
 and my father. Was not that beautifuH" 
 and the tears stood in her eyes. 
 
 " Beautiful, — generous, — devoted ! My Ca- 
 therine will be a happy woman,'^ and the 
 mother smiled. A ray of genuine pleasure 
 warmed her beating heart. This respect for 
 the filial scruples of her he loved, was indeed 
 beautiful in the gay handsome young oflScer. 
 But the mother knew his disposition too well 
 to listen to this proposal, even for a moment. 
 
 "And abandon his profession? No, my 
 sweet child, that would never, never do." 
 
 " But he says he is independent of his pro- 
 fession — that his private fortune, though not
 
 10 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 large, is enough for sucli simple, moderate 
 people as lie and I are. In short, tliat he 
 shall be miserable Avithout me, and all that 
 charming stuff, mamma, — and that he lores 
 me the better, for what he calls, dear fellow, 
 mj pietj to jou. And so, dear mother, he 
 sajs if you and my father will but consent to 
 take him in, he will do his very best in 
 helping me to make you comfortable ; and he 
 is so sweet-tempered, so reasonable, so good, 
 so amiable, I am quite sure he would keep 
 his promise, mamma." And she looked anxi- 
 ously into her mother's face, waiting for an 
 answer. 
 
 The temptation was very, very strong. 
 
 Again those domestic spectres which had so 
 appalled her poor timorous spirit rose before 
 her. A desolate, dull fireside — her own ten- 
 dency to melancholy — her poor maimed, suf- 
 fering, and alas, too often peevish partner — 
 her encroaching, unmanageable servants. The 
 cook, with her careless, saucy ways — the butler
 
 LETTICE AENOLD. 11 
 
 SO indifferent and negligent, and her own maid 
 Randall — tliat Randall, tvIio in secret tyran- 
 nised over her — exercising the empire of fear 
 to an extent of which Catherine, alive as she 
 was to these evils, had no idea. And again 
 Mrs. Melwjn asked herself, if these things 
 were so disagreeable now, when Catherine was 
 here to take care of her, what would they 
 become when she should be left alone ? 
 
 And then such a sweet picture of happiness 
 presented itself to tempt her — Catherine set- 
 tled there — settled there, at the Hazles for 
 ever. That handsome, lively young man, with 
 his sweet cordial ways and polite observance 
 of every one, sitting by their hearth, and 
 talking, as he was used to do, to the General, of 
 old days and military matters — the only sub- 
 jects in which this aged military man took 
 any real interest, — reading the newspaper to 
 him, and mating such lively, pleasant com- 
 ments as he read ! How should she ever get 
 through the debates, with her breath so short,
 
 12 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 and her voice so indistinct and low? The 
 General would lose all patience — he hated to 
 hear her attempt to read such things, and 
 always, when he could, got Catherine or the 
 young Lieutenant-Colonel to do it. 
 
 Oh ! it was a sore temptation ; but this 
 poor, dear, good creature resisted it. 
 
 "My love," she said, after a little pause, 
 during which this noble victory was achieved — 
 laugh if you will at me for the expression, but 
 it was a noble victory over self; — "my love," 
 she said, " don't tempt your poor mother be- 
 yond her strength. Gladly, gladly, as far as 
 we are concerned, would we enter into this 
 arrangement ; but it must not be. No, 
 Catherine ; Edgar must not quit his profes- 
 sion. It would not only be a very great 
 sacrifice I am sure now, but it would lay the 
 foundation of endless regrets in future. JNTo, 
 my darling girl, neither his Tiappiness nor 
 your happiness shall be ever sacrificed to mine. 
 A life against a few uncertain years ! No — 
 no.
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 13 
 
 The mother was inflexible. The more 
 these good children offered to give up for her 
 sake, the more she resolved to suffer no such 
 sacrifice to be made. 
 
 Edgar could not but rejoice. He was an 
 excellent young fellow, and excessively in 
 love with the charming Catherine, you may be 
 sure, or he never would have thought of offer- 
 ing to abandon a profession in which he had 
 distinguished himself highly, for her sake. — A 
 profession which opened to him the fairest 
 prospects, and of which he was especially 
 fond, — but he was not sorry to be excused. 
 He had resolved upon this sacrifice ; for there 
 is something in those who truly love, and 
 whose love is elevated almost to adoration by 
 the moral worth they have observed in the 
 chosen one, which revolts at the idea of lower- 
 ing the tone of that enthusiastic goodness and 
 self-immolation to principle which has so en- 
 chanted them. Edgar could not do it. He 
 could not attempt to persuade this tender.
 
 14 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 generous daughter, to consider lier own wel- 
 fare and liis, in preference to that of her 
 parents. He could only offer, on his own 
 part, to make the greatest sacrifice which 
 could have been demanded from him. Rather 
 than part from her what would he not do 1 
 Eyerjthing was possible but that. 
 
 However, when the mother positively re- 
 fused to accept of this act of self-abnegation, 
 I cannot saj that he regretted it ; or that he 
 used any very strenuous arguments to per-" 
 suade Catherine to persist in her proposal. 
 No, he thought Mrs. Melwyn quite right in 
 deciding as she had done; and he felt his 
 affection for herself, and his respect both for 
 her character and understanding, very much 
 increased by this unexpected proof of courage 
 and good sense.
 
 LETTICE AKNOLD. 15 
 
 That niglit Mrs. Melwjn T^as very, yeiy 
 low indeed. And when she went up into her 
 dressing-room, and Catherine had kissed her 
 tenderly, and with a heart quite divided be- 
 tween anxiety for her mother, and a sense of 
 happiness upon her own account, that would 
 make itself felt in spite of all, had retired to 
 her room ; the mother sat down, poor thing, 
 in the most comfortable arm-chair that ever 
 was invented, but which imparted no comfort 
 to her ; and placing herself before a merry 
 blazing fire, which was reflected from all sorts 
 of cheerful pretty things with which the dress- 
 ing-room was adorned ; her feet upon a warm, 
 soft footstool of Catherine's own working, her 
 elbow resting upon her knee, and her head 
 upon her hand, she, with her eyes bent mourn- 
 fully upon the fire, began crying very much. 
 And so she sat for a long time, thinking and 
 crying — very sorrowful, but not in the least 
 repenting. She could not, however, help 
 meditating upon all sorts of dismal things —
 
 16 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 seeing eyerjthing in the blackest possible 
 light ; and her heart was filled with all kinds of 
 melancholy forebodings, as to how it would, 
 and must inevitably be, when dear, dear 
 Catherine was really gone. She sank at hst 
 into a deep sorrowful rererie, and sate quite 
 absorbed in her own thoughts, till she — who 
 was extremely punctual in her hour of going 
 to bed, for reasons best known to herself, 
 though never confided to any human being — 
 namely, that her maid disliked very much 
 sitting up for her — quite forgot the hour. She 
 started as the clock in the hall sounded eleven 
 and two quarters, and almost with the trepi- 
 dation of a chidden child, rose and rang the 
 bell. Nobody came. This made her still 
 more uneasy. It was Randall's custom not to 
 answer her mistress' bell the first time, when 
 she was cross. And poor Mrs. Melwyn 
 dreaded few things in this world more than 
 cross looks from those about her, especially 
 from Randall ; and that Randall knew perfectly 
 well.
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 17 
 
 "She must be fallen asleep in her chah', 
 poor thing. It was very thoughtless of me/' 
 Mrs. Melwjn did not saj, but would have 
 said, if people ever did speak to themselves 
 aloud. 
 
 Even in this sort of mute soliloquy she did 
 not venture to say, "Randall will be very ill- 
 tempered and unreasonable." But after wait- 
 ing a respectfid length of time, in a state of 
 much mental self-reproach and fear of conse- 
 quences, she ventured, with considerable hesi- 
 tation, to repeat the summons, and — ring 
 again. 
 
 But it was not even then till after a proper 
 space of time had been yielded to the claims 
 of offended dignity, that it pleased Mrs. Ran- 
 dall to make her appearance. 
 
 "I am very sorry, Randall. — Really I had 
 no idea how late it was. — I was thinking 
 about Miss Catherine, and I missed it when 
 it struck ten. — I had not the least idea it was 
 so late," began the mistress, in an apologising 
 
 VOL. I. c
 
 18 LETTICE AKNOLD. 
 
 tone, to which Randall Youchsafcd not an 
 answer, but looked like a thunder cloud, as 
 she went banging up and down the room, 
 opening and shutting drawers with a loud 
 noise, and treading with a rough, heavy step; 
 two things particularly annoying, as she very 
 well knew, to the sensitive nerves of her mis- 
 tress. But Randall settled it wdth herself — 
 that as her mistress had kept her out of bed 
 an hour and a half longer than usual, for no 
 reason at all but just to please herself, she 
 should find she was none the better for it. 
 
 The poor mistress bore all this with patience 
 for some time. She would have gone on 
 bearing the roughness and the noise, however 
 disagreeable, as long as Randall so pleased; 
 but her soft heart could not bear those glum 
 cross looks, and this alarming silence. 
 
 " I was thinking of Miss Catherine's mar- 
 riage, Randall. That was what made me 
 forget the hour. — What shall I do without 
 herl"
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 19 
 
 " Do without her ! What will jou do 
 without her ! What other people do, I sup- 
 pose," said the insolent abigail. " Yes, that's 
 just like it; nothing ever can content some 
 people, I think. Most ladies would be glad 
 to have settled their daughters so well ; but 
 some folk must make a crying matter of every- 
 thing. It would be well for poor servants, 
 when they're sitting over the fire, their bones 
 aching to death for very weariness, if tlieifd 
 something as pleasant to think about. They 
 wouldn't be crying for nothing, and keeping 
 all the world out of their beds, like those who 
 care for nought but how to please them- 
 selves." 
 
 Part of this was said, part muttered, part 
 thought ; and the poor timid mistress — one of 
 whose domestic occupations it seemed to be to 
 study the humours of her servants — heard a 
 portion, and divined the rest. 
 
 " Well, Randall, I don't quite hear all you 
 are saying," at last she mustered courage to 
 
 c 2
 
 20 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 say, " and perhaps it is as well I do not ; but 
 I wish you would give me my things and make 
 haste, for I'm really very tired, and I want to 
 go to bed." 
 
 " People can't make more haste than they 
 can.'' 
 
 And so it went on. The maid-servant 
 never relaxing an atom of her offended dig- 
 nity — continuing to look as ill-humoured, and 
 to do everything as disagreeably as she pos- 
 sibly could — and her poor victim, by speaking 
 from time to time in an anxious, most gentle, 
 and almost flattering manner, hoping to mollify 
 her dependant ; — but all in vain. 
 
 " ril teach her to keep me up again for 
 nothing at all," thought Randall. 
 
 Whilst " Oh ! how foolish it was of me to 
 forget the clock," and " Oh! I never will be so 
 thoughtless as to do it again," was mentally 
 ejaculated by her penitent mistress. 
 
 At last the poor lady, very miserable and 
 disconsolate in the midst of all her luxuries,
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 21 
 
 gained her comfortable bed, and laj there not 
 able to sleep for very discomposure of mind; 
 whilst the abigail retired to her own warm 
 apartment, where she was greeted with a 
 pleasant fire, bj which stood a little nice cho- 
 colate, simmering, which she had prepared to 
 solace and refresh herself with after the fatigue 
 of putting her mistress to bed ; and then she 
 retired to her downj couch, in the full enjoy- 
 ment of victorious ill-humour, and all the 
 sweets of revenge. For she had been dread- 
 fully ill-used, it was true ; but then she had 
 been dreadfully out of temper, and had paid 
 her mistress off one while, at least, for the 
 fearful hardship she had inflicted. No hard- 
 ship on earth sure could equal that she en- 
 dured, — forced to sit up in consequence of 
 another's whim, when she wanted so sadly to 
 be in her bed.
 
 22 LETTICE AENOLD. 
 
 Whilst, thus, all that the most abundant 
 possession of the world's goods and comforts 
 could bestow was marred bj the weakness of 
 the mistress upon one hand, and the ill-temper 
 of the maid upon the other — the plentiful gifts 
 of fortune rendered valueless by this erroneous 
 facility upon one side, and this insolent love 
 of domination upon that; how many in the 
 large metropolis, only a few miles distant, and 
 of which the innumerable lights might be seen 
 brightening, like an Aurora, the southern sky; 
 — how many laid down their heads supperless 
 that night ! Stretched upon miserable pallets, 
 and ignorant where food was to be found on 
 the morrow to satisfy the cravings of hunger ; 
 yet, in the midst of their misery, more misera- 
 ble, still because they, like their more fortunate 
 fellow creatures, were not exempt from those 
 worst pests of existence, — their own faults and 
 infirmities. 
 
 Yet, in spite of this, how many poor crea- 
 tures did actually lay down their heads that
 
 LETTICE AEJ^OLD. 23 
 
 night far less miserable than poor Mrs; 
 Melwjn. 
 
 The tyranny of a servant is noticed by the 
 wise man, if I recollect right, as one of the 
 most irritating and insupportable of mortal 
 miseries. 
 
 We will now, if you please, leave this 
 abode of ease and opulence, and poor Mrs. 
 Melwyn restless and dissatisfied with herself, 
 tossing and turning upon her muslin-trimmed 
 pillow, and visit one of the neglected streets 
 of our great city, enter an obscure lodging- 
 house, and see how it went with some inmates 
 that we shall find there. 
 
 Two young women inhabited one small 
 room of about ten feet by eight, in the upper 
 story of a set of houses somewhere near Mary- 
 lebone-street. These houses appear to have
 
 24 LETTICE ARXOLD. 
 
 been once intended for ratlier substantial per- 
 sons, but have gradually sunk into lodging- 
 houses for the very poor. The premises look 
 upon an old grave-yard, a dreary prospect 
 enough, but perhaps preferable to a close 
 street, and are in general filled with decent 
 though very poor people. Every room ap- 
 pears to serve a whole family, and few of the 
 rooms are much larger than the one I have 
 described. 
 
 It was now half-past twelve o'clock, and 
 stiirthe miserable dip tallow candle burned in 
 a dilapidated tin candlestick. The wind 
 whistled with that peculiar wintry sound 
 which betokens that snow is falling ; it was 
 very, very cold — the fire was out, and the girl 
 who sat plying her needle by the hearth, — 
 where it was still a little warmer than through- 
 out the rest of the room, — had wrapped up 
 lier feet in an old worn-out piece of flannel, 
 and had an old black silk wadded cloak thrown 
 over her to keep her from being almost
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 25 
 
 perished. The chamber was scantily fur- 
 nished, and bore an air of extreme poverty, 
 amounting almost to absolute destitution. 
 One by one the little articles of property pos- 
 sessed by its inmates had disappeared to 
 supply the calls of urgent want. An old 
 four-post bedstead, with curtains of worn-out 
 serge, stood in one corner ; one mattress, with 
 two small thin pillows and a bolster that was 
 almost flat, three old blankets, cotton sheets 
 of the coarsest description, were upon it : three 
 rush-bottomed chairs, an old claw-table, a very 
 ancient, dilapidated chest of drawers, at the 
 top of which were a few battered band-boxes, 
 — a miserable bit of carpet before the fire- 
 place, a wooden box for coals; a little low 
 tin fender, a poker, or rather half a poker, a 
 shovel and tongs, much the worse for wear, 
 and a very few kitchen utensils, comprised all 
 the furniture in the room. What there was, 
 however, was kept clean ; the floor was clean, 
 the yellow paint was clean, and I forgot to
 
 26 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 saj, there was a washing-tub set aside in one 
 corner. 
 
 The wind blew shrill, and shook the window, 
 and the snow was heard beating against the 
 panes ; the clock went another quarter, but 
 still the indefatigable toiler sewed on. Now 
 and then she lifted up her head, as a sigh 
 proceeded from that corner of the room where 
 the bed stood, and some one might be heard 
 turning and tossing uneasily upon the mat- 
 tress, — then she returned to her occupation, 
 and plied her needle with increased assiduity. 
 
 The workwoman was a girl of from eighteen 
 to twenty, rather below the middle size, and 
 of a face and form little adapted to figure in 
 a story — one, whose life, in all probability, 
 would never be diversified by those romantic 
 adventures which real life in general reserves 
 to the beautiful and the highly-gifted. Her 
 features were rather homely, her hair of a 
 light brown, ivitJiout golden threads through 
 it, her hands and arms rough and red with
 
 LETTICE AENOLD. 27 
 
 cold and labour, and her dress ordinary was to 
 a degree. — Her clothes were of the cheapest 
 materials, — but then these clothes were so 
 neat, so carefully mended where they had 
 given way ; the hair was so smooth, and so 
 closely and neatly drawn round the face, and 
 the face itself had such a sweet expression, 
 that all the defects of line and colour were 
 more than redeemed to the lover of character 
 in countenance, rather than beauty. 
 
 In describing the character of that coun- 
 tenance, I shall not use the word patient, 
 not even that of resigned. She was patient 
 and she was resigned, but it was not this that 
 was pre-eminently expressed in her face. 
 Cheerful it cannot be said that she exactly 
 could look — she looked earnest, composed, 
 busy, and exceedingly kind. It would almost 
 seem as if she had never, in the midst of her 
 privations, thought enough of herself to call 
 for the full exercise of what may be strictly 
 called the virtues of patience and resignation.
 
 28 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 She was so much occupied with the sufferings 
 of others, that she never seemed to think of her 
 own. She was, indeed, naturally of the most 
 cheerful, hopeful temper in the world — those 
 people without selfishness usually are. And 
 though sorrow had a little lowered the tone of 
 her spirits to more than their constitutional 
 composure, and want and disappointment had 
 faded the bright colours of hope upon her 
 cheek ; still hope was not entirely gone, nor 
 cheerfulness utterly exhausted. But the pre- 
 dominant expression of every word and look, 
 and tone and gesture, was kindness — inex- 
 haustible kindness. 
 
 I said she lifted up her head from time to 
 time, as a sigh proceeded from the bed, and 
 its suffering inhabitant tossed and tossed, and 
 turned and turned again : and at last she 
 broke silence, and said, " Poor Myra, can't you 
 get to sleep V 
 
 " It is so fearfully cold," was the reply ; 
 " and when will you have done, and come to 
 bed?''
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 29 
 
 " One quarter of an hour more, and I shall 
 have finished it. Poor Mjra, jou are so ner- 
 vous, jou never can get to sleep till all is shut 
 up — but have patience, dear, one little quarter 
 of an hour, and then I will throw my clothes 
 over your feet, and I hope you will be a little 
 warmer." 
 
 A sigh for all answer; and then she who 
 ought to be, according to all rule, the true 
 heroine, — for she was extremely beautiful, or 
 rather had been, poor thing, for she was too 
 wan and wasted to be beautiful now, — lifted 
 up her head, from which fell a profusion of the 
 fairest hair in the world, and leaning her head 
 upon her arm, watched, in a sort of impatient 
 patience, the progress of the indefatigable 
 needle-woman. 
 
 " One o'clock striking, and you hav'nt done 
 yet, Lettice ! How slowly you do get on.'' 
 
 "I cannot work fast and neatly too, dear 
 Myra. I cannot get through as some do — I 
 wish I could. But my hands are not so deli-
 
 30 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 cate and nimble as yours, such swelled, clumsy 
 things," she said, laughing a little, as she 
 looked at them — swelled, indeed, and all mot- 
 tled over with the cold ! " I cannot get oyer 
 the ground nimbly and well at the same time; 
 some people seem like fine race-horses — I am 
 a poor little drudging pony ; but I will make 
 as much haste as I possibly can." 
 
 Myra once more uttered an impatient, fretful 
 sigh, and sank down again, saying, "My feet 
 are so dreadfully cold !" 
 
 " Take this bit of flannel, then, and let me 
 wrap them up." 
 
 " Nay, but you will want it." 
 
 "Oh, I have only five minutes more to 
 stay, and I can wrap the carpet round my 
 feet." 
 
 And she laid down her work and went to 
 the bed, and wrapped her sister's delicate, but 
 now icy feet, in the flannel ; and then she sat 
 down, and toiled and toiled, till at last the 
 task was finished. And oh, how glad she was
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 31 
 
 to creep to that mattress, hard as it was, and 
 to lay her aching limbs down upon it ! Hard 
 it might be, and wretched the pillows and 
 bolster, and scanty the covering, but little felt 
 she such inconyeniences. She fell asleep 
 almost immediately, whilst her sister still 
 tossed and murmured. Presently Lettice, for 
 Lettice it was, awakened a little and said, 
 "What is it, love'? Poor, poor Myra ! Oh, 
 that you could but sleep as I do." 
 
 And then she di'ew her own little pillow 
 from under her head, and put it under her 
 sister's, and tried to make her more comfort- 
 able ; and she partly succeeded, and at last 
 the poor, delicate, suffering creature fell asleep, 
 and then Lettice slumbered like a baby.
 
 32 LETTICB ARNOLD. 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 Oh, blest with temper whose unclouded ray 
 Can make to-morrow cheerful as to-day; 
 * * * And can hear 
 
 Sighs for a sister with unwounded ear. 
 
 Pope. Charactei's of Women. 
 
 Early in the morning, before it was light, 
 whilst the wintry twilight gleamed through 
 the curtainless window, Lettice was up, dres- 
 sing herself bj the scanty gleam cast from 
 the street lamps into the room, for she could 
 not afford the extravagance of a candle. 
 
 She combed and did up her hair with
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 33 
 
 modest neatness ; put on her brown stuff only 
 gown, and then, going to the chest of drawers, 
 opened one with great precaution, — lest she 
 should make a noise and disturb Mjra, who 
 still slumbered, — drew out a shawl, and began 
 to fold it as if to put it on. 
 
 Alas, poor thing ! as she spread it out for 
 this purpose, she became first aware tliat the 
 thread-bare, time-worn fabric bad given way 
 in two places. Had it been in one, she might 
 have contrived to conceal the injuries of age, 
 — but it was in two. 
 
 She turned it this way and that ; she 
 folded and unfolded, — it would not do. The 
 miserable shawl seemed to come to pieces, 
 as the servants saj, in her hands. It 
 was already so excessively shabby that she 
 was ashamed to go out in it ; and it seemed 
 as if it would really no longer hold together, 
 — this dingy, thin, brown, red, and green, old 
 shawl ! Mend it would not ; besides, she was 
 pressed for time ; so, with the appearance of 
 
 YOL. I. D
 
 34 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 considerable reluctance, she put lier hand into 
 tlie drawer, and took out another shawl. 
 
 This was a different affair. It was a w^arm 
 and not very old plaid shawl, of various 
 colours, well preserved and clean looking ; 
 and this cold morning so tempting. 
 
 Should she borrow it ^ Mjra was still 
 asleep, — but she would be horridly cold when 
 she got up, and she would want her shawl 
 perhaps ; but then Lettice must go out, and 
 must be decent, — and there seemed no help 
 for it. 
 
 But if she took the shawl, had she not 
 better light the fire before she went ouf? 
 Myra would be so chilly. But then, Myra 
 seldom got up till half-past eight or nine, and 
 it was now not seven. 
 
 An hour and a halfs, perhaps two hours', 
 useless fire, according to her habit of nice 
 economical calculation, would never do. So 
 after a little deliberation, Lettice contented 
 herself with "laying it,'' as the housemaids
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 35 
 
 saj, — that is, preparing the fire to be lighted 
 T^'ith a match; and as she took out coal bj 
 coal to do this, she perceived Tvith terror how 
 Tery, very low, the little store of fuel was. 
 
 " We must have a bushel in to-daj,^^ she 
 said. " Better without meat and drink than 
 fire, in such weather as this." 
 
 However, she was cheered with the reflec- 
 tion, that she should get a little more than 
 usual bj the work that she had last night 
 finished. It had been ordered bj a con- 
 siderate and benevolent ladj, who instead of 
 going to the readj-made linen warehouses for 
 what she wanted, gave herself a good deal of 
 trouble to get at the poor workwomen them- 
 selves who supplied these houses, in order that 
 thej might receive the full price of their 
 needlework, — which otherwise must of neces- 
 sity be divided between them and the shop- 
 keeper. 
 
 How much she should get she did not quite 
 know, for she had never worked for this lady 
 
 D 2
 
 36 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 before; but sbc always got more from private 
 customers than from the shops, though she had 
 learned by experience how some ladies, and 
 affluent, and great ladies too, were in the habit 
 of beating down the needlewomen they em- 
 ployed to the last penny, and giving as little 
 as they possibly could for their labours. 
 
 I do not mean to say that much more than 
 the current price for such matters people can 
 habitually give; they should, however, beware 
 of driving hard bargains with the very poor. 
 
 Her bonnet, too, looked dreadfully shabby, as 
 poor little Lettice took it out from one of the 
 dilapidated band-boxes that stood upon the chest 
 of drawers, — yet it had been carefully covered 
 •with a sheet of paper, to guard it from the 
 injuries of the dust and the smoke-loaded air. 
 
 The young girl held it upon her hand,
 
 LETTICE AE>'OLD. 37 
 
 turning it round, and looking at it, and slie 
 could not help sighing when she thought of the 
 miserably shabby appearance she should make ; 
 and she, going to a private house too, — and 
 upon such an errand! — For, it was fine linen 
 for the trousseau of a grand young lady just 
 about to be married, upon which she had been 
 so busily employed. 
 
 What a contrast it was that the busy ima- 
 gination ivould draw between all the fine 
 things that young lady was to have and her 
 own destitution! She must needs be what 
 she was, — a simple-hearted, God-fearing, gene- 
 rous girl — to whom enyious comparisons of 
 others with herself were as impossible as any 
 other faults of the selfish — not to feel as if the 
 difierence was, to use the common word of 
 common people upon such occasions, " very 
 hard." 
 
 But she did not take it so. She did not 
 think that it was very hard that others should 
 be happy and have plenty, because she was
 
 38 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 poor and had nothing. Thcj had not robbed 
 her. AVhat they had was not taken from her, 
 Naj, just at this moment their wealth was 
 actually overflowing towards her. She was 
 really and essentially the better off, because 
 others had something to expend upon the 
 superfluities of life, and especially upon the 
 delicate and beautiful needlework of her careful 
 and indefatigable hand. In her little sphere, 
 she gained in a measure by the general pros- 
 perity, the crumbs of the plentiful table at 
 least fell to her share. Better have this, than 
 have nothing, better wait here, than beside a 
 table where there was but just enough and 
 barely enough for each individual guest. Lct- 
 tice, it is certain, did not make these general 
 reflections, but as she was not in the least 
 envious of other people's good fortune, it was 
 not necessary that she should. It was not 
 necessary in order to make her witness the 
 happiness of others without pain, to show her 
 that after all she was a personal gainer in it.
 
 LETTICE AENOLD. 39 
 
 She was not a drawer of jealous comparisons, 
 not she. 
 
 Still I do not pretend that the thought of 
 the increased pay she was likely to receive did 
 not at that moment come in aid of her good 
 and simple-hearted feelings, — as she brightened 
 up, and shook her bonnet, and pulled out the 
 ribbons, and made it look as tidy as she could; 
 bethinking herself that if it possibly could be 
 done, when she got her money, she would buy 
 a bit of black ribbon, and make it a little 
 more spruce. 
 
 And now the bonnet is on, and she does not 
 think it looks so very bad, — and Myra's shawl, 
 as reflected in the little threepenny glass, looks 
 quite neat. Now she steals to the bed in 
 order to make her apologies to Myra about 
 the shawl and fire, but Myra still slumbers. It 
 is half-past seyen and more, and she must be 
 gone. 
 
 The young lady for whom she had made 
 the linen lired about twenty miles from town.
 
 40 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 but she had come up about her things, and 
 was to set off on her return home at nine 
 o'clock that very morning. The linen had 
 been ordered to be sent in the night before, 
 but Lettice had found it impossible to get it 
 finished. She had been obliged, perforce, to 
 wait till the ensuing morning before she could 
 carry it home. Her object now was to arrive 
 at the house so soon as the servants should be 
 stirring, that there might be time for the 
 things to be packed up and be in readiness to 
 accompany the young lady upon her return 
 home. 
 
 Now, Lettice is in the street. Oh, what a 
 morning it was ! The wind was intensely 
 cold, — the snow was blown in buffets against 
 her face; the street was slippery; — all the 
 mud and mire turned into inky-looking ice. 
 She could scarcely stand — her face was blue 
 with the cold — her hands, in a pair of cotton 
 gloves, so numbed that she could hardly hold 
 the parcel she carried.
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 41 
 
 She had no umbrella. The snow beat upon 
 her undefended head, and completed the 
 demoHtion of the poor bonnet; but she com- 
 forted herself with the tliought that its shabby 
 appearance would now be attributed to the 
 bad weather having spoiled it. Nay, — and 
 she smiled as the idea presented itself, — was it 
 not possible that she might be supposed to 
 have a better bonnet at home? 
 
 So she cheerfully made her way through 
 many a long, dirty, splashy street, till at last 
 she entered Grosvenor Square. The lamps 
 were just dying away before the splendid 
 houses, and the wintry twilight discovered the 
 garden, with its trees plastered with dirty 
 snow, whilst the wind rushed down from the 
 Park colder and bitterer than ever. She could 
 hardly get along at all. A few ragged, good- 
 for-nothing boys were almost the only people 
 yet to be seen about ; and they laughed and 
 mocked at her, as, holding her bonnet down 
 with one hand, to prevent its absolutely giving
 
 42 LETTICE AENOLD. 
 
 "waj before the wind, she endeavoured to carry 
 her parcel, and keep her shawl from flying up, 
 with the other. 
 
 The jeers and the laughter were very uncom- 
 fortable to her. The things she found it the 
 most difficult to reconcile herself to in her 
 fallen state were the scoffs, and the scorns, and 
 the coarse jests of those once so far, far beneath 
 her — so far beneath her, indeed, that their very 
 existence, as a class, had been once almost 
 unknown, and yet who were now little, if at 
 all, worse off than herself. 
 
 The rude brutality, of the coarse, uneducated, 
 and unimproved Saxon, is a terrible grievance 
 to those forced to come into close quarters with 
 such. And I quite agree with Mr. Kay in what 
 he says in that valuable book of his, " The Social 
 Position of the People," as to the great desir- 
 ableness, if not absolute necessity of correcting 
 this species of brutality — among other still 
 more important things which need correction — 
 by a very much better understood system of
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 43 
 
 education than we are at present giving to our 
 poor. 
 
 But to return to our Lettice, who has, in 
 spite of all difficulties and all humiliations, at 
 last entered Green Street, and having raised 
 the knocker, has given one timid, humble, sub- 
 dued knock at the door of a moderate-sized 
 house, upon the right hand side as jou go up 
 to the Park. 
 
 At this house, as you will surmise, lived the 
 benevolent lady of whom I have spoken, as 
 one who took so much trouble to break through 
 the barriers, which in London separate the 
 employers and the employed! She strove to 
 assist the poor stitchers of her own sex, by doing 
 away with the call for the existence of that 
 hand, or those many hands, — through which 
 their ware has usually to pass, and in each of 
 which something of the recompense thereof must 
 of necessity be detained. 
 
 Lettice had never been at the house before ; 
 but she had sometimes had to go to other
 
 44 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 genteel houses, and she had too often found 
 the insolence of the pampered domestics there 
 residing, in the midst of their own wasteful 
 and unprincipled luxury, far harder to 
 bear than even the rude incivilitj of the 
 streets. 
 
 So she stood upon the steps, feeling very 
 uncomfortable ; still more afraid of the effect 
 that her bonnet might produce upon the man 
 that should open the door, than it might be 
 expected to do upon his superiors. 
 
 But, " like master, like man," is a stale old 
 proverb, which, like many other old saws of 
 our now despised as childish ancestors, is full 
 of pith and truth. 
 
 The servant who appeared was a grave, 
 grey-haired man, of somewhat above fifty. 
 He stooped a little in his gait, and had not 
 a very fashionable air ; but his countenance 
 was full of kind meaning, and his manner 
 so gentle, that it seemed respectful even to a 
 poor girl like this.
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 45 
 
 Before hearing lier errand, 'observing how 
 cold she looked, he bade her come in and 
 varm herself at the hall stove ; and bringing 
 her into the little snug vestibule, where a 
 bright fire was already blazing, he shut the 
 door in the face of the chill blast, that came 
 rushing forward as if to force its waj into the 
 house, and then returned to her, and asked 
 her errand. 
 
 " I come with the young lady's work. — - 
 I was so sorry that I could not possibly get 
 it done in time to send it in last nio^ht : but 
 I hope I have not put her to any incon- 
 renience. I hope her trunks are not made 
 up, I started almost before it was light this 
 morning.'' 
 
 " Well, my dear, I hope there's not much 
 amiss ; but it was a pity you could not get 
 it done last night. Mrs. Danvers likes people 
 to be exact to the moment, and punctual in 
 performing promises, you must know. How- 
 ever, ril take it up without loss of time, and 
 I dare say it will be all right."
 
 46 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 "Is it come at lastl" asked a sweet, low 
 voice, as Reynolds entered the drawing-room. 
 " My love, I really began to be frightened for 
 your pretty things," the speaker went on, 
 turning to a young lady who was making an 
 early breakfast before a noble, blazing fire, 
 and who was no other a person than Cathe- 
 rine Melwyn. 
 
 " Oh, madam ! I was not in the least 
 uneasy about them, I w^as quite sure they 
 would come sooner or later.'' 
 
 "I wish, my love," said Mrs. Danvers, 
 sitting down by the fire, " I could have shared 
 in your security. Poor creatures ! the tempt- 
 ation is sometimes so awfully great. The 
 pawnbroker is dangerously near. — So easy to 
 evade all enquiry by changing one miserably 
 obscure lodging for another, into which it is 
 almost impossible to be traced. — And, to tell 
 the truth, I had not used you quite well in 
 this instance, my dear ; for I happened to 
 know nothing of the previous character of 
 these poor girls, but that they were certainly
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 47 
 
 very neat workwomen. Thej seemed so out 
 of all measure poor, that I could not help 
 yielding to the immediate temptation, and 
 recommending them for your work at once, 
 without making the proper enquiries ; and 
 the knowledge of this had, I confess, made 
 me rather fidgetty till the work safely arrived. 
 And thus you see, my love, that the having 
 yielded to temptation myself has had its 
 usual effect of making me suspicious of the 
 power of temptation over others.'^ 
 
 Mrs. Danvers had once been one of the 
 loveliest women that had ever been seen : 
 the face of an angel, the form of the Goddess 
 of Beauty herself; manners the softest, the 
 most delightful, had been united to a gaiety 
 of spirit, a warm ardour of heart, a liveliness 
 of fancy, and a quickness of perception which 
 had rendered her the delight of every society 
 in which she moved. She had been celebrated 
 for the elegance of her dress and equipage, 
 as much as for the brilliance of her wit and
 
 48 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 the fascination of her beauty, and the whole 
 was set off by a sweetness of countenance and 
 a voice of such harmonious softness that it 
 made its way to every lieart. 
 
 Of all this loveliness the soft countenance 
 and the sweet harmonious voice alone re- 
 mained. Yet had the sad eclipse of so many 
 charms been succeeded by a something so 
 holy, so saint-like, so tender, that the being 
 who stood now shorn by sorrow and suffering 
 of all her earthly perfections, seemed only to 
 have become a fitter denizen for heaven by 
 the exchange. 
 
 Her life had indeed been one shipwreck, 
 in which all she prized had gone down. 
 Husband, children, parents, sister, brother, 
 — all! — every one gone. It had been a 
 fearful ruin. It was thought impossible by 
 her friends that she should be able to survive 
 this wreck of earthly joy, — but she had lived 
 on. She stood there, an example of the 
 triumph of those three, — faith, hope, and
 
 LETTICE AKNOLD. 49 
 
 cliaritj; [but the greatest of these was 
 charity. 
 
 In faith, she had rested upon the " unseen," 
 and the world of things "seen" around her 
 had shrunk into insignificance. In hope, she 
 looked forward to that day when tears should 
 be wiped from all faces, and the lost and 
 severed should meet once more never to part 
 again. In charity — in other words, love — 
 she filled that aching, desolate heart with 
 fresh aficctions, still warm and tender, if 
 wanting the joyous gladness of earlier days. 
 
 Every sorrowing human being, every poor 
 sufferer, be they who they might, or whence 
 they might, found a place in that compassionate 
 heart. No wonder it was filled to overflowing : 
 — there are so many sorrowing sufferers in this 
 world. 
 
 She went about doing good. Her whole life 
 was one act of pity. 
 
 Her house was plainly furnished. The 
 " mutton chops with a few greens and pota- 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 50 LETTICE AENOLD. 
 
 toes/' — laughed at in a recent trial, as if indif- 
 ference to one's own dinner were a crime — 
 might have done for a specimen of her way of 
 going on: She often was no better served. 
 Her once elegant dress was conventual in its 
 simplicity. Every farthing she could save upon 
 herself was saved for her poor. 
 
 You must please to recollect that she stood 
 perfectly alone in the world, and that there 
 was not a human creature that could suffer by 
 this exercise of a sublime and universal charity. 
 Such peculiar devotion to one object is only 
 permitted to those whom God has severed from 
 their kind, and marked out, as it were, for the 
 generous career. 
 
 Her days were passed in visiting all those 
 dismal places in this great city, where lowly 
 want "repairs to die," or where degradation 
 and depravity, the children of want, hide 
 themselves. She sat by the bed of the inmate 
 of the hospital, pouring the soft balm of her 
 consolations upon the suffering and lowly.
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 51 
 
 And she might be followed to the prison, 
 endeaYOurin^ under the thick coverinor of de- 
 pravitj and guilt, to touch that heart — which, 
 as a good man once said — "exists in every 
 human being, so that one can but find the way 
 to it." In such places her presence was 
 hailed as the first and greatest of blessings. 
 Every one was melted, or was awed into good 
 behaviour by her presence. The most hard- 
 ened of brandy-drinking nurses was softened 
 and amended by her example. The most 
 stupid and brutal of criminals felt as it were a 
 dawn of glimmering light, and a balm as of 
 morning dew upon his soul, as she talked with 
 him. 
 
 The situation of the young women who have 
 to gain their livelihood by their needle had 
 peculiarly excited her compassion, and to their 
 welfare she had especially devoted herself. 
 Her rank and position in society gave her a 
 ready access to many fine ladies who had an 
 immensity to be done for them : and to many 
 
 E 2 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILUNOIS
 
 52 LETTICE ARXOLD. 
 
 fine dress-makers who liacl this immensitj to 
 do. 
 
 She was indefatigable in her exertions to 
 diminish the evils to which the young ladies — ' 
 " improvers," I believe, is the technical term — 
 are in too many of these establishments ex- 
 posed. She it was who got the work-rooms 
 properly ventilated, and properly warmed. 
 She it was who insisted upon the cruelty and 
 the wretchedness of keeping up these poor 
 girls hour after hour from their natural rest, 
 till their strength was exhausted; the very 
 means by which they were to earn their bread 
 taken away; and they at length abandoned to 
 decline and starvation. She made fine ladies 
 learn to allow more time for the preparation 
 of their dresses; and fine ladies' dressmakers 
 to learn to say, " No." 
 
 One of the great objects of her exertions 
 was to save the poor plain-sewers from the 
 necessary loss occasioned by the middle-man. 
 She did not decide whether the shops exacted
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 53 
 
 too much labour, or not, for tlieir pay ; with 
 so great a competition for work, and so much 
 always lying unsold upon their boards, it was 
 difficult to say. But she spared no trouble to 
 get these poor women employed direct by 
 those who wanted sewing done ; and she taught 
 those indolent fine ladies who, rather than give 
 themselyes a little trouble to increase a poor 
 creature's gains, preferred going to the ready- 
 made shops, — " because the other was such a 
 bore,'' to feel rather ashamed of themselves. 
 
 It was during one of her visits in the parish 
 of Marylebone, that she had accidentally met 
 wdth these two sisters, Lettice Arnold and 
 Myra. Accustomed as she had been to every 
 degree of misery, there was something in them 
 both that struck her more than usual. In 
 spite of their squalid dress and miserable cham- 
 ber, a something which seemed to prove them of 
 no common stamp. They seemed belonging to 
 those who have known much better days. Being 
 however pressed for time, she had not at that 
 moment been able to learn the details of their
 
 54 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 liistorj ; wliicli, on the part of one of them, at 
 least, there seemed some unwillingness to tell. 
 
 Catherine was at this time in the midst of 
 the delightful hurry of preparing her w^ed- 
 ding clothes, and well knowing how anxious 
 Mrs. Danvers was to obtain w^ork, she had set 
 aside a good deal for her. A portion of this 
 Mrs. Danvers had been tempted to entrust to 
 these poor destitute young women, and seeing 
 them evidently too miserably without resource 
 to offer anything in the shape of a deposit, she 
 had left the work without exacting one. Hence 
 her very natural uneasiness when the promised 
 things did not appear to the time. 
 
 And hence the rather grave looks of Rey- 
 nolds, when the excuses were mentioned to 
 him, for he could not endure to see his mis- 
 tress vexed. 
 
 " Has the workwoman brought her bill with 
 her, Reynolds?" asked Mrs. Danvers, after 
 Catherine had examined the needlework, which 
 was remarkably well and neatly done. 
 
 " I will go and ask.''
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 55 
 
 "Staj, jou had better tell lier to come 
 up ; I should like to inquire how she is going 
 on, and whether she has any other work in 
 prospect." 
 
 Reynolds immediately obeyed, and going 
 down stairs, soon returned with Lettice. The 
 door was opened and she presented herself, 
 poor thing, looking a good deal ashamed of 
 her own appearance in this nice and comfort- 
 able breakfast-room, where though, as you will 
 suppose after what I have said, there was no 
 appearance of superfluous luxury, everything 
 looked elegant and refined. A pretty break- 
 fast was set out upon the table, and a bright 
 fire blazing up delightfully in the grate. 
 
 Lettice stood still, looking for a moment at 
 these things, rather dazzled, and rather con- 
 fused, by the contrast with the scene out of 
 doors during her cold blowing walk, in the 
 sleet and wind. She stood there looking 
 starved and timid. 
 
 " Good morning, my dear,'' said Mrs. Dan-
 
 5G LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 vers, kindly ; " I am sorry you liave had sucli 
 a wretched walk this morning ; but/' she 
 added, "why did you not come last night? 
 Punctuality, my dear, is the soul of business, 
 and if you desire to form a private connexion 
 for yourself, you will find it of the utmost im- 
 portance to attend to it. This young lady is 
 just going off, and there is barely time to put 
 up the things." 
 
 Catherine had her back turned to the door, 
 and was quietly continuing her breakfast, 
 whilst this was going on. She did not even 
 look round as Mrs. Danvers spoke, but when a 
 gentle voice replied, — 
 
 " Indeed, madam, T beg your pardon. In- 
 deed, I did my very best, but " 
 
 She started, looked up, and rose hastily 
 from her chair. Lettice, as she did so, started 
 too, on her side. 
 
 She turned pale, then red again, and ad- 
 vancing a few steps, exclaimed — 
 
 "Catherine!''
 
 LETTICE ABXOLD. 57 
 
 " It must — it is — it is joii ! cried Catherine 
 hastily coming forward, and taking her by the 
 hand — gazing, as she did so, with a sort of 
 piteous astonishment, at the worn and weather- 
 beaten face, the miserable attire, tlie picture 
 of utter wretchedness before her. " You !'' 
 she kept repeating — '* Lettice ! — Lettice Ar- 
 nold ! Good Heavens ! where are they all 1 
 Where is your father ? Your mother ? Your 
 sister r 
 
 " Gone !" said the poor girl. " Gone — 
 every one gone but poor Myra 1" 
 
 "And she — where is shef The beautiful 
 creature, that used to be the pride of poor 
 Mrs. Price's heart. How lovely she wasl 
 And you — dear, dear Lettice, how can you — 
 how have you come to this V 
 
 Mrs. Danvers stood like one petrified with 
 astonishment whilst this little scene was going 
 on. She kept looking at the two girls, but 
 said nothing. 
 
 " Poor dear Lettice !" Catherine went on in
 
 58 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 a tone of the most affectionate kindness, " have 
 you come all through the streets alone tliis 
 most miserable morninoj? And workinor — 
 ^^'orking for me ! Good heavens ! how has all 
 this come about ? 
 
 " But come to the fire first," she continued, 
 taking hold of the almost frozen hand ; " come 
 and warm yourself first. How cold you are ! 
 Gracious me ! How can it all have hap- 
 pened V 
 
 "You seem to have met with an old ac- 
 quaintance, Catherine. Pray take this chair, 
 and come and sit down by the fire and warm 
 yourself; the morning is excessively cold, and 
 perhaps you have not breakfasted." 
 
 Lettice hesitated. 
 
 She felt as if there would be something 
 of presumption in accepting the invitation. 
 She had become so accustomed to her fallen 
 condition, that it seemed to her that she could 
 no longer with propriety sit down to the same 
 table with Catherine.
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 59 
 
 Catherine perceived this, and it shocked 
 and grieyed her excessively. " Do come and 
 sit down," she said, encouraged bj Mrs. Dan- 
 vers' invitation, " and tell us have jou break- 
 fasted 1 But even if jou have, a warm cup of 
 tea this cold morning can do you no harm." 
 
 And she pressed her kindly forward, and 
 seated her, half reluctant, in an arm-chair that 
 stood by the fire : then she poured out a cup 
 of tea, and carried it to her, repeating, — 
 
 " Won't you eat ? Have you breakfasted '?" 
 
 The plate of bread-and-butter looked deli- 
 cious to the half-starved giii ; — the warm cup 
 of tea seemed to bring new life into her. She 
 had continued silent from surprise, and a sort 
 of sense of humiliated embarrassment; but 
 now her spirits began to revive under these 
 kindly influences, and she said, " I never ex- 
 pected to have seen you again. Miss Melwyn l" 
 
 " Miss Melwyn ! "What does that mean ? — 
 Dear Lettice, don't call me that— but how has 
 all this come about V
 
 60 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 " My father was ill the last time jou were 
 in Nottinghamshire, if you recollect, Miss Mel- 
 wyn ? Of that illness he never recovered ; 
 but it lasted for nearly two years. It was 
 whilst we were nursing him through it that 
 your aunt, Mrs. Montague, died; and her 
 house was sold, and new people came and 
 lived there ; so that you never came to Castle 
 Rising afterwards." 
 
 " No — indeed — and from that day to this 
 have never chanced to hear anything of its 
 inhabitants. But Mrs. Price — your aunt — 
 who was so fond of Myra — what is become 
 of her r 
 
 "She died before my poor father." 
 
 '' Well ; but she was rich. Did she do 
 nothing V 
 
 "Everybody thought her rich, because she 
 spent a good deal of money ; but she had very 
 little property — it was chiefly from an annuity 
 that she got her income. Our poor aunt was 
 no great economist — she made no savings."
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 61 
 
 " Well ; and your mother 1 — I cannot un- 
 derstand it. No ; I cannot understand it," 
 Catherine kept repeating. " So horrible ! — 
 dear, dear Lettice — and your shawl is quite 
 wet, and so is your bonnet, poor dear girl. 
 Why did you not put up your umbrella V' 
 
 " For a very good reason, dear Miss Melwyn ; 
 because I do not possess one." 
 
 " Call me Catherine, won't you ? — or I will 
 not speak to you again.'' 
 
 But it now seemed time to reply to Mrs. 
 Danrers' inquiring looks, which appeared to 
 demand a little attention. She was completely 
 puzzled and equally interested by the scene, and 
 she looked impatiently for some explanation 
 of the enigma. Catherine caught her eye, and 
 turning from her friend, with whom she had 
 been so much absorbed as for the moment 
 apparently to forget everything else, she went 
 up to her and said, 
 
 " Lettice Arnold is a clergyman's daughter, 
 ma'am."
 
 62 LETTICE AENOLD. 
 
 " I began to think something of that sort," 
 said Mrs. Danvers ; " but, mj dear joung lady, 
 'what can have brought jou to this terrible 
 state of destitution ?'' 
 
 "Misfortune upon misfortune, madam. Mj 
 father was, indeed, a clergyman, and held the 
 little yicarage of Castle Rising. There Cathe- 
 rine," looking affectionately up at her, " met 
 me upon her visits to her aunt, Mrs. Mon- 
 tague." 
 
 *' We have known each other from cliildren," 
 put in Catherine. 
 
 At that moment the door opened and Rey- 
 nolds appeared — 
 
 "The cab is waiting, if you please, Miss 
 Melwyn." 
 
 " Oh, dear ! oh dear ! dear Mrs. Danvers, 
 what's to be done ? — I can't go just this mo- 
 ment ; it's impossible. Pray bid the man 
 wait." 
 
 " It is late already," said Reynolds, taking 
 out his watch. "The train starts in twenty 
 minutes."
 
 LETTICE AR2n"0LD. 63 
 
 " Oh, dear ! oh, dear ! — and when does the 
 next go 1 — I can't go by this. Can I, dear 
 Mrs. Danvers ? It is impossible." 
 
 " There is another train will start in about 
 an hour from this time. Miss Melwjn,'' said 
 Reynolds. 
 
 " Oh ! that will do — pray tell Sarah to be 
 ready for that. Well, my dear, go on — go 
 on, dear Lettice, you were about to tell us 
 how all this had happened, — but just another 
 cup of tea first ; do you like it strong V 
 
 " I like it any way," said Lettice, who was 
 beginning a little to recorer her spirits, — " I 
 have not tasted anything so comfortable for a 
 Tery long time.'' 
 
 " Dear me ! — dear me !" 
 
 " You must have suffered very much, I fear, 
 my dear young lady," said Mrs. Danvers, in a 
 kind voice of interest, " before you could have 
 sunk to the level of that miserable home where 
 I found you.'' 
 
 " Yes," said Lettice. — " Every one suffers 
 very much, be the descent slow or rapid, when
 
 €4 LETTICE ARI^OLD. 
 
 lie has to fall so far. But \\'liat were my suf- 
 ferings to poor Mjra's !" 
 
 " And why were your sufferings as nothing 
 in comparison to poor Myra's V 
 
 " Ah, madam, there arc some in this world 
 not particularly favoured by nature or fortune, 
 who seem as if they were born to be denied ; 
 who have been used to it from their childhood 
 — it becomes a sort of second nature to them, 
 as it were. They scarcely feel it. But a 
 beautiful girl, adored by an old relation, accus- 
 tomed to every sort of indulgence and luxury ! 
 — For they doted upon the very ground she 
 trod on. — Oh ! to be cast down to such misery 
 — that is dreadful." 
 
 " I don't see — T don't know,'' said Catherine, 
 who, like the world in general, however much 
 they might admire, and however much too 
 many might flatter Myra, greatly preferred 
 Lettice to her sister. 
 
 " I don't know how that may exactly be," 
 said she, doubtingly. 
 
 " Ah ! but you would know if you could
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 65 
 
 see!" said the generous girl. "If jou could 
 know what she suffers from everything — from 
 things that I do not even feel, far less care for 
 — ^you would be so sorrj for her." 
 
 Mrs. Danvers looked with increasing interest 
 upon the speaker. She seemed to wish to go 
 on with the conversation about this sister so 
 much pitied ; so she said, " I believe what you 
 say is very true. Very true, Catherine, in 
 spite of your sceptical looks. Some people 
 really do suffer very much more than others 
 under the same circumstances of privation.'' 
 
 " Yes, selfish people like Myra," thought 
 Catherine, but she said nothing. 
 
 " Indeed, madam,'' said Lettice, " what you 
 say is so true. Some seem to feel everything 
 so much more. Poor Myra — I can sleep like 
 a top in our bed, when she very often cannot 
 close her eyes ; and it is the same with other 
 things — the close room, and the poor food. I 
 can get along — I was made to rough it, as my 
 poor aunt always said — but Myra 1" 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 6'6 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 '' Well but," rejoined Catherine, " do praj 
 tell us liow jou came to this cruel pass "? Your 
 poor father " 
 
 "His illness was very lingering and very 
 painful — and several times a surgical operation 
 was required. Mj mother could not bear — 
 could any of us ? — to have it done by the poor 
 blundering operator of that remote village. To 
 have a surgeon from Nottingham was very 
 expensive; and then the medicines; and the 
 necessary food and attendance ! The kindest 
 and most provident father cannot save much 
 out of one hundred and ten pounds a-year, 
 and what had been saved was soon all gone." 
 
 " Well, well," repeated Catherine, her eyes 
 fixed with intense interest upon the speaker. 
 
 " His death-bed was a painful scene," Let- 
 tice went on, her face working with emotion, 
 whilst slie with great effort restrained her 
 tears : " he trusted in God ; but there was a 
 fearful prospect before us, and he could not 
 help trembling for his children. — Dear, dear
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 67 
 
 father ! he reproached himself for his want of 
 faith, and would try to strengthen us, 'but the 
 flesh/ he said, ' was weak/ He could not look 
 forward without anguish. It was a fearful 
 struggle to be composed and confiding — he 
 could not help being anxious. — It was for us, 
 you know, not for himself." 
 
 " Frightful ! " cried Catherine, indignantly ; 
 " frightful ! that a man of education, a scholar, 
 a gentleman, a man of so much activity in 
 doing good, and so much power in preaching 
 it, should be brought to this. One hundred 
 and ten pounds a-year, was that all 1 How 
 could you exist '? " 
 
 " We had the house and the garden besides, 
 you know, and my mother did her best ; and 
 my father ! No member of the severest reli- 
 gious order was ever more self-denying. There 
 was only me. My aunt Price, you know, took 
 Myra — Myra has been delicate from a child, 
 and was so beautiful — and she was never made 
 to rough it, my mother and my aunt said. 
 
 F 2
 
 68 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 Now I seemed made expressly for the pur- 
 pose," she added, smiling with perfect sim- 
 plicity. 
 
 "And his illness, so long! and so expen- 
 sive !" exclaimed Catherine, with a sort of cry. 
 
 " Yes, it was — and to see the pains he took 
 that it should not be expensive. He would be 
 quite annoyed if my mother got anything 
 nicer than usual for his dinner. She used to 
 be obliged to make a mystery of it ; and we 
 were forced almost to go down upon our knees 
 to get him to have the surgeon from Nottingham. 
 Nothing but the idea that his life would be more 
 secure in such hands could have persuaded him 
 into it. He knew how important that was 
 to us. As for the pain which the bunghng old 
 doctor hard by would have given him, he 
 would have borne that rather than have spent 
 money. Oh, Catherine! there have been times 
 upon times when I have envied what are 
 called the Poor. They have hospitals to go to ; 
 they are not ashamed to ask for a little wine
 
 LETTICE ARXOLD. 69 
 
 from tliose Tvho have it; they can beg when 
 thej are in want of a morsel of bread. It is 
 natm-al. It is right — they feel it to be right. 
 But oh ! for those, as they say, better born — 
 and educated to habits of thought like those 
 of my poor father ! . . . . "Want is, indeed, 
 like an armed man, when he comes into their 
 dwellings/' 
 
 " Too true, my dear young lady," said Mrs. 
 Danrers, whose eyes were by this time moist ; 
 " but go on, if it does not pain you too much, 
 your story is excessively interesting. There 
 is yet a wide step between where your rela- 
 tion leaves us, and where I found you." 
 
 " We closed his eyes at last in deep sorrow. 
 Excellent man, he deserved a better lot ! So, 
 at least, it seems to me — but who knows? 
 Nay, he would have reproved me for saying 
 so. He used to say of himself, so cheerfully, 
 *It's a rough road, but it leads to a good 
 place.' "^'hy could he not feel this for his 
 wife and children 1 He found that so very 
 
 difficult r
 
 70 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 "He was an excellent and a delightful 
 man/^ said Catherine. " Well ?" . . . 
 
 " Well, mj dear, when he had closed his 
 eyes, there was his funeral. We could not 
 bear to have a parish funeral. The veriest 
 pauper has a piety towards the dead which 
 revolts at that. We did it as simply as we 
 possibly could, consistently with common 
 decency ; but they charge so enormously for 
 such things : and my poor mother would not 
 contest it. When I remonstrated a little, 
 and said I thought it was right to prevent 
 others being treated in the same way, who 
 could no better afford it than we could, I shall 
 never forget my mother's face : ' I dare say — 
 you are right, Lcttice, — quite right — but 
 not this — not his. I cannot debate that mat- 
 ter. Forgive me, dear girl ; it is weak, but I 
 cannot.' 
 
 " This expense exhausted all that was left 
 of our little money: only a few pounds 
 remained when our furniture had been sold,
 
 LETTICE AEXOLD, 71 
 
 we were obliged to give up possession of that 
 dear, dear, little parsonage, and we were 
 without a roof to shelter us. You remember 
 the parsonage, Catherine !" 
 
 " Remember it ! to be sure I do. That 
 sweet little place. The tin j house, all covered 
 over with ]ionejsuckles and jasmines. How 
 sweet thej did smell. And your flower- 
 garden, Lettice, how you used to work in it. 
 It was that which made you so hale and 
 strong, aunt Montague said. She admired 
 your industry so, you can't think. She used 
 to say you were worth a whole bundle of fine 
 ladies." 
 
 " Did she V and Lettice smiled again. She 
 was beginning to look cheerful, in spite of her 
 dismal story. There was something so in- 
 veterately cheerful in that temper, that nothing 
 could entirely subdue it. The warmth of her 
 generous nature it was that kept the blood 
 and spirits flowing. 
 
 " It was a sad day when we parted from it.
 
 72 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 My poor mother ! How she kept looking 
 back — looking back — striving not to cry — 
 and Myra was drowned in tears." 
 
 " And what did you do V 
 
 " I am sure I don't know, — I was so sorry 
 for them both, — I quite forget all the rest/' 
 
 " But how came you to London ?" asked 
 Mrs. Danvers. '* Everybody, without other 
 resource, seems to come to London. The 
 worst place, especially for women, they can 
 possibly choose. People are so completely 
 lost in London. Nobody dies of want, no- 
 body is utterly and entirely destitute of help 
 or friends, except in London." 
 
 " A person we knew in the village, and to 
 whom my father had been very kind, had a 
 son who was employed in one of the great 
 linen warehouses, — and he promised to en- 
 deavour to get us needlework ; and we flat- 
 tered ourselves, with industry, we should, all 
 three together, do pretty well. So we came 
 to London, and took a small lodging, and
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 73 
 
 furnished it with the remnant of our furni- 
 ture. We had our clothes, which, though 
 plain enough, were a sort of little property 
 jou know. But when we came to learn the 
 prices they actually paid for work, it was 
 really frightful ! Work fourteen hours a-day 
 a-piece, and we could only gain between 
 three and four shillings a-week each, — some- 
 times hardly that. There was our lodging to 
 pay, three shillings a-week, and six shillings 
 left for firing and food for three people ; this 
 was in the weeks of plenty. Oh 1 it was 
 frightful!" 
 
 " Horrible !" echoed Catherine. 
 
 " We could not bring ourselves down to it 
 at once. We hoped and flattered ourselves 
 that by-and-by we should get some work that 
 would pay better ; and when we wanted a 
 little more food, or in very cold days a little 
 more fire, we were tempted to sell or pawn 
 one article after another. At last my mother 
 fell sick, and then all went, — she died, — and
 
 74 LETTICE ABNOLD. 
 
 she had a pauper's funeral/' continued Lettice, 
 turning very pale. 
 
 They were all three silent. At last Mrs. 
 Danvers began again. 
 
 " Was that the lodging I found jou in V 
 
 " No, madam, the first we took pro?ed too 
 expensive. We were obliged to leave it, and 
 we only pay one-and-sixpence a-week for this, 
 the furniture being our own." 
 
 " The cab is at the door, Miss Melwyn," 
 again interrupted Reynolds. 
 
 " Oh dear ! Oh dear ! I can't go — indeed, 
 Mrs. Danvers, I can't go;" with a pleading 
 look, "may I stay one day longer V 
 
 " Most gladly would I keep you, my dearest 
 
 love, but your father and mother. And 
 
 they will have sent to meet you." 
 
 " And suppose they have, John can go 
 back ; but stay, stay, — Sarah shall go and 
 take all my boxes, and say I am coming 
 to-morrow, — that will do." 
 
 " And you travel alone by railway ? Your
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. ?5 
 
 mother ^vill never approve of such a 
 plan." 
 
 " I am ashamed," cried Catherine, Tvith 
 energy, " to think of such mere conventional 
 difficulties, when here I stand in the presence 
 of real misery. Indeed, mj dear Mrs. Dan- 
 vers, mj mother will be quite satisfied when 
 she hears why I staid. I must be a hard- 
 hearted creature indeed, if I could go away 
 without seeing more of dear Lettice." 
 
 Lettice looked up so pleased, so grateful, 
 so happy. 
 
 " Well, my love, I think your mother will 
 not be uneasy, as Sarah goes ; and I just 
 remember Mrs. Sands travels your way to- 
 morrow, so she will take care of you, — for 
 taken care of you must be, my pretty Cathe- 
 rine, till you are a little less young, and some- 
 what less handsome than you are now." 
 
 And she patted the sweet, full, rosy cheek. 
 
 Catherine was very pretty indeed, if you 
 care to know that. And so this matter was 
 settled.
 
 76 LETTICE AENOLD. 
 
 And now Lettice, having enjoyed a happier 
 hour than she had known for many a long 
 day, began to recollect herself, and to think 
 of poor Myra. 
 
 She rose from lier chair, and taking up her 
 bonnet and shawl, which Catherine had hung 
 before the fire to dry, seemed preparing to 
 depart. 
 
 Then both Catherine and Mrs. Danvers 
 bef]:an to think of her little bill, which had 
 not been settled yet. Catherine felt exces- 
 sively awkward and uncomfortable at the idea 
 of offering her old friend and companion 
 money ; but Mrs. Danvers was too well ac- 
 quainted with real misery, — had too much 
 approbation for that spirit which is not above 
 earning, but is above begging, — to have any 
 embarrassment in such a case. 
 
 " Catherine, my dear," she said, "you owe 
 Miss Arnold some money. Had you not 
 better settle it before she leaves 1 " 
 
 Both the girls blushed.
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 77 
 
 " Naj, my dears/' said Mrs. Danvers, 
 kindly ; " why this 1 — I am sure," coming up 
 to them, and taking Lettice's hand, " I hold 
 an honest hand here, which is not ashamed to 
 labour, when it has been the will of God that 
 it shall be by her own exertions that she 
 obtains her bread, — and part of the bread of 
 another, if I mistake not. What you have 
 nobly earned as nobly receive. Humiliation 
 belongs to the idle and the dependent, — not 
 to one who maintains herself." 
 
 The eyes of Lettice glistened, and she could 
 not help gently pressing the hand which held 
 hers. 
 
 Such sentiments were congenial to her 
 heart. She had never been able to compre- 
 hend those conventional distinctions between 
 what is to be considered honourable or de- 
 grading, under the influence of which so many 
 lose the higher principles of independence — 
 true honesty and true honour. To work for 
 her living had never lessened her in her own
 
 78 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 eyes; and she had found, with a sort of 
 astonishment, that it was to sink her in the 
 eyes of others. To deny herself everything, 
 in food, furniture, clothing, in order to escape 
 debt, and add in her little way to the com- 
 forts of those she loyed, had ever appeared to 
 her noble and praiseworthy. She was as 
 astonished, as many such a heart as hers has 
 been before, when she learned by expe- 
 rience, the standard by which the world in 
 general seems pleased to measure its respect 
 and consideration. That standard too generally 
 being what people think proper to spend 
 upon themselves, rather than what they find 
 themselves inclined to spare for others. Do 
 what I will, you see, I cannot get that 
 story in the newspaper out of my head. Or 
 the contempt implied or expressed by all 
 parties concerned, — newspaper editor himself, 
 if I mistake not, included, — for the woman 
 who was content to dine upon one mutton 
 chop, potatoes, and a few greens.
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 79 
 
 Catlierine's confusion had, in a moment of 
 weakness, extended to Lettice. She had felt 
 ashamed to be paid as a workwoman by one 
 once her friend, and in social rank her equal; 
 but now she raised her head with a noble 
 frankness and spirit. 
 
 " I am very much obliged to you for recol- 
 lecting the account, madam, for in truth the 
 money is very much wanted; and if," turning 
 to her old friend, " my dear Catherine can 
 find me a little more work, I should be very 
 greatly obliged to her." 
 
 Catherine again changed colour. Work ! 
 she was longing to offer her money. She had 
 twenty pounds in her pocket, a present from 
 her god-mother, to buy something pretty for 
 her wedding. She was burning with the 
 desire to put it into Lettice's hand. 
 
 She stammered — she hesitated. 
 
 " Perhaps you have no more work just 
 now," said Lettice. " Never mind, then ; I 
 am sure when there is an opportunity, you
 
 80 LETTICE AR^OLD. 
 
 will remember what a pleasure it will be to 
 me to work for joii — and that a poor needle- 
 woman is very much benefited by having 
 private customers." 
 
 "My dear, dear Lettice!" and Catherine's 
 arms were round her neck. She could not 
 help shedding a few tears. 
 
 " But to return to business," said Mrs. 
 Dan vers, "for I see Miss Arnold is impatient 
 to be gone. What is your charge, my dear ? 
 These slips are tucked and beautifully stitched 
 and done." 
 
 " I should not get more than threepence, 
 at most fourpence, at the shops for them. 
 Should you think ninepence an unreasonable 
 charge 1 I believe it is what you would pay 
 if you had them done at the schools." 
 
 " Threepence! fourpence! ninepence! Good 
 heavens ! " cried Catherine ; " so beautifully 
 done as these are — and then your needles and 
 thread, you have made no charge for them." 
 
 " We pay for those ourselves," said Lettice.
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 81 
 
 " But, mj dear/' said Mrs. Danvers, " what 
 Catherine would have to paj for this work, if 
 bought from a linen warehouse, w^ould at least 
 be fifteen pence, and not nearly so well done, 
 — for these are beautiful. Come, jou must 
 ask eighteen-pence — there are six of them — 
 nine shillings, mj dear." 
 
 The eyes of poor Lettice quite glistened. 
 She could not refuse. She felt that to seem 
 over delicate about this little enhancement of 
 price on the part of one who wished her well, 
 would be really a mere exhibition of great 
 moral indelicacy and unseasonable pride. 
 " Thank you," said she, "you are very liberal; 
 but it must only be for this once. If I am to 
 be your needlewoman in ordinary, Catherine, 
 I must only be paid what you would pay to 
 others." 
 
 She smiled pleasantly as she said this ; but 
 Catherine could not answer the smile. She 
 felt very sad as she drew the nine shillings 
 from her purse, — longing to make them nine 
 
 VOL. 1, G
 
 82 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 sovereigns. But she laid the money at last 
 before Lettice, upon the table. 
 
 Lettice took it up, and bringing out an old 
 dirty leathern purse, was going to put it in. 
 
 " At least, let me give you a better purse," 
 said Catherine, eagerly, offering her own hand- 
 some one, — it was of a strong texture, for it 
 was her business purse. 
 
 " They would think I had stolen it," said 
 Lettice, putting it aside. "No, thank yon, 
 dear, kind Catherine. Consistency in all 
 things ; and my old leather convenience seems 
 to me much more consistent with my bonnet 
 than your beautiful one. Not but that I shall 
 get myself a decent bonnet now, for really 
 this is a shame to be seen. And so, good- 
 bye; and farewell, madam. When you have 
 work, you won't forget me, will you, dear 1" 
 
 " Oh, Catherine has plenty of work to be 
 done," put in Mrs. Danvers, " but somehow 
 she is not quite herself this morning," again 
 looking at her very kindly. " You cannot
 
 LETTICE AEXOLD. 83 
 
 wonder, Miss Arnold, that she is much more 
 agitated by this meeting than jou can be. 
 Mj dear, there are those pocket-handkerchiefs 
 to be marked, which we durst not trust to an 
 unknown person. That will be a profitable 
 job. You would have to pay five shillings 
 a -piece at Mr. Morris's for having them em- 
 broidered according to that pattern jou fixed 
 upon, and which I doubt not your friend and 
 her sister can execute. There are six of them 
 to be marked, you know." 
 
 " May I look at the pattern ? — Oh yes ! I 
 think I can do it. I will take the greatest 
 possible pains. Six at five shillings each. 
 Oh, madam ! — Oh, Catherine ! — what a benefit 
 this will be.'' 
 
 Again Catherine felt it impossible to speak. 
 She could only stoop down, take the poor 
 hand, so roughened with hardships, and raise 
 it to her lips. 
 
 The beautiful handkerchiefs were brought. 
 
 " I will only take one at a time, if you 
 
 G 2
 
 84 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 please. These are too valuable to be risked 
 at our lodgings. When I have done this I 
 will fetch another, and so on. I shall not 
 lose time in getting them out of hand, depend 
 upon it," said Lettice, cheerfully. 
 
 " Take two, at all events, and then Mjra 
 can help you.'' 
 
 "No, only one at present at least, thank 
 you.'' 
 
 She did not say what she knew to be very 
 true, that Myra could not help her. Myra's 
 fingers were twice as delicate as her own — and 
 Myra, before their misfortunes, had mostly 
 spent her time in ornamental work — her aunt 
 holding plain sewing to be an occupation 
 rather beneath so beautiful and distinguished 
 a creature. Nevertheless, when work became 
 of so much importance to them all, as the 
 only means of subsistence ; and the power of 
 executing fine work well more especially so, as 
 the way of turning time to a better account — 
 and adding to the pittance which, labour as
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 85 
 
 tliej would, it was impossible bj mere plain 
 sewing, to increase — it was found that Mjra's 
 pretended accomplishments in this way were 
 utterly useless. 
 
 To excel in anything, be it needlework or 
 be it anything else, requires a something more 
 strenuous that the listless half attention she 
 Avas accustomed to pay. Spoiled and in- 
 dulged as she had been, by a silly good- 
 natured relation, she had never been called 
 upon to exercise that strenuous and per- 
 severing, and — to the self-indulgent, and indo- 
 lent, painful industry — which is necessary to 
 do anything well. Self-denial, self-govern- 
 ment, virtuous resistance against weari- 
 ness, disgust, aching fingers and heavy eyes — 
 temptations which haunt the indefatigable 
 labourer in such callings, she was utterly in- 
 capable of: the consequence was, that she 
 worked in a very inferior manner. Whilst 
 Lettice, as soon as she became aware of the 
 importance of this accomplishment, and the
 
 86 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 means it would afford of increasing her power 
 of adding to her mother's comforts, had been 
 indefatigable in her endeavours to accomplish 
 herself in the art, and was become a very 
 excellent workwoman.
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 87 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Umbriel, a dusky, melanclioly sprite, 
 As ever sullied the fair face of light. 
 
 Pope. 
 
 And now she is upon her way home. And 
 oh! how lightly beats that honest, simple heart 
 in her bosom : and oh ! how cheerily sits her 
 spirit upon its throne. How happily, too, she 
 looks about at the shops, — and thinks of what 
 she shall buy. Not of what she can possibly do 
 without; not of the very cheapest and poorest 
 that is to be had for money, but upon what 
 she shall choose!
 
 88 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 Then she remembers the fable of the Maid 
 and the Milk-pail, and grows prudent and 
 prosaic, and resolves that she will not spend 
 her money till she has got it. She begins to 
 limit her desires, and to determine that she 
 will only lay out six shillings this morning, 
 and keep three in her purse, as a resource 
 against contingencies. Nay, she begins to 
 grow a little Martha-like and careful, and to 
 dream about savings-banks ; and putting half-a- 
 crown in, out of the way of temptation, when 
 she is paid for her first pocket-handkerchief. 
 
 Six shillings, however, she means to expend 
 for the more urgent wants. Two shillings 
 coals; one shilling a very, very coarse straw 
 bonnet; four pence ribbon to trim it with; 
 one shilling bread, and six pence potatoes; a 
 half-penny worth of milk; and then, what 
 will be leff? — One shilling and a penny half- 
 penny. Myra shall have a cup of tea — with 
 sugar in it; and a muffin, that she loves so, 
 and a bit of butter. Four pennyworth of tea,
 
 LETTICE AEXOLD. 89 
 
 three pennyworth of sugar, two pennyworth 
 of butter, one penny muffin, — and three pence 
 halfpenny remains in the good little manager's 
 hands. 
 
 She came up the dark stairs of her lodgings 
 so cheerfully ! followed by a boy lugging up 
 her coals, she carrying the other purchases 
 herself, — so happy! — quite radiant with joy, — 
 and opened the door of the miserable little 
 apartment. 
 
 It was a bleak wintry morning. Not a 
 single ray of the sun could penetrate the grey 
 fleecy covering in which the houses were 
 wrapped; yet the warmth of the smoke and 
 fires was sufficient so far to assist the tempe- 
 rature of the atmosphere as to melt the dirty 
 snow, which now kept dripping from the roofs 
 in dreary cadence, and splashing upon the 
 pavement below. 
 
 The room looked so dark, so dreary, so 
 dismal! Such a contrast to the one she had 
 just left!
 
 90 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 Myra was up, and was dressed in her 
 miserable, half- worn, cotton gown, which was 
 thrown round her in the most untidy, comfort- 
 less manner. She could not think it worth 
 while to care how such a gown was put on. 
 Her hair was dingy and disordered; to be 
 sure there was but a broken comb to straighten 
 it with, — and who could do anything with such 
 a comb? She was cowering over the fire, 
 which was now nearly extinguished, and from 
 time to time, picking up the cinders bit by 
 bit, as they fell upon the little hearth,— putting 
 them on again, — endeavouring to keep the fire 
 alive. Wretchedness in the extreme was visible 
 in her dress, her attitude, her aspect. 
 
 She turned round as Lettice entered, and 
 saying pettishly, — " I thought you never would 
 come back, — and I do so want my shawl," — 
 returned to her former attitude, with her 
 elbows resting upon her knees, and her chin 
 upon the palms of her hands. 
 
 " I have been a sad long time, indeed," said
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 91 
 
 Lettice, good-humoiiredly ; " jou must have 
 been tired to death of waiting for me, — and 
 wondering what I could be about. But I've 
 brought something back which will make jou 
 amends. And, in the first place, here's your 
 shawl,'' putting it over her, — " and thank you 
 for the use of it — though I would not ask your 
 leave, because I could not bear to waken you. 
 But I was sure you would lend it me — and 
 now for the fire. For once in a way we luill 
 have a good one. There, Sim, bring in the 
 coals, — put them in that wooden box there. 
 Now for a good lump or two.'' And on the 
 lumps accordingly went ; and the expiring fire 
 began to crackle and sparkle, and make a 
 pleasant noise, — and a blaze soon caused even 
 that room to look a little cheerful. 
 
 " Oh dear ! I am so glad we may for once 
 be allowed to have coal enough to put a spark 
 of life into us," said Myra. 
 
 Lettice had by this time filled the little old 
 tin kettle, and was putting it upon the fire, —
 
 92 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 and then she fetched an old tea-pot with a 
 broken spout, — a saucer without a cup, — and 
 a cup without a saucer; and putting the two 
 together, — for they were usually divided be- 
 tween the sisters, said: — 
 
 " I have got something for you which I know 
 you will like still better than a blaze, — a cup 
 of tea. And to warm your poor fingers, see 
 if you can't toast yourself this muffin," — 
 handing it to her upon what was now a two- 
 pronged, but had once been a three-pronged, 
 fork. 
 
 "But what have you got for yourself?" 
 Myra had at least the grace to say. 
 
 " Oh ! I have had such a breakfast. And 
 such a thing has happened! But I cannot and 
 will not tell you till you have had your own 
 breakfast, poor dear girl. You must be 
 ravenous — at least, I should be in your place 
 — but you never seem so hungry as I am, poor 
 Myra. However, I was sure you could eat a 
 muffin."
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. .93 
 
 " That was very good natured of jou, Let- 
 tice, to think of it. It will be a treat. But 
 oh! to think that we should be brought to this 
 — to think a mufl&n — one muffin — a treat!" 
 she added, dismally, 
 
 *• Let us be thankful when we get it, how- 
 ever," said her sister. " Upon mj word, Mrs. 
 Bull has given us some very good coals. Oh, 
 how the kettle does enjoy them ! It must be 
 quite a treat to our kettle to feel hot — poor 
 thing! Lukewarm is the best it mostly attains 
 to. Hear how it buzzes and hums, like a 
 pleased child." 
 
 And so she prattled, and put a couple of 
 spoonfuls of tea into the cracked tea-pot. 
 There were but about six in the paper, but 
 Myra liked her tea strong, and she should have 
 it as she pleased this once. Then she poured 
 out a cup, put in some milk and sugar, and, 
 with a smile of ineffable affection, presented it 
 with the muffin she had buttered, to her sister. 
 Myra did enjoy it.' To the poor, weedy,
 
 94 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 delicate thing, a cup of good tea with some- 
 thinor to eat that she could relish, was a real 
 blessing. Mrs. Danvers was right so far: 
 things did really go much harder with her than 
 they did with Letticc; but then she made 
 them six times worse by her discontented and 
 murmuring spirit ; and Lettice made them six 
 times better by her cheerfulness and generous 
 disregard of self. 
 
 Whilst the one sister was enjoying her 
 breakfast, the other, who really began to feel 
 tired, was very glad to sit down and enjoy 
 the fire. So she took the other chair, and 
 putting herself upon the opposite side of the 
 little table, began to stretch out her feet to the 
 fender, and feel herself quite comfortable. 
 Three shillings in her purse, and three pence 
 halfpenny to do just what she liked with! — 
 perhaps buy Myra a roll for tea : there would 
 be butter enough left. 
 
 Then she began her story. But the effect 
 it produced was not exactly what she had
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 95 
 
 expected. Instead of sharing in her sister's 
 thankful joj for this unexpected deliverance 
 from the most abject ^rant, through the disco- 
 very of a friend — able and willing to furnish 
 employment herself, and to recommend them, 
 as, in her hopeful view of things, Lettice anti- 
 cipated, to others, and promising them work 
 of a description that would pay well, and make 
 them quite comfortable — Myra began to draw 
 a repining contrast between Catherine's situa- 
 tion and her own. 
 
 The poor beauty had been educated by her 
 silly and romantic old aunt to look forward to 
 making some capital match, " She had such 
 a sweet pretty face, and so many accomplish- 
 ments of mind and manner,'^ — for such was the 
 way the old woman loved to talk. Accom- 
 plishments of mind and manner, by the way, 
 are indefinite things; anybody may put in a 
 claim for them on the part of any one. As 
 for the more positive acquirements which are 
 to be seen, handled, or heard, to be appreciated
 
 96 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 — such as dancing, music, languages, and so 
 forth, Myra had as slender a portion of those 
 as usually falls to the lot of indulged, idle, 
 nervous girls. The poor beauty felt all the 
 bitterness of the deepest mortification at what 
 she considered this cruel contrast of her fate 
 as compared to Catherine's. She had been 
 indulged in that pernicious habit of the mind 
 — the making claims. " With claims no better 
 than her own," was her expression. For 
 though Catherine had more money than she 
 had, everybody said Catherine was only pretty 
 — ^which last sentence implied that there was 
 another person of Catherine's acquaintance, 
 who was positively and extremely beautiful. 
 
 Lettice, happily for herself, had never been 
 accustomed to make "claims.'' She had, in- 
 deed, never distinctly understood whom such 
 claims were to be made upon. She could not 
 quite see why it was very hard that other 
 people should be happier than herself, I am 
 sure she would have been very sorry if she
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 97 
 
 had thought that everybodj was as uncom- 
 fortable. 
 
 She was always sorry when she heard her 
 sister talking in this manner, partly because 
 she felt it could not be quite right, and partly 
 because she was sure it did no good, but made 
 matters a great deal worse; but she said 
 nothing. Exhortation, indeed, most assuredly 
 only made matters worse. Nothing offended 
 Myra so much as an attempt to make her 
 beheve herself rather more comfortable, or to 
 reconcile her to the fate she complained of as 
 so hard. 
 
 Even when let alone, it would often be some 
 time before she recovered her good humour 
 when she heard of any one better off than 
 herself; and this proved the case now. I am 
 afraid she was a little vexed that Lettice and 
 not herself had met with the good luck first 
 to stumble upon Catherine; and also a little 
 envious of the pleasing impression it was plain 
 her sister had made. So she began to fall 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 foul of Lettice's new bonnet, and to saj in a 
 captious tone, 
 
 " You got money enough to buy yourself a 
 new bonnet, I see." 
 
 "Indeed, I did," Lettice answered, ^vith 
 simplicity. " It was tlie very first thing I 
 thought of. Mine was such a wretched thing, 
 and wetted with the snow; the very boys 
 hooted at it. Poor old friend I" said she, 
 turning it upon her hand, " you have lost even 
 the shape and pretension to be a bonnet. 
 What must I do with thee ? The back of the 
 fire'? Sad fate! No, generous companion of 
 my cares and labours, that shall not be thy 
 destiny. Useful to the last, thou shalt light 
 to-morrow's fire, and that will be the best 
 satisfaction to thy generous manes." 
 
 " My^^ bonnet is not so very much better," 
 said Myra, rather sulkily. 
 
 " Not so very much, alas ! but still better, 
 far better than mine. And, besides, confess, 
 please, my dear, that you had the last bonnet.
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 99 
 
 Two years ago, it's true ; but mine had seen 
 three; and then, remember, I am going into 
 grand company again to-morrow, and must be 
 decent." 
 
 This last remark did not sweeten Myra's 
 temper. 
 
 " Oh ! I forgot . Of course you'll keep your 
 good company to yourself. I am, indeed, not 
 fit to be seen in it. But youll want a new 
 gown and a new shawl, my dear ; though, 
 indeed, you can always take mine, as you did 
 this morning." 
 
 "Now, Myra!" said Lettice, "can you 
 really be so naughty? Nay, you are cross ; I 
 see it in your face, though you won't look at 
 me. Now don't be so foolish. Is it not all 
 the same to us both 1 x\re we not in one 
 box? If you wish for the new bonnet, take 
 it, and I'll take yours ; I don't care, my dear. 
 You were always used to be more handsomely 
 dressed than me — it must seem quite odd for 
 you not to be so. I only want to be decent 
 
 H 2
 
 100 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 -when I go about the work, which I shall have 
 to do often, as I told jou, because I dare not 
 have two of these expensive handkerchiefs in 
 my possession at once. Dear me, girl ! Have 
 we not troubles enough ? For goodness' sake 
 don't let us make them. There, dear, take 
 the bonnet, and 111 take yours ; but I declare 
 when I look at the two, this is so horridly 
 coarse, — yours, old as it is, looks the genteeler 
 to my mind," laughing. 
 
 So thought Myra, and kept her own bonnet : 
 Lettice putting upon it the piece of new rib- 
 bon she had bought, and after smoothing and 
 rubbing the faded one upon her sister's, 
 trimming with it her own. 
 
 The two friends in Green Street sat silently 
 for a short time after the door had closed upon 
 Lettice, and then Catherine began.
 
 LETTICE ARI^OLD. 101 
 
 " More astonishing things happen in the 
 real world than one ever finds in a book. I 
 am sure if such a reverse of fortune as this 
 had been described to me in a storj, I should 
 at once have declared it to be impossible. -I 
 could not have believed it credible that, in a 
 society such as ours — full of all sorts of kind, 
 good-natured people, who are daily doing so 
 much for the poor — an amiable girl like this, 
 the daughter of a clergyman of the Church of 
 England, could be sufi*ered to sink into such 
 abject poverty." 
 
 " Ah ! my dear Catherine, that shows you 
 have only seen life upon one side, and that its 
 fairest side — as it presents itself in the coun- 
 try. You cannot imagine what a dreadful 
 thing it may prove in large cities. It cannot 
 enter into the head of man to conceive the 
 horrible contrasts to be met with in large cities 
 — the dreadfid destitution of large cities — the 
 awful solitude of a crowd. In the country, I 
 think, such a thing as this hardly could have
 
 102 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 happened, — however great the difficulty may be 
 of helping those who still preserve the delicacy 
 and dignity with regard to money matters, 
 which distinguishes finer minds. But in Lon- 
 don, what can be expected? Like lead in the 
 mighty waters, the moneyless and friendless 
 sink to the bottom. Society in all its count- 
 less degrees closes over them : they are lost in 
 its immensity — hidden from every eye — and 
 they perish as an insect might perish amid the 
 myriads of its kind, unheeded by every other 
 living creature. Ah, my love! if your walks 
 lay where mine have done, your heart would 
 bleed for these destitute women, born to better 
 hopes, and utterly shipwrecked." 
 
 " She was such a dear, amiable girl," Cathe- 
 rine went on, " so cheerful, so sweet-tempered ! 
 — so clever in all that one likes to see people 
 clever about ! Her mother was a silly woman." 
 
 '' So she showed, I fear, by coming to Lon- 
 don," said Mrs. Danvers. 
 
 " She was so proud of Myra's beauty ; and
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 103 
 
 she seemed to think so little of Lettice. She 
 was always prophesying that Myra would make 
 a great match. As did her aunt, Mrs. Price, 
 who was no wiser than ^Irs. Arnold; and they 
 brought up the poor girl to such a conceit of 
 herself, — to ' not to do this,' and ' it was be- 
 neath her to do that,' — and referring every 
 indiyidual thing to her comfoii; and advance- 
 ment, till, poor girl, she could hardly escape 
 growing, what she certainly did grow into, a 
 very spoiled, selfish creature. While dear 
 Lettice in her simplicity, — that simplicity 
 ' which thinketh no evil,' — took it so naturally, 
 that so it was, and so it ought to be; that 
 sometimes one laughed, and sometimes one felt 
 provoked — but one loved her above all things. 
 — I never saw such a temper." 
 
 " I dare say," said Mrs. Dan vers, " the true 
 reason of your wish to stay in town to-day 
 was the intention of paying them a visit at 
 their own home, which, indeed, we had better 
 do. I had only a glance into their apartment
 
 104 LBTTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 the Other day, but it occurred to me that they 
 wanted common necessaries. Ignorant as I 
 was of who they were, I was thinking to get 
 
 them put upon Lady A 's coal and blanket 
 
 list, but that cannot very well be done now. 
 However, presents are always permitted under 
 certain conditions, and the most delicate re- 
 ceive them ; and, really, this is a case, in some 
 measure, to waive feelings of that sort. As 
 you are an old friend and acquaintance, there 
 can be no harm in a few presents before you 
 leave town." 
 
 " So I was thinking, maW, and I am very 
 impatient to go and see them, and find out 
 what they may be most in want of." 
 
 " Well, my dear, I do not see why we should 
 lose time; and I will order a cab to take us; for 
 it is rather too far to walk this terrible day." 
 
 They soon arrived at the place I have de- 
 scribed, and, descending from their cab, walked 
 along in front of this row of lofty houses, look- 
 ing upon the grave-yard, and inhabited by so
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 105 
 
 much human miserj. The doors of most of the 
 houses stood open, for thej were all let in sepa- 
 rate rooms, and the entrance and staircase were 
 common as the street. 
 
 What forms of human misery and degi'ada- 
 tion presented themselves during one short 
 walk which I once took there with a friend, 
 employed upon a mission of mercy ! 
 
 Disease in its most frightful form, panting 
 to inhale a little fresh air. Squalid misery, 
 the result of the gin-shop, — decent misery 
 ready to starye. — Women shut up in one room 
 with great, heartless, brutal, disobedient boys, 
 — sickness resting untended upon its soli- 
 tary bed. Wailing infants, — scolding mothers, 
 — human nature under its most abject and de- 
 graded forms. Xo thrift, no economy, no 
 attempt at cleanliness and order. Idleness, 
 recklessness, dirt and wretchedness. It may 
 be that the very atmosphere of towns ; it may 
 be that these close, ill-ventilated rooms; most 
 certainly the poisonous gin-shop, engender a
 
 106 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 relaxed state of nerves and muscles, which de- 
 prives people of the spirits even to attempt to 
 make themselves a little decent. Then water 
 is so dear, and dirt so pervading the very 
 atmosphere. Poor things! the j may probably 
 struggle for a time, but they give it up at last; 
 and acquiesce in, and become accustomed to it, 
 and " avec un malheur sourd dont Von ne se 
 rend pas compte,^' gradually sink and sink into 
 the lowest abyss of habitual degi'adation. 
 
 It is difficult to express the painful sensa- 
 tions which Catherine experienced when she 
 entered the room of the two sisters. To her 
 the dirty paper, the carpetless floor, the miser- 
 able bed, the worm-eaten and scanty furniture, 
 the aspect of extreme poverty which pervaded 
 everything, were so shocking, that she could 
 hardly restrain her tears. Not so Mrs. 
 Dan vers. 
 
 Greater poverty even she, could rarely have 
 seen, but too often accompanied with what 
 grieved her far more than any mere physical
 
 LETTICE AR2iOLD. 107 
 
 privation could have done, — reckless indiffer- 
 ence, and moral degradation. Dirt and dis- 
 order, those agents of the powers of darkness, 
 were almost sure to be found where there was 
 extreme want ; but here the case was, in this 
 respect, different. As her experienced eye 
 glanced round the room, she could perceive 
 that — ^poor as was that best — the best was 
 made of it ; that a cheerful, active spirit — the 
 "How to make the best of it" — that spirit 
 which is like the guardian angel of the poor, 
 had been busy here. 
 
 The floor, though bare, was clean ; the bed, 
 though so mean, made and neatly arranged ; 
 the grate was bright ; the chairs were dusted ; 
 the poor little plenishing put in order. No 
 dirty garments hanging about the room ; they 
 were all carefully folded and put away : though 
 she could not of course see that ; for there were 
 no half-open drawers of the sloven, admitting 
 dust and dirt, and offending the eye. Lettice, 
 herself, with hair neatly braided, her poor
 
 108 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 worn gown carefully put on, was sitting by 
 the little table, busv at her work, looking the 
 very picture of modest industry. There was 
 only one object to offend the nice moral sense 
 of Mrs. Danyers ; and that was the figure of 
 Myra. She sat there with her fine hair hanging 
 round her face in long, dirty, dishevelled ring- 
 lets, her feet stretched out and pushed slip- 
 shod into her shoes : her dress half put on, 
 and hanging over h-er, as the maids say, " no 
 how ;" leaning back in the chair and sewing 
 very languidly, at a very dirty piece of work 
 which she held in her hand. 
 
 Both sisters started up when the door 
 opened. Lettice's cheeks flushed with joy, 
 and her eye sparkled with pleasure as she rose 
 to receive her guests — brought forward her 
 other only chair, stirred the fire, and sent the 
 light of a pleasant blaze through the room. 
 Myra coloured also, but her first action was to 
 stoop down hastily to pull up the heels of her 
 shoes ; she then cast a hurried glance upon her
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 109 
 
 dress, and arranged it a little, — occupied as 
 usual with herself, her own appearance the 
 first thought — and never in her life more dis- 
 agreeably presented to her. 
 
 Catherine shook hands heartily with Lettice^ 
 saying, " We are soon met again, you see ;" 
 and then went up to Myra, and extended her 
 hand to her also. The other took it, but was 
 evidently so excessively ashamed of her poverty 
 and her present appearance, before one who 
 had seen her in better days, that she could not 
 speak, or make any reply to a kind speech of 
 Catherine's, except by a few unintelligible 
 murmurs. 
 
 " I was impatient to come," said Catherine 
 — she and Mrs. Danvers having seated them- 
 selves upon the two smaller chairs, whilst the 
 sisters sat together upon the larger one — 
 " because, you know, I must go out of town so 
 very soon, and I wanted to call upon you, and 
 have a little chat and talk of old times ; and 
 really — really ''
 
 110 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 She hesitated. Dear, good thing, she was 
 so dreadfully afraid of mortifying either of her 
 two old friends in their present fallen state. 
 
 " And really — really," added Mrs. Danvers, 
 smiling, " out with it, my love — really — really, 
 Lettice, to tell the truth, Catherine feels as I 
 am sure you would feel if the cases were re- 
 versed. She cannot bear the thoughts of her 
 own prosperity, and at the same time think of 
 your misfortunes. So I told her I was quite 
 sure you would not be hurt if she did for you, 
 what I was certain you would have done in 
 such a case for her ; and that you would let 
 her make you a little more comfortable before 
 she went away. The poor thing's wedding- 
 day will be quite spoiled, you know, by thinking 
 about you, if you won't, Lettice." 
 
 Lettice stretched out her hand to Catherine 
 by way of answer ; and received in return the 
 most warm and affectionate squeeze. Myra 
 was very glad to be made more comfortable, 
 there was no doubt of that ; but half offended.
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. Ill 
 
 and determined to be as little obliged as 
 possible. And then, Catherine was going to 
 be married, too : how hard ! — all kinds of 
 good luck seemed to be heaped upon her, and 
 she herself so unfortunate in every way. 
 
 How hard! 
 
 But nobody cared for her ungracious looks. 
 Catherine knew her of old, and Mrs. Danyers 
 understood the sort of thing she was in a 
 minute. Her walk had lain too long amid the 
 yictims of false views and imperfect moral 
 training, to be surprised at this instance of 
 theii' effects. The person who surprised her 
 was Lettice. 
 
 "Well, then," said Catherine, now quite 
 relieved, and looking round the room, " where 
 shall we begin \ What will you have *? What 
 do you want most ? I shall make you wedding 
 presents, you see, instead of you making them 
 to me. When your turn comes, you shall have 
 your revenge." 
 
 " Well,'' Lettice said, " what must be must
 
 112 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 be, and it's nonsense playing at being proud. 
 I am very much obliged to you, indeed, Cathe- 
 rine, for thinking of us, at this time ; and if I 
 must tell you what I should be excessively 
 obliged to you for, it is a pair of blankets. 
 Poor Myra can hardly sleep for the cold/' 
 
 " It's not the cold ; it's the wretched, hard, 
 lumpy bed/' muttered Myra. 
 
 This hint sent Catherine to the bed-side. 
 
 " Oh dear ! oh dear !" cried she, piteously ; 
 " poor dear things, how could you sleep at all ? 
 Do they call this a bed 1 — and such blankets ! 
 Poor Myra !" her compassion quite overcoming 
 her dislike : " no wonder — My goodness ! My 
 goodness ! it's very shocking indeed/' 
 
 And the good young thing could not help 
 crying. 
 
 "Blankets, dear girls ! to be sure you shall; 
 and a mattress, and a feather-bed, and two 
 pillows. How have you lived through it 1 
 And you, poor Myra, who used to be made so 
 much of. Poor girl ! I am so sorry for you."
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 113 
 
 And oh ! how her heart smote her for all she 
 had said and thought to Mjra's disadvantage. 
 And oh ! how the generous eyes of Lettice 
 beamed with pleasure as these compassionate 
 words were addressed to her sister. Mjra 
 was softened and affected. She could almost 
 forgive Catherine for being so fortunate. 
 
 " You are very kind, indeed, Catherine," she 
 said. 
 
 Catherine, now quite at her ease, began to 
 examine into their other wants ; and without 
 asking many questions, merely by peeping 
 about, and forming her own conclusions, was 
 soon pretty well aware of what was of the most 
 urgent necessity. She was now quite upon the 
 fidget to be gone, that she might order and 
 send in the things ; and ten of the twenty 
 pounds given her for wedding lace was spent 
 before she and Mrs. Danvers reached home, 
 — that lady laughing, and lamenting over the 
 wedding-gown, which would certainly not be 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 LETTICE AENOLD. 
 
 flounced with Honiton lace, as Catherine's good 
 god-mother had intended, and looking so 
 pleased, contented, and happj, that it did 
 Catherine's heart good to see her.
 
 LETTICE AEXOLD. 115 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The swain in barren deserts with surprise 
 Sees lilies spring and sudden verdure rise; 
 And starts amid the thirsty wilds to hear 
 New falls of water murm'ring in his ear. 
 
 Pope. 
 
 Ix the evening, ^Mrs. Danvers seemed rather 
 tired, and the two sat over the fire a long time 
 without a single word being uttered; but, at 
 last, when tea was finished, and they had both 
 taken their work, Catherine, who had been in 
 profound meditation all this time, began : — 
 
 " My dear, Mrs. Danvers, are jou rested? I 
 
 I 2
 
 116 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 have a great deal to talk to you about, if jou 
 will let me." 
 
 " I must be very much tired, indeed, Cathe- 
 rine, when I will not let you talk, and like to 
 hear you too," was the kind reply. 
 
 Mrs. Danyers reposed very comfortably in 
 her arm-chair, with her feet upon a footstool, 
 before the cheerful, blazing fire; and now Ca- 
 therine drew her chair closer, rested her feet 
 upon the fender too, and seemed to prepare 
 herself for a regular confidential conversation 
 with her beloved old friend. 
 
 " My dear Mrs. Danvers," she began, " you 
 are such a friend both of my dear mother's and 
 mine, that I think I may without scruple open 
 my whole heart to you upon a matter in 
 which more than myself are concerned. If you 
 think me wrong, stop me," said she, laying her 
 hand affectionately upon that of her friend, 
 and fixing those honest, earnest eyes of hers 
 upon her face. 
 
 Mrs. Danvers pressed the hand, and said : —
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 117 
 
 " Mj love, whatever jou confide to me, you 
 know is sacred; and if I can be of any assist- 
 ance to JOU, dear girl, I think jou need not 
 scruple opening jour mind — for jou know I 
 am a sort of general mother-confessor to all 
 mj acquaintance, and am as secret as such a 
 profession demands/' 
 
 Catherine lifted up the hand; she held it, 
 pressed it, and continued to hold it ; then she 
 looked at the fire a little while, and at last 
 spoke. 
 
 " Did JOU never in jour walk in life observe 
 one evil under the sun, which appears to me to 
 be a most crjing one in manj families, — the 
 undue influence exercised bj, and the power 
 allowed to, servants'?" 
 
 " Yes, mj dear, there are few of the minor 
 evils, — if minor it can be called, — that I have 
 thought productive of more dailj discomforts 
 than that. At times, indeed, such evils as- 
 sume a form of verj great magnitude, and are 
 serious and lamentable indeed. Alienated
 
 118 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 hearts — divided families — and property to 
 large amounts diverted from its just and legi- 
 timate channels. These I have seen the result 
 of the base insinuations and selfish cunning of 
 servants, acting upon minds naturally weak, 
 or enfeebled by sickness or old age. — And, 
 almost worse than all, a tyranny exercised and 
 misery not to be told the result of it — over 
 oM age and a dying bed.'' 
 
 Catherine slightly shuddered and said, — 
 '' I have not had an opportunity of seeing 
 much of the world, you know — what you 
 describe to me is rather what I feared it might 
 become, than what I have actually observed in 
 some cases — but I have had a sort of presenti- 
 ment of what might in future arise. — It is 
 inexplicable to me the power a servant may 
 gain, and the tyrannical way in which she will 
 dare to exercise it. — The unaccountable way 
 in which those who have every title to com- 
 mand, may be brought to obey, is scarcely to 
 be believed, and to me almost a mystery."
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 119 
 
 " Co-svardice and indolence, my dear, Tvill go 
 far to explain that mjsterj. Enfeebled 
 spirits — a ^veak body and a mind wanting 
 resolution upon the one side — and upon the 
 other a very inconvenient amount of moral 
 force, arising from the very want of all those 
 qualities which render moral force desirable. 
 As want of delicacy, want of tenderness, want 
 of honest principle, and so forth — want, 
 above all, of enlarged understanding, and 
 a right view of things. It is quite strange, 
 and lamentable as strange, to observe the sort 
 of rude, rough strength, which rough habits 
 and coarse perceptions in such cases confer. 
 Believe me, dear girl, almost as much power 
 is obtained in this foolish world by the 
 absence of certain qualities as by the posses- 
 sion of others. — Silly people are apt to think 
 it so nice and easy to govern, and so difficult to 
 obey. It requires, believe me, many higher 
 qualities, and much more rule over the spirit 
 to command obedience than to pay it."
 
 120 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 " Yes, no doubt, one does not think enough 
 of that. Jeremy Taylor, in his fine prayers, 
 has one for a new married wife just about to 
 enter a family — he teaches her to pray for ' a 
 right judgment in all things — not to be annoyed 
 at trifles — nor discomposed by contrariety of 
 accidents,' — a spirit ' to overcome all my infir- 
 mities, and comply with and bear with the 
 infirmities of others — giving ofi*ence to none, 
 but doing good to all I can ;' — but I think he 
 should have added a petition for strength to 
 rule and guide that portion of the household 
 which falls under her immediate care, with a 
 firm and righteous hand, not fearing tlie face of 
 man in an inferior more than in a superior. — 
 Not yielding feebly to the undue encroachment 
 of others — not suffering, through indolence or a 
 mistaken love of peace, evil habits to creep 
 over those who look up to us and depend upon 
 us, — to their own infinite injury as well as to 
 our own. Ah ! that is the part of a woman's 
 duty hardest to fulfil ; and I almost tremble,''
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 121 
 
 said the young bride elect, " when I think how 
 heavy the responsibility ; and how hard I 
 shall find it to acquit myself as I desire." 
 
 " In this, as in other things/' answered Mrs. 
 Danvers, affectionately passing her hand over 
 her young fayourite's smooth and shining hair, 
 " I have ever observed there is but one source 
 of real strength ; one force alone by which 
 we can move mountains. But, in that strength 
 we assuredly are able to move mountains. 
 Was this all that you had to say, my dear 1" 
 
 " Oh, no ; but — it is so disagreeable — yet I 
 think — Did you ever notice how things went 
 on at home, my dear friend V 
 
 " Yes, a little I have. One cannot help, 
 you know, if one stays long in a house, seeing 
 the relation in which the different members of 
 a family stand towards each other." 
 
 " I thought you must have done so ; that 
 makes it easier for me to speak — well, then 
 that was one great reason which made me so 
 unwilling to leave mamma."
 
 122 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 " I understand." 
 
 " There is a vast deal of that sort of tyranny 
 exercised in our family already. Ever since I 
 have grown up, I have done all in my power to 
 check it, by encouraging my poor dear mamma 
 to exert a little spirit ; but she is so gentle, so 
 soft, so indulgent, and so affectionate ! — for 
 
 even that comes in her way She gets 
 
 attached to everything around her. She 
 cannot bear new faces — she gets fond of her 
 servants, and cannot bear they should look 
 vexed or dissatisfied, and this I think the 
 ssrvants know, and I am sorry to say, take 
 advantage of. They venture to do as they 
 like, because they think it will be too painful 
 an exertion for her to change them." 
 
 " Yes, my dear, that is exactly as things go 
 on ; not in your family alone, but in numbers 
 that I could name if I chose. It is a very 
 serious evil. It amounts to a sin in many 
 households. The waste, the almost vicious 
 luxury — the idleness that is allowed ! The
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 123 
 
 positive loss of what might be so much better 
 bestowed upon those who reallj want it, to the 
 positive injury of those who do enjoy it ! The 
 demoralising effect of pampered habits — the 
 sins which are committed through the tempta- 
 tion of having nothing to do — all these will 
 make, I fear, a dark catalogue against the mas- 
 ters and mistresses of families, when the sum 
 of life is taken. — Masters who, because they 
 have money in abundance, and hate trouble, 
 allow all this misrule, and its attendant ill 
 consequences upon the part of their dependants. 
 Neglecting * to rule with diligence,' as the 
 apostle commands us ; and satisfied, provided 
 they themselves escape suffering from the ill 
 consequences — except so far as the diminution 
 of their overflowing purses may perhaps be 
 concerned — to overlook all sorts of vice and 
 misconduct, so long as, some way or other, the 
 duties which personally regard themselves are 
 got through. — Few people seem to reflect upon 
 the mischief they may be doing to these, their
 
 124 LETTICB ARNOLD. 
 
 half-educated fellow-creatures, bj such negli- 
 gence." 
 
 Catherine looked very grave, almost sorrow- 
 ful, at this speech — she said — 
 
 " Poor mamma — but she cannot help it — 
 indeed she cannot. She is all love, and is 
 gentleness itself — the blessed one *who 
 thinketh no evil/ How can that Randall find 
 in her heart to tease her, as I am sure she 
 does! — Though mamma never complains. And 
 then I am afraid, indeed, I feel certain, when 
 I am gone, the evil will very greatly increase. 
 You, perhaps, have observed," added she, 
 lowering her voice, " that poor papa makes it 
 particularly difficult in our family — doubly 
 difficult. His old wounds, his injured arm, 
 his age and infirmities, make all sorts of little 
 comforts indispensable to him. He suffers so 
 much bodily, and he suffers, too, so much from 
 little inconveniences, that he cannot bear to 
 have anything done for him in an unaccus- 
 tomed way. Randall and Williams have hved
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 125 
 
 \vith US ever since I was five years old — when 
 poor papa came back from "Waterloo almost 
 cut to pieces. And he is so fond of them he 
 will not hear a complaint against them — not 
 eyen from mamma. Oh ! it is not her fault — 
 poor dear mamma !" 
 
 " No, my love, such a dreadful sufferer as 
 the poor General too often is, makes things 
 very difficult at times. I understand all that 
 quite well ; but we are still only on the 
 preamble of your discourse, my Catherine ; 
 something more than rain lamentation is to 
 come of it, I feel sure." 
 
 " Yes — indeed. Dear, generous mamma ! 
 She would not hear of my staying with her and 
 giving up Edgar ; nor would she listen to what 
 he was noble enough to propose, that he 
 should abandon his profession, and come and 
 live at the Hazels — rather than that I should 
 feel that I was tampering with my duty, for 
 his sake — dear fellow !" 
 
 And the tears stood in Catherine's eyes.
 
 126 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 " Nothing I could say would make her listeu 
 to it. I could hardly be sorry for Edgar*s 
 sake. I knew what a sacrifice it would have 
 been upon his part, — more than a woman ought 
 to accept from a lover, I think, — a man in 
 his dotage, as one may say. Don't you think 
 so too, ma'am." 
 
 " Yes, my dear, indeed I do. Well, go on." 
 " I have been so perplexed, so unhappy, so 
 undecided what to do; so sorry to leave this 
 dear, generous mother to the mercy of those 
 servants of hers — whose influence, when she is 
 alone, and with nobody to hearten her up a 
 little, will be so terribly upon the increase — 
 that I have not known what to do. But to-day, 
 whilst I was dressing for dinner, a sudden, 
 blessed thought came into my mind, — Really, 
 just like a flash of light that seemed to put 
 everything clear at once — and it is about that 
 I want to consult you, if you will let me. That 
 dear Lettice Arnold! — I knew her from a 
 child. — You cannot think what a creature she
 
 LETTICE AE^s'OLD. 127 
 
 is. So sensible, so cbeerfd, so sweet-tempered, 
 so self-sacrificing, jet so clever, and firm, and 
 steady wlien necessary. — Mamma wants a 
 daughter, and papa wants a reader and a 
 backgammon player. Lettice Arnold is the 
 very thing." 
 
 Mrs. Danvers made no answer. 
 
 " Don't you think so ? Are you not sure ? 
 Don't you see if?" asked poor Catherine, 
 anxiously. 
 
 " Alas 1 my dear, there is one thing I can 
 scarcely ever persuade myself to do ; and that 
 is — advise any one to undertake the part of 
 humble friend." 
 
 " Oh, dear ! oh, dear ! I know it's a terrible 
 place in general, and I can't think why." 
 
 "Because neither party in general under- 
 stands the nature of the relation, nor the 
 exchange of duty it implies. For want of 
 proper attention to this, the post of governess 
 is often rendered so unsatisfactory to one side, 
 and so very uncomfortable to the other — but in
 
 128 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 that case at least something is defined. lu 
 the part of the humble friend there is really 
 nothing. — Everything depends upon the equity 
 and good-nature of the first party, and the 
 candour and good-will of the second. Equity 
 not to exact too much, — good-nature to consult 
 the comfort and happiness of the dependant. 
 — On that dependant's side, candour in judging 
 of what is exacted; and good-will cheerfully 
 to do the best in her power to be amiable and 
 agreeable." 
 
 " I am not afraid of mamma. She will never 
 be exacting. She will study the happiness of 
 all who depend upon her; she only does it 
 almost too much — as I sometimes think, to the 
 sacrifice of her own comfort, and to the spoiling 
 of them — and though papa is sometimes so 
 suffering that he can't help being a little im- 
 patient, yet he is a perfect gentleman, you 
 know. As for Lettice Arnold, if ever there 
 was a person who knew * how to make the best 
 of it,' and sup cheerfully upon fried onions
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 129 
 
 when she had lost her piece of roast kid, it is 
 she. Besides, she is so uniformly good-natured, 
 that it is quite a pleasure to her to oblige. — 
 The only danger between dearest mamma and 
 Lettice will be — of their quarrelling which 
 shall give up most to the other. But, joking 
 apart, she is a rast deal more than I hare said 
 — she is a remarkably cleyer, spirited girl, and 
 shows it when she is called upon. You cannot 
 think how discreet, how patient, yet how firm, 
 she can be. Her parents, poor people ! were 
 very difficult to live with, and were always 
 running wrong. If it had not been for Lettice, 
 affairs would have got into dreadful confusion. 
 There is that in her so right, such an inherent 
 downright sense of propriety and justice. — 
 Somehow or other I am confident she will not 
 let Randall tyrannize over mamma when I am 
 gone." 
 
 "Really," said Mrs. Danvers, "what you 
 say seems very reasonable. There are excep- 
 tions to every rule. It certainly is one of 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 mine to have as little as possible to do in 
 recommending joung women to the situation 
 of humble friends. Yet in some cases I have 
 seen all the comfort jou anticipate arise to 
 both parties from such a connexion; and I 
 own I never saw a fairer chance presented 
 than the present — provided Randall is not too 
 strong for jou all ; which may be feared." 
 
 " Well, then, jou do not ^z^advise me to talk 
 to mamma about it ; and I will write to you as 
 soon as I possibly can; and you will be kind 
 enough to negotiate with Lettice if you approve 
 of the terms. As for Randall, she shall not 
 be too hard for me. Now is my hour ; I am 
 in the ascendant, and I will win this battle or 
 perish — that is, I will tell mamma I luonH be 
 married upon any other terms ; and to have 
 ' Miss' married is quite as great a matter of 
 pride to Mrs. Randall as to that dearest of 
 mothers."
 
 LETTICE AENOLD. 131 
 
 The contest with Mrs. Randall was as fierce 
 as Catherine, in her worst anticipations, could 
 haye expected. That worthy personage set 
 herself at once, as might have been expected, 
 most doggedly against the plan. It, indeed, 
 militated against all her schemes. She had 
 intended to have everything far more than ever 
 her own way when " Miss Catherine was gone ;'' 
 and though she had no doubt, as she said, but 
 that she should " keep the creature in her place," 
 and "teach her there was only one mistress 
 here" (which phrase usually means the maid, 
 though it implies the lady), yet she had a sort 
 of a misgiving upon the subject. There would 
 be one at Mrs. Melwyn's ear as well as herself, 
 and at, possibly, her master's too — which was 
 of still more importance. And then " those 
 sort of people are so artful and cantankerous. 
 Oh! she'd seen enough of them in her day! 
 Poor servants couldn't have a moment's peace 
 with a creature like that in the house, spying 
 about and telling everything in the parlour. 
 
 K 2
 
 132 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 One can't take a walk — or see a poor friend — 
 or have a bit of comfort, but all goes up there. 
 Well, those may put up with it who like. 
 Here's one as won't, and that's me myself ; and 
 so I shall make bold to tell Miss Catherine. 
 General and Mrs. Melwyn must choose between 
 me and the new-comer." 
 
 Poor Catherine! Mrs. Melwyn cried, and said 
 her daughter was very right; but she was sure 
 Randall never would bear it. And the General, 
 with whom Randall had daily opportunity for 
 private converse, while she bound up his 
 shattered arm, and dressed the old wound, 
 which was perpetually breaking out afresh and 
 discharging splinters of bone, easily talked her 
 master into the most decided dislike to the 
 scheme. 
 
 But Catherine stood firm. She had the 
 support of her own heart and judgment; and 
 the greater the difi&culty, the more strongly she 
 felt the necessity of the measure. Edgar 
 backed her, too, with all his miglit. He could
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 133 
 
 liardlj keep do^vn his vexation at this weakness 
 on one side, or his indignation at the attempted 
 tyranny on the other; and he said everything 
 he could think of to encourage Catherine to 
 persevere. 
 
 She talked the matter well over with her 
 father. The General was the most testy, cross, 
 and unreasonable of old men. Always out of 
 humour, because always suffering, and always 
 jealous of everybody's influence and authority ; 
 because he was now too weak and helpless to 
 rule his family with a rod of iron, such as he, 
 the greatest of martinets, had wielded in better 
 days in his regiment and in his household 
 alike. He suffered himself to be governed by 
 Randall, and by nobody else ; because in yield- 
 ing to Randall, there was a sort of conscious- 
 ness of the exercise of free will. He ought to- 
 be influenced by his gentle wife, and clever, 
 sensible daughter; but there was no reason on 
 earth — but because he chose to do it — that ha 
 should mind what Randall said.
 
 134 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 " I hate the whole pack of tliem ! I know 
 well enough what sort of a creature you'll 
 bring amongst us, Catherine. A whining, 
 methodistical old maid, with a face like a 
 hatchet, and a figure as if it had been pressed 
 between two boards, dressed in a flimsy cheap 
 silk, of a dingy brown colour, and a cap like 
 a grenadier's. — Your mother and she will be 
 sitting moistening their eyes all day long over 
 the sins of mankind ; and. 111 be bound, my 
 own sins won't be forgotten between them. — 
 Oh ! I know the pious creatures of old. 
 Nothing they hate like a poor old veteran, 
 with a naughty word or two in his mouth now 
 and then. Never talk to me, Catherine, — I 
 can't abide such cattle." 
 
 "Dearest papa! what a picture you do 
 draw! just to frighten yourself. — Why, Lettice 
 Arnold is only about nineteen, I believe ; and 
 though she's not particularly pretty, she's the 
 pleasantest-looking creature you ever saw. 
 And as for bemoaning herself over her neigh-
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 135 
 
 bours' sins, I'll be bound she's not half such a 
 methodist as Randall pretends to be/' 
 
 " Randall is a verj pious, good woman, I'd 
 have jou to know, Miss Catherine." 
 
 "I'm sure I hope she is, papa; but jou 
 must own she makes a great fuss about it. 
 And I really believe, the habit she has of 
 whimpering and turning up the whites of her 
 eyes, when she hears of a neighbour's pecca- 
 dillos, is one thing which sets you so against 
 the righteous, dearest papa. Now, you know 
 it is." 
 
 " You're a saucy baggage. — How old is this 
 thing you're trying to put upon us, did you 
 sayl 
 
 " Why, about nineteen, — or, perhaps, twenty. 
 And, then, who's to read to you, papa, when 
 I am gone, and play backgammon? You 
 know mamma must not read on account of her 
 chest, — and she plays so badly, you say, at 
 backgammon, — and it's so dull, husband and 
 wife playing, you know." (Poor Mrs. Melwyn
 
 136 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 dreaded the backgammon above all things. She 
 invariably got ridiculed if she played ill, — and 
 put her husband into a passion if she beat 
 him. Catherine had long taken this business 
 upon herself.) 
 
 " Does she play backgammon tolerably ? 
 And can she read without drawling or gallop- 
 mg? 
 
 "Just at your own pace, papa, whatever 
 that may be. Besides, you can only try her, 
 — she's easily sent away if you and mamma 
 don't like her. And then think, she is a 
 poor clergyman's daughter; — and it would be 
 quite a kind action." 
 
 ** A poor parson's ! It would have been 
 more to the purpose if you had said a poor 
 officer's. I pay tithes enough to the black- 
 coated gentlemen, without being bothered to 
 maintain their children, — and who ever pays 
 tithes to us, I wonder? I don't see what 
 right parsons have to marry at all, — and then, 
 forsooth, come and ask other people to take 
 care of their brats !"
 
 LETTICE ANNOLD. 137 
 
 " Ah ! but she's not to be taken care of for 
 nothing. Only think what a comfort shell 
 be!'' 
 
 " To jour mamma, perhaps ; but not to me. 
 And she's always the first person to be con- 
 sidered in this house, I know, very well. — 
 And I know very well who it is that dresses 
 the poor old soldier's wounds, and studies his 
 comforts, — and he'll study hers, — and I won't 
 have her vexed to please any of you." 
 
 " But why should she be vexed 1 It's no- 
 thing to her. She's not to live with Lettice. 
 And, I must say, if Randall sets herself 
 against this measure, she behaves in a very 
 unreasonable and unworthy manner, in my 
 opinion." 
 
 *' Hoity toity ! To be sure ; and who's 
 behaving in an unreasonable and unworthy 
 manner now, I wonder — abusing her behind 
 her back ; a worthy, attached creature, whose 
 sole object it is to study the welfare of us all 1 
 She's told me so a thousand times."
 
 138 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 " I dare say. Well, now, papa, listen to 
 me. Tm going awaj from you for good, — 
 your little Catherine. Just for once, grant 
 me this as a favour. Only try Lettice. Fm 
 sure you'll like her; and if, after she's been 
 here a quarter of a year, you don't wish to 
 keep her, why part with her ; and I'll promise 
 not to say a word about it. Randall has her 
 good qualities, I suppose, like the rest of the 
 world; but Randall must be taught to keep 
 her place, and that's not in this drawing-room. 
 And it's here you want Lettice, — not in your 
 dressing-room. Randall shall have it all her 
 own way there, — and that ought to content 
 her. And besides, papa, do you know, I 
 can't marry Edgar till you have consented, 
 because I cannot leave mamma and you with 
 nobody to keep you company." 
 
 " Edgar and you be d d ! Well, do as 
 
 you like. The sooner you're out of the house 
 the better. I shan't have my own way till 
 you're gone. You're a sad coaxing baggage,
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 139 
 
 but jou have a pretty face of jour own, Miss 
 Catherine." 
 
 If tlie debate upon the subject ran high at 
 the Hazels, so did it in the little humble 
 apartment which the two sisters occupied. 
 
 " A humble friend ! No,'' cried Myra, 
 " that I would never, never be — rather die 
 of hunger first." 
 
 " Dying of hunger is a very horrible thing," 
 said Lettice, quietly, " and much more easily 
 said than done. We have not, God be thanked 
 for it, ever been quite so badly off as that ; — 
 but I have stood near enough to the dreadful 
 gulf to look down, and to sound its depth and 
 its darkness. I am very thankful —deeply 
 thankful — for this offer, which I should gladly 
 accept — only, what is to become of you 1" 
 
 " Oh ! never mind me. It's the fashion
 
 140 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 now, I sec, for everybody to think of you, and 
 nobody to think of rac. Fm not worth caring 
 for, now — Those who cared for me are gone. 
 Oh ! pray, if you like to be a domestic slave 
 yourself, let me be no hindrance.'' 
 
 " A domestic slave ! — Why should I be a 
 domestic slave ? I see no slavery in the case." 
 
 " / call it slavery, whatever 3/0^ may do, to 
 have nothing to do all day but play toad-eater 
 and flatterer to a good-for-nothing old woman 
 — to bear all her ill-humours, and be the butt 
 for all her caprices. That's what humble 
 friends are expected to do, I believe, — what 
 else are they hired for ?" 
 
 " I should neither toady nor flatter, I hope," 
 said Lettice ; " and as for bearing people's ill- 
 humours, and being, now and then, the sport 
 of their caprices, — why that, as you say, is 
 very disagreeable, yet, perhaps, it is what one 
 who accepts such a place must rather expect. 
 But Mrs. Melwyn, I have always heard, is the 
 gentlest of human beings. And if she is like
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 141 
 
 Catherine, she must be free from caprice, and 
 nobody could help quite loying her/' 
 
 " Stuff ! — love ! — love ! A humble friend 
 love her mi-hnmhle friend — for I suppose one 
 must not venture to call one's mistress a 
 tpant. Oh, no, she's a friend! — a dear 
 friend ! " in a taunting, ironical voice. 
 
 "Whomever it might be mj fate to live 
 with, I should tr2/ to love ; for I beheve if one 
 tries to love people, one soon finds something 
 lovable about them — and Mrs. Melwjn, I feel 
 sure, I should soon love very much." 
 
 " So like you ! — ready to love anything and 
 everything. I verily believe if there was 
 nothing else to love but the little chimney- 
 sweeper boy, you'd fall to loving him, rather 
 than love nobody." 
 
 " I am sure that's true enough," said Lettice, 
 laughing ; " I have more than once felt very 
 much inclined to love the little boy who 
 carries the soot-bag for the man who sweeps 
 these chimneys — such a saucy-looking little 
 sooty rogue !''
 
 142 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 "As if a person's love could be worth 
 having," continued the sister, " who is so ready 
 to love anybody." 
 
 "No, that I deny. Some few people I do 
 find it hard to love." 
 
 " Me for one." 
 
 " Oh, Myra !" 
 
 " Well, I beg your pardon. You're very 
 kind to me. But I'll tell you who it will be 
 impossible for you to love — if such a thing 
 can be — that's that testy, cross, old General." 
 
 " I don't suppose I shall have much to do 
 with the old General, if I go." 
 
 " If you go. Oh, you're sure to go. You're 
 so sanguine; every new prospect is so pro- 
 mising. But pardon me, you seem quite to 
 have forgotten that reading to the old General, 
 and playing backgammon with him, are among 
 your specified employments." 
 
 " Well, I don't see much harm in it if they 
 are. A man can't be very cross with one 
 when one's reading to him — and as for the
 
 LETTICE ARXOLD. 143 
 
 backgammon, I mean to lose every game I 
 plaj, if that will please him/' 
 
 "Oh, a man can't be cross with a reader, 
 saj you ! I wish you knew as much of the 
 world as I do, and had seen people being 
 read to. AVhy, nothing on earth puts one 
 in such a fidget. I'm sure I've been put 
 into such a worry by people's way of reading, 
 that I could have pinched them. Really, 
 Lettice, your simplicity would shame a child 
 of five years old." 
 
 " T^^ell, I shall do my best, and besides I 
 shall take care to set my chair so far off that 
 I can't get pinched, at least ; and as for a poor, 
 ailing, suffering old man being a little impatient 
 and cross, why one can't expect to get fifty 
 pounds a-year for just doing nothing. — I do 
 suppose it is expected that I should bear a few 
 of these things in^'place of Mrs. Melwyn; and 
 I don't see why I should not." 
 
 "Oh, dear! — AVell, my love, you're quite 
 made for the place, I see; you always had
 
 144 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 something of tlie spaniel in you, or the walnut- 
 tree, or any of those things which are the 
 better for being ill-used. — It was quite a 
 proverb with our poor mother, * a worm will 
 turn, but not Lettice/" 
 
 Lettice felt very much inclined to turn now. 
 But the mention of her mother — that mother 
 whose mismanagement and foolish indulgence 
 had contributed so much to poor Myra's faults 
 — faults for which she now paid so heavy a 
 penalty — silenced the generous girl, and she 
 made no answer. 
 
 No answer, let it proceed from never so 
 good a motive, makes cross people often more 
 cross ; though perhaps upon the whole it is the 
 best plan. 
 
 So Myra, in a still more querulous voice, went 
 on: — 
 
 " This room will be rather dismal all by 
 one's self, and 1 don't know how I'm to go 
 about up and down, fetch and carry, and work 
 as you are able to do. ... I was never used to
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 145 
 
 it. It comes very hard upon me." And she 
 began to crj. 
 
 *'Poor Mjra! dear Mjra! don't cry: I never 
 intended to leave you. Though I talked as if 
 I did, it ^as only in the way of argument, 
 because I thought more might be said for the 
 kind of life than you thought; and I felt sure 
 if people were tolerably kind and candid, I 
 could get along very well, and make myself 
 quite comfortable. Dear me ! after such hard- 
 ships as we have gone through, a little would 
 do that. But do you think, poor dear girl, I 
 could have a moment's peace, and know you 
 were here alone'? No, no." 
 
 And so, when she went in the evening to 
 carry her answer to Mrs. Danvers, who had 
 conveyed to her Catherine's proposal, Lettice 
 said, " that she should have liked exceedingly 
 to have accepted Catherine's offer, and was 
 sure she should have been very happy herself, 
 and would have done everything in her power 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 to make Mrs. Melwjn happy, but that it was 
 impossible to leave her sister .^^ 
 
 " If that is jour only difficulty, my dear, 
 don't make yourself uneasy about it. I have 
 found a place for your sister which I think she 
 will like very well. It is with Mrs. Fisher, the 
 great milliner in Dover-street, where she will 
 be taken good care of, and may be very com- 
 fortable. Mrs. Fisher is a most excellent 
 person, and very anxious, not only about the 
 health and comfort of those she employs, but 
 about their good behaviour and tlieir security 
 from evil temptation. — Such a beautiful girl 
 as your sister is, lives in perpetual danger, ex- 
 posed as she is without protection in this great 
 town." 
 
 " But Myra has such an abhorrence of ser- 
 vitude, as she calls it — such an independent 
 high spirit — I fear she will never like it." 
 
 " It will be very good for her, whether she 
 likes it or not. Indeed, my dear, to speak sin- 
 cerely, the placing your sister out of danger in
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 147 
 
 the house of Mrs. Fisher, ought to be a decisiye 
 reason with jou for accepting Catherine's pro- 
 posal — even did jou dislike it much more than 
 JOU seem to do." 
 
 " Oh! to tell the truth, I should like the plan 
 very much indeed — much more than I have 
 wished to saj, on account of Mjra. But she 
 neyer, never will submit to be ruled, I fear, 
 and make herself happy where, of course, she 
 must obey orders and follow regulations, 
 whether she likes them or not. Unfortunately, 
 poor dear, she has been so little accustomed to 
 be contradicted.'^ 
 
 " Well, then, it is high time she should 
 begin to learn; for contradicted, sooner or 
 later, we all of us are certain to be. Seriously, 
 again, my dear, good Lettice — I must call 
 you Lettice — your innocence of heart prevents 
 you from knowing what snares surround a 
 beautiful young woman like your sister. I 
 like you best, I own; but I have thought 
 much more of her fate than yours, upon that 
 
 l2
 
 148 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 account. Such a situation as is offered to 
 you she evidently is quite unfit to fill; but I 
 went — the very day Catherine and I came to 
 your lodgings, and saw you both — to my 
 good friend Mrs. Fisher, and, with great diffi- 
 culty, have persuaded her at last to take your 
 sister. She disliked the idea very much. But 
 she's an excellent woman : and when I repre- 
 sented to her the peculiar circumstances of the 
 case, she promised she would consider the 
 matter. She took a week to consider of it — 
 for she is a very cautious person is Mrs. 
 Fisher; and some people call her very cold 
 and severe. However, she has decided in our 
 favour, as I expected she would. Her com- 
 passion always gets the better of her prudence, 
 
 when the two are at issue And so you 
 
 would not dislike to go to Mrs. Melwyn's V 
 
 " How could I ^ AVhy, after what wc 
 have suffered, it must be like going into 
 Paradise." 
 
 "Nay, nay — a little too fast. No dc-
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 149 
 
 pendant situation is ever exactly a Paradise. 
 I should be sorry you saw things in a false 
 light, and should be disappointed." 
 
 " Oh, no, I do not wish to do that — I don't 
 think — thank you for the great kindness and 
 interest you are so kind as to show me by 
 this last remark — but I think I never in my 
 life enjoyed one day of unmixed happiness 
 since I was quite a little child. And I have got 
 so entirely into the habit of thinking that 
 everything in the world goes so, — ^that when I 
 say Paradise, or quite happy, or so on, it is 
 always in a certain sense — a comparative 
 sense." 
 
 " I am glad to see you so reasonable — that 
 is one sure way to be happy; but you will 
 find your crosses at the Hazels. The General 
 is not very sweet-tempered; and even dear, 
 mild Mrs. Melwyn is not perfect." 
 
 " Why, madam, what am I to expect 1 If 
 I cannot bear a few disagreeable things, what 
 do I go there for? Xot to be fed, and
 
 150 LETTICE ARNOLD* 
 
 housed, and paid at other people's expense, 
 just that I may please mj own humours all 
 the time. That woicld be rather an unfair 
 bargain, I think. No : I own there are some 
 things I could not and would not bear for any 
 consideration; but there are a great many 
 others that I can, and I shall, and I will — 
 and do my best, too, to make happy, and be 
 happy ; and, in short, I don't feel the least 
 afraid/' 
 
 "No more you need, you right-spirited 
 creature," said Mrs. Danvers, cordially. 
 
 Many were the difficulties, endless the ob- 
 jections, raised by Myra against the proposed 
 plan of going to Mrs. Fisher. Such people's 
 objections and difficulties are indeed endless. 
 In their weakness and their selfishness, they 
 Me to be objects of pity — they take a comfort
 
 LETTICE AEIS^OLD. 151 
 
 in bothering and wearying people witli their 
 interminable complaints. There is a sort of 
 dignity, as thej think, in being yerj ill-used, 
 very much oppressed, yery much to be pitied, 
 to which, in default of all other means of 
 asserting their self-consequence, they obsti- 
 nately cling. They do not wish, they cannot 
 bear, to be cheered by the attempt to place 
 their circumstances in the most wretchedness 
 light, — they like to be thought miserable, — 
 they like to have other people miserable about 
 them. 
 
 Their complaints are not the sacred out- 
 break of the overloaded heart, overpowered for 
 the moment by the weight of its own wretched- 
 ness, casting itself upon another heart for sup- 
 port and consolation under suffering that is too 
 strong and too bitter to be endured alone. Sa- 
 cred call for sympathy and consolation, and 
 made in vain! It is the wearying and futile 
 attempt to throw the burden upon others, 
 instead of seeking their assistance in struggling
 
 152 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 under it ourselves. Vain and useless endearour ! 
 And which often bears hard upon the sympathy 
 even of the kindest and truest hearts ! 
 
 In vain Lettice went on endeavouring to 
 represent matters under a cheerful aspect. 
 Myra would persist in grieving and tormenting 
 herself. 
 
 "Now don't, Myra, say that," Lettice in 
 rain went on, " don't go on making matters so 
 much worse than they are. What use is there 
 in looking back 1 The past is over, and can- 
 not be helped now — even if it ever could have 
 been helped; and I don't see how it ever 
 could.'^ 
 
 "A clergyman's daughter! — A beneficed 
 clergyman's daughter ! — And to become a mil- 
 liner's apprentice ! One a humble friend, and 
 the other a milliner's apprentice ! "Well, Mrs. 
 Danvers is a mighty clever and a mighty pious 
 woman, I dare say; but I think she might 
 have found something more appropriate for 
 me — for both of us."
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 153 
 
 " It's a very difiScult thing, indeed, Mjra, as 
 you know very well, for young wonaen to be 
 placed in situations, so as to get their own 
 living. These are both thoroughly respectable 
 situations, and I do not see why we should 
 complain of them." 
 
 " To have to get one's own living ! " 
 
 " Why, to be sure, it must be pleasanter to 
 have a nice independent fortune ; but how 
 many in this world have that V^ 
 
 " Why hundreds, and hundreds, and hun- 
 dreds, no better than we. Look at Cathe- 
 rme ! 
 
 " Yes, but you should think of the hun- 
 dreds, and hundreds, and hundreds, as you 
 say, that are quite as good as we, and are not 
 one quarter so well off as we are going to be. 
 Myra, you seem to forget that we ought to 
 look at those better than ourselves, when we 
 are comparing qualities ; and at those below 
 ourselves when we are comparing circumstances 
 — think of the wise man who said so.''
 
 154 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 " Tm not likely to forget tbat, or anjtliiug 
 else, when yon are always so ready to preach 
 to me. And FU tell you what, Lettice, fine 
 words don't heal wounds; — and when I am cut 
 to the very heart by thinking of the difference 
 between what I might have becD, and what 
 everybody expected I should have been, and 
 what I am, — I don't think it so particularly 
 kind of you to go on preaching and philoso- 
 phising, and taking other people's misfortunes 
 so mighty easily." 
 
 " But what's the good of making the worst 
 of things ? And besides, after all, I believe 
 you like your place better than mine." 
 
 *' Place ! What a word ! — place ! Yes, 
 you are quite right, — place. What are we 
 better, either of us, than servants ? You a 
 sort of upper lady's maid, and I a milliner's 
 apprentice." 
 
 " I don't see the use of giving things dis- 
 agreeable names, Myra, and then fretting about 
 them."
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 155 
 
 " I give disagreeable names ! Why, you 
 began first. I think it was Miss Lettice that 
 talked of our going to our places!' 
 
 " Dear Mjra," said Lettice, recovering lier 
 good humour, " call them what you will, but 
 only just think, — it won't be so disagreeable 
 after all. Only think what a pretty taste you 
 have in dress, and how easy and pleasant it 
 will be to you to be making up caps, and 
 turbans, and head-dresses, instead of stitching 
 away at that everlasting white seam." 
 
 " But they say Mrs. Fisher's horrid severe." 
 
 "No, indeed, that's not the character Mrs. 
 Danvers gives of her at all. She says she's 
 very kind and considerate. And besides now, 
 Myra, only think how pleasant it will be 
 among all those beautiful things, and to be 
 walking about, and showing them off, and 
 selling. I think it must be quite amusing — 
 so entertaining watching people's humours and 
 fancies, and so nice when one gets a thing
 
 156 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 sold, and hears the money rattle upon the 
 table." 
 
 So urged and so argued good Lettice, and 
 so persisted she in endeavouring to place her 
 sister^s prospects in the fairest and most cap- 
 tivating light ; and so persisted Mjra in reca- 
 pitulating every objection which could be 
 made to the plan, and every evil consequence 
 which could possibly ensue. 
 
 Not that she had the slightest intention in 
 the world of refusing her assent. If she would 
 but have suffered herself to own it, she rather 
 liked the idea, after all, of going to that 
 fashionable modiste, Mrs. Fisher, and quite 
 entered into the view Lettice took of the sub- 
 ject. She had, in the full force of the expres- 
 sion, " Vdme de dentelle,'' with which Napoleon 
 reproached poor Josephine. There was some- 
 thing positively delightful to her imagination 
 in the idea of dwelling among rich silks, Brus- 
 sels laces, ribbons, and feathers. They were
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 157 
 
 to her what woods, and birds, and trees were 
 to her sister. She fancied herself elegantly 
 dressed, walking about a show-room, filled 
 with all sorts of beautiful things ; herself 
 perhaps, the most beautiful thing in it, and 
 the object of a sort of flattering interest, 
 through the melancholy cloud " upon her fine 
 features .'' Nay, her romantic imagination 
 travelled still farther, — gentlemen sometimes 
 come up with ladies to show-rooms, — who 
 could tell ? Love at first sight was not 
 altogether a dream. Such things had hap- 
 pened Myra had read plenty of old 
 
 rubbishy novels when she was a girl. 
 
 Such were the comfortable thoughts she 
 kept to herself; but it was, as I said, one 
 endless complaining externally. 
 
 Catherine insisted upon being allowed to 
 advance the money for the necessary clothes, 
 which, to satisfy the delicacy of the one, and 
 the pride of the other, she agreed should be 
 repaid by instalments, as their salaries became
 
 158 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 due. The sale of their few possessions put a 
 sovereign or so into the pocket of each, and 
 the sisters parted; Lettice shedding plentiful 
 tears, as she kissed her sister again and again. 
 There was not much to love in that sister, to 
 be sure ; but Lettice possessed that richest of 
 treasures to the possessor, a warm, affectionate 
 heart. Something she must love; and was 
 not Mjra her sister, and her only sister ? 
 
 Moreover, she had been very kind to Myra, 
 and had been unwearied in her endeavours to 
 minister to her comfort, and supply, as far as 
 in her lay, by numberless simple expedients, 
 those necessities which Myra's susceptible, 
 nervous, and relaxed habits rendered at times 
 so urgent. — And, it is a curious facWin human 
 nature, — but I think I have often observed it, 
 — that people love others rather for the bene- 
 fits they bestow, than for those they receive. 
 Indeed, gratitude, though I think it one of the 
 sweetest of feelings, when it is honestly in- 
 spired, seems to me a very rare one, whetlicr it
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 159 
 
 be tliat the pride of human nature recoils at 
 the sense of an obligation, or whether it be 
 that benefactors really want a certain grace in 
 bestowing, and so associate disagreeable feelings 
 with their benefits. 
 
 There is a grace in giving, as well as a 
 grace in receiving. Lettice certainly was not 
 wanting in the one, but I am afraid Myra was 
 sadly deficient in the other. 
 
 However, the tears were in her beautiful 
 star-like eyes, while those of Lettice flowed 
 abundantly down her round, honest cheeks. 
 
 " We must write often to one another, dear 
 Myra," sobbed Lettice. 
 
 " To be sure we must, Lettice — to be sure 
 we must. We shall have a great deal to tell 
 one another." 
 
 " And, Myra, dear," looking up in her face 
 with such an earnest, begging look — begging so 
 earnestly of her sister to consult lier own 
 good, '' Myra, dear, you will try, won't you, to 
 be pleased and contented with what turns up ;
 
 160 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 because, jou know, it makes one so acceptable 
 to other people, if one can contrive to look 
 comfortable. You must try not to mind little 
 this and thats more than you can help, Mjra. 
 You know I shall not be there." 
 
 " I don't suppose I am so very much harder 
 to please than other people, though I have 
 been used to better things," was the reply, in 
 a somewhat offended tone. The very softest 
 form in which a little advice of this nature 
 can be couched, is powerless to prevent the 
 susceptible self-love of some people from being 
 offended. "And I don't know why you are 
 always insinuating and preaching to me. I 
 am your eldest sister, you know, and perhaps 
 when we do go out into the world, it may 
 appear that I am not such a very bad person 
 to get along, though I mayn't be to the 
 taste of a stiff old prude like Mrs. Danvers, 
 quite so much as you, Lettice. Thank good- 
 ness, the world is not all made up of Mrs. 
 Danverses."
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 161 
 
 " No, indeed," withdrawing her arras from 
 her sister's neck, and turning awaj, to nail the 
 cards she had written for both, upon their 
 several boxes. 
 
 " I wonder who's offended now ! " said Myra, 
 for she felt the tacit reproof. 
 
 But Lettice could not just at that moment 
 venture to saj anything. What she had not 
 felt for herself, she felt for her benefactress. 
 Lettice felt too angry at that moment to 
 speak. 
 
 "I wonder who's touchy now!" Myra went 
 on. " That is rather too good. If I venture 
 to speak a word of my mind, all the world's 
 up against me in a minute, and you among 
 the first, Lettice ; and yet you've been preach- 
 ing to me for an hour. I don't think it kind, 
 Lettice," — 
 
 As her sister still remained silent, with her 
 back towards her, busy nailing the cards upon 
 the box, — 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 " And just as we are going to part, too." 
 
 And Mjra began to whimper. 
 
 It might have tried the patience of Job 
 more than even his own wife did. 
 
 But it was true they were going to part, 
 and the heart of Lettice gave way. She rose 
 from her knees, and turning to her sister, with 
 a face, from which every cloud of resentment 
 had vanished, said, 
 
 "Indeed, dear, what you say is true — it 
 would be dreadful to part any way but kindly. 
 I am sure, for my part, if I did so, come what 
 would of it, I should never rest till I had 
 flown back to London to make it up with you, 
 Myra. There — there — let us kiss and be 
 friends ; and I am very sorry if I said any- 
 thing to vex you, — I did not intend it, indeed. 
 And see how tidy our boxes do look, now 
 they are packed up and directed. I must say 
 I think it was particularly nice of dear Cathe- 
 rine, after giving us so many things, to remem- 
 ber how respectable it looks, on coming to
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 163 
 
 new places, to have a handsome box, — espe- 
 cially for me, who am going among grand 
 servants, who think so much of these things ; 
 — and a railway padlock, too. Now those 
 little things seem to me even kinder than the 
 great things. — And see what a neat little lock 
 and key to yours — a key you can carry about 
 in your pocket so comfortably. She is a good, 
 dear, kind creature, is Catherine Melwyn, that 
 she is, — and heaven bless her for it." 
 
 " Yes, she's good-natured, and has been 
 very good-natured about the things ; but as 
 for blessings, I think she's got her full share of 
 them, at all events. You might wish heaven 
 to bless you and me, if you were wishing, I 
 think." 
 
 " And so I do — so' I do ; but sure there are 
 blessings enough in heaven for us all ; there 
 need be no begrudgings there. There's room 
 enough in the universe for all God's creatures, 
 heaven be praised for it." 
 
 M 2
 
 164 LETTICE AENOLD. 
 
 " Different people have very different places 
 in it, however," said Mjra, moodily ; for she 
 looked at her small box, and she thought of 
 Catherine's trousseau, which she had been 
 allowed to see, at least the part of it provided 
 in London, and of the carriage-seats, imperials, 
 and trunks innumerable, fitted to Edgar's car- 
 riage, and standing ready to be packed. 
 
 Myra compared her w^ardrobe with what 
 Catherine's was — Lettice, with what her own 
 had been. It was the same object seen on 
 opposite sides ; — this was all the difference. 
 
 It made a great one in the sum total of 
 their lives. 
 
 However, now the cab came to the door, in 
 which Lettice was to convey Myra to Mrs. 
 Fisher's, on her own way to the railway sta- 
 tion, whence she was to be conveyed down to 
 the Hazels. 
 
 At a tall, handsome-looking mansion in 
 Dover Street, the cab accordingly stopped. 
 Myra had been there before, when she had
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 165 
 
 been introduced to Mrs. Fisher. Lettice saw 
 it for the first time. 
 
 " This is a nice house to live in, howeyer, 
 Mjra," said she, delighted with the appearance 
 of things. 
 
 " Yes," said Mjra, pleased, and her pride 
 somewhat elevated, as her sister looked up at 
 the loftj front, with its four rows of handsome 
 windows. " Not such a very bad place to be 
 at, I must own, Lettice; and I hope," she had 
 the grace to add, " jou'U like General Mel- 
 wjn's as well." 
 
 " Here, jou stupid fellow," to the coachman, 
 "that's my box. How stupid these cabmen 
 are ! Hold it up, will you — you're turning it 
 all upside down. Hold it up, can't you !" she 
 repeated, in that tone of voice so shrill and 
 harsh, peculiar to the less worthy gender, and 
 peculiarly irritating, perhaps, on that account, 
 to the more worthy. 
 
 "Can't! I suppose I can if I will," an- 
 swered the man, surlily ; " but people may
 
 166 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 speak civilly, at all events. I suppose you're 
 not one of them title ladies, a going to buy 
 trumpery at this Mrs. Fisher's. One may see 
 you ain't by your manners, — their's are a 
 power civiller." 
 
 "You are an insolent fellow," said Myra, 
 scornfully, ''that I know." 
 
 "Hush, hush! Myra," as the man was 
 beginning to reply ; and Lettice, horrified 
 at the idea of a quarrel with a hackney- 
 cab man in the street, got out of the car- 
 riage. 
 
 "And why should I hush?' turning sharply 
 upon her sister, for her temper was up. " Am 
 I to be insulted by a hackney-cab man?" 
 
 "Shouldn't begin first, then, my pretty 
 Miss. — Civility begets civility ; and, perhaps, 
 cabman as I be, I understand that as well 
 as you do — improver as you are, I suppose" — 
 for, with the ready penetration 'of his calling, 
 he guessed in a moment that she was no 
 " born lady," as he called it.
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 167 
 
 She was about to reply, but Lettice, in 
 much distress, turned to the cabman, and said, 
 " Mj sister was only vexed about your turn- 
 ing the box wrong way upwards, because her 
 best bonnet is in it, and it would be very in- 
 convenient to have it spoiled. Please to set 
 it down carefully, and 111 remember it when 
 we come to the end of the job." 
 
 "Fair speaking is better worth than a 
 haditional sixpence," responded the man, 
 "though that's not bad in its way," — and, 
 turning to Myra, as he set her box care- 
 fully down upon the steps at the door of Mrs. 
 Fisher's house, " You're a power prettier than 
 your sister, and that may be it is, which makes 
 you so saucy ; but it was a wiser one than 
 either you or I who said, ' As a jewel of gold 
 in a swine's mouth, so is beauty in a woman 
 that hath no understanding.'" 
 
 Myra was too much aflfronted, and too 
 much mortified at this concludiug speech, to
 
 168 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 do aiiglit but hastily mount the steps, as Mrs. 
 Fisher's footman opened the door. 
 
 Lettice was too happy to have her safely 
 in, to think of any farewells, her sister's dress 
 waving, as the door closed upon her, was the 
 last thing she saw. She re-entered the cab, — 
 the cabman standing holding the door for her, 
 with a look of extra assiduity, as if to atone 
 for his incivility to one sister, by his attention 
 to the other. Asking her, in a voice respect- 
 ful, as if she had been a title lady herself — 
 for he thought her as well-mannered as one — 
 where he was next to drive her. 
 
 She arrived safely at the railway station, 
 settled with her cabman, who, in taking off 
 her box, be it observed, took especial care to 
 keep the direction-side uppermost. And so 
 the lovely Myra was settled at Mrs. Fisher's. 
 Lettice, quite tired out with the emotions and 
 worries of the morning, was glad to be seated 
 in silence, and enjoy the comforts of a first-
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 169 
 
 class railway carriage, — for so it had been 
 arranged for her bj Catherine and Mrs. Dan- 
 vers, — and to be whisked, with something of 
 the speed of light, to the Hazels.
 
 170 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Since trifles make the sum of human things .... 
 Oh! let the ungentle spirit learn from thence, 
 A small unkindness is a great offence : 
 Large favours to bestow we strive in vain, 
 But all may shun the guilt of giving pain. 
 
 Hannah More. 
 
 I HAVE given jou to understand, I hope, 
 tliat Lettice was not one to enter upon a 
 situation, or engage in a charge such as the 
 one she is about to undertake, without having 
 cast her thoughts forward, and anticipating, 
 as well as she couki, the difficulties, tempta- 
 tions, and trials of one sort or other, which
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 171 
 
 she was likely to meet \vith. Xor that she 
 had neglected to reflect upon the manner in 
 ■which they ought to be met ; or upon the 
 right means of winning her way among them, 
 so as to provide best for the comfort of others 
 and herself. 
 
 She had thought much since the place had 
 been accepted, in this way; and though she 
 could not, of course, be precisely aware in 
 what form the difficulties and the trials of her 
 temper and good sense would present them- 
 selves, still she knew enough of herself, human 
 nature, and human life, to be certain that 
 present themselves they would. I would not 
 have you suppose, because I do not in this 
 story think proper very often to introduce the 
 subject, — I would not have you suppose that 
 this good girl rested her hopes of succeeding 
 in that upon which her heart was set — the 
 being a comfort to Mrs. Melwyn, and a source 
 of satisfaction to her dear Catherine — upon 
 her own good sense and good resolutions alone.
 
 172 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 She knew where to seek a strength — behind, 
 as it were — and stronger than her own strength 
 — a sort of supply of fresh life, flowing in, 
 warming her heart, and invigorating her reso- 
 lutions. 
 
 We have all need of this strength — though 
 many think they can, and some seem, for a 
 time, to be able to do without it, in the pride 
 of that natural force which the Creator has 
 given in greater or less degree to each of us. 
 But most, even of the strongest, find their self- 
 dependence fail in the hour of temptation or 
 distress, though they frequently long remain 
 unaware of their wants. It is only such as 
 have sought and found such help in their 
 needs, who are fully sensible of the inestimable 
 value — perhaps even of the very existence of 
 such influences. Jeremy Taylor, among his 
 wise and valuable helps to devotion, has a 
 prayer for " Holy intention in the begin- 
 ning and pursuit of any considerable action, 
 &c."
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 1/3 
 
 The book, we know, was a favourite with 
 Catherine, for she has already alluded to it. 
 She had given a copy of it to each of the 
 sisters. The title of this little compendium, if 
 you wish to know it, is — " A Selection from 
 the Prayers of Jeremy Taylor,'' and it is pub- 
 lished by Hatchard, Piccadilly. 
 
 The temptation is very strong with me to 
 copy an extract from it : those who already 
 know the book will forgive me ; those who do 
 not, perhaps thank me. 
 
 '' Lord, turn my necessities into virtue. The 
 works of nature into the works of grace, by 
 making them orderly, regular, temperate, 
 subordinate, and profitable to ends beyond 
 their proper efficacy. And let no pride or self- 
 seeking, no covetousness or revenge, no impure 
 mixture or unhandsome purposes, no little 
 ends and low imaginations, pollute my spirit, 
 and unhallow my words and actions," &c. 
 &c. 
 
 T am afraid the prayer-book given to one
 
 174 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 sister was not used with tlie careful attention 
 that followed the pages of the other. The 
 gentle morning and evening discipline of 
 honest prayer was wanting in one case — most 
 blessed in its effects in the other. But I must 
 proceed with mj little story. 
 
 If Lettice had made her reflections, and had 
 started upon her new undertaking with a heart 
 thus yearning with the desire to perform its 
 duties well, Mrs. Melwyn had not been with- 
 out undergoing a somewhat similar process 
 upon her side, and this had been her course of 
 thought : — 
 
 She had, you must know, at first felt the 
 utmost dislike to the plan. 
 
 She had, in the course of her life, seen so 
 much discomfort and dissatisfaction arise upon 
 both sides from this sort of connexion, that 
 she had taken up quite a prejudice against 
 anything of the sort. 
 
 " It was a yery great pity,'^ she often had 
 said to herself, " that so it should be, but the
 
 LETTICE AKNOLD. 175 
 
 case was almost uniyersal. If it could be 
 otherwise, wliat desirable connexions might be 
 formed in a world such as the present? Such 
 numbers of women as there are, of all ages, 
 and of all degrees of mental qualifications, who 
 find themselves suddenly without resom'ce, 
 through the accident of early death in the 
 case of the professions, or of disaster in com- 
 mercial life — and so many others, who, through 
 disease or advanced age, or the still more cruel 
 stroke of death, find themselves stranded, lonely 
 and deserted, and languishing for a fire-side 
 friend. What a pity that they cannot be 
 brought comfortably together, so as to be of 
 use to one another! What comfortable, bene- 
 ficial unions might be brought about in such 
 cases, one should think! And yet why do they 
 never or seldom turn out welH 
 
 " Faults there must be. Where do they lie? 
 On both sides," answered her understanding. 
 " Not surely alone upon the side of the new- 
 comer — the paid one, consequently the obliged
 
 176 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 one, consequently the only one of the parties 
 who had duties that she was pledged to 
 perform, though, it is true, too often very 
 imperfectly performed, — but quite as probably 
 upon the other. Upon the part of the supe- 
 rior, though that superior is so slow to acknow- 
 ledge it, — and often so insensible to the duty 
 of watching over the performance of her own 
 part of the engagement, whilst she is so ready 
 to detect the fallings-off — as fallings-off there 
 will infallibly be to be detected — upon the 
 other side. It is true the patron has abso- 
 lutely engaged for nothing, but the providing 
 meat, lodging, and salary ; but that will not 
 dispense her from obligations as a Christian, 
 and as a member of the universal sisterhood, 
 which are not quite so easily discharged. 
 
 " It must double the difficulty to the new 
 comer," thought Mrs. Melwyn, " the being 
 treated so carelessly as she too often is. How 
 hard it must be to perform duties such as hers, 
 if they are not performed in love ! And how
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 177 
 
 impossible it must be to love in such a case — 
 unless we meet with love. Even to be treated 
 with consideration and kindness will not suf- 
 fice upon the one side, nor the most scru- 
 pulous endeavour to discharge the duty upon 
 the other, — people must try to love. 
 
 " How soothing to a poor deserted orphan 
 to be taken to the heart ! How sweet to for- 
 lorn old age to find a fresh object of affection ! 
 Ah, but then these sort of people seem often 
 so disagreeable, do one's best, one cannot love 
 or like them ! But why do they seem so dis- 
 agreeable'? Partly because people will over- 
 look nothing — have no mutual indulgence in 
 relations which require so much. If one's 
 child has little ways one does not quite 
 like, who thinks of hating her for if? If 
 one's mother is a little provoking and tedious 
 under the oppressive weight of years or sick- 
 ness, who thinks of making a great hardship 
 of it ? But, if the poor humble friend is only 
 a little awkward or ungainly, she is odious ; 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 and if the poor deserted mother or widow, or 
 aged siifFering creature, is a little irritable or 
 tedious, oh ! she is such a tyrant ! 
 
 " Ah ! how I wish . . . . ! 
 
 " Well, Catherine is a sensible, well-judging 
 creature, and she assures me this Miss Arnold 
 is a remarkably sweet-tempered, affectionate, 
 modest, judicious girl. Why should I not try 
 to make such a being love me — why should 
 we not be very happy together? There is 
 Randall, to be sure, sets herself extremely 
 against it ; but, as Catherine says, ' Is Randall 
 to be mistress in this family, or am I?' It is 
 come quite to that point. And then it will 
 be a great thing to have somebody between 
 me and Randall. She will not be so necessary 
 to me then, whateyer she may be to the 
 General — and when she makes herself so dis- 
 agreeable, if this young lady is as comfortable 
 to me as Catherine says she will be — I really 
 shall not so much care. 
 
 " Then," continuing her meditations, which,
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 179 
 
 though I put down in black and white, were 
 thought, not spoken, "then, Catherine sajs 
 she is so greatly to be pitied, and is so exem- 
 plary ! And she said, in her darling coaxing 
 way, ' Dear mamma, it will give you so much 
 pleasure to make the poor thing a little 
 amends for all her hardships ; and if poor papa 
 is a little cross to her at times, it will be quite 
 an interest to you to contrive to make up for it. 
 She will be quite a daughter to you ; and, in 
 one respect, you will have more pleasure in 
 making her happy than even in making your 
 own loving daughter so happy as you have 
 done — because the one is dear from your 
 tender natural affections, and the other will be 
 so from generous beneficence, — and though 
 natural affection is such a sweet, precious, in- 
 estimable thing, generous beneficence is yet 
 nobler, and brings us still nearer to God/ 
 
 "If I could make this Miss Arnold love 
 me ! — And with such an affectionate temper, 
 as Catherine says she has, why should I not 1 
 
 n2
 
 180 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 She wants a parent, I want a child. If I 
 study her happiness disinterestedly, kindly, 
 truly, she cannot help loving me ; but I will 
 not even think of myself, I will try to study 
 her good, Aer well-being, and I will let the love 
 for me come or not as it may, and God will 
 help me. He always does help me, — when I 
 have the courage to dare to forget myself, and 
 leave the issue of things to His Providence." 
 
 Such were the dispositions upon both sides 
 with which the two met. But the best reso- 
 lutions win no battle. They are part, and a 
 very serious part of qyqyj undertaking, but 
 they are far from being all. We are so im- 
 perfect ourselves, and we have to do with such 
 imperfect beings, that evils and difficulties 
 unexpected, are sure to arise in our communi- 
 cation with others, even when both sides meet 
 with the very best intentions. Therefore, who- 
 ever intends to carry out such good intentions, 
 and make a right piece of work of it, must 
 calculate, as I have said, upon these things ;
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 181 
 
 just as the mechanic is obliged to make a large 
 allowance for unavoidable obstructions in car- 
 rying out any of his theories into action and 
 reality, — into useful, every-day, working order. 
 
 In due time, a fly from the railway — one of 
 those dirty hired carriages which are the dis- 
 grace of England — deposited Miss Arnold and 
 Iier luggage at the door of General Melwyn's 
 handsome mansion of the Hazels, and in all 
 due form and order she was introduced into 
 the drawing-room. It was between six and 
 seven o'clock in the evenincr when she entered 
 the very handsomely-furnished apartment,- 
 where, over a half-and-half sort of fire — it 
 having been rather a warm February day — sat 
 the General and his lady. 
 
 Lettice was tired, heated, and red with the 
 jumbling of the railway, the bother at the 
 station, and the knocking about in the very 
 uneasy fly in which she had come up some 
 miles. She felt in that disagreeable sort of 
 journey disorder of toilette, which makes
 
 182 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 people feel and look so awkward. But slie 
 put the best face upon the matter, and enter- 
 ing, made a very respectful curtsey to Mrs. 
 Melwyn, who met her, holding out her hand, 
 and with whose face and appearance Lettice 
 felt charmed in a moment. Mrs. Melwyn, who 
 did not want penetration, saw that, in Lettice, 
 spite of present disadvantages, which she was 
 sure she sliould like very much. Not so the 
 General. He was a perfect fool of the eye, as 
 military men are apt to be. Whatever was 
 awkward or ill-dressed, was perfectly abhor- 
 rent to him ; and he took a dislike to " the 
 creature'' the moment he cast his eyes upon 
 her. 
 
 It seemed but an unpromising beginning. 
 The heart of poor Lettice sank within her 
 in a way she was little accustomed to, as the
 
 LETTICE AK>s"OLD. 18 
 
 o 
 
 General, in a very pettish mood, stirred the 
 fire, and said, " When are we to have dinner, 
 Mrs. Melwjn^ What are Tre vraiting for*? 
 Will jou never teach that cook of jours to be 
 punctual T 
 
 "It is not her fault, indeed," was the 
 answer, in a low, timid roice ; " I ventured to 
 order dinner to be put off half an hour, to suit 
 the railway time/' 
 
 The General was too well bred to utter 
 what he very plainly looked — that to have 
 been thus kept waiting for Miss Arnold he 
 thought a very unwarrantable proceeding 
 indeed. 
 
 He stirred up the fire with additional 
 vigour — made it blaze fiercely, — then com- 
 plained of these abominable coals, which burned 
 like touchwood, and had no heat in them, and 
 wondered whether Mrs. Melwyn would ever 
 have the energy to order sea-borne coal, as 
 he had desired. Then, casting a most un- 
 gracious look at the new comer, who stood
 
 184 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 (luring this scene, feeling awkward and uncom- 
 fortable to a degree, lie asked Mrs. Melwjn 
 " How long she intended to keep the young 
 lady standing there before she dressed for 
 dinner?" and suirs^ested that the housemaid 
 should be sent for, to show her to her room. 
 
 " I will take that office upon myself,'' said 
 Mrs. Melwyn. " Come, Miss Arnold, will you 
 follow meV And, lighting a candle, for it 
 was now dark, she proceeded towards the door. 
 
 " For heaven's sake don't be long !" said her 
 husband, in an irritable tone ; " It's striking 
 six and three-quarters. Is dinner to be upon 
 the table at seven o'clock, or is it not 1" 
 
 "Punctually." 
 
 " Then, Miss — Miss — I beg your pardon — 
 and Mrs. Melwyn, I Jiope you will be ready to 
 take your usual place at table." 
 
 They heard no more; for Mrs. Melwyn 
 closed the door with the air of one escaping, 
 — and, looking uncomfortable and half fright- 
 ened, led the way upstairs.
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 1S5 
 
 It was a pretty, cheerful little room, of 
 wliich she opened the door ; and a pleasant 
 fire was blazincr in the o^rate. The bed was of 
 white dimitj, trimmed with a border of co- 
 loured chintz, as were the window-curtains ; 
 the carpet quite new, and uncommonlj pretty ; 
 chairs, dressing-table, writing-table, all very 
 neat and elegant, and the tables comfortably 
 covered each with its proper appendages. 
 
 It was quite a delightful little den. 
 
 Mrs. Melwyn had taken much pleasure in 
 the fitting-up of this small room, which was 
 next to her own dressing-room. She had 
 fancied herself going to receiye into it a 
 second Catherine; and though the very mo- 
 derate amount of money of which she had the 
 power of disposing as she pleased, and the 
 noisy remonstrances and objections of Randall, 
 had prevented her indulging in many pretty 
 fancies which would have amused and occupied 
 her pleasantly since the dismal day of Cathe- 
 rine's wedding, still she had persisted, contrary
 
 186 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 to lier wont, in having in some degree her own 
 way. So, in spite of all Randall could do, she 
 had discarded the ugly old things, — which the 
 lady's maid, excessively jealous of this new 
 comer, declared were more tlian too good for 
 such as her — and had substituted this cheerful 
 simplicity which the air of freshness and 
 newness cast over everything rendered par- 
 ticularly pleasing. 
 
 "What a beautiful little room!" Lettice 
 could not help exclaiming, looking excessively 
 delighted. She liked pretty things and elegant 
 little comforts as well as anybody, did Lettice, 
 though they seldom fell to her share, because 
 she was always for giving them up to other 
 people. 
 
 " Do you like it, my dear V said Mrs. 
 Melwyn, in what Lettice thought the sweetest, 
 softest voice she had ever heard. *' I have 
 taken great pleasure in getting it ready for 
 you. I shall be glad, indeed, if you can make 
 yourself happy in it."
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 187 
 
 "Happj! Who could help being happy 
 in such a Paradise V " And with such a 
 sweet, gentle, charming person as Mrs, Mel- 
 wjn,^' mentally added Lettice. " What mat- 
 ters it how cross the poor old General is," 
 thought she, 
 
 "But, my dear, I don't see your trunks. 
 Will you ring the bell for them 1 The General 
 must not be kept waiting for his dinner, and 
 he cannot endure those who sit down at his 
 table, either to be too late, or not to be in an 
 evening dress. Military men, you know, are 
 so used to this sort of precision, that they 
 expect it from all around them. You will 
 remember another day, my dear, and — " then 
 the under housemaid opened the door. " Tell 
 them to bring up Miss Arnold's trunks, 
 directly." 
 
 Them. 
 
 She did not at that moment exactly know 
 which was the proper servant whose office it 
 ought to be to carry Miss Arnold's trunks.
 
 188 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 Miss Arnold was an anomaly. There was no 
 precedent. A Miss Arnold had never been in 
 the family before. What was to be done % 
 Precedent, as I told you, there was not to be 
 found, and what servant in the Generars 
 family would stir without a precedent? The 
 trunk was probably too heavy for the under 
 housemaid to carry up, — that under house- 
 maid, one of the fags usually kept in a 
 household like this, merely to do what the 
 upper servants are too fine or too idle to do. 
 In domestic systems like the one before us, 
 you must have two in every department (you 
 may consider yourself very lucky if you are 
 not obliged to have three), if you intend that 
 there should be a chance of your getting 
 anything, not exactly according to the routine 
 of the day done, if you want it done. The 
 under servant being, as I have said, a sort of 
 fag or slave in the eyes of the upper ones 
 they will alloiu her to make herself useful, 
 though it should not be exactly her plac&.
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 189 
 
 Mrs. Melwjn had provided, as slie tlioiiglit, iu 
 a very ingenious manner for the proper at- 
 tendance upon Miss Arnold by having recourse 
 to this said under housemaid, and by adding 
 a couple of sovereigns to her wages unknown 
 to Randall, but she had forgotten the carrying 
 up of her trunk. Had the momentous ques- 
 tion arisen about a visitor's trunk, the matter 
 would have been easily settled — the onerous 
 task of carrying it between them upstairs 
 would have been discharged, as a matter of 
 course by the two footmen — but this was a 
 new case — an anomaly. Still Mrs. Melwyn 
 cherished a secret hope that the two footmen 
 might be so very nice and kind, as to take 
 upon themselves, as a matter of course, to do 
 it now — therefore she said them, hoping 
 somebody would answer to this them some way 
 or other, but, — 
 
 " Who '?" asked Bridget, bringing the matter 
 to a point. 
 
 " Why, I am sure I don't exactly know.
 
 190 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 Who is there below '? I suppose you could 
 not carry the things up yourself, Bridget ?" 
 
 " I am afraid not, ma'am. There's only one 
 trunk, and it looks heavy/' 
 
 " Oh !" cried Lettice, " I can come and help 
 you. We can carry it up together, for Myra 
 and I carried it down together easily." And 
 she was quitting the room. But Mrs. Melwyn 
 laid her hand upon her shoulder. 
 
 " No, my dear, upon no account — Bridget, 
 fetch up the gardener's boy, he'll help you to 
 carry the trunk up." 
 
 Mrs. Melwyn looked excessively annoyed 
 and distressed : Lettice could not imagine what 
 could be the matter. 
 
 The gentle, kind lady seemed nervous and 
 embarrassed. At last, evidently making a 
 very great effort with herself, she got out, 
 " Excuse mc, my dear, but there is a little 
 thing .... I would rather not if you 
 please . . . Servants are so insolent, you know 
 they arc ill brought up — If you please, my
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 191 
 
 dear, it will be better not to offer to do things 
 for yourself, which young ladies don't usually 
 undertake to do — such as carrying up trunks. 
 And then, I think, it will be better not to 
 allude to past circumstances before the ser- 
 Yants. Servants, you know, my dear — I can't 
 think why it is — but they are so apt to feel a 
 contempt for people that do not happen to be 
 Tery — very — I mean — rich ; you know — It's 
 excessively strange and wrong in them I am 
 sure ; but so it is with them ; and I think — • 
 don't be vexed at my saying it — I think my 
 dear it will make you more . . . You will 
 be more comfortable, I think, if you maintain 
 your own dignity. I hope you will not be 
 hurt at me for giving you this little hint, Miss 
 Arnold." 
 
 " Hurt ! Oh, madam !'' And Lettice could 
 not forbear taking up the beautiful white hand 
 of this most fair and gentle woman, and kiss- 
 ing it with the most respectful reverence. 
 "Whatever you will be so very kind as to
 
 192 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 suggest to me I will so carefully attend to — 
 and I shall be so much obliged to you/' 
 
 How sweet was this gentle manner to poor 
 Mrs. Melwyn ! She began to feel lightened 
 from quite a load of anxiety. She began to 
 believe, that happen what would, she should 
 never be afraid of Lettice. 
 
 " Catherine was quite right ; oh, what a 
 comfort it would be !'' 
 
 " "Well then,'* she continued with more cheer- 
 fulness, "I will go away and see that your 
 things are sent up to you, for there is no time 
 to be lost. — Bless me! it's striking seven. You 
 never can be ready. Oh, here your trunk 
 comes ! I forgot to tell you that Bridget is to 
 answer your bell and wait upon you. I have 
 settled all that — you will find her quite good- 
 natured and attentive. She's really an obliging 
 girl." 
 
 And so indeed Bridget proved to be in the 
 main. 
 
 The upper housemaid took care to preserve
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 193 
 
 strict discipline, and to exact prompt obedience 
 in her own department, whatever the mistress 
 of the mansion might do in hers. 
 
 And Bridget was in excellent order accord- 
 ingly. The worst of it was, as we shall have 
 occasion to see, that these influences of the 
 upper housemaid were not always exercised on 
 the beneficial side of things, and that Bridget 
 could follow the lead of high personages, in 
 what was wrong, as well as in what was right 
 — for it was much more for Bridget's interest, 
 and much more essential to Bridget's comfort, 
 to be upon good terms with the real, — than 
 to please the ostensible mistress. 
 
 " Well, then," Mrs. Melwjn went on, in a 
 somewhat hurried manner, "I had better 
 leave jou and make jour excuses to the Gene- 
 ral, and JOU will follow me to the dining-room 
 as soon as jou can. We must not keep dinner 
 waiting anj longer. You will excuse cere- 
 mony on my part, I am sure. — The General is 
 
 YOL. 1. o
 
 194 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 an invalid, you know, and those matters are so 
 important to his health/' 
 
 And so saying, she glided away, leaving 
 Lattice almost too much astonished to be de- 
 lighted with all this consideration and kind- 
 ness — things to which she had been little 
 accustomed. But the impression she received 
 upon the whole was very sweet. The face 
 and manner of Mrs. Melwyn were so exces- 
 sively soft ; her very dress, the colour of her 
 hair, her step, her voice ; everything spoke so 
 much gentleness. Lettice thought her the 
 loveliest person she had ever met with. More 
 charming even than Catherine — more attaching 
 even than Mrs. Danvers. She felt very much 
 inclined to adore her. 
 
 She was but a very few hours longer in the 
 house before pity added to this rising feeling 
 of attachment ; and I believe there is nothing 
 attaches the inferior to the superior like pity. 
 
 Dressed in one of her best new dresses, and 
 with her hair done up as neatly as she possibly
 
 LETTICE AENOLD. 195 
 
 could in that hurrj, Lettice made her way to 
 the dining-roora . 
 
 It was a large, lofty, yerj handsome, and 
 rather awfully resounding room, with old 
 family pictures upon every side. There was 
 a sideboard set out, sparkling with glass and 
 plate; a small table in the middle of the 
 apartment with silver covers and dishes shining 
 in the light of four wax candles ; a blazing fire, 
 a splendid Indian screen before the door; two 
 footmen in liveries of pink and white, and a 
 gentleman in a black suit, in attendance. The 
 General and Mrs. Melwyn were seated oppo- 
 site to each other at table. 
 
 The soup had been already discussed, and 
 the first course was set upon the table when 
 Miss Arnold entered. 
 
 Had she been a young lady horn — an obse- 
 quious footman would have doubtless flown 
 to attend her to her seat, and present her 
 with a chair: as it was, she would have 
 been spared this piece of etiquette, and she 
 
 02
 
 196 LETTICE APvXOLD. 
 
 was making her way to her chair without mis- 
 sing the attention, when the General, who 
 observed his saucj footmen standing lounging 
 about, without oflPering to move forward, 
 frowned in what Lettice tliought a most 
 alarming way, and said in a stern voice, and 
 regarding significantly the two footmen, " What 
 are you about T' Upon which the two gen- 
 tlemen in pink and silver started, and with 
 looks of considerable trepidation, hurried for- 
 ward, and presented her with a seat ; and slic 
 placed herself at table with something of the 
 same feelings of alarm and trepidation, though 
 she could not help feeling gratified by this 
 mark of attention, whatever the manner in 
 which it was bestowed might be. 
 
 Mrs. Melwyn's face expressed both surprise 
 and satisfaction. 
 
 "We thought you would excuse us. The 
 soup has been set aside for you," said the 
 lady of the house, with much politeness of 
 manner.
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 197 
 
 " Oh, thank jou, Ma'am, I beg jour pardon 
 for being late — praj excuse me." 
 
 " Give Miss Arnold soup." 
 
 Again in a stern, authoritative voice from 
 the General. 
 
 Mrs. Melwjn Tvas accustomed to the stern- 
 ness, but she was most agreeably astonished at 
 the politeness. The General ^vas a man, as it 
 ^vas universally acknowledged, of first-rate 
 manners in general society, and his amenity 
 there formed a strong contrast with some of 
 his ways in his own house. She had not 
 dared to hope, that a young lady standing in 
 the relation of humble companion to herself, 
 would be considered worthy to be classed 
 among those to whom tlie General's polite 
 attention was due ; but in this she found that 
 she had done him injustice; and she looked 
 quite pleased and grateful for it, and relieved 
 from what had cost her kind heart much 
 anxiety. She looked more at ease — lost her 
 nervous hurried look — and appeared, ^Yhat it
 
 198 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 was a sad pity that she was not always mis- 
 tress enough of her own spirits to appear — a 
 very lady-like, charming person. 
 
 Lettice, as I said, was upon her side glad 
 to find herself treated with polite attention, 
 though the stern countenance, and a something 
 high and authoritative in the General's voice 
 and manner, prevented her feeling at ease, or 
 taking much pleasure in anything. 
 
 She was not called upon to feel grateful 
 either. All this was not done out of the least 
 consideration for her or her feelings. 
 
 The General, who, Randall perhaps excepted, 
 made a point of keeping every one of his ser- 
 vants, as far as he, at least, was concerned, in 
 a state of the utmost subservience, did not 
 choose that any one who had the honour of a 
 seat at his table, should be neglected by those 
 " rascals,'' as he usually styled his footmen.
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 199 
 
 It being the first evening after Miss Arnold's 
 arrival, Mrs. Melwjn had too much feeling 
 for her, and too much natural politeness, to 
 call upon her to enter upon those after-dinner 
 and evening duties of reading aloud, and play- 
 ing backgammon with the General, for the 
 performance of which Catherine had expressly 
 stipulated. Not with Lettice alone, but what 
 was of far more importance, and a far more 
 difficult negotiation to manage — with the 
 General himself. 
 
 She had made her father promise that he 
 would suffer this young lady to undertake the 
 place of reader — a place which Catherine her- 
 self had now filled for some time, to the inex- 
 pressible relief of her mother — and she had 
 also brought him to consent to the proposal 
 that Miss Arnold should be permitted to try 
 whether she could play well enough at back- 
 gammon to make an adversary worth the 
 trouble of vanquishing. 
 
 He had grumbled and objected — as it was a
 
 200 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 matter of course ^N-ith him to grumble and 
 object in the first instance to everything — to 
 this arrangement, but had finally consented. 
 However, he was not particularly impatient to 
 begin ; and besides, he was habitually a well- 
 bred man, so that any duty which came under 
 his category of good manners he punctually 
 performed. People are too apt, I think, to 
 misprize this sort of politeness of habit — of 
 mere conventual habit, if you will — as a quality 
 of small comparative value. Doubtless there 
 are qualities with which it cannot enter into 
 comparison; yet, taken by itself, and above 
 all, as a necessary substitute for higher prin- 
 ciples of action, when such unfortunately may 
 be wanting, it is a very good thing as far as it 
 goes. 
 
 And even in other cases, where these higher 
 and better principles are not wanting, it is not 
 without its value, and a very considerable 
 value too. Politeness is a charming thing in 
 itself: and when exercised in the domestic
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 201 
 
 relations, smooths and sweetens the current of 
 life to an incalculable degree. 
 
 It enhances the value of a reallj gentle and 
 kind temper; it softens down the asperities of 
 a harsh and rugged one; — and, to an extent, 
 of which many worthy people, — who mistake 
 politeness for insincerity, and think a blunt 
 roughness of demeanour a warrant for the 
 honesty and truth of their affections — seem to 
 be little aware. Where there was so little kind- 
 ness of nature, and so much of selfishness and 
 ill-tempered indulgence, as in this cross old man 
 before us, observe that his habits of politeness 
 were not entirely without avail. They kept 
 him in a certain check, and certainly rendered 
 him more tolerable. He was not quite such a 
 brute bear as he would have been, left to his 
 uncorrected nature. 
 
 Politeness is, and ought to be, a habit so 
 confirmed, that we exercise it instinctively — 
 without consideration, without attention, with- 
 out effoil;, as it were. This is the very essence
 
 202 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 of the sort of politeness I am thinking of. Bj 
 thus making it matter of habit, it may, per- 
 haps, take it out of the category of the virtues, 
 but it places it in that of the qualities ; and, 
 in some matters, good qualities arc almost as 
 valuable — almost more valuable — than even if 
 thej still held their place among what might 
 be strictly called the virtues — and this of 
 politeness, in my opinion, is one. 
 
 By virtues, I mean acts which are performed 
 with a certain difficulty, under the sense of 
 responsibility to duty, under the self-discipline 
 of right principle — by qualities, I mean what 
 is spontaneous. Constitutional good qualities 
 are spontaneous : such as natural sweetness 
 of temper — natural delicacy of feeling — natural 
 intrepidity. Others are the result of habit, and 
 end by being spontaneous — by being a second 
 nature, as habits are justly called. Gentle- 
 ness of tone and manner — attention to con- 
 ventional proprieties — to people's little wants 
 and feelings — are among these. This same
 
 LETTICE ARiTOLD. 203 
 
 politeness being a sort of summary of 
 such. 
 
 I will end this little didactic digression by 
 advising all those who have the rearing of the 
 young committed to their hands, so carefully 
 to form them in matters of this description, 
 that they shall attain habits — that the delicacy 
 of their perceptions, the gentleness of their 
 tones and gestures, the propriety of their dress, 
 the politeness of their manners, shall become 
 spontaneous acts, done without reference to 
 self — matters of course. By which means, not 
 only much that is disagreeable to others is 
 avoided, and much that is amiable attained, 
 but a great deal of reference to self is in after 
 life escaped; and temptations to the faults of 
 vanity — pride — envious comparisons with our 
 neighbours, and the feebleness of self-distrust 
 very considerably diminished. 
 
 And so, to return, the politeness of the 
 General and Mrs. Melwyn led to this result, 
 the leaving Miss Arnold undisturbed to make
 
 204 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 her reflections and lier observations, before 
 commencing the tasks which Mrs. Melwjn, for 
 the Last time, undertook for her, namely, those 
 of reading the newspaper and playing the hit. 
 
 Lcttice could not help feehng rejoiced to be 
 spared this sort of public exhibition of her 
 powers, till she was in a slight degree better 
 acquainted with her ground ; and she was glad 
 to know, without being directly told, what it 
 Avas customary to do in these respects. But 
 in every other point of view, she had better, 
 perhaps, have been reader than listener. For, 
 if she gained a lesson as to the routine to be 
 followed, she paid for it by receiving at the 
 same time, a considerably alarming impression 
 of the General's ways of proceeding. 
 
 " Shall I read the newspaper to you, this 
 evening. General 1 " began Mrs. Melwyn, 
 timidly. 
 
 " I don't care if you do," roughly. 
 
 Polite men, be it observed, en passant, do 
 not at all think it a necessary consequence of
 
 LETTICE ARIs^OLD. 205 
 
 their possessing that amiable quality, that it 
 should be exercised for the benefit of their 
 wives. Wives, you know, are things apart-— 
 things strictly a man's own — apart from the 
 category of general society — and not at all 
 necessarily the object of such nice considera- 
 tions and proprieties. Some generous natures 
 no doubt there are, whom the very consi- 
 deration of having a woman in their power 
 leads to the nicest attention in matters of this 
 delicate nature. Happy woman that falls into 
 such hands ! Such had not, certainly, been 
 poor Mrs. Melwyn's fate. 
 
 To be rude and abrupt in his behaviour to 
 her, the General, it is plain, did not think the 
 slightest impeachment of his gentlemanlike 
 manners. 
 
 '* Shall I read the newspaper, this evening T 
 
 "Is there anything worth reading in if?" 
 
 asked he, in a sneering, disagreeable manner, 
 
 not meant for her though. In this instance 
 
 — aimed, perhaps, at the newspaper — but
 
 206 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 giving an unpleasant feeling to all pre- 
 sent. 
 
 " I am sure I don't know," in a timid voice, 
 " what you will call worth reading. Shall I 
 begin with the leading article 1 " 
 
 " What is the leading article all about V 
 
 " I am sure I can't say." 
 
 " Can't you look V 
 
 " The sugar question, I think." 
 
 " Well, what has the fool to say about 
 thatr' 
 
 " ' The speech of Lord **** last night upon 
 the much-discussed subject of the sugar ques- 
 tion, has no doubt been read and commented 
 upon, in their various ways, and according to 
 their different impressions — shall we say pre- 
 judices 1 — by our readers. The performance, 
 it is upon all hands agreed, was masterly, and, 
 as far as eloquence is concerned, no one we 
 should imagine, can dispute that the accom- 
 plished statesman who uttered this remarkable 
 speech did only justice to . . . .'"
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 207 
 
 "Well — well — well — well,'' in a sneering 
 tone — " I really do wonder how long jou 
 could go on droning and dinning, and dinning 
 and droning sucli palpably empty editorial 
 nonsense as that into a man's ears. — Now I 
 would be glad to ask you — merely to ask you, 
 as a rational woman, Mrs. Melwyn — what 
 possible amusement or profit can be drawn 
 from a long exordium which says absolutely 
 nothing — tells one absolutely nothinor but what 
 every one knew before — stujff with which all 
 editors of newspapers seem to think it neces- 
 sary to preface their remarks. What in the 
 
 name of is the use of wasting your 
 
 breath and my patience in retailing such 
 mere Terbiage as that — can't you skip ? — Did 
 it never enter into your head to skip ? — Are 
 you a mere reading-machine, madam ?" 
 " Shall I pass on to the next subject V 
 " No, that's not my meaning — if you could 
 take a meaning. — What I want is only what 
 every rational person expects when these con-
 
 208 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 founded lucubrations of a stupid newspaper 
 editor are read up — that the reader will have 
 the sense to leave all these useless phrases and 
 useless syllables out, and give the pith and 
 marrow of the matter to the listener. — Well 
 — well, never mind — if you can't, you can't : 
 get on at all events." 
 
 Mrs. Melwyn coloured faintly, looked ner- 
 vous and uneasy, — glanced down the columns 
 of the newspaper, and hesitated. 
 
 " Well, — can't you go on ? Will you be 
 pleased or will you not to get on ? — What's the 
 use of your sitting there with that absurd, 
 bamboozled face of your's — looking for all the 
 world like a child of six years old, who's afraid 
 to be whipped. Haven't I said so. — If you 
 can't, you can't. If you haven't the sense, you 
 have'nt. If it's not in you — it's not in you ; 
 but for 's sake get on." 
 
 " 'Mr, =^*=^* rose, and in a manner upon 
 which we cannot, we are sorry to say, exactly 
 bestow our unqualified approbation, but which
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 209 
 
 nevertheless, to us we must confess in a rather 
 unaccountable manner, seemed to claim and to 
 command the ear and the attention of a verj 
 crowded house, &c., &c., kc!" 
 
 " There you are again ! Why the deuce 
 can't you pass over all that rigmarole, and 
 tell us what the confounded blockheads on that 
 side did really say V 
 
 " I read this debate to you yesterday, you 
 know. These are only the editor's remarks 
 upon it. Shall I give you the summary of 
 last night's debate 1" 
 
 " No, let's hear what that fool of an editor 
 really has to say upon this cursed sugar ques- 
 tion. He's against the measure, that's one 
 comfort." 
 
 " He does not seem to be so exactly," 
 glancing down the page. 
 
 " I'll take the liberty of judging of that 
 matter for myself, Mrs. Melwyn, if you'll 
 only be so particularly obliging as to read 
 
 on." 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 210 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 Which she did. Now reproached for read- 
 ing in such a low cluttering manner, with that 
 d d soft voice of hers, that it was impos- 
 sible to hear ; and when she raised it, asked, 
 " What the deuce was the use of shouting so 
 as to be heard bj all the fellows in the ser- 
 vants' hall r 
 
 In this style, the newspaper was at last, for 
 better, for worse, blundered through, in the 
 most uncomfortable manner possible, bj the 
 terrified reader. 
 
 Lettice sat bj, deeply attentive. She was 
 a brave, high-spirited girl, and she did not 
 feel dismayed ; her predominant sentiment was 
 self-congratulation that she should be able to 
 spare that sweet, soft, kind Mrs. Melwyn the 
 ungrateful task. 
 
 She sat observing, and laying down her 
 own plans of proceeding. It was not the first 
 time in her life that she had been exposed to what 
 is called scolding; a thing every day, I verily 
 believe, — and am most happy to do so — going
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 211 
 
 more and more out of fashion, though still 
 retained, as a habit, bj many people otherwise 
 Av ell-meaning enough. It was retained in its 
 full vigour by the General, who was not well- 
 meaning at all ; he usually meaning nothing on 
 earth by what he did, but the indulgence of the 
 present humour, good, bad, or indifferent. Let- 
 tice had lived in a sphere of life where this sort 
 of domestic violence used to be very common ; 
 and she had learned to bear it, even froDi the 
 lips of those she loved, with patience. She 
 knew this very well, and she thought to her- 
 self, " if I could get into the habit of hardly 
 caring for it from those very near and dear to 
 me, surely it will be easy enough to meet it 
 with indiflference from a poor, cross, peevish, 
 suflfering old man, whom I don't care for in 
 the least. The way must be, to get into the 
 habit of it from the first, to let the words 
 
 ' Pass by me as the idle wind which I regard not.* 
 
 I must put all my vanity, all my spirit, all my 
 
 p2
 
 212 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 o^vn little tempers, quietly out of the way, 
 and never trouble myself with what he says, 
 but go reading on in the best way I can, to 
 please him, but with the most unruffled out- 
 ward appearance of tranquillity; and the 
 utmost secret indifference as to whether I suc- 
 ceed or not. He shall be sooner tired of 
 scolding, than I of looking as if I never heard 
 it. Hell give over if I can persevere, instead 
 of looking all colours and all ways, as that 
 dear, gentle Mrs. Melwyn does." 
 
 The trial at backgammon was, if such a 
 thing could be, even worse than the reading 
 aloud. It seemed as if it was impossible to 
 give satisfaction here. 
 
 The General not only played his own game, 
 but insisted upon playing that of his adversary 
 too ; and was by turns angry at her stupidity 
 in missing an advantage through want of skill, 
 asking " what could be the possible interest or 
 pleasure of playing with such a mere child?" 
 and vexed, if the plan he pointed out ended in
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 213 
 
 his own discomfiture, — for he could not bear 
 to lose. 
 
 Backgammon, too, was an unlucky game to 
 be played with one of a temper such as his. 
 Every favourable throw of the dice, it is true, 
 filled him with a disagreeable sarcastic exulta- 
 tion ; but a positively bad one, and still more, 
 a succession of bad ones, drove him furious. 
 After a long course of provoking throws, such 
 as sometimes will happen, he would seem half 
 mad, storm, curse, and swear, in the most ridi- 
 culous, if it had not been blasphemous, manner; 
 and sometimes end the furious outburst by 
 banging the tables together, and vowing he 
 would never play at this confounded game 
 again as long as he lived. 
 
 There was an exhibition of this sort that 
 very evening. Mrs. Melwyn looked much dis- 
 tressed, and almost ashamed, as she glanced at 
 Lettice to see how she took it; but Lettice 
 appeared to be too much engaged with a knot 
 in her netting to seem to take it at all, which
 
 214 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 evidently relieved Mrs. Melwjn. The scene 
 had not, however, been lost upon our friend, 
 "who had observed it with a smile of secret con- 
 tempt; mentally, however, congratulating herself 
 upon her good, robust nerves. Such exhibitions 
 of violence being, as she was well aware, really 
 terrible trials of strength to those cursed with 
 physical delicacy and susceptibility in this 
 respect. 
 
 The very highest endeavours at fortitude 
 and courage, the most strenuous exertions to 
 maintain at least apparent tranquillity, the most 
 generous intentions, and the most charitable 
 interpretations of ebullitions of a hasty and 
 ill-governed temper such as this, would be, she 
 knew, without avail, where the fluttering heart 
 and trembling spirits vibrated to every violent 
 word. 
 
 The worst of it is, that such sufferers, instead 
 of finding their nerves hardened and their 
 powers of endurance strengthened by the 
 habitual repetition of such successive acts of
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 215 
 
 intemperate passion, too often find themselves 
 weakened bj every fresh call upon a strength 
 unequal to the trial ; and, to their dismay and 
 despair discover, that every new outburst, 
 whilst it strengthens the evil habit upon the 
 part of the aggressor, takes something from the 
 sufferer's own power of meeting it even toler- 
 ably. 
 
 Again Lettice looked with a feeling of com- 
 passionate interest at Mrs. Melwyn, and again, 
 every time she looked, she rejoiced more and 
 more in the idea of being the means of 
 saving her from wliat she perceived was, in- 
 deed, to such a frame and temper as hers, a 
 source of very great suffering. She resolved to 
 keep up her own spirits manfully, and oppose 
 the only true defence to so much unreason- 
 ableness and ill-temper, courage and indiffer- 
 ence. She felt sure, if she could only, by a 
 little effort, maintain her spirits for a short 
 time, that her perseverance would terminate 
 in establishing a habit of passive tranquillity,
 
 216 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 which once done, the old man's violence would 
 cost her little or nothing more. 
 
 The General, though polite to Lettice in 
 their first communications, held her in far too 
 little esteem to care one doit what he did or 
 said before her. He was an excessively proud 
 man ; and the idea that a girl, so greatly his 
 inferior in every way, should keep him in 
 check, or venture even to make a remark upon 
 his behaviour, far less presume to judge his 
 conduct, never entered into his head. I 
 wonder what he would have felt, if he 
 could have been made aware of that secret 
 smile. 
 
 But time had run on, and the evening, 
 which had seemed endless, at last drew to a 
 close. How did the heart of Lettice expand, 
 as if relieved from a heavy weight ; when at 
 last the door opened, and giving signal that 
 the weary hours were at last ended, a footman 
 bearing a tray with wine, spirits, water, &c., 
 entered the room.
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 217 
 
 The General took his accustomed glass of 
 whisky and water, and then, opening his cigar- 
 box, he began to smoke. This process invariably 
 made Mrs. Melwju feel rather sick, but she 
 was usually obliged to submit to it in the best 
 manner she could, as the General liked to have 
 her sitting by him, whilst he whiffed the smoke 
 away, never perhaps uttering one single word, 
 even between each cigar. 
 
 This evening, however, it being somewhat 
 later than usual, she ventured to rise and 
 make a motion to retire, — but, being asked in 
 a rough manner, what she was running away 
 for, she immediately returned and resumed her 
 seat; and there she sat, saying nothing, either 
 to the General or to Miss Arnold, all three 
 preserving the most solemn silence, till three 
 cigars had been successively discussed. The 
 drawing-room began to smell abominably of 
 that detestable tobacco, and Mrs. Melwyn, as 
 usual, began to feel rather ill, and to turn pale. 
 At last the French clock on the chimney-piece
 
 218 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 rang one quarter to eleven, and then, as the 
 General loved not late hours, he looked at his 
 watch, wound it up, said he supposed it was 
 time to think of moving, and the two ladies 
 were at last suffered to take their departure. 
 
 The servant entered with lighted candles. 
 Mrs. Melwjn took one, bade him give Miss 
 Arnold another; and thej went up-stairs 
 together. 
 
 " Good night, my dear," said the lady of the 
 house, with a wearied, worn-out air, and a tone 
 in which there was a good deal of sadness. 
 
 She could not get used to these evenings, 
 poor thing ! Every time the General was 
 cross, she felt it just as acutely as if it had 
 been the first ; and his temper had lately 
 grown much worse. He had been dreadfully 
 cross since Catherine married. 
 
 Mrs. Melwyn had lately hardly known what 
 to do with him, or how to contrive to bear it. 
 
 " Good night, my dear,'' she said, with such 
 a depressed tone and manner that Lettice's
 
 LETTICE ARXOLD. 219 
 
 heart quite bled for her; "I hope you ^Till 
 sleep comfortably." 
 
 *• Can I be of any further use to you, 
 madam, to night?" she said, so kindly, softly, 
 and gently, that Mrs. Melwyn felt soothed and 
 solaced, almost as if it had been her own 
 darling Catherine who spoke. She quite 
 longed to have Miss Arnold attend upon her 
 and put her to bed, as Catherine would insist 
 upon doing at times when her mother was 
 more than usually out of spirits. 
 
 But this was a self-assertion not to be 
 thought of. It would be an encroachment 
 upon Randall's privileges not to be endured 
 by that worthy. Catherine might venture 
 upon it, — Catherine was all-powerful, — and 
 Catherine would as well as could, — but she — 
 poor defenceless Mrs. Melwyn, she dared not, 
 — for her life she dared not — so she said — 
 
 "Oh no, thank you; don't come into my 
 dressing-room, — Randall is very particular: 
 she considers that her own territory. She
 
 220 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 does not like any one to come in, especially at 
 night ; but just let me look whether your fire 
 bums/' she added, entering Lettice's room, for 
 she longed to stay with her a little longer, and 
 for a little lono^er this indukence she might 
 venture upon, besides, she wanted to speak a 
 few words. 
 
 The fire was blazing merrily; Mrs. Melwyn 
 put her candle down upon the chimney-piece, 
 and stood there a little while before it, looking 
 again irresolute. It seemed as if she wished, 
 and did not know how, to say something. 
 Lettice stood at a short distance, respectfully 
 expectant. 
 
 " I declare it's very cold to-night," with a 
 little shiver. 
 
 " I did not feel it cold, but then this is so 
 thoroughly comfortable a house." 
 
 "Do you think so? Shall you find it so? 
 The wind comes sharply down the passages, 
 sometimes, but I wish. — I hope you won't care 
 much for that — or — or — or — any little painful
 
 LETTICE AENOLD. 221 
 
 things; thej can't be helped, jou know, in 
 this world." 
 
 " Ah madam ! if I may yentui'e to saj so, 
 there is one good thing one gets out of great 
 hardships, — little things do seem so very little 
 afterwards." 
 
 " Aj, if thej are really little, but " 
 
 " Things that are that don't seem little 
 
 to people of more gentle nurture, who have 
 lived in a different way — seem, and are, little 
 to those who have roughed it till they are 
 themselves roughened. That was what I 
 intended to say. One is so very happy to 
 escape dreadful, real, positive distress, that all 
 the rest is like mere play." 
 
 Mrs. Melwyn looked at her in a pensive, 
 anxious, inquiring manner. She wanted to 
 see if she was understood ; she saw that she 
 was. She saw something truly heartening 
 and encouraging in the young girl's coun- 
 tenance. She shook hands with her and bade 
 her good night very affectionately, and went
 
 222 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 to her own dressing-room. Randall was as 
 cross that night as it was possible for the most 
 tyrannical servant to be, but some way or 
 other, Mrs. Melwjn did not feel as if she cared 
 for it quite so much as usual; she had her 
 mind filled with the image of Lettice. Some- 
 thing so very nice about her, she thought to 
 herself, — in one respect even better than 
 Catherine. She should not be so afraid of her 
 being distressed by disagreeable things. She 
 should venture to tell her about Randall, and 
 other vexations which she had carefully con- 
 cealed from Catherine, lest they should make 
 her unhappy. For thus she represented to 
 herself the extreme reserve she had endeavoured 
 to practise with respect to Randall as regarded 
 Catherine, — so that, in fact, Catherine, great 
 as her suspicions upon the subject were, was 
 far from surmising the full extent of the evil. 
 
 Mrs. Melwyn, as we see, said to herself, 
 that this reserve on her part arose from her 
 fear of distressing Catherine, — but the truth
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 223 
 
 was, that she dreaded that if her daughter 
 knew all, she would make an absolute point of 
 Randall being parted with, and this, as happens 
 to manj weak spirits, thus unaccountably 
 enthralled, seemed to her the most terrible of 
 all alternatives. 
 
 Randall kept the keys, — Randall managed 
 the household, — Randall looked after the house- 
 hold linen, — Randall provided her mistress's 
 dress, — Randall did a hundred things every 
 day which she was too languid to do herself, 
 and how could she trust a stranger to do them 
 for herl And could she bear a stranger about 
 her'? And then, there was the General! 
 
 Randall dressed the General's arm, — Ran- 
 dall pleased him, he liked her, though he 
 swore at her, — he could bear her about his 
 person, — he never would bear any one else. 
 
 The effort of a change like this was too 
 great to be attempted, — any passive endur- 
 ance of present evils is to feeble spirits more 
 tolerable than the heroic effort to shake them 
 off.
 
 224 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 Most people prefer bearing the pain of 
 toothache to submitting to the operation of its 
 extraction. 
 
 The courageous effort to bear present pain 
 for the sake of future ease is beyond them. 
 
 And then with such an imagination as poor 
 Mrs. Mehvjn's. The true imagination of the 
 coward, — that which makes a man die many 
 times before his death, — peoples the uncertain 
 future with such monsters and dragons, — such 
 wind-mills turned into giants, that they have 
 not even hope to hearten and encourage them. 
 The very presence of the present evil cows and 
 debilitates them against the daring to meet an 
 uncertain future. 
 
 The very possession of the tyrannical, bad 
 servant terrifies them from risking the change 
 for another. 
 
 Another, their coward hearts tell them, may 
 be only ten times worse. So Mrs. Melwyn, as 
 we see, had not enjoyed the comfort of com- 
 plaining of Randall to her own Catherine, for
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 225 
 
 fear of consequences ; but no such consequences 
 were to be apprehended in the case of Miss 
 Arnold. 
 
 She should be able to complain of Randall, 
 without feeling that she would be urged to 
 conquer her weakness, and part with her. 
 There was something inexpressibly comfort- 
 able in this idea; so Randall pouted awaj in 
 vain, and Mrs. Melwjn looked and felt as if 
 she heeded it not so very much, — not nearly so 
 much as usual; but when Randall perceived 
 this, she was excessively oflfended, and more 
 and more cross and disagreeable. For she 
 was quickness itself, and the unusual tranquil- 
 lity of Mrs. Melwyn's manner under all her 
 marks and intimations of high dissatisfaction 
 and displeasure, was doubtless somewhat omi- 
 nous and alarming. 
 
 There was a new-comer, and a new-comer 
 who would be thrown into very close relations 
 with Mrs. Melwyn and the General; and she did 
 not see how, do what she could, unless she 
 
 YOL. I, Q
 
 226 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 could succeed in getting lier out of the house, 
 these close relations could possibly be helped. 
 
 Her despotism (she called it influence) was 
 in danger of being very much weakened, by 
 its being thus divided; and she saw, even 
 now, as she fancied, some of the effects she 
 deprecated. Mrs. Melwyn, certainly, did not 
 look half so fidgetted, nervous, and uncomfort- 
 able this evening, as she usually did when 
 Randall thought proper to show herself vexed. 
 
 You may imagine how this discovery sweet- 
 ened her temper, and how she flounced about, 
 looking as displeased as she possibly could ; 
 and what short answers she gave when Mrs. 
 Melwyn ventured to address her ; and how she 
 pulled the comb through her tender lady's 
 hair, and when Mrs. Melwyn gently ventured 
 to complain of her roughness, how she denied 
 she was the least rough, and asserted that she 
 was combing it exactly as she always did, 
 only she did not know what was come to some 
 people of late, there was no pleasing them, do
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 227 
 
 what one would. And how Mrs. Melwjn, 
 after this check, submitted in her usual un- 
 complaining manner, to have her hair treated 
 as Randall thought good ; and how Randall 
 stood there, gathering fresh courage from the 
 conviction that, let matters be as thej would, 
 her mistress would not dare to disoblige her ; 
 and how her own resolutions strengthened as 
 things went on, till thej amounted to some- 
 thing approaching to open defiance and a 
 resolution not to allow herself to soften, or be 
 one whit more obHging — not to enter the lists 
 against the new-comer in this new and amiable 
 way, but to encounter her in her own style. 
 Oh, no ! anything but this ! She would not 
 stoop to such degradation as this ! No ; she 
 would meet the creature and her mistress with 
 open defiance, and bear them both down, if 
 need were, by main force. 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 CHAPTER yi. 
 
 Cowards die many times before their death. 
 
 SlIAKSPEARE. 
 
 The courage of Lettice, as I have told joii, 
 was strong, and her nerves good, but in spite 
 of this, assisted by the best resolutions in the 
 world, she did find it a hard matter to stand 
 the General. She was very hopeful the first 
 day or two, — the habitual politeness of which 
 I have spoken, came in aid. It exercised a 
 sort of instinctive and involuntary check upon 
 the old man's rude intemperance of language
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 229 
 
 when irritated. Lettice did her very best to 
 r^ad the newspaper to his satisfaction; skip- 
 ping every unnecessary word, just as Catherine 
 had been accustomed to do, without hurting 
 the sense in the least; and getting oyer the 
 ground with all the rapidity the old veteran 
 desired. This was a plan poor Mrs. Melwyn 
 was far too nervous to adopt. If she missed 
 a word it was sure to be the wrong one to 
 miss, — one necessary to, instead of encumber- 
 ing the meaning. It was quite indispensable 
 that she should read simply and straightfor- 
 wardly what was put before her, or she was 
 certain to get into confusion, and have herself 
 scolded. Even the dreaded and dreadful back- 
 gammon did tolerably well, whilst the General's 
 politeness to the stranger lasted. Lettice was 
 surprised herself, to find how easily the task, 
 which had appeared so awful, was discharged; 
 but she had not long to congratulate herself. 
 Gradually, — at first by slow degrees, but 
 afterwards like the accelerated descent of a
 
 230 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 stone down the hill, acquired habit gave way 
 to constitutional ill-humour. Alas, they tell 
 us nature expelled with a pitchfork will make 
 her way back again ; most true of the unre- 
 generated nature — most true of the poor blind 
 heathen — or the poor untutored christian, to 
 all intents and purposes a heathen — too true 
 even of those assisted by better considerations, 
 higher principles, and higher aids. 
 
 First it was a little low grumbling; then a 
 few impatient gestures; then a few impatient 
 words — words became sentences; — sentences 
 of invective — soon it was with her, just as 
 it had been with others. This gi-aduated 
 progression assisted, however, gradually to 
 harden and prepare her. She was resolved 
 not to look frightened, though her very knees 
 would knock together at times. She was 
 determined never to allow herself to feel 
 provoked, or hurt, or ill-used, let the Gene- 
 ral be ever so rude: and to soften her 
 heart by any such ideas she never allowed
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 231 
 
 herself. Steadily she kept in mind that he 
 was a suffering, ill-disciplined, irritable old 
 man ; and bj keeping these considerations in 
 view, she actually achieved the most difficult, 
 — almost heroic effort. She managed to attain 
 a frame of mind in which she could pity his 
 sufferings, feel indulgence for his faults, and 
 remain quite placid under their effects as re- 
 garded herself. 
 
 This conduct, before a very long time had 
 elapsed, produced an effect far more agreeable 
 than she had ever ventured to anticipate. 
 
 The General began to like her. 
 
 Like many other cross people, he was exces- 
 sively difficult to be pleased in one article — 
 the way people took his scoldings. — He was 
 offended if they were received with cheerful- 
 ness — in the way Edgar had tried to laugh 
 them off — he was still more vexed if people 
 seemed hurt or suffering under them : if they 
 cried, it was bad indeed. — Like many others 
 not absolutely wicked and cruel, though he
 
 232 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 could not control his temper, he really did 
 feel vexed at seeing the paiu he had produced. 
 His conscience would cry out a little at such 
 times. Now, nothing made him so uncomfort- 
 able and irritable, as having a quarrel with his 
 conscience ; a thing that did not very often 
 happen, to be sure — the said conscience being 
 in his case not a very watchful guardian, but 
 it was all the more disagreeable when it spoke. 
 The genuine good temper and habitual self-pos- 
 session — the calmness without disrespect — the 
 cheerfulness without carelessness — the respect- 
 ful attention, stripped of all meanness and sub- 
 servience, which Lettice managed to preserve 
 in her relations with him, — at last made its 
 way quite to his heart, — that is to say to his 
 taste or fancy, for I don't think he had much 
 of a heart. He began to grow quite fond of 
 her, and one day delighted, as much as he 
 surprised Mrs. Melwyn, by saying, — that Miss 
 Arnold really was a very pretty sort of young 
 woman, and he thought suited them very well.
 
 LETTICE AENOLD. 233 
 
 And so the grand difficulty of managing with 
 the General's faults was got over, but there 
 remained Mrs. Melwyn's and the servants'. 
 
 Lettice had never laid her account at find- 
 ing any faults in Mrs. Melwjn. That ladj, 
 from the first moment she beheld her, had quite 
 won her heart. Her elegance of appearance, 
 the dove-like softness of her countenance, the 
 gentle sweetness of her voice, all conspired to 
 make the most charming impression. Could 
 there lie anything under that sweet outside, 
 but the gentlest and most indulgent of tempers? 
 
 No, she was right there, nothing could be 
 more gentle, more indulgent than was Mrs. 
 Melwyn's temper; and Lettice had seen so 
 much of the rough, the harsh, the captious, and 
 the unamiable during her life, that grant her 
 the existence of those two qualities, and she 
 could scarcely desu'e anything more. She had 
 yet to learn what are the evils which attend 
 the timid and the weak. 
 
 She had yet to know that there may be much
 
 234 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 concealed self-indulgence, where there is a most 
 yielding disposition ; and that they who are too 
 cowardly to resist wrong and violence courage- 
 ously, from a wxak and culpable indulgence of 
 their own shyness and timidity, will afford a 
 poor defence to those they ought to protect, 
 and expose them to innumerable evils. 
 
 Lettice had managed to become easy with 
 the General; she could have been perfectly 
 happy with Mrs. Melwyn, but nothing could 
 get over the difficulties with the servants. 
 Conscious of the misrule they exercised ; jealous 
 of the new-comer — who soon showed herself to 
 be a clever and spirited girl — a sort of league 
 was immediately instituted among them ; its 
 declared object being either to break her spirit, 
 or get rid of her out of the house. The per- 
 secutions she endured ; the daily minute trou- 
 bles and vexations ; , the difficulties cast in her 
 path by these dangerous yet contemptible foes, 
 it would be endless to describe. 
 
 Whatever she wanted she could not get done.
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 235 
 
 Even Bridget, under the influence of the upper 
 housemaid, proved a broken reed to lean upon. 
 Her fire would never be lighted ; nor her room 
 done at the proper time ; and when she came 
 down with red hands, purple cheeks, and, worst 
 of all, a red nose, looking, this cold spring, the 
 very picture of chill and miserj, the General 
 would look cross, and Mrs. Melwjn not pleased, 
 and would wonder " How she could get so 
 starved, and why she did not make them light 
 her fire." 
 
 She could make no reply but that she would 
 ask Bridget to be more punctual. 
 
 It was worse, when do what she would — ring 
 as she would — nobody would come to fasten her 
 dress for dinner till the last bell was sounding ; 
 and when it was impossible for her to pay all 
 those nice attentions to her appearance which 
 the General's critical eye demanded. Though 
 he said nothing, he would upon such occasions 
 look as if he thought her a sloven ; and Mrs. 
 Melwyn, on her side, seemed excessively fretted
 
 236 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 and uneasy, that her favourite would do her- 
 self so little justice, and run the risk of forfeit- 
 ing the General's favour; and this last piece of 
 injustice, Lettice did feel it hard to bear. 
 
 It was the same in all the other minutiae 
 of domestic life. Every trifling circumstance, 
 like a midge's sting, though insignificant in 
 itself, was rendered in the sum total most 
 troublesome. 
 
 If they were going out walking. Miss Ar- 
 nold's shoes were never cleaned. She provided 
 herself with several pairs, that one at least 
 might always be ready, and she not keep the 
 General and Mrs. Melwyn waiting. It was of 
 no use. The shoes were never ready. If there 
 were several pairs, they were lost, or odd shoes 
 brought up. 
 
 She did not care for labour. She had no 
 foolish pride about serving herself, she had been 
 used to that sort of thing ; she had not the 
 slightest wish on earth to be a fine lady ; but 
 that was forbidden. It was one of the things
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 237 
 
 Mrs. Melwjn had made a point of, and conti- 
 nued to make a point of ; but then, why did 
 she not take care she should be better served'? 
 
 She, the mistress in her own house! Was 
 it indifference to her guest's comforts 1 No, 
 her unremitting personal kindness forbade that 
 idea. What was it then, that left her helpless 
 guest thus exposed to want and insult 1 Yes, 
 tuant! I may use the word; for in her new 
 sphere of action, the things she required were 
 absolute necessaries. The want in its way was 
 as great as she had ever known. Yes, insult, 
 — for every little negligence was felt as an in- 
 sult, — Lettice knew too well that as an insult 
 it was intended. What made this kind Mrs. 
 Melwyn permit such things 1 Weakness, no- 
 thing but weakness, — culpable weakness, — 
 horror of that which would give her feeble 
 spirit pain. 
 
 Lettice found it extremely difficult to be can- 
 did in this instance. She who had never 
 experienced what this weakness of the spirit
 
 238 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 was, found it almost impossible to be indulgent 
 to it. She felt quite vexed and sore. But 
 when she looked so, poor Mrs. Melwjn would 
 put on such a sad, anxious, wearj face, that it 
 was almost impossible not to feel concerned 
 for her, and to forgive her at once. And so 
 this good, generous, kind-hearted being's temper 
 achieved another victory. She was able to 
 love Mrs. Melwjn in spite of all her weakness, 
 and the evils she in consequence suffered ; and 
 this indulgent affection made everything easy. 
 
 There were times, however, when she found 
 it almost too difficult to get on; but upon one 
 occasion after another occurring of this nature, 
 and still more when she discovered that Mrs. 
 Melwyn was a yet greater sufferer from this 
 servile tyranny than herself, she at last deter- 
 mined to speak out, and see whether things 
 could not be established upon a more reason- 
 able and proper footing. 
 
 There was one day a terrible quarrel with 
 Randall. It happened that Randall was from
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 239 
 
 home, drinking tea with a friend. She had 
 either bound up the General's ailing arm too 
 tight, or the arm had swelled; however, for 
 some reason or other, the injured part became 
 extremely painful. The General fidgetted and 
 swore, but bore it for some time with the sort 
 of resolute determination with which, to do 
 him justice, he was accustomed to meet pain. 
 At last the aching became so intolerable that 
 it was scarcely to be endured; and after 
 ringing twenty times to inquire whether 
 Randall was come home, and uttering a heavy 
 imprecation each time he was answered in the 
 negative ; what between pain and impatience 
 he became so fevered that he really seemed 
 quite ill, and his sufferings were evidently 
 more than he could well endure. Poor Mrs. 
 Melwyn, helpless and feeble, dared not propose 
 to do anything for him, though she suffered, — 
 soft, kind creature that she was, — almost more 
 in witnessing his distress than he did in the 
 midst of it. At last Lettice ventured to say.
 
 240 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 that she thought it a great pitj the General 
 should continue to suffer this agonj, which she 
 felt assured must be positively dangerous, — 
 and modestly ventured to suggest that she 
 should be allowed to undo the bandage and 
 relieve the pressure. 
 
 " Dear me," said Mrs. Melwyn, in a hurried, 
 frightened way, " could you venture ? Suppose 
 you should do mischief; — better wait, per- 
 haps." 
 
 '•Easily said, ma'am," cried the General. 
 " It's not your arm that's aching as if it would 
 drop from your body, that's plain. What's 
 that you are saying, Miss Arnold 1" 
 
 "If you could trust me to do it, I was 
 saying ; — if you would give me leave, — I would 
 undo the bandage and endeavour to make it 
 more comfortable. I am afraid that this pain 
 and tight binding may bring on positive 
 inflammation. I really should not be afraid 
 to try; I have seen Mrs. Randall do it 
 hundreds of times. There is no difficulty in 
 it."
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 241 
 
 "Dear Lettice, how you talk!'^ said Mrs. 
 Melwjn, as if she were afraid Randall was 
 behind the door. " No difficulty! How could 
 Randall bear to hear you say so V 
 
 " I don't know, ma'am ; perhaps she would 
 contradict me. — But I think at all events there 
 is no difficulty that I could not manage.'' 
 
 " Well, then, for Heaven's sake, try, <;hild !" 
 cried the General, " for really the pain is as if 
 all the dogs in Hockley were gnawing at 
 it. Come along; do something for the love 
 of " 
 
 He suffered Lettice to help him off with his 
 coat, and to undo the bandage, which she 
 accomplished very handily; and then observed 
 that Mrs. Randall, in her haste to depart 
 upon her visit, had bound up the wound in a 
 most careless manner; and the irritation had 
 already produced so serious an inflammation, 
 that she was quite alarmed, and suggested that 
 the doctor should be sent for. 
 
 The General swore at the idea of the doctor 
 
 yoL. I. R
 
 242 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 and jet more Tiolentlj at that old hag Ran- 
 dall's confounded carelessness. Mrs. Melwjn 
 looked miserable; she saw the case was bad, 
 and jet she knew that to send for the doctor, 
 and take it out of Randall's hands, would be 
 an insult never to be forgiven. 
 
 But Lettice was steady. She was not quite 
 ignorant in these matters, and she felt it her 
 duty to be firm. She expostulated and re- 
 monstrated, and was just carrying her point 
 when Mrs. Randall came home; and, having 
 heard below how things were going on, hurried, 
 uncalled for, into the dining-room. 
 
 She came in in a mighty pucker, as she 
 would herself have called it, and began asking 
 who had dared to open the wound and expose 
 it to the air: and, seeing Miss Arnold pre- 
 paring to apply a bread-and-water poultice, 
 which she had made, fell into such a passion 
 of rage and jealousy that she forgot herself so 
 far as to snatch it from Lettice's hands, — 
 vowing, if anybody was to be allowed to
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 243 
 
 meddle with her arm, she would never touch 
 it acjain so lonoj as she lived. 
 
 Mrs. Melwjn turned pale, and began in her 
 softest waj : — 
 
 "Now reallj, Randall. — Don't be angry, 
 Randall. — Do listen, Randall. — The bandage 
 was too tight ; I assure jou it was. We 
 should not have thought of touching it else.'' 
 
 " What the devil, Randall, are jou about to 
 do now ?" cried the General, as she took pos- 
 session of the arm, in no gentle fashion. 
 
 " Bind it up again, to be sure, and keep the 
 air out of it.'' 
 
 " But JOU hurt me confoundedly. Ah I — 
 it's more than I can bear. — Don't touch it — 
 It's as if it were on fire !" 
 
 " But it must be bound up, I say," going on, 
 without the least regard to the torture she 
 was evidently putting him to. 
 
 But Lettice interfered: — 
 
 "Indeed, Mrs. Randall," she said, "I do 
 not think that you seem to be aware of the 
 
 R 2
 
 244 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 state of inflammatiou that the arm is in. I 
 assure jou, joii had better apply the bread- 
 and- water poultice, and send for Mr. lijsons." 
 
 " You assure me, — Much jou know about 
 the matter, I should fancy.'' 
 
 "I think I know this much. — Dear Mrs. 
 Melwyn ! — Dear General ! — It is more serious 
 than you think. Pray let me write for Mr. 
 Lysons T 
 
 '• I do believe she 's right, Randall, for the 
 infernal torture you put me to is more than I 
 can bear. Ach !~Let it go, will you? — Undo 
 it! Undo it r 
 
 But Mrs. Randall, unrelentingly, bound 
 on. 
 
 " Have done, I say! Undo it ! Will nobody 
 undo it 1 Lettice Arnold, for heaven's sake !" 
 His face was bathed with the sweat of agony. 
 
 Randall persisted ; Mrs. Melwyn stood pale, 
 helpless, and aghast ; but Lettice hastened 
 forward, scissors in hand, cut the bandage, 
 and liberated the tortured arm in a minute.
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 245 
 
 Mrs. Randall was in an awful rage. She 
 forgot herself entirely; she had often forgotten 
 herself before; but there was something in 
 this, being done in the presence of a third 
 person, of one so right-minded and spirited as 
 Lettice, which made both the General and his 
 wife yiew it in a new light. A sort of veil 
 seemed to fall from before their eyes; and for 
 the first time, they both seemed — and simul- 
 taneously — aware of the impropriety and 
 degradation of submitting to it. 
 
 " Randall I Randall !" remonstrated Mrs- 
 !Melwyn — still very gently, however ; but it 
 was a great step to remonstrate at all — but 
 Randall was abusing Lettice most violently,, 
 and her master and mistress into the bargain, 
 for being governed by such as her! " Randall I 
 Randall! Don't — you forget yourself!" 
 
 But the General, who had been silent a 
 second or two, at last broke forth, and roared : 
 
 " Have done with your infernal noise I won't 
 you, you beldam! Here, Lettice, give me the
 
 246 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 poultice ; put it on, and then write for Ljsons, 
 will you V 
 
 In matters sucli as this, the first step is 
 everything. Mrs. Melwyn and her fiery part- 
 ner had both been passive as a poor bewitched 
 hen, we are told, is with a straw over her 
 neck. Once shift her position and the incubus 
 is gone. 
 
 The arrival of Mr. Lysons completed the 
 victory. Mortification was upon the eve of 
 setting in. The relief from the bandage, and 
 the emollient poultice applied by Lettice, had 
 in all probability saved the GeneraFs life. 
 
 Little Mrs. Randall cared for this demon- 
 stration of her mistaken treatment ; she had 
 been too long accustomed to triumph, to yield 
 the field undisputed to a rival. She took 
 refuge in sulky silence, and, when Mr. Lysons 
 was gone, desired to speak with Mrs. Melwyn. 
 
 The usual harangue was made. "As she 
 could no longer give satisfaction — would Mrs. 
 Melwyn please to provide herself in a month."
 
 LETTICE AE^'OLD. 247 
 
 - The blood ran cold to Mrs. Melwyn's heart. 
 What ! Randall ! Impossible ! What should 
 she do 1 What would the General do ^. W^hat 
 would become of the servants? Who would 
 look after them 1 Wliat could be done without 
 the faithful Randall '? 
 
 " Oh, Randall ! jou don't think of leaving 
 me," she began. 
 
 I am not going to repeat the dialogue, 
 which was much the same as that which usually 
 ensues when the mistress entreats the maid 
 to stay, thus putting herself in an irremediably 
 false position. The result of such entreaties 
 was the usual one. Randall, assured of victory, 
 took the matter with a high hand, and, most 
 luckily for all parties, refused to be mollified. 
 
 Then poor Mrs. Melwyn, in dismay and 
 despair, returned to the drawing-room. She 
 looked quite ill ; she dared not tell the General 
 what had happened — positively dared not. — 
 She resolved to make one other appeal to 
 Randall first ; to bribe her, as she had often
 
 248 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 done before, to bribe high — higher than ever. 
 — Anything, rather than part with her. 
 
 But she was so nervous, so restless, so 
 miserable, that Lett ice observed it with much 
 compassion, and came and sat by her, which 
 was her way of comforting her friend when 
 she saw she wanted comfort. Mrs. Melwyn 
 took her hand, and held it between both hers, 
 and looked as if she greatly wanted comfort 
 indeed. 
 
 The General, soon after this, rose to go to 
 bed. It was earlier than his usual hour, for 
 he was quite worn out with what he had 
 suffered. 
 
 So he left the two ladies sitting over the 
 fire, and then Mrs. Melwyn at last opened her 
 heart, and disclosed to her friend the dismal 
 tidings — the cause of her present misery — 
 and related in detail the dreadful occurrence of 
 Randall's resignation. 
 
 It was time, Lettice thought, to speak out 
 and she determined to venture upon it. She
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 249 
 
 had long anxiously desired to emancipate the 
 woman she loved with all the intensity of a 
 child, from the fearful yoke under which she 
 suffered : to dissolve the pernicious enchant- 
 ment which surrounded her. She spoke, and 
 she did so with so much gentleness, reason, 
 firmness, good-nature, that Mrs. Melwyn 
 yielded to the blessed influence. In short, it 
 was that night determined that Randall's 
 resignation, so far as Mrs. Melwyn was con- 
 cerned, should be accepted. If that potentate 
 chose to communicate her resolution herself to 
 the General, it was well, and he must decide ; 
 otherwise Lettice would take upon herself to 
 do this, and, unless he opposed the measure, 
 Randall should go. 
 
 With little difficulty Lettice persuaded Mrs. 
 Melwyn not to ring for Randall that night ; 
 saying that now she had resigned her position, 
 her mistress had better allow herself to be put 
 to bed by her friend. This was not a difficult 
 task. That she should not meet Randall
 
 250 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 again was what Mrs. Mehvyn in lier terror as 
 much desired as Lettice did in her prudence. 
 In short, the General, under the influence of 
 Lettice's representations — she was beginning 
 to gain great influence with him — consented to 
 part with the maid ; and Lettice had the 
 inconceivable satisfaction of herself carrying to 
 that personage her wages, and a handsome 
 gratuity, and of seeing her that very morning 
 quit the house, which was done with abundance 
 of tears, and bitter lamentations over the in- 
 gratitude of mankind. 
 
 How the house felt after she was gone 
 those who have been visited with a domestic 
 plague of this nature will understand. To 
 those who have not, so great a result from so 
 apparently insignificant a cause would be 
 utterly unimaginable. 
 
 " And so they lived very happy ever after- 
 wards/' 
 
 Well — don't stare — they really did. 
 
 A good genius was substituted for an evil
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 251 
 
 one. Under her benign influence it is asto- 
 nishing how smoothly and merrily things went 
 on. The General was so comfortable that he 
 very often forgot to be cross; Mrs. Melwyn, 
 content with every thing, but her power of 
 showing her love for Lettice — though she did 
 this in every way she could think of. 
 
 And so I will leave this good, sensible, 
 God-fearing girl for the present, 
 
 ** Blessing and blest in all she does," 
 
 and tell you how Myra went to Mrs. Fisher, 
 and something about that lady.
 
 252 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Bless the Lord, oh my soul ! and all that is within 
 me bless his holy name ; 
 
 Who forgiveth all thy iniquities and healeth all thy 
 
 Who saveth thy life from destruction, and crowneth 
 thee with loving kindness and tender mercies. 
 
 Psalm cm. 
 
 MRS. FISHER. 
 I MUST now introduce you to Mrs. Fisher — 
 she is so great a favourite of mine, that before 
 I relate what became of Myra, I must make 
 you acquainted with this lady.
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 253 
 
 Mrs. Fisher was a respectable, gentlewoman- 
 like personage of about fiftj-four, of a grave, 
 authoritative, and somewhat severe aspect ; but 
 with the remains of very extraordinary personal 
 beauty, which she had once possessed in an 
 eminent degree. She was somewhat above the 
 middle size, of an erect, firm, fall figure, her 
 hair, now gently turning grey, drawn over her 
 finely proportioned forehead; her eyes large, 
 and of a fine colour and form — clear and 
 steady ; her mouth expressive of sense and 
 temper; and her dress in character with the 
 rest. Mrs. Fisher was always handsomely 
 dressed in silks of the best description, but in 
 slight mourning, which she always wore ; and 
 on her head, also, a cap rather plainer than 
 the mode, but of the finest and most expensive 
 materials : nothing could be more dignified and 
 complete than her appearance.
 
 254 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 When first Mjra was introduced to her, she 
 was both daunted and disappointed. The 
 gravity, amounting almost to sternness, with 
 which Mrs. Fisher received her, and explained 
 to her the duties she was expected to perform, 
 awed in the first place, and mortified in the 
 second. The establishment of this fashionable 
 modiste, with which Myra had associated 
 nothing but laces and ribbons, dresses and 
 trimmings, embroidery and feathers, flattery 
 and display, struck cold and dull upon her 
 imagination. She was introduced into a hand- 
 somely but very plainly furnished sitting-room, 
 where not one trace of any of these pretty 
 things were to be seen, and heard of nothing 
 but regularity of hours, persevering industry, 
 quaker neatness, attention to health, and the 
 strictest observance of the rules of what she 
 thought quite a prudish propriety.
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 255 
 
 Mrs. Fisher's life had been one of Ticissitude, 
 and in its vicissitudes, she, a strong, earnest- 
 minded woman, had learned much. She had 
 known sorrow, priyation, cruelly hard labour, 
 and the loneliness of utter desolation of the 
 heart. — She had, moreover, been extremely 
 beautiful, and she had experienced those innu- 
 merable perils to which such a gift exposes an 
 unprotected gu'l, struggling for her bread, 
 under the cruellest circumstances of oppressive 
 labour. Every description of hardship, and 
 every description of temptation belonging to 
 perhaps the hardest and almost the most 
 dangerous position of female life, Airs. Fisher 
 had gone through. 
 
 She had outlived its sufferings and escaped 
 its snares. 
 
 The suffering, thanks to the finest consti- 
 tutions in the world ; the snares, thanks to
 
 256 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 what she always, with inexhaustible gratitude, 
 acknowledged as the special mercy and pro- 
 vidence of God. 
 
 An orphan at the dangerous age of seven- 
 teen, the lovely, blooming young creature was 
 placed by her friends in one of the most 
 fashionable and largest milliners' establish- 
 ments at that time in London, and had found 
 herself at once miserable and excited, op- 
 pressed and flattered. 
 
 The mistress of this flourishing house, intent 
 upon making a rapid fortune before the years 
 in which she could enjoy it should come to a 
 close, cared little — I might say nothing — for 
 the welfare of the poor creatures whose 
 labours were to construct that edifice. She, 
 in fact, never thought about them. — AVant 
 of thought may be pleaded as the excuse, 
 wretched one as it is, for the cruelties of
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 257 
 
 tliose days. People certainly liad not tlie 
 claim of common humanity sounded into their 
 ears as it is into all ears now. — A few 
 admirable philanthropists talked of it, and 
 preached it ; but it was not to be heard 
 calling in the streets, as it is the triumph of 
 our day to acknowledge, till the hardest heart 
 for very shame is forced to pay some atten- 
 tion to the call. 
 
 It never entered into Miss Lavington^s 
 head that she had any other business with 
 her young women but to get all the work she 
 possibly could out of their hands, and as well 
 done and as speedily done as possible. If 
 she objected to night-work in addition to 
 day-work, it was not in the slightest degree 
 out of compassion for the aching limbs and 
 wearied eyes of the poor girls, but because 
 wax candles were expensive, and tallow ones 
 
 VOL. I. s
 
 258 LETTICE AENOLD. 
 
 were apt to drip ; aud there was always 
 double the duty required from the super- 
 intendent (her especial favourite), to keep the 
 young women at those times to their duty, 
 and prevent fine materials from being injured. 
 
 Oh ! those dreadful days and nights of the 
 season^ which the poor Lucy Miles at that 
 place went through. 
 
 She, — accustomed to the sweet, fresh air of 
 the country, to the cheerful variety of daily 
 labour in her father's large farm, and under 
 the care of a brisk, clever, but most kind and 
 sensible mother, — to be shut up twelve, four- 
 teen, fifteen, sixteen, nay twenty hours before 
 a birthnight, in the sickening atmosphere of 
 the close work-room. The windows were 
 rarely opened, if ever ; for the poor young 
 things were so unnaturally chilly for want of 
 exercise and due circulation of the blood, that
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 259 
 
 tliej said tliey should, and perhaps they 
 might, have taken cold if fresh air ^ere 
 admitted. There was nothing thej all dreaded 
 so much as taking cold. Those fatal coughs, 
 which every season thinned the ranks, to be 
 filled with fresh victims, were invariably attri- 
 buted to some particular occasion when they 
 had " taken cold." They did not know that 
 they were rejecting the very cordial of life 
 and inhaling poison when they kept the room 
 so close. 
 
 Oh ! for the dreadful weariness which pro- 
 ceeds from 2/i-action of the limbs ; so different 
 from the wholesome fatigue of action. In- 
 action, where the blood is stagnating in every 
 vein : m-action, after which rest is not rest, 
 but a painful effort of the depressed currents 
 to recover their circulating power, — so diffe- 
 
 S2
 
 260 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 rent from the delightful sensation of whole- 
 some rest after physical exertion. 
 
 At first she felt it almost insupportable. 
 I have heard her say that it seemed at times 
 as if she would have given years of her exist- 
 ence to be allowed to get up and walk up and 
 down the room for a few minutes. The sen- 
 sation was so insupportable. That craving 
 desire of the body for what it is in want of 
 — ^be it water, be it bread, be it rest, be 
 it change of posture — is so dreadful in its 
 urgency. The most abominable tortures men 
 have in their wickedness invented are founded 
 upon this fact — tortures that render the black 
 history of Inquisitors yet blacker ; and here 
 it was, in one at least of its numerous forms, 
 daily inflicted upon a set of helpless young 
 women, by a person who thought herself per-
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 261 
 
 fectly justifiable, and whose conscience never 
 pricked her in the least. 
 
 Such is negligent moral habit. 
 
 Oh ! the delight at meal-times — to spring 
 up, I was going to say, — I meant to get up, — 
 for there was no spring left in these poor 
 stiffened frames. Oh ! the delight when the 
 eye of that superintendent was no longer 
 watching the busy circle, and her voice calling 
 to order any one who durst just to raise a 
 head, and pause in the unintermitting toil. 
 Oh ! the delight to get up and come to break- 
 fast, or dinner, or tea. 
 
 They had not much appetite when they 
 came to their meals, to be sure. There was 
 only one thing they were always ready to 
 enjoy, and that was their tea. That blessed 
 and long-abused tea ; which has done more 
 to sweeten private life with its gentle warmth
 
 262 LETTICE ARIs^OLD. 
 
 and excitement than any cordial that has ever 
 been invented. It is but a cordial, however ; 
 it is not a nourishment ; though a little sugar 
 and wretched blue milk, such as London milk 
 used to be, may be added to it. Most of the 
 young ladies, however, preferred it without 
 these additions ; they found it more stimu- 
 lating so, I believe, poor things ! 
 
 Such nourishment as they received, it is 
 plain, would ill supply the rapid exhaustion 
 of their employment. One by one, in the 
 course of the season, they sickened and 
 dropped off ; some died out and out; some, 
 alas ! tempted by suffering and insupportable 
 fatigue, or by that vanity and levity which 
 seems to be too common a result of many 
 girls living together, did worse. There would 
 have been a heavy record against her every 
 June, if Miss Lavington had taken the trouble
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 263 
 
 to note down what had become of her missing 
 jouug ladies. 
 
 I said thej were relieved from their irk- 
 some continuance in one posture by going to 
 their meals, and what a relief it was ; but 
 thej did not always get that. When there 
 was more than usual to be done, their tea 
 would be brought to them where they sat, 
 and there would be no intermission. 
 
 So things went on at Miss Lavington's in 
 those days. I wonder in how many establish- 
 ments of the same description, things go on 
 so now ! How many to which that Toice of 
 humanity which " calls in the streets ' has not 
 jet penetrated! 
 
 "We shall by-and-by see what was the case 
 in Mrs. Fisher's, but for the present we will go 
 on with her history. 
 
 So beautiful a young creature as she was,
 
 264 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 could not long escape trials, jet more to be 
 lamented than those of physical suffering. 
 
 In the first place, there ^^as the conversation 
 of tlie young ladies themselves ; a whispering 
 manner of conversation when at work ; a busy 
 chattering of emancipated tongues during the 
 intervals. And what was it all about ? 
 
 Why, what was it likely to be about ?^ove 
 and lovers, — beauty and its admirers, — dress 
 and its advantages, — he and him, — and. Dear 
 me, weren't you in the Park last Sunday '? 
 Where could you be *? and did you not see the 
 carriage go by 1 What had you on "i Oh, that 
 
 pink bonnet. I cribbed a bit of Mrs. M 's 
 
 blond for a voilette. If people will send their 
 own materials, they deserve as much. Tve 
 heard Mrs. Saunders (the superintendent) say 
 so scores of times. — Well, well, and I saw 
 it, Tm certain of it. — Well, did anything come 
 ofiti
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 265 
 
 Alas ! alas ! and so on — and so on — and 
 so on. 
 
 And Lucy was very soon taught to go on 
 Sundays into the Park. At first, poor girl, 
 merely to breathe the fresh air and inhale the 
 delicious west wind, and look at trees and 
 grass, and cows and deer once more, and listen 
 to the birds singing. At first she thought the 
 crowds of gaily dressed people quite spoiled 
 the pleasure of the walk, and tried to coax her 
 companions to leave the ring, and come and 
 walk in the wood with her ; but she soon 
 learned better, and was rapidly becoming as 
 bewitched with the excitement of gazing, and 
 the still greater excitement of being gazed at, 
 as any of them. 
 
 She was so uncommonly beautiful, that she 
 got her full — and more than her full share of 
 this latter pleasure ; and it was not long before
 
 266 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 she had those for whom she looked out amid 
 the crowds upon the ring, and felt her heart 
 beat with secret delight as she saw them. 
 
 Then, as her health began to decline, as dis- 
 like insupportable for her occupation and its 
 confinement ; — as weariness not to be described, 
 came on; — as longings for little luxuries to be 
 seen in every shop which she passed bj, for 
 fruit or confectionery, haunted her palled and 
 diseased appetite as the vision of food haunts 
 the wretch who is starving ; — as the desire of 
 fine clothes, in which her companions managed 
 to array themselves; — as the more insidious, 
 and more honourable longings of the heart, the 
 desolate heart, beset her — cravings for afi*ection 
 and sympathy; — when all these temptations 
 "were embodied together in the shape of one, 
 but too gentle, and insinuating; oh, then it was 
 perilous work indeed !
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 267 
 
 Her mother had tried to give her a good, 
 honest, homelj education; had made such a 
 Christian of her, as going to church, reading a 
 chapter in the Bible on a Sunday, and the 
 catechism, makes of a young girl. There was 
 nothing very vital or earnest about it ; but such 
 as it was, it was honest, and Lucy feared her 
 God and reverenced her Saviour. Such senti- 
 ments were something of a defence, but it is to 
 be feared that they were not firmly enough 
 rooted in the character to have long resisted 
 the force of overwhelming temptation. 
 
 This she was well aware of, and acknow- 
 ledged to herself; and hence her deep, per- 
 vading, ineffable gratitude, for the Providence 
 which she believed had saved her. 
 
 She was getting on very fast on the evil road 
 upon which she had entered. Every Sunday 
 the progi'ess she made was fearful. A few
 
 268 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 more, at the pace at which she was advancing, 
 and there would have been an end of it, when 
 a most unexpected accident arrested her in the 
 fatal career. 
 
 One remarkably fine Sunday, when all the 
 members of the establishment had been enjoy- 
 ing their usual recreation in the Park, — just as 
 Lucy and some of her giddy friends were 
 coming through Grosvenor Gate, — they saw 
 the superintendent before them. 
 
 " There's that old Saunders, I declare!" cries 
 one. "Stand back a little, won't ye? — she'll 
 see our bonnets else, and I'll be bound she'll 
 know the rosettes, and where they come from." 
 
 There was time for no more. Mrs. Saun- 
 ders, who was rather late, being in haste to 
 get home, attempted to cross, as a curricle at 
 full speed came driving down Park Lane, and 
 before the gentleman within could draw up.
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 269 
 
 the unfortunate woman was under the horses* 
 heels. There was a terrible bustle. The 
 young ladies with the rosettes managed to 
 escape ; but Lucj, who had at least preserved 
 her integrity thus far, and had nothing about 
 her dress not strictly her own, rushed forward, 
 and helped to raise the poor woman ; and 
 declaring she knew who she was, was placed 
 with her by the assistants in the hackney coach 
 in which she was carried home. 
 
 Lucy was naturally of a very kind and 
 humane disposition ; and her care of the poor 
 suffering woman during the transit to Miss 
 Lavington's, — united to the kindness and assi- 
 duity with which — every one else but the 
 under maid of all being absent — she tended and 
 waited upon her, — so engaged Mrs. Saunders' 
 affection, that afterwards, during the whole of 
 the subsequent illness, which broken limbs and
 
 270 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 ribs occasioned, she made it her particular 
 request to Miss Lavington that Lucy might be 
 spared from the work-room to nurse and keep 
 her company ; adding, for that lady's satisfac- 
 tion, that though the best nurse, and nicest 
 young girl of the lot, she certainly, being the 
 youngest, was the least of a proficient in the 
 peculiar art she followed. 
 
 The poor woman lay groaning piteously 
 upon her bed, waiting the arrival of the sur- 
 geon. The surgeon, an elderly man, was out 
 of town, and could not attend ; a young man 
 appeared in his place. He had just joined 
 himself to the old man in the quality of as- 
 sistant and future partner ; and hearing that
 
 LETTICE AEXOLD. 271 
 
 the case was one of an accident, and urgent, 
 he hurried to the house, resolving to send for 
 more experienced assistance, if such should be 
 found necessary. 
 
 He was shown up-stairs, and hastily entered 
 the room in which the sufferer lay. She was 
 very much bruised about the chest, and she 
 drew her breath with difficulty; and though 
 exceedingly weak and faint, was unable to lie 
 down. She was resting in the arms of one 
 who appeared to the young man like an angel. 
 
 The lovely girl, with a face of the tenderest 
 pity, was holding the poor gi'oaning woman 
 upon one arm, bending over her with an air of 
 almost divine kindness, and softly wiping the 
 dew-drops which in the agony came starting 
 upon the patient's brow. 
 
 The young man received an impression 
 which death alone effaced, though the bright
 
 272 LETTICB ARNOLD. 
 
 visionary glance was only momentary. He 
 was instantly by the side of his patient, and 
 soon with much skill and courage doing what 
 was necessary for immediate relief; though at 
 the very first moment when he had discovered 
 the serious nature of the case, he had begged 
 the young lady to tell Miss Lavington that it 
 would be proper to send for some surgeon of 
 more experience and eminence than himself to 
 take the direction of it. 
 
 " Don't go away," said Mrs. Saunders, feebly, 
 as Lucy was rising to obey. " Don't send her 
 away. Mister — I can't do without her — Miss 
 Lavington's not at home — one need not ask 
 her for me. —Who should be sent for V' 
 
 The young man named a gentleman high in 
 his profession. Was it that able and benevo- 
 lent man whom the world has so lately lost % 
 That kind, frank, manly, courageous man of
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 273 
 
 genius, whom no one approached but to find 
 help and comfort 1 I don't know — but be he 
 who he might, when he did at length arrive, 
 he gave the most unqualified praise to the 
 proceedings of our young gentleman, and called 
 the colour to the pale cheek of the young and 
 serious-looking student by his approbation. 
 He finished his visit by assuring Mrs. Saunders 
 that she could not be in safer hands than those 
 in which he had found her, and recommended 
 her to put herself entirely under the charge of 
 the young practitioner ; adding an assurance 
 that he would be ready at any instant to 
 come if he should be wanted ; and that he 
 would, at all events, call in once or twice as 
 a friend during the progress of the case. 
 
 Mrs. Saunders liked the looks of the young 
 man much, — as who did not ? and was quite 
 contented with this arrangement, to which, 
 
 yoL. I. T
 
 274 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 as I told jou, was added the comfort of 
 retaining Lucj Miles as her nurse and com- 
 panion during what threatened to be a very 
 tedious confinement. Miss Lavington well 
 knew the value of a Mrs. Saunders in such 
 an establishment as hers, and was willing to 
 make any sacrifice to forward her recovery. 
 
 So Lucy left the wearying work-room and 
 the dangerous recreations of the Sunday, to 
 sit and watch by the bed-side of a peevish, 
 uncomfortable sort of an old woman, who 
 was perpetually making demands upon her 
 patience and good-nature, but who really suf- 
 fered so greatly from her accident, that Lucy s 
 pity and kindness were proof against every- 
 thing. The young surgeon went and came — 
 "went and came — and every time he came, 
 this angel of beauty and goodness was minis- 
 tering by the old woman's bed. And those
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 275 
 
 eyes of Ms — eyes of such prevailing power in 
 their almost enthusiastic expression of serious 
 earnestness — were bent upon her ; and some- 
 times her eyes, soft and melting as those of 
 the dove, or bright and lustrous as twin stars, 
 met his. 
 
 He could not but linger in the sick woman's 
 room a little longer than was necessary, and 
 the sick woman unwittingly favoured this, for 
 she took a great liking to him, and nothing 
 seemed to refresh and amuse her amid her 
 pains like a little chat with this nice young 
 man. And then the young surgeon remarked 
 that at such times Lucy was allowed to sit 
 quietly down and amuse herself with a little 
 needlework, and he thought this an excellent 
 reason for making his visits as long as he 
 decently could. 
 
 The young nurse and the young doctor all 
 
 T 2
 
 276 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 this while had conversed very little with each 
 other ; but she listened, and he gazed, and 
 that was quite enough. The case proved a 
 very serious one. Poor Mrs. Saunders, super- 
 intendent as she was, and not workwoman — 
 Driver, not slave, — yet could no more than 
 the rest escape the deleterious effects of the 
 close work-room. Her constitution was much 
 impaired. The wines and cordials she had 
 accustomed herself to take to support nature, 
 as she thought, under these fatigues, had 
 increased the mischief; wounds would not 
 heal as they ought ; contusions would not 
 disperse ; the internal injury in the chest 
 began to assume a very threatening appear- 
 ance. Mr. L. came to the assistance of the 
 young surgeon repeatedly — all that human 
 skill could do was done, but Mrs. Saunders 
 grew alarmingly worse.
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 277 
 
 For a long time she resisted the evidence 
 which her own sensations might have afforded 
 her, and avoided asking any questions which 
 might enlighten her. She was determined 
 not to die ; and, even in a case so awfully 
 serious and real as this, people seem to chng 
 to the persuasion, so prevailing in lighter cir- 
 cumstances, that because a thing shan't \)Q, 
 it won't be, and because they are determined 
 it is not, it is not. So, for many days, Mrs. 
 Saunders went on, exceedingly angry if every- 
 body did not say she was getting better; and 
 half inclined to dismiss her young surgeon, 
 much as she liked him, because he looked 
 grave after he had visited her injuries. 
 
 He did look grave, very grave. He was 
 exceedingly perplexed in his mind as to what 
 he ought to do. Young surgeon as he was, 
 fresh from those schools which, alas ! so man^
 
 278 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 who are acquainted with them represent as 
 the very nurseries of infidelity and license, 
 both in speech and action, he was a deeply, 
 seriously pious man. Such young men there 
 are, who, like those three, walking unscathed 
 through the furnace of fire in the faith of the 
 Lord their God, walk through a more terribly 
 destructive furnace— the furnace of temptation 
 — in the same faith — and " upon their bodies 
 the fire hath no power, neither is a hair of 
 their head singed/' 
 
 In what tears, in what prayers, in what 
 anguished hope, what fervent aspiration, this 
 sole treasure of a widowed mother, steeped in 
 poverty to the very lips, had been reared, it 
 would be long to tell ; but she had committed 
 him to one never found faithless; and under 
 that blessing she had found in her pure and 
 disinterested love for the being entrusted to
 
 LETTICE AEXOLD. 279 
 
 her charge, that which had given her an elo- 
 quence, and a power, and a strength, which 
 had told u23on the boj. 
 
 He proved one of those rare creatures who 
 pass through every stage of existence, as child, 
 as schoolboy, as youth ; through nursery, 
 school, college, marked as some bright peculiar 
 being — peculiar only in this one thing, sincere, 
 unaflPected goodness. His religion had been, 
 indeed, with him a thing little professed, and 
 rarely talked about, but it had been a holy 
 panoply about his heart — a bright shield, 
 which had quenched all the darts of evil : it 
 shone around him like something of the ra- 
 diance from a higher world. There was a 
 sort of glory round the young saint's head. 
 
 Such being the man, you will not be sur- 
 prised to hear that his practice called forth 
 most serious reflections — most melancholy and
 
 280 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 sad thoughts — and in no sick room where he 
 had ever attended more than in the present 
 one. 
 
 He could not frequent the house as much 
 as his attendance rendered necessary without 
 being pretty well aware of the spirit of the 
 place ; and whilst he grieved over the ruinous 
 waste of health to which these young creatures 
 were exposed, he was struck to the heart with 
 horror at the idea of their moral ruin. 
 
 Mrs. Saunders talked openly and unre- 
 servedly, and betrayed the state of mind she 
 was in. So completely, so entirely devoted to, 
 wrapt up in, buried fathoms and fathoms 
 deep in the things of this world. So totally 
 lost to, — so entirely to seek in everything 
 connected with another ; that the large, mourn- 
 ful, serious eye, as it turned to the sweet 
 young creature sitting beside her, thus passing
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 281 
 
 her daily life in an element such as this, was 
 filled with an expression of sad and tender 
 pity, such as the minister of heaven might 
 cast upon a perishing soul. 
 
 She did not quite understand all this. 
 Those looks of interest, so inexpressibly sweet 
 to her, she thought were excited by the view 
 of her position as affected her health and 
 comfort. She thought it was that consump- 
 tion which, sooner or later, she believed must 
 be her fate, which he was anticipating with 
 so much compassion. She was blind to the 
 far more dreadful dangers which surrounded 
 her. 
 
 Poor Mrs. Saunders ! At last it could no 
 longer be concealed from her. She must die. 
 
 He broke the intelligence to her in the 
 gentlest terms, as she, at last, in a paroxysm 
 of terror, asked the question ; giving her what
 
 282 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 hope lie could, but still not denying that she 
 stood in a fearful strait. It was a terrible 
 scene that followed. Such a frightful agita- 
 tion and hurry to accomplish in a few counted 
 hours what ought to have been the business 
 of a life. Such calling for psalms and prayers ; 
 such piteous beseechings for help ; and, last 
 of all, such an awful awakening of a slumber- 
 ing conscience! 
 
 Like Richard's bed, on the eve of Bosworth 
 fight, it seemed as if the spectral shadows of 
 all those she had injured in the body or the 
 soul, by her unerring demands upon one, and 
 her negligence as to the other, — rose a host of 
 dismal spectres round. Their pale, exhausted, 
 pleading looks, as she scolded and threatened, 
 when the clock struck one, and the task was 
 yet undone, — and the head for a moment 
 dropped, and the throbbing fingers were still.
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 283 
 
 Those hollow coughs in which she would not 
 believe, — those hectic flushes that she would 
 not see, — and worse, those walks, those letters, 
 at which she had connived, " because the girls 
 did so much better when they had some 
 nonsense to amuse them/' 
 
 What fearful revelations were made as she 
 raved aloud, or sank into a drowsy, dreary 
 delirium. The old clergyman, who attended 
 her, consoled, and reasoned, and prayed iu 
 vain. The two young people, — that lovely 
 girl, and that feeling, interesting, young man, 
 — stood by the bed, appalled: he, ghastly 
 pale, — pale with an agony of despairing pity, 
 — she, trembling in every limb. 
 
 The death agony ! — And then that poor 
 woman went to her account. There was no 
 one in the room but themselves ; it was late 
 in the night, the morning, indeed, began faintly
 
 284 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 to dawn. The maids were all gone to bed, 
 glad enough to escape the scene. He stood 
 silently watching the departing breatli. It 
 stopped. He gave a deep sigh, and, stooping 
 down, piously closed the eyes. She had turned 
 away in horror and in dread, but shedding 
 some natural tears. He stood looking at her 
 some time, as there she stood, weeping by the 
 bed ; at last he spoke. 
 
 " This may seem a strange time to choose, 
 but I have something to say to you. Will you 
 listen to me T 
 
 She took her handkerchief from her eyes, 
 and gazed at him with a wondering, grave 
 sort of look, as a child might do. His voice 
 had something very remarkable in it. 
 
 He passed to the side where she was stand- 
 ing, and said, " I am a very, very poor man, 
 and I have a helpless mother entirely depen-
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 285 
 
 daut upon me for support — and, if it were m j 
 last morsel of bread — aje, and wife and chil- 
 dren were perishing for want of it — It is she 
 who should have it." 
 
 She only looked at him wondering like. 
 
 " This is a fearful precipice upon which jou 
 stand. That poor creature has sunk into the 
 gulf which yawns beneath jour feet. May 
 God, in his mercy, look upon her ! But you, 
 beautiful as one of heaven's angels, — as yet 
 pure and sinless as a child, — must you fall, 
 sink, perish, in this mass of loathsome corrup- 
 tion ? Better starve ! better die ! — far, far 
 better!" 
 
 " Alas, alas !" she cried, with a scared and 
 terrified look, — '' Alas ! alas ! ten hundred 
 thousand times better. Oh, what must I do ? 
 — what must I do ?" 
 
 " Take up your cross : venture upon the
 
 286 LETTICE ARNOLD. 
 
 hardships of a poor man's wife. Discard all 
 the prides, and pomps, and vanities, — the Tain, 
 Tain delusions of ftatterj ; trample upon the 
 sin, triumph over the temptation. Put your- 
 self under the protection of an honest man, 
 who loves jou from his soul. Starve, if it 
 uiust be — ^but die the death of the righteous 
 and pure.'' 
 
 She gazed at him, amazed ; she did not yet 
 understand him. 
 
 " Marry me. Come to my blessed, my ex- 
 cellent mother's roof. — It is homely, but it is 
 honest — and let us labour and suffer together, 
 if need be. It is all I can offer you — but it 
 •will save you." 
 
 The arms, the beautiful arms were expanded, 
 as it were, in a very agony of joy. The face ! 
 oh, was it not glorious in its beauty then ! Did 
 he ever forget it %
 
 LETTICE ARNOLD. 287 
 
 And so the contract was sealed, and so she 
 was rescued from the pit of destruction into 
 which she was rapidly sinking. 
 
 And this it was which had excited such im- 
 passioned, such lasting, such devoted feelings of 
 gi'atitude — towards Him who rules the course 
 of this world — in a heart which had only to 
 be shown what was good to embrace it. 
 
 END OF YOL. I.
 
 LONDON: 
 PRINTED BY HARRISON AND SON, 
 
 ST. martin's lank.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF II-LINOI9-URBANA 
 
 3 0112 051353651