Miss Martha's heart swelled with rage, yet, remote as Miss Betsy's contingent benefits were likely to be, they had still influence sufficient to prevent her breaking out into open violence, and she sat silent, though with burning cheeks and a beating heart. The address she had just listened to was certainly not of the most agreeable style and tone, but it may be some apology for Miss Betsy's severity to state, that the scene which had taken place in Mr. Smith's shop rather more than twelve years before, in which a certain Captain Tate took an important, though unconscious, part, was accurately well-known to the little spinster, Mrs. Wright (the wife of her tenant) having witnessed the whole of it.
When she had finished her speech to Miss Martha, which was spoken in her usual gay tone of voice, Miss Betsy turned again towards Agnes, who was then standing at the entrance of the bower, earnestly watching the bees.
"They are pretty, curious creatures, are they not, Agnes?" said she. "I hope some day or other you will be as active and industrious. Do you love to work, my little girl?"
"I love to play better," replied Agnes.
"Ay ... that's because you are such a young thing. And who are your playfellows, Agnes?"
"I have not got any playfellows but myself," was the reply.
"And where do you play?"
"In grandpapa's garden, behind the house."
"And what do you play at?"
"Oh! so many things. I play at making flower-beds in the summer, and at snow-balls in the winter; and I know a blackbird, and ever so many robin-redbreasts, and they know me, and I...."
"Do you know how to read, Agnes?"
"A little," ... replied the child, blushing deeply.
"Come here, then, and read a page of my book to me."
Poor Agnes obeyed the summons, and submissively placing herself by the side of her aunt, took the book in her hands and began to read. But it was so very lame and imperfect a performance, that Miss Betsy wanted either the cruelty or the patience to let it proceed; and taking the volume away, she said, in a graver tone than was usual with her, "Nobody seems to have given themselves much trouble about teaching you, my little girl; ... but I dare say you will read better by and bye.... Are you hungry, Agnes?... do you wish for something to eat after your walk?"
Delighted at being thus relieved from exposing her ignorance, the little girl replied gaily—
"I am very hungry indeed, ma'am."
"Then sit here to rest for a few minutes, and I will see what I can get for you;" and so saying, Miss Betsy rose, and walked briskly away towards the house.
"Old brute!..." exclaimed Miss Martha, as soon as she was quite beyond hearing.... "There's a hump for you!... Isn't she a beauty, Agnes?"
"A beauty, aunt Martha?... No, I don't think she is a beauty, though I like the look of her face too; ... but she certainly is not a beauty, for she is not the least bit like you, and you are a beauty, you know."
"And who told you that, child?"
"Oh! I have heard grandmamma and you talk about it very often.... and I heard Mr. Barnaby say, when he came in yesterday, 'How are you, my beauty?' ... and besides, I see you are a beauty myself."
"And pray, Agnes," replied her aunt, laughing with great good-humour, "how do you know a beauty when you see one?"
"Why, don't I see every time I walk by Mr. Gibbs's shop, his beauties in the window, with their rosy cheeks, and their black eyes, and their quantity of fine ringlets? and you are exactly the very image of one of Mr. Gibbs's beauties, aunt Martha."
Miss Martha remembered that therewasone very pretty face in the window of the village perruquier, and doubted not that the little Agnes's observation had reference to that one; it was therefore with one of her most amiable smiles that she replied,—
"You little goose!... how can I be like a painted wax image?"
But the protestations and exclamations by which the simile might have been proved good, were broken off by the approach of a maid-servant from the house, who said that Miss Betsy was waiting for them.
They found the neat little lady in her pretty sitting-room, with a lily-white cloth spread on a table near the open window, and a home-made loaf, a little bowl of native cream, and a decanter of bright spring-water, with a couple of tumblers near it.
Simple as this repast was, it was well relished by both the nieces, though decidedly served in honour of only one. However, no positive objection being made to Miss Martha's taking her share of it, she spared neither the loaf nor the cream; and remembering her mother's account of her penny repast, felt something like triumph as she ate, to think how much more she had contrived to get out of her churlish relative.
But this was all she got ... excepting, indeed, that she felt some consolation for her disappointment in having to tell her mother, on her return, that if she had children, (and of course she should, as everybody else had,) they were to have their share of all the old maid might leave.
"Ugly old hypocrite!... it won't be much, take my word for it," replied Mrs. Compton.... "She likes all the beggars in the parish a vast deal better than she does her own flesh and blood.... Don't talk any more of her, Martha.... I should be glad if I was never to hear her name mentioned again!"
In about a month after this visit, and less than a week before the day fixed upon for the happiness of Mr. Barnaby, Miss Betsy Compton very unexpectedly made a visit to her brother. She found him a good deal altered, but she found him also with his toddy and pipe, both objects of such hatred and disgust to her anchoritish spirit, that all the kind feelings which might have been awakened by his failing health, were chased by looking upon what caused it.
To see her feeble-minded brother was not, however, the only or the principal object of her visit to Silverton; and she permitted not many minutes to be wasted in mutual questionings that meant very little, before she let him understand what was.
"I am come to speak to you, brother," she said, "about little Agnes. I should like to know in what manner you intend to educate her?"
"Mrs. Compton manages all that, sister Betsy," replied the invalid; "and, at any rate, I am sure I have no money to teach her anything."
"But it is a sin, brother, to let the child run wild about the garden as you would a magpie.... Do you know that she can't read?"
"No, sister Betsy, I know nothing at all about it, I tell you.... How can I help it? Am I in a condition to teach anybody to read?"
"There are others more to blame than you are, brother, no doubt; ... but let it be who's fault it will, it must not go on so. I suppose you will make no objection to my sending her to school?"
"Oh dear, no! not I; ... but you had better ask Mrs. Compton about it."
"Very well.... But I have your consent, have I not?"
"Dear me, yes, sister Betsy.... Why do you tease me so, making me take the pipe out of my mouth every minute?"
Miss Betsy left the little smoke-dried back parlour appropriated to the master of the house, and made her way to the front room up stairs called the drawing-room, which had been reserved, since time out of mind, for the use of the ladies of the family and their visitors. There she found, as she expected, Mrs. Compton and her daughter amidst an ocean of needle-work, all having reference, more or less, to the ceremony which was to be performed on the following Thursday.
"So, Mrs. Compton," was her salutation to the old lady, and a nod of the head to the young one. "I have been speaking to my brother," continued Miss Betsy, "concerning the education of little Agnes, and he has given his consent to my putting her to school."
"Hisconsent!..." exclaimed Mrs. Compton; "and, pray, is she not my grandchild too?... I think I have as good a right to take care of the child as he has."
"Shehas a right," replied the spinster, "to expect from both of you a great deal more care than she has found; and were I you, Mrs. Compton, I would take some trouble to conceal from all my friends and acquaintance the fact that, at eleven years of age, my grandchild was unable to read."
"And that's a fact that I can have no need to hide, Miss Betsy, for it's no fact at all—I've seen Martha teaching her scores of times."
"Then have her in, Mrs. Compton, and let us make the trial. If I have said what is not true, I will beg your pardon."
"Lor, mamma!" said Miss Martha, colouring a little, "what good is there in contradicting aunt Betsy, if she wants to send Agnes to school? I am sure it is the best thing that can be done for her, now I am going to be married.... And Mr. Barnaby asked me the other day, if you did not mean to send her to school."
"I don't want to keep her from school, God knows, poor little thing, or from anything else that could do her good.... Only Miss Betsy speaks so sharp.... But I can assure you, sister, we should have put her to the best of schools long and long ago, only that, Heaven knows, we had not the means to do it; and thankful shall I be if you are come at last to think that there may be as much charity in helping your own blood relations, as in giving away your substance to strangers and beggars."
"You are right, Mrs. Compton, as far as relates to sending Agnes to school ... that will certainly be a charity. When can the child be got ready?"
"As soon as ever you shall be pleased to give us the means, sister Betsy."
"Do you mean, Mrs. Compton, that she has not got clothes to go in?"
"I do indeed, sister Betsy."
"Let me see what shehasgot, and then I shall know what she wants."
"That is easily told, aunt, without your troubling yourself to look over a few ragged frocks and the like. She wants just everything, aunt Betsy," said the bride expectant, brave in anticipated independence, and rather inclined to plague the old lady by drawing as largely as might be on her reluctant funds, now they were opened, even though the profit would not be her own.
"If she really does want everything, Martha Compton, while you are dressed as you now are, very cruel injustice has been done her," replied the aunt. "Your sister had no portion given her, either of the patrimony of her father, or the thousand pounds brought by her mother; and as her marriage with a man who had not a sixpence was permitted, this child of hers has an equal right with yourself to share in the property of your parents."
"The property of their parents!... Why bless me, Betsy Compton, how you do talk!... as if you did not know that all the property they ever had, is as good as gone. Has not farmer Wright got the estate? And has not the butcher, and the baker, and the shoemaker, and all the rest of them, got what it sold for, as well as my thousand pounds among them, long ago?"
"Then you are now on the very verge of ruin, Mrs. Compton?" said the spinster gravely.
"Yes, sister Betsy, we are," replied the matron reproachfully. "And I can't but say," she continued, "that a lone woman like you, without any expenses whatever but your own meat and drink, which everybody says is next to nothing,—I can't but say that you might have helped us a little before now, and no harm done."
"That is your opinion of the case, Mrs. Compton: mine is wholly different. I think harm is done whenever power of any kind is exerted in vain. I have no power to help you.... Were all I have, poured out upon you, while I lodged myself in the parish workhouse, my conviction is, that I should only be enabling you to commit more follies, and, in my judgment, more sins."
"Well, well, Miss Betsy, it is of no use talking to you—I know that of old; and to tell you the truth, when Idocome to beggary, I had rather beg of anybody else than of you. I hear far and near of your charity to others, but I can't say that I ever saw any great symptom of it myself."
"Let me see what clothes little Agnes has got, Mrs. Compton, if you please. Our time will be more profitably employed in seeing what I may be able to do for her, than in discoursing of what I am not able to do for you. Miss Martha then, I suppose, may be able to bring her things in."
"Why, as far as the quantity goes, they won't be very difficult to carry. But I don't see much use in overhauling all the poor child's trumpery ... unless it is just to make you laugh at our poverty, ma'am."
The spinster answered this with a look which shewed plainly enough that, however little beauty her pale face could boast, it was by no means deficient in expression. Miss Martha hastened out of the room to do her errand without saying another word.
I will not give the catalogue of poor Agnes's wardrobe, but only observe that it was considerably worse than Miss Betsy expected; she made, however, no observation upon it; but having examined it apparently with very little attention, she took leave of the mother and daughter, saying she would call again in a day or two, and took with her (no permission asked) a greatly faded, but recently fitted frock, which abduction mother and daughter remonstrated against, loudly declaring it was her best dress, except the old white muslin worked with coloured worsteds, and that she would have nothing upon earth to wear.
"It shall not be kept long," was the reply; and the little lady departed, enduring for a moment the atmosphere of her brother's parlour as she passed, in order to tell him, as she thought herself in duty bound to do, that she should get some decent clothes made for the child, and call again as soon as they were ready to take her to school.
The poor gentleman seemed greatly pleased at this, and said, "Thank you, Betsy," with more animation than he had been heard to impart to any words for many years.
It was just three days after Miss Martha Compton had become Mrs. Barnaby, that the same post-chaise drove up to the door that had carried her away from it on an excursion of eight-and-forty hours to Exeter, which the gallant bridegroom had stolen a holiday to give her; but upon this occasion it was hired neither by bride nor bridegroom, but by the little crooked spinster, who was come, according to her promise, to take Agnes to school.
Mrs. Compton was just setting out to pay her first morning visit to the bride, and therefore submitted to the hasty departure of the little girl with less grumbling than she might have done, if less agreeably engaged.
"You must bid your grandpapa good-b'ye, Agnes," said Miss Betsy, as they passed the door of his parlour, and accordingly they all entered together.
"God bless you, my poor little girl!" said the old man after kissing her forehead, "and keep your aunt Betsy's favour if you can, ... for I don't think I can do much more to help anybody.... God bless you, Agnes!"
"Dear me, Mr. Compton!... you need not bring tears in the child's eyes by speaking that way.... I am sure she has never wanted friends since her poor dear mother died; and there's no like she should either, with such an aunt as Martha, married to such a man as Mr. Barnaby.... I suppose she is not to be kept from her family, sister Betsy, but that we shall see her in the holidays. I am sure I don't know where she is likely to see things so elegant as at her aunt Barnaby's.... Such a drawing-room!... and a man in livery, at least a boy, ... and everything else conformable.... I suppose this is to be her home, Miss Betsy, still?"
"I am glad you have mentioned this, Mrs. Compton," replied her sister-in-law, "because now, in the presence of my brother, I may explain my intentions at once. Whatever you may think of my little means, either you or your wife, or your daughter, brother Josiah, I am not rich enough in my own opinion to make it prudent for me to saddle myself with the permanent charge of this poor child. Moreover, to do so, I must altogether change the quiet manner of life that I have so long enjoyed, and I am not conscious of being bound by any tie sufficiently strong to make this painful sacrifice a duty. Something I think I ought to do for this child, and I am willing to do it. I conceive that it will be more easily in my power to spare something from my little property to obtain a respectable education for her, than either in your's, brother, or even in that of her newly-married aunt Barnaby; for doubtless it would not be agreeable for her to begin her wedded life by throwing a burden upon her husband. But, on the other hand, it will certainly be much more within the power of her aunt Barnaby to give her a comfortable and advantageous home afterwards, than in mine. I will therefore now take charge of her for five years, during which time she shall be supplied with board, lodging, clothes, and instruction, at my expense; or, in case I should die, at that of my executors. After this period I shall restore her to you, brother, or to her grandmother, if both or either of you shall be alive, or if not, to her aunt Barnaby; and when I die she shall have a share, with such others as I may think have a claim upon me, of the small matter I may leave behind. But this of course must be lessened by the expenses I am now contracting for her."
"And are we never to see her for five years, sister Betsy?" said Mrs. Compton very dolorously.
"To tell you the truth, Mrs. Compton, I think the coming home to you twice a-year, for the holidays, could be no advantage to her education, and the expense of such repeated journeyings would be very inconvenient to me. I have therefore arranged with the persons who are to take charge of her that she is to pass the vacations with them. I shall, however, make a point of seeing her myself more than once in the course of the time, and will undertake that she shall come to Silverton twice during these five years, for a few days each time.... And now, I think, there is no more to say; so come, my little girl, for it is not right to keep the driver and the horses any longer waiting."
The adieux between the parties were now hastily exchanged, little Agnes mounted the post-chaise, aunt Betsy followed, and they drove off, though in what direction they were to go, after leaving the Silverton turnpike, no one had ever thought of inquiring.
Poor Mrs. Compton stood for some moments silently gazing after the post-chaise, and on re-entering her drawing-room, felt a sensation that greatly resembled desolation from the unwonted stillness that reigned there. She was instantly cheered, however, by recollecting the very agreeable visit she was going to pay; and only pausing to put on her new wedding bonnet and shawl, set off for Mr. Barnaby's, saying to the maid, whom she passed as she descended, "I should like, Sally, to have seen what sort of things she has got for the poor child."
"If they was as neat and as nice as the little trunk as was strapped on in the front, and that's where they was packed, no doubt,... there wouldn't be no need to complain of them," was the reply. And now, leaving Agnes to aunt Betsy and her fate, I must return to the duty I have assigned myself, and follow the fortunes of Mrs. Barnaby.
The first five or six months of Mrs. Barnaby's married life were so happy as not only to make her forget all her former disappointments, but almost to persuade her that it was very nearly as good a thing to marry a middle-aged country apothecary, with a good house and a good income, as a beautiful young officer with neither.
Since her adventure with Mr. Smith, the draper, milliner, mercer, and haberdasher of Silvertonpar excellence, Mrs. Barnaby's genius for making bargains had been sadly damped; not but that she had in some degree saved her credit with that important and much-provoked personage by condescending to wear the willow before his eyes; she even went so far as to say to him, with a twinkling of lids that passed for having tears in her own,—
"No young lady was ever so used before, I believe.... I am sure, Mr. Smith, you saw enough yourself to be certain that I was engaged to Captain Tate,... yet the moment he found a girl with a little money he sent back all my letters...!"
Perhaps Mr. Smith believed the lady ... perhaps he did not; but at any rate he gave her no encouragement to recommence operations upon his confiding nature; on the contrary, he ceased not to send in his little account very constantly once every three months, steadfastly refusing to give credit for any articles, however needful. After the sale of the Compton Basett property the bill was paid, but no farther accommodation in that quarter ever obtained; indeed the facility of selling out of the funds a hundred pounds a time as it was wanted, superseded the necessity of pressing for it, and in a little way Miss Martha and Mr. Smith had continued to deal most amicably, but always with a certain degree of mutual shyness.
How delightfully different was the case now!... Mrs. Barnaby had only to send her maid or her man (boy) to the redundant storehouse of Mr. Smith, and all that her heart best loved was sent for her inspection and choice, without the slightest doubt or scruple.
Mr. Barnaby was proud of his wife; for if not quite as slender and delicate, she really looked very nearly as handsome as ever, a slightsoupçonof rouge refreshing the brilliancy of her eyes, and concealing the incipient fading of her cheeks; while the total absence ofmauvaise honte(an advantage which may be considered as the natural consequence of a twelve years' reign as the belle of a well-officered county town,) enabled her to preside at his own supper parties, and fill the place of honour as bride at those of his neighbours, with an easy sprightliness of manner that he felt to be truly fascinating. In short, Mr. Barnaby was excessively fond of his lady, and as he was known to have made much more money than he had spent, as no bill had ever been sent to him without immediate payment following, and as Mrs. Barnaby's nature expanded itself in this enlarged sphere of action, and led her to disburse five times as much as Mr. Barnaby had ever expended without her, all the tradesmen in the town were excessively fond of her too. Wherever she went she was greeted with a smile; and instead of being obliged to stand in every shop, waiting till some one happened to be at leisure to ask her what she wanted to buy, her feathers and her frills were no sooner discovered to be approaching the counter, than as many right arms as were in presence thrust forward a seat towards her, while the well-pleased master himself invariably started forth to receive her commands.
Any bride might have found matter for rejoicing in such a change, but few could have felt it so keenly as Mrs. Barnaby. She was by nature both proud and ambitious, and her personal vanity, though sufficiently strong within her to form rather a conspicuous feature in her character, was, in truth, only a sort of petted imp, that acted as an agent to assist in forwarding the hopes and wishes which her pride and ambition formed.
This pride and ambition, however, were very essentially different from the qualities known by these names among minds of a loftier nature. The ambition, for instance, instead of being "that last infirmity of noble mind" for which Milton seems to plead so feelingly, was, in truth, the first vice of a very mean one. Mrs. Barnaby burned with ambition to find herself in a situation that might authorize her giving herself the airs of a great lady; and her pride would have found all the gratification it sought, could she have been sure that her house and her dress would be daily cited among her acquaintance as more costly than their own.
Mrs. Barnaby had moreoverun esprit intriguantin the most comprehensive sense of the phrase, for she would far rather have obtained any object she aimed at by means of her own manœuvring, than by any simple concurrence of circumstances whatever; and this was perhaps the reason why, at the first moment the proposals of Mr. Barnaby, whom she had (comparatively speaking) used no tricks to captivate, produced a less pleasurable effect upon her mind, than a similar overture from any one of the innumerable military men whom she had so strenuously laboured to win, would have done. However, she was for this very reason happier than many other brides, for, in fact, she became daily more sensible of the substantial advantages she had obtained; and, on the whole, daily better pleased with her complaisant husband.
As her temper, though quietly and steadily selfish, was neither sour nor violent, this state of connubial happiness might have continued long, had not some untoward accidents occurred to disturb it.
The first of these was the sudden and dangerous illness of Mrs. Compton, which was of a nature to render it perfectly impossible for Mr. and Mrs. Barnaby to continue their delightful little parties at home and abroad. The dying lady ceased not to implore her daughter not to leave her, in accents so piteous, that Mr. Barnaby himself, notwithstanding his tender care for his lady's health, was the first to declare that she must remain with her. This heavy burden, however, did not inconvenience her long, for the seizure terminated in the death of the old lady about a week after its commencement.
But even this, though acknowledged to be "certainly a blessing, and a happy release," could not restore the bride to the triumphant state of existence the illness of her mother had interrupted; for, in the first place, her deep mourning was by no means becoming to her, and she was perfectly aware of it; and her white satin, and her silver fringe, would be sure to turn yellow before she could wear them again. Besides, what was worse than all, a young attorney of Silverton married the daughter of a neighbouring clergyman, who, of course, was immediately installed in all a bride's honours, to the inexpressible mortification of Mrs. Barnaby.
The annoyance which followed these vexations was, however, far more serious: the resources of poor Mr. Compton were completely exhausted; he had drawn out his last hundred from the funds, and actually remained possessed of no property whatever, except the nearly expired lease, and the worn-out furniture of the house in which he lived.
Mrs. Barnaby listened to the feeble old man's statement of his desperate position with dismay; she knew just enough of his affairs to be aware that it was very likely to be true, though with mistaken tenderness her mother had always refrained from representing their embarrassments to her daughter, as being of the hopeless extent which they really were.
What, then, was to be done? The choice lay between two measures only, both deeply wounding to her pride. In the one case she must leave the old man to be arrested in his bed for the price of the food which for a few months longer perhaps he might still get on credit ... in the other she must undergo the humiliation of informing her husband that all the gay external appearances she and her mother had so laboriously presented to the public eye, were in reality but so much cheatery and delusion; and that, if he would not take compassion on her father's destitute condition, the poor old man must either die in the county prison or the parish workhouse.
The alternative offered more of doubt than of choice, and it might have been long ere she decided, had she not cleverly recollected that, if she decided upon leaving him to get on as he could for a few weeks longer, she must at last submit to her husband's knowing the real state of the case; she therefore resolutely determined that he should know it at once.
The time she chose to make the disclosure was the hour when men are generally supposed to be in the most amiable frame of mind possible, namely, when hunger, but not appetite, has been satisfied, and digestion not fully begun; that is to say, Mr. Barnaby was enjoying his walnuts and his wine.
"My dear Barnaby!..." she began, "I have some very disagreeable intelligence to communicate to you, which has reached me only to-day, and which has distressed me more than I can express."
"Good heaven!... What can you mean, my dear love?... For God's sake do not weep, my beautiful Martha, but tell me what it is, and trust to me for consolation."
"And that indeed I must do, dearest Barnaby!... for who else have I now to look to?... My poor father ... I had no idea of it till this morning ... my poor father is...."
"Dying, perhaps, my poor love!... Alas! Martha dearest, I have long known that his case was perfectly hopeless, and I had hoped that you had been aware of this also; but really, my love, his state of health is such as ought in a great degree to reconcile you to his loss.... I am sure he must suffer a great deal at times."
Mrs. Barnaby's first impulse was to reply that what she had to tell was a great deal worse than that; but this would have been the truth, and a sort of habitual, or it might indeed be called natural cautiousness, led her always to pause before she uttered anything that she had no motive for saying, excepting merely that it was true; and she generally found, upon reconsideration, that there was hardly anything which might not, according to her tactics, be improved by aleetledressing up. So, in reply to this affectionate remonstrance from her husband, Mrs. Barnaby answered with a sob:—
"No, my dear Barnaby!... I have no reason to doubt but that Providence will spare my sole remaining parent for some short time longer, if only to prove to him that his happy daughter has the will as well as the means to supply to him the exemplary wife he has lost! But, alas! dear Barnaby, who in this world can we expect to find perfect? My poor dear mother, in her great anxiety to spare his age and weakness the suffering such intelligence must occasion, most unwisely concealed from him and from me the failure of the merchant in whose hands he had deposited the sum for which he sold his patrimonial estate.... His object in selling it was to increase his income, principally indeed for my poor mother's sake, and now the entire sum is lost to us for ever!"
"God bless me!... This is a sad stroke indeed, my dear! What is the name of this merchant?... I hope, at least, that we may get some dividend out of him."
"I really do not know his name, but I know that it is a New York merchant, and so I fear there is little or no chance of our ever recovering a penny."
"Why, really, in that case, I will not flatter you with much hope on the subject. And what has the poor old gentleman got to live upon, my dear Martha?"
"Nothing, Barnaby!... absolutely nothing: and unless your tender affection should induce you to permit his spending the little remnant of his days under our roof, I fear a prison will soon enclose him!"
A violent burst of weeping appeared to follow this avowal; and Mr. Barnaby, who was really a very kind-hearted man, hastened to console her by declaring that he was heartily glad he had a home to offer him.... "So, dry up your tears, my dear girl, and let me see you look gay and happy again," said he; "and depend upon it, we shall be able to make papa very comfortable here."
The disagreeable business was over, and therefore Mrs. Barnaby did look gay and happy again. Moreover, she gave her husband a kiss, and said in a very consolatory accent, "The poor old man need not be in our way much, my dear Barnaby; ... I have been thinking that the little room behind the laundry may be made very comfortable for him without any expense at all; I shall only just have to...."
"No, no, Martha," interrupted the worthy Galen, "there is no need of packing the poor gentleman into that dismal little place.... Let him have the room over the dining-room; the south is always the best aspect for the old; and, besides, there is a closet that will serve to keep his pipes and tobacco, and his phials and his pill-boxes, out of sight."
"You are most ex-cess-ively kind, my dear Barnaby," replied his lady; "but did not you tell me that you meant to offer the Thompsons a bed when the bachelors' ball is given?... And I am sure you would not like to putthemanywhere but in the south room."
"I did say so, my dear, and I am sure I meant it at the time; but a bed for the ball-night is of so little consequence to them, and a warm, comfortable room, for your father is so important, that, do you know, it would seem to me quite silly to bring the two into comparison."
"Well!... I am sure I can't thank you enough, and I will go the first thing to-morrow to tell my father of your kindness."
"I must pass by his house to-night, my dear, in my way to the Kellys', and I will just step in and tell him how we have settled it."
It was impossible even for Mrs. Barnaby to find at the moment any plausible reason for objecting to this good-natured proposal; but, in truth, it was far from agreeable to her. Her poor father was quite ignorant of the elegant turn she had given to the disagreeable fact of his having spent his last shilling, and she was by no means desirous that her kind-hearted husband should enter upon any discussion of his "misfortunes" with him. But a moment's reflection sufficed to bring her ready wit into play again; and then she said, in addition to the applause she had already uttered,—"By the by, my dear Barnaby, I am not quite sure that I can let you enjoy this pleasure without my sharing it with you. I know it will make my dear father soveryhappy!"
"Well, then, Martha, put on your bonnet and cloak, and come along; ... it will be better you should go too, or I might linger with him too long to explain matters, and I really have no time to lose."
The kindness thus manifested by the worthy Barnaby was not evanescent; it led him to see that the money produced by the sale of the little remnant of poor Mr. Compton's property, was immediately disposed of in the payment of such trifling debts as, despite his long waning credit, he had been able to contract; and for the two years and eight months that he continued struggling with advancing age and increasing disease, his attention to him was unremitting.
During the whole of that time Miss Betsy Compton never saw him. All hope, and indeed all urgent want of assistance from her well-guarded purse having ended, Mrs. Barnaby's anger and hatred towards the spinster, flourished unchecked by any motives of interest; and Miss Betsy was not a person to present herself uninvited at the house of a rich apothecary, who had the privilege of calling her aunt. She had indeed from time to time taken care to inform herself of the condition of her brother, and finding that he wanted for nothing, but was, on the contrary, very carefully nursed and attended, she settled the matter very easily with her conscience; and with the exception of the pension, and other little expenses of Agnes, her income, yearly increasing, continued to roll up for no other purpose, as it should seem, than merely to afford her the satisfaction of knowing that she was about ten times as rich as anybody (excepting, perhaps, farmer Wright,) believed her to be.
When, however, the last hours of the old man were approaching, he told Mr. Barnaby that he should like to see both his sister and his grandchild; and ten minutes had not passed after he said so, before an express was galloping towards Compton Basett with a civil gentleman-like letter from the apothecary to Miss Betsy, informing her of the condition of her brother, and expressing the hospitable wish that she and the little Agnes would be pleased to make his house their home as long as the poor gentleman remained alive.
Miss Betsy had some strong prejudices, but she had strong discernment too; and few old maids whose personal knowledge of the world had been as contracted as hers, would have so instantly comprehended the good sense and the good feeling of the author of this short note as she did. Her answer was brief, but not so brief as to prevent the friendly feeling with which she wrote it from being perceptible; and ere they met, this stranger aunt, and nephew, were exceedingly well-disposed to be civil to each other.
Miss Betsy's arrangements were soon made. She wrote to the person to whose care she had intrusted Agnes, desiring her immediately to send her under proper protection to Silverton, and having done this, she set off in farmer Wright's chaise-cart to pay her first visit to her married niece, and her last to her dying brother.
Agnes Willoughby had never been in Silverton from the day that her aunt Betsy first took her from her grandfather's house. Had Mrs. Compton lived, she would probably have battled for the performance of Miss Betsy's promise, that the little girl should sometimes visit them; but though it is probable Mrs. Barnaby might occasionally have thought of her niece with some degree of interest and curiosity, the feeling was not strong enough to induce her to open a correspondence with Miss Betsy; still it was certainly not without something like pleasure that she found she was again to see her.
Miss Betsy arrived late in the evening of the day on which the summons reached her; and, being shewn into Mrs. Barnaby's smart drawing-room, was received with much stateliness by that lady, who derived considerable consolation, under the disagreeable necessity of welcoming a person she detested, from the opportunity it afforded her of displaying the enormous increase of wealth and importance that had fallen upon her since they last met.
Poor Miss Betsy really felt sad at the thoughts of the errand upon which she was come; nevertheless she could not, without some difficulty, suppress her inclination to smile at the full-blown dignity of Mrs. Barnaby. Fond as this lady was of parading her grandeur on all occasions, she had never, even among the dear friends whom she most especially desired to inspire with envy, felt so strong an inclination to shew off her magnificence as on the present. The covers were removed from the chairs and sofas; the eclipse produced by the dim grey drugget, when stretched across the radiance of the many-coloured carpet, was over; five golden-leaved annuals, the glory of her library, were spread at well-graduated distances upon her round table; her work-box, bright in its rose-coloured lining, her smart embossed letter-case, her chimney ornaments, her picture frames, her foot-stools, all were uncovered, all were studiously shown forth to meet the careless eye of Miss Betsy; while the proud owner of all these very fine things, notwithstanding the gloomy state of her mansion, was herself a walking museum of lace and trinkets.... Nor were her manners less superb than her habiliments.
"I am sorry, Miss Compton," she said.... "I may call you Miss Compton now, as my marriage put an end to the possibility of any confusion.... I am sorry that your first introduction to my humble abode should have been made under circumstances so melancholy. Dismal as of necessity everything must look now, I can assure you that this unpretending little room is the scene of much domestic comfort."
This was unblushingly said, though the cold, stiff-looking apartment was never entered but upon solemn occasions, when the whole house was turned inside out for the reception of company. Miss Betsy, or rather Miss Compton, (as, in compliance with Mrs. Barnaby's hint, we will in future call her,) looked round upon the spotless carpet, and upon all the comfortless precision of the apartment, and replied,—
"If this is your common living room, niece Martha, you are certainly much improved in neatness; and seeing it so prim, it is quite needless to ask if you have any children."
This reply was bitter every way; for, first, it spoke plainly enough the spinster's disbelief in the domestic elegance of her niece; and secondly, it alluded to her being childless, a subject of very considerable mortification to Mrs. Barnaby.
How far this sort of ambush warfare might have proceeded it is impossible to say, as it would have been difficult to place together any two people who more cordially disliked each other; but before Mrs. Barnaby had time to seek for words bearing as sharp a sting as those she had received, her husband entered. He waited not for the pompous introduction his wife was preparing, but walking up to his guest addressed her respectfully but mournfully, saying he feared it was necessary to press an early interview with her brother, if she wished that he should be sensible of her kindness in coming to him.
Miss Compton immediately rose, and uttering a short, strong phrase expressive of gratitude for his kindness to the dying man, said she was ready to attend him. She found her brother quite sensible, but very weak, and evidently approaching his last hour; he thanked her for coming to him, warmly expressed his gratitude to Mr. Barnaby, and then murmured something about wishing to see little Agnes before he died.
"She will be here to-morrow, brother," replied Miss Compton, "and in time, I trust, to receive your blessing."
"Thank you, thank you, sister Betsy; ... but tell me, tell me before you go, ... have you sold father's poor dear fields as I have done? That is all I have got to be very sorry for.... I ought never to have done that, sister Betsy."
Mr. Barnaby had left the room as soon as he had placed Miss Compton in a chair by the sick man's bed, and none but an old woman who acted as his nurse remained in it.
"You may go, nurse, if you please, for a little while; I will watch by my brother," said Miss Compton. The woman obeyed, and they were left alone. The old man followed the nurse with his eyes as she retreated, and when she closed the door said,—
"I am glad we are alone once more, dear sister, for you are the only one I could open my heart to.... I don't believe I have been a very wicked man, sister Betsy, though I am afraid I never did much good to anybody, nor to myself neither; but the one thing that lies heavy at my heart, is having sold away my poor father's patrimony.... I can't help thinking, Betsy, that I see him every now and then at the bottom of my bed, with his old hat, and his spud, and his brown gaiters ... and ... I never told anybody; ... but he seems always just going to repeat the last words he ever said to me, which were spoken just like as I am now speaking to you, Betsy, with his last breath; ... and he said, 'Josiah, my son, I could not die with a safe conscience if I left my poor weakly Betsy without sufficient to keep her in the same quiet comfort as she has been used to. But it would grieve me, Josiah....' Oh! how plain I hear his voice at this minute!—'it would grieve me, Josiah,' he said, 'if I thought the acres would be parted for ever ... they have been above four hundred years belonging to us from father to son; and once Compton Basett was a name that stood for a thousand acres instead of three hundred;' ... and then ... don't be angry, sister Betsy," said the sick man, pressing her hand which he held, "but he said, 'I don't think Betsy very likely to marry; and if she don't, Josiah, why, then, all that is left of Compton Basett will be joined together again for your descendants,' ... and yet, after this I sold my portion, Betsy, ... and I do fear his poor spirit is troubled for it—I do indeed ... and it is that which hangs so heavy upon my mind."
"And if that be all, Josiah, you may close your eyes, and go to join our dear father in peace. He struggled with and conquered his strongest feeling, his just and honourable pride, for my sake; and for his, as well as for the same feeling, which is very strong within my own breast also, I have lived poorly, though not hardly, Josiah, and have added penny to penny till I was able to make Compton Basett as respectable a patrimony as he left it. It was not farmer Wright who bought the land, brother—it was I."
The old man's emotion at hearing this was stronger than any he had shewn for many years. He raised his sister's hand to his lips, and kissed it fervently. "Bless you, Betsy!... bless you, my own dear sister!"... he said in a voice that trembled as much from feeling as from weakness, and for several minutes afterwards he lay perfectly silent and motionless.
Miss Compton watched him with an anxious eye, and not without a flutter at her heart lest she should suddenly find this stillness to be that of death. But it was not so; on the contrary, his voice appeared considerably stronger than it had done since their interview began, when he again spoke, and said,—
"I see him now, sister Betsy, as plainly as I see the two posts at the bottom of my bed, and he stands exactly in the middle between them; he has got no hat on, but his smooth white hair is round his face just as it used to be, and he looks so smiling and so happy.... Do not think I am frightened at seeing him, Betsy; quite the contrary.... I feel so peaceful ... so very peaceful...."
"Then try to sleep, dear brother!" said Miss Compton, who felt that his pulse fluttered, and, aware that his senses were wandering, feared that the energy with which he spoke might hasten the last hour, and so rob his grandchild of his blessing.
"I will sleep," he replied, more composedly, "as soon as you have told me one thing. Who will have the Compton Basett estate, Betsy, when you are dead?"
"Agnes Willoughby," replied the spinster, solemnly.
"That is right.... Now go away, Betsy, ... it is quite right ... go away now, and let me sleep."
She watched him for a moment, and seeing his eyes close, and hearing a gentle, regular breathing that convinced her he was indeed asleep, she crept noiselessly from his bedside; then having summoned the nurse, and re-established her beside the fire, retired to the solitude of her own room.
When Miss Compton reached her room, she found a tiny morsel of fire just lighted in a tiny grate; and as the season was November, the hour nineP. M., and the candle she carried in her hand not of the brightest description, the scene was altogether gloomy enough. But not even to save herself from something greatly worse, would she at that moment have exchanged its solitude for the society of Mrs. Barnaby, although she had been sure of finding her in the best-lighted room, and seated beside the brightest fire that ever blazed. So, wrapping around her the stout camlet cloak by the aid of which she had braved the severity of many years' wintry walks to church, she sat down in the front of the little fire, and gave herself up to the reflections that crowded upon her mind.
Elizabeth Compton did not believe in the doctrine of ghosts; her mind was of a strong and healthy fibre, which was rarely sufficiently wrought upon by passing events to lose its power of clear perception and unimpassioned judgment; but the scene she had just passed through, had considerably shaken her philosophy. Five-and-thirty years had passed since Josiah and Elizabeth shared the paternal roof together. They were then very tender friends, for he was affectionate and sweet-tempered; and she, though nearly seventeen, was as young in appearance, and as much in need of his thoughtful care of her, as if she had been many years younger. But this union was totally and for ever destroyed when Josiah married; from the first hour they met, the two sisters-in-law conceived an aversion for each other which every succeeding interview appeared to strengthen; and this so effectually separated the brother from the sister, that they had never met again with that peculiar species of sympathy which can only be felt by children of the same parents, till now, that the sister came expressly to see the brother die.
This reunion had softened and had opened both their hearts: Josiah confessed to his dear sister Betsy that his conscience reproached him for having made away with his patrimony ... a fact which he had never hinted to any other human being ... and she owned to him that she was secretly possessed of landed property worth above six hundred a-year, and also—which was a confidence, if possible, more sacred still—that Agnes Willoughby would inherit it.
It would be hardly doing justice to the good sense of Miss Betsy to state, that this rational and proper destination of her property had never been finally decided upon by her till the moment she answered her brother's question on the subject; and still less correctly true would it be to say, that the dying man's delirious fancy respecting the presence of their father was the reason that she answered that appeal in the manner she did; yet still there might be some slight mixture of truth in both. Miss Compton was constantly in the habit of telling herself that she hadnotdecided to whom she would leave her property; but it is no less true, that the only person she ever thought of as within the possibility of becoming her heir, was Agnes. It is certain also, as I have stated above, that Miss Compton didnotbelieve that departed spirits ever revisited the earth; nevertheless, the dying declaration of Josiah, that he saw the figure of his father, did produce a spasm at her heart, which found great relief by her pronouncing the words, "Agnes Willoughby."
And now that she was quietly alone, and perfectly restored to her sober senses, she began to reconsider all that she had spoken, and to pass judgment upon herself for the having yielded in some degree to the weakness of a visionary imagination.
The result, however, of this self-examination was not exactly what she herself expected. At first she was disposed to exclaim mentally, "I have been foolish—I have been weak;" ... but as she gazed abstractedly on her little fire, and thought—thought—thought of all the chain of events (each so little in itself, yet all so linked together as to produce an important whole,) by which she, the sickly, crooked, little Betsy Compton, had become the proprietor of the long preserved patrimony of her ancestors, ... and also, when she remembered the infinite chances which had existed against either of her portionless, uneducated nieces, forming such a marriage as might produce a child of gentle blood to be her successor,—when she thought of all this, and that, notwithstanding the lieutenant's poverty, the name of Willoughby could disgrace none to which it might be joined, she could not but feel that all things had been managed for her better than she could have managed them for herself.
"And if," thought she, "Iwasinfluenced, by hearing my poor father so accurately described, to bind myself at once by a promise to make little Agnes my heir, how do I know but that Providence intended it should be so?"
"Is my freedom of action then gone for ever?" she continued, carrying on her mental soliloquy. The idea was painful to her, and her head sunk upon her breast as she brooded upon it.
"Not so!" she muttered to herself, after some minutes' cogitation. "I am not pledged to this, nor shall it be so. If indeed some emanation from my father's mind has made itself felt by his children this night, it ought not to make a timid slave of me, but rather rouse my courage and my strength to do something more than mere justice to the race that seems so strangely intrusted to my care. And so I will!... if the girl be such a one as may repay the trouble; ... if not, I will shew that I have still some freedom left."
Miss Compton had never seen Agnes Willoughby from the time she first took her from Silverton. Deeply shocked at the profound ignorance in which she found the poor little girl when she visited Compton Basett, she had set herself very earnestly to discover where she could immediately place her, with the best chance of her recovering the time she had so negligently been permitted to lose, and by good luck heard of a clergyman's family in which young ladies were received for a stipend of fifty pounds a-year, and treated more like the children of affectionate parents than the pupils of mercenary teachers. The good spinster heard all this, and was well pleased by the description; yet would she not trust to it, but breaking through all her habits, she put herself into a post-chaise and drove to the rectory of Empton, a distance of at least twenty miles from the town of Silverton. Here she found everything she wished to find; a small, regular establishment, a lady-like and very intelligent woman, with an accomplished young person, (her only child,) fully capable of undertaking the education of a gentleman's daughter; while the venerable father of the family and of the parish, by his gentle manners and exemplary character, ensured exactly the sort of respectability in the home she sought for the little Agnes, which she considered as its most essential feature.
The preliminaries were speedily arranged, and as soon as a neat and sufficient wardrobe was ready for her use, her final separation from her improvident grandmother took place in the manner that has been related.
When Miss Compton left the little girl in the charge of Mrs. Wilmot, she had certainly no idea of her remaining there above three years without visiting or being seen by any of her family; but Mrs. Wilmot, in her subsequent letters, so strongly urged the advantage of not disturbing studies so late begun, and now proceeding so satisfactorily, that our reasonable aunt Betsy willingly submitted to her remaining quietly where she was; an arrangement rendered the more desirable by the death of her grandmother, and the breaking up of the establishment which had been her only home.
The seeing her again after this long absence was now an event of very momentous importance to Miss Compton. Should she in any way resemble either her grandmother or her aunt Barnaby, the little spinster felt that the promise so solemnly given would become a sore pain and grief to her, for rather a thousand times would she have bequeathed her carefully collected wealth to the county hospital, than have bestowed it to swell the vulgar ostentation of a Mrs. Barnaby. The power of choice, however, she felt was no longer left her. She had pledged her word, and that under circumstances of no common solemnity, that Agnes Willoughby should be her heir.
The poor little lady, as these anxious ruminations harassed her mind, became positively faint and sick as the idea occurred to her, that the eyes of little Agnes had formerly sparkled with somewhat of the brightness she thought so very hateful in her well-rouged aunt; and at length, having sat till her candle was nearly burnt out, and her fire too, she arose in order to return to the fine drawing-room, and bid her entertainers good night; but she stood with clasped hands for one moment upon the hearthstone before she quitted it, and muttered half aloud, ... "I have said that Agnes Willoughby shall be my heir, ... and so she shall; ... she shall (be she a gorgon or a second Martha) inherit the Compton Basett acres, restored, improved, and worth at least one fourth more than when my poor father ... Heaven give his spirit rest!... divided them between his children. But for my snug twelve thousand pounds sterling vested in the three per cents, and my little mortgage of eighteen hundred more for which I so regularly get my five per cent., that at least is my own, and that shall never,nevergo to enrich any one who inherits the red cheeks and bright black eyes of Miss Martha Wisett.... No!... not if I am driven to choose an heir for it from the Foundling Hospital!"
Somewhat comforted in spirit by this magnanimous resolve, Miss Compton found her way to the drawing-room, and would have been fully confirmed in the wisdom of it, had any doubt remained, by the style and tone of Mrs. Barnaby, whom she found sitting there in solitary state, her husband being professionally engaged in the town, and her own anxiety for her dying father quite satisfied by being told that he was asleep.
"And where have you been hiding yourself, aunt Betsy, since you left papa?" said the full-dressed lady, warmed into good humour by the consciousness of her own elegance, and the delightful contrast between a married woman, sitting in her own handsome drawing-room, (looking as she had just ascertained that she herself did look by a long solitary study of her image in the glass,) and a poor crooked little old maid like her visitor. "I have been expecting to see you for this hour past. I hope Barnaby will be in soon, and then we will go to supper. Barnaby always eats a hot supper, and so I eat it with him for company, ... and I hope you feel disposed to join us after your cold drive."
"I never eat any supper at all, Mrs. Barnaby."
"No, really?... I thought farm-house people always did, though not exactly such a supper as Barnaby's, perhaps, for he always will have something nice and delicate; and so, as it pleases him, I have taken to the same sort of thing myself ... veal cutlets and mashed potatoes, ... or half a chicken grilled perhaps, with now and then a glass of raspberry cream, or a mince pie, as the season may be, all which I take to be very light and wholesome; and indeed Barnaby thinks so too, or else I am sure he would not let me touch it.... You can't think, aunt Betsy, what a fuss he makes about me.... To be sure, he is a perfect model of a husband."
"God grant she may be the colour of a tallow-candle, and her eyes as pale and lustreless as those of a dead whiting!" mentally ejaculated the whimsical spinster; but in reply to her niece she said nothing. After sitting, however, for about ten minutes in the most profound silence, she rose and said,—
"I should like to have a bed-candle, if you please, ma'am. I need not wait to see the doctor. If he thinks there is any alteration in my brother, he will be kind enough to let me know."
The lady of the mansion condescendingly rang the bell, which her livery-boy answered with promptness, for he was exceedingly well drilled, Mrs. Barnaby having little else to do than to keep him and her two maids in proper order; ... the desired candle was brought, and Miss Compton having satisfied herself that her brother still slept, retired to rest.
The following day was an important one to her race; ... the last male of the Compton Basett family expired, and the young girl to whom its small but ancient patrimony was to descend, appeared for the first time before Miss Compton in the character of her heiress.
It was about mid-day when the post-chaise which conveyed Agnes arrived at Mr. Barnaby's door. Had the person expected been a judge in whose hands the life and death of the spinster freeholder was placed, her heart could hardly have beat with more anxiety to catch a sight of his countenance, and to read her fate in it, than it now did to discover whether her aspect were that of a vulgar beauty or a gentlewoman.
Miss Compton was sitting in the presence of Mrs. Barnaby when the carriage stopped at the door, and had been for some hours keenly suffering from the disgust which continually increased upon her, at pretty nearly every word her companion uttered. "If she be like this creature," thought she, as she rose from her seat with nervous emotion, "if she be like her in any way ... I will keep my promise when I die, but I will never see her more."
Nothing but her dread of encountering this hated resemblance prevented her from going down stairs to meet the important little girl; but, after a moment's fidgetting, and taking a step or two towards the door, she came back and reseated herself. The suspense did not last long; the door was opened, and "Muss Willerby" announced.
A short, round, little creature, who though nearly fourteen, did not look more than twelve, with cheeks as red as roses, and large dark-grey eyes, a great deal brighter than ever her aunt's or grandmother's had been, entered, and timidly stopped short in her approach to her two aunts, as if purposely to be looked at and examined.
Shewaslooked at and examined, and judgment was passed upon her by both; differing very widely, however, as was natural enough, but in which (a circumstance much less natural, considering the qualifications for judging possessed by the two ladies,) the younger shewed considerably more discernment than the elder. Mrs. Barnaby thought her—and she was right—exceedingly like what she remembered her very pretty mother at the same age, just as round and as rosy, but with a strong mixture of the Willoughby countenance, which was very decidedly "Patrician" both in contour and expression.
But poor Miss Compton saw nothing of all this ... she saw only that she was short, fat, fresh-coloured, and bright-eyed!... This dreaded spectacle was a death-blow to all her hopes, the hated confirmation of all her fears. It was in vain that when the poor child spoke, her voice proved as sweet as a voice could be,—in vain that her natural curls fell round her neck as soon as her bonnet was taken off in rich chestnut clusters—in vain that the smile with which she answered Mrs. Barnaby's question, "Do you remember me, Agnes?" displayed teeth as white and as regular as a row of pearls,—all these things were but so many items against her in the opinion of Miss Compton, for did they not altogether constitute a brilliant specimen of vulgar beauty? Had Agnes been tall, pale, and slight made, with precisely the same features, her aunt Betsy would have willingly devoted the whole of her remaining life to her, would have ungrudgingly expended every farthing of her income for her comfort and advantage, and would only have abstained from expending the principal too, because she might leave it to her untouched at her death. But now, now that she saw her, as she fancied, so very nearly approaching in appearance to everything she most disliked, all the long-indulged habits of frugality that had enabled her (as she at this moment delighted to remember) to accumulate a fortune over which she still had entire control, seemed to rise, before her, and press round her very heart, as the only means left of atoning to herself for the promise she had been led to make.
"I will see the eyes of my father's son closed," thought she, "and then I will leave the beauties to manage together as well as they can till mine are closed too, ... and by that time, perhaps, the rents of the lands that I must no longer consider as my own, and my interest and my mortgages, may have grown into something rich enough to make them and theirs wish that they had other claims upon Elizabeth Compton besides being her nearest of kin."
These thoughts passed rapidly, but their impression was deep and lasting. Miss Compton sat in very stern and melancholy silence, such as perhaps did not ill befit the occasion that had brought them all together; but Mrs. Barnaby, whose habitual propensity to make herself comfortable, prevented her from sacrificing either her curiosity or her love of talking to ceremony, ceased not to question Agnes as to the people she had been with, the manner in which she had lived, and the amount of what she had learned.
On the first subject she received nothing in return but unbounded, unqualified expressions of praise and affection, such as might either be taken for the unmeaning hyperbole of a silly speaker, or the warm out-pouring of well-deserved affection and gratitude, so Miss Compton classed all that Agnes said respecting the family of the Wilmots under the former head: her record of their manner of living produced exactly the same result; and on the important chapter of her improvements, the genuine modesty of the little girl did her great disservice; for when, in answer to Mrs. Barnaby's questions.... "Do you understand French?... Can you dance?... Can you play?... Can you draw?" she invariably answered, "A little," Miss Compton failed not to make a mental note upon it, which, if spoken, would have been, "Little enough, I dare say."
This examination had lasted about half an hour, when Mr. Barnaby entered, and, addressing them all, said, "Poor Mr. Compton has woke up, and appears quite collected, but, from his pulse, I do not think he can last long.... Is this Miss Willoughby, Martha?... I am sorry that your first visit, my dear, should be so sad a one; ... but you had better all come now, and take leave of him."
The three ladies rose immediately, and without speaking followed Mr. Barnaby to the bedside of the dying man. He was evidently sinking fast, but knew them all, and expressed pleasure at the sight of Agnes. "Dear child!" he said, looking earnestly at her, "I am glad she is come to take my blessing.... God bless you, Agnes!... She is very like.... God bless you, Agnes!... God bless you all!"
Mr. Barnaby took his wife by the arm and led her away; she took her weeping niece with her, but Miss Compton shook her head when invited by Mr. Barnaby to follow them, and in a very few minutes completed the duty to perform which she had left her solitude, for with her own hands she closed her brother's eyes, and then stole to her room, from which she speedily dispatched an order for a post-chaise to come immediately to the door.
The conduct and manners of Mr. Barnaby had pleased the difficult little lady greatly, and she would willingly have shaken hands with him before leaving his house; but to do this she must have re-entered the drawing-room, and again seen Mrs. Barnaby and Agnes, a penance which she felt quite unequal to perform; so, leaving a civil message for him with the maid, she went down stairs with as little noise as possible as soon as the chaise was announced, and immediately drove off to Compton Basett.