crimson that spread itself all over her beau- liarity of town-bred insolence, was not the tiful face. Before the service was over, Mary had forgotten that any strangers were at church, and Anna had forgotten every thing beside. Mary returned home with serious thoughts, to perform the duties in her domestic circle; and Anna went that afternoon with less than her wonted alacrity, to take her part as teacher in a Sunday school, some years ago established by the good clergyman of the parish, and so steadily supported, as to need little patronage from Miss Langley. Miss Langley, however, could not withhold the blessing of her countenance. Miss Julia could find no better amusement for the Sunday afternoon; and Frederick thought there might be a chance of his meeting again with the fair vision of the morning. The door of the school-room opened Anna looked up, and from that moment, she thought as little of the alphabet, the catechism, and even of the bible itself, as any of her little pupils. "Come here to me," said Miss Langley in a tone of authority, to one of the older girls, who was just taxing her attention to answer in her turn, the question of the teacher. "Come here to me, and tell me, if you can, what took place at the building of the Tower of Babel ?" "Confusion of tongues," thought the teacher, "and I wish it may not be come to us." "What a charming study!" exclaimed Julia, singling out a little curly-pated urchin, who laughed and blushed, and wondered what she meant. "Take that, you little -" said Fredeick, throwing a sixpence on the floor, "and buy yourself a stick, instead of breaking mine." Then, turning to Anna, "A charming amusement," continued he, seating himself upon the bench beside her, "I wish I might be a pupil." But the method he had chosen for commencing an acquaintance was not suited to the taste of his companion. It savoured too much of the Hall and the Cottage. To be singled out as a village beauty, and addressed with the fami distinction at which she aimed; and rallying her wandering thoughts, she assumed an air of dignity, and endeavoured to resume her task. The young gentleman finding he had mistaken the subject of his attentions, and his sisters being equally disappointed in theirs, the party withdrew, leaving the young people in wonder at their gauze and laces, the old at their folly and assurance. CHAPTER II. "I TOLD You," said Frederick Langley to his sister, the next morning, "I told you we should all be miserably disappointed in coming to this abominable old Hall, for you see we have neither field sports in the day, peasants dancing on the green in the evening, nor ghosts ranging through the corridor at night. How, in the name of ennui, do you mean to exist ?" "Heaven only knows how Pa, and Ma, and Susan will exist," replied Julia; "but for my part, I am going out to sketch, when the dew is off the grass; and then you know, Lord B-comes down to shoot in August, and your horses come on Saturday, and I am sure you will let me ride Phillis again.” "Lord B―― is a great bore," replied her brother; and it always rains on the moors, and my horses don't come till Monday, and you shall not ride Phillis, because you always spoil her paces. But come, the dew is off the grass, and I have so much that is amiable in my temper just now, that I can afford to go out with you to sketch, and cut your pencils into the bargain, provided only, you will go my way." The fact was, the young gentleman had determined, if possible, to see Anna Clare again. Had his first advances been received with the simper of a rustic coquette, it is probable that all interest about her would have ceased then, and there; but the look of wounded pride, and delicate reserve, with which she withdrew from his familiarity, combined with her beauty, to make a more lasting impression on his mind. "This is the cottage," said he, leading his sister up to the door of William Clare, for he had made out the night before, not only Anna's residence, but much of her character, and the nature of her occupation. "But where are you leading me?" asked Julia. "I know nothing of these people, what can you possibly be going to do in this sweet cottage?" ling amongst the leaves around the window, looked up with no less astonishment than she had excited. Had there even been time to recur to the affront of the preceding day, it would all have been atoned for, by the kind and polite manner in which Frederick apologised for the intrusion. He said they were strangers in search of the picturesque; who had come to solicit the assistance of Miss Clare, to point out the beauties of the surrounding scenery, hoping that her taste would enable them to select some subject for a sketch, not altogether beyond the compass of moderate powers. "I am quite a learner,” added Julia, “and if you can assist me, I shall be for ever in By this time Anna had ushered them into her little sitting room; and taking up a large portfolio with just confidence enough to show her extreme devotion to the art, spread before them her own beautiful and highly finished drawings, of such simple and rural "Leave that to me," said her brother, leading her away from the beautiful scene on which she would gladly have staid to gaze; for the cottage of William Clare had long been the envy of the surrounding neigh-debted to you." borhood. Though precisely on the same footing as the Newtons, with regard to property and rank in life, his house and garden had acquired, during the reign of Mrs. Clare, an air of taste and gentility, which his daughter was equally desirous to support. Perhaps the chief difference in the two habita-scenes, as the country around afforded; at tions was, that the windows of one had been made to open out upon a green lawn; while those of the other terminated a little more than half the length in a broad seat, on which Mary used to sit and read to her father, when the children were asleep and all was quiet within and without. Each had their parlour of high and low degree, but the Clares trod always on a carpet, and Anna had her paintings, her guitar, her album, and her books, placed with studied negligence about the room, so as to give it a totally different character from even the best parlour of the Newtons. Anna was at this moment practising an air which had lately caught her fancy, and accompanying it with a low and simple voice, which, though altogether untutored in scientific rules, was sufficiently attractive from its natural sweetness, to arrest the attention of the curious intruders; who, having advanced to the open window, stood in delighted astonishment gazing upon the lovely songstress; while Anna, startled by a rust the same time apologising for their want of interest, by saying that she had never been far from her native country, or seen any of the great and magnificent features of nature. For a few moments the woman gave place to the artist, and she went on with enthusiasm, "I sometimes think, that if heaven has a blessing in store for me, it must be, that I shall gaze on the blue sky of Italy!" But the eyes of Frederick Langley, fixed upon her earnest countenance, brought back every latent spark of womanly feeling, and not even the rapturous expressions of his sister, as she turned over the drawings, could again wean her from the consciousness that she was a genius, and a beauty, in the act of entertaining high born and fashionable guests. "And you paint too," exclaimed Julia, looking up at a picture in which the artist had given to the subject of one of the drawings the vivid colouring of a masterly hand, and a warm imagination. "That painting is not mine," said Anna; "yet I do paint a little, though I have prac tal beings but to sweeten those duties with a more ethereal essence, and to dignify them with a character more sublime. Above all, let us accept the additional source of enjoyment which poetry affords, not with the excitement of a transient indulgence, as an idle toy for pleasant pastime in our vacant hours, but with gratitude and humble reverence towards the Giver of every good and perfect gift, as a rich and gracious blessing, whose high purpose is to promote the intellectual happiness of man, and the glory of his Crea tor. THE END. OF PRIVATE LIFE. BY MRS. ELLIS, AUTHOR OF "WIVES OF ENGLAND," ETC. "Would you judge of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of pleasure, take this rule: whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off the relish of spiritual things;-in short, whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind, that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may be in itself." AUTHOR'S EDITION, COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME. NEW YORK: J. & H. G. LANGLEY, 8 ASTOR HOUSE. 1845. |