Abbeychurch - Charlotte M. Yonge (best classic literature .txt) 📗

bad word was," only it was tuned to holy things. She always knew what was going on in church, and by her eager attention learnt to do everything in school; and when her deafness was increased by her fever, and she could not hear her mother's and sisters' voices, she could follow the prayers Papa read, the delirium fled away from them. Oh! it is a blessing and a privilege to have been near such a girl; but then--though the last thing she said was to desire her sisters to be good girls and keep to their church and school--she would have been the same, have had the same mind, without our teaching--our mere school-keeping, I mean. Aunt Anne, you say you have kept school in your village for thirty years; you were just in my situation, the clergyman's daughter; so do tell me what effect your teaching has had as regards the children of your first set of girls. Are they better managed at home than their mothers?'

'More civilized and better kept at school, otherwise much the same,' said Lady Merton. 'Yes, my experience is much the same as yours; comparatively few of those I have watched from their childhood have done thoroughly well, and their good conduct has been chiefly owing to their parents. Some have improved and returned to do right, perhaps partly in consequence of their early teaching.'

'Sad work, sad work, after all!' said Elizabeth, as she left the room to finish hearing the little ones, and release Mrs. Woodbourne.

'And yet,' said Helen, as the door closed, 'no one is so happy at school as Lizzie, or delights more in the children, or in devising pleasure for them.'

'I never shall understand Lizzie,' said Anne, with a kind of sigh; 'who would have suspected her of such desponding feelings? and I cannot believe it is so bad an affair. How can it be, taking those dear little things fresh from their baptism, training them with holy things almost always before them, their minds not dissipated by all kinds of other learning, like ours.'

'I do not know that that is quite the best thing, though in a degree it is unavoidable,' said her mother.

'So I was thinking,' said Helen; 'I think it must make religious knowledge like a mere lesson; I know that is what Lizzie dreads, and they begin the Bible before they can read it well.'

'But can it, can it really be so melancholy? will all those bright-faced creatures, who look so earnest and learn so well, will they turn their backs upon all that is right, all they know so well?' said poor Anne, almost ready to cry. 'O Mamma, do not tell me to think so.'

'No, no, you need not, my dear,' said Lady Merton; 'it would be grievous and sinful indeed to say any such things of baptized Christians, trained up by the Church. The more you love them, and the more you hope for them, the better. You will learn how to hope and how to fear as you grow older.'

'But I have had as much experience as Lizzie,' said Anne; 'I am but a month younger, and school has been my Sunday delight ever since I can remember; Mamma, I think the Abbeychurch people must be very bad--you see they keep shop on Sunday; but then you spoke of our own people. It must have been my own careless levity that has prevented me from feeling like Lizzie; but I cannot believe--'

'You have not been the director of the school for the last few years, as Lizzie has,' said Lady Merton; 'the girls under your own protection are younger, their trial is hardly begun.'

'I am afraid I shall be disheartened whenever I think of them,' said Anne; 'I wish you had not said all this--and yet--perhaps--if disappointment is really to come, I had better be prepared for it.'

'Yes, you may find this conversation useful, Anne,' said Lady Merton; 'if it is only to shew you why I have always tried to teach you self-control in your love of the school.'

'I know I want self-control when I let myself be so engrossed in it as to neglect other things,' said Anne; 'and I hope I do manage now not to shew more favour to the girls I like best, than to the others; but in what other way do you mean, Mamma?'

'I mean that you must learn not to set your heart upon individual girls, or plans which seem satisfactory at first,' said Lady Merton; 'disappointment will surely be sent in some form or other, to try your faith and love; and if you do not learn to fear now that your hopes are high, you will hardly have spirit enough left to persevere cheerfully when failure has taught you to mistrust yourself.'

'I know that I must be disappointed if I build upon schemes or exertions of my own,' said Anne; 'but I should be very conceited--very presumptuous, I mean--to do so, and I hope I never shall.'

'I cannot think how you, or anybody who thinks like you, can ever undertake to keep school,' said Helen; 'I never saw how awful a thing it is, before; not merely hearing lessons, and punishing naughty children, I am sure I dread it now; I would have nothing to do with it if Papa did not wish it, and so make it my duty.'

'Nobody would teach the children at all if they thought like you, Helen,' said Anne; 'and then what would become of them?' 'People who are not fit often do teach them, and is not that worse than nothing?' said Helen; 'I should think irreverence and false doctrine worse than ignorance.'

'Certainly,' said Lady Merton; 'and happy it is, that, as in your case, Helen, the duty of obedience, or some other equally plain, teaches us when to take responsibility upon ourselves and when to shrink from it.'

'I must say,' said Anne, 'I cannot recover from hearing Mamma and Lizzie talk of their "little victims," just in Gray's tone.'

'No,' said Lady Merton; 'I only say,

"If thou wouldst reap in love,
First sow in holy fear."'


CHAPTER XIII.

On Monday morning, as soon as breakfast was over, Elizabeth and Katherine went to the school to receive the penny-club money, and to change the lending library books. They were occupied in this manner for about half an hour; and on their return, Elizabeth went to Mrs. Woodbourne's dressing-room, to put away the money, and to give her an account of her transactions. While she was so employed, her father came into the room with a newspaper in his hand.

'Look here, Mildred,' said he, laying it down on the table before his wife, 'this is what Walker has just brought me.'

Mrs. Woodbourne glanced at the paragraph he pointed out, and exclaimed, 'O Lizzie! this is a sad thing!'

Elizabeth advanced, she grew giddy with dismay as she read as follows:

'On Friday last, a most interesting and instructive lecture on the Rise and Progress of the Institution of Chivalry was delivered at the Mechanics' Institute, in this city, by Augustus Mills, Esq. This young gentleman, from whose elegant talents and uncommon eloquence we should augur no ordinary career in whatever profession may be honoured with his attention, enlarged upon the barbarous manners of the wild untutored hordes among whom the proud pageantry of pretended faith, false honour, and affected punctilio, had its rise. He traced it through its gilded course of blood and carnage, stripped of the fantastic and delusive mantle which romance delights to fling over its native deformity, to the present time, when the general civilization and protection enjoyed in this enlightened age, has left nought but the grim shadow of the destructive form which harassed and menaced our trembling ancestors. We are happy to observe that increasing attendance at the Mechanics' Institute of Abbeychurch, seems to prove that the benefits of education are becoming more fully appreciated by all classes. We observed last Friday, at the able lecture of Mr. Mills, among a numerous assemblage of the distinguished inhabitants and visitors of Abbeychurch, Miss Merton, daughter of Sir Edward Merton, of Merton Hall, Baronet, together with the fair and accomplished daughters of the Rev. H. Woodbourne, our respected Vicar.'

'I shall certainly contradict it,' continued Mr. Woodbourne, while Elizabeth was becoming sensible of the contents of the paragraph; 'I did not care what Higgins chose to any of my principles, but this is a plain fact, which may be believed if it is not contradicted.'

'O Mamma, have not you told him?' said Elizabeth faintly.

'What, do you mean to say that this is true?' exclaimed Mr. Woodbourne, in a voice which sounded to Elizabeth like a clap of thunder.

'Indeed, Papa,' said she, once looking up in his face, and then bending her eyes on the ground, while the colour in her checks grew deeper and deeper; 'I am sorry to say that it is quite true, that we did so very wrong and foolishly as to go. Helen and Lucy alone were sensible and strong-minded enough to refuse to go.'

Mr. Woodbourne paced rapidly up and down the room, and Elizabeth plainly saw that his displeasure was great.

'But, Mr. Woodbourne,' said her mamma, 'she did not know that it was wrong. Do you not remember that she was not at home at the time that Socialist was here? and I never told her of all that passed then. You see it was entirely my fault.'

'Oh! no, no, Mamma, do not say so!' said Elizabeth; 'it was entirely mine. I was led away by my foolish eagerness and self-will, I was bent on my own way, and cast aside all warnings, and now I see what mischief I have done. Cannot you do anything to repair it, Papa? cannot you say that it was all my doing, my wilfulness, my carelessness of warning, my perverseness?'

'I wish I had known it before,' said Mr. Woodbourne, 'I could at least have spoken to Mr. Turner on Saturday, and prevented the Mertons' name from appearing.'

'I did not tell you because I had no opportunity,' said Mrs. Woodbourne; 'Lizzie came and told me all, the instant she knew that she had done wrong; but I thought it would harass you, and you were so much occupied that I had better wait till all this bustle was over, but she told me everything most candidly, and would have come to you, but that Mr. Roberts was with you at the time.--My dear Lizzie, do not distress yourself so much, I am sure you have suffered a great deal.'

'O Mamma,' said Elizabeth, 'how can I ever suffer enough for such a tissue of ill-conduct? you never will see how wrong it was in me.'

'Yet, Lizzie,' said her father kindly, 'we may yet rejoice over the remembrance of this unpleasant affair, if it has made you reflect upon the faults that have led to it.'

'But what is any small advantage to my own character compared with the injury I have done?' said Elizabeth; 'I have made it appear as if you had granted the very last thing you would ever have thought of; I have led Kate and Anne into disobedience. Oh! I have done more wrongly than I ever thought I could.'

At this