energy altogether contagious. Everybody has some particular point on which they pique themselves; generally something which ill deserves the pride bestowed upon it. Richard Malpas particularly prided himself on never having stooped to conciliate the relations, who had both felt, and very openly expressed, the anger of disappointed hope on his marriage. His brother had lived and died in his father's shop: perhaps, as his discarded relative formed no part of his accounts, he had forgotten his very existence. On his death, shop and property were left to his sister Hester; or, as she was now called, Mrs. Hester Malpas. After a few years, during which she declared that she was cheated by everybody, though it must be confessed that the year's balance told a different story every Christmas,-she sold her interest in the shop, and, retiring to a small house in the same street, resolved on making her old age comfortable. It is very hard to give up a favourite weak point; but to this sister Mr. Malpas at length resolved on applying for assistance; -he had at least the satisfaction of keeping the step a secret from his wife. Hester was his confidant,-Hester the sole admirer of "his beautiful letter." Hester put it in the post-office; and Hester kept up his hopes by her own; and Hester went every day, even before it was possible an answer could arrive, to ask, " Any letter for my father?" for Mr. Malpas, fearing, in spite of his sanguine confidant, the probability of a refusal, had resolved that the letter should not be directed to his own house. Any domestic triumph, that the advice of writing, so often urged, had been taken too late, was by this means averted.

The day of the actual return of post passed, and brought no answer; but the next day saw Hester flying with breathless speed towards the little fir-tree copse, where her father awaited her coming. She held a letter in her hand. Mr. Malpas snatched it from her. He at once

perceived that it was double, and post-paid. This gave him courage to open it, and the first thing he saw was the half of a bank-note for twenty pounds. To Hester this seemed inexhaustible riches; and even to her father it was a prodigious sum. For the first time she saw the tears stand in his eyes.

"Read it, child," said he, in a broken voice. Hester kissed him, and was silent for a moment, and then proceeded with her task. The hand-writing was stiff, ugly, and legible; though the letters rather resembled the multiplication-table than the alphabet. The epistle ran as follows:

"Dear Brother,—Received yours on the 16th instant, and reply on the 18th; the delay of one post being caused by getting a Bank of England note. I send one half for safety, and the other will be sent to-morrow. They can then be pasted neatly together. I sha'n't go back to old grievances, as your folly has been its own punishment. If people will be silly enough to marry, they must take the consequences. You say that your eldest daughter is named after me. Send her up to town and I will provide for her. It will be one mouth less to feed. You may count on the same sum (twenty pounds) yearly. I shall send directions about Hester's coming up, in my next letter.

"Your affectionate sister, HESTEr Malpas."

Poor Hester gasped for breath when she came to her own name. Dec.-VOL. XXXIX. NO. CLVI.

2 H

Even her glad temper sank at the bare idea of a separation from her parents.

"Me, father!" exclaimed she; "oh what will my mother say No; as she always does to anything I propose," said her father. To this Hester made no reply. She had long felt silence was the only answer to such exclamations. For once, like her father, Hester dreaded to return home. "Is it possible," thought she, we can be taking so much money home so slowly?" and she loitered even more than her father. Hester had yet to learn that no earthly advantage comes without its drawback. At length the silence was broken, and Hester listened with conviction, and a good fit of crying, to the many advantages her whole family were to derive from her adoption by her aunt. Still, "What will my mother say?" was the only answer she could give.

When we expect the worst, it never happens. Mrs. Malpas caught at the idea of Hester's going to town with an eagerness which inflicted on poor Hester the severest pang she had ever known. "And is my mother so ready to part with me?" was a very bitter thought. Still, if she could have read that mother's heart, she would have been comforted. It was the excess of affection that made the sacrifice easy. All the belief in the sovereign power of a pretty face, -all the imagination which Mrs. Malpas had long ceased to exercise for herself,—were exerted for her daughter. Like all people who have lived their whole life in the country, she had the most unreal, the most magnificent ideas of London. Once there, and Hester's future fortune was certain. Besides, she had another reason, which, however, from the want of confidence which ran through the whole family, she kept to herself. There was a certain handsome youth, the son of a neighbouring farmer, between whom and Hester she thought the more distance the better. She had suffered too much from a love-match herself to entertain the least kindness towards such a step. The faults we ourselves commit are always those to which we are most unforgiving. Hester herself had never thought about what the feeling was which made her blush whenever she met Frank Horton. No girl ever does. It was shyness, not deception, that made her avoid even the mention of his name. The word love had never passed between them. Still the image of her early playmate was very frequent amid the regrets with which she regarded leaving her native place. The next day brought the second letter from Mrs. Hester Malpas. It contained the other half of the bank-note; and as it never seemed to have crossed the good lady's mind that there could be an objection to her proposed adoption, she had made every arrangement for her journey the following week. She had taken her place in the coach, stated her intention of meeting her at the inn, and hoped that she worked well at her needle. There was little preparation to be made. Her aunt had said, " that she could come with only the clothes on her back," and she was taken very nearly at her word.

The evening before her departure, she went for a solitary walk, lingering amid all her old favourite haunts. Her spirits were worn out and dejected. It jarred cruelly upon her affectionate temper to find that her absence was matter of rejoicing to her whole family. The children, naturally enough, connected Hester's departure with the new indulgences, the result of their aunt's gift; and childhood is as selfish

from thoughtlessness as age is from calculation. Her parents merged in the future that present which weighed so heavily upon poor Hester. She was stooping, with tearful eyes, to gather some wild flowers in the hedge, when Frank Horton, who had joined her unperceived, gathered them for her.

"And so, Hester, you are going to London, and will soon forget all your old friends." Hester had no voice to assure him that she should not. Her silence gave her companion the better opportunity of expressing his regrets, doubly touching to the affectionate girl, who had just been thinking that her departure was lamented by no one. Hester's heart was so full of love and sorrow, that it was impossible for some not to fall to his share; and they parted, if not with a positive promise, yet with a hope that their future life would, in some way or other, be connected together.

It was a sleepless night with the young traveller; and she awoke from a confused dream, which blended together familiar objects in a thousand fantastic combinations. She wakened up suddenly, and the first object on which her eyes opened was her mother, the mother she had thought almost unkind,-seated weeping by the bedside. Not all Mrs. Malpas's brilliant visions of the future could console, when it came to the actual parting. She bent over the fair and innocent face which looked so child-like asleep, in an agony of fear and love. Tomorrow, and the music of that ready footstep would be silent in their house,-to-morrow, and those sweet eyes would no more meet her own with their peculiar bright, yet watchful look. A little corded box was on the floor; she turned away from it, and burst into tears. It was the last suppressed sob that had roused her daughter. In a moment Hester was up, and weeping on her mother's neck; and yet, sad as were the tears, they were pleasant when compared with those with which she had cried herself to sleep.

It was later than they had supposed; and the sound of the church clock striking five made them start; and Hester, with a trembling hand, began to dress. In half an hour the London coach would pass, and there were some fields between them and the high-road. This last half hour showed Hester how truly she was beloved. The youngest child neglected the breakfast; and while her father pressed her to eat, he could not eat himself. All felt movement a relief,—all accompanied her to the gate where they were to wait for the coming stage. They had scarcely reached the road, when the guard's horn was heard in the distance. The coach appeared, it stopped,-Hester took her place behind, and again the horses were at full speed. The young traveller looked back; but her head was dizzy with the rapid and unaccustomed motion. The little group, that stood watching, swam before her sight. Still she saw them, and she did not feel quite alone. Tears shut them out,—she took her handkerchief; it was raised scarce an instant, but a rapid turn in the road shut them out from her lingering and longing

gaze.

The guard, under whose especial charge she had been placed, did his best to console her; but found the attempt vain, and as he had children of his own, thought it all very proper that a daughter should cry at parting with her parents. He left her to the full indulgence of her tears. Nothing could well be more dreary than the journey was to poor

Hester. The bright morning soon clouded over, and a small, drizzling rain covered every object that might have diverted her attention, with a thick, dull mist. Such a sad and monotonous day leaves nothing to tell; and Hester found herself bewildered, cold, tired, hungry, and wretched, in the inn-yard where the coach stopped. Such a scene of confusion had never before met her sight; and she stood hopeless and frightened precisely in the place where the guard had helped her to alight, without an idea, or even a care, of what would happen to her next. She was roused by some one at her elbow inquiring " for the young woman that Mrs. Hester Malpas expected ;" and in a moment the guard had consigned her to the care of a stranger. It was a neighbour whom her aunt had sent to meet her. Mr. Lowndes asked her how she did, received no answer, made up his mind that she was stupid and shy, considered that to talk was no part of his agreement with Mrs. Malpas, and hurried along the streets as fast as possible. The noise, the multitude of houses, the haste, the silence, made poor Hester's heart die within her. She felt indeed that she was come to a strange land, and grew more and more wretched at every narrow street through which they passed. At length her conductor stopped at a door. Hester started at the sound of the knocker. She was astonished at her guide's audacity in making such a noise, though, Heaven knows, it was but tame, meagre sort of rap after all.

"I have brought your niece safe," said Mr. Lowndes; "and good night in a hurry."

Co Won't you walk in and have some supper?" said a voice so harsh that it gave an invitation the sound of a dismissal.

"No, no; some other night. I and my mistress will look in together."

Hester was sorry to part with him; she felt so desolate, that even the companionship of half an hour was something like a claim to an acquaintance.

"Come in, child," said the same forbidding voice; and a hand laid upon her arm conducted her into a small but comfortable-looking parlour. The light cheered, the warmth revived, but still Hester could not muster resolution enough to look up.

"Can't the girl speak ?"

Hester tried to murmur some inarticulate sounds, but gave up the attempt in despair and tears.

"Poor thing! come, take a seat; you will be better after supper." And the old lady began to bustle about, and scold the servant for not bringing in the supper before it was possible.

"Take off your bonnet."

Hester obeyed; and the readiness with which this slight act was performed, together, perhaps, with the trace of crying very visible on the face, had a favourable effect on her hostess, who parted her hair on her forehead, and said, with much kindness of manner, "Your hair is the colour mine used to be-scarcely, I think, so long;-I used to be celebrated for my head of hair." And the complacency with which the elderly dame reverted to the only personal grace she had ever possessed diffused itself over her whole manner. Hester now looked at her aunt, who was the very reverse of what she had imagined: she had always thought she would be like her father, and fancied a tall, dark, and hand

some face. No such thing. Mrs. Hester Malpas was near sixty (her niece had left age quite out of her calculation), and was little, thin, harsh-featured, and of that whole sharp and shrewish appearance so often held to be the characteristic of singlehood. She was, however, very kind to her young guest-only once spoke to her rather sharply for not eating the nice supper which she had provided, observing "that now-a-days young people were so whimsical;" adding, however, immediately afterwards, "Poor thing! I dare say you are thinking of home.” She lighted Hester herself to the little room which she was henceforth to consider her own, and bade her good night, saying, "I am a very early person, but never mind about to-morrow morning-I have no doubt you will be very sleepy." And certainly Hester's head was scarcely on her pillow before she was asleep.

Never was change so complete as that which now took place in Hester's life. Nothing could be more dull, more monotonous, than her existence ;—the history of one day might serve for all. They rose very early;-people who have nothing to do always make the day as long as possible-they breakfasted-the same eternal two rolls, and a plate of thin bread and butter. After some time Hester was intrusted with the charge of washing the breakfast-things-a charge of no small importance, considering that her aunt regarded those small china teacups as the apple of her eye: then she read aloud the chapters and psalms of the day-then sat down to some task of interminable needleworkthen dinner-then (after a few weeks' residence had convinced Mrs. Malpas that her niece required exercise and might be trusted) she was allowed to walk for two hours-then came tea-the cups were washed again-then the work-basket was resumed-and Mrs. Hester told long stories of her more juvenile days-stories which, however, differed strangely from those treasured up by most elderly gentlewomen, whose memory is most tenacious of former conquests; but the reminiscences in which Mrs. Hester delighted to indulge were of the keen bargains she had driven, and the fortunate sales which she had effected. Had she talked of her feelings, Hester, like most girls, would have listened with all the patience of interest. An unhappy attachment is irresistible to the imagination of eighteen; but with these tender and arithmetical recollections it was impossible for any young woman to sympathize;however, she listened very patiently-supper came at nine-and they I went to bed at ten. Sometimes a neighbour of Mrs. Malpas's own standing dropped in, and everything on the table was, if possible, found more fault with than usual. The truth was that Mrs. Hester Malpas had the best heart and the worst temper in the world, and she made the one an excuse for the other. Hester was grateful, and thought she was content-while her constant attention to her aunt's slightest wish, the unvarying sweetness of her temper, won upon the old woman more than she would have acknowledged, even to herself. She scolded her, it is true, because she scolded every body; but she felt a really strong affection for her, which showed itself in increasing kindness to her family; and scarcely a month passed without some useful present, and which Hester had the pleasure of packing, directing, and sending off by the very coach which had brought herself to London. That dreary and terrible inn-yard was now connected with her pleasanter moments. Still this was but a weary life for a girl of nineteen, and Hester's sweet laugh