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COMMON EVENTS:

A CONTINUATION OF

RICH AND POOR.

"There are but three classes f persons in this world. The first serve
God, because they have found him; the second seek him, because as yet
they have not found him; the third continue to live without either seek-
ing or finding him."
PASCAL

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD, EDINBURGH;

AND T. CADELL, LONDON.

MDCCCXXV.

HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY

THE GIFT OF

FRIENDS OF THE LIBRARY
Mvr 5,1930

EDINBURGH:

PRINTED BY JAMES BALLANTYNE AND CO.

COMMON EVENTS.

CHAPTER I.

Slander, that worst of poisons, ever finds
An easy entrance to ignoble minds.

Juvenal.

A TWICE-TOLD tale is proverbially tedious. To avoid this reproach, we shall not recapitulate those circumstances in the history of the Marquis of Vainall and his family, which have been related in a previous publication, and with which some of our readers may be already acquainted. Nor shall we detail the trivial events which marked the progress of five following years of the history of that noble house; but shall commence our present narration by stating, that, at the period at which we have now arrived, the Marquis and his family, in the

month of October, were still at Roe Park; and that Lady Amelia Truefeel, with permission of the Marchioness, had taken Amelia Bell, the daughter of Sarah of notorious memory, into the house, and meant to educate her, and confer upon her in due time the honour of becoming her own maid.

This event was ascribed by Amelia to the care and goodness of that Providence which had hitherto watched over her. The Marchioness ascribed it entirely to the manœuvring of the girl's old patroness, Mrs Miller; and the Marquis really believed it to have come about by what he termed chance or good luck.-Amelia Bell was but ten years of age when she found herself thus highly promoted; and she already evinced a very considerable aptness in acquiring the qualifications of a lady'smaid, and joyfully anticipated the time when her office would be to exercise the acts she admired so highly in the service of a mistress whom she so greatly loved and respected. Greatly, too, did she rejoice when the employments of the day were over; when Lady Amelia rang her bell; when they read together the sacred oracles of God, and mutually felt the difference of station appointed for them in this short transitory life, swallowed up in the begun and never-ending unity of Christians. Amelia Bell was yet too young to be sensible of the restraint arising from difference of stations, which is felt so strongly in more advanced years.