CHAPTER XXIX.

"Unthought of frailties cheat us in the wise; The fool lies hid in inconsistencies."

POPE.

SUCH were the female members of the family to whom Mary was about to be introduced. In her mother's heart she had no place, for of her absent husband and neglected daughter she seldom thought; and their letters were scarcely read, and rarely answered. Even good Miss Grizzy's elaborate epistle, in which were curiously entwined the death of her brother and the birth and christening of her grand-nephew, in a truly Gordian manner, remained disentangled. Had her Ladyship only read to the middle of the seventh page she would have learned the indisposition of her daughter, with the various opinions thereupon; but poor Miss Grizzy's labours were vain, for her letter remains a dead letter to this day. Mrs. Douglas was therefore the first to convey the unwelcome intelligence, and to suggest to the mind of the mother that her alienated daughter still retained some claims upon her care and affection; and although this was done with all the tenderness and delicacy of a gentle and enlightened mind, it called forth the most bitter indignation from Lady Juliana.

She almost raved at what she termed the base ingrat.i.tude and hypocrisy of her sister-in-law. After the sacrifice she had made in giving up her child to her when she had none of her own, it was a pretty return to send her back only to die. But she saw through it. She did not believe a word of the girl's silliness; that was a trick to get rid of her. Now they had a child of their own, they had no use for hers; but she was not to be made a fool of in such a way, and by such people, etc. etc.

"If Mrs. Douglas is so vile a woman," said the provoking Lady Emily, "the sooner my cousin is taken from her the better."

"You don't understand these things, Emily," returned her aunt impatiently.

"What things?"

"The trouble and annoyance it will occasion me to take charge of the girl at this time."

"Why at this time more than at any other?"

"Absurd, my dear! how can you ask so foolish a question? Don't you know that you and Adelaide are both to bring out this winter, and how can I possibly do you justice with a dying girl upon my hands?"

"I thought you suspected it was all a trick," continued the persecuting Lady Emily.

"So I do; I haven't the least doubt of it. The whole story is the most improbable stuff I ever heard."

"Then you will have less trouble than you expect."

"But I hate to be made a dupe of, and imposed upon by low cunning. If Mrs. Douglas had told me candidly she wished me to take the girl, I would have thought nothing of it; but I can't bear to be treated like a fool."

"I don't see anything at all unbecoming in Mrs. Douglas's treatment."

"Then what can I do with a girl who has been educated in Scotland? She must be vulgar--all Scotchwomen are so. They have red hands and rough voices; they yawn, and blow their noses, and talk, and laugh loud, and do a thousand shocking things. Then, to hear the Scotch brogue--oh, heavens! I should expire every time she opened her mouth!"

"Perhaps my sister may not speak so _very_ broad," kindly suggested Adelaide in her sweetest accents.

"You are very good, my love, to think so; but n.o.body can live in that odious country without being infected with its _patois._ I really thought I should have caught it myself; and Mr. Douglas" (no longer Henry) "became quite gross in his language after living amongst his relations."

"This is really too bad," cried Lady Emily indignantly. "If a person speaks sense and truth, what does it signify how it is spoken? And whether your Ladyship chooses to receive your daughter here or not, I shall at any rate invite my cousin to my father's house." And, s.n.a.t.c.hing up a pen, she instantly began a letter to Mary.

Lady Juliana was highly incensed at this freedom of her niece; but she was a little afraid of her, and therefore, after some sharp altercation, and with infinite violence done to her feelings, she was prevailed upon to write a decently civil sort of a letter to Mrs. Douglas, consenting to receive her daughter for a _few months;_ firmly resolving in her own mind to conceal her from all eyes and ears while she remained, and to return her to her Scotch relations early in the summer.

This worthy resolution formed, she became more serene and awaited the arrival of her daughter with as much firmness as could reasonably have been expected.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

"And for unfelt imaginations They often feel a world of restless cares."

SHAKESPEARE.

LITTLE weened the good ladies of Glenfern the ungracious reception their _protegee_ was likely to experience from her mother; for, in spite of the defects of her education, Mary was a general favourite in the family; and however they might solace themselves by depreciating her to Mrs. Douglas, to the world in general, and their young female acquaintances in particular, she was upheld as an epitome of every perfection above and below the sun. Had it been possible for them to conceive that Mary could have been received with anything short of rapture, Lady Juliana's letter might in some measure have opened the eyes of their understanding; but to the guileless sisters it seemed everything that was proper. Sorry for the necessity Mrs. Douglas felt under of parting with her adopted daughter, was "prettily expressed;"

had no doubt it was merely a slight nervous affection, "was kind and soothing;" and the a.s.surance, more than once repeated, that her friends might rely upon her being returned to them in the course of a very few months, "showed a great deal of feeling and consideration." But as their minds never maintained a just equilibrium long upon any subject, but, like falsely adjusted scales, were ever hovering and vibrating at either extreme, so they could not rest satisfied in the belief that Mary was to be happy; there must be something to counteract that stilling sentiment; and that was the apprehension that Mary would be spoilt. This, for the present, was the pendulum of their imaginations.

"I declare, Mary, my sisters and I could get no sleep last night for thinking of you," said Miss Grizzy; _"we_ are all certain that Lady Juliana especially, but indeed all your English relations, will think so much of you--from not knowing you, you know--which will be quite natural. I'm sure that my sisters and I have taken it into our heads--but I hope it won't be the case, as you have a great deal of good sense of your own--that they will quite turn your head."

"Mary's head is on her shoulders to little purpose," followed up Miss Jacky, "if she can't stand being made of when she goes amongst strangers; and she ought to know by this time that a mother's partiality is no proof of a child's merit."

"You hear that, Mary," rejoined Miss Grizzy; "so I'm sure I hope you won't mind a word that your mother says to you, I mean about yourself; for of course you know she can't be such a good judge of you as us, who have known you all your life. As to other things, I daresay she is very well informed about the country, and politics, and these sort of things--I'm certain Lady Juliana knows a great deal."

"And I hope, Mary, you will take care and not get into the daadlin'

handless ways of the English women," said Miss Nicky; "I wouldn't give a pin for an Englishwoman."

"And I hope you will never look at an Englishman, Mary," said Miss Grizzy, with equal earnestness; "take my word for it they are a very dissipated, unprincipled set. They all drink, and game, and keep race-horses; and many of them, I'm told, even keep play-actresses; so you may think what it would be for all of us if you were to marry any of them,"--and tears streamed from the good spinster's eyes at the bare supposition of such a calamity.

"Don't be afraid, my dear aunt," said Mary, with a kind caress; "I shall come back to you your own 'Highland Mary.' No Englishman with his round face and trim meadows shall ever captivate me. Heath covered hills and high cheek-bones are the charms that must win my heart."

"I'm delighted to hear you say so, my dear Mary," said the literal-minded Grizzy. "Certainly nothing can be prettier than the heather when it's in flower; and there is something very manly--n.o.body can dispute that--in high cheek-bones; and besides, to tell you a secret, Lady Maclaughlan has a husband in her eye for you. We none of us can conceive who it is, but of course he must be suitable in every respect; for you know Lady Maclaughlan has had three husbands herself; so of course she must be an excellent judge of a good husband."

"Or a bad one," said Mary, "which is the same thing. Warning is as good as example."

Mrs. Douglas's ideas and those of her aunt, did not coincide upon this occasion more than upon most others. In her sister-in-Iaw's letter she flattered herself she saw only fashionable indifference; and she fondly hoped that would soon give way to a tenderer sentiment, as her daughter became known to her. At any rate it was proper that Mary should make the trial, and whichever way it ended, it must be for her advantage.

"Mary has already lived too long in these mountain solitudes," thought she; "her ideas will become romantic, and her taste fastidious. If it is dangerous to be too early initiated into the ways of the world, it is perhaps equally so to live too long secluded from it. Should she make herself a place in the heart of her mother and sister it will be so much happiness gained; and should it prove otherwise, it will be a lesson learnt--a hard one indeed! but hard are the lessons we must all learn in the school of life!" Yet Mrs. Douglas's fort.i.tude almost failed her as the period of separation approached.

It had been arranged by Lady Emily that a carriage and servants should meet Mary at Edinburgh, whither Mr. Douglas was to convey her.

The cruel moment came; and mother, sister, relations, friends,--all the bright visions which Mary's sanguine spirit had conjured up to soften the parting pang, all were absorbed in one agonising feeling, one overwhelming thought. Oh, who that for the first time has parted from the parent whose tenderness and love were entwined with our earliest recollections, whose sympathy had soothed our infant sufferings, whose fondness had brightened our infant felicity;--who that has a heart, but must have felt it sink beneath the anguish of a first farewell! Yet bitterer still must be the feelings of the parent upon committing the cherished object of their cares and affections to the stormy ocean of life. When experience points to the gathering cloud and rising surge which soon may a.s.sail their defenceless child, what can support the mother's heart but trust in Him whose eye slumbereth not, and whose power extendeth over all? It was this pious hope, this holy confidence, that enabled this more than mother to part from her adopted child with a resignation which no earthly motive could have imparted to her mind. It seems almost profanation to mingle with her elevated feelings the coa.r.s.e yet simple sorrows of the aunts, old and young, as they clung around the nearly lifeless Mary, each tendering the parting gift they had kept as a solace for the last.

Poor Miss Grizzy was more than usually incoherent as she displayed "a nice new umbrella that could be turned into a nice walking-stick, or anything;" and a dressing-box, with a little of everything in it; and, with a fresh burst of tears, Mary was directed where she would _not_ find eye-ointment, and where she was _not_ to look for sticking-plaister.

Miss Jacky was more composed as she presented a flaming copy of Fordyce's Sermons to Young Women, with a few suitable observations; but Miss Nicky could scarcely find voice to tell that the _housewife_ she now tendered had once been Lady Girnchgowl's, and that it contained Whitechapel needles of every size and number. The younger ladies had clubbed for the purchase of a large locket, in which was enshrined a lock from each subscriber, tastefully arranged by the----- jeweller, in the form of a wheat sheaf upon a blue ground. Even old Donald had his offering, and, as he stood tottering at the chaise door, he contrived to get a "bit snishin mull" laid on Mary's lap, with a "G.o.d bless her bonny face, an'may she ne'er want a good sneesh!"

The carriage drove off, and for a while Mary's eyes were closed in despair.

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

"Farewell to the mountains, high covered with snow; Farewell to the straths, and green valleys below; Farewell to the forests, and wild hanging woods, Farewell to the torrents, and loud roaring floods!"

_Scotch Song._

HAPPILY in the moral world as in the material one the warring elements have their prescribed bounds, and "the flood of grief decreaseth when it can swell no higher;" but it is only by retrospection we can bring ourselves to believe in this obvious truth. The young and untried heart hugs itself in the bitterness of its emotions, and takes a pride in believing that its anguish can end but with its existence; and it is not till time hath almost steeped our senses in forgetfulness that we discover the mutability of all human pa.s.sions.

But Mary left it not to the slow hand of time to subdue in some measure the grief that swelled her heart. Had she given way to selfishness, she would have sought the free indulgence of her sorrow as the only mitigation of it; but she felt also for her uncle. He was depressed at parting with his wife and child, and he was taking a long and dreary journey entirely upon her account. Could she therefore be so selfish as to add to his uneasiness by a display of her sufferings? No--she would strive to conceal it from his observation, though to overcome it was impossible. Her feelings must ever remain the same, but, she would confine them to her own breast; and she began to converse with and even strove to amuse, her kindhearted companion. Ever and anon indeed a rush of tender recollections came across her mind, and the soft voice and the bland countenance of her maternal friend seemed for a moment present to her senses; and then the dreariness and desolation that succeeded as the delusion vanished, and all was stillness and vacuity! Even self-reproach shot its piercing sting into her ingenuous heart; levities on which, in her usual gaiety of spirit, she had never bestowed a thought, now appeared to her as crimes of the deepest dye. She thought how often she had slighted the counsels and neglected the wishes of her gentle monitress; how she had wearied of her good old aunts, their cracked voices, and the everlasting _tic-a-tic_ of their knitting needles; how coa.r.s.e and vulgar she had sometimes deemed the younger ones; how she had mimicked Lady Maclaughlan, and caricatured Sir Sampson, and "even poor dear old Donald," said she, as she summed up the catalogue of her crimes, "could not escape my insolence and ill-nature. How clever I thought it to sing 'Haud awa frae me, Donald,' and how affectedly I shuddered at everything he touched;" and the "sneeshin mull" was bedewed with tears of affectionate contrition. But every painful sentiment was for a while suspended in admiration of the magnificent scenery that was spread around them. Though summer had fled, and few even of autumn's graces remained, yet over the august features of mountain scenery the seasons have little control. Their charms depend not upon richness of verdure, or luxuriance of foliage, or any of the mere prettinesses of nature; but whether wrapped in snow, or veiled in mist, or glowing in sunshine, their lonely grandeur remains the same; and the same feelings fill and elevate the soul in contemplating these mighty works of an Almighty hand. The eye is never weary in watching the thousand varieties of light and shade, as they flit over the mountain and gleam upon the lake; and the ear is satisfied with the awful stillness of nature in her solitude.