THE STORY-TELLER. people and things to love in the world; and perhaps to fine folks there may be my lot was different; but my sins began with children, and so did my punishment.' This was only the poor girl's talk, sir, for I could never gather that she did any harm at that time, only, I suppose, was a little heedless, like those of her age. However, her mother-in-law and she did not agree. So the father bethought himself of an expedient that pleased both parties, though Mary was best pleased of the two." An aunt of hers was settled at Bristol in the haberdashery line. Her shop drove no mighty trade; but she was an infirm single woman, and therefore not unwilling to take her niece in, as an assistant. Mary was accordingly fitted out with two new gowns; great doings, as she said, for those days, and I know not how many different ribands. For a short time she thought Bristol the finest and happiest place in the whole globe. Her aunt was not unkind to her; she herself was naturally of a gay and cheerful character, and all the new scenes around made her gayer still. But byand-by this novelty began to fade a little; and after being familiar with busy streets and close-packed houses, she could not help calling to mind the green lanes and clear river of her native place. Her greatest delight was to walk on a fine Sunday to a village not far distant, called Clifton, and to sit on the brow of the rocks. A It is intended that the STORY-TELLER shall remain a permanent department in this Miscellany; and that every week there shall be a Tale, either moral, domestic, romantic, or biographical; and also that these Tales shall be of the best kind. There would be no great difficulty in giving an original story every week, and an original story will occasionally be given; but while English, French, German, and American Literature, abound with materials of first-rate excellence, it is conceived that, in a little work of this kind, time and pains will be better bestowed in abridging, translating, and adapting these to our purpose, than in fabricating commodities which must often be so far inferior in value. It is meant, in short, to do here, on a small scale, for Tales, what the Libraries are doing for Voyages, Travels, Memoirs, and Histories; to select and condense, and bring within reasonable compass what neither ordinary purses nor ordinary leisure can reach; to do, at a humble distance, for Novels and Stories what Mr. Lamb has done for Shakspeare's Plays. This comparison These walks, however, proved very unlucky for her. is made in no vain assumption; but to give a clear notion regiment was at that time quartered at Bristol, and one of the officers took particular notice of Mary. There are strawberry of what is intended. To her task, the writer to whom this gardens, it seems in that neighbourhood, sir, where common It was at one of department of the SCHOOLMASTER is entrusted, brings a folks, and sometimes gentry, go to eat fruit. these that Captain Mandeville contrived to make a sort of acwell-stored memory, and some experience of the art of nar-quaintance with the poor girl. He was at that time about eightration. The first story may serve as a specimen of the and-twenty ; a very fine-looking man, as I understand, (for Heaplan. ven knows he was strangely altered when I saw him,) and had all the dashing air that gentlemen of the army affect. Mary's eyes were treacherous ones; for they played her heart false, and showed her this gay young officer in his best colours. He was not wanting to himself, it was very easy to find out where she resided; and Captain Mandeville soon became a great customer for ribands and feathers, which he pretended were bestowed upon recruits. Never did man enlist so many in so short a time; for by-and-by there was hardly a yard of riband left in the shop. In the meanwhile, vows, promises, letters, and presents were lavished upon Mary, though in an underhand way, you may be sure. The poor girl loved him, and he had discernment enough to perceive it ; nevertheless she was innocent and well-disposed.-I do not want to excuse her fault, sir,-it was a great one: the greater, as she herself in bitterness of heart acknowledged, because she had not been brought But what is to be said to this up in ignorance of her duty. man, sir, who saw she was no bold, nor forward creature, ready to throw herself in his way: for she has affirmed to me, and I will pledge my life she spoke truly, that she has many times shut herself up in the back shop, and avoided her accustomed walks in order to struggle with her own weak heart, and endeavour to forget him. MARY LAWSON: A STORY FOR YOUNG WOMEN. Condensed and adapted to the Schoolmaster, by Mrs. JOHNSTONE. (From the Canterbury Tales.) "Where, Mary, will you find a character ?" MRS. DIXON, the good-hearted and respectable maiden landlady of a Weymouth lodging house, sat one evening, poring over a large volume, when Mr. Atkinson entered her parlour. Though he had but very lately become her boarder, they were, from particular circumstances, already on a footing of easy intimacy. You are a great reader of your Bible," said Mr. Atkinson, as his landlady laid aside her spectacles. "Heaven forbid I should not," replied Mrs. Dixon; " but this, to my shame, is not my Bible." It was, in fact, a story-book in manuscript; and the story which I am now about to tell from it, in the Schoolmaster was that of Crasy Mary Lawson, Mrs. Dixon's old servant, or helper. In doing so, I shall use her own words as often as is possible. I could find none half so appropriate. What is to be said to him, ask? Only what he has been obliged since to say to himself: you will hear it, sir-All Mary's efforts, however, would not "She was not always old!" said the landlady: "no truly-do. To be short, sir, it was his day of triumph, and the pour nor always crazed; nay, for that matter, she is not so old now! girl became his victim. but poor thing she has had enough to craze her! Mary Lawson, Sir, was, within my memory, one of the best looking girls in Weymouth, not but that there were different opinions concerning her. Many of our lodgers used to say, that she would be pretty enough if she would open her eyes; but to my thinking there was something soft and sorrowful in them when half closed, as they generally were, that was quite out of the common way. Mary was born in a village upon the banks of the Dee, not very far from the neighbourhood of Wrexham. Her father, though he held only a small farm, lived in a very reputable way, and Mary's education was therefore not neglected." At fourteen Mary lost her mother; nor was that the greatest of her misfortunes; for her father soon married again, and as his second wife was a careless idling sort of body, the charge of a young family, which quickly came on, was left almost entirely to his eldest daughter. "I did not at that time love children," said Mary afterwards to me, "I thought them all noisy and troublesome alike. Oh, Mrs. Dixon, who could have persuaded me, young and giddy as I then was, that to sit by the cradle of a sick baby, to listen to its little moans, and to give it the bread that I wanted myself, would be a more precious employment to me than all the pleasures of the whole world besides! But I then thought there were a great many Melancholy was the change that succeeded. Captain Mandeville must have been a hard man, though Mary's partiality made her think otherwise. His heart, his pleasures, his fortune, except when he had some great object in view, were all for himself. He had no care for others; nor, for aught I could learn, had he really any for her, when his first passion had subsided. He was one of those rattling sparks, sir, who dash on in life without looking to the right or the left, through a long lane of the maimed and the blind, whom they have made so. All seemed now at the worst with Mary. She was ruined, neglected, and had reason to suppose herself in a situation that would soon render her disgrace apparent. Sometimes, as she told me, she thought with horror of being a mother. At others, the recollection of the infantine caresses of her little brothers and sisters, and of the pleasure their parents used to take in them, came to her heart; till, between that, and conscience, which began every way to afflict her, it nearly burst. To expiate the sin of having wished to leave her family, and to be sure that was but a fancied sin, she had almost res ĺved to make a voluntary sacrifice of herself, and carry back her shame and her penitence to her father's house, quitting for ever all sight of the man who had wronged her; when another idea more flattering to her passion suddenly came across her mind; for of kindness from them. Having gratified their curiosity they withdrew as haughtily as they had entered. poor Mary's remorse was, I fear, as you will see, sir, only love in disguise. Captain Mandeville had a very fine estate and house in Northumberland. It was a family mansion, and his mother, as his had entertained from the fortune, the fine education, and the serjeant, from whom alone Mary got any information concerning tender heart of a great lady!" I did flatter myself," said she, And here, sir, was an end at once to all the hopes that Mary him, had told her, resided in it. The wild project of fixing herself" that seeing me look sorrowful and sick, and having nothing to somewhere in the neighbourhood of Mandeville Park, occurred do but to comfort the sick and the sorrowful, she would have to the poor girl. Yet the great effort still remained to be taken some little compassion upon me. made; which was to resolve on separating herself for ever from then: she had no reason to think that I was a wicked one, and the only man on earth whom she loved; and to convince him, I was in circumstances when a woman ought to feel for a woI was a young creature by so doing, that though she had been frail, she was not vicious, man; yet, like the Priest and the Levite, she passed over to the nor would consent to continue the disgraceful correspondence, other side, and left me to the poor Samaritan; and this was done which, more from habitual libertinism than any particular both by the elder and the younger lady; yet they gave a great fondness, he still would have preserved. It was a long journey to Newcastle, in the neighbourhood of but they would neither tax their time nor their feelings." which lay Mandeville Park. When the poor unhappy girl first" To my thinking Mrs. Mandeville looks very sick," said the deal of money, I am told, to different charities at Newcastle; saw its outward paling, her heart, she often declared to me, died within her, as though she had at the same moment foreseen all the guilt and the sorrow that was to arise from thence. At length she came within view of the house: and, "Oh," said she," how great did he seem, and how little did Í !” "What, Mary," said I, "were you not yet cured then of judging by appearances?-Was it because he was gay and handsome, and had magnificent houses, and large parks, that he was in reality better than you? or how were you sure that in the end he would be happier ?" "Most true," she replied; "but I had sinned against my conscience, and every living being seemed greater and happier than I was at that time.' No wonder Mary was dazzled, however, sir; for I have been told since that it is a very fine house. The hall had grand marble statues in it: there was a shrubbery of I can't tell you how many acres extent, and grounds without end. A stately lawn was in front, and vast quantities of deer feeding under the trees. Then there was a library, worth I know not how much money, with painted glass windows, and curious busts. What a pity, sir, that these rich gentlemen who set up the heads of so many good and wise folks, can't get a little of their hearts! For my share, I never saw the Captain, and heard talk of his fine seats, without calling to mind the parable of Nathan and the lamb. How can it be that those who are able to command so many pleasures, can, for a temporary gratification, deprive another of their only comfort! not. usual," replied he; "she is always so pale since my knowwoman to her husband, when they were gone.- Much as turned the other." And who is Madam Selborne?" said Mary, ledge." She has Madam Selborne's own complexion," re"Why my lady's own mother. Bless you, you did not take who had concluded the stranger to be Mr. Mandeville's sister. the elderly gentlewoman for his honour's wife, to be sure;-the young one is Mrs. Mandeville." near the cradle. Lucky it was that things were so disposed; The good folks were sitting at their breakfast, and did not look at Mary as they spoke, for she was standing behind them, for she had time to lean her head down, and recover herself had never whispered to her would be any new affliction, yet from this last stroke; which, although her presumptuous heart seemed to double all that she had before felt. She now perceived the extent of Captain Mandeville's art. Mary was also near her confinement, which a fright, which Mrs. Mandeville was with child, and near her time; poor she got from seeing Mrs. Mandeville in danger of an accident, prematurely hastened. painful trial, the first thing I distinctly saw was my own dear "Oh, Mrs. Dixon," said she to me, "imagine what my sufferings were, when, after a long and baby dead: the first feelings that entered my heart were those of a mother, and of a mother without a child! to have been lodged in the cold grave, where I imagined Mrs. Mandeville, would have been happiness to what I endured." Her child did not come dead into the world, however; but it went off, almost immediately in convulsions. She had neverI am afraid poor Mary never knew what she did endure. theless an excellent constitution; and God, sir, could never intend that women should die, just when it is most necessary that they should live. Under pretence of indisposition, though indeed it could hardly be called a pretence, Mary was set down at a decent house, in the neighbourhood of the great estate. And here, what with agitation of mind and fatigue of body, she found herself really so ill as to be obliged to go to bed. Sleep, however, she could So after a restless night full of melancholy reflections, she was up with the lark, and once more on foot. I need not don't send burdens to common folk alone! there's the young tell, you, sir, which way she turned her steps. It was a clear 'Squire, as the sarvants say, wont live neither. His mother "Well," said Mary's landlady one morning, "God Almighty fresh morning. The dew lay on the grass; birds were singing won't suckle him; and the dry-nurse, as come from Durham, on every tree, and at a little distance was a fine piece of water, can't manage to make him keep life and soul together, with all with a hanging wood on one side of it, that dipped its branches her fine silver boats and new-fashioned ways. in the stream. The village where she was born, and all her Selborne says, that for self-willedness he is his father's own girlish days, came at once to the recollection of poor Mary; so leaning her head on one of the outer green gates, she relieved self that you are not the only poor soul as loses a child.' Old Madam her over-charged heart with a flood of tears. In this situation "Oh that I could save one!" said Mary, and a thought glanced son, for nothing will he swallow: so you may comfort yourshe was seen by a young woman, who observing her, I suppose, across her mind. "Will he live if he is suckled, do you say?" to make a respectable appearance, for she was in mourning for added she, impatiently? her aunt, and interested, perhaps, by her condition, very good- which you speak? Is he born?"-and then the recollection of naturedly invited her to rest herself in a house hard by. This her own words, is it Captain Mandeville's child, as though no woman was the park-keeper's wife, and the house to which she other than the heir could be his, put her into a second agony Is it Captain Mandeville's child of invited her was that in which they lived. A pretty place, with of tears. The child had indeed been born several days before, a fine honeysuckle curling all over the windows, but no comfort but it was in no way to live. It was a sickly little thing. The did the sight of it give to Mary, though it was as as a palace. There was a baby in a cradle, and a breakfast set the will, the doctors said she would not have the power; so for the husband, who was just returning home: they were neat mother never intended to nurse it herself; and if she had had young people, sir, and had not been married above a twelve- which they had all along intended to do, was like not to be month, which no doubt made them so fond of each other and reared at all. Well, sir, it does not signify going round about the poor babe, as they could not rear him with dry-nursing, to be sure the father did so caress and dandle the child! Mary's the bush: by the recommendation of the park-keeper's wife, heart was ready to burst. Every thing she saw put her in the babe was put to Mary's bosom. mind of some happiness that was past, or which she could never heartache, and many a tear, did she receive it. The poor little hope to enjoy; and she began to cry more bitterly than before. thing began from that day to gain strength, and its first smiles, Well! with much ado she made out, between whiles, the its first looks were Mary's. His mother saw him not, or With many a bitter story of her soldier husband, and supposed widowhood; blush- very rarely. ing and trembling all the while with the consciousness of deceit. But the good folks took it all for gospel. In the course of the morning two fine ladies, one old the other young, sauntered in; and superciliously questioned her, and listened to her feigned story from the park-keeper's wife. Mary knew that one was the mother, the other might be the sister of Mandeville, and she buoyed herself up with vain hopes sent for in haste, however he made none in coming; and Mrs. Mandeville, who was of a fretful temper, and a sickly before he arrived another express was despatched to inform him habit, became soon after this seriously ill, and her husband was that his wife was dead. He stopped short at York, and wrote from thence to Mrs. Selborne, requesting that she would undertake to order every thing that was suitable on the occasion, and informing her that he would be at Mandeville Park within a certain time. This was a dreadful interval for Mary. She could not resolve to stay; much less could she resolve to depart. The baby's very life seemed to depend upon her care; and neither night nor day had she ceased to watch it; and if there was a moment when she remembered with sorrow that it was not her own, she at the same time called to mind that it was Captain Mandeville's. None but a woman, sir, can tell how closely the infant creeps into your heart that lies at your bosom; and, if in common cases this is daily proved, what wonder that Mary's fondness exceeded all common measure! It had even no longer a another to excite her jealousy, or share her attentions; and the early loss which it sustained seemed to point out a particular providence in the manner by which that loss was supplied. In short, sir, love, maternal love, I think we may call it, conquered fear, shame, and every other feeling. Mary, therefore, at length resolved to stay, and encounter the man, whom, in any other circumstances, she had determined to fly to the world's end to avoid. Captain Mandeville arrived within the time appointed, just after the evening had closed. Mary heard the clattering of the horse's feet, and soon after his well-known voice and step. The many-many occasions when she had listened to them with a beating heart, interesting as they had been, were all, she thought, nothing to this. He staid some little time below with Mrs. Selborne, and then the feet of both were to be heard on the staircase. "Now," exclaimed Mary, with a palpitating heart, "now comes the trial!"—and she turned to the infant that was sleeping sweetly in its cradle." Oh, if it were my child that he was coming to look at," she softly whispered" but mine sleeps sounder still!” Mr. Mandeville came in; he neither cast his eyes to the right nor the left, but, with a candle in his hand, walked straight to the cradle, and stooping down to see the baby, kissed its little hand. "Will he wake, do you think?" said he to Mrs. Selborne, motioning to kiss its cheek." Oh, no, no, no,' ," murmured Mary, pursuing, in the anguish of her heart, nothing but her own recollections, "mine will never wake again." Mr. Mandeville started at the voice, indistinctly as it reached him, and turned towards the speaker; but she was at a remote end of the room, and the single candle which he held did not enable him to discern her features. "Who is that person," exclaimed be hastily to Mrs. Selborne, "and what is she saying?" She says that you will not disturb the child; it never wakes, I believe, at this hour." They then talked together in a low voice of its health, its age, and its mother. "You will proba bly recollect the young woman who nurses him," concluded Mrs. Selborne, after saying something which Mary did not distinctly hear." She is the widow of a private who served under you; she owes the place to your recommendation." The abashed and unfortunate girl leaned against the chimney; her eyes, which she raised only for a single moment, swimming in tears. Mr. Mandeville staid but two days longer at the Park, during which time Mary, by substituting in her own place, at certain hours, a girl who was sometimes employed as under nurserymaid, contrived that they should meet no more. She learned, however, that by means of this girl Mr. Mandeville had satisfied himself that her child was dead; and she had reason to hope that he had gathered enough information as to what related to her, to be assured that she must on this occasion have purposely shunned him. And now, after Mary had been so heavily beaten by the storm, an interval of tranquillity seemed to succeed in her life. The infant was not robust, but it daily grew stronger, and to her daily more precious. It was her care, her pleasure, her employment: it engrossed her whole soul, and by degrees, filled up all those fond affections of her heart which had no other object they could venture to dwell upon. The very circumstance of not being a strong child made it only the dearer, by furnishing a perpetual succession of hopes and fears: both were already in some sort rewarded. He began to distinguish her; would crow when she appeared; " and stretch its little arms as it would fly," when her's opened to receive him. The range of Mandeville House, with the beautiful grounds, pleasure-garden, and country adjoining, were in themselves sources both of health and delight. She enjoyed almost undisturbed possession of the whole."What more could I gain, had I been born in a rank to have become its mistress," would she sometimes say to herself, "except an ungrateful man!" Tears then would fill her eyes. "But this baby would indeed have been mine.-WellAnd could I have loved him better?" The recollection that had she been his mother she need never have feared parting with him, would again agitate her heart, and unsettle her spirits. Just in the beginning of autumn, when every thing looked full of happiness and beauty, and Mary's heart was daily more light on seeing her nursling prosper in the way he did,-dear Sir, would you believe it? One night Mr. Mandeville alighted at his own door! his coming was quite unexpected on all hands. Mary's happy days were now at an end. The woman that does wrong must, I fear, remember, sir, that she will always be exposed to suspicion. Captain Mandeville, it was plain, had no faith in after-virtue, when he had found it failing in the first instance; and although a decent respect for circumstances, or accidental indifference, had induced him to take no notice of her during his first visit to the Park, these motives had ceased to operate, and she even perceived that he suspected her of placing herself voluntarily within his reach. Humbled by this opinion, which she was unable to remove ; finding all remonstrances vain, and all efforts to avoid him useless, her life now became as miserable as it had before been tranquil. To complete ber affliction, Mrs. Selborne soon suspected that some particular pursuit detained her son-in-law at Mandeville Park, and she quickly guessed its object. How Mary passed her days in consequence of all this, you may judge, sir. Mr. Mandeville finding solicitation and allurement vain, grew insolent and troublesome; the servants sneered; the park-keeper's wife avoided her; there was no security from persecution either in the house or the grounds; and, in short, of all that had soothed or comforted her poor heart, nothing remained the same but the baby. Mary's mind began, I fear to undergo a strange revolution about this time. She grew desperate, as it were; and she has acknowledged to me that she sometimes debated with herself whether she should not accept his fine offers; for, rather than be crossed in his inclination, he did offer her liberally, sir; at others, she determined to tell the whole story to Mrs. Selborne, and throw herself upon her mercy; but against one temptation there was remorse, and a thousand other painful feelings, resulting from her experience of the selfishness and cruelty of the man ; against the other, stood the severe temper and unfeeling character of the woman. Shame, too, at the thought of being exposed and degraded in the eyes of the neighbourhood, for she feared they would judge hardly of her, made her resolve, whatever might be the consequence, to keep her own secret. No third project then remained but that of quitting the family altogether; and this she so nearly determined upon, as to collect all her little savings; so that if driven to extremities, either by the persecution of Mr. Mandeville or Mrs. Selborne, she might be able to leave the house at a moment's warning; but how was she to leave the child?-The thought of doing so was little less than a death-stroke. Well, things continued in this way till near the time when Mrs. Selborne was to quit the Park: the day was anxiously e pected by Mary. On the last but one preceding it, she had te ill-fortune to encounter Mr. Mandeville, as she was returning to the nursery from her dinner. He insisted on talking with her; which she positively refused; but finding that he prepared to follow her up stairs, she thought it better to listen to him where she was. Mrs. Selborne was abroad. All that Mr. Mandeville could offer or say on such an occasion, for it was his purpose to engage her to remain at the Park with him, may, as one should think, be easily imagined; but you would not easily imagine, sir, that, finding all other efforts fail, he should, before they parted, strive to alarm the fears of the poor girl, by indirectly threatening to publish her former misconduct. I cannot think so ill of him, or of any man, as to believe that he was in earnest; but Mary's agitated heart and distempered fancy gave credit to the worst. With what little eloquence she was mistress of, she endeavoured, it seems, to represent to him the great disadvantage her loss would prove to his child; but he treated it as a matter of no consequence. nearly weaned, and any old woman in the parish might nurse it," he said. Driven to the last extremity, she then positively declared her resolution to quit the country, and find a situation elsewhere. "The infant was "And where will you find a character?" said Mr. Mandeville, with a sneer; he had little time for more, as the old lady's chariot drove up at that moment to the door. "Remember, Mary, what I say to you;" a hint from me to Mrs. Selborne dismisses you with disgrace from the house; where I say, will you then find a character ?" It was not necessary to bid her remember the words; they were engraved in letters of fire, as it seemed to Mary, both on her heart and her brain. Where, Mary, will you find a character?" exclaimed she, as she ran up into the nursery, and mechanically took the child in her arms; for it was her hour of walking with him. "Where will you find a character ?" she continued repeating to herself, as she hurried on, without exactly knowing whither; tears, caresses, and every thing that was afflicting succeeded this tumult of resentment.-I cannot give you an exact account of what followed, sir; she could never give me one herself: but certain it is, that she continued to walk till she reached the mouth of the river; and there, meeting by ill-fortune with a small vessel bound for London, and in the very act of sailing, she got directly on board, and still carrying with her the precious child, was in a few hours many leagues out at sea.-Now comes the fearful part of Mary's life! now comes the time when she strove to whiten by comparison to use her little knowledge and experience in justifying a wicked action, and to say to herself, "Why should I alone be upright in a worthless and cruel world!" Mr. Mandeville, sir, could no longer tempt, but his influence had corrupted her, and left her exposed to the temptation within. Mary and the child escaped with-out detection, and she buried herself in London. What Mary's feelings or thoughts were during the period that succeeded, it would be difficult precisely to ascertain. She was not without money; but she had neither friends nor connexion. Industry, sir, is nevertheless a trusty auxiliary, and either finds or makes its way. By giving security, which her stock of money enabled her to do, she contrived to get employment in a small but creditable shop, not unlike that in which she had lived with her aunt: her readiness and good qualities rendered her valuable wherever she had an opportunity of making them known, as she very quickly did. Her wants were few she had neither vanity nor pleasure but in the child; and he, little fellow, grew and did well; while her excessive fondness for him made it impossible for any one to suspect that she was not its mother. He was no longer, indeed, at Mandeville Park, the heir of a fine estate, and waited upon by a numerous train of servants; but he had still one servant more anxious, more devoted than any he had left there; he had also the best of everything, however plain : all her leisure was employed, as he grew older, in teaching him the little she knew either of writing, reading, or accounts; his health was still tender and uncertain; she watched him with the care of a mother and the fatigue of a nurse. No thought like self-reproach, I believe, ever crossed her mind, with respect to his father; her heart was quite hardened towards Mr. Mandeville, and she was persuaded that Mrs. Selborne would grieve but little for the child when it was once out of her sight. She shut her eyes deliberately to the past and the future, and determined to think only of the present day. Such was her own account of her life in London; and I never had reason to doubt its truth. I saw Mary for the first time about eighteen years ago; she was then nine-and-twenty. It was in the beginning of summer, and a very sultry day; I was sitting during the forenoon at work, with my parlour windows open, when a young woman, holding a little boy by the hand, walked past the house and returned. She did this more than once without my taking any particular notice of her, though she, as I afterwards found, took a great deal of me; at last she made a little stop close by the window. "Did you want an industrious person to assist you in needlework, madam?" said she. [Mrs. Dixon related at some length all her doubts and perplexities, but she said Mary conquered them at last.] "Your little boy," said I, "seems sickly." Tears flowed down her cheeks in a moment.-" He has had a fever," she replied; "but thank God he is now likely to do well. The doctor tells me that bathing in the sea will recruit his strength, and 1 have therefore brought him here for that purpose." I know not what there was so taking in her and the child, but for my life I could not turn them from the door. It was now all plain sailing, sir, and she knew it: for I presently discovered that my industry and usefulness, on which I valued myself, were nothing to her ingenuity. She did so cut out and contrive!" And this, Mrs. Dixon," said she," is just the right pattern for such a thing: and that will do for another. She was like a good fairy." Mary's character was a mystery to Mrs. Dixon; but her conduct was unexceptionable: her melancholy and her varying moods wore off in time; her conscience was lulled, as her heart had been seared; her only weakness now was excessive fondness for her little boy. He was, continued the landlady, about eight, when she brought him to Weymouth; the sea air agreed with him wonderfully, and he was never sickly from that time; but grew so arch, so sprightly, so diverting, that little Bob was the universal favourite, He was, withal, very proud; although nobody could tell of what it could not be of his birth or his great estate, poor child! for, alas, he knew nothing of either! but in spite of his humble situation, Bob was a great hoper, and was always talking of the mighty things he would do when he should grow to be a man :-I beg your pardon, sir-my eyes will fil with tears at the recollection. His mother encouraged this folly in him. "Mry," said I to her one day, "you will totally ruin that boy." "Oh, no, no," returned she impatiently." You will make his mind a great deal too high.""I do not make it,” said she;-"it makes itself." But ought it to make itself? Consider he is growing a great lad. "Don't talk to me, Mrs. Dixon. I cannot control his spirit. If you knew how dearly I bought him--` "At what price did you buy him?" returned I. She started, and looked at me very earnestly for a moment, but said nothing. I cannot but own that I had my private thoughts. Time wore on. Bob was now twelve years old. No longer a delicate small-limbed child, but a fine well-grown boy; with a manly and open countenance, a forward and proud spirit; full of frolic, but without any mischief. He had beaten a neighbour's son much bigger than himself, who persisted in calling him little Bob; so he was now Robert; and it was laughable to see the vehemence with which he insisted upon this claim. All our acquaintance blamed us for keeping such a great boy at home, without any occupation, and I began secretly to be a little ashamed of the weakness myself; for, to say truth, sir, I was nearly as weak as Mary on that subject. The child was never idle either, nor was it in his nature to be so; he made himself useful ten thousand ways. There was nothing so low that he disdained to do for those he loved; he has cleaned knives, and gone on errands. Good God, little did I think who it was that was so employed! It was not with Mary's appro bation, however, that he did this; but she could not prevent him; he undertook it all as if it were sport-"all for his dear little granny Dixon," as he used to call me. Think of his making me his grandmother, sir!-I was then a young woman; but it was his playful way. The fact was, that he had an inexhaustible stock of health and spirits to spare, and having neither companion nor employment, was fain to spend both as he could. Every one, however, that came to the house noticed and spoiled him." "Gads my life, Airs. Dixon," said one of our actor gentlemen, who was drinking tea with me, while Bob, in tip-top spirits, handed us the tea kettle, this is a fellow of whom the world may say that he will ride a bay trotting horse over a four-inched bridge, and course his own shadow for a traitor.'' To be sure, sir, Bob was too fond of riding strange horses; but how the child's foible came to be so generally known was what I never could guess. Bob's own mind was quite made up as to his future destination. "He would be a soldier," he said, "like his father.""Like his father!" said Mary, and tears came into her eyes. The soldiers took to him mightily. The master, seeing how fond he was of horses, taught him to ride; which Mary did not object to. They looked upon him as one of themselves, and acted very kindly by him. But still they were men, and he was only a boy; so that, without meaning it, they made him forward and presuming. The interval between this time and his fifteenth birth day was the most melancholy we had ever passed since we lived together. He was almost beyond our control; yet we knew no harm of him; but he kept growing very handsome and very tall: every day, therefore, told us that something must be done with him. A dreadful gloom came over Mary. She was no longer the same creature she had been. No sleep did she get at night; no quiet in the day. About this time, Mary heard of her father, who was become very old and feeble; and in the despair of parting with her boy, to which conscience now urged her, she turned to her own family. I believe she soothed her conscience with the hope of attending her father's age, and watching his death-bed. short, she found it absolutely necessary to hope, if she meant to live; and this was all she could hope. In I tell you merely my own conjectures; for her restlessness, her total loss of appetite, and the long fits of absence that now grew very remarkable in her, were the only symptoms by which I could guess that she was privately forming some resolution. I had no clew at that time to her inmost thoughts; but by after events I could trace them. Her health suffered too much to ⚫ Shakspeare. permit me to ask many questions, for I really could not guess what their effect upon her might prove. At length she fixed her determination; but, like a drowning person catching at straws, she could not prevail on herself to take the great step till she had settled everything that concerned her besides. And so, sir, this new delay in entering upon the path of justice and uprightness was the cause of all the melancholy story that followed. Mary was to be away three weeks, and Bob formed the delight of Mrs. Dixon in her absence, "going and coming," she said," and asking what he could do for me, this and the other." At this time Mrs. Dixon's lodgings were taken for the season, for a gentleman with a large establishment of servants.-It was Mr. Mandeville! Yes it was Mr. Mandeville himself! but not that Mr. Mandeville who had robbed Mary of her heart, in all the bloom and fire of eight-and-twenty; free-living, and the years that had passed over his head, had left strong traces on his features. He had a fixed redness in his face, and had lost the slightness of his person. One might indeed see that he had been handsome, for he had a manly character of countenance; and I could afterwards recollect that his son greatly resembled him in this: but such was then the wide difference in their age and appearance, that nothing of the sort occurred to me. How indeed should it ? Mr. Mandeville's profusion and vices were imitated by every servant he had; and if they strove a little to conceal this from him, they only added hypocrisy to every other fault: but they did not endeavour to conceal it, sir; or in a very trifling degree. His own man openly professed to follow his master's example in all things. The butler was several years older, but he was insolent, unfeeling, and extravagant. The other servants did not fall short of these models but. oh, sir! a worse grief than all remained behind, though I did not immediately know its extent: the groom whom I had been obliged to place with my poor innocent boy, was a very ill-disposed lad; and the bad effects of his society were too soon visible in the latter, though sooner to others than to me. The loss of Mary's assistance threw a vast load upon my spirits and time. In truth, where servants were so disorderly and ill-managed, I had hardly a moment to spare from my domestic concerns, or to call my own. Occupied, as I was, how ever, I observed that some alteration had taken place in Bob. He affected to be the man more than I thought became him; and began to be very nice in his linen and appearance. He had been hitherto a fine rough boy, ten thousand times more manly than the groom that he admired; yet the latter was a personable lad too; but there was something of native fire and character about Bob, or I fancied so, that was much above his degree: it could not be fancy either, for every body that saw him used to say the same thing." In the meantime Mary wrote, saying she would soon return; and make some hearts happy, and then there would be some chance for her; but she did not appear, and Mrs. Dixon grew noeasy, both on her account and that of her son. My warnings to him, she said, to break off the intimacy which he had so lately formed were not attended to, and I had no power to enforce them. Nor could I send either lad out of my house. They were constantly together. They rode matches on the sands, or elsewhere. Their companions betted upon them: they betted themselves; and I was convinced that Bob It. I taxed him with it. Nothing spoils the temper, sir, like the consciousness of doing wrong. This boy, this child as I may call him, formerly so complying and open, was capable of being rude and sullen: quite at a loss what to do. I desired him to write to his mother, and hasten her return. He obeyed me, though not with a good grace: but she cune not, nor did ve treeive any answer, and I repented that I had not written myself; but I was not a ready pen-woman, and had much ocupation. I thought that I was now quite miserable!-I did at know how much more miserable I was to be. Every possible way did I turn over in my mind to remedy the mischief I had so innocently caused: but the mischief was doing, sir, past all remedy:-it was done, as I may say, even while I was consikring. Of what nature the extravagance might be of these two boys I cannot tell, but they had been very extravagant. Bob's means were seanty indeed; the other threw money about like dirt; but I have much reason to believe that he was as ready to take sto part with it. At last neither of them had any left, and both grievously wanted it. My boy would have stopped short; the wicked one with whom he associated had other ways of ding. The old butler was, in private, his constant theme sion and ridicule and more, as he made it appear, in sport than in wickedness; but it was wickedness, I am persuaded: he now proposed to secrete several valuable articles that were in this man's possession, on which, he assured Bob, he could raise money, and return them without difficulty in the course of two days; declaring, that should it in the interim be discovered they were missing, he would easily face it out for a joke. Robert was, as he confessed, in debt: he had besides contracted a thousand wants, and a thousand wishes, during his intercourse with the worthless crew around him; and too proud to own to any but his immediate companion that he had no resources, he fell into the snare which folly, vice, and illfortune prepared for him. The butler, however, was either more subtle, or more watchful, than they had believed him to be. He discovered the fact a very few hours after it was committed; nor did he fail to guess at the culprits. Thomas was first secured, and his evidence criminated Bob. The latter was with me when they came to fetch him. Never to the latest moment of my life, sir, shall I forget that! There was no need of accusation nor proof; his countenance told all, and both lads were thrown into prison. J pass over the trial, but cannot pass the tender pleading of Mrs. Dixon, with the selfish, unconscious father, who harshly blamed poor Bob for corrupting his favourite groom : "Not his fellow left in the stable," he said; " I would rather he robbed me every day in the year than have lost him." "If you would take the trouble to examine into the rights of the case, sir," said Mrs. Dixon. "A man cannot spend his life in examining your rights and your wrongs, Mrs. Dixon." " I beg your pardon, sir; I thought that members of Parliament, and rich gentlemen, did spend their lives-" "You take great liberties," said Mandeville, “justice must have its course; justice must and will be executed." And so it was. Mrs. Dixon turned from the dissolute and selfish father, to the condemned cell of his only child. To be sure," she continued, "it was a dismal sight! so promising a boy!—and not yet sixteen! Ah, sir, was this, as I afterwards thought, the little fellow that had been fondled and caressed at Mandeville Park, and for whom so much had been expected!-But is not every infant fondled and caressed?-The poorest outcast that ever went in irons to finish his miserable life, as Bob did, in a distant country, has been pressed to some maternal heart, more tenderly perhaps than ever he was.' : "I have been considering, Mrs. Dixon," said the dear fellow, "how it happens that all this evil and wickedness have fallen upon me; and I think I have found out the cause."—" And what is that, my dear Bob?" said I, for I was still accustomed to call him so, and he never took it ill of me, though he would not suffer any body else to do it: it was the name I used to him when he was a bit of a child on my knee, and I loved it for that reason. "What is that, my dear Bob ?" said I." Why it comes from my having no father. My mother, to be sure, was very good; but then she was only my mother and you were. very good too; but I was a boy, and I often thought that to myself, that boys should not be governed by women; and her hand was as gentle as her heart so I grew up without any other guide than my own proud thoughts, and easily fell a prey to the wicked suggestions of others.-Now, if I had had a father, Mrs. Dixon, you see I should have been saved from all this; for if he had been a rich man I should not have fallen into the way of temptation; and if he had been poor and industrious, I should have early learned not to be ashamed of poverty, and his example might have made me industrious too: for indeed I was not naturally wicked; but God," added he, laying his finger on the Testament, which the chaplain left with him, "as His book assures me, will be a Father to the fatherless; and although I have none to apply to in this world, I will put my trust in Him."-I thought my heart must have broken: for, with his finger between the leaves of the book, he dropped on his knees, and hid his face over it; and when he raised it again, on hearing my sobs, there was something so sweet in his eyes that mine were quite blind with tears. Oh, what, have I since thought, had not Mary to answer for! Dreadfully, sir, did she answer for it! Yet, had Bob been Mr. Mandeville's son by her, would not his fate have been the same! for where, even in that case, would he have found a father? The boy was now on the sea, and on his way to his place of exile;-and where was Mary? "I was sitting," said Mrs. Dixon, one night very sorrowfully alone with the newspaper in my band, waiting for the tea-kettle to boil, and examining, as I constantly did, whether I could find any tidings about the vessel that was to carry away poor Bob, when suddenly a voice that was more like the shriek of a ghost than any human tongue, called me by my name. I looked up, and standing in the doorway beheld Mary. It was horrible to see her. She was not |