"Oh," said Emily, highly charmed, "that is all owing to my dear sister. How pleased she would be to hear that her beautiful presents have been so admired and copied. copied. (Now, between (Now, between you and me, my dear reader, Lady Armitage was more likely to have fainted with indignation.) CHAPTER XI. "The lover may Distrust that look which steals his heart away; MOORE. BEFORE the winter quite set in, Emily's mother came to live with them. Partly because she could not exist happily far from Emily (at which, of course, we, reader and narrator, are not surprised), partly because her annual wealth being rather more than theirs, joined to it would make out a very pretty little income for them all, leading, in the vista of expectation, to the probabilities of keeping a pony, a pony-chaise (all carriages being designated thus), and a worthy boy to take the care of both. Oh! degenerate days of arm-chairs and lolling sofas! Would that some of the young ladies of the present day could have seen Mrs. Reine's back! Flat is much too flat a word to express the swimming step, the regal carriage, the stately throat, the falling shoulders of Mrs. Reine, Emily's mother. Not the most seducing arm-chair that ever was invented caused her to unbend, and yet with what grace she performed every act. But certainly she had had her advantages-she had been brought up in a sort of court. Her father had been Governor of Mas sachusetts, and his lady tions somewhat akin to wife held recep Royal Royal drawing rooms, whereat her fine daughters, all strikingly well-looking, bore a very conspicuous part. But as we have only to do with one, Mrs. Reine, we will follow her fortunes. She married, as did her sisters, early in life, all Englishmen. Though they might have chosen men of much higher rank, among the statesmen round their father's court, the old country had more charms than the new one, and they each married to get back to it. They were women of decided character as well as beauty; and Mrs. Reine in particular, having plighted her troth to a young clergyman travelling for the sake of health, left the loves and affections of a twenty years' life with alacrity, to bestow all upon a youth she had known but six weeks. However, that sympathy which brings souls together, let seas intervene, proved a true one in her case. She never repented, or had reason to do so, the choice she made. And while her husband lived, the natural energy of her character had sufficient scope for exercise in devoting herself to his wishes. But his death, the marriage of both her daughters, left her solitary- for a time stunned. She had never yet experienced what it was to be alone, without a specified duty. She felt intuitively that she should die of doing nothing. About this time various religious persuasions were rising in different parts of the kingdom, and, being a good and pious woman, she decreed within herself to devote her time, like Dorcas of old, to good works. She was rather smitten with the community of the Quakers. They were quiet, passionless, charitable. They were neat, orderly, taciturn. All these things she loved and admired. So she joined them, and became a Quakeress. But human nature is, of all other things, |