sence, and remain deaf to all her commands to get up, violently knocking away her hands when she tried to raise me. Generally, when the burst came because I was scolded, I could have checked it had I chosen, but sometimes an unutterable sense of misery came over me, I knew not wherefore, and then I could not help expressing it. Often and often I resolved that I would never again shed a tear before Aunt Dorothea, and as often some hymn that I had been used to say to my mother, some verse in the Psalms which I remembered to have read to her, would overpower my resolution, and make me burst into such a fit of crying as I did not fully recover all the day. It was very strange, but I never gave way to these tempests with my father; I could talk to him by the hour together, and tell him little traits of my mother's goodness, which I could not now repeat to anybody without tears. It seemed as if my grief was kept silent by a reverence for his, and the thought that I must not distress him always restrained me; but Aunt Dorothea could not allude to my mother at all without overpowering me. She had a way of saying 'your poor dear mother,' in a tone which always brought her own offences against her vividly before me, and drove me nearly frantic. I daresay she did not mean it, but I used to fancy that there was a shade of contempt mingled with the pity, and she seemed to exult in my father's forced cheerfulness, and to flatter herself that she made him more comfortable than he had ever been since she left him. No doubt it was very natural that after a time she should rejoice in believing that she had got back the heart that was all in all to her; but it was not true, she never got it back, and it was very hard for me to endure that she should think she had.

It might be nearly two months after her own arrival that she and my father settled that Aunt Prissie and Aunt Phoebe should be invited to make the vicarage their home.

VOL. 13.

32

PART 77.

'It was,' he said, 'his wish that all his sisters should again take up their residence with him.'

I believe he hoped that Aunt Phoebe would infuse that element of tenderness into my education, which was certainly wanting in Aunt Dorothea's system.

'I see no objection, save one, Frederick,' the latter answered, gravely; 'but I hope before we agree to break up our own home and establishment, you will be very sure that you know your own mind, and your own intentions. Do not let us misunderstand each other now; take a longer time to consider the matter; you may wish to marry again.'

She might have spared my father the annoyance of these last words, for she had made her meaning sufficiently clear without them; but it was just like her, she always walked on straight to her point without any regard to the little obstacles of feeling that might be in her way. With an exclamation of misery he quitted the room, and did not return to us again that evening; but he wrote a letter to Aunt Prissie, urging her and Aunt Phoebe to come to

us.

They made no objections, and late one autumn evening arrived at Lowminster. We all three went into the hall to receive them. My father helped Aunt Phoebe to alight from the chaise, and the first words I heard her utter were, 'And where is my dear little niece?'

I came up, pushed forward by Aunt Dorothea, and from the mass of cloaks and wrappers which encumbered her, Aunt Phoebe put out her hands and drew me towards her. She was sitting on a chair, waiting, I suppose, until Aunt Prissie had time to attend to her, and order her up-stairs, and for a few seconds she held me unobserved, kissing me with silent tears again and again, and repeating 'My dear niece, my darling, my dear little Harriet, I have so longed to see you. My sweet child! Oh, Hattie, Hattie, I will love you with all my heart, if you will but let me.'

My answer was to lift up my face and give her just such a shower of kisses as I used to give my dear mother, and whisper, 'She said I should love you, and I am sure I shall.'

By this time Aunt Prissie had got all the boxes out and paid the driver, and was at leisure to resume her tyrannical watchfulness over Aunt Phoebe.

'My dear Phoebe,' she exclaimed, what are you not gone into the drawing-room yet? How can you be so silly as to sit in this draught? But you are no more fit to take care of yourself than a child, and I do not think you ever will be. For goodness' sake, Frederick, take your sister into some warmer atmosphere, the cold of this hall is enough to kill her.'

'But here is little Harriet, Prissie,' Aunt Phoebe said, producing me from under her wraps, and trying to persuade me to leave off clinging to her. You must look at Hattie.'

'Yes, yes, I see her,' Aunt Prissie replied, without turning her head. 'How do you do, my dear? I will kiss you presently, when I have time. At present I must get all these boxes carried up-stairs, and prepare your aunt's room for her. She must be made comfortable before I can think of anything else. Now, Phoebe, do pray wrap your cloak round you and get to a fire, if there is such a thing in the place.'

'You will find a very good one in Phoebe's room, Prissie,' Aunt Dorothea said, stiffly, 'and everything ready for you. You are not come into an uninhabited house.'

Aunt Prissie uttered a hasty 'thank you' as she went up-stairs, loaded with bags and parcels, and my father offered Aunt Phoebe his arm, and led her into our sittingroom. I held by her other hand, and heard him say in a low voice, 'Hattie has found out your warm heart, I see. I look to you more than anyone else to supply what she

has lost.'

'I will do my best,' she said softly, 'but you know what a poor creature I am. My heart has bled for you both during many a silent hour, and it would be the greatest comfort to me to be of use to you, and to her child, the greatest happiness of which I am capable. I have always felt how ill we treated her.'

He set her down in a chair by the fire, and drew another beside her, and took me on his knee.

'She is very like, do you not think so?' he said, pushing my hair off my forehead. 'The same eyes.'

'She is like everything I ever heard or fancied of her,' Aunt Phoebe answered. 'You know I only saw her once from the window. The hair will be just the same colour by-and-by.'

Aunt Dorothea came in, and my father pushed back his chair a little, and moved his hand away from Aunt Phoebe's shoulders; we all felt her presence inimical to even the slightest outward expression of tenderness, and were always stiff and grave before her. In a very few minutes Aunt Prissie appeared with her usual air of haste, and ordered Aunt Phoebe to go to bed. My dear, docile aunt, rose instantly, and whilst she was gathering her shawls about her, Aunt Prissie had a moment's leisure to speak to me.

'So this is Hattie,' she said. 'Well, she is a queer little thing,' and she bent down in a stiff right-angle and kissed

me.

I shook my head impatiently as she lifted up hers. 'Don't do that again,' I said, 'you are so rough; you do not give nice soft kisses as Aunt Phoebe does.'

A look of some amusement came over my father's face, and Aunt Phoebe caressed me again, and Aunt Prissie exclaimed somewhat sharply, 'Come along, Phoebe, this instant; I cannot stand here all night whilst you are hugging that child. Missey will not be troubled with many of my kisses, I can tell her. I have no time for such tom-foolery.'

'You were very rude, Hattie,' Aunt Dorothea said, sternly, when my two aunts had disappeared. 'You must learn manners, child.'

And thus the sisters found themselves again reconciled and residing with their brother, and I could fancy that, with the exception of myself, all things went on much as they had done before he married-Aunt Dorothea keeping house, and thinking all day of my father, yet incapable of understanding him, and imposing a thousand little restraints fatal to happiness and affection; and Aunt Prissie solely occupied with Aunt Phoebe, whose patience and humility and gratitude for her care were just what they had ever been. As for me, I suspect Aunt Prissie looked upon me as a necessary evil, and I certainly did not love her. Her restless fidgettiness was alone enough to disgust any child. We came, however, but little in each other's way, and most days the only notice she took of me was to send me on sundry errands. Now I had been used to this, and should not have minded it from anyone else, but Aunt Prissie incessantly popped out upon me as I was bounding up-stairs to my beloved garret, and would send me down into the kitchen with some little mess to be boiled or baked, or to fetch something she wanted. She did it so invariably, that at last I made quite a game of getting by the fatal door without her hearing me. Many a time I have eluded her vigilance by taking off my shoes at the bottom of the staircase, and creeping up without them. If she would have let me go in and see Aunt Phoebe when I returned with what she wanted, I should have done her errands gladly, but she scarcely ever would. I always found her waiting outside the door to receive the article herself, whatever it might be, and was never allowed to enter.

It seemed at first as if she would keep me entirely away from her sister, but after a time she discovered one or two interesting cases of sickness in the village, and when