Preface.

It seems to be thought that a preface or introduction of some sort is absolutely necessary to a book; why, I do not know, unless it be that it looks rather abrupt to begin one’s story without a word as to the why or wherefore of its being written. This in the present case can be said very shortly.

The principal events in the following story, the loved and petted child being, as it seemed, given back to life in answer to the mother’s importunate cry; the indulgence under which he grew up, and the fatal consequences of that indulgence upon a temper such as his; are taken from real life, and may be used as sad warnings to those who shrink from the present trouble and pain, of rightly training the little ones God has given them.

The story of the Governess is a true one in every particular; names only being altered; I believe there are none remaining now whose feelings will be pained by this sad history being made public, so far as this little book may make it so, but there are one or two I know, and perhaps more, now living, who will smile if the chapter entitled “Ruth Glenn” meets their eyes, when they remember the disturbed nights years ago at a certain city boarding school. If she to whom I have given this name should ever see these pages, I hope she will forgive me for thus “telling tales out of school,” in consideration of the high station to which by my single voice I have raised her, and the pleasant memory she leaves behind.

Many other little scenes and incidents interwoven in, the story, are from life.

And now I can only close my preface as I have closed the book, in the earnest hope that it may have the effect of leading some mothers to train rightly the little shoots springing up around the parent tree, restraining their wandering inclinations, and teaching them ever to look and grow towards Heaven.

THE AUTHOR.

Contents.

CHAPTER I. LITTLE AGNES. Page The cross baby brother—The patient sister—The novel-reading mamma—The broken work-box—Undeserved punishment—The lock of papa’s hair—Old Mammy—The cold north room—“Never alone”—Aunt Wharton—Lewie sick—A pleasant change for the little prisoner

CHAPTER II. BROOK FARM. Bridget’s rage—Mammy’s story—The runaway match—The dead father—The cheerful home at Brook Farm—Cousin Emily—The ice palace—Christmas secrets—The mother’s agony—Life from the dead

CHAPTER III. CHRISTMAS TIME. Preparations for Christmas—The needle-book—Santa Claus himself expected -Old Cousin Betty—Loads of presents—Christmas Eve—Appearance of Santa Claus—“Who can he be?”—Cousin Tom—Poor Emily’s grief

CHAPTER IV. COUSIN BETTY. Cousin Betty—Absence of mind and body—A habit of dying—The shadow on the wall—Cousin Betty’s ride on Prancer—Training day—Cousin Betty a captain of militia—Cousin Betty’s stories

CHAPTER V. HOME AGAIN. Agnes and Mr. Wharton on their way to the Hemlocks—The novel-reading mamma again—Lewie better—Agnes must stay—A lay sermon to Mrs. Elwyn—The needle-case—The bitter disappointment

CHAPTER VI. THE TABLEAUX. Lewie roving the woods and fields again—Capricious and fretful still—The birth-day party at Mr. Wharton’s—Preparations for tableaux—Another disappointment for Agnes—The sweetest tableaux of all

CHAPTER VII. THE GOVERNESS. The lady who came for wool—The home in New-England—Midnight studies—Miss Edwards engaged as governess—A universal genius—A letter from the long-lost brother—The journey—The old Virginia church—The ghost no ghost at all—The old log-house—Horrible murder!—of pigs

CHAPTER VIII. BITTER DISAPPOINTMENTS. No news from Miss Edwards—The letter from the strange physician—The manuscript—The brother found, and where—The engagement—Desertion—The country house—The “crazy room”—The Eastern Asylum—Rest at last in the quiet nook

CHAPTER IX. EMILY’S TRIALS. Lewie’s education—Mr. Malcolm tutor at the Hemlocks—Frequent calls at Brook Farm—Emily’s sufferings—The disclosure—Strength for time of trial

CHAPTER X. THE TUTOR AND THE PUPIL. Lewie’s insubordination—Passion and tears—The mother’s anxiety—Mr. Malcolm’s firmness—No dinner for Lewie—Sulking—Brought to terms at last—The tutor dismissed

CHAPTER XI. RUTH GLENN. Leaving for boarding-school—Mrs. Arlington and her daughters—The third story room—The new strange girl—Nocturnal disturbances—Ruth Glenn’s expostulations—Imminent danger—The physician consulted—Morning walks—Sad partings

CHAPTER XII. LEWIE AT SCHOOL. The dictator in the play-ground—Strife and contention—The tormentor—Lewie’s mortification—The sore spot—The attack upon Colton—The removal from school—Mrs. Elwyn’s failing health—Agnes summoned—A death bed—Changes proposed to Agnes—Her departure for Wilston

CHAPTER XIII. NEW SCENES FOR AGNES. The two Miss Fairlands—The step-mother—Arrival at Wilston—Unpromising pupils—Poor Tiney—Dreadful scene at the tea-table—Tiney’s suffering—The effect of music

CHAPTER XIV. THE SCHOOL IN THE WEST WING. A hard task—The children’s toilettes—Bible teachings—Practical applications—Sunday at Mr. Fairland’s—The children’s singing—The father’s tears—A visit to Brook Farm—A visit from Lewie

CHAPTER XV. THE STRANGERS IN THE ROOKERY. An arrival—The Rookery—Mrs. Danby and Bella—A sudden accident—The rescue—The strangers—An old friend—A row on the lake—Music on the water—Shrieking in the house—A new method of laying spirits—Mortifying disclosures by Frank

CHAPTER XVI. DEATH AND THE FUGITIVE. Music on the lawn—The midnight interview—The horrid truth disclosed—Lewie a fugitive from justice—Jealousy of Calista and Evelina—Poor Tiney’s death bed—The search—The arrest

CHAPTER XVII. THE JAIL. Return to Brook Farm—The visit to the jail—The involuntary and the voluntary prisoner—A talk about the future—Mr. Malcolm’s visits—The lawyer—The evening before the trial

CHAPTER XVIII. THE TRIAL. The Court-room—Mr. W.—The testimony—Speeches—Mr. G.’s agitation—Charge to the jury

CHAPTER XIX. THE SEALED PAPER. A night of fearful suspense—The verdict—Insensibility—Delirium—Meeting between the brother and sister—Lewie’s illness—Longings for freedom—A journey to the capital—Ruth Glenn again—The governor—A sister’s pleadings—Her reward

CHAPTER XX. TWICE FREE. Freedom for the captive—Removal to Brook Farm—Decline—Changes of temper and heart—A final release—The quiet nook—Resignation —Cheerfulness—The unexpected visitor

CHAPTER XXI. THE WINDING UP. Repairs at the Rookery—Calista and Evelina on the qui vive—Mr. Harrington and his bride—Another Christmas gathering—Farewell, and kind wishes

I. Little Agnes.

“And she, not seven years old, A slighted child.”—WORDSWORTH.

“What is it Lewie wants? Does he want sister’s pretty book?”

“No!” roared the cross baby boy, pointing with his finger to the side-board.

“Well, see here, Lewie! here is a pretty ball; shall we roll it? There! now roll it back to sister.”

“No-o-o!” still screamed Master Lewie, the little finger still stretched out towards something on the side-board which he seemed much to desire.

“Here is my lovely dolly, Lewie. If you will be very careful, I will let you take her. See her beautiful eyes! Will Lewie make her open and shut her eyes?”

“No-o-o-o!” again shouted the fretful child, and this time so loud as effectually to arouse his youthful mamma, who was deep in an arm-chair, and deeper still in the last fashionable novel.

“Agnes!” she exclaimed sharply, “cannot you let that child alone? I told you to amuse him; and instead of doing so, you seem to delight in teazing him and making him scream.”

Again the little girl tried in various ways to amuse the wayward child. He really was not well, and felt cross and irritable, and nothing that his little sister could do to please him would succeed. With the utmost patience and gentleness she labored to bring a smile to her little brother’s cheek, or at least so to win his attention as to keep him from disturbing her mother. But the handkerchief rabbits, and the paper men and women she could cut so beautifully, and which at times gave little Lewie so much pleasure, were now all dashed impatiently aside. One by one her little playthings were brought out, and placed before him, but with no better success. Lewie had once seen the contents of a beautiful work-box of his sister’s, which stood in the centre of the side-board: at this he pointed, and for this he screamed. Nothing else would please him; at nothing else would he condescend to look.

“Oh, Lewie! darling Lewie! play with something else! Don’t you know Aunt Ellen gave sister that pretty work-box? and she said I must be so careful of it, and Lewie would break all sister’s pretty things.”

Again Master Lewie had recourse to the strength of his lungs, which he knew, by past experience, to be all-powerful in gaining whatever his fancy might desire, and sent forth a roar so loud as once more to arouse the attention of the novel-reading mamma; who, with a stamp of the foot, and a threatening shake of the finger, gave the little girl to understand that she must expect instant and severe punishment, if Lewie was heard to scream again.

Still Lewie demanded the work-box, and nothing that the patient little Agnes could do would divert his attention from it for a moment. The little angry brow was contracted, and the mouth wide open for another shriek, when little Agnes, with a sigh of despair, went to the side-board, and, mounting on a chair, lifted down her much-valued and carefully-preserved treasure, saying to herself:

“If Aunt Ellen only knew, I think she would not blame me!”

And now with a shout of delight the spoiled child seized on the pretty work-box; and in another moment, winders, spools, scissors, thimble, were scattered in sad confusion over the carpet. In vain did little Agnes try, as she picked up one after the other of her pretty things, to conceal them from the baby’s sight; if one was gone, he knew it in a moment, and worried till it was restored to him.

Finally, laying open the cover of the box, he began to pound with a little hammer, which was lying near him, upon the looking-glass inside of it; and, pleased with the noise it made, he struck harder and still harder blows.

“No, no, Lewie! please don’t! You will break sister’s pretty looking-glass. No! Lewie must not!” And Agnes held his little hand. At this the passionate child threw himself back violently on the floor, and screamed and shrieked in a paroxysm of rage; in the midst of which, the threatened punishment came upon poor little Agnes, in the shape of a sharp blow upon her cheek, from the soft, white hand of her mother, who exclaimed:

“There! didn’t I tell you so? It seems to be your greatest pleasure to teaze and torment that poor baby; and you know he is sick, too. Now, miss, the next time he screams, I shall take you to the north room, and lock you up, and keep you there on bread and water all day!”

Agnes retreated to a corner, and wept silently, but very bitterly, not so much from the pain of the blow, as from a sense of injustice and harsh treatment at the hands of one who should have loved her; and the mother returned to her novel, in which she was soon as deep as ever. At the same moment, the looking-glass in the cover of the work-box flew into fifty pieces, under the renewed blows of the hammer in Master Lewie’s hand.

The little conqueror now had free range among his sister’s hitherto carefully-guarded treasures; her bits of work, and little trinkets, tokens of affection from her kind aunt and her young cousins at Brook Farm, were ruthlessly torn in pieces, or broken and strewed over the floor. Agnes sat in mute despair. She knew that as long as her mother was absorbed in the novel, no sound would disturb her less powerful than Lewie’s screams, and that all else that might be going on in the room would pass unnoticed by her. So, wiping her eyes, she sat still in the corner, watching Lewie with silent anguish, as he revelled among her precious things, as “happy as a king” in the work of destruction, and only hoping that he might not discover one secret little spot in the corner of the box where her dearest treasure was concealed.

But at length she started, and, with an exclamation of horror, and a cry like that of pain, she sprang towards her little brother, and violently wrenched something from his hand. And now the piercing shrieks of the angry and astonished child filled the house, and brought even Old Mammy to the room, to see what was the matter with the baby. Mammy opened the door just in time to witness the severe punishment inflicted upon little Agnes, and to receive an order to take that naughty girl to the north room, and lock her in, and leave her there till farther orders.

Agnes had not spoken before, when rebuked by her mother; but now, raising her mild blue eyes, all dimmed by tears, to her mother’s face, she said:

“Oh, mamma! it was papa’s hair!—it was that soft curl I cut from his forehead, as he lay in his coffin, Lewie was going to tear the paper!” But even this touching appeal, which should have found its way to the young widow’s heart, was unheeded by her—perhaps, in the storm of passion, it was unheard; and Agnes was led away by Mammy to a cold, unfurnished room, where she had been doomed to spend many an hour, when Lewie was cross; while the fretful and half-sick child, now tired of his last play-thing, was taken in his mother’s arms, and rocked till he fell into a slumber, undisturbed for perhaps an hour, except by a start, when the tears from his mother’s cheek fell on his—tears caused by the well-imagined sufferings of the heroine of her romance.

All the time Mammy was leading little Agnes through the wide hall, and up the broad stairs and—along the upper hall to the door of the “North Room,” the good old woman was wiping her eyes with her apron, and trying to choke down something in her throat which prevented her speaking the words of comfort she wished to say to the sobbing child. When they reached the door of the room in which little Agnes was to be a prisoner, Mammy sat down, and taking the child in her lap she took off her own warm shawl and pinned it carefully around her, and as she stooped to kiss her, Agnes saw the tears upon her cheek.

“Why do you cry, Mammy?” she asked, “mamma has not scolded you to-day, has she?”

“No, love.”

“Are you crying then because you are so sorry for me?”

“That’s it, my darling, I cannot bear to lock you up here alone for the day and leave you so sorrowful, you that ought to be as blithe as the birds in spring.”

“Mammy, do you think I deserve this punishment?”

“No, sweet, if I must say the truth, I do not think you ever deserve any punishment at all. But I must not say anything that’s wrong to you, about what your mamma chooses to do.”

“Then, Mammy, don’t you think I ought to be happier than if I had really been naughty and was punished for it. Don’t you remember Mammy the verse you taught me from the Bible the last time Lewie was so fretful and mamma sent you to lock me up here. I learned it afterwards from my Bible: hear me say it:—”

‘For what glory is it if when ye be buffeted for your faults ye take it patiently; but if when ye do well and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God.’

“Now, Mammy, I did try to be patient with Lewie, and I gave him everything I had, but I could not let him destroy that lock of papa’s hair. I am afraid I was rough then, I hope I did not hurt his little hand. Mammy, do you think mamma loves me any.”

“How could anybody help loving you, my darling!”

“But, oh! Mammy, if I thought she would ever love me as she does Lewie! She never kisses me, she never speaks kind to me. No, Mammy, I do not think she loves me; but how strange it is for a mother not to love her own little girl.”

“Well, darling, we will talk no more of that, or we shall be saying something naughty; we will both try and do our duty, and then God will bless us, and whatever our troubles and trials may be, let us go to Him with them all. Now, darling, I must leave you.”

“Mammy, will you please bring me my Bible; and my little hymn-book? I want to learn the”

‘I am never alone.’

“God is always by my side, isn’t he Mammy?”

“Yes, love, and he says, ‘I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.’”

When little Agnes was left alone in the great cold room, she walked up and down the floor repeating to herself verses from her Bible and hymn-book. Sometimes she stopped at the window and looked across the country, towards a wooded hill, where just above the tops of the trees she could see the chimneys of her uncle’s house; and she thought how happy her young cousins were in the love of their father and mother, and she remembered how her own dear papa had loved her, and she thought of the difference now; and the tears flowed afresh. Then she walked the room again, repeating in a low voice to herself the words:

“Never alone; though through deserts I roam Where footstep of man has ne’er printed the sand. Never alone; though the ocean’s wild foam Rage between me and the loved ones on land. Though hearts that have cherished are laid ’neath the sod, Though hearts which should cherish are colder than stone, I still have thy love and thy friendship my God, Thou always art near me; I’m never alone.”

Soon she grew tired of walking, and seating herself at the table, she laid her head upon her crossed arms and was soon in a sweet slumber, and far away in her dreams from the cold desolate north room, at “the Hemlocks.”

At the end of an hour the youthful widow was disturbed by the sound of merry sleigh-bells, and she had only time to throw her novel hastily aside, when the door opened and her sister-in-law, Mrs. Wharton, entered, accompanied by two of her little girls, their bright faces glowing with health and happiness.

“And how are the children?” Mrs. Wharton asked, after the first salutations were over.

“Why, Lewie does not seem well, he has been complaining for a day or two.”

“And where is Agnes? We rode over to see if you let her go over and pass the holidays with us.”

“Why, to tell the truth, Agnes has been very naughty, and I have been obliged to shut her up.”

“Again!” exclaimed Mrs. Wharton, while glances of indignation shot from the eyes of her two little girls. “Agnes naughty, and shut up again! Why, Harriet, do you know she appears to me so perfectly gentle and lovely, that I can hardly imagine her as doing anything wrong. Mr. Wharton and I often speak of her as the most faultless child we have ever met with.”

“She is not so bad in other ways, but she does delight to tease Lewie, and keep him screaming. Now, it has been one incessant scream from the child all this morning, and Agnes can amuse him very well when she chooses.”

“Judging from all her own pretty things scattered about the floor here, I should think she had been doing her best to amuse him,” said Mrs. Wharton; “she has even taken down her beautiful work-box, of which she has always been so careful. You may be sure it was a case of extremity, which compelled her to do that.”

“Why, what a sad litter they have made to be sure; I did not observe it before. The fact is, Ellen, I have been exceedingly occupied this morning, and did not know what the children were about, only that Agnes kept Lewie screaming, and, at last, with the utmost rudeness, for that I saw myself, she snatched something from his hand, and for that, I punished her.”