THE ORPHAN NIECES;

OR,

Duty and Inclination.

BY

LUCY ELLEN GUERNSEY

AUTHOR OF "UPWARD AND ONWARD," "IRISH AMY," "SOPHIE KENNEDY," "COMFORT ALLISON," ETC.

NEW YORK:

ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & COMPANY

770 BROADWAY, COR. 9th ST.

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by the ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

CONTENTS. ——————

CHAPTER FIRST. LAYING OUT PLANS

CHAPTER SECOND.

CHAPTER THIRD.

CHAPTER FOURTH.

CHAPTER FIFTH.

CHAPTER SIXTH.

CHAPTER SEVENTH.

CHAPTER EIGHTH.

CHAPTER NINTH.

CHAPTER TENTH.

CHAPTER ELEVENTH.

CHAPTER TWELFTH.

CHAPTER THIRTEENTH.

CHAPTER FOURTEENTH.

CHAPTER FIFTEENTH.

CHAPTER SIXTEENTH.

CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH.

CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH.

CHAPTER NINETEENTH.

CHAPTER TWENTIETH.

DUTY AND INCLINATION;

OR,

The Orphan Nieces.

CHAPTER FIRST.

LAYING OUT PLANS.

IT was the time of the noon recess in Mrs. Granger's school, and the long upper school-room was pretty well filled with her pupils, who were gathered as chance or inclination prompted, some walking up and down in pairs, or singly, talking and reading, others actively engaged in battledore graces, or the old and classic game of jack-stones, and a few at their desks, endeavoring, amid the babel of noises, to fix their attention upon their lessons. By far the largest group, however, was assembled around the piano, sitting, standing, lounging, in all sorts of attitudes, graceful and ungraceful, and engaged in discussing that never-failing subject of interest, the approaching examination.

"After all, girls," remarked Olive McHenry, after the matter had been reviewed in every aspect of which it seemed capable, "after all, there is something very pleasant about examinations."

"I should be glad to know what it is," remarked her cousin Charlotte. "I have never been able to see any thing agreeable about it, except that it comes just before vacation."

"I suppose that is one pleasure," said Olive, with something of a sigh, "but I think there are some others. It always causes a little excitement, the rules are relaxed, and all the teachers are in their best humor."

"To say nothing of the prizes," remarked Helen Monteith.

"Yes, the prizes are pleasant, too, but they are only for a few, so it is hardly fair to rank them among the pleasures of examination."

"But don't you think vacations are pleasant, Olive?" asked one of the little girls.

"Oh! Yes, of course," answered Olive, but somewhat indifferently.

"But it is so nice to think about going home," persisted little Anna, who was only eleven years old. "Think of the journey, and the arrival, and dear, dear mother!" Anna checked herself, and looked around, blushing, as though she feared having exposed herself to ridicule.

"You forget I have no mother, Anna," remarked Olive, gravely but gently.

"To be sure that makes a great deal of difference," assented Anna, in a sympathizing tone. "I should not care any thing about going home, if it were not for seeing father and mother."

"Perhaps, if you had some one at home who had done every thing they could for you, you might care something about seeing them, Annie," remarked Charlotte Merton, in the measured tone which was always a sign of excitement with her, "instead of feeling that no gratitude or affection was due them because they were 'only' uncle and aunt."

Olive colored extremely, and looked very much hurt. Several of the girls exchanged glances, and Anna looked from one to the other in surprise.

"I don't think Olive had any such meaning, Charlotte," said Helen Monteith, while Olive stooped to pick up some scattered bits of paper. "I am sure it is natural she should think of her parents, when we are all talking of going home, and seeing our friends."

"It may be very natural, too, for Olive to be constantly insinuating that she is not happy, or well-treated at home," returned Charlotte, "but I must say, it does not seem to me to be just the thing for a person in her situation."

"I did not mean or say any such thing, Charlotte," said Olive, looking up suddenly; "you know very well I did not. You have been angry all day, because I stood above you in history this morning, and you take this way to revenge yourself."

Olive stopped suddenly. She caught Helen's eye of warning fixed upon her, and biting her lip, she again attempted to busy herself with the bits of paper but it was in vain. She burst into tears, and retreated to her seat, while Charlotte looked after her with an expression of triumph, and the girls exchanged glances, some of sympathy and others of amusement.

"What is the matter with your sister, Abby?" asked one of the girls in another part of the room.

Abby McHenry looked up from the book she was reading, and in which she had contrived to be wholly absorbed, despite the noise and confusion around her. "Is any thing the matter with Olive?" she asked, as if she were only half-awakened.

"I presume so," said Maria Grey; "she seems to be crying, and she is not apt to cry for nothing."

"I suppose she has had some trouble with Charlotte," said Abby, closing her book, and preparing to go to her sister. "I do wish Charlotte would leave off teasing her, or that she would leave off caring for it. I think she might be used to her amiable cousin by this time. But I must go and stop her crying, or she will make herself sick: She does not cry as easily as I do."

Abby did not inquire of her sister what disturbed her, but she sat down by her, and by caresses and persuasions, finally induced her first to check her sobs, and then to retire to her room, and bathe her face and eyes before school. This accomplished, she returned to the school-room, and sought out Helen Monteith.

"Do take Olive out to walk after school, Helen, and keep her quiet," she said. "She gets into such a taking, and I can not manage her half as well as you do."

"You don't get into takings, yourself, Abby," said Helen, laughing at the oddity of the request.

"I don't allow Charlotte to disturb me, at any rate," returned Abby. "I know her too well, and what is the use? But do pray comfort Olive, if you can. I don't know what she will do when we go home for good," she continued; "for it is worse there than it is here. I really dread the close of the next half-year, not for myself, but for her."

"Come and walk in the grove with me, Olive," said Helen, accordingly, as soon as school was out. "I have obtained permission of Mrs. Granger, and the day is so cool that we shall have our favorite walks all to ourselves."

Olive assented, and the two friends were now to be seen passing up and down the long gravelled paths, which led through a thick grove of beech and maple, down to the water's edge.

"How tired you look, Olive," said Helen, at last.

"I am not so much tired as I am fretted and worried," Olive replied. "I do not see what it is to come to."

"What 'what' is to come to?" asked Helen.

"The times I have with Charlotte," replied Olive. "You saw how it was at noon. Because I said something about having no mother, she took it up, and made it appear that I was trying to insinuate that I was not well-treated at home. There is hardly a day of our lives that she does not get up some such scene, and she generally takes occasion, in the course of it, to put me in mind of the fact that I am dependent upon her father."

"But you are not entirely dependent, are you?" inquired Helen.

"Not entirely. We three girls, Abby, Laura, and myself, have almost three hundred dollars a year between us. That is enough to provide as with clothes, but it will not be quite as much when we finish going to school. So Abby and I stay at uncle Merton's, and my aunt Dimsden has adopted Laura, and educates her at home."

Olive paused a little, and then went on. "Uncle Merton is very kind, and I always get on nicely with him. Aunt is kind too, at least in all essentials, and I am very much attached to her. But she naturally sides with Charlotte, and never imagines that she can do any thing wrong. Then aunt is proud. She was very indignant at my mother, for marrying beneath her, as she thought, and she thinks I am just like my father. I hope I am," continued Olive, coloring with a justifiable pride; "I should not wish to resemble a better man."

"But in spite of all this I should do very well, if it were not for Charlotte. She renders my life miserable by her everlasting jealousy and suspicion. Even that I could put up with, but this feeling that I am only a dependent, and have no home of my own except upon sufferance—that I may be looked upon as an intruder and a burden—it is that which embitters every moment of my life."

"How does Abby bear it?" asked Helen.

"Why, Helen, you know how Abby is? Nothing ever disturbs her. I have heard aunt scold her half an hour at a time, so that if it had been me, I should have felt like drowning myself almost, and she would not care any more for it than though the old cat had mewed at her. It is just so when Mrs. Granger finds fault with her. I wish I had her temper, I am sure."

Helen had her doubts whether Olive would be, upon the whole, improved by having her sister's indifference, but she did not express them. "I wonder, Olive," she said, after a few moments' silence, "that you do not at once take measures to render yourself independent."

"How do you mean?" asked Olive. "How would I?"

"Very easily. You have had every advantage of education so far, and you say you expect to be in school at least half a year longer. What hinders you from preparing yourself thoroughly, and thus engaging in teaching?"

Olive looked as though she had received a perfectly new idea. "I never thought of that," said she; "I wonder if I could."

"Why not? A great many people undertake it, who are by no means equal to you in capacity or advantages, and are successful."

"But it is a great drudgery, Helen."

"That depends upon circumstances, my dear. That teaching must always be hard work, I allow, but it seems to me that it is very possible to raise it above the character of drudgery."

"How?"

"By putting one's whole heart and soul into it, as many teachers do. Witness Mrs. Granger and Miss Lee, and our good Professor De V. But, even allowing that it is hard work, is it not better to work hard, and be your own mistress, than to live in leisure and luxury, dependent upon another, however kind and considerate that other may be?"

Olive looked very thoughtful. "Yes," said she, at length, "I would rather work hard from year's end to year's end, if I could make enough to support myself comfortably. But how should I go to work to procure a situation?"

"Ask Mrs. Granger to find you one. You know she procured excellent places for Ann Browning and Elizabeth Hayes. She likes nothing better than to help the girls in this way, unless it is to see them married."

"What would uncle and aunt say, I wonder? I think it very doubtful whether they would hear of such a thing. Aunt said the last time we were at home that she hoped to have us settled in homes of our own before we were twenty-five."

"There is another thing to be taken into the account, Olive," said Helen. "Suppose your aunt undertakes to make up a match for you. If you are at all what I take you to be, you are not the girl to marry for a home or an establishment, whatever may be your circumstances. But suppose, as I said, she undertakes in all kindness to provide you with a husband. Your ideas and hers very probably would not agree. If you refused, out and out, your situation at home would not be rendered in the least degree more comfortable, while if you accepted, as you might be greatly tempted to do, there would be an end of all self-respect and happiness for the future."

"I have often thought of that, among the other discomforts of my condition," replied Olive, "though I never saw my way out of it before. I do not think that aunt Rebecca would ever intentionally do any thing ungenerous, though she does not like to be contradicted. But it will not do to decide hastily," she continued. "I must take the matter into consideration. I believe I will say that I will not try to come to any conclusion till after next Sunday."

"Why next Sunday?" asked Helen.

"Because it is Communion-Sunday," replied Olive. "I do not know but I am superstitious about it, Helen, but it does seem to me as though prayers upon communion-days were worth more than at other times."

"I do not see why they should not be," Helen said; "one would naturally pray with more faith and earnestness in presence of the memorials of the love of our Master and only Saviour, and it is said, 'According to your faith be it unto you.'"

"I have often thought it was wrong in me to be so discontented," continued Olive, after they had taken two or three turns in silence, "and I have struggled hard against the feeling, but it will come back."

"I think it would be wrong to be discontented, if you could help yourself," returned Helen, "but if we can better our condition by proper and lawful means, it appears to me that we have a right to do so. If I were you, I should make a great effort to be free, and not be discouraged by a good many hindrances. But if it should be shown to be clearly impossible, I should try to be contented, and make the best of it."

"I wonder what Charlotte will say?"

"Never mind what Charlotte says," returned Helen, with some little impatience in her tone. "I do wonder, Olive, that when you know her so well, you should constantly disturb and fetter yourself with a reference to her. You never appear to advantage where she is, because you always seem under such a constraint, and you hardly ever express an opinion before her, without looking as if you wondered how she would take it."

"It is foolish I know," said Olive, coloring, "but one reason is that she always seems upon the watch to turn me into ridicule, and if I say an unguarded word, she is sure to take advantage of it. Then if I show any signs of resentment, comes out something about my being dependent."

"Another reason for rendering yourself independent."

"Yes, and a very great one. If it were not for her, I should not care so much. For really aunt means to be very kind, though she does not always show it in the most agreeable way. And uncle is every thing that is good. I think if I decide upon this course, I will write to him before we go home. I can always speak my mind better in a letter than in any other way, and if I have his consent, I shall have little to fear; for he is most emphatically head of the house. Even Charlotte is afraid of him."

"You will have a strong motive for making the most of your time while you remain in school," said Helen. "If I were you, Olive, I would devote more time to Latin and mathematics. You are a good French and Italian scholar, and your standing in the other classes is excellent. But if you will allow me to say so, you are rather behindhand in these two branches, especially in algebra."

"I know I am," replied Olive; "I like them so much less than the others, and they are so much more difficult for me, that I have always felt a temptation to neglect them."

"But they are very necessary for a teacher," remarked Helen.

"I will begin to work at them this very night. I shall dislike to give up the French prize, too," she continued, with something like a sigh, "but it can not be helped. I must risk a less for a greater, as Mr. De V. says. Charlotte will think I am trying to take the mathematical prize from her. She regards it as hers already, you know, and I fear there is no chance of my coming up to it so late in the term."

"Charlotte again! Why should you wish to take it from her? Let her have that, and the French prize too, if she wants them. I should rather give them both up, than have any new cause of jealousy arise. You are working for a larger prize than a writing-desk, are you not?"

"She might have every one in the school if it would make her any better-natured," returned Olive. "Suppose I tell her that I will not try for any of them?"

"That would hardly answer the purpose. Just devote yourself to making up your own deficiencies and let things take their course. If you gain a prize, well and good; if not, you can afford to lose it. But there is the half-hour bell for tea; I had no idea we had been out so long."

When the bell rung for study at seven, Olive prepared to push her resolution into practice. Yet it was not without a sigh that she cleared her end of the table of dictionaries and grammars, and took down her slate and geometry. This was soon dispatched, and it was with a still deeper sigh that she turned to her algebra.

Abby intimated her surprise in humorous dumb-show, but did not speak; for both the sisters were very particular in observing the rules, Olive from principle, and Abby because she very well knew that there was no use in talking, to her sister, since she only lost her credit-marks, without getting any answers.

The lesson appeared uncommonly puzzling, and at first it seemed hopeless to try to understand it. Yesterday she would have contented herself with bestowing only just as much labor upon it as would save her from disgrace in the class, but she had a new and powerful motive for exertion. With a strong effort, she brought all her powers of mind to bear upon the task before her, and before nine o'clock she was able to lay down her slate with a sigh at once of fatigue and relief, and turn to her French lesson. She had hardly set about it, however, before the bell rang, which proclaimed that study was over for the night, and set free the hundred and twenty tongues that inhabited the building, Abby's among the number.

"How you have been fagging at that algebra!" she exclaimed, as the first stroke sounded. "Are you going to try to get Charlotte's prize away from her?"

"No," replied Olive, as she threw herself back in her chair; "I have no expectation of any such thing. She is too far before me for that. But I want to make up my deficiencies in mathematics if I can."

"What a pity you did not begin before! It is so near examination that every credit counts, and you will not have time to get any extras in French, if you give so much to algebra. I should not like to have you lose the French prize, after taking it so often."

"I own I should be sorry to lose it," said Olive, "but after all, Abby, the prize is not the principal thing."

"Perhaps not, but you must own it is a great help. Much as I love music, I don't believe I should have applied for an extra practice-hour, but for the hope of winning that beautiful copy of Dante."

"I am working for a prize, too," said Olive, "but it is not a school prize."

Abby looked at her in surprise. "Oh! Yes, of course," she said at last, "you always want to do just right, I know." Abby spoke in entire good faith. Perhaps the strongest feelings she ever had were admiration and love for her sister. She would for Olive's sake sacrifice even her dearly beloved laziness, which was the strongest proof of affection it was possible for her to give.

"That is not it, exactly, either," said Olive. "I have a plan in my head."

"Don't tell me, Olive, if you don't want Charlotte to know," interrupted Abby. "You know she always questions every thing out of me sooner or later. However, don't look so disappointed," she added; "if you want me to know very much, I will make an extra effort to keep my own counsel for once."

"I do want you to know very much," replied Olive, "and I do not want you to mention it to Charlotte, at least not till after I write to uncle." And she proceeded to unfold her plans.

Abby listened with a mingled expression of perplexity and astonishment. When Olive had finished: