I was on the horns of a dilemma, fixed between both. "And I do like Jerry-he is so funnytells me about my ancestors, papa's forebears, as he calls them; and such a number of stories about fairies do you know-only I think mamma would kill papa if she thought it, and I am sure you will not tell-but I do believe-hush -no one can hear, can they?—no !-Well then I really think papa's papa-or grandpapa, or something, was"-she looked aboutto be certain no one could hear the secret she was so anxious to communicate-and then whispered" I do think that my papa's papa'I or mamma was Irish !--there!" I told Helen I would request her mamma to let her spend a day with me, in a little time, and endeavoured to impress upon her. that she must not leave her mother while she was in trouble. "Trouble, indeed," repeated Helen, "trouble !" and the tone of the voice, and the short prematurely bitter laugh, told too truly how. lightly the trouble' was regarded. During my homeward walk, I thought over and over to what this contradictory culture of so fertile a soil must lead. One parent had evidently been acting upon the child in opposition to the other, and yet both (and how pregnant with a disastrous future was the fact!) had been sowing the seed of falsehood in a mind so naturally prone to fiction and its exaggerations, that every effort ought to have been made to stablish and strengthen it in what was real and true. The love of display, the panting for admiration, so innocently avowed to me by this fascinating child, was not as dangerous as the evident want of moral training in the first great lesson of life-perfect and entire truthfulness! The fairy tales of Jerry, and the wild ballads of Mary Ryland, were calculated to increase the fever of an imagination already active beyond its strength; but that was a minor evil. How wretched is the prospect of the child whose mother feels not the influence of that power which directs all things rightly! A mother may lack accomplishments, rank, station, and have no claim to what is deemed the higher order of intellect; she may be plain of speech and of manner, unformed or even rude; but if she has tasted of the fountain of living waters, if she understand and practice the simple rule of RIGHT, if she is the handmaid of truth, and if deceit and vanity have never sheltered beneath her roof-if she is faithful as a friend, gentle as a mistress, and of a loving, duteous nature towards him to whom she is bound till life's pilgrimage is ended, then her children are certain of the best and purest training for time and for eternity. Judgment also (for every child requires peculiar training), is especially needed in education; yet I have known women, simple in other things, of almost intuitive wisdom in the teaching of children-plodding onward with a few fixed. principles, modified by tenderness and affection, according as the strength or weakness of the child required assistance-combat and overcome difficulties which but, dear me, I am perplexing myself, and not enlightening others, by recalling the train of thought, the feelings and anxieties, the hopes and regrets which that dear child occasioned me, even then. Nay, I remember being espe cially shocked at finding myself contemplating the idea-almost, I fear, the hope that Mrs. Lyndsey might not live very long, and that then Helen and Florence might be educated together. What wicked thoughts find entrance into our hearts at times! VOL. 1. K 130 CHAPTER VI. "My female friends, whose tender hearts SWIFT. I FEAR my friends may find tedious the noting of persons and things by which these pages have been hitherto filled; but it is necessary I should be thus minute at the commencement, for out of what are considered the small nothings of childhood arise the great plans which sanctify a generation, or the storms and tempests that revolutionize a world. The near connexion that subsisted between Helen and Florence was, owing to Mrs. Lyndsey's ignorant and perverse mind, the great barrier |