Charles Auchester, Volume 1 of 2

It was, I well knew, a focus of some excitement at election times and during the assizes, also in the spring, when religious meetings w

aganini within its precincts. I was too young to know anything of the triennial festival that distinguished our city as one of the most musical in England, at that time almost the only one

leap, spring, and run with the best, though I always hated walking. I believe I should have died under any other care than that expanded over me, for my mother abhorred the forcing system. Had I belonged to t

ate, for we were all disposed to be very comfortable as part of our duty. I had said all my lessons, and was now sitting at the table writing a small text copy in a ruled book, with an outsid

washing silk, and her clear white apron, her crimson muffetees and short, close black mittens, her glossy hair rolled round her handsome tortoise-shell comb, and the bunch of rare though quaint ornaments-seals, keys, rings, and lockets,-that balanced he

s all that I undertook, with a species of elasticity peculiar to the nervous temperament. My mother was also busy. She sat in her tall chair at the window, her eyes constantly drawn towards the street, but she never left

an effort-when my great goose-quill slipped through my fingers, thin as they were, and I made a desper

t. "A blot might not have been your fault, but the page is very ba

Clo," I answered; and C

e generally, should be so little careful of his writing? He will n

sharply that my mother grew di

t take pains in every point, as you are so kind as to instruct him.

s. "I shall never be able to write,-I mean neatly; Clo may l

ver mean to wr

suppose, but I shall never writ

nd laid them along her own,

little less than mine; su

d play;" but Lydia had just turned the corner of the street, and my mother's eyes were watching her up to the door. So I stood before

hair, Clo having faithfully fulfilled h

et upon her arm. She exhibited the contents to my mother,-who, I suppose, approved thereof, as she said they might be d

ss; the present p

llow you to go, though I very much wish it; but should we suffer ourselves such an indulgence, we should have to deprive ourselves of comforts that are necessary to health, and thus to well being

forced and minutely developed. It was in my own place, indeed, I learned how truly happy does comfort render home, and how

ave, and Fred thought there would be back seats lowered in price, or perhaps a standing gallery, as there was at the last fe

point, so I put in, "Is the fes

three weeks to-day to

be very

t and most complete

, for I had scarcely ever felt so much before. I was longing, nay, crazy, to finish my page, that I might run out and find Millicent, who, child as I was, I knew could tell me what I wanted to hear better than any one of them. My eagerness impeded me, and I did not conclude it to Clo's genuine