Catharine Furze

e education had been neglected, a type perfectly familiar, recurring every quarter, and one with which they were perfectly well able to de

anguages, also, Catharine was singularly defective. Her French was intolerable and most inaccurate, and of Italian she knew nothing. Her dancing and deportment were so "provincial," as Miss Adela Ponsonby happily put it, that it was thought better that the dancing and deportment teacher should give her a few private lessons before putting her in a class, and she was consequently instructed alone in the rudiments of the art of entering and leaving a room with propriety, of sitting with propriety on a sofa when conversing, of reading a book in a drawing-room, of acknowledging an introductio

ned viva voce. One Monday morning, after Catharine had been a month at the school, Mr. Cardew came as usual. He had been preaching the Sunday before on a favourite theme, and his text had been, "So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with th

ning was assigned to the phra

rep

that which seemed to be more in accordance with the mind of St. Paul. Mis

she had been complimented by Mr. Cardew's inquiries after the body of

s one of the interp

f death," sa

ite

ew pupil, whom he had not noticed before

little and explai

Paul. He opposes the two pictures in him by the strongest words at his command - death and life. One is death,

is very nearly

e, because they were harmonious, and betokened a certain inward agreement. It was a sane, sensible face, but a careless critic might have thought that it betokened an incapability of emotion, especially as Mrs. Cardew had a habit of sitting back in her chair, and generally let the conversation take its own course until it came very chose to her. She had a sober mode of statement and criticism, which was never brilliant and never stupid. It ought to have been most serviceable to her husband, because it might have corrected the exaggeration into which his impul

on, without any warning, of remarks upon serious matters. Once even, shocking to say, he quite unexpectedly at a tea-party made an observation about God. Really, however, he was not a prig. He was very sinc

ead much, M

ery li

you were a reader. What have

ve read 'R

really? Now tell me

nnot tell

me training in order to give a proper account of the scope and purpose of a boo

l that is said about the dreadful effects of

those effects a

habit of doing, or rather, she did not lose herself, but everything

or to pass days in dreaming about one part

uddenly straightened herself; the blood ros

each about Dr. Johns

the elder Miss Ponsonby, "Dr. Joh

. It is a curious thing, Miss Ponsonby, that although Johnson was such a devout Christian, yet

and the Misses Ponsonby were uneasy, not because the conversation had taken such an unusual turn, but because a

hing does me any good, I never have anything to say to myse

that his wife had spoken, and there was once more silence for quite half a minute. Miss

oung woman," carelessl

th the Misses Ponson

ndeavoured to impress upon her that, not only is much care necessary in the choice of topics of conversation, but in the mode of dealing with them. I thought it better not to encourage any further remarks from her, or I should have p

asked Miss Arden, when she

and I have not known Mr. Cardew long

o know what I mean; but you always pre

know what

ouldn't you doat on him, a

e's ma

course he's married; you do

re in the dar

tly shaking her curls and laughing. "Married! - y

y ever to

ous! Cannot you s

er people really love one another, and often equal

be in the fire! Wouldn't there be a flare-up! What would the Ponsonbys do? Polite letter to papa announcing that my education was complete! That's what they did when Julia Jack

she not go to sleep? She was unused to wakefulness, and its novelty surprised her with all sorts of vague terrors. She turned from side to side anxiously while midnight sounded, but she was young, and in ten minutes afterwards she was dreaming. She was mistaken in supposing that she was the only pers

on on whom it seems to make an impression. You have a trick of repetition, and you manage t

than he was right. He did not take into account that what his wife said and what she felt might not be the same; that persons, who have no great command over language, are obliged to make one word do duty for a dozen, and that, if his wife was defective at one point, there were in her whole regions of unexplored excellence, of faculties never encouraged, an

to learn what few things she had to teach. It was all the worse because she still loved him so dearly, and felt that behind the veil was the same face, but she could not tear the veil away. Perhaps, as they grew older, matters might become worse, and they might have to travel together estranged down the long, weary path to death. Death! She did not desire to leave him, but she would have lain down in peace to die that