sitting among her fractious pupils-painfully | Burschencraft, he had determined to settle down in teaching her young tormentors tasks learned in her own happy schooldays; see her bowing her head low, to hide the starting tear, over the unheeded page half-open before her; see those outward and visible signs of inward bitterness of soul, and evermore with me think kindly, tenderly, of "the governess." Think of a young girl, guileless, perhaps, as a child, leaving her home to meet woman's scorn, or man's feigned affection-to endure one and repulse the other, as she best may-to bear day by day her painful position, over the ruins of the young, truthful, loving, woman's heart, and you have, on the whole, a very fair general idea of that social Tantalus, that cheerless "white slave," the young girl who has left her home for the first time to go out as a governess. And such was Mary Leigh. These remarks may not apply to all governesses. I simply describe what any right-thinking man can too often see for himself any day. I do not even say that Mary Leigh had to endure the flouts of upstart mammon, or the freezing courtesy of patrician pride-for Mrs. Nwas a lady, in more senses than one, and was, at bottom, really a good-hearted woman for one who had spent more than thirty years of her life in what is commonly called "the best society." Nevertheless, there was an utter lack of all true sympathy with the poor little governess on the part of that wealthy worldling and her daughters. Mrs. N, was a widow with three children-two young girls and their brother-a youth who was just then studying at a German University. Mary Leigh's life then in Mrs. N's family was the usual life of young governesses, a dreary monotony, a dry rot of the mind." But this is almost too commonplace.

One day, as she was sitting in her school-room alone after a morning's weary inculcation of dry geography and the like, she was startled from her reveries of home and bygone happiness by a light step on the stairs, and a young man entered the room carelessly, as though he, and not she, were the only person who had any business there that fine morning. A rough, plain-faced, "sorrow-maycare" intruder was this same Reginald Ntall, lithe as a panther, with a high, broad forehead, and deep-sunk, wild, grey eyes, with an expression of pride therein by no means pleasing, he was at first sight anything but a man calculated to take a lady's fancy. Yet he was not a man whom once seen you would as quickly have forgotten-for there was much character in that pale face, much nobility of heart and mind, much truthfulness, and alas! many lines that told of strong passions as yet undeveloped for good or evil. So, at least, were Mary's first impressions. Having just returned from Gottingen, after having smoked nu. merous pipes, discussed innumerable crotchets of bearded savans in skull caps and long dressinggowns, and fought a few deathless duels with the supple rapier then inseparable from Gottingen

London as "a moral Harlequin," as the little
governess once nicknamed him, or, in a word, a
barrister. Little did he, that bold, reckless youth
of twenty summers-little did she, that thin, worn,
sad-eyed girl, think how closely their two des-
tinies were interwoven from that very hour. He
saw nothing in her then but his mother's govern-
ess, and a very commonplace, every day kind of
governess withal-and she saw nothing in that
tall, stern-visaged intruder, but her mistress's
son. The position was just then as mutually un-
interesting as were possible for a rencontre of a like
nature to be. But well had it been for thee,
poor Mary, if that meeting had never been; bet-
ter would have been peace and poverty at home
than a brief, feverish dream of happiness with the
destroyer of thy peace abroad. Well had it been
for tl.cc, Reginald N, if thou hadst never
again come to seek thy sister, and find that pen-
sive little governess alone amidst her parcels of
MSS.-for she was a poetess in heart, though
her misery was her only muse, and her inspira-
tions never knew printer's ink. Better would it
have been, Reginald, if thou hadst tarried yet at
Gottingen, dreaming away thy strong powers and
manly intellect over soul clogging crotchets; for
so wouldst thou have escaped bitter, dreary days,
and bitter, sleepless nights, with none but remorse
as thy "grim chamberlain." It was, after all,
but natural that she, in course of time, should
like that young man's visits to her school room.
He had so many strange ideas-there was so much
originality, even in his very errors and failings, so
much heart in his ordinary conversation, that she
soon loved to listen to him-for, though he was a
great talker, who spoke ever wildly, often at ran-
dom, with a rough voice and energetic gestures,
she felt that truth was on his tongue, and that the
rough voice came from the heart. Well! it is but
the old, old tale, that has been told over broken
hearts since the creation of our earth, until now.
She soon owned to her heart a feeling of disap-
pointment if Reginald did not come every day to
seek his sisters, as he said-or their governess-
as their own woman's tact soon taught them was
the more likely. It was natural too that he, the
high-souled, truth-seeking youth, with his strange
fancies and loneliness of heart, from lack of sym-
pathy, should begin already to love—as such na-
tures and such only can love-the little recluse
who spent all her time in that school-room.
word, they were both young-both suffering un-
der that heavy curse of young, true hearts, mis-
conception on the part of those around them-and
so the transition to love was mere matter of
course. Both living in a self-created world of their
own of mental abstractions-both loving the true
and hating the false-as I believe all young
hearts at first-mind, I only say, at first, do—
they each felt a lack of sympathy, and, as a con-
sequence, found that vacuum, abhorred by young
hearts, filled in the school-room. And thus they

In a

BROKEN MEMORIES.

94

то

BROKEN MEMORIES.

10 REGINALD.-FROM MARY L. | female-" Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; Place, Brompton. for she loved much."

By the time this is inserted, you will be freed from me in every sense. I wish not to be remembered, as that memory can only be joyless. Strive to forget me. I am past man's pity now. Seek some Woman worthy of you,-one wiser, purer, nobler than I. She will save you from vain regrets and empty dreams. Life is something better than a waking dream-dreams are not the end and aim of true lives. You have doubted these things-believe them now and evermore. Now may God bless you, Reginald ➖➖; may He forgive us our deep sin, and so may you one day meet in heaven the purer spirit of MARY L

Of course I instantly connected this advertisement with the little governess. I was startledshocked beyond my wont-but I had yet to force myself to believe that "little sister Mary," as I had learned to call her in happier days, was dead, even then!

The firelight still gleams over the polished back of the chair where she once sat, and which old chair to-night brings back, as in a flood, these sad, broken memories on my heart. Indeed, I sometimes cannot think that she is really dead. It seems so very short a time since she sat here, in joyous, guileless innocence, smiling dreamily on the gleaming embers on this hearth. But she is gone. I must not muse too long upon all thisor it will take more than a week's sojourn in restless London to bring me and memory back from poor, dead Mary's grave. Directly I had read that same advertisement, I rushed off, half franticly, to her lodgings at Brompton-for, although in my transcript of the advertisement, I have, for obvious reasons, suppressed name and number of the place, these were given therein. On inquiry I found that a Miss Leigh had lived there, and now lay dead upstairs. "Perhaps," said the landlady, with tears in her eyes which she sedulously strove to dry with her apron, "if you were a friend of hers, you would like to see the poor thing." I could not bear more-I gently pushed aside the old woman, and ran upstairs. I pushed open a door, and there lay Mary Leigh dead, with a smile on her face, peaceful in death as a child's in sleep. I gently closed the door, and knelt down silently by the side of the dead girl. Verily I prayed then as I had never prayed before; for there was a leaf torn rudely out from the great Book of Life. There she lay dead on her bed, with a long tress of hair clenched tightly in her little hand. She had evidently torn up all papers that could leave any clue to her family, or friends, or the motive of her death. The fire had destroyed everything that could have told tales of sorrowfor the grate was full of charred manuscripts. Worse than all, on the floor lay a bottle of laudanum empty at the foot of her bed lay her desk open, with a Bible by its side, with the leaves turned down at the seventh chapter of St. Luke, in which occur these words, touching a Jewish

Strange contradiction in life as in death-social paradox-love's heretic-love's martyr wert thou!

On the ground, just as they had fallen, lay these lines, with the ink but a few hours dry on the paper, whereon she wrote, with a brain tottering on the brink of madness, and a hand trembling for the last time ere it became rigid in death, this last wail of sorrow, part of which I give, not from its merits as a composition, but as a fit pendant to these broken memories of that young girl's broken heart :

In the night's deep, weird silence-in my memory-haunted sleep

Oft I ponder o'er my childhood-oft, in bitterness, I

Any one can imagine this poor girl-for she was but little more-sitting her last night on earth in that lonely room, by her failing fire, writing these sad, strange, incoherent lines, tear-blotted, as they seem, with eyes red with weeping. The rest is a common story-a coroner's inquest, a verdict of 'temporary insanity," and a quiet funeral, attended by that rough-voiced, tender-hearted old landlady and myself. "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil"—for here was a young girl of pure mind at life's outset, one whom love led

BROKEN MEMORIES.

astray to misery and suicide, and whose death was
as dreary as her life had been sad. Dreamer! here
was one of thine own school-a dreamer gazing
idly on sin with folded hands-a sinner weakly
sinning with the best intentions-a whisperer to
herself of "smooth things”—a self-deceiver, and
a suicide !

After the battle of Balaklava, a dead dragoon was found with his sword still clenched in his hand. Round the dead man's neck was a hair chain, with a locket appended thereto, containing a long flaxen tress. On that locket was engraven "MARY LEIGH." In his pocket-book was found an extract from the Times (the advertisement before referred to by me); on the back of that advertisement was written in ink, and in a bold, clear hand—

95

bowl lazily over my head, the night is now far spent, and here am I, still sitting in my arm-chair, smoking and musing alone. If my memories have hitherto been sad, it is not because my life has been altogether dreary. True, I have had sorrow in my life-for, although a young man, I have seen much falsehood, more suffering, and have lived a longer age in sensations than many who are older; but if love's light was suddenly withdrawn from my path early in life, I am not foolish enough to suppose that this light may not just now be shining on other lives around me. I do not wish to deem all false because some practise falsehood, all cold because many are, or to judge a whole from a part. It will take far more than the epigrammatic worldly wisdom of Rochefoucault, the sweet sadness of poor L. E. L.'s muse, the mournful scorn of Byron, or the biting sarcasms of Thackeray,-far more flection of a writer's morbid mind, to teach me than a cynic's well worded sneer, or the mere rethat love is nothing better than a Platonic phantasy-a pleasant theory, innocent of practicea poet's lie to comfort his heart-or that truth can only be found in boarding schools and threevolume novels. No man ever yet travelled from the Dan to the Beersheba of society and "found all barren." On my table lies a book just sent to me by my old friend Arthur Egerton, whose life has been to me oftentimes a natural homily, when. hon-ever I would sigh, in that selfish discontent which looks on life with such a jaundiced eye, that my life is very dreary, very loveless, very aimless, and all those unpleasant et ceteras which discontent is always glad to convert into grumblings, ready made to fit anything. This certainly is vague; let me therefore call to mind the heart-history, and the actions of that true hearted man, and give you the benefit of such recollection.

Poor Mary's last words. May God have mercy on her, and forgive me! If the finder of this, after my death, will cause it, with the locket round my neck, to be buried with he will, perchance, soothe the spirit of the departed. REGINALD N.

me,

And now I have told you how Mary Leigh and Reginald N- lived, loved, sinned, and died. Let us hope, with the charity "that thinketh no evil," that God has indeed pardoned her. Let us hope that He, in His infinite mercy, has pardoned the soldier who died nobly and young, whose last prayer was for forgiveness and his country's our, and who, "after life's fitful fever, sleeps well" in his grave on the plain of Balaklava.

I love a suburban Cemetery. Often in summer have I sat there looking out over the monster city, with its churches looming out mistily in bold relief against the sky, or reflecting the last red rays of the setting sun. Last summer I was whiling away a pleasant July evening there among the tombs. I need hardly say that poor Mary Leigh's was the tomb sought in my wanderings, and that I looked down mournfully on Mary's epitaph, chosen by her old landlady

Her sins, which are many, are forgiven;
for she loved much.

I am anxious to coincide in that epitaph's benedic
tion; it tells so much in so few words. My charity
believes its application just, and Faith points to a
purer day beyond the tomb, where "God will wipe
away all tears from all faces," and where "the
wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at
rest."

CHAPTER IV.

Learn to labour and to wait.-Longfellow.

'Tis woman alone with a purer heart,

Can see all the idols of life depart,
And love the more, and smile, and bless
Man in his uttermost wretchedness.

-Barry Cornwall,

THE fire still roars away up the chimney, the smoke-rings still float away from my meerschaum

The first time I ever saw Arthur Egerton was at a certain public school, which, for obvious reasons, I shall here leave nameless. We two boys were in the same "house" and form; "new fellows," as the phrase is there, in the same halfyear, we were thrown together necessarily by a lack of sympathy elsewhere, and hence I date a life-long friendship. The experience of a public heart, the unheeded misery of a first half-year in school is required to tell the utter loneliness of one of these seminaries. To a proud, sensitive moral purgatory for the first six months. true-hearted boy, like Egerton, this place was a He had on the surface few of those characteristics which win golden opinions from men; much less from boys, who are always governed by externals in their hasty conjugation of those odd verbs "to like " and "to dislike." They disliked him. It is not worth while wasting words in an analysis of their sentiments. Arthur had many noble qualities, as a boy, too; a truthfulness of nature, which was his characteristic; besides the minor attributes of a quiet courage, of an ostentation-hating generosity, and strong talent--sadly marred by his dreamy turn of mind. Though reputed a clever

the maximum number of Alcaics or Greek Iambics
per hour, or any such accomplishment, he has
done all that education can teach, or he require.
The heart is sacrificed to the head, the useful to
the ornamental, the right to the expedient. So it
was in our time; so it will ever be at all pub-
lic schools till another Arnold arise to teach the
world that, as "the boy is the father of the man,"
so that same world makes a great mistake, except
in a few rare cases, if it expects fruit from that
manhood whose boyhood produced nothing but
thorns, or wood running to waste. To drop the
metaphorical and descend once more to the dear,
plain old Saxon of every day life; these remarks
may explain Egerton's failure, his character, and
the system which called them forth. We parted
one fine summer morning after a quiet stroll.
was, when we next met, at Oxford, dreaming,
wasting his fortune, talent, and energies, as I
thought, as of old. The change to more conge-
nial Oxford was not greater than that I saw from
the boy Egerton at school to the man Egerton at
college. Oxford had grievously altered him in
some respects. He had lost already much of the
freshness of his mind-much of the trusting
truthfulness of his nature, and had become a man
courted for his society, versatile, witty, liked by

He

boy by the masters, and by them placed in a "good | form," he was seldom at the head, and generally at the end of that form-to the surprise of his master, and the joy of his form fellows, who envied the clear headed, quiet, idle boy his shrewd answers. Descartes has well observed that there are two educations; the one which a boy receives from a master in school-the other he imparts to himself out of doors; Arthur Egerton chose the latter. Let no one suppose that the careless, untidy, dreamy boy, who lost his exercises as soon as written, and went to sleep over tedious comments of erudite M.A.'s on Greek particles, wasted his time altogether. For his years, he read with an avidity and correct taste that often surprised the master of his form, who would occasionally stumble upon the soi-disant idle boy on half-holidays, lying in the fields, poring over delightedly, inwardly digesting the pith of some author's mind, far more difficult of comprehension than any dry epitome of dulness, for neglect of which he had probably been severely punished a few days before. In a word, he was at that time a dreamer in esse, a worker in posse. His career at school was a failure, as any one who knew human nature well would have readily prognosticated-and Arthur Egerton was quietly" requested to leave," which is considered tantamount to expulsion in every-many, loved by none, misunderstood by all, and, thing but publicity. He was "requested to leave" for no specific breach of discipline, but for a general disregard of school etiquette. He, however, had the satisfaction of being told that his conduct had ever been marked by a high sense of honour, however injudicious it might have been in other respects. And here perhaps fathers who have sons to educate will allow one who has some little knowledge of the scholastic system to ventilate an opinion as regards the system pursued in our public schools generally. In the first place, there are many absurd customs, such as fagging" and the like, tolerated, nay upheld by the masters --which seldom fail to make a boy at first a slave, at last a tyrant. Then there is too little personal supervision on the part of the masters themselves -they leave too much to the Propostors (monitors elsewhere), and trust too much to a boy's sense of right and wrong, which, at public schools, is somewhat vague; they allow too much freedom, and then punish the boy they have hitherto treated as a man, like a child, for some trifling breach of trifling discipline. Moreover, there is at these places no classification of boys' natures-all are treated alike, rewarded or punished alike, with indiscriminate kindness or ill-timed severity, as the case may be, and the result is, that the obtuse, sullen nature, is hardened or brutalised, the keenwitted nature warped to sourness, or indulged to the verge of conceit, and the proud, true-hearted, yet sensitive nature galled by harsh restrictions, or perverted by too great laxity.

There likewise seems to be an opinion at public schools that the head is the only thing to be educated-that, so long as the boy has "knocked off"

in addition to these, truly the "fastest" member of the "fastest" set in Oxford. Yet he was still a worker, though desultory and utterly without aim or system. He was, in a measure, still busied on self-education, as he called the teaching of nights spent in brilliant dissipation, wherein he lavished the stores of his mind on the topic of the hour, to be succeeded by afternoons spent on the banks of the Cherwell, with a cigar in his mouth, and some volume of heavy reading, or Plato's glorious dreamings, just as it happened, in his hand. The end of all this drew nigh; broken in health and fortune, the clever, desultory student was ignominiously "plucked," as scores of like men are "plucked " yearly-and he returned home to Ravenscliffe in great disgust and self-contempt. Arthur Egerton was an orphan, and, on attaining his majority, succeeded to a small entailed estate, and a queer, quaint old Hall, co-eval with the Tudors; his failure therefore at Oxford was not so utterly irretrievable as failure would have been to many of his "college chums" otherwise circumstanced. Nevertheless he felt his position acutely -he now felt that he had wasted his fortune, strength, and purity of soul in a mad quest of that ignis fatuus of the young, popularity; and if, as a Father of the Church avers-"the first step towards wisdom is to discriminate between things true and things false," then Arthur Egerton was already becoming a better and a wiser man.

Ravenscliffe Hall was by situation well fitted for a locus penitentiæ; it stood lonely, in a hollow, surrounded by gloomy pines, and was altogether a place that Zimmerman, the apostle of solitude, would have loved for its silence. In that dreary