A SIMPLE STORY

BY

MRS. INCHBALD

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
G. L. STRACHEY

CONTENTS

href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@22002@[email protected]#III_CHAPTER_XII" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIV.

Volume IV

CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.

Plays written by Mrs. Inchbald

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INTRODUCTION

A Simple Story is one of those books which, for some reason or other, have failed to come down to us, as they deserved, along the current of time, but have drifted into a literary backwater where only the professional critic or the curious discoverer can find them out. "The iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth her poppy;" and nowhere more blindly than in the republic of letters. If we were to inquire how it has happened that the true value of Mrs. Inchbald's achievement has passed out of general recognition, perhaps the answer to our question would be found to lie in the extreme difficulty with which the mass of readers detect and appreciate mere quality in literature. Their judgment is swayed by a hundred side-considerations which have nothing to do with art, but happen easily to impress the imagination, or to fit in with the fashion of the hour. The reputation of Mrs. Inchbald's contemporary, Fanny Burney, is a case in point. Every one has heard of Fanny Burney's novels, and Evelina is still widely read. Yet it is impossible to doubt that, so far as quality alone is concerned, Evelina deserves to be ranked considerably below A Simple Story. But its writer was the familiar friend of the greatest spirits of her age; she was the author of one of the best of diaries; and her work was immediately and immensely popular. Thus it has happened that the name of Fanny Burney has maintained its place upon the roll of English novelists, while that of Mrs. Inchbald is forgotten.

But the obscurity of Mrs. Inchbald's career has not, of course, been the only reason for the neglect of her work. The merits of A Simple Story are of a kind peculiarly calculated to escape the notice of a generation of readers brought up on the fiction of the nineteenth century. That fiction, infinitely various as it is, possesses at least one characteristic common to the whole of it—a breadth of outlook upon life, which can be paralleled by no other body of literature in the world save that of the Elizabethans. But the comprehensiveness of view shared by Dickens and Tolstoy, by Balzac and George Eliot, finds no place in Mrs. Inchbald's work. Compared with A Simple Story even the narrow canvases of Jane Austen seem spacious pictures of diversified life. Mrs. Inchbald's novel is not concerned with the world at large, or with any section of society, hardly even with the family; its subject is a group of two or three individuals whose interaction forms the whole business of the book. There is no local colour in it, no complexity of detail nor violence of contrast; the atmosphere is vague and neutral, the action passes among ill-defined sitting-rooms, and the most poignant scene in the story takes place upon a staircase which has never been described. Thus the reader of modern novels is inevitably struck, in A Simple Story, by a sense of emptiness and thinness, which may well blind him to high intrinsic merits. The spirit of the eighteenth century is certainly present in the book, but it is the eighteenth century of France rather than of England. Mrs. Inchbald no doubt owed much to Richardson; her view of life is the indoor sentimental view of the great author of Clarissa; but her treatment of it has very little in common with his method of microscopic analysis and vast accumulation. If she belongs to any school, it is among the followers of the French classical tradition that she must be placed. A Simple Story is, in its small way, a descendant of the Tragedies of Racine; and Miss Milner may claim relationship with Madame de Clèves.

Besides her narrowness of vision, Mrs. Inchbald possesses another quality, no less characteristic of her French predecessors, and no less rare among the novelists of England. She is essentially a stylist—a writer whose whole conception of her art is dominated by stylistic intention. Her style, it is true, is on the whole poor; it is often heavy and pompous, sometimes clumsy and indistinct; compared with the style of such a master as Thackeray it sinks at once into insignificance. But the interest of her style does not lie in its intrinsic merit so much as in the use to which she puts it. Thackeray's style is mere ornament, existing independently of what he has to say; Mrs. Inchbald's is part and parcel of her matter. The result is that when, in moments of inspiration, she rises to the height of her opportunity, when, mastering her material, she invests her expression with the whole intensity of her feeling and her thought, then she achieves effects of the rarest beauty—effects of a kind for which one may search through Thackeray in vain. The most triumphant of these passages is the scene on the staircase of Elmwood House—a passage which would be spoilt by quotation and which no one who has ever read it could forget. But the same quality is to be found throughout her work. "Oh, Miss Woodley!" exclaims Miss Milner, forced at last to confess to her friend what she feels towards Dorriforth, "I love him with all the passion of a mistress, and with all the tenderness of a wife." No young lady, even in the eighteenth century, ever gave utterance to such a sentence as that.

It is the sentence, not of a speaker, but of a writer; and yet, for that very reason, it is delightful, and comes to us charged with a curious sense of emotion, which is none the less real for its elaboration. In Nature and Art, Mrs. Inchbald's second novel, the climax of the story is told in a series of short paragraphs, which, for bitterness and concentration of style, are almost reminiscent of Stendhal:

Here, no doubt, there is a touch of melodrama; but it is the melodrama of a rhetorician, and, in that fine "She heard it with composure", genius has brushed aside the forced and the obvious, to express, with supreme directness, the anguish of a soul.

For, in spite of Mrs. Inchbald's artificialities, in spite of her lack of that kind of realistic description which seems to modern readers the very blood and breath of a good story, she has the power of doing what, after all, only a very few indeed of her fellow craftsmen have ever been able to do—she can bring into her pages the living pressure of a human passion, she can invest, if not with realism, with something greater than realism—with the sense of reality itself—the pains, the triumphs, and the agitations of the human heart. "The heart," to use the old-fashioned phrase—there is Mrs. Inchbald's empire, there is the sphere of her glory and her command. Outside of it, her powers are weak and fluctuating. She has no firm grasp of the masculine elements in character: she wishes to draw a rough man, Sandford, and she draws a rude one; she tries her hand at a hero, Rushbrook, and she turns out a prig. Her humour is not faulty, but it is exceedingly slight. What an immortal figure the dim Mrs. Horton would have become in the hands of Jane Austen! In Nature and Art, her attempts at social satire are superficial and overstrained. But weaknesses of this kind—and it would be easy to prolong the list—are what every reader of the following pages will notice without difficulty, and what no wise one will regard. "Il ne faut point juger des hommes par ce qu'ils ignorent, mais par ce qu'ils savent;" and Mrs. Inchbald's knowledge was as profound as it was limited. Her Miss Milner is an original and brilliant creation, compact of charm and life. She is a flirt, and a flirt not only adorable, but worthy of adoration. Did Mrs. Inchbald take the suggestion of a heroine with imperfections from the little masterpiece which, on more sides than one, closely touches her's—Manon Lescaut? Perhaps; and yet, if this was so, the borrowing was of the slightest, for it is only in the fact that she is imperfect that Miss Milner bears to Manon any resemblance at all. In every other respect, the English heroine is the precise contrary of the French one: she is a creature of fiery will, of high bearing, of noble disposition; and her shortcomings are born, not of weakness, but of excess of strength. Mrs. Inchbald has taken this character, she has thrown it under the influence of a violent and absorbing passion, and, upon that theme, she has written her delicate, sympathetic, and artificial book.

As one reads it, one cannot but feel that it is, if not directly and circumstantially, at least in essence, autobiographical. One finds oneself speculating over the author, wondering what was her history, and how much of it was Miss Milner's. Unfortunately the greater part of what we should most like to know of Mrs. Inchbald's life has vanished beyond recovery. She wrote her Memoirs, and she burnt them; and who can tell whether even there we should have found a self-revelation? Confessions are sometimes curiously discreet, and, in the case of Mrs. Inchbald, we may be sure that it is only what was indiscreet that would really be worth the hearing. Yet her life is not devoid of interest. A brief sketch of it may be welcome to her readers.

Elizabeth Inchbald was born on the 15th of October, 1753, at Standingfield, near Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk;[1] one of the numerous offspring of John and Mary Simpson. The Simpsons, who were Roman Catholics, held a moderate farm in Standingfield, and ranked among the gentry of the neighbourhood. In Elizabeth's eighth year, her father died; but the family continued at the farm, the elder daughters marrying and settling in London, while Elizabeth grew up into a beautiful and charming girl. One misfortune, however, interfered with her happiness—a defect of utterance which during her early years rendered her speech so indistinct as to be unintelligible to strangers. She devoted herself to reading and to dreams of the great world. At thirteen, she declared she would rather die than live longer without seeing the world; she longed to go to London; she longed to go upon the stage. When, in 1770, one of her brothers became an actor at Norwich, she wrote secretly to his manager, Mr. Griffith, begging for an engagement. Mr. Griffith was encouraging, and, though no definite steps were taken, she was sufficiently charmed with him to write out his name at length in her diary, with the inscription "Each dear letter of thy name is harmony." Was Mr. Griffith the hero of the company as well as its manager? That, at any rate, was clearly Miss Simpson's opinion; but she soon had other distractions. In the following year she paid a visit to her married sisters in London, where she met another actor, Mr. Inchbald, who seems immediately to have fallen in love with her, and to have proposed. She remained cool. "In spite of your eloquent pen," she wrote to him, with a touch of that sharp and almost bitter sense that was always hers, "matrimony still appears to me with less charms than terrors: the bliss arising from it, I doubt not, is superior to any other—but best not to be ventured for (in my opinion), till some little time have proved the emptiness of all other; which it seldom fails to do." Nevertheless, the correspondence continued, and, early in 1772, some entries in her diary give a glimpse of her state of mind:—

A few months later she did the great deed of her life: she stepped secretly into the Norwich coach, and went to London. The days that followed were full of hazard and adventure, but the details of them are uncertain. She was a girl of eighteen, absolutely alone, and astonishingly attractive—"tall," we are told, "slender, straight, of the purest complexion, and most beautiful features; her hair of a golden auburn, her eyes full at once of spirit and sweetness;" and it was only to be expected that, in such circumstances, romance and daring would soon give place to discomfort and alarm. She attempted in vain to obtain a theatrical engagement; she found herself, more than once, obliged to shift her lodging; and at last, after ten days of trepidation, she was reduced to apply for help to her married sisters. This put an end to her difficulties, but, in spite of her efforts to avoid

notice, her beauty had already attracted attention, and she had received a letter from a stranger, with whom she immediately entered into correspondence. She had all the boldness of innocence, and, in addition, a force of character which brought her safely through the risks she ran. While she was still in her solitary lodging, a theatrical manager, named Dodd, attempted to use his position as a cover for seduction. She had several interviews with him alone, and the story goes that, in the last, she snatched up a basin of hot water and dashed it in his face. But she was not to go unprotected for long; for within two months of her arrival in London she had married Mr. Inchbald.

The next twelve years of Mrs. Inchbald's life were passed amid the rough and tumble of the eighteenth-century stage. Her husband was thirty-seven when she married him, a Roman Catholic like herself, and an actor who depended for his living upon ill-paid and uncertain provincial engagements. Mrs. Inchbald conquered her infirmity of speech and threw herself into her husband's profession. She accompanied him to Bristol, to Scotland, to Liverpool, to Birmingham, appearing in a great variety of rôles, but never with any very conspicuous success. The record of these journeys throws an interesting light upon the conditions of the provincial companies of those days. Mrs. Inchbald and her companions would set out to walk from one Scotch town to another; they would think themselves lucky if they could climb on to a passing cart, to arrive at last, drenched with rain perhaps, at some wretched hostelry. But this kind of barbarism did not stand in the way of an almost childish gaiety. In Yorkshire, we find the Inchbalds, the Siddonses, and Kemble retiring to the moors, in the intervals of business, to play blindman's buff or puss in the corner. Such were the pastimes of Mrs. Siddons before the days of her fame. No doubt this kind of lightheartedness was the best antidote to the experience of being "saluted with volleys of potatoes and broken bottles", as the Siddonses were by the citizens of Liverpool, for having ventured to appear on their stage without having ever played before the King. On this occasion, the audience, according to a letter from Kemble to Mrs. Inchbald, "extinguished all the lights round the house; then jumped upon the stage; brushed every lamp out with their hats; took back their money; left the theatre, and determined themselves to repeat this till they have another company." These adventures were diversified by a journey to Paris, undertaken in the hope that Mr. Inchbald, who found himself without engagements, might pick up a livelihood as a painter of miniatures. The scheme came to nothing, and the Inchbalds eventually went to Hull, where they returned to their old profession. Here, in 1779, suddenly and somewhat mysteriously, Mr. Inchbald died. To his widow the week that followed was one of "grief, horror, and almost despair"; but soon, with her old pertinacity, she was back at her work, settling at last in London, and becoming a member of the Covent Garden company. Here, for the next five years, she earned for herself a meagre living, until, quite unexpectedly, deliverance came. In her moments of leisure she had been trying her hand upon dramatic composition; she had written some farces, and, in 1784, one of them, A Mogul Tale, was accepted, acted, and obtained a great success. This was the turning-point of her career. She followed up her farce with a series of plays, either original or adapted, which, almost without exception, were well received, so that she was soon able to retire from the stage with a comfortable competence. She had succeeded in life; she was happy, respected, free.

Mrs. Inchbald's plays are so bad that it is difficult to believe that they brought her a fortune. But no doubt it was their faults that made them popular—their sentimentalities, their melodramatic absurdities, their strangely false and high-pitched moral tone. They are written in a jargon which resembles, if it resembles anything, an execrable prose translation from very flat French verse. "Ah, Manuel!" exclaims one of her heroines, "I am now amply punished by the Marquis for all my cruelty to Duke Cordunna—he to whom my father in my infancy betrothed me, and to whom I willingly pledged my faith, hoping to wed; till Romono, the Marquis of Romono, came from the field of glory, and with superior claims of person as of fame, seized on my heart by force, and perforce made me feel I had never loved till then." Which is the more surprising—that actors could be found to utter such speeches, or that audiences could be collected to applaud them? Perhaps, for us, the most memorable fact about Mrs. Inchbald's dramatic work is that one of her adaptations (from the German of Kotzebue) was no other than that Lovers' Vows which, as every one knows, was rehearsed so brilliantly at Ecclesford, the seat of the Right Hon. Lord Ravenshaw, in Cornwall, and which, after all, was not performed at Sir Thomas Bertram's. But that is an interest sub specie aeternitatis; and, from the temporal point of view, Mrs. Inchbald's plays must be regarded merely as means—means towards her own enfranchisement, and that condition of things which made possible A Simple Story. That novel had been sketched as early as 1777; but it was not completely written until 1790, and not published until the following year. A second edition was printed immediately, and several more followed; the present reprint is taken from the fourth, published in 1799—but with the addition of the characteristic preface, which, after the second edition, was dropped. The four small volumes of these early editions, with their large type, their ample spacing, their charming flavour of antiquity, delicacy, and rest—may be met with often enough in secluded corners of secondhand bookshops, or on some neglected shelf in the library of a country house. For their own generation, they represented a distinguished title to fame. Mrs. Inchbald—to use the expression of her biographer—"was ascertained to be one of the greatest ornaments of her sex." She was painted by Lawrence, she was eulogized by Miss Edgeworth, she was complimented by Madame de Stael herself. She had, indeed, won for herself a position which can hardly be paralleled among the women of the eighteenth century—a position of independence and honour, based upon talent, and upon talent alone. In 1796 she published Nature and Art, and ten years later appeared her last work—a series of biographical and critical notices prefixed to a large collection of acting plays. During the greater part of the intervening period she lived in lodgings in Leicester Square—or "Leicester Fields" as the place was still often called—in a house opposite that of Sir Joshua Reynolds. The œconomy which she had learnt in her early days she continued to practise; dressing with extraordinary plainness, and often going without a fire in winter; so that she was able, through her self-sacrifice, to keep from want a large band of poor relatives and friends. The society she mixed with was various, but, for the most part, obscure. There were occasional visits from the now triumphant Mrs. Siddons; there were incessant propositions—but alas! they were equivocal—from Sir Charles Bunbury; for the rest, she passed her life among actor-managers and humble playwrights and unremembered medical men. One of her friends was William Godwin, who described her to Mrs. Shelley as a "piquante mixture between a lady and a milkmaid", and who, it is said, suggested part of the plot of A Simple Story. But she quarreled with him when he married Mary Wollstonecraft, after whose death she wrote to him thus—"With the most sincere sympathy in all you have suffered—with the most perfect forgiveness of all you have said to me, there must nevertheless be an end to our acquaintance for ever. I respect your prejudices, but I also respect my own." Far more intimate were her relations with Dr. Gisborne—a mysterious figure, with whom, in some tragic

manner that we can only just discern, was enacted her final romance. His name—often in company with that of another physician, Dr. Warren, for whom, too, she had a passionate affection—occurs frequently among her papers; and her diary for December 17, 1794, has this entry:—"Dr. Gisborne drank tea here, and staid very late: he talked seriously of marrying—but not me." Many years later, one September, she amused herself by making out a list of all the Septembers since her marriage, with brief notes as to her state of mind during each. The list has fortunately survived, and some of the later entries are as follows:—

• 1791. London; after my novel, Simple Story ... very happy.
• 1792. London; in Leicester Square ... cheerful, content, and sometimes rather happy....
• 1794. Extremely happy, but for poor Debby's death.
• 1795. My brother George's death, and an intimate acquaintance with Dr. Gisborne—not happy....
• 1797. After an alteration in my teeth, and the death of Dr. Warren—yet far from unhappy.
• 1798. Happy, but for suspicion amounting almost to certainty of a rapid appearance of age in my face....
• 1802. After feeling wholly indifferent about Dr. Gisborne—very happy but for ill health, ill looks, &c.
• 1803. After quitting Leicester Square probably for ever—after caring scarce at all or thinking of Dr. Gisborne ... very happy....
• 1806.... After the death of Dr. Gisborne, too, often very unhappy, yet mostly cheerful, and on my return to London nearly happy.

The record, with all its quaintness, produces a curious impression of stoicism—of a certain grim acceptance of the facts of life. It would have been a pleasure, certainly, but an alarming pleasure, to have known Mrs. Inchbald.

In the early years of the century, she gradually withdrew from London, establishing herself in suburban boarding-houses, often among sisters of charity, and devoting her days to the practice of her religion. In her early and middle life she had been an indifferent Catholic: "Sunday. Rose late, dressed, and read in the Bible about David, &c."—this is one of the very few references in her diary to anything approaching a religious observance during many years. But, in her old age, her views changed; her devotions increased with her retirement; and her retirement was at last complete. She died, in an obscure Kensington boarding-house, on August 1, 1821. She was buried in Kensington churchyard. But, if her ghost lingers anywhere, it is not in Kensington: it is in the heart of the London that she had always loved. Yet, even there, how much now would she find to recognize? Mrs. Inchbald's world has passed away from us for ever; and, as we walk there to-day amid the press of the living, it is hard to believe that she too was familiar with Leicester Square.

G. L. STRACHEY.

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A
SIMPLE STORY,

IN FOUR VOLUMES,

BY

MRS. INCHBALD.

VOL. I.

THE FOURTH EDITION.

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PREFACE.

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It is said, a book should be read with the same spirit with which it has been written. In that case, fatal must be the reception of this—for the writer frankly avows, that during the time she has been writing it, she has suffered every quality and degree of weariness and lassitude, into which no other employment could have betrayed her.

It has been the destiny of the writer of this Story to be occupied throughout her life, in what has the least suited either her inclination or capacity—with an invincible impediment in her speech, it was her lot for thirteen years to gain a subsistence by public speaking—and, with the utmost detestation to the fatigue of inventing, a constitution suffering under a sedentary life, and an education confined to the narrow boundaries prescribed her sex, it has been her fate to devote a tedious seven years to the unremitting labour of literary productions—whilst a taste for authors of the first rank has been an additional punishment, forbidding her one moment of those self-approving reflections, which are assuredly due to the industrious. But, alas! in the exercise of the arts, industry scarce bears the name of merit. What then is to be substituted in the place of genius? GOOD FORTUNE. And if these volumes should be attended by the good fortune that has accompanied her other writings, to that divinity, and that alone, she shall attribute their success.

Yet, there is a first cause still, to whom I cannot here forbear to mention my obligations.

The Muses, I trust, will pardon me, that to them I do not feel myself obliged—for, in justice to their heavenly inspirations, I believe they have never yet favoured me with one visitation; but sent in their disguise NECESSITY, who, being the mother of Invention, gave me all mine—while FORTUNE kindly smiled, and was accessory to the cheat.

But this important secret I long wished, and endeavoured to conceal; yet one unlucky moment candidly, though unwittingly, divulged it—I frankly owned, "That Fortune having chased away Necessity, there remained no other incitement to stimulate me to a labour I abhorred." It happened to be in the power of the person to whom I confided this secret, to send NECESSITY once more. Once more, then, bowing to its empire, I submit to the task it enjoins.

This case has something similar to a theatrical anecdote told (I think) by Colly Cibber:

"A performer of a very mean salary, played the Apothecary in Romeo and Juliet so exactly to the satisfaction of the audience, that this little part, independent of the other characters, drew immense houses whenever the play was performed. The manager in consequence, thought it but justice to advance the actor's salary; on which the poor man (who, like the character he represented, had been half starved before) began to live so comfortably, he became too plump for the part; and being of no importance in any thing else, the manager of course now wholly discharged him—and thus, actually reducing him to the want of a piece of bread, in a short time he became a proper figure for the part again."

Welcome, then, thou all-powerful principle, NECESSITY! THOU, who art the instigator of so many bad authors and actors—THOU, who from my infancy seldom hast forsaken me, still abide with me. I will not complain of any hardship thy commands require, so thou dost not urge my pen to prostitution. In all thy rigour, oh! do not force my toil to libels—or what is equally pernicious—panegyric on the unworthy!

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A SIMPLE STORY.

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CHAPTER I.

href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@22002@[email protected]#toc" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">Top

Dorriforth, bred at St. Omer's in all the scholastic rigour of that college, was, by education, and the solemn vows of his order, a Roman Catholic priest—but nicely discriminating between the philosophical and the superstitious part of that character, and adopting the former only, he possessed qualities not unworthy the first professors of Christianity. Every virtue which it was his vocation to preach, it was his care to practise; nor was he in the class of those of the religious, who, by secluding themselves from the world, fly the merit they might have in reforming mankind. He refused to shelter himself from the temptations of the layman by the walls of a cloister, but sought for, and found that shelter in the centre of London, where he dwelt, in his own prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance.

He was about thirty, and had lived in the metropolis near five years, when a gentleman above his own age, but with whom he had from his youth contracted a most sincere friendship, died, and left him the sole guardian of his daughter, who was then eighteen.

The deceased Mr. Milner, on his approaching dissolution, perfectly sensible of his state, thus reasoned with himself before he made the nomination:—"I have formed no intimate friendship during my whole life, except one—I can be said to know the heart of no man, except the heart of Dorriforth. After knowing his, I never sought acquaintance with another—I did not wish to lessen the exalted estimation of human nature which he had inspired. In this moment of trembling apprehension for every thought which darts across my mind, and more for every action which I must soon be called to answer for; all worldly views here thrown aside, I act as if that tribunal, before which I every moment expect to appear, were now sitting in judgment upon my purpose. The care of an only child is the great charge that in this tremendous crisis I have to execute. These earthly affections that bind me to her by custom, sympathy, or what I fondly call parental love, would direct me to study her present happiness, and leave her to the care of those whom she thinks her dearest friends; but they are friends only in the sunshine of fortune; in the cold nipping frost of disappointment, sickness, or connubial strife, they will forsake the house of care, although the very house which they may have themselves built."

Here the excruciating anguish of the father, overcame that of the dying man.

"In the moment of desertion," continued he, "which I now picture to myself, where will my child find comfort? That heavenly aid which religion gives, and which now, amidst these agonizing tortures, cheers with humbler hope my afflicted soul; that, she will be denied."

It is in this place proper to remark, that Mr. Milner was a member of the church of Rome, but on his marriage with a lady of Protestant tenets, they mutually agreed their sons should be educated in the religious opinion of their father, and their daughters in that of their mother. One child only was the result of their union, the child whose future welfare now occupied the anxious thoughts of her expiring father. From him the care of her education had been with-held, as he kept inviolate his promise to her departed mother on the article of religion, and therefore consigned his daughter to a boarding-school for Protestants, whence she returned with merely such ideas of religion as ladies of fashion at her age mostly imbibe. Her little heart employed in all the endless pursuits of personal accomplishments, had left her mind without one ornament, except such as nature gave; and even they were not wholly preserved from the ravages made by its rival, Art.

While her father was in health he beheld, with extreme delight, his accomplished daughter, without one fault which taste or elegance could have imputed to her; nor ever enquired what might be her other failings. But, cast on a bed of sickness, and upon the point of leaving her to her fate, those failings at once rushed on his thought—and all the pride, the fond enjoyment he had taken in beholding her open the ball, or delight her hearers with her wit, escaped his remembrance; or, not escaping it, were lamented with a sigh of compassion, or a contemptuous frown, at such frivolous qualifications.

"Something essential," said he to himself, "must be considered—something to prepare her for an hour like this. Can I then leave her to the charge of those who themselves never remember such an hour will come? Dorriforth is the only person I know, who, uniting the moral virtues to those of religion, and pious faith to native honour, will protect, without controlling, instruct, without tyrannizing, comfort, without flattering; and, perhaps in time, make good by choice, rather than by constraint, the dear object of his dying friend's sole care."

Dorriforth, who came post from London to visit Mr. Milner in his illness, received a few moments before his death all his injunctions, and promised to fulfil them. But, in this last token of his friend's esteem, he still was restrained from all authority to direct his ward in one religious opinion, contrary to those her mother had professed, and in which she herself had been educated.

"Never perplex her mind with an idea that may disturb, but cannot reform"—were his latest words; and Dorriforth's reply gave him entire satisfaction.

Miss Milner was not with her father at this affecting period—some delicately nervous friend, with whom she was on a visit at Bath, thought proper to conceal from her not only the danger of his death, but even his indisposition, lest it might alarm a mind she thought too susceptible. This refined tenderness gave poor Miss Milner the almost insupportable agony of hearing that her father was no more, even before she was told he was not in health. In the bitterest anguish she flew to pay her last duty to his remains, and performed it with the truest filial love, while Dorriforth, upon important business, was obliged to return to town.

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CHAPTER II.

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Dorriforth returned to London heavily afflicted for the loss of his friend; and yet, perhaps, with his thoughts more engaged upon the trust which that friend had reposed in him. He knew the life Miss Milner had been accustomed to lead; he dreaded the repulses his admonitions might possibly meet; and feared he had undertaken a task he was too weak to execute—the protection of a young woman of fashion.

Mr. Dorriforth was nearly related to one of our first Catholic Peers; his income was by no means confined, but approaching to affluence; yet such was his attention to those in poverty, and the moderation of his own desires, that he lived in all the careful plainness of œconomy. His habitation was in the house of a Mrs. Horton, an elderly gentlewoman, who had a maiden niece residing with her, not many years younger than herself. But although Miss Woodley was thirty-five, and in person exceedingly plain, yet she possessed such an extreme cheerfulness of temper, and such an inexhaustible fund of good nature, that she escaped not only the ridicule, but even the appellation of an old maid.

In this house Dorriforth had lived before the death of Mr. Horton; nor upon that event had he thought it necessary, notwithstanding his religious vow of celibacy, to fly the roof of two such innocent females as Mrs. Horton and her niece. On their part, they regarded him with all that respect and reverence which the most religious flock shews to its pastor;

and his friendly society they not only esteemed a spiritual, but a temporal advantage, as the liberal stipend he allowed for his apartments and board, enabled them to continue in the large and commodious house which they had occupied during the life of Mr. Horton.

Here, upon Mr. Dorriforth's return from his journey, preparations were made for the reception of his ward; her father having made it his request that she might, for a time at least, reside in the same house with her guardian, receive the same visits, and cultivate the acquaintance of his companions and friends.

When the will of her father was made known to Miss Milner, she submitted, without the least reluctance, to all he had required. Her mind, at that time impressed with the most poignant sorrow for his loss, made no distinction of happiness that was to come; and the day was appointed, with her silent acquiescence, when she was to arrive in London, and there take up her abode, with all the retinue of a rich heiress.

Mrs. Horton was delighted with the addition this acquisition to her family was likely to make to her annual income, and style of living. The good-natured Miss Woodley was overjoyed at the expectation of their new guest, yet she herself could not tell why—but the reason was, that her kind heart wanted a more ample field for its benevolence; and now her thoughts were all pleasingly employed how she should render, not only the lady herself, but even all her attendants, happy in their new situation.

The reflections of Dorriforth were less agreeably engaged—Cares, doubts, fears, possessed his mind—and so forcibly possessed it, that upon every occasion which offered, he would inquisitively endeavour to gain intelligence of his ward's disposition before he saw her; for he was, as yet, a stranger not only to the real propensities of her mind, but even to her person; a constant round of visits having prevented his meeting her at her father's, the very few times he had been at his house, since her final return from school. The first person whose opinion he, with all proper reserve, asked concerning Miss Milner, was Lady Evans, the widow of a Baronet, who frequently visited at Mrs. Horton's.

But that the reader may be interested in what Dorriforth says and does, it is necessary to give some description of his person and manners. His figure was tall and elegant, but his face, except a pair of dark bright eyes, a set of white teeth, and a graceful fall in his clerical curls of brown hair, had not one feature to excite admiration—yet such a gleam of sensibility was diffused over each, that many people mistook his face for handsome, and all were more or less attracted by it—in a word, the charm, that is here meant to be described, is a countenance—on his you read the feelings of his heart—saw all its inmost workings—the quick pulses that beat with hope and fear, or the gentle ones that moved in a more equal course of patience and resignation. On this countenance his thoughts were pourtrayed; and as his mind was enriched with every virtue that could make it valuable, so was his face adorned with every expression of those virtues—and they not only gave a lustre to his aspect, but added a harmonious sound to all he uttered; it was persuasive, it was perfect eloquence; whilst in his looks you beheld his thoughts moving with his lips, and ever coinciding with what he said.

With one of those interesting looks which revealed the anxiety of his heart, and yet with that graceful restraint of all gesticulation, for which he was remarkable, even in his most anxious concerns, he addressed Lady Evans, who had called on Mrs. Horton to hear and to request the news of the day: "Your Ladyship was at Bath last spring—you know the young lady to whom I have the honour of being appointed guardian. Pray,"—

He was earnestly intent upon asking a question, but was prevented by the person interrogated.

"Dear Mr. Dorriforth, do not ask me any thing about Miss Milner—when I saw her she was very young: though indeed that is but three months ago, and she can't be much older now."

"She is eighteen," answered Dorriforth, colouring with regret at the doubts which this lady had increased, but not inspired.

"And she is very beautiful, that I can assure you," said Lady Evans.

"Which I call no qualification," said Dorriforth, rising from his chair in evident uneasiness.

"But where there is nothing else, let me tell you, beauty is something."

"Much worse than nothing, in my opinion," returned Dorriforth.

"But now, Mr. Dorriforth, do not from what I have said, frighten yourself, and imagine your ward worse than she really is—all I know of her, is merely, that she's young, idle, indiscreet, and giddy, with half a dozen lovers in her suite; some coxcombs, others men of gallantry, some single, and others married."

Dorriforth started. "For the first time of my life," cried he with a manly sorrow, "I wish I had never known her father."

"Nay," said Mrs. Horton, who expected every thing to happen just as she wished, (for neither an excellent education, the best company, or long experience had been able to cultivate or brighten this good lady's understanding,) "Nay," said she, "I am sure, Mr. Dorriforth, you will soon convert her from all her evil ways."

"Dear me," returned Lady Evans, "I am sure I never meant to hint at any thing evil—and for what I have said, I will give you up my authors if you please; for they were not observations of my own; all I do is to mention them again."

The good-natured Miss Woodley, who sat working at the window, an humble, but an attentive listener to this discourse, ventured here to say exactly six words: "Then don't mention them any more."

"Let us change the subject," said Dorriforth.

"With all my heart," cried Lady Evans; "and I am sure it will be to the young lady's advantage."

"Is Miss Milner tall or short?" asked Mrs. Horton, still wishing for farther information.

"Oh, tall enough of all conscience," returned she; "I tell you again that no fault can be found with her person."

"But if her mind is defective"—exclaimed Dorriforth, with a sigh——

"That may be improved as well as the person," cried Miss Woodley.

"No, my dear," returned Lady Evans, "I never heard of a pad to make straight an ill-shapen disposition."

"Oh, yes," answered Miss Woodley, "good company, good books, experience, and the misfortunes of others, may have more power to form the mind to virtue, than"——

Miss Woodley was not permitted to proceed, for Lady Evans rising hastily from her seat, cried, "I must be gone—I have an hundred people waiting for me at home—besides, were I inclined to hear a sermon, I should desire Mr. Dorriforth to preach, and not you."

Just then Mrs. Hillgrave was announced. "And here is Mrs. Hillgrave," continued she—"I believe, Mrs. Hillgrave, you know Miss Milner, don't you? The young lady who has lately lost her father."

Mrs. Hillgrave was the wife of a merchant who had met with severe losses: as soon as the name of Miss Milner was uttered, she lifted up her hands, and the tears started in her eyes.

"There!" cried Lady Evans, "I desire you will give your opinion of her, and I am sorry I cannot stay to hear it." Saying this, she curtsied and took her leave.

When Mrs. Hillgrave had been seated a few minutes, Mrs. Horton, who loved information equally with the most inquisitive of her sex, asked the new visitor—"If she might be permitted to know, why, at the mention of Miss Milner, she had seemed so much affected?"

This question exciting the fears of Dorriforth, he turned anxiously round, attentive to the reply.

"Miss Milner," answered she, "has been my benefactress and the best I

ever had." As she spoke, she took out her handkerchief and wiped away the tears that ran down her face.

"How so?" cried Dorriforth eagerly, with his own eyes moistened with joy, nearly as much as her's were with gratitude.

"My husband, at the commencement of his distresses," replied Mrs. Hillgrave, "owed a sum of money to her father, and from repeated provocations, Mr. Milner was determined to seize upon all our effects—his daughter, however, by her intercessions, procured us time, in order to discharge the debt; and when she found that time was insufficient, and her father no longer to be dissuaded from his intention, she secretly sold some of her most valuable ornaments to satisfy his demand, and screen us from its consequences."

Dorriforth, pleased at this recital, took Mrs. Hillgrave by the hand, and told her, "she should never want a friend."

"Is Miss Milner tall, or short?" again asked Mrs. Horton, fearing, from the sudden pause which had ensued, the subject should be dropped.

"I don't know," answered Mrs. Hillgrave.

"Is she handsome, or ugly?"

"I really can't tell."

"It is very strange you should not take notice!"

"I did take notice, but I cannot depend upon my own judgment—to me she appeared beautiful as an angel; but perhaps I was deceived by the beauties of her disposition."

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CHAPTER III.

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This gentlewoman's visit inspired Mr. Dorriforth with some confidence in the principles and character of his ward. The day arrived on which she was to leave her late father's seat, and fix her abode at Mrs. Horton's; and her guardian, accompanied by Miss Woodley, went in his carriage to meet her, and waited at an inn on the road for her reception.

After many a sigh paid to the memory of her father, Miss Milner, upon the tenth of November, arrived at the place, half-way on her journey to town, where Dorriforth and Miss Woodley were expecting her. Besides attendants, she had with her a gentleman and lady, distant relations of her mother's, who thought it but a proper testimony of their civility to attend her part of the way, but who so much envied her guardian the trust Mr. Milner had reposed in him, that as soon as they had delivered her safe into his care, they returned.

When the carriage, which brought Miss Milner, stopped at the inn gate, and her name was announced to Dorriforth, he turned pale—something like a foreboding of disaster trembled at his heart, and consequently spread a gloom over all his face. Miss Woodley was even obliged to rouse him from the dejection into which he was cast, or he would have sunk beneath it: she was obliged also to be the first to welcome his lovely charge.—Lovely beyond description.

But the natural vivacity, the gaiety which report had given to Miss Milner, were softened by her recent sorrow to a meek sadness—and that haughty display of charms, imputed to her manners, was changed to a pensive demeanor. The instant Dorriforth was introduced to her by Miss Woodley as her "Guardian, and her deceased father's most beloved friend," she burst into tears, knelt down to him for a moment, and promised ever to obey him as her father. He had his handkerchief to his face at the time, or she would have beheld the agitation—the remotest sensations of his heart.

This affecting introduction being over, after some minutes passed in general conversation, the carriages were again ordered; and, bidding farewell to the relations who had accompanied her, Miss Milner, her guardian, and Miss Woodley departed for town; the two ladies in Miss Milner's carriage, and Dorriforth in that in which he came.

Miss Woodley, as they rode along, made no attempts to ingratiate herself with Miss Milner; though, perhaps, such an honour might constitute one of her first wishes—she behaved to her but as she constantly behaved to every other human creature—that, was sufficient to gain the esteem of a person possessed of an understanding equal to Miss Milner's—she had penetration to discover Miss Woodley's unaffected worth, and was soon induced to reward it with the warmest friendship.

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CHAPTER IV.

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After a night's rest in London, less violently impressed with the loss of her father, reconciled, if not already attached to her new acquaintance, her thoughts pleasingly occupied with the reflection that she was in that gay metropolis—a wild and rapturous picture of which her active fancy had often formed—Miss Milner waked from a peaceful and refreshing sleep, with much of that vivacity, and with all those airy charms, which for a while had yielded their transcendent power to the weaker influence of her filial sorrow.

Beautiful as she had appeared to Miss Woodley and to Dorriforth on the preceding day, when she joined them this morning at breakfast, re-possessed of her lively elegance and dignified simplicity, they gazed at her, and at each other alternately, with astonishment!—and Mrs. Horton, as she sat at the head of her tea-table, felt herself but as a menial servant: such command has beauty if united with sense and virtue. In Miss Milner it was so united. Yet let not our over-scrupulous readers be misled, and extend their idea of her virtue so as to magnify it beyond that which frail mortals commonly possess; nor must they cavil, if, on a nearer view, they find it less—but let them consider, that if she had more faults than generally belong to others, she had likewise more temptations.

From her infancy she had been indulged in all her wishes to the extreme of folly, and started habitually at the unpleasant voice of control. She was beautiful; she had been too frequently told the high value of that beauty, and thought every moment passed in wasteful idleness during which she was not gaining some new conquest. She had a quick sensibility, which too frequently discovered itself in the immediate resentment of injuries or neglect. She had, besides, acquired the dangerous character of a wit; but to which she had no real pretensions, although the most discerning critic, hearing her converse, might fall into this mistake. Her replies had all the effect of repartee, not because she possessed those qualities which can properly be called wit, but that what she said was delivered with an energy, an instantaneous and powerful conception of the sentiment, joined with a real or a well-counterfeited simplicity, a quick turn of the eye, and an arch smile. Her words were but the words of others, and, like those of others, put into common sentences; but the delivery made them pass for wit, as grace in an ill-proportioned figure will often make it pass for symmetry.

And now—leaving description—the reader must form a judgment of her by her actions; by all the round of great or trivial circumstances that shall be related.

At breakfast, which had just begun at the commencement of this chapter, the conversation was lively on the part of Miss Milner, wise on the part of Dorriforth, good on the part of Miss Woodley, and an endeavour at all three on the part of Mrs. Horton. The discourse at length drew from Mr. Dorriforth this observation:

"You have a greater resemblance of your father, Miss Milner, than I imagined you had from report: I did not expect to find you so like him."

"Nor did I, Mr. Dorriforth, expect to find you any thing like what you are."

"No?—pray what did you expect to find me?"

"I expected to find you an elderly man, and a plain man."

This was spoken in an artless manner, but in a tone which obviously declared she thought her guardian young and handsome. He replied, but not without some little embarrassment, "A plain man you shall find me in all my actions."

"Then your actions are to contradict your appearance."

For in what she said, Miss Milner had the quality peculiar to wits, of hazarding the thought that first occurs, which thought, is generally truth. On this, he paid her a compliment in return.

"You, Miss Milner, I should suppose, must be a very bad judge of what is plain, and what is not."

"How so?"

"Because I am sure you will readily own you do not think yourself handsome; and allowing that, you instantly want judgment."

"And I would rather want judgment than beauty," she replied, "and so I give up the one for the other."

With a serious face, as if proposing a very serious question, Dorriforth continued, "And you really believe you are not handsome?"

"I should, if I consulted my own opinion, believe that I was not; but in some respects I am like Roman Catholics; I don't believe upon my own understanding, but from what other people tell me."

"And let this convince you," replied Dorriforth, "that what we teach is truth; for you find you would be deceived did you not trust to persons who know better than yourself. But, my dear Miss Milner, we will talk upon some other topic, and never resume this again—we differ in opinion, I dare say, on one subject only, and this difference I hope will never extend itself to any other. Therefore, let not religion be named between us; for as I have resolved never to persecute you, in pity be grateful, and do not persecute me."

Miss Milner looked with surprise that any thing so lightly said, should be so seriously received. The kind Miss Woodley ejaculated a short prayer to herself, that heaven would forgive her young friend the involuntary sin of religious ignorance—while Mrs. Horton, unperceived, as she imagined, made the sign of the cross upon her forehead as a guard against the infectious taint of heretical opinions. This pious ceremony Miss Milner by chance observed, and now shewed such an evident propensity to burst into a fit of laughter, that the good lady of the house could no longer contain her resentment, but exclaimed, "God forgive you," with a severity so different from the idea which the words conveyed, that the object of her anger was, on this, obliged freely to indulge that impulse which she had in vain been struggling to suppress; and no longer suffering under the agony of restraint, she gave way to her humour, and laughed with a liberty so uncontrolled, that soon left her in the room with none but the tender-hearted Miss Woodley a witness of her folly.

"My dear Miss Woodley," (then cried Miss Milner, after recovering herself) "I am afraid you will not forgive me."

"No, indeed I will not," returned Miss Woodley.

But how unimportant, how weak, how ineffectual are words in conversation—looks and manners alone express—for Miss Woodley, with her charitable face and mild accents, saying she would not forgive, implied only forgiveness—while Mrs. Horton, with her enraged voice and aspect, begging heaven to pardon the offender, palpably said, she thought her unworthy of all pardon.

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