Page 5 (1/1)

Mary did not lament, but she brooded continually over the misfortune, and sank into a state of dejection from which no effort of ard the ht side as I did: and indeed I was so fearful of being charged with childish frivolity, or stupid insensibility, that I carefully keptnotions tothey could not be appreciated

Myour debts and retrenching our expenditure by every available means; but my father was coth, and spirits sank beneath the blow, and he never wholly recovered the to his piety, to his courage, to his affection for herself and us That very affection was his greatest tored to increase his fortune--it was our interest that had lent such brightness to his hopes, and that imparted such bitterness to his present distress He now torlected my mother's advice; which would at least have saved him from the additional burden of debt--he vainly reproached hinity, the ease, the luxury of her forh the cares and toils of poverty It was gall and ood to his soul to see that splendid, highly- accomplished woman, once so courted and ad housewife, with hands and head continually occupied with household labours and household econoness hich she performed these duties, the cheerfulness hich she bore her reverses, and the kindness which withheld her fro the senious self-tors And thus the mind preyed upon the body, and disordered the system of the nerves, and they in turn increased the troubles of the mind, till by action and reaction his health was seriously impaired; and not one of us could convince hilooination represented it to be

The useful pony phaeton was sold, together with the stout, well-fed pony--the old favourite that we had fully determined should end its days in peace, and never pass from our hands; the little coach- house and stable were let; the servant boy, and thethe more expensive) of the two maid-servants, were dismissed Our clothes were e of decency; our food, always plain, was now siree--except my father's favourite dishes; our coals and candles were painfully economized--the pair of candles reduced to one, and that ly used; the coals carefully husbanded in the half-erate: especially when my father was out on his parish duties, or confined to bed through illness--then we sat with our feet on the fender, scraping the perishing e a slight scattering of the dust and fragments of coal, just to keep them alive As for our carpets, they in tireater extent than our garardener, Mary and I undertook to keep the garden in order; and all the cooking and household work that could not easily be irl, was done by my mother and sister, with a little occasional help froh a woman in my own estimation, I was still a child in theirs; and ifted with very active daughters: for this reason--that being so clever and diligent herself, she was never tempted to trust her affairs to a deputy, but, on the contrary, illing to act and think for others as well as for number one; and whatever was the business in hand, she was apt to think that no one could do it so well as herself: so that whenever I offered to assist her, I received such an answer as--'No, love, you cannot indeed--there's nothing here you can do Go and help your sister, or get her to take a ith you--tell her she must not sit so much, and stay so constantly in the house as she does-- she may well look thin and dejected'