Home Influence: A Tale for Mothers and Daughters. Aguilar Grace

I do not feel inclined to do so?"

      "Why we must all believe you are ashamed of them," replied Percy quickly, "and if you are, I know who has made you so. I would lay any wager, the whole time you have been with Lady Helen Grahame, since mamma has been away, she has been talking of nothing else – look, look, she is blushing – I am right."

      "And if she did," replied Caroline, very much provoked, "she said nothing that I am ashamed of repeating. She knew my aunt before she went to India, and I am sure if her children are like her, they will be no agreeable additions to our family."

      "Bravo, Caroline! you really are an apt pupil; Lady Helen's words and manner completely! but you may have one comfort; children are not always like their parents, and if they are as unlike Lady Helen's description of my poor aunt (which by the way she had no right to give, nor you to listen to) as you are at this moment unlike mamma, we shall get on capitally, and need have no fears about them."

      "Percy you are intolerably disagreeable!"

      "Because I speak the sad, sober truth? Caroline, do pray, get rid of that dawning ill temper, before mamma comes; it will not be a pleasant welcome home."

      "I am not ill-tempered, Percy: I suppose I may have my own opinion of Ellen and Edward, as well as all of you," replied his sister angrily.

      "But do not let it be an unkind one, without knowing them, dear Caroline," observed Herbert gently; "it is so very difficult to get rid of a prejudice when once it has entered our minds, even when we know and feel that it is a wrong one. I am sure if we only thought how sad it is that they have neither father nor mother to love them, and are coming all among strangers – born in a strange land too – we should find quite enough to think kindly about, and leave all wonder as to what they will be like, till we know them. I dare say we shall often have to bear and forbear, but that we have to do with each other, and it will only be one brother and sister more."

      "Brother and sister! I am sure I shall not think of them so, Herbert, however you may. My father might have been a nobleman, and who knows any thing of theirs?"

      "Caroline, how can you be so ridiculous!" exclaimed Percy, with a most provoking fit of laughter. "Their father served and died for his king – as our grandfather did; and had he lived might have been offered a title too – and their mother – really I think you are very insulting to mamma: her sister's children I should imagine quite as high in rank as ourselves!"

      "And even if they were not – what would it signify?" rejoined Herbert. "Dear Caroline, pray do not talk or think so; it makes me feel so sorry, for I know how wrong it is – we might have been in their place."

      "I really can not fancy any thing so utterly impossible," interrupted Caroline, "so you may spare the supposition, Herbert."

      "It is no use, Bertie; you must bring the antipodes together, before you and Caroline will think alike," interposed Percy, perceiving with regret the expression of pain on his brother's face, and always ready to guard him either from physical or mental suffering, feeling instinctively that, from his extraordinary mind and vivid sense of duty, he was liable to the latter, from many causes which other natures would pass unnoticed.

      Miss Harcourt did not join the conversation. It had always been Mrs. Hamilton's wish that in their intercourse with each other, her children should be as unrestrained as if they had been alone. Had Caroline's sentiments received encouragement, she would have interfered; but the raillery of Percy and the earnestness of Herbert, she knew were more likely to produce an effect than any thing like a rebuke from herself, which would only have caused restraint before her in future. It was through this perfect unrestraint that Mrs. Hamilton had become so thoroughly acquainted with the several characters of her children. That Caroline's sentiments caused her often real pain was true, but it was far better to know them, and endeavor to correct and remove them, by causing education to bear upon the faults they revealed, than to find them concealed from her by the constant fear of words of reproof.

      To remove Herbert's unusual seriousness, Percy continued, laughingly —

      "Miss Harcourt, what are your thoughts on this momentous subject? It is no use asking Herbert's, we all know them without his telling us; but you are almost the principally concerned of the present party, for Ellen will bring you the trouble of another pupil."

      "I shall not regret it, Percy; but only shall rejoice if I can in any way lessen your mother's increased charge. As for what your cousins will be like, I candidly tell you, I have scarcely thought about it. I have no doubt we shall find them strange and shy at first; but we must do all we can to make them feel they are no strangers."

      "And now, then, it only remains for the right honorable me to speak; and really Emmy and Herbert and you have told my story, and left me nothing. I do not know whether I am pleased or not, but I am very sorry for them; and it will be capital if this Master Edward turns out a lad of spirit and mischief, and not over-learned or too fond of study – one, in fact, that I can associate with, without feeling such a painful sensation of inferiority as I do when in company with my right reverend brother."

      "Dear Percy, do not call me reverend," said Herbert, appealingly: "I feel it almost a mockery now, when I am so very far from being worthy to become a clergyman."

      "You are a good fellow, Bertie; and I will not tease you, if I can help it – but really I do not mean it for mockery; you know, or ought to know, that you are better now than half the clergymen who have taken orders, and as much superior to me in goodness as in talent."

      "Indeed I know no such thing, Percy; I am not nearly so strong in health as you are, and am therefore, naturally more fond of quiet pleasures: and as for talent, if you were as fond of application as of frolic, you would leave me far behind."

      "Wrong, Bertie, quite wrong! but think of yourself as you please, I know what every body thinks of you. Hush! is that the sound of a carriage, or only the wind making love to the old oaks?"

      "The wind making love, Percy!" repeated Emmeline, laughing; "I neither hear that, nor the carriage wheels kissing the ground."

      "Well done, Tiny! my poetry is beaten hollow; but there – there – I am sure it is a carriage!" and Percy bounded from the table so impetuously as nearly to upset it, flung back the curtain, and looked eagerly from the window.

      Herbert closed his book to listen; Emmeline left her nearly-completed map, and joined Percy; Caroline evidently tried to resume serenity, but, too proud to evince it, industriously pursued her work, breaking the thread almost every time that she drew out the needle.

      "It is nothing, Percy; how could you disappoint us so?" said Herbert, in a tone of regret.

      "My good fellow, you must be deaf – listen! nearer and louder – and, look there, Emmeline, through those trees, don't you see something glimmering? that must be the lamp of the carriage."

      "Nonsense, Percy, it is a glowworm."

      "A glowworm! why, Em., the thought of seeing mamma has blinded you. What glowworm ever came so steadily forward? No! there is no mistake now. Hurrah, it is the carriage; here Robert, Morris, Ellis, all of you to the hall! to the hall! The carriage is coming down the avenue." And with noisy impatience, the young gentleman ran into the hall, assembled all the servants he had named, and others too, all eager to welcome the travelers; flung wide back the massive door, and he and Herbert both were on the steps several minutes before the carriage came in sight.

      CHAPTER II.

      THREE ENGLISH HOMES, AND THEIR INMATES

      If more than the preceding conversation were needed to reveal the confidence and love with which Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton were regarded by their children, the delight, the unrestrained expressions of affection, with which by every one of the young party they were received, would have evinced it still more clearly. Herbert was very speedily on his favorite seat, a low stool at his mother's feet. Emmeline, for that one half hour at least, assumed her still unresigned privilege, as the youngest and tiniest, to quietly slip in her lap; Percy was talking to his father, making Edward perfectly at home, saying many kind words to Ellen, and caressing his mother, all almost at the same moment. Caroline was close to her father, with her arm round his neck; and Miss Harcourt was