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THE

CORNHILL MAGAZINE.

JUNE, 1876.

Carità.

PART I.

CHAPTER I.

THE BERESFORDS.

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AMES BERESFORD and Annie his wife had been married for more than a dozen years their only child, indeed, had nearly attained the age of twelve at the time when this history begins. They had both got footing on that plateau of middle age which, if it comes to something like level ground at thirty, need not think of a descending step for twenty years-the time of the greatest enjoyments and most solid progress of life. He was at one end and she at the other of the first decade; the one approaching the forties, the other scarcely well out of the twenties; both ready to laugh at the advance of years, which was as yet but a joke to them, and neither having thought of bidding any grave farewell to youth. She was impulsive, enthusiastic and nervous; he philosophical and speculative, a man ready to discuss any theory in earth or heaven, and without any prejudices such as might make one subject of discussion appear less legitimate than another. They were not very rich, but neither were they poor in any sense of the word. He had been called to the Bar, but had never gone any further in that VOL. XXXIII.-NO. 198.

31.

career. They had enough between them to live on without show, but without pinching, as so many people of quietly social, semi-literary tastes do in London. They knew a number of people. They saw all the pictures, read all the books, and heard all the music that was going; not absorbed in any art, but with just enough devotion to all to make their life full and pleasant. And there could scarcely be a pleasanter life. The fantasies of youth, but not the sentiment of youth, had ended for both. Mr. Beresford had some mildly scientific pursuits, was a member of some learned societies, and of one or two new and advanced clubs where clever men were supposed to abound. Occasionally in his comfortable library he wrote an article for a review or magazine, which was very much talked about by his friends, to the great edification and amusement of people who live by writing articles and say nothing about them. This gave him an agreeable sense of duty to add seriousness to his life; and he was never without occupation-meetings of committees, scraps of semipublic business, educational and other projects, which, for the moment at least, seemed full of interest to the world-made him feel himself a not unimportant, certainly not a useless, man. Mrs. Beresford, on her side, had the natural occupation of her housekeeping, and her child, whose education gave her much thought-so much thought that many people with full nurseries listened with a certain awe to her ideas of all that was necessary for her little girl, and sighed to think how much less was possible when there were six or seven little girls to think of. The child, however, was not so over-educated and over-cared for as might have been fancied; for the parents were young, as I have said, very fond of each other, and fond of their own way; which attachments did not consist with the burden of dragging a small child with them wherever they went. The Beresfords liked to go about "honeymooning," as their friends called it, and as they themselves were not displeased to call it, by themselves, over the world. They would start sometimes quite suddenly, to the Riviera in the middle of winter, to escape London fogs and wintry chills; to Paris at Easter; to Scotland in the autumn; even to Norway sometimes, or such difficult places: and it stood to reason that they could not take the child with them when they started quite suddenly on these delightful journeys. For these journeys were delightful. They were well enough off not to require to count the cost; they went lightly, with little luggage and no servants; and they went everywhere together. But it would have been bad for the little girl; therefore she stayed at home, under the care of the best of nurses, who had been Mrs. Beresford's nurse before the child's; and the father and mother, like two lovers, roamed lightly about the world. But when they were at home, Mrs. Beresford talked a great deal about-education, and had plans enough to have educated six princesses, let alone one little girl of undistinguished lineage. It was a very lucky thing for all parties, their friends said, that they had but this one child. Had they been hampered by half-a-dozen, what could they have done? It would have changed their life completely. And

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