LEILA AT HOME.
_By the Same Author._
LEILA; OR, THE ISLAND. By ANN FRASER TYTLER.
LEILA IN ENGLAND. A continuation of _Leila; or, The Island_.
LEILA AT HOME. A continuation of _Leila in England_.
_Also, lately Published._
ARBELL. A tale for young people. By JANE WINNARD HOOPER.
THE CANADIAN CRUSOES. By CATHARINE PARR TRAILL. Edited by AGNES
STRICKLAND.
[Illustration: LEILA AT HOME Page 38.]
LEILA
AT HOME.
[Illustration]
New York:--C. S. Francis & Co.
LEILA AT HOME.
A CONTINUATION OF
Leila in England.
BY
ANN FRASER TYTLER,
AUTHOR OF “MARY AND FLORENCE; OR, GRAVE AND GAY,” ETC.
_WITH ENGRAVINGS BY J. W. ORR, FROM ORIGINAL DESIGNS._
[Illustration: colophon]
New York:
S. FRANCIS & CO., 252 BROADWAY.
BOSTON:--CROSBY, NICHOLS & CO.
M.DCCC.LIII.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853,
BY C. S. FRANCIS & CO.,
In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States
for the Southern District
of New York.
PREFACE.
It was the intention of the writer of the following pages to have bid a
last farewell to Leila, but some of her young readers have said “No;”
and she feels too grateful for the kindness they have shown her, not to
make the attempt to meet their wishes. Circumstances have so long
prevented her fulfilling this intention, that it may be necessary to
remind them that they took leave of Leila when she had just set off for
Woodlands, (near Richmond,) a property Mr. Howard had purchased near the
residence of her uncle, Mr. Stanley; that Leila was in all the joy of
her cousin, Selina Stanley, having recovered her speech; that Selina’s
sister, Matilda, was continuing to make many good resolutions, and too
often to break them again; and that their brother, little Alfred, was
little Alfred still, and not over wise.
LEILA AT HOME.
CHAPTER I.
The wooded banks of Richmond were in all the soft green of early spring,
when they were first seen by Leila. A few months had passed; the trees
were now half stripped of their leaves, and the autumn tints were fast
fading into sombre gray as she a second time caught sight of its wooded
heights; but how different were now her feelings, how much more
beautiful did the whole scene appear to her with Selina by her side!
Selina was spring, summer, sunshine, and all to Leila, and she had not a
sigh to give to the falling leaves or the moaning wind.
As the carriage drew up before the same low, picturesque-looking house,
which she had before visited, Matilda and Alfred (who with their papa
and mamma had preceded them but a few minutes) stood holding the
house-door open, ready to give them welcome. Little Alfred bustled out
to assist in letting down the steps, and Matilda, in her eagerness to
help them to alight, had well nigh brought them to the ground.
“Softly, softly,” Mr. Howard exclaimed, as he endeavoured to catch hold
of Leila’s frock; but Matilda had succeeded in extricating both the
little girls from the carriage.
“Oh, what a day of joy!” she cried; “Cousin Leila still to be with us
for a whole month, and Selina as able to talk to her now as I am;
Selina, do you remember when you went away?”
Selina did remember: she coloured, her eyes filled with tears, and
throwing her arms first round her sister’s neck, and then round Leila’s,
she darted from their side.
“Why does she do that? where has she gone?” Leila anxiously inquired.
“I think I know,” Matilda answered; and pointing to a door on the
opposite side of the passage, she flew back to the carriage to assist in
getting out the parcels.
Leila crossed the passage, and softly opened the door; Selina was on her
knees by the side of her little bed; she timidly advanced, and lifting
the white muslin curtain which partly concealed Selina’s slight figure,
she knelt by her side. As the two little girls rose from their knees,
their eyes met eyes so full of gratitude to heaven, as almost made
Selina’s half-whispered explanation, “Leila, I could not wait till
night, unnecessary;” “and now,” she continued, “I must go to dear
mamma.”
When Selina returned soon after, she found Leila and Matilda, assisted
by Amy, arranging the smaller parcels, and carrying them to the
different rooms. Matilda looked eagerly in Selina’s eyes.
“I see what you have been doing,” she said, reproachfully: “but I think
it is I that should cry: when we were here before, I had to speak both
for you and myself. Oh, it was so nice; no, no, Selina, I don’t mean
that, I don’t indeed; I am so glad you can speak, oh, so very glad; I
said it only to make you laugh, and now I am near crying myself, but I
won’t; this is not a day to weep, the very happiest day of all our
lives. Come, let us go and visit the school-room; not to say lessons,
you know, but just to enjoy ourselves.”
“Yes, that will be an excellent plan,” Leila answered; “and perhaps in
the bread-basket we shall still find the head of the doll, which would
have been so pretty a doll for my Sally, if it had not been so hardly
dealt with.”
Matilda laughed; “How funny you are,” she said, turning to Leila, and
passing her arm round her waist; “you have put away my sorrow in a
minute.”
The three little girls proceeded to the school-room.
“How very nice it looks!” Leila exclaimed; “how bright, how
cheerful-looking; so different from what it was before.”
“And were you very melancholy when you were here before, and did not
find us?” Matilda inquired.
“Oh, so melancholy when I saw the flowerpots,” Leila answered; “and I
cried so when I saw the paper with ‘Custom commonly makes things easy.’
Yes, ‘Custom commonly’ was the worst of all.”
“But that is all over now,” Matilda observed; “so we need not speak
about it, for now we are all three as happy as can be; don’t you think
so, Selina?”
“Indeed I do, Matilda; but it is such a deep joy I cannot find words to
utter it; it does not make me merry, but do not think it is because I am
sad. If you are happy and think it a joyful day, what must it be to me?
I had given up all hope of ever being able to speak again; I was telling
Leila so that very day, and making her promise not to pray for it any
more. Then so many changes have come upon me. When I saw Leila on the
ground, when I thought her dead,--oh, I must not think of it; and when
she opened her eyes again, and said, ‘Who spoke? what has happened?’ and
when she knew God had opened my lips, what a moment that was! Leila’s
joy, and my joy too, and to be able to tell her how much I loved her.
You do not know how I used to struggle before, and what it was for me
not to be able to speak.”
“Indeed I do know very well,” Matilda answered; “for when mamma often
says to me, ‘Matilda, I must beg you to be silent, you distract my
head,’ I am more anxious to speak than ever; and so vexed, I would
rather she had given me a good slap.”
“A good _slap_!” Leila exclaimed. “Oh, Matilda, if my papa were ever to
slap me, I would--” she covered her face with her hands and shuddered.
“What would you do?” Matilda anxiously inquired, as she pulled down
Leila’s hands, and tried to get a sight of her face.
“I would die,” Leila answered, in a voice so low that the words were
scarcely audible.
But Matilda caught them. “Oh dear,” she cried, “how I have shocked you;
what a shocked face you have; well, I am always saying something wrong,
and I dare say I shall never be better; for these kind of things come
out before I know what I am saying. Selina, do you think it was so very
wrong, and was Leila right to say she would----? You know what I mean.
You always tell me we should take trials patiently.”
Selina coloured. “I think you were both a little wrong,” she said,
timidly. “You were wrong to talk in that way of dear mamma, who is
always so patient and gentle with you; and very wrong to say you would
never be better, when you know God will give you strength if you pray
for it with all your heart; but not if you say wandering prayers, and do
not really wish it;” and she looked anxiously at Matilda.
“And cousin Leila?” Matilda inquired.
Selina proceeded. “Yes; Leila I thought was a little wrong to express
herself so strongly; you know Uncle Howard always says she must try to
command her feelings more,--you are not angry with me, Leila, for saying
this?”
“Angry? Oh! no, no. I love you even more when you tell me I have not
done right; for I feel that you are so true, and you say it so gently,
just as my papa does.”
“Well to be sure!” Matilda said; “to _like_ to be told that one is not
good, I can never get up to that; I don’t like at all to be told I am
not good; I would rather say it of myself than that others should say
it; indeed, it comforts me sometimes to say it all out. Selina, do you
know that at this very moment I am not good?”
“Yes, I do know,--you were glad when I said Leila had been wrong too.”
“And is that all?” Matilda inquired.
“No, not quite all; you were disappointed when you found it was so small
a fault.”
“Oh, Selina! it is too bad in you to say that; you are glad when you
find people are good, and like yourself, and I cannot help being rather
glad also, when I find people a little like myself, though I am not
good; but you are getting into a way of seeing me through and through;
you must not do that, or you will see a great many things to frighten
you; at least, please don’t begin to-day, when we were to have been so
merry; but do you know what I think is going to happen; something that
won’t make us merry at all,--and yet I shall be so curious to see her.”
“See _whom_?” both the others exclaimed; “what do you mean, Matilda?”
“I mean that we are going to get a governess; that is, that I think,
perhaps, we are to get one.”
“And why do you think so?” Selina asked.
“Because when I went into the drawing-room with one of the parcels,
(mamma’s blotting-book, you know,) I heard Uncle Howard say, ‘Yes, I
certainly do see the advantage of having a governess; _but_----’ and
then I put down the parcel very slowly, that I might hear more; but
mamma said, ‘Matilda, don’t linger in the room, for we are engaged at
present, and wish to be alone.’ So, you know, I was obliged to be off
very quick; do you think you will like it Selina?--to be sure, it won’t
be so bad for you, but it will be bad enough for poor me, with all my
scrapes; and yet I should like to see what sort of a face she has got,
though I am quite sure I shall not like it.”
“But perhaps the governess is for _me_,” Leila said, in a sorrowful
tone; then added, “and I shall never be alone with my papa any more.”
“No, no,” Matilda eagerly exclaimed; “don’t vex yourself, Leila. Don’t
put on that sorrowful face; I am sure the governess is for us; for once
before I heard mamma say something about it to papa,--it was one day
when she said I was unmanageable, and you know you are never
unmanageable.”
“If you mean that I never am very bad, you are mistaken; you don’t know
all the things I do sometimes, and wish to do.”
“Well, well,” Matilda answered, “don’t tell me about them, for I don’t
want to hear; it is too bad that to-day, when we have no lessons, and
are so happy to be home again, we do nothing but speak about faults,
and make each other melancholy. See, the sun is out--it is quite fair
now--let us go into the garden and have a nice race.”
Leila’s face brightened. “It will be delightful,” she said, as they all
three ran off together.