All about the Marsdens. A chronicle of every-day life

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Chapter I

One bright morning in June, the express train panted into the station of the large garrison town of Coburn, with the same amount of bell ringing and excitement, as usually attends the advent of these locomotive monsters in all parts of the world. There was not much time to be lost in this instance, as was evident by the haste with which a tall middle-aged gentleman settled his companions, two young girls, in vacant places in a first-class carriage. " Take care of yourselves," he said, as he shut the door, and stood leaning through the window to say his last few words. " Take care of your- VOL. I. B selves, my dears, and give my love to all at the Hall. They are sure to meet you, so you will have no trouble." But the inexorable bell began ringing. A few loud door hangings, a shrill whistle, and with only time for a hasty 'cgood bye," father and daughters were parted.

Away rushed the train in its remorseless business-like fashion, and little ■heed ing the joys and sorrows it bore with it, or those it left behind. Are not these engines the very personifications of hard, unimpressionable duty, as little influenced by the softer feeliDgs, as the cold iron that enters so much into their composi tion. Off they go, on the beaten track laid down for them, spurning all minor obstacles in their impetuous course, neither looking to the right hand nor the left, with one apparent aim, how best to get over their appointed length of iron road within the allotted time. Cruel, cold-hearted giants, with all their ideas narrowed down to the few feet compassed by their own wheels. And some such thoughts as these passed through the mind of Madeline Marsden, the elder of the two young girls from Coburn, as she felt herself MAESDENS. borne by the mighty power, further and further, from all that embodied her idea of home and happiness, her dear and loving father.

"Well, Flo," she said with a half sigh, looking out of the window at the same time, for a last glimpse of the now distant town, " I wonder when we shall be coming back again to the dear old place. We have been so happy there, since we came from Canada. Papa has seemed so much better lately." " Do you think so?" said the younger sister. " I'm afraid he never will be what he was two years ago, before dear mamma died." "But don't you think he is better?" asked Madeline, anxiously. " He certainly was a month ago," answered Flora. " But I am sure he is not so well now. It was just about the time we heard of the baby's birth from Uncle Marsden, and were invited to pay this visit, that I perceived some change in him. I can't think why I always connect the two things together." " Surely you are fanciful, Flora.

That's what you are always saying. Why, I can't see that he b is worse than usual. You will make me quite regret having left him." " Oh, but grandmamma will take good care of him, Madeline, and you know he comes to the Hall in a few weeks. Besides, he seemed quite glad to send us off. He spoke so much of our making a good impression, and trying to please them all." "Yes, as he wishes it, I shall try to do my best," answered Madeline ; " butfrom what I can remember of them all, six years ago, I must say I'm not prejudiced in their favour." " But that was just after the death of the eldest boy, wasn't it, Made ? That, of course, would make such a difference. He was their only one, then. How glad they must be to have another son now. How old is the baby by this time?" " Only six weeks, I think, Flo ; so he is hardly big enough for you to spoil.

I wonder how you can care so much about babies. They don't interest me at all." Flora laughed a joyous girlish laugh, as she replied, " Of course, we couldn't expect the sedate intellectual Miss Marsden to condescend so far, as to notice such insignificant atoms as squalling babies. For certainly they do squall sometimes ; and if the young Master Charles, or John, or whatever he is to be called, takes to such undig nified practices, he will find even cousin Flora playing traitor to her baby allegiance, and deliver ing him over to the tender mercies of his nurse." " Can a baby's crying be music, even to a mother's ear?" observed Madeline, quaintly. " I can't help thinking this is only a time-honoured saying, which no one has the courage to con tradict." " I hope, then, you may have the honour and glory some day, of proving it a fallacy," responded the other.

" But I am sure if baby crying can be sweet to anyone, the young heir's must be so to our respected aunt, while it proves he has the strength and lungs to make himself heard at all." " From what I remember of her, Flo," an swered Madeline, " it will be hard to make her acknowledge that anything is sweet. You know she was a Quaker once, and I suppose has not yet forgotten all their enforced gravity. Imagine a 6ober, quiet little person, who has more diffi culty in smiling at anything than you have in being grave for five minutes, — imagine her, I say, talking baby talk, and dandling even that most perfect of babies, our young cousin." " But she needn't dandle it if she loves it," said Flora, laughing.. " You do put things in such a ludicrous light, Made. It is none but young mammas, of course, that nurse their babies in an ostentatious way.

Aunt Jane is getting quite old, isn't she ? " " She is quite old enough to awe you, Miss Flora. I am sure if your gaiety survives the gloominess of Marsden Hall, it will be a wonder." " But, surely, it won't be so dull now," persisted the younger sister. " I am confident the baby's birth will have changed everything. At least, if it hasn't I shall turn the whole place topsy-turvy, eject all gravity and dulness, and establish in their stead the gaiety and sociability which will better become the dear old place." " Well, I hope you won't have the trouble," said Madeline, with a quiet smile. " I hope you will find everyone rejoicing in a new leaf in life. But the old lady can hardly be changed ; so I shall depend upon her to convince you that I have only described things as they were in my time."

"Is she very formidable?" asked the younger sister, with apparent trepidation. " I am dread fully afraid of serious old people. They always seem to think one so foolish, and so much to be pitied." " I don't think you are an object for anyone's pity, Flo, with your light heart and contented spirit. If grandmamma were here, she would tell you ' a contented spirit is a continual feast.' I am sure you verify the wise man's words, for I think you'd be happy anywhere." "Yes, with you and papa," was the ready answer; "of course Solomon took into consideration that his example had all he wanted to make him contented. There must be something to be contented about. A person can't be contented with nothing." " But they may be with anything, Flo, and that is what is meant, as you very well know. Solomon didn't take sisters and indulgent papas into consideration."

"Then Solomon won't suit me," answered Flora, with a light laugh ; " I won't promise to be happy without the necessary accessories." " You are dispensing with one already, Flo, for papa is left behind. If you learn to do without him, you'll turn me off next." " No, I won't," said Flora, with mingled sauci ness and affection of manner. " We're going to be rare exceptions to the general rule, Madeline, and never separate." The elder sister turned her dark eyes to the bright young face beside her, with a loving, but, at the same time, a scrutinizing glance. " You are only sixteen, Flora,'' she said, with an odd mix ture of sentiment and patronage in her tone. " We shall see what you say a few years hence ; you are still so very young," and Madeline leant back in her seat, as if her additional eighteen months of life's experiences, quite justified her in assuming this tone of elderly superiority towards her laughing sister.

" If I am so very young, Madeline," observed Flora, after her mirth had subsided, " what will you say to our cousins ? Julia is only fifteen, and Rose and Helen ten and twelve. You will be badly off for companions of your own mature vears." " You forget Bessy at the Rectory," replied Madeline, "she is even older that I am, and of course, will be my friend. The little girls at the Hall I shall leave to you.'' " Who is talking now of throwing over old friends," said Flora, between jest and earnest. "I shan't allow you, Made, to be anyone's friend but mine, or, if Bessy is very nice, we'll go partners, and share her friendship." " I am sure she is very nice," answered the other; " my hours with her are just the brightest recollections I have of that visit. She was often at the Hall, because old aunt Marsden was so fond of her.

If she is still what she was then, I am sure I shall like her." "Take care, Made," cried Flora, with a warning gesture, " I shall be jealous again, if you praise her too much. I am glad I am going with you. I did'nt know Bessy was such a dangerous character." " She won't be so now," rejoined the elder girl ; b " you were not with me before, Flo, she only took your place for the time being. Don't you see that my aching heart was obliged to fill up the void made by your absence. Your rival did not make a very deep impression. It would take a great deal to dethrone you." " I should hope so indeed," she replied, drawing herself up with an assumed haughtiness, ridicu lously incongruous with her bright open face, and laughter-loving hazel eyes. " When / stoop to conquer, Madeline, it is once and for ever."

Madeline laughed. " You absurd little puss," she said, " you needn't try to look grand and dignified ; you must leave all that to me. I will support the credit of the family so far, and you had better keep to your own province. If you can entice Aunt Jane into a good hearty laugh I shall accord you the palm in your own department." At this moment the engine, as in duty bound, gave awild scream of warning, and plunged with its long train into the dreary depths of a tunnel, putting an end, for the time being, to the sister's conversation. For rumbling along in the bowels of the earth, in a darkness so dense as to be oppressive, and with that feeling of awe which such a situation developes in most people, is by no means conducive to au expression of our graver thoughts, or the more flippant ebulitions of ordinary small-talk.

Chapter II

" Well, girls, here you are, I suppose," said a hearty voice proceeding from a ruddy, cheerful countenance, which was projected into the carriage in which the sisters sat, as the train drew up, about two o'clock in the afternoon, at the Stonebridge Station. " I think you answer to the description your father gave me, by which I could identify you. You certainly possess the hazel eyes and hair, and rosy face which were to distinguish Flora (and he bent forward and kissed his smiling niece), and you, Madeline, are recognisable by your likeness to your father. Well, welcome to the Hall. But come, these trains won't wait for anyone. Let's see to your luggage and be off. We shall have plenty of time for sentimentalizing by-and-bye." " If we can't dispense with it altogether," said Madeline. " But I hope Aunt Jane and the baby are quite well, Uncle Edward ?"

"Aye! that they are, thank God?" responded the Squire, with self-important satisfaction. " You'll hardly know the old place, Madeline. Ever since our poor boy died my wife has hardly known how to smile ; but she is a different being now. In fact, it has made us all ten years younger." Flora glanced slyly at her sister with an ex pression of triumph, and could not forbear whispering to her as they got into her uncle's carriage, " I told you so, Made. I am afraid I shan't have the pleasure of routing my sworn foes. The baby is the unconscious hero, and has fought all the battles before me." " And you're quite disappointed that you will have nothing to do, but enjoy the advantages he has obtained for you." Flora could only reply by a nod and smile, for the Squire was getting in, and in another moment they were off as fast as the two high stepping bays could bear them on their way to the Hall, which Flora already began to look out for in the distance.

" We shall see it directly, Flora," said her uncle surmising the cause of her eager glances from the window, and good-naturedly volunteer ing the information she was shy of asking. " When we come to the next turning we shall get our first view of my place." A few moments later they were descending a hill, down which the road wound picturesquely between green banks and hedgerows, bright and beautiful in their summer dress. Below them lay the little village of Marsden, with its tall steepled church half hidden amongst luxuriant trees. A pretty stream, widening into a miniature lake just above the village, was crossed by the one high arch of the old bridge, down to which the road came on either side, through pastures and fields of rich heavy crops of all kinds, testi fying to the state of high cultivation in which the Squire and his neighbours delighted to see their lands.

In the distance, amidst the smooth vistas and magnificent groups of trees which beautified its park, stood the Squire's time honoured home, Marsden Hall. " There it is," exclaimed the jovial owner of all the noble expanse of country over which Flora's eyes roved with undisguised admiration ; " there is your home for the next few weeks, my dears, and where I hope there are many pleasant days in store for you. You can't see much of the house yet ; we shall have a better point of view by-and-bye." " It is beautiful,'5 said Flora, with sparkling eyes, and in her delight forgetting the shyness this, her first, introduction to her uncle had occasioned. " You never told me, Madeline, the country was so pretty." And she looked reproachfully at her sister. " I saw it last in winter, Flo," she answered, " and you know everything wears such a different aspect in those cold grey months.

It is evident you are to see the Hall, and all about it, in the high-day and holiday dress of a sunny midsum mer." "I'm glad of it," observed Mr. Marsden. " Flora is just like a summer flower herself, and will be in better keeping with all the fetes and merrymakings, whereby my wife wants to cele brate our son's christening. You'll be ready enough, I'm sure, Flora, to foot down a country dance with your old uncle, under some of those ancient trees." Flora laughed gaily, looking up shyly at her uncle. No fear but they would be good friends by-and-bye. Madeline remarked sedately, how much they would enjoy any of these genuine English amusements, as it was so long since they had seen any thing of the kind. " You may well say so, my dear," replied her uncle. " I thought, at one time, your father intended to keep you in the colonies all your lives.

I don't think he would ever have made up his mind to leave, if the regiment hadn't been ordered home." " He was fond of Montreal for my mother's sake," said Madeline. " It was a great pang to have to leave her behind." " To be sure, to be sure," answered the Squire, in his bluff, though kindly way. " Poor Fred. It must have been a great loss to him. But I hope he is better, girls ? He has mentioned his ill-health in more than one of his letters, lately. How is he ?" " I don't think papa is at all well," said Flora, positively. " He has never been well since mamma died ; and now, I am sure he is worse, though Madeline won't see it." " A few weeks here will set him up again, my dear," replied the Squire. " Depend upon it, he only wants rest and change of air. I shall write and. urge him to come for the christening if he can. tie need not wait for Alfred.

That boy ought to be able now to find his own way about the world." " And so he can, of course," said Flora laughing. " As if a Rugby boy wanted a papa to take care of him. It is business that detains papa, Uncle Edward, and Alfred has to wait for him." "Why need there be any waiting at all on either side ? Can't Alfred come as soon as his holydays begin, and your father follow when he is disengaged?" " But papa thought Alfred had better not come till he did," suggested Madeline. " He was afraid his school-boy manners might be too much for Aunt Jane, unless papa was here to look after him." " I'll keep the boy in order, never fear, Madeline," was the reply. " Why Julia has been looking forward to his coming for weeks, and wasn't half pleased when she found he could not come at once. I must write to your father and tell him to let him come here, straight from school.

The poor fellow must not lose any of his holidays in that dingy Coburn." Madeline could not repress a smile at her uncle's ready condemnation of the home they had just left, particularly as she knew he had not even passed through the place. " You don't like living in a town, I suppose, Uncle Edward?" she remarked. " Not I, indeed," he answered briskby. " I can't understand how people can exist in their stifling atmospheres. How your father can put up with it, I can't think. He was always so fond of the country. '' "And is now, but '' and Flora stopped short, as if conscious her words might have been better chosen. "But, what, Flora? speak out. Don't be afraid of me," said her uncle kindly. Thus encouraged, Flora continued, " I was going to say ' beggars can't be choosers ;' and though papa is not a beggar, he has to go where he is ordered." « Very true, my dear," he answered, with a self-congratulatory laugh.

" It is well I'm not under orders to anyone, for nothing could induce me to live in a town. But here we are at the gate, and the girls, I see, have come so far to meet you." The carriage stopped, and three young girls came crowding in at the opened door to welcome their cousins. " Come, come," said their father, putting them playfully back, " you will smother your cousins by way of welcome, at this rate. If they are not too tired perhaps they would like to get out and walk up to the Hall." Madeline and Flora were delighted with the proposal, for, as they remarked, a walk was always pleasant after sitting for so long, and the whole party were soon on their way across the park. " How you have grown," said Madeline to Julia. " I had quite forgotten that time would tell on you, as it has done on us.

Why, you are really taller than I am," and she looked up with a smile at her young cousin, who, even at her fifteen years, had attained to more than the ordinary height of women. Julia laughed. " Papa calls me his hop-pole," she said, "and wonders whenever I shall have done growing. He says I have usurped all the growth of the family, for Rose and Helen have been at a stand still these last two years." Madeline glanced at the two little girls who were walk in s before them with their father and O Flora, whose frank, cheerful face had already irresistibly attracted them. Rose and Helen certainly looked small beside their overgrown sister, but they were bright, happy-looking children, and already chattering away unreservedly to their cousin. " They're making the most of their holiday," remarked Julia, laughing, as she listened to the merry little tongues.

" I begged them off lessons this afternoon to come and meet you." " Are you out of the schoolroom now, then, Julia?" asked Madeline. " I just do some lessons with Miss Parsons in the morning, that's all. I dine with papa and mamma, and do just as I like all day." " Oh, indeed," said Madeline, too much sur prised to say more. It was rather a shock to her preconceived ideas of these cousins, to find this very young lady, whose age seemed but that of a child in Madeline's estimation, already advanced to the immunities and privileges to which Madeline herself had only just been admitted. But Julia was no friend to silence, and soon interrupted her cousin's meditation by asking why Alfred had not come with them. " I shall be so glad when he comes," she said, when Madeline had explained the cause of his absence.

" We shall have rare fun together, if he is what I hope and expect. I have lots of things to show him, and jobs to be done which only a boy can do, at least, so mamma says, and *v 22 ALL ABOUT THE MARSDENS. won't let me do them. That's the worst of grow ing so tall and so old ; it spoils one's fun. I can't climb trees and jump as I used to, now I'm grown up, though I do sometimes on the sly, or when only papa is by. Do you appreciate such amusements, Madeline ? " "We have never had the chance of partici pating in them," replied Madeline, evasively. " We have always lived in towns, where there are no opportunities of indulging in such pur suits." " I pity you, indeed," rejoined the other. " You can't know half the pleasures of life, if you don't live in the country. I and papa agree so capitally on all these points.

I am glad the baby is still so young, or I should fear him as a rival with papa. But he must wait a few years, till he is old enough to walk and ride, and I shall be married, of course, by that time." Madeline looked up at her cousin with an un disguised expression of surprise. Here was quite a new specimen of the genus young lady, and one which Madeline could not comprehend. However, she was herself but young in the world's ways, and had a long time before her to live and learn. But the walking party were now close to the Hall, and Mr. Marsden was in his glory, expatiating on all its beauties, and calling Flora's attention to its manifold perfections. It certainly was a fine old pile, rich in quaint gables, and with deep mullioned bay windows in every con ceivable position. At the first glance, it seemed to realise one's ideal of those good old English homes, fron whence have been sent out in their many generations, scores of the brave-hearted sterling Englishmen, aud the refined and elevated women, who have established and well sustained the credit of our dear old country for so many centuries.

It was a home well worthy of the love and pride with which its owner viewed it, as he watched his young niece's eyes wandering over its picturesque outlines, and heard her ex pressions of genuine, unqualified admiration. " Such dear old windows," she said; "just the places to sit in, and I'm sure the view must be lovely from them. Oh 1 I hope, Uncle Edward, that you have," — and Flora stopped short, and blushed violently, for again her spirits were be traying her into impropriety of expression. " Have what, my dear?" he said, laughing, " have given you a pretty windowed room. Is that it?" Flora assented, and he continued, " Wait till you see it, my dear, and I'm sure you will be satisfied. Why, there is hardly a window about the place that wouldn't satisfy the most exacting of sentimental young ladies."

" Now that's too bad of you, papa," observed Julia. " You always will have it, that girls must necessarily be sentimental and romantic, and de void of all that you call common sense ; I am sure, by this time, you ought to know that some, at least, are made of heavier metal." " Of course, present company is always ex cepted, Julia," replied the Squire, looking at his child with proud paternal affection. " Now, I am bound to express my conviction that there are at least three young ladies are free from the sentimentalism and over-refinement, which dis tinguish so many of their fair compeers of the present day." " Don't say that," said a quiet voice behind him. And turning, the Squire confronted his wife, who had hastened on to the lawn from the drawing room, on seeing the approach of the party.

" Do you already want to begin spoiling your nieces, Edward, as you have been trying to do your daughters?" "They are past spoiling," put in Julia half aside, " at least, Madeline is. She has been opening her eyes wider at every one of my speeches." " H ush ! Julia," said her mother, with a glance of reproof. Then turning to her nieces she welcomed them to the Hall with a sweet and winning grace, which went straight to Flora's heart, and made her secretly wonder how Madeline could have spoken so disparagingly of Mrs. Marsden. Certainly Aunt Jane was older than she expected, and it seemed ridiculous to think of her and the young heir, in the relation of mother and son. She was so plainly dressed, too, with such prim quaint caps, and did really look as if a laugh and Aunt Jane ought never to be mentioned in the same breath.

But still Flora settled it in her own mind that she was a very loveable person, and VOL. 1. c opened wide the gates of her affectionate heart for the admission of the hall itself, and all its I inmates with whom she had, as yet, made acquaintance. And thus prepared to be pleased, and consequently herself pleasing, Flora entered on this new stage of her, hitherto, uneventful life. MAESDENS. 27

Chapter III

"So your cousins have come, Bessy," said the Reverend Charles Marsden, the Rector of Marsden, as, late this same June afternoon, he entered the pretty drawing-room of his comfortable rectory, where sat bis wife and daughter. " I was in the village as the carriage passed, and just got a glimpse of one bright face, and another graver one, that reminded me of your uncle Fred. We must go to-morrow and make their acquaintance." " I remember Madeline six years ago, papa," replied his daughter. " We were great friends in those days, for she would not make a companion of Julia, and the others were in the nursery." " But six years is a long time at your ages, my dear," remarked Mrs. Marsden. " Do not expect c to find Madeline what she was. If you could see yourself, Bessy, as you were then, you would be rather surprised."