A SKETCH.

On the outskirts of a certain country town, which for euphony we will call Briarstone, from its being situated in one of the most picturesque but least known parts of old England, and almost imbedded in hills and lanes, where the wood or briar-rose grew redundantly, was a certain castellated-looking mansion, glowing with red bricks and bright blue slates, storied with large-paned windows, framed with such fresh green, that it would seem as if the painter’s brush could never have been absent above a month together. The entrance-door, of most aristocratic dimensions, was of bright glazed yellow, never sullied by dust or dimness. Below the portentous-looking circular knocker (Briarstone was yet in happy ignorance of the un-aristocracy of knockers) was a large brass plate, glittering in the sunshine like burning gold, and bearing thereon, in large and dignified letters, as if the name was of such importance in itself that it required no engraver’s ornament, the monosyllables—portentous in their very brevity—Miss Brown. The gravel walk which led up to the imposing flight of steps (white as the most scrupulous care could make them) that the yellow door surmounted, was kept so particularly neat, that the very birds feared to alight upon it, lest they should be swept off for some intrusive leaf or twig, quicker even than their voluntary flight. It was impossible to look upon the exterior of the mansion without being impressed with a grand idea of its as yet invisible interior.

Standing, as Red Rose Villa did, in a spacious garden, full ten minutes’ walk out of the town, it was marvellous how the daily events of this said town became known within its walls, as if a train had been laid—a sort of electrical conductor—to the interior of every dwelling which conveyed back to its starting-place all the information required. However invisible the means of communication, the effects were certain: for Miss Brown knew everything, even before the persons affected knew it themselves.

Now, Miss Brown, though her dignified name appeared on the brass plate solus, was not the sole inmate of this stately mansion by any means. She was, in fact, one of a multitude; for there were times when the capacious walls of Red Rose Villa enshrined no fewer than fifty living souls. The truth must out on our paper, though Miss Brown would have been shocked almost to annihilation had any one suggested the propriety of permitting it to speak on her cherished brass plate—Miss Brown kept a first-rate finishing academy for young ladies of the first families, and a boarding house for all who needed kind friends, cheerful lodgings, and comfortable board. Then she had an English, and a French, and an Italian, and of course a German teacher—all exemplary young women. Masters were rarely admitted, it being a gross impropriety in Miss Brown’s educational code to accustom young ladies to male tuition.

One indeed there was, a Mr. Gilbert Givevoice; but then Miss Brown and his lamented mother had been such friends, that at one time they had thought of becoming another Miss Ponsonby and Lady Eleanor Butler, and causing a sensation by retiring to live on friendship; but, unfortunately, before this could be carried into effect, a Mr. Givevoice appeared, and Miss Brown was left to mourn the inconsistency of those professions which had declared friendship all-sufficient for life. The offence was not forgiven for many years; but when Mrs. Givevoice was left a widow, Miss Brown generously relented, and Gilbert showing some musical talent (magnified by the Briarstonians into marvellous genius), he was gradually installed as music-master general, and aid extraordinary in all the concerns of Red Rose Villa.

Besides five-and-twenty pupils, a dozen boarders, four teachers, and half a dozen servants, Miss Brown was blessed with two brothers and two sisters, to all of whom she had performed most inimitably a mother’s part. Many marvelled that such grown men as Mr. Gustavus and Mr. Adolphus Brown should so contentedly succumb to female domination, and not seek homes for themselves; but petticoat government was so supreme in Red Rose Villa, that even the hint of such a thing would have been far too great a stretch of masculine audacity; and, in fact, they were very well contented where they were. Mr. Adolphus was a banker’s clerk, and was only known at home as going to sleep upon the sofa. Mr. Gustavus had been (according to his own account), at one time, a land-surveyor, at another, an architect, and then an engraver; but he was, he declared, one of the unlucky ones, and so quietly sunk down in his sister’s establishment, as merely a domestic man, who could set his hand to anything. He taught writing and arithmetic, and oriental tinting, and lead tinting, and a variety of finishing accomplishments; and copied music, and invented patterns for all the young lady-boarders who were worth something more than smiles. Mr. Adolphus was always asleep. Mr. Gustavus never seemed to sleep at all; thin as a lath, he was here, there, and everywhere, busying himself in everybody’s concerns, but never succeeding in forwarding his own.

Miss Brown, portly and majestic in carriage as of imperturbable gravity in look, possessed a fund of high-sounding, choice-worded, conversational powers—that is to say, her speech, once entered upon, flowed on in such a continuous gently-murmuring stream, that to break or interrupt it by a rejoinder was utterly impossible. The voice was as imperturbable and unvarying as the face. She was wondrously learned; schooled in the lore of the ancient, and wise in the ways of the modern world. No scheme could be set afloat at Briarstone unless Miss Brown had been consulted; no shop was the fashion unless Miss Brown had patronised; no case of distress worth relieving, unless forwarded by Miss Brown; and, in sober truth, Miss Brown was benevolent—was generous—did the kindest deeds imaginable; but as she never left her pinnacle of ice to look into human hearts, lest their warmth should thaw hers, she received neither the regard nor esteem which her sterling qualities in reality merited. Miss Wilhelmina Brown was her antipodes—all sweetness—all graciousness—all fascination! Miss Brown was learned, and not accomplished; Miss Wilhelmina accomplished, and not learned. Miss Brown was all sobriety, Miss Wilhelmina all smiles. At thirty, she learnt the harp; at five-and-thirty the guitar; at forty, she discovered she had a voice, and could sing inimitably—all the Briarstone soirées said so, and of course it must be true. Whole scenes from the French tragedians—stanzas from Dante—long lines from Schiller—Miss Wilhelmina would recite with such pathos, such expression, there was no occasion to understand the languages to enter into such charming recitations. English poetry was not ventured upon: Byron and Moore were charming, certainly; but then her sister’s responsible position—she dared not admit them upon the drawing-room tables of Red Rose Villa—she could only indulge herself strictly in private.

Miss Angelica, the youngest of the family by some years, was different to either sister. Nature had not been very bountiful in the powers of the brain, but, in their stead, had endowed her with powers of housewifery in no common degree. She managed all the domestic concerns of this human Noah’s ark as no one else could. From morning till night she was moving; so overlooking every department, that at the farthest sound of her footsteps (none of the lightest, for Miss Angelica was as short and stout as Miss Wilhelmina was tall and languidly slim) every brush and broom seemed endowed with double velocity. Jingle, jingle, went a huge bunch of keys—pat, pat, her substantial feet, from kitchen to attic—scullery to roof. Even if she sat down, her fingers continued the same perpetual motion, in the creation of sundry caps, bonnets, head-dresses—all the paraphernalia of female elegancies. No one dressed so becomingly as the Misses Brown; and Miss Angelica was considered the originator and inventor of fashions which all Briarstone followed.

The pupils were like most misses in their teens. Originality of character always succumbed to system in Red Rose Villa. Miss Brown’s was a finishing academy for manners as well as morals; and so in the weekly soirées of her mansion, the young ladies, by alternate eights, appeared in the drawing-room, dressed very becomingly, to sit down and smile, and answer in monosyllables; to play their last specimen of Herz or Thalberg, or sing their last bravura, or make one in a quadrille; but in all they did to bear witness to the admirable code of tuition and government carried out in Red Rose Villa.

The boarders presented a variety of characters; but as our sketch only extends over one evening, we can merely mention them generally. Officers’ widows, on half-pay, who, by a residence in Miss Brown’s establishment, combined first-rate education for their daughters, and society for themselves; ancient spinsters, who had not given up the idea of becoming middle-aged matrons, well knowing that Miss Brown’s philanthropic disposition gave them opportunities for the cultivation of the tender passion, when any one else would have imagined the time for such juvenilities was over. In the fortnightly soirées, one, two, or three pairs of lovers were always found among Miss Brown’s guests—unfortunates, whose interminable engagements, from pecuniary difficulties, or the stern dissent of cruel guardians, would have seemed hopeless to all, but for the energetic encouragement of the benevolent Miss Brown, who always acted on the idea
“Passion, I see, is catching.”

And, still more urgent reason, never did a wedding party issue from the well-glazed portals of Red Rose Villa (and such events did really occur) but an accession of pupils and boarders immediately followed.

Amongst the boarders were two young ladies, sisters’ children, and both orphans, but the similitude went no further. Isabel Morland, the eldest by two years, was a sparkling brunette—satirical—clever; eccentric in habits, uneven in temper, and capricious as the wind. But what did all this signify? She was an heiress; and, reckoning according to the estimation of Briarstone, a rich one. She had been a pupil, and her love of display, and coquetry, and determination to get a husband, had occasioned her resolve to remain with a family whom in heart she detested, rather than reside with the only relations she possessed, old respectable folks in the country. She had sense enough to know that her fortune, inexhaustible as it seemed in Briarstone, would not endow her with the smallest consequence elsewhere. And though so highly gifted by nature as, had she selected the society of superior minds, to have become both estimable and happy; yet her love of power—of feeling herself superior to any one with whom she associated—made her voluntarily become a member of a family whom she lost no opportunity of turning into objects of satire and abuse; receiving the marked attentions of Mr. Gustavus Brown so graciously, when no better offered, as to give him every hope of ultimate success; but cold, distant, and disdainful, at the remotest chance of achieving a more desirable conquest.

Very different was Laura Gascoigne. Unusually retiring in manner, the peculiar charm hovering around her could better be felt than described. Possessing neither the wit nor the cleverness, or, as Coleridge so happily expresses it, “the brain in the hand,” which characterised her cousin, she had judgment, feeling, thought—the rare power of concentration, which enabled her to succeed in all she attempted—the quiet, persevering energy which leads to completion, even in the simplest trifles, and prevents all mere superficial acquirement. Perhaps early sorrow had deepened natural characteristics. From the time her mother became widowed, no pen can describe the devotedness which was the tie between them. The failing health of Mrs. Gascoigne had, during the last year of her life, compelled a residence in the south of England; and, when in the neighbourhood of Briarstone, the real kindness to the mother and daughter received from the Misses Brown induced Laura, after Mrs. Gascoigne’s death, to make their house her home, till she could decide on her future plans. She was indeed lonely upon earth; and the straitened means which had urged her to teach many hours in the day, to supply her mother with luxuries and comforts, by stamping them as poor, prevented her being known in those circles where her gentle virtues would have gained her real appreciating friends.

All that she had sacrificed in her filial devotion even her mother never knew, though that mighty sacrifice had been made full two years before her death. An invalid, whose life might pass from night till morning with none on earth to love and tend her but her child, Laura could not leave her. And when she had said this, her lover, in all the jealous irritation of an angry, passionate nature, reproached her that she did not, could not love him, else every other consideration would be waived—that the reports of her affections having been transferred to another were true, and therefore it was better they should part. She had meekly left him to resume her sad duties by her mother’s side, and they had never met again. She knew he had been on the eve of leaving England for an honourable appointment in the West Indies, to which he had been nominated. But the wish would rise that he would write; he could not continue in anger towards her; time must show the purity, the justice, of her motive in her refusal, at such a moment, to leave England. And gladly would she have remained in one spot, hoping, believing on; but her mother needed constant change, and they had gone from place to place, that perhaps, even if he had written, no letter could have reached her. Three years had passed; and if the hope to prove her truth still lingered, the expectation had indeed long gone. And so Laura’s early youth had passed, with not one flower cast upon it save those her own sweet disposition gave. Miss Brown’s establishment was not, indeed, a congenial home; but she had her own room, her own pursuits; and though often yearning—how intensely!—for sympathy and intellectual companionship, could be thankful and contented. She could not love the Miss Browns, but she respected their sterling qualities, and regretted their eccentricities; and so found some good point to dilate on when others quizzed and laughed at them, that her presence always checked ill-nature.

“What is the cause of all this unusual confusion and excitement, Isabel?” inquired Laura one morning, entering her cousin’s apartment; “do enlighten me. You always know everything as thoroughly as Miss Brown herself.”

“And you always know nothing, my most rustic cousin. Fortunate for you, you have so superior a person as myself to come to. There is to be a grand assembly in the lower regions to-night, and so of course sweet Wilhelmina is practising and tuning enough to terrify away all harmony, and Angelica is buried in all the mysteries of supper craft. Don’t look unbelieving, it is true.”

“And it is Wednesday, not Saturday, Isabel.”

“Granted, Laura; but such a grand event as receiving a baronet and his sister demands everything uncommon, even to a change of night. It would be doing him no honour to receive him on a usual soirée night. Learned Lucretia is deep in the last novel and this month’s most fashionable magazine. Folks report that Sir Sydney Harcourt likes literary conversation. I mean to try if Isabel Morland will not have more effect in captivating than the three graces, Lucretia, Wilhelmina, and Angelica altogether, backed by their whole corps of spinsters and schoolgirls. What has seized you, Laura, that you do not scold me, as usual, for my self-conceit? Do you begin to feel it is breath wasted? My dear, you shall see me in perfection to-night. Sir Sydney shall not depart heart-whole from Briarstone, though he does look as if nobody within it could be worth speaking to.”

Isabel was standing before a large mirror, much too engrossed in admiring her own face and studying various attitudes, and the best mode of arranging her glossy black hair, to notice how strangely and fitfully Laura’s colour varied, and the voice in which she said, “Sir Sydney Harcourt, is he a new resident at Briarstone?” was not sufficiently agitated to cause remark, save to a much quicker perception than Isabel’s.

“Yes, within the last few days; such a sensation has his arrival made, you must have heard of it even in your sanctum.”

“My dear Isabel, have I not been staying out the last fortnight, and only returned last night?”

“Oh, by-the-bye, so you have.”

“How much you must have missed me!”

“I did the first few days; but, my good child, how could I think of anything but the new lion, splendid as he is, too? He is only here for a month. Will you dare me to the field, Laura, to make that month two, or six, or something more into the bargain?”

“No, Isabel, you need no daring. Only remember your own peace may be endangered too.”

“My peace! my dear foolish child. I shall see Sir Sydney at my feet long before any such catastrophe. Lady Harcourt! how well it sounds!”

“And Mr. Brown, Isabel?”

“The wretch! we have quarrelled irretrievably.”

“And when I left you were giving him every encouragement you could.”

“Nonsense, Laura. You are always preaching of my giving encouragement. The poor wretch would die in despair if I did not relent sometimes.”

“Better, as I have always told you, put an end to his attentions at once. I am certain he would cease to persecute, if you did not encourage him, as you know you do.”

“I know I do. Poor dear Gussy—he is very well, when I can get no one else.”

“But indeed, Isabel, you are very wrong; your manner to him is the talk of every one.”

“I do not care for what every one thinks, as I have told you hundreds of times. I will just pursue my own inclination, whether the world approve of it or not. What is the world to me? You cannot possibly imagine I mean ever to become Mrs. Brown. Why, the very name is enough to make me drown myself first. No, I am free to receive all Sir Sydney’s attentions, which I fully mean to win. You know I have some power, Laura.”

“To attract, but not to keep, Isabel.”

“Laura, if you were not a thorough simpleton, I should say you had designs on Sir Sydney yourself. Come, will you run a tilt with me for him? I will be generous, and keep back some of my fascinations, that we may try as equals, if you will.”

“Thank you for the proposal, but it would hardly be fair. You will burst upon Sir Sydney in the freshness and brilliancy of novelty, in addition to all your other attractions. I have not even novelty to befriend me, for I rather think I have met him before.”

“Sir Sydney Harcourt! How sly of you not to tell me all this time. When?—how?—where?”

“How could I tell you before, Isabel, when you have scarcely given me breathing space?”

“But do you know anything of his former life? Report says he was jilted by a poor insignificant girl, and has been a professed woman-hater ever since. I do believe there he is in his curricle. What a splendid set-out!—do look, Laura. Stay—I shall see him better in the next room.”

And to the next room she flew, so engrossed with Sir Sydney’s splendid driving that she did not perceive that Laura had not accepted the invitation, but had quietly retired to her own room.

“Miss Gascoigne, I trust you will join us to-night. I expect the honour of Sir Sydney Harcourt’s and his accomplished sister’s company. Your manners and appearance are so completely comme il faut that they will, no doubt, be glad to meet you. I do not approve of young ladies hunting after gaiety and dissipation; but it is a great advantage to mix in such society as I can offer you to-night. I shall expect to see you, of course,” and without waiting for a reply—for such a thing as dissent to Miss Brown’s commands was not to be thought of—Miss Brown, or learned Lucretia, in Isabel Morland’s phraseology, majestically floated onwards.

“Laura, my sweet Laura, play over the accompaniment to this luscious ‘Ah te o cara.’ Mr. Givevoice will be here to-night, so I shall not want you; but now, if you will assist me, you will do me such a favour. The music is so mellifluous, it will quite repay you for the trouble.” And Laura complied, regretting most sincerely that a person possessing such real sense and goodness as Miss Wilhelmina should so expose herself to ridicule, but feeling that, young as she was, it was more her duty to bear with folly than reprove it.

“Laura, dear, put the finishing bows to Lucretia’s cap for me, there’s a love. I have such innumerable things to see after and get done before seven o’clock to-night, that I have no time to breathe.”

“You are always busy, my dear Miss Angelica. I wish you would make me of use. I shall finish this in ten minutes; so you had better give me som............