by Sophie May
AUNT MARY
by
MRS. PERRING
Author of'The Story of a Mouse,' 'The Story of a Cat,' 'The Castleand the Cottage,' Etc.
LondonGeorge Routledge and SonsBroadway, Ludgate HillNew York: 416 Broome Street1881.
AUNT MARY.]
AUNT MARY.
CHAPTER I.
AUNT MARY.
In one of those very pretty suburban villas which are to be seen in theneighbourhood of all our large towns, Aunt Mary lived, at the time whenmy tale commences.
Indeed she had lived there the greater part of her life, for her father,Mr. Livesay, who had been a highly respected merchant in London for agreat many years, had, unlike the generality of this prosperous class,retired from business as soon as he had secured a moderate competencyfor himself, his wife, and their four daughters, of whom our Aunt Marywas the eldest.
Mr. Livesay had purchased the pretty house, to which he had retreatedfrom the hurry and bustle of the great city, but before doing so, he hadtaken care to ascertain that the inhabitants of the adjoining villa werelikely to prove agreeable neighbours; and this he had done to hisentire satisfaction, as Mr. and Mrs. Maitland, with their two sweetlittle children, gave promise of pleasurable society.
At the time of his retirement from business, the four daughters of Mr.Livesay were grown up to woman's estate; though perhaps that can hardlybe said of the youngest, Irene, who was only sixteen, while her twosisters, Ada and Alice, were of the respective ages of eighteen andtwenty.
Great pains had been taken in the _real_ education of these youngladies, for their excellent mother had spared no pains in their earlytraining; and as they were all quick and clever children, the task of'teaching the young idea how to shoot,' in their case, proved'delightful.' We wish this were oftener the case; but to proceed: AuntMary, as we have said, was the eldest of these young ladies; she was atthe discreet age of four-and-twenty--indeed, she might have been thirty,for the aptitude she displayed in household matters, taking all the careof housekeeping off her good mother's hands, and being looked up to, andappealed to, in all doubtful matters by her sisters.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Livesay considered their daughter Mary their chieftreasure; indeed, she was everything that a daughter ought to be.
There was one thing, however, lacking that her three sisters possessed:she was not beautiful. Aunt Mary, if she had been pretty in infancy, hadbeen spoiled by that dreadful ravager, the small-pox, which she hadcaught, through the carelessness of a nurse, when she was five yearsold.
It had not, however, left her entirely without good looks; for thekindly feelings of her heart beamed forth in the eloquent dark eyes andthe sweet smile that almost invariably lighted up her face.
Laughingly, she used to say to her sisters, 'Well, you may all getmarried, and I shall live at home with my mother and father.'
And even as Aunt Mary said, so it came to pass: her sisters all married,and she remained at home, the loving daughter, the tender nurse, thedeepest mourner for the loss of their dear parents, whom she had sodutifully cherished in their old age.
At the death of Mr. and Mrs. Livesay, which happened about ten yearsafter the marriage of their two daughters, Ada and Alice--whom I mustnow introduce to the reader as Mrs. Ellis and Mrs. Beaumont--Aunt Marywas warmly entreated to give up housekeeping, and go and reside with oneor other of her sisters, especially as Irene, the youngest, who had forthe last twelve months undertaken the task of governess to the two MissMaitlands, their next-door neighbours, was now engaged to be married,and the house, it was urged, would be too large and too lonely for AuntMary to reside in with any comfort.
This proposition, however, did not at all suit one who had for so manyyears acted independently; nor, although she was fond of children, wouldshe on any account undertake a partial teaching of them. 'Let me haveall the say, or none,' was Aunt Mary's maxim, so she decided to remainwhere she was, promising however, that when her sister Irene shouldmarry Captain Gordon, she would take into serious consideration Mr. andMrs. Maitland's earnest request, that she would continue the educationof their two dear girls at her own house.
This, after the lapse of six months, Miss Livesay had agreed to, and hadalso sent for the eldest daughter of her sister Mrs. Beaumont, who wasnow a widow, with three children, though she had been left very welloff, and could have sent her daughter Clara to a first-rate school, hadshe been so disposed. Mrs. Beaumont, however, knew too well the benefither child was likely to derive from the real education she would receivefrom her sister Mary, to hesitate for a moment as to putting her underthat lady's exclusive care; and thus at the same time that Oak Villareceived Mrs. Maitland's two little girls, Annie and Dora, it becamealso the pleasant home of Clara Beaumont, who although she was theyoungest of the trio, was certainly the most seriously disposed;perhaps, poor child, on account of the loss of her dear papa, who haddied very unexpectedly, in the prime of life, from neglected cold, whichterminated in acute bronchitis. This, though it had occurred six monthsprevious to Clara's advent at Oak Villa, was an event still deeply feltand lamented by the sensitive child, and produced a seriousness ofcharacter seldom seen in children of her age; but the change was likelyto prove very beneficial both to her health and spirits, and it was notlong before Aunt Mary saw, with much pleasure, that her niece gladlyentered upon her studies, and appeared very desirous to overtake heryoung companions in their several lessons, which, as she was exceedinglyindustrious, she was very likely to do before many weeks had passedaway.
We must now, however, look after Aunt Mary's second sister, Mrs. Ellis,whose eldest daughter, Mabel, was only a few months older than ClaraBeaumont, but whose character at this time was as unlike that of heryoung cousin as could possibly be imagined, which the reader will soonperceive when we introduce her in the next chapter, associated as shewill be with the gentle and amiable daughters of Mrs. Maitland, who,together with her niece Clara, had been Aunt Mary's pupils for somemonths, though at present it was holiday-time.