Scenes and Characters | Page 3

bear to leave him to be harassed by the petty
cares of a numerous family, especially when broken in spirits and
weighed down with sorrow. She thought her duty was plain, and,
accordingly, she wrote to Mr. Hawkesworth, to beg him to allow her to
withdraw her promise.
Her brother Henry was the only person who knew what she had done,
and he alone perceived something of tremulousness about her in the

midst of the even cheerfulness with which she had from the first
supported her father's spirits. Mr. Mohun, however, did not long remain
in ignorance, for Frank Hawkesworth himself arrived at Beechcroft to
plead his cause with Eleanor. He knew her value too well to give her up,
and Mr. Mohun would not hear of her making such a sacrifice for his
sake. But Eleanor was also firm, and after weeks of unhappiness and
uncertainty, it was at length arranged that she should remain at home
till Emily was old enough to take her place, and that Frank should then
return from India and claim his bride.
Well did she discharge the duties which she had undertaken; she kept
her father's mind at ease, followed out his views, managed the boys
with discretion and gentleness, and made her sisters well-informed and
accomplished girls; but, for want of fully understanding the characters
of her two next sisters, Emily and Lilias, she made some mistakes with
regard to them. The clouds of sorrow, to her so dark and heavy, had
been to them but morning mists, and the four years which had changed
her from a happy girl into a thoughtful, anxious woman, had brought
them to an age which, if it is full of the follies of childhood, also
partakes of the earnestness of youth; an age when deep foundations of
enduring confidence may be laid by one who can enter into and direct
the deeper flow of mind and feeling which lurks hid beneath the freaks
and fancies of the early years of girlhood. But Eleanor had little
sympathy for freaks and fancies. She knew the realities of life too well
to build airy castles with younger and gayer spirits; her sisters' romance
seemed to her dangerous folly, and their lively nonsense levity and
frivolity. They were too childish to share in her confidence, and she
was too busy and too much preoccupied to have ear or mind for
visionary trifles, though to trifles of real life she paid no small degree
of attention.
It might have been otherwise had Henry Mohun lived; but in the midst
of the affection of all who knew him, honour from those who could
appreciate his noble character, and triumphs gained by his uncommon
talents, he was cut off by a short illness, when not quite nineteen, a
most grievous loss to his family, and above all, to Eleanor. Unlike her,
as he was joyous, high-spirited, full of fun, and overflowing with
imagination and poetry, there was a very close bond of union between
them, in the strong sense of duty, the firmness of purpose, and energy

of mind which both possessed, and which made Eleanor feel perfect
reliance on him, and look up to him with earnest admiration. With him
alone she was unreserved; he was the only person who could ever make
her show a spark of liveliness, and on his death, it was only with the
most painful efforts that she could maintain her composed demeanour
and fulfil her daily duties. Years passed on, and still she felt the blank
which Harry had left, almost as much as the first day that she heard of
his death, but she never spoke of him, and to her sisters it seemed as if
he was forgotten. The reserve which had begun to thaw under his
influence, again returning, placed her a still greater distance from the
younger girls, and unconsciously she became still more of a governess
and less of a sister. Little did she know of the 'blissful dreams in secret
shared' between Emily, Lilias, and their brother Claude, and little did
she perceive the danger that Lilias would be run away with by a lively
imagination, repressed and starved, but entirely untrained.
Whatever influenced Lilias, had, through her, nearly the same effect
upon Emily, a gentle girl, easily led, especially by Lilias, whom she
regarded with the fondest affection and admiration. The perils of fancy
and romance were not, however, to be dreaded for Jane, the fourth
sister, a strong resemblance of Eleanor in her clear common sense, love
of neatness, and active usefulness; but there were other dangers for her,
in her tendency to faults, which, under wise training, had not yet
developed themselves.
Such were the three girls who were now left to assist each other in the
management