The Barbadoes Girl | Page 5

as the work he
read might furnish him with, left their seats, and pressed round the
place where their parents were sitting.
Matilda did not like to be left alone, nor did she feel as if she had a
right to be held as a child among the rest: again her pride and her
repentance had a great struggle, and she knew not to which she should
give the preference, for her heart swelled alike with pride and sorrow;
she moved towards the same place, and sought, in the bustle of the
moment, to divert the painful feeling which oppressed her.
In a few moments, Mr. Harewood was heard to shut the library-door;
and as, of course, he might be expected to re-enter very soon, and
would now be much nearer to her than he had been, and would
certainly adopt some more decided kind of conduct and language
towards her, Matilda became again extremely desirous of knowing
what he really had said about her, and she two or three times essayed to
speak; but a little remaining modesty, which was nearly all the good
which her unhappy education had left her, prevented her, until she
found that she had no time beyond the present instant left for satisfying
her curiosity on so important a point, when, in a considerable flutter of
spirits, she whispered to Ellen, but in a voice sufficiently articulate to
be heard by others--"Pray what did your papa say of me?"
"That you were very much to be pitied."
"Pitied! Pray what am I to be pitied for?"
Ellen blushed very deeply: she could not answer a question which
called down confusion on the head of her who asked it--one, too, whom
she was inclined to love, and whose petulance towards herself, however
unprovoked, she had already forgiven. She looked wistfully in the face
of her mamma, who replied for her--"We all think you are much to be

pitied, because you are evidently a poor, little, forlorn, ignorant child,
without friends, and under the dominion of a cruel enemy, that renders
you so frightful, it is scarcely possible for even the most humane
people to treat you with kindness, or even endure you."
Matilda involuntarily started up, and examined herself in the
looking-glass.--"If I had happened to be your own daughter, ma'am,"
she said, crying again, "you would not have thought me ugly; but
because I come from Barbadoes, you don't like me; and it is cruel and
wicked to treat me so. But I will go back--I will--I will."
"I wish most sincerely you had never come, for it is painful to me to
witness the folly and sin you are guilty of; but, since you are here, I
will endeavour to bear with you, until I have found a good school to
send you to. If you would give yourself time to consider, you would
know that the enemy I spoke of is your own temper, which would
render even perfect beauty hideous; you know very well that I received
you with the greatest kindness, and that you have outraged that
kindness. But I can forgive you, because I see that you are a silly child,
who fancies herself of importance; whereas children, however they
may be situated, are poor dependent creatures."
Matilda answered only by a scornful toss of her head, and uttering the
word--"Dependent!"
"Edmund," said Mrs. Harewood, taking no notice of her insolent look,
"you are a strong healthy boy, forward in your education, capable of
reflection, and decidedly superior, not only in age, but wisdom, to any
other in the room; answer me candidly, as if you were speaking to a
boy like yourself--Do you feel it possible so to conduct yourself, that, if
you were left alone in the world, you could be happy and
independent?"
"My dear mamma," said Edmund, "you must be laughing at me; a
pretty figure I should cut, if I were to set up for a man, without any one
to advise me how to act, to tell me when I was wrong, and to manage
every thing for me! how could I do right without my papa, or some
proper guardian? and how could I be happy without you, mamma?"

As Edmund spoke, he threw his arms round his mother; and the others
followed his example, saying--"No, no, we could do nothing without
you and dear papa; pray do stay with us, and make us good."
As they spoke, the tears were in their eyes, and Matilda was affected:
she remembered the tenderness of her own mother, and how often she
had turned a deaf ear to her expostulations. She was convinced that
these children, at this very time, enjoyed a sweeter pleasure than she
had ever experienced from the gratification of her desires, and