Turns of Fortune | Page 6

learned to Mabel. She fancied that teachers might not
be kind to this new-found idol; that she could transfer information more
gently and continuously; that the relative was the best instructress; in
short, the pent-up tenderness of her nature, the restrained torrent of
affections that had so long lain dormant, were poured forth upon the
little heiress, as she was already called; and captious and determined
she was, as ever heiress could be; but withal of so loving a nature, and
so guileless a heart, so confiding, so generous, and so playful, and
overflowing with mirth and mischief, that it would have been
impossible to fancy any living creature who had felt the sunshine of
fourteen summers more charming or tormenting.
"I wish, dear aunt," exclaimed Mabel, one morning, as she sat at her
embroidery, the sun shining through the open window upon the
abundant glories of her hair, while her aunt sat, as she always did,
opposite to her, that she might, when she raised her eyes from off the
Italian lesson she was conning for her especial edification, have the
happiness of seeing her without an effort; "I wish, dear aunt, you would
send that old spinnet out of the room; it looks so odd by the side of my
beautiful piano."
"My dear Mabel," replied her aunt, "I have put as much new furniture
as you wished into this room, but I cannot part with the old"--
"Rubbish!" added Mabel, snapping her worsted with the impatience of
the movement.
"It may be rubbish in your eyes, Mabel, but I have told you before that
my dear father desired I should never part with the furniture of the
room he died in."
Mabel looked the truth--"that she was not more inclined toward the old
furniture on that account;" but she did not say so. "Have you got the
key of the old spinnet, aunt? I should like to hear its tone."

"I have never found the key, my dear, though I have often looked for it;
I suppose my father lost it. I have danced to its music before now to my
mother's playing; but I am sure it has not a tone left."
"I wish you would dance now, dear aunt," exclaimed Mabel, jumping
up at the idea; "you never told me you could dance; I never, somehow,
fancied you could dance, and I have been obliged to practise my
quadrilles with two high-backed chairs and my embroidery frame. Do,
dear aunt; put by that book, and dance." It would be impossible to
fancy a greater contrast than aunt and niece. Sarah Bond's erect and
perfectly flat figure was surmounted by a long head and face, round
which an abundance of gray hair was folded; for by no other term can I
describe its peculiar dress; her cap plain, but white as snow; and a black
silk gown, that had seen its best days, was pinned and primmed on, so
as to sit as close as possible to a figure which would have been greatly
improved by heavy and abundant drapery. Mabel, lithe and restless,
buoyant and energetic, unable even to wish for more luxury or more
happiness than she possessed, so that her active mind was forced to
employ its longings on trifles, as it really had nothing else to desire; her
face was round as those faces are which become oval in time; and her
bright laughing eyes sparkled like sunbeams at the bare notion of
making "aunt Sarah" take either the place of a high-backed chair, or the
embroidery frame in a quadrille. "Do dance," she repeated.
"My dear child, I know as little of your quadrilles as you do of my
country dances and reels. No, Mabel; I can neither open the spinnet nor
dance quadrilles; so you have been twice refused this morning; a
novelty, is it not, my dearest Mabel?"
"But why do you not break open the spinnet? Do break it open, aunt; I
want to see the inside of it so much."
"No, Mabel; the lock is a peculiar one, and could not be broken without
defacing the marquetre on the cover, which I should not like to do. My
poor mother was so proud of that cover, and used to dust and polish it
with her own hands."
"What! herself?" exclaimed the pretty Mabel; "why did not her servants

do it?"
"Because, my dear, she had but one."
"But one! I remember when my poor mamma had none," sighed Mabel,
"and we were so miserable."
"But not from lack of attendants, I think," answered Sarah Bond. "If
they are comforts, they are careful ones, and sadly wasteful. We were
never so happy as we were then. Your mother and I used to set the milk,
and mind the poultry, and