WHEN Leila entered the school-room Selina was reading, but Matilda stood gazing out at the window with rather a disturbed expression of countenance. “Well, Cousin Leila,” she said, “we have news for you, and not very good news either. Now all the day long it will be,—‘Hold up your head, Miss Leila,’ ‘Why do you walk in that awkward way, Miss Matilda?’ ‘How troublesome you are; I wish you would take example by your elder sister—one awkward trick after another—I really must complain of you to Mrs. Stanley.’ Yes, Selina, you need not shake your head at me and look so grave; Leila will look grave also when she knows the truth. Yes, Leila, I was quite right, it is all settled, we are to have a governess; so no more pleasant days for us. Botheration, botheration.”

Leila had not been able to resist laughing at first; but she checked herself, and remained silent.

Selina spoke. “Oh, Matilda! how can you speak in this way, and after all mamma has been just saying? and you seemed to feel it so.”

“Yes, I know I am wrong; and when mamma was speaking to me I felt very sorry, and I resolved I would try to please this Mrs. Roberts, or rather mamma, for I would rather please mamma than any one in the whole world; but, Leila, you looked when you came in as if you had something joyful to say; if you have, please to say it, for we need good news very much to-day.”

But no sooner had Leila communicated the pleasant intelligence of the proposed visit to Woodlands, than all traces of sorrow were banished from Matilda’s face; she was in ecstasies, and, flying across the room, she dashed the book from Selina’s hands, and throwing her arms round her neck, she exclaimed,—“Now no more reading to-day, if you please, Mrs. Demure; this is what I call the right kind of a holiday—how merry we shall be! Well, I do think Uncle Howard makes most delightful plans; how do you manage, Leila, to get him to do so many nice things?”

“I don’t manage,” Leila answered; “he is always thinking of doing kind things to me and every body, and he has told me all about our governess, and made me like having one more than I did at first; I will tell you about it as we go along, for we are to walk, you know, and we must make haste and get ready, that papa and uncle and aunt may not be there long before us.”

The walk proved every way delightful. The sky so brightly blue, the sunshine splendid, and the woods, now tinted with the glowing hues of autumn, gave additional beauty to the scene. Here and there a solitary unprotected tree, standing out from the others, might have given warning to more contemplative minds that winter and its storms were approaching; but there was no winter in their young hearts—all was fresh, gay, and green, and withered leaves brought to them no memory of blighted hopes, and of a world of many sorrows.

The distance could not be two miles, they all agreed, though Matilda and Alfred did their best to lengthen it, by continuing, during every few yards of their progress, to run up a little bank by the side of the road and down again, assuring the others that it was by far the quickest way of getting on, but Leila greatly preferred walking quietly straight forward with Selina; it was always a particular pleasure to her to have Selina entirely to herself. She now related to her all her papa had told her of Mrs. Roberts, and many were the good resolutions made by both, that they would do all they could to make her situation pleasant to her. As they came in sight of a pretty-looking house, standing in a small garden, Leila stopped.

“Look, Selina,” she said, “I think that must be Woodlands, had we not better ask some one if it is?”

A countryman came up to them at that moment, walking very quickly, and was about to pass on before. Leila ran forward.

“Pray do stop,” she said, “if you are not very busy, and tell us if that is Woodlands?”

The man turned back and looked at her with astonishment.

“Dear heart, young lady, but you must be a stranger in these parts—that Woodlands, that? It would be but a humble post indeed to open the park gates to them good people, a very decent family too, I mean to say nothing disrespectful, but Woodlands, bless your heart, Woodlands is one of the principalest houses in the whole countryside. Do you see that beautiful great house standing on the height there, with the broad terrace and the pleasure-grounds sloping down to the river, and them grand woods on each side, shutting out the summer’s sun and the winter’s blasts?—that’s Woodlands, and it’s not every day you will see its like; but you are pleasant-looking young ladies to my mind, and if you have a fancy to see Woodlands, though it’s not to every one I would say as much, I have no objections to unlock the gates for you, for once and away.”

“And are the gates always locked?” Leila timidly inquired; then added, “papa told us to go there.”

“No, no, my young lady; it’s not papas or mammas either that can give that permission. As long as my head’s above ground, there shall no promiscuous company enter there; but never vex your sweet heart,” he continued, more mildly, (observing Leila’s expression of blank dismay,) “never vex your heart; you shall see the place for all that;” then added with a sigh, “but Woodlands has gotten a new master, one Squire Howard, they tell me—a fine man from the Indies. Heaven send he may be a kind one; but they tell queer stories about him too. It was I that showed the two gentlemen that came to settle about it all over the place, and they said something of his having lived in a desert island, a Robinson Crusoe sort of an affair that I could not make out at all; but if we are to have a master from a desert island, I hope he will keep more company about him than his man Friday, or Woodlands will be a changed place.”

“My papa had no man Friday with him in the island,” Leila meekly answered; “but we do not live there now. We came into the world last May, and our man-servant’s name is John; in the island we had only Nurse—look, she is coming up to us now, and she is to be my papa’s housekeeper at Woodlands.”

The ruddy face of the countryman became actually pale, as he pulled off his hat, and stood immovable before Leila.

“My master’s daughter; it’s not possible. Surely——”

Matilda, who from the moment she had joined them, had continued walking with the others, and had hitherto remained wonderfully silent, could now no longer restrain herself.

“You may indeed look surprised,” she said, “for you have made a fine mistake. Yes, it is quite true: you have all this time been speaking to Miss Howard. She is the young mistress of Woodlands. And now will you open the gates?”

“Don’t, Matilda, pray don’t,” Leila exclaimed in a voice of entreaty; “do you not see how sorry he looks?” then turning with a smile to the poor man, who still remained uncovered before them, “Do put on your hat,” she said; “the sun is hurting your eyes, and you need not be the least sorry for what you have said. I dare say you were told to take care of it; that was just the way Nurse used to watch over every thing in the island, only there we had no gates to lock.”

In a few minutes longer they had reached the lodge, a pretty small thatched house in the cottage style, with a profusion of China roses and honeysuckles on its white walls. Leila instantly thought how delightfully it would have suited Peggy Dobie, but she did not say so. The gates were no longer shut, they stood most invitingly open; a tidy, pleasant-looking young woman seemed to have been watching for them at the door of the cottage.

“Oh, Bill, Bill,” she exclaimed, “you have been long, and to have been away to-day of all days in the year, and a fine lady and gentleman away up the approach in the carriage, and the squire himself, and a kind, civil-spoken gentleman he seems to be.”

But the young people were too impatient to listen to further details; the moment they entered the gates they bounded forward. The windings of the approach, though calculated to show the finest trees on the property, they thought much too long, and by the time they reached the house they were breathless with impatience. Mr. Howard, who had been watching them from the window, was at the door to meet them. “Welcome to all of you,” he said, and he stooped down and kissed Leila repeatedly; “welcome to your future home, my Leila; may it be a happy home to you, my dearest child.”

Leila seemed at first quite bewildered; the entrance hall seemed to be so large, the drawing-room larger still. The windows of the drawing-room opened on a trellised balcony, festooned with creeping plants, and filled with rare and beautiful flowers; a broad flight of steps, with stone balustrades on each side, and large vases, scarlet pomegranate and pink oleander in full bloom, led from this balcony to the terrace below; and beyond this terrace the velvet turf, interspersed with beds of gay and fragrant flowers, sloped down to the edge of the broad river, on which many little boats were gliding up and down; happily no steamboat being in sight on this first-favoured moment.

All were loud in their expressions of admiration; they had never seen any thing more beautiful; but though Leila admired, she seemed still bewildered, and almost more oppressed than pleased.

“It is very beautiful; but how shall I ever be able to manage such a house as this?”

Selina whispered, “Don’t distress yourself, Leila, it is not till you are grown up that you will have to manage; your papa will do it now, and my mamma will help him.”

Leila brightened a little, but still looked anxiously around the room: “Surely it is very large,” she said.

It was Matilda’s observation, “Young mistress of Woodlands,” that had done all this; poor Leila was weighed down to the ground with a sudden sense of her responsibilities; to common observers she was a simple child, young, even for her years; but there was often a deep under-current of thought about her, to be discovered only in the changes of her expressive countenance, and in the hesitating, varied tones of her voice.

Mr. Howard understood her: “We will manage all for you very nicely,” he said; “so, my dear Leila, do not be afraid; and this room will not look so large when it is furnished, and we have sofas, and chairs, and large tables, and little tables, and all sorts of pretty things in it; and it certainly will not be too large if we succeed in having all the kind friends around us at Christmas whom I hope we shall have. Your aunt, uncle, and cousins, Mr. and Mrs. Herbert, and Maria, and perhaps the Selbys, with Louisa, who knows?”

Leila, from the moment of entering the house, had been working herself up, and struggling against comfort; but comfort, in the shape of such a Christmas party as this, who could resist? She quickly gave herself up to all its happy influences, and when her papa led her into the adjoining breakfast-room, which was small, and leading into a spacious conservatory, she was in ecstasies.

“My birds, my birds,” she exclaimed, “my turtle-doves, my parrots, how they will enjoy it. They will think this more beautiful than their green parlour.”

All was sunshine to her again; it was a moment of exquisite happiness, such happiness as is only to be felt in very early life, before the sad memories of the past, “and the shadows of coming evils, have dimmed its brightness.”

The young people returned home in high spirits; Leila forgetting every care in the remembrance of the beautiful conservatory, and in the anticipation of the enjoyment of her birds in taking possession of it; and Matilda far too much excited to allow any of them to rest, even for a moment.

“Come,” she said, “we will act a play now;” and flying into the passage, she seized her papa’s hat, placed it on one side on her head, tied over her dress a green linen pinafore of Alfred’s to imitate a blouse, and returning into the room, “Now,” she said, “I will be Bill; you, Cousin Leila, are to be talking very gravely with Selina, consulting her how you are to order the dinner at Woodlands when I come up to you; and you, Alfred, are to be the pit, and stamp with your feet, and call out very loud.”

“But why,” Leila exclaimed, “should poor Alfred be in the pit? I don’t like that, it puts me in mind of such melancholy things,—Joseph and his wicked brothers, you know,—and he called out and they would not listen; and the cruel thing we did ourselves; we put the poor goats into the pit; but papa said that was a necessary evil.”

Matilda laughed: “You are so odd,” she said; “it is not that sort of a pit at all. I never saw it myself, but Lydia told me about it,—it is a place where all the gentlemen sit in rows to see the play, and they stamp very loud with their feet, and call out encore; encore means—say it again; don’t forget that, Alfred.”

Leila was quite relieved and satisfied, and the play proceeded; and so admirably did Matilda imitate Bill’s voice and manner, and so complete was the picture when she drew off the hat, and stood with a face of mute dismay before them, that Selina and Leila were convulsed with laughter; as to little Alfred, he stamped so loud, and called encore so often, that even Matilda, with all her love of amusement, was fairly exhausted.

“Now,” she said, “we have had enough of this; let us play at Nurse’s play now, let us play at being rational beings, and sit down quietly to our work; now there’s a proposal for you, Selina, what do you say to that? I am going to turn over an entirely new leaf, and I will begin with putting back this hat into its right place, and folding up this crumpled pinafore so very nicely that Nurse will say it is fresh out of the fold. Now it is all done, and I declare you have got out your work already; well, here is mine, and we can sit down comfortably and converse about our future lives.”

“Yes,” Leila said, “that will be a delightful subject.”

“I don’t know that,” Matilda replied; “you are forgetting about the governess; she is to be here very soon, if she can come. Mamma wrote to her this morning; she bid me hold the taper when she was sealing the letter, and I could not help thinking how nice it would be if I could give a little push and set the letter on fire.”

“Oh, Matilda,” Selina exclaimed, “how sorry you make me; why do you talk in this way and why should your future life not be happy because we are to have a governess to save mamma trouble; you know she is not very strong, and she is not able to manage us herself.”

“To manage me, you should say, Selina; but how can my future life be happy, when she will be for ever finding fault with me?”

“But why do you think so? It is quite in your own power to go on happily with her; she will not find fault with you unless you deserve it, and surely you would not wish to grow up in your faults; you could not have a happy future life if you are not good, for you have a conscience, Matilda, and after a little you are always sorry when you do wrong.”

“I am, Selina; you know me very well; but then I am so often bad, and so often sorry, that there is no great happiness about my life after all, even though I have not a governess. Well, we shall see if she makes this great change.”

“She cannot make the change, Matilda, she can only tell you what is right; and you cannot do it either, of yourself. You must pray for the Spirit of God to come into your heart, and to make you really sorry for your faults, and really anxious to do what is right.”

“But I am really anxious,” Matilda answered; “and I am always wishing I could be as good as you are.”

“I wish you would not say that so often; I am not good.”

“Oh, if you are not good, and you expect me to be better than you are, it is a bad business! I need not try.”

“Why do you talk in that way? You do not know all the foolish things I think of and wish to do; but remember, Matilda, the lesson I have had, and the great blessing God has given me. Before I had made up my mind to be always dumb, I used often to pray to Him, and promise that if He would open my lips, I would try to be more and more His child, and praise Him with my life as well as with my heart; and when I read of Jesus Christ opening the eyes of the blind, and making the dumb to speak, I used to have such deep sorrow, that sometimes I could scarcely bear it; I used to shut myself up alone and say to myself, Why did I not live then? Surely if I had asked Him myself, and He had seen my sorrow, He would have listened. Oh, it was a sinful thought.”

“But why was it sinful?” Matilda asked.

“It was sinful, because it was doubting His wisdom, for He knew what was best for me; it was also doubting his power, for in heaven He equally hears our prayers and sees our sorrows; and the miracles He worked on earth are not greater than those which are every where around us. The spring and summer coming again, and bringing up the flowers, and making the dead earth so green and beautiful, are miracles of His power; and the very miracle I asked for was granted—granted in a moment—my lips were opened; from that time I made my resolution——” She stopped and coloured.

“What resolution?” Matilda eagerly asked.

“The resolution that I would try to think of Him more than I had ever done before; that I would be part of every day alone, not to ask for more worldly blessings, but to thank Him for giving me more than I ever can deserve.”

“And so this is the reason,” Matilda said, “why you go away in the forenoon and lock your door. I never could find out what you were doing; once I thought I would look through the keyhole, and I went on tip-toe, but then I remembered mamma saying that was a mean, low habit, and I did not. But you do another thing, Selina, which you never used to do before; in the morning, after you have read the Bible, you turn over and over the pages, as if you were looking for something. What are you doing then, for you cannot be reading?”

“I am finding out texts. Every day I search for a text, and an answer to it, and I get them by heart; it helps to keep good thoughts in my mind during the day.”

“And you never told me a word of all this,” Matilda said, reproachfully; “and if you had, it might have made me better, and I could have learned texts also. Why did you not tell me?”

Selina looked distressed, and coloured. “I believe I was wrong, but I always feel ashamed to talk on those subjects before any one; I fear it is a false shame.”

“No, Selina, no,” Leila said quickly: “my papa explained to me about that; to be sure, to Matilda or to me you might have said it, for he told me that with a very dear friend it was a delightful subject, but that in the world I must not talk about God as I used to do in the island; I must try to think of Him constantly just the same, and always ask myself how He would wish me to act, but I must not say so before indifferent people (that means worldly people). He says before worldly people it may do harm, for their minds may not be in a good frame at the moment, and it might make them worse, and might make them turn away; and even before good people I should not talk in this way, for good people may be shocked, and think it too sacred a subject to be talked of before many; but, Selina, I would like to do all that you have been telling me you do; I would like to find out texts also, and try to keep them in my mind, for it is not so easy to be good here as in the island, so many new things come into my mind here. What was the text you found out for to-day?”

“It was from the Psalms: ‘Blessed be God which hath not turned away my prayer, nor his mercy from me.’”

“And what answer did you find?” Leila inquired.

“My answer was also from the Psalms: ‘I sought the Lord and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.’”

“And it was an excellent answer,” Leila observed, “and very comforting. I am so glad, Selina, you have told me of this plan. I know a great many texts, for you know in the island I had no other book to read but the Bible, but I never thought of this plan; I wish I had.”

Tears stood in Matilda’s eyes: “I do not know the Bible by heart as Leila does,” she said; “but you, Selina, will find out a text to suit me, and I will learn it,” and she rose and left the room.

“I must go to her,” Selina said; “she is a dear, kind sister to me, and always so sorry when she does wrong.”

Leila was left alone. “Such a happy home preparing for me, and so many to love,” she whispered to herself; and clasping her hands together, she looked up for a moment, then left the room to seek her father.