me, would very quickly be removed.  But since we have been here—­I do not wish to grieve you more, my dear Emmeline—­I must confess your conduct has been productive to me of the most painful self-reproach.  I thought, indeed, my friends were right, and that for years I had been acting on an injudicious plan, and that instead of my measures tending to future happiness, they were only productive of pain and misery, which, had I done as other mothers of my station, might have been avoided.”

“Oh! do not, pray do not think so,” I exclaimed, for she had spoken so sorrowfully, I could not bear it.  “I formed my own misery, dearest mother; you had nothing to do with it.”

“You think so now, my love,” she answered, with her usual fondness; “but if my friends see you gloomy and sad, and evidently discontented, longing for pleasures which are not offered to you in London, only dwelling on visions of the past, and notions tending to the indulgence of romance, what will they think? will not my judgment be called in question? and more, they know how very much I prefer a country to a London life, domestic pleasures, to those of society, and they may imagine, and with some probability, that to indulge my selfish wishes, I have disregarded the real interests of my children.”

“They cannot, they will not think so,” I passionately said.  “They can never have known you who form such conclusions.”  Would you not have agreed with me, dear Mary, and can you not fancy the wretchedness mamma’s words inflicted?

“My love,” she replied, with a smile, “they will not fancy they do not know me; they will rather imagine they must have been deceived in their opinion; that I am not what I may have appeared to them some few years ago.  The character of a mother, my Emmeline, is frequently judged of by the conduct of her children; and such conclusions are generally correct, though, of course, as there are exceptions to every rule, there are to this, and many a mother may have been unjustly injured in the estimation of the world, by the thoughtless or criminal conduct of a wilful and disobedient child.  I have been so completely a stranger to London society the last sixteen years, that my character and conduct depend more upon you and Caroline to be raised or lowered in the estimation of my friends and also of the world, than on any of the young people with whom you may mingle.  On which, then, will my Emmeline decide,—­to indulge in these gloomy fancies, and render herself ill both in health and temper, as well as exposing her mother to censure and suspicion; or will she, spite of the exertion and pain it may occasion, shake off this lethargy, recall all her natural animation and cheerfulness, and with her own bright smile restore gladness to the hearts of her parents?”