“She’s much to be blamed, no doubt, Bridget, and yet there’s excuses to be made for my mistress,” said Mammy, mildly.  “She’s young yet in years, no but twenty-two; and she’s nothing but a child in her ways and her knowledge.  She never knew the blessing of a mither’s care, puir thing; and up to the very day she was married, her life was passed at one o’ them fashionable boarding-schules, where they teach them to play on instruments, and to sing, and to dance, and to paint, and to talk some unchristian tongue that’s never going to do them no good for this life nor the next.  But they never give them so much as a hint that they’ve got a soul to be saved, and they take no pains to fit them to be wives and mothers.  My mistress was but fifteen years old when she ran away with Master Harry.  Poor dear Master Harry!  It was the only fulish thing I ever knew him to do, was running away wi’ that chit of a schule-girl.  He met her, I think, at a ball that was given at this schule, and Master Harry was over head and ears in love in a minute; and after two or three meetings and a few notes passing, they determined on this runnin’ away folly.  I think it was them novels she was always readin’ put it in her head.  It wouldn’t do, you know, to be like other folks, but they must have a little kind of a romance about it.  Puir, fulish, young things!”

“You see, I was living with old Mr. Elwyn then,” continued Mammy; “indeed, I’ve been in the family ever since I came over from Scotland, quite a lassie, thirty-one years ago come next April.  I left them, besure, when I married; but as my gude-man lived but two years, I was soon back in my old home again.  Old Mr. Elwyn, Master Harry’s father, had lost his property before this time; but his brother, ‘Uncle Ben,’ as they called him, was very rich.  They all lived together—­’Uncle Ben,’ old Mr. Elwyn, Master Harry and Miss Ellen, that’s Mrs. Wharton.  Miss Ellen was a few years older than Master Harry, and she was the housekeeper.  But Master Harry, bless you! was only twenty years old, when he walked in one morning, and told his father he was married.  I never shall forget the time there was then!  The old gentleman was complaining, and had had a bad night, though Master Harry did not know that.  Well, the sudden shock threw him into an apoplectic fit; and two days after, he had another, and died.  Master Harry was almost distracted then:  he called himself his father’s murderer; and, indeed, I think he was never what you might call well from that time.”

“But you never saw any one so angry as Mr. Benjamin Elwyn was.  He had always intended to make master Harry his heir, but his conduct in this foolish affair enraged him so that he said he would leave him nothing.  At first the young folks lived with her father, but he soon died, leaving his daughter a little property settled on herself.  But it was not enough to support them, and so Master Harry had to apply to old Mr. Benjamin Elwyn again, and the old man gave him this place, and enough to live on pretty comfortably here.  He told Master Harry that perhaps something might be made of his baby wife yet, if he brought her away from the follies of the city, to a country place like this, and tried to improve her mind; and so they have lived here ever since, till last year, when poor master Harry died.”