sister in London. Miss Ponsonby was good and kind, but of narrow
views, thinking all titled people fashionable, and all fashionable
people reprobate, jealous of her sister-in-law's love for her own
family, and, though unable to believe her brother blameless, holding
it as an axiom that married people could not fall out without faults
on both sides, and charging a large share of their unhappiness on the
house of Fitzjocelyn. Principle had prevented her from endeavouring
to weaken the little girl's affection to her mother; but it had been
her great object to train her up in habits of sober judgment, and
freedom from all the romance, poetry, and enthusiasm which she
fancied had been injurious to Mrs. Ponsonby. The soil was of the
very kind that she would have chosen. Mary was intelligent, but with
more sense than fancy, more practical than intellectual, and
preferring the homely to the tasteful. At school, study and
accomplishments were mere tasks, her recreation was found in acts of
kindness to her companions, and her hopes were all fixed on the going
out to Peru, to be useful to her father and mother. At seventeen she
went; full of active, housewifely habits, with a clear head, sound
heart, and cramped mind, her spirits even and cheerful, but not high
nor mirthful, after ten years of evenings spent in needlework beside
a dry maiden aunt.

Nor was the home she found at Lima likely to foster the joyousness of
early girlhood. Mr. Ponsonby was excessively fond of her; but his
affection to her only marked, by contrast, the gulf between him and
her mother. There was no longer any open misconduct on his part, and
Mrs. Ponsonby was almost tremblingly attentive to his wishes; but he
was chill and sarcastic in his manner towards her, and her nervous
attacks often betrayed that she had been made to suffer in private
for differences of opinion. Health and spirits were breaking down;