and, though she never uttered a word of complaint, the sight of her
sufferings was trying for a warm-hearted young girl.

Mary's refuge was hearty affection to both parents. She would not
reason nor notice where filial tact taught her that it was best to be
ignorant; she charged all tracasseries on the Peruvian republic, and
set herself simply to ameliorate each vexation as it arose, and
divert attention from it without generalizing, even to herself, on
the state of the family. The English comfort which she brought into
the Limenian household was one element of peace; and her brisk,
energetic habits produced an air of ease and pleasantness that did
much to make home agreeable to her father, and removed many cares
which oppressed her mother. To her, Mary was all the world-
daughter, comforter, friend, and nurse, unfailing in deeds of love or
words of cheer, and removing all sense of dreariness and solitude.
And Mary had found her mother all, and more than all she remembered,
and admired and loved her with a deep, quiet glow of intense
affection. There was so much call for Mary's actual exertion of
various kinds, that there was little opportunity for cultivating or
enlarging her mind by books, though the scenes and circumstances
around her could not but take some effect. Still, at twenty-one she
was so much what she had been at seventeen--so staid, sensible, and
practical, that Miss Ponsonby gladly pronounced her not in the least
spoilt.

Fain would her aunt have kept both her and her mother as her guests;
but Mrs. Ponsonby had permission to choose whatever residence best
suited her, and felt that Bryanston-square and Miss Ponsonby would be
fatal to her harassed spirits. She yearned after the home and
companions of her youth, and Miss Ponsonby could only look severe,