up, and Mr. Mohun would not hear of her making such a sacrifice for
his sake. But Eleanor was also firm, and after weeks of unhappiness
and uncertainty, it was at length arranged that she should remain at
home till Emily was old enough to take her place, and that Frank
should then return from India and claim his bride.

Well did she discharge the duties which she had undertaken; she kept
her father's mind at ease, followed out his views, managed the boys
with discretion and gentleness, and made her sisters well-informed
and accomplished girls; but, for want of fully understanding the
characters of her two next sisters, Emily and Lilias, she made some
mistakes with regard to them. The clouds of sorrow, to her so dark
and heavy, had been to them but morning mists, and the four years
which had changed her from a happy girl into a thoughtful, anxious
woman, had brought them to an age which, if it is full of the follies
of childhood, also partakes of the earnestness of youth; an age when
deep foundations of enduring confidence may be laid by one who can
enter into and direct the deeper flow of mind and feeling which lurks
hid beneath the freaks and fancies of the early years of girlhood.
But Eleanor had little sympathy for freaks and fancies. She knew the
realities of life too well to build airy castles with younger and
gayer spirits; her sisters' romance seemed to her dangerous folly,
and their lively nonsense levity and frivolity. They were too
childish to share in her confidence, and she was too busy and too
much preoccupied to have ear or mind for visionary trifles, though to
trifles of real life she paid no small degree of attention.

It might have been otherwise had Henry Mohun lived; but in the midst
of the affection of all who knew him, honour from those who could
appreciate his noble character, and triumphs gained by his uncommon