training, had not yet developed themselves.

Such were the three girls who were now left to assist each other in
the management of the household, and who looked forward to their new
offices with the various sensations of pleasure, anxiety, self-
importance, and self-mistrust, suited to their differing characters,
and to the ages of eighteen, sixteen, and fourteen.



CHAPTER II--THE NEW COURT



'Just at the age 'twixt boy and youth,
When thought is speech, and speech is truth.'

The long-delayed wedding took place on the 13th of January, 1845, and
the bride and bridegroom immediately departed for a year's visit
among Mr. Hawkesworth's relations in Northumberland, whence they were
to return to Beechcroft, merely for a farewell, before sailing for
India.

It was half-past nine in the evening, and the wedding over--Mr. and
Mrs. Hawkesworth gone, and the guests departed, the drawing-room had
returned to its usual state. It was a very large room, so spacious
that it would have been waste and desolate, had it not been well
filled with handsome, but heavy old-fashioned furniture, covered with
crimson damask, and one side of the room fitted up with a bookcase,
so high that there was a spiral flight of library steps to give