of Mrs. Schreiber's household, I am bound to report that in no instance
have I known young ladies so thoroughly steeled against all the
ordinary host of petty maladies which, by way of antithesis to the
capital warfare of dangerous complaints, might be called the
_guerilla_ nosology; influenza, for instance, in milder forms,
catarrh, headache, toothache, dyspepsia in transitory shapes, etc.
Always the spirits of the two girls were exuberant; the enjoyment of
life seemed to be intense, and never did I know either of them to
suffer from _ennui_. My conscious knowledge of them commenced when
I was about two years old, they being from ten to twelve years older.
Mrs. Schreiber had been amongst my mother's earliest friends as Mrs.
Harvey, and in days when my mother had opportunities of doing her
seasonable services. And as there were three special advantages which
adorned my mother, and which ranked in Mrs. Schreiber's estimate as the
highest which earth could show, namely: 1 degrees, that she spoke and wrote
English with singular elegance; 2 degrees, that her manners were eminently
polished; and 3 degrees, that, even in that early stage of my mother's life, a
certain tone of religiosity, and even of ascetic devotion, was already
diffused as a luminous mist that served to exalt the coloring of her
morality. To this extent Mrs. Schreiber approved of religion; but
nothing of a sectarian cast could she have tolerated; nor had she
anything of that nature to apprehend from my mother. Viewing my mother,
therefore, as a pure model of an English matron, and feeling for her,
besides, a deeper sentiment of friendship and affection than for
anybody else on her visiting list, it was natural enough that she
should come with her wards on an annual visit to "The Farm" (a pretty,
rustic dwelling occupied by my father in the neighborhood of
Manchester), and subsequently (when _that_ arose) to Greenhay.
[Footnote: "_Greenhay_."--As this name might, under a false
interpretation, seem absurd as including incongruous elements, I ought,