y 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; 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.