home, having been
absent six months. It will be conjectured that I was of course glad to
return to the bosom of my kindred. Well! the amiable conjecture does no
harm, and may therefore be safely left uncontradicted. Far from saying
nay, indeed, I will permit the reader to picture me, for the next eight
years, as a bark slumbering through halcyon weather, in a harbour still
as glass--the steersman stretched on the little deck, his face up to
heaven, his eyes closed: buried, if you will, in a long prayer. A great
many women and girls are supposed to pass their lives something in that
fashion; why not I with the rest?

Picture me then idle, basking, plump, and happy, stretched on a
cushioned deck, warmed with constant sunshine, rocked by breezes
indolently soft. However, it cannot be concealed that, in that case, I
must somehow have fallen overboard, or that there must have been wreck
at last. I too well remember a time--a long time--of cold, of danger,
of contention. To this hour, when I have the nightmare, it repeats the
rush and saltness of briny waves in my throat, and their icy pressure
on my lungs. I even know there was a storm, and that not of one hour
nor one day. For many days and nights neither sun nor stars appeared;
we cast with our own hands the tackling out of the ship; a heavy
tempest lay on us; all hope that we should be saved was taken away. In
fine, the ship was lost, the crew perished.

As far as I recollect, I complained to no one about these troubles.
Indeed, to whom could I complain? Of Mrs. Bretton I had long lost
sight. Impediments, raised by others, had, years ago, come in the way
of our intercourse, and cut it off. Besides, time had brought changes
for her, too: the handsome property of which she was left guardian for
her son, and which had been chiefly invested in some joint-stock
undertaking, had melted, it was said, to a fraction of its original
amount. Graham, I learned from incidental rumours, had adopted a
profession; both he and his mother were gone from Bretton, and were
understood to be now in London. Thus, there remained no possibility of
dependence on others; to myself alone could I look. I know not that I
was of a self-reliant or active nature; but self-reliance and exertion
were forced upon me by circumstances, as they are upon thousands
besides; and when Miss Marchmont, a maiden lady of our neighbourhood,
sent for me, I obeyed her behest, in the hope that she might assign me
some