exclaimed she when I told her the reports
respecting herself. "Taken the veil! No, indeed! I have been a far
humbler and happier woman. It is very strange, though, that during my
Cinderella-like life at school, I used always in my day-dreams to make
my story end like that of the heroine of the fairy tale; and it is
still stranger, that both rumours were within a very little of coming
true,--for when I got to Ireland, which, so far as I was concerned,
turned out a very different place from what I expected, I found myself
shut up in an old castle, fifty times more dreary and melancholy than
ever was our great school-room in the holidays, with my aunt setting
her heart upon marrying me to an old lord, who might, for age and
infirmities, have passed for my great grandfather; and I really, in my
perplexity, had serious thoughts of turning nun to get rid of my suitor;
but then I was allowed to go into the north upon a visit, and fell in
with my late excellent husband, who obtained Lady O'Hara's consent to
the match by the offer of taking me without a portion; and ever since,"
continued she, "I have been a very common-place and a very happy woman.
Mr. Dobbs was a man who had made his own fortune, and all he asked of
me was, to lay aside my airs and graces, and live with him in his own
homely, old-fashioned way amongst his own old people, (kind people they
were!)his looms, and his bleaching-grounds; so that my heart was opened,
and I grew fat and comfortable, and merry and hearty, as different from
the foolish, romantic girl whom you remember, as plain honest prose is
from the silly thing called poetry. I don't believe that I have ever
once thought of my old castles in the air for these five-and-twenty
years. It is very odd, though," added she, with a frankness which was
really like thinking aloud, "that I always did contrive in my visions
that my history should conclude like that of Cinderella. To be
sure, things are much better as they are, but it is an odd thing,
nevertheless. Well! perhaps my daughters...!"

And as they are rich and pretty, and good-natured, although much more
in the style of the present Honor than the past, it is by no means
improbable that the vision which was evidently glittering before the
fond mother's eyes, may be realised. At all events, my old friend is, as
she says herself a happy woman--in all probability, happier than if the
Cinderella day-dream had actually come to pass in her own comely person.