brother and his family, as if it had been the cutting off of a hand or
the plucking out of an eye. To have heard her, anyone unaccustomed to
the hyperbole of fashionable language would have deemed Botany Bay the
nearest possible point of destination. Parting from her fashionable
acquaintances was tearing herself from all she loved; quitting London
was bidding adieu to the world. Of course there could be no society
where she was going, but still she would do her duty; she would not
desert dear Frederick and his poor children! In short, no martyr was
ever led to the stake with half the notions of heroism and self-devotion
as those with which Lady Juliana stepped into the barouche that was to
conduct her to Beech Park. In the society of piping bullfinches, pink
canaries, gray parrots, goldfish, green squirrels, Italian greyhounds,
and French poodles, she sought a refuge from despair. But even these
varied charms, after a while, failed to please. The bullfinches grew
hoarse; the canaries turned brown; the parrots became stupid; the gold
fish would not eat; the squirrels were cross; the dogs fought; even a
shell grotto that was constructing fell down; and by the time the aviary
and conservatory were filled, they had lost their interest. The children
were the next subjects for her Ladyship's ennui to discharge itself
upon. Lord Courtland had a son some years older, and a daughter nearly
of the same age as her own. It suddenly occurred to her that they must
be educated, and that she would educate the girls herself. As the first
step she engaged two governesses, French and Italian; modern treatises
on the subject of education were ordered from London, looked at,
admired, and arranged on gilded shelves and sofa tables; and could their
contents have exhaled with the odours of their Russia leather bindings,
Lady Juliana's dressing-room would have been what Sir Joshua Reynolds
says every seminary of learning _is,_ "an atmosphere of floating
knowledge." But amidst this splendid display of human lore, THE BOOK
found no place. She _had_ heard of the Bible, however, and even knew it
was a book appointed to be read in churches, and given to poor people,
along with Rumford soup and flannel shirts; but as the rule of life, as
the book that alone could make wise unto salvation, this Christian
parent was ignorant as the Hottentot or Hindoo.

Three days beheld the rise, progress, and decline of Lady Juliana's
whole system of education; and