eks passed away, and perhaps we shall best consult our readers'
ease by substituting for the formal precision of narrative, a few
extracts from the letters which Rhoda wrote to her brother, still at
Cambridge. These will convey her own impressions respecting the scenes
and personages among whom she was now to move.

"The house and place are much neglected, and the former in some parts
suffered almost to go to decay. The windows broken in the last storm,
nearly eight months ago, they tell me, are still unmended, and the roof,
too, unrepaired. The pretty garden, near the well, among the lime trees,
that our darling mother was so fond of, is all but obliterated with weeds
and grass, and since my first visit I have not had heart to go near it
again. All the old servants are gone; new faces everywhere.

"I have been obliged several times, through fear of offending my father,
to join the party in the drawing room. You may conceive what I felt at
seeing mademoiselle in the place once filled by our dear mamma, I was so
choked with sorrow, bitterness, and indignation, and my heart so
palpitated, that I could not speak, and I believe they thought I was
going to faint. Mademoiselle looked very angry, but my father pretending
to show me, heaven knows what, from the window, led me to it, and the
air revived me a little. Mademoiselle (for I cannot call her by her new
name) is altered a good deal--more, however, in the character than in the
contour of her face and figure. Certainly, however, she has grown a good
deal fuller, and her color is higher; and whether it is fancy or not, I
cannot say, but certainly to me it seems that the expression of her face
has acquired something habitually lowering and malicious, and which, I
know not how, inspires me with an undefinable dread. She has, however,
been tolerably civil to me, but seems contemptuous and rude to my father,
and I am afraid he is very wretched, I have seen them exchange such
looks, and overheard such intemperate and even appalling altercations
between them, as indicate something worse and deeper than ordinary
ill-will. This makes me additionally wretched, especially as I cannot
help thinking that some mysterious cause enables her to frighten and
tyrannise over my poor father. I sometimes think he absolutely detests
her; yet, though fiery altercations ensue, he ultimately submits to this
bad and cruel woman. Oh, my dear Charles, you have no idea of the
shocking, or rather the t