bored by the present.

Unhappily, as it turned out, so great a sympathy, not only amongst the
teachers, but amongst her old schoolfellows, was felt for Arabella's
reverse; her character for steadiness, as well as talent, stood so high,
and there was something so creditable in her resolution to maintain
her orphan brother and sister, that an effort was made to procure her
a livelihood much more lucrative, and more independent, than she could
obtain either in a school or a family. Why not take a small house of
her own, live there with her fellow-orphans, and give lessons out by the
hour? Several families at once agreed so to engage her, and an income
adequate to all her wants was assured. Arabella adopted this plan. She
took the house; Bridget Greggs, the nurse of her infancy, became her
servant, and soon to that house, stealthily in the shades of evening,
glided Jasper Losely. She could not struggle against his influence--had
not the heart to refuse his visits--he was so poor--in such scrapes--and
professed himself to be so unhappy. There now became some one else
to toil for, besides the little brother and sister. But what were
Arabella's gains to a man who already gambled? New afflictions smote
her. A contagious fever broke out in the neighborhood; her little
brother caught it; her little sister sickened the next day; in less
than a week two small coffins were borne from her door by the Black
Horses--borne to that plot of sunny turf in the pretty suburban
cemetery, bought with the last earnings made for the little ones by the
mother-like sister:--Motherless lone survivor! what! no friend on earth,
no soother but that direful Jasper! Alas! the truly dangerous Venus is
not that Erycina round whom circle Jest and Laughter. Sorrow, and that
sense of solitude which makes us welcome a footstep as a child left in
the haunting dark welcomes the entrance of light, weaken the outworks
of female virtue more than all the vain levities of mirth, or the
flatteries which follow the path of Beauty through the crowd. Alas, and
alas! let the tale hurry on!

Jasper Losely has still more solemnly sworn to marry his adored
Arabella. But when? When they are rich enough. She feels as if
her spirit was gone--as if she could work no more. She was no weak
commonplace girl, whom love can console for shame. She had been rigidly
brought up; her sense of female rectitude was keen; her remorse was
noiseless, but it was stern. Harassments of a more v