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Name:_______________________ CSCI 1302 OO Programming
Armstrong Atlantic State University
(50 minutes) Instructor: Dr. Y. Daniel Liang
Part I:
A. (2 pts)
What is wrong in the following code?
public class Test {
public static void main(String[] args) {
Number x = new Integer(3);
System.out.println(x.intValue());
System.out.println(x.compareTo(new Integer(4)));
}
}
B. (3 pts)
statement4;
}
1
C. (2 pt)
d. (2 pt)
of object?
import java.io.*;
output.writeObject(t);
output.close();
System.out.println(t1.a);
System.out.println(t1.b);
System.out.println(t1.m);
input.close();
}
}
(5 pts) Write a program that stores an array of the five int values 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, a Date object
for the current time, and the double value 5.5 into the file named Test.dat.
2
(10 pts) Write a class named Hexagon that extends GeometricObject and
implements the Comparable interface. Assume all six sides of the
hexagon are of equal size. The Hexagon class is defined as
follows:
@Override
public double getArea() {
// Implement it ( area = 3* 3 * side * side )
@Override
public double getPerimeter() {
// Implement it
@Override
public int compareTo(Hexagon obj) {
// Implement it (compare two Hexagons based on their sides)
@Override
public Object clone() {
// Implement it
3
}
}
4
Part III: Multiple Choice Questions: (1 pts each)
(Please circle your answers on paper first. After you
finish the test, enter your choices online to LiveLab. Log
in and click Take Instructor Assigned Quiz. Choose Quiz2.
You have 5 minutes to enter and submit the answers.)
a. [New York]
b. [New York, Atlanta]
c. [New York, Atlanta, Dallas]
d. [New York, Dallas]
#
2. Show the output of running the class Test in the following code:
interface A {
void print();
}
class C {}
a. Nothing.
b. b is an instance of A.
c. b is an instance of C.
d. b is an instance of A followed by b is an instance of C.
5
3. Suppose A is an interface, B is an abstract class that partial
implements A, and A is a concrete class with a default constructor that
extends B. Which of the following is correct?
a. A a = new A();
b. A a = new B();
c. B b = new A();
d. B b = new B();
Key:c
#
4. Which of the following is correct?
a. An abstract class does not contain constructors.
b. The constructors in an abstract class should be protected.
c. The constructors in an abstract class are private.
d. You may declare a final abstract class.
e. An interface may contain constructors.
Key:b
#
5. What is the output of running class C?
class A {
public A() {
System.out.println(
"The default constructor of A is invoked");
}
}
class B extends A {
public B(String s) {
System.out.println(s);
}
}
public class C {
public static void main(String[] args) {
B b = new B("The constructor of B is invoked");
}
}
a. none
b. "The constructor of B is invoked"
c. "The default constructor of A is invoked" "The constructor of B
is invoked"
d. "The default constructor of A is invoked"
#
6. Analyze the following code:
6
}
a. The program has a syntax error because Test1 does not have a main
method.
b. The program has a syntax error because o1 is an Object instance
and it does not have the compareTo method.
c. The program has a syntax error because you cannot cast an Object
instance o1 into Comparable.
d. The program would compile if ((Comparable)o1.compareTo(o2) >= 0)
is replaced by (((Comparable)o1).compareTo(o2) >= 0).
e. b and d are both correct.
#
7. Which of the following statements regarding abstract methods is not
true?
a. An abstract class can have instances created using the constructor
of the abstract class.
b. An abstract class can be extended.
c. A subclass of a non-abstract superclass can be abstract.
d. A subclass can override a concrete method in a superclass to declare
it abstract.
e. An abstract class can be used as a data type.
#
8. Which of the following possible modifications will fix the errors in
this code?
#
9. Analyze the following code.
class Test {
public static void main(String[] args) {
Object x = new Integer(2);
System.out.println(x.toString());
}
}
7
c. When x.toString() is invoked, the toString() method in the
Integer class is used.
d. None of the above.
#
10. What exception type does the following program throw?
public class Test {
public static void main(String[] args) {
Object o = new Object();
String d = (String)o;
}
}
a. ArithmeticException
b. No exception
c. StringIndexOutOfBoundsException
d. ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException
e. ClassCastException
#
11. What exception type does the following program throw?
public class Test {
public static void main(String[] args) {
Object o = null;
System.out.println(o.toString());
}
}
a. ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException
b. ClassCastException
c. NullPointerException
d. ArithmeticException
e. StringIndexOutOfBoundsException
#
12. To append data to an existing file, use _____________ to construct a
FileOutputStream for file out.dat.
a. new FileOutputStream("out.dat")
b. new FileOutputStream("out.dat", false)
c. new FileOutputStream("out.dat", true)
d. new FileOutputStream(true, "out.dat")
#
13. After the following program is finished, how many bytes are written to the file t.dat?
import java.io.*;
8
public class Test {
public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
DataOutputStream output = new DataOutputStream(
new FileOutputStream("t.dat"));
output.writeInt(1234);
output.writeShort(5678);
output.close();
}
}
a. 2 bytes.
b. 4 bytes.
c. 6 bytes.
d. 8 bytes.
e. 12 bytes
#
14. Which of the following statements is not true?
a. ObjectInputStream/ObjectOutputStream enables you to perform I/O for objects in
addition for primitive type values and strings.
b. Since ObjectInputStream/ObjectOutputStream contains all the functions of
DataInputStream/DataOutputStream, you can replace
DataInputStream/DataOutputStream completely by
ObjectInputStream/ObjectOutputStream.
c. To write an object, the object must be serializable.
d. The Serializable interface does not contain any methods. So it is a mark interface.
e. If a class is serializable, all its data fields are seriablizable.
9
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Fortunes
of the Colville Family; or, A Cloud with its
Silver Lining
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.
Title: The Fortunes of the Colville Family; or, A Cloud with its Silver
Lining
Language: English
1867
CONTENTS
THE FORTUNES OF THE COLVILLE FAMILY.
CHAPTER I.—THE TWO PICTURES.
CHAPTER II.—THE BROTHERS.
CHAPTER III.—A ROMANTIC ADVENTURE.
CHAPTER IV.—SHUFFLING, DEALING, AND TURNING UP A
KNAVE AND A TRUMP.
CHAPTER V.—A FAST SPECIMEN OF “YOUNG ENGLAND.”
CHAPTER VI.—THE CONSPIRACY.
CHAPTER VII.—TEMPTATION.
CHAPTER VIII.—NORMAN’S REVENGE.
CHAPTER IX.—THE DISCOVERY.
CHAPTER X.—THE TRIBUNAL OF JUSTICE.
CHAPTER XI.—LOSS AND GAIN.
CHAPTER XII.—THE ROSEBUD SKETCHES FROM MEMORY.
CHAPTER XIII.—AN ‘ELEGANT EXTRACT’ FROM BLAIR’s
SERMONS.
CHAPTER XIV.—CONTAINS MUCH DOCTOR’S STUFF, AND
OTHER RUBBISH.
CHAPTER XV.—SETTLES THREE OF THE DRAMATIS
PERSONÆ.
CHAPTER XVI.—AND LAST.—THE MORAL DRAWN VERY
MILD!
THE FORTUNES OF THE
COLVILLE FAMILY.
CHAPTER I.—THE TWO PICTURES.
“A
Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!”
Words, of course, in themselves good and well-chosen,
and embodying a wish which all who love their neighbour
should feel and communicate;—God in his mercy grant there may be
very many who can respond to such a salutation hopefully; for in
this Valley of the Shadow of Death there must be some who shrink
from it as from a bitter mockery. Of such are those who, loving
deeply, have lost, or fear to lose, the object of their fond idolatry; of
such are those to whom, gifted, perhaps, with an even wider
capacity of affection, such a fear would seem a blessing, for then
they would not have toiled through a lifetime lonely-hearted. “A
Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!” God comfort those who
shudder at such kindly greeting!
One short month since, a little space of time, but more than long
enough for the performance of many a deeper tragedy than that to
which we are about to refer, an artist, glancing into the sunny
breakfast-parlour of Ashburn Rectory, might have made a pretty
picture of the group on which his eye would have fallen.
That gentleman (in rags he would equally have looked such) with
the calm, high forehead, mild eye, and earnest, thoughtful mouth,
must be the father of the family; for his dark hair shows many a
silver thread, and the lines that appear upon his still smooth brow
can scarcely be the result of mental occupation only; but, if we are
right in our conjecture, whence did that curly-pated nine-year-old
urchin, seated upon his knee, contrive to get his arch, merry face?
for he can scarcely have “come alive” out of one of Murillo’s
paintings, to give light and life to our family sketch. Oh! we see, it is
his mother’s countenance the rogue has appropriated, only the
mischief in it is all his own; for the expression of her still-beautiful
features is chastened and pensive, as of one who has lived and
loved, and done angels’ work on earth, until the pure soul within has
stamped its impress on the outward form.
But if you want something pretty—nay, we may as well tell the
whole truth, and say at once bewitching—to look at, cast your eyes
(you won’t be in a hurry to remove them again) upon the figure
seated at mamma’s right hand, and recognising her facsimile (with
twenty summers taken off her age, and barely eighteen left), declare
whether that is not “nice,” rather. The expression is not the same,
we confess: more of the woman and less of the angel, you will say.
We admit it; but then, how could that little rosebud of a mouth look
anything but petulant? those violet eyes express—well, it’s difficult to
tell what they don’t express that is good, and fresh, and piquant,
and gay, and—must we add? a little bit coquettish also;—why, the
very dimple on her chin—such a well-modelled chin—has something
pert and saucy about it. There! you’ve seen enough of the little
beauty: you’ll be falling in love with her directly!
No one could mistake the relationship existing between the
gentleman we have already described, and that tall, graceful boy,
with his pale, finely-chiselled features, and classically-shaped head.
Even the earnest, thoughtful expression is common to both father
and son, save that the curl of the short upper lip, which tells of pride
in the boy, has, in the man, acquired a character of chastened
dignity.
Reader, do you like our picture? Let us turn to another, less
pleasing, but alas! equally true.
The waves of time roll on, and, like a dream, another month has
lapsed into the sea of ages.
The sun is shining still; but it shines upon an open grave, with
aching hearts around it. A good man has died, and his brave, loving
spirit has gone whither his faith has preceded him, and his good
works alone can follow him. “Blessed are the dead that die in the
Lord.”
Let us reserve our sympathy for those who live to mourn them.
When the curate of Ashburn preached a funeral sermon, recalling
to the minds of those who had practically benefited by them the
virtues of their late rector, holly garlands hung in the fine old church,
to commemorate the birth-time of One who came to bring “peace on
earth, and good-will towards men;” but none dared to wish the
widow and orphans “A Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year,” lest
the wish might seem an insult to their sorrow.
CHAPTER II.—THE BROTHERS.
“P
ercy, I have been quiet so long, and you say I must not
stand upon my head, because it disturbs mamma; do come
out and let us ride the pony by turns,” implored little Hugh
Colville in a strenuous whisper; which was, however, clearly audible
throughout the small breakfast-parlour, which was the scene of our
family picture.
Percy Colville, the shy, handsome boy of our sketch, looked up
with a pensive smile from the writing on which he was engaged, and
shook his head negatively, in token that he felt obliged to refuse the
request of his younger brother, in whom the reader will recognise,
with little difficulty, a certain Murillo-like urchin to whom he has been
already introduced. But the petition of her youngest born had
reached the ears of the widow, who (if she had a virtue which had
outgrown its due proportions till cavillers might deem it a fault), was,
perhaps, a little over indulgent to Master Hugh.
“My dear Percy, you have been writing for me long enough,” she
said, “you will be ill if you shut yourself up too much; besides, Hugh
has been so good that he deserves his ride, and you know I don’t
like to trust him by himself.”
Percy hesitated: the writing on which he was engaged was the
copy of a surveyor’s report concerning that vexata quaestic,
dilapidations. Some difference of opinion had arisen on this subject
between the agent of the patron of the living and Mrs. Colville’s
solicitor, and a copy of the report was to be forwarded by the next
post to Mr. Wakefield, Mrs. Calville’s legal adviser. The matter was of
importance, involving a considerable sum of money. Percy was
aware of these facts: he knew, also, that he could only just finish his
task by the time the village post went out; and he was about to
declare that Hugh must give up his ride for that day, when his
mother, reading his thoughts-, stooped over him, and, kissing his
pale brow, whispered—
“Do not refuse him, dear Percy: remember, he will not have many
more rides——”
She paused, for her composure was failing, then finished in a
trembling voice—
“You know the pony must be sold when we go away.”
As she spoke, an expedient suggested itself to Percy’s mind, and
pressing his mother’s hand affectionately, he closed his writing-desk,
and, carrying it off under his arm, exclaimed—“Come along, Hugh!
we’ll take old Lion (he wants a run, poor dog) as well as the pony,
and have a glorious scamper.”
And a glorious scamper they had, only Hugh rode the whole way,
and Percy ran by his side, declaring that he greatly preferred it,
which was decidedly a pious fiction, if a fiction can ever be pious.
“Oh! mamma, mamma! do make breakfast—come, quick! there’s a
good mamma! for I’m as hungry as—as—several sharks,” exclaimed
Hugh, rushing like a small express train into the breakfast-parlour, on
the following morning.
“Oh, you naughty mad-cap, you’ve shaken the table, and made
me blot ‘That Smile’ all over!” cried his sister Emily, in vain
endeavouring to repair the misfortune which had accrued to the
“popular melody” she was copying.
We suppose it is scarcely necessary to reintroduce you to Emily,
dear reader. You have not so soon forgotten the rosebud of a mouth,
or the dangerous dimple—trust you for that.
“Well, I declare, so I have,” rejoined the culprit, a little shocked
and a good deal amused at the mischief he had occasioned; then
striking into the tune of the outraged ditty, he sang in an impish
soprano, and with grimaces wonderful to behold—
T
he Rosebud of Ashburn possessed a female friend. Caroline
Selby was the daughter of Sir Thomas Crawley’s agent. Sir
Thomas Crawley was the rich man of the neighbourhood, lord
of the manor, patron of the living, and owner of a splendid place
about a mile from the village; but although Ashburn Priory was an
old family seat, the present owner of the property had by no means
always been the great man he was at present; indeed, it may be
doubted whether, in justice, he had any right to be so at all; though,
unfortunately, in law he possessed a very sufficient one. The former
possessor of Ashburn Priory, an irritable, perverse old man, had, in a
moment of passion, disinherited an only son (who had committed
the unpardonable crime of consulting his heart, rather than his
pocket, in the choice of a wife), making a will in favour of a relative
whom he had never seen, and of whom the little he had heard was
unfavourable. It is true, he never intended this will to take effect;
meaning, when he had sufficiently consulted his dignity, and marked
his disapproval of the sin against Mammon which his son had
committed, graciously to receive him into favour again; but Death,
who has no more respect for ill-temper than for many more amiable
qualities, did not allow him time to repair the injustice he had
committed, cutting him off with an attack of bronchitis, and his son
with a shilling, at one fell stroke. The son, an amiable man, with a
large family (a conjunction so often to be observed, that, to a
speculative mind, it almost assumes the relation of cause and
effect), soon spent his shilling, and, overtasking his strength to
replace it, ere long followed his unjust father, though we can
scarcely imagine that he travelled by the same road. Before this
latter event took place, however, Mr. Thomas Crawley made his first
appearance as lord of the manor of Ashburn, and master of the
Priory; and everybody was so well aware what he was, that they
carefully abstained from inquiring what he had been. To those
capable of judging, however, one thing was unmistakably apparent;
namely, that neither in the past nor in the present could his manners
and appearance entitle him to the designation of a gentleman. That
he himself entertained an uncomfortable suspicion of this fact, might
be gathered from the indefatigable perseverance with which he
pursued the object of attaining to the rank of knighthood. Up the
rounds of a ladder of gold he climbed into Parliament; once there, if
he voted according to his conscience, that inward monitor must have
been of a decidedly versatile temperament; for the way in which he
wheeled about, and turned about, on every occasion, conceivable
and inconceivable, was without precedent, save in the cases of Jim
Crow of giddy memory, and of Weathercock versus Boreas and Co.
At last a crisis arrived; votes were worth more than the men who
gave them: a minister stayed in who should have gone out; and Mr.
Crawley became Sir Thomas. And this was the man who, with a
rent-roll of £15,000 a-year, was about to avail himself of a legal
quibble, in order to extort from a widow and orphans a share of the
little pittance that remained to them. His agent Mr. Selby, was a
better man than his master; and might have been better still, if “his
poverty, and not his will,” had not led him to consent to be the
instrument wherewith Sir Thomas Crawley, M.P., transacted much
dirty work in Ashburn and its vicinity. At the time we treat of the will
had so often yielded that it had quite lost the habit of asserting
itself; and the poverty, profiting by this inertness, had gradually
disappeared, till Mr. Selby was generally looked upon as a man well
to do in the world, and respected accordingly.
And this brings us back to the point from whence we originally
started; namely, that the Rosebud of Ashburn possessed a female
friend. Now, the office of female friend to a Rosebud, romantic and
poetical as it sounds, was by no means a sinecure; indeed, from the
confidant of Tilburnia downwards, these sympathisers of all work
have hard places of it. Still, there appears to be no lack of amiable
creatures ready to devote themselves to the cause of friendship; the
supply seems always to equal the demand. Possibly occasional
perquisites, in the shape of a heart caught in the rebound, as in the
case of a discarded lover, or the reversion of some bon parti,
rejected for a more eligible offer, may have something to do with it—
of this we cannot pretend to judge.
That any such sordid notions influenced Caroline Selby in her
devotion to Emily Colville, we do not believe: on the contrary, the
friendship arose from, and was cemented by, the Jack-Sprat-and-his-
wife-like suitableness of their respective natures; Caroline having a
decided call to look up to and worship somebody, while Emily
experienced an equally strenuous necessity for being worshipped
and looked up to. But the Rosebud was subject also to other
necessities, which effectually preserved her friend from falling into
the snares of idleness. First, she had a chronic necessity for “talking
confidence,”—though how, in the quiet village of Ashburn, she
contrived to obtain a supply of mysteries to furnish forth subjects for
these strictly private colloquies, was the greatest mystery of all.
Then privy councils were held upon dress, in all its branches, from
staylaces up to blonde Berthes; and committees of ways and means
had to combat and arrange financial difficulties. Again, the affairs of
their poorer neighbours required much talking about, and
speculating upon; and their little charities Nor, despite sundry small
weaknesses and frivolities natural to their age, or rather youth, and
sex, the friends were thoroughly kind-hearted, amiable girls, could
not be planned, or executed, without a necessary amount of
conversation. Then there was a town, three miles off by the road,
and two and a half by the fields, where everything came from; for,
though Ashburn boasted a “general” shop, yet those who were rash
enough to particularise any article they might require, beyond the
inevitable bacon, cheese, soap, bad tea, worse sugar, starch, and;
hobnailed shoes, upon which agricultural life is supported, only
prepared for themselves a disappointment.
This obliging town the Rosebud had a call to visit, on an average,
three times a week at the very least; and of course, when the pony-
chaise could not be had, which—as Hugh, by the agency of that
much-enduring pony, existed rather as a centaur than a biped—was
almost always the case, Caroline Selby was required as a walking
companion.
Having thus enlightened the reader as to the nature of the
friendship existing between these young ladies, together with other
particulars, which, at the risk of being considered prosy, we felt
bound to communicate to him, we resume the thread of our
narrative.
Three weeks had elapsed since Mrs. Colville had accepted her
brother’s offer, and the day approached when Percy and Hugh were
to quit the home of their happy childhood, never again to return to
it. Mrs. Colville seldom alluded to the subject; busying herself in
preparing their clothes, and in other necessary duties appertaining
to the mistress of a family.
Now it happened that Master Hugh wore turn-over collars, famous
for two peculiarities, viz., the moment they were put on, clean and
smooth, they became rumpled and dirty—and the strings by which
they were fastened, were the victims to a suicidal propensity for
tearing themselves violently off, so that the amount of starch, labour,
and tape, required to preserve these collars in an efficient condition,
formed a serious item in the household expenditure.
Although the excellent factotum, Sarah, declared upon oath (not a
very naughty one) that she had reviewed the delinquents cautiously
that day fortnight, and been able to report them fitted for service,
yet, at the eleventh hour, when she was actually packing Hugh’s box,
there were only three strings and a quarter remaining among the
twelve collars, and there was no reliance to be placed even upon
them. Moreover, on examination, there was discovered to have been
such a run upon tape, of late, that not an inch of that useful article
was forthcoming throughout the entire establishment. Under these
appalling circumstances, Emily nobly volunteered to go to Flatville,
and invest capital in the purchase of a “whole piece of tape.” But the
boys were absent on a skating expedition; and the roads were
slippery, and the pony had not been roughed, and Emily, not liking
to walk by herself, set off, no way loth, to enlist Caroline Selby as
her companion.
Here, however, a difficulty arose. Mr. Selby was just starting in his
phaeton, to drive over to the railroad station, two miles beyond
Flatville, and his daughter was going with him, for the sake of a
drive.
Caroline was perplexed: had it been only to give up her own
plans, she would gladly have done so; but between her father and
her friend, a double sacrifice was required of her, and being only a
single woman, she was unable to meet the demand. Mr. Selby,
happily, hit upon an expedient. He proposed a compromise: Miss
Colville should do him the honour to take a seat in his phaeton (he
called it phee-aton), he would drive her as far as Flatville; his
daughter should alight with her: they should make their little
purchases (the words in italics he uttered in a tone of the tenderest
affection); and the phee-aton, in returning from the station, should
call and pick them up.
Mr. Selby was a very polite man; and perpetually rubbed his hands
together, as though he were playing at washing them, a habit
possibly induced by a consciousness of all the dirty work he had
performed. Emily patronised him, steadily disbelieving everything
that was hinted against him, because he was Caroline’s father,—a
piece of scepticism, amiable, illogical, and womanly, which we rather
admire in the young lady than otherwise.
Accordingly, favouring him with a bewitching smile, that a better
man than he might have been proud to win, she scarcely touched
the hand he held out to assist her (which he carefully dry-washed
afterwards, as though the contact even of her fairy fingers had
dissolved the spell of its prudish purity), and sprang lightly into the
“phee-aton.”
Half an hour’s drive brought them to Flatville, where Mr. Selby, so
to speak, washed his hands of them, and went on to the railroad
station. Then began the shopping, that most mysterious and deeply-
seated passion of the female heart—the one master vice which
serves the ladies of England, instead of the turf, the wine-cup, and
the gaming table, which mislead their lords. There can be little doubt
who first invented shopping! The same hand which launched that
arrow into the bosom of private life, gave to the child-woman, Eve,
the apple that betrayed her—an apple which contained the seeds of
shopping. It is such a seductive, hypocritical sin, too, this same
shopping—one which is so easily dressed up to resemble a virtue—
that it is almost impossible to distinguish its true character till the bill
comes in: that, like the touch of Ithuriel’s spear, reveals the fiend in
all its deformity. Every woman (that we have known) is more or less
addicted to this ruinous practice, but some appear especially gifted
with the fatal talent, and, if the truth must be told, our little heroine
was one of these unfortunates. The amount of shopping she would
contrive to get, even out of a piece of tape, was fearful to reflect
upon. In the first place, it was to be of a particular (very particular)
texture, neither too coarse nor too fine; then society would probably
be uprooted, and the Thames be set on fire, if it were a shade too
wide, or, worse still, too narrow. Again, tape was useless without
needles and thread, wherewith to operate upon it; and for some
time—indeed, till the obsequious parrot of a shopman had gone
through his whole vocabulary of persuasion, and become cynical and
monosyllabic—all the needles were too large; and, that difficulty
being overcome, the thread (sewing cotton Emily called it) took a
perverse turn, and would by no means sympathise with the eyes of
the selected needles, till the harassed shopman muttered a private
aspiration in regard to those useful orifices, which would have cost
him five shillings in any court of justice. But he took his revenge, did
that cunning shopman, for, no sooner had Emily bought all that she
required, than he suddenly recovered his good humour and
loquacity, and placed before her exactly the very articles she most
desired, and had not funds to purchase withal, till Tantalus himself
might have appeared a gentleman who lived at home at ease, in
comparison with that sorely-tempted “Rose-bud.”
Still, what woman could do, she did, for she firmly resisted
everything, till an unlucky remnant of magpie-coloured ribbon, the
“very thing she should want when she changed her mourning, and
which she knew she could never meet with again,” a ribbon so cheap
that the shopman declared he was “giving it away,” at the very
moment when he was adding two shillings to the bill on the strength
of it; though this reductive ribbon beguiled her, the little concession
only proved that she was not above humanity. With which fact we
are well contented, because, enjoying but a very distant and limited
acquaintance with such higher circles as she would otherwise have
mixed in, we might never have heard of her existence, That she
possessed some power of self-denial she proved, by paying her bill
and quitting the shop the moment that ribbon had conquered her;
the next best thing to resisting temptation being to fly from it.
“Why, Caroline dear, we must have been an age in that shop, it is
nearly five o’clock! What can have become of your father’s
carriage?” exclaimed Emily, glancing in dismay at the hands of the
old church clock, which pointed to a quarter to five.
“Really I can’t conceive,” was the reply: “something must have
occurred to delay it, I suppose; it will be growing dusk before we
can get home if we have to walk by the road, and we can scarcely
attempt the fields so late by ourselves.”
“Mamma will be so frightened,” suggested Emily, “if it gets at all
dark before we return—had we not better start at once, and walk on
till the carriage overtakes us?”
Caroline agreed to this plan, merely proposing the emendation
that they should leave word they had done so, and that the groom,
if he ever appeared, was to follow and endeavour to overtake them.
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