I saw two children intertwine
Their arms about each other,
Like the lithe tendrils of the vine
Around its nearest brother;
And ever and anon,
As gayly they ran on,
Each looked into the other's face,
Anticipating an embrace.
--Richard Monckton Milnes.
Punctually at nine o'clock on Monday morning Ishmael Worth rendered
himself at Brudenell Hall. Mr. Middleton's school was just such a one as
can seldom, if ever, be met with out of the Southern States. Mr.
Middleton had been a professor of languages in one of the Southern
universities; and by his salary had supported and educated a large
family of sons and daughters until the death of a distant relative
enriched him with the inheritance of a large funded property.
He immediately resigned his position in the university, and--as he did
not wish to commit himself hastily to a fixed abode in any particular
neighborhood by the purchase of an estate--he leased the whole
ready-made establishment at Brudenell Hall, all furnished and officered
as it was. There he conveyed his wife and ten children--that is, five
girls and five boys, ranging from the age of one year up to fifteen
years of age. Added to these was the motherless daughter of his
deceased sister, Beatrice Merlin, who had been the wife of the
chief-justice of the Supreme Court of the State.
Claudia Merlin had been confided to the care of her uncle and aunt in
preference to being sent to a boarding school during her father's
absence on official duty at the capital.
Mr. and Mrs. Middleton had found, on coming to Brudenell Hall, that
there was no proper school in the neighborhood to which they could send
their sons and daughters. They had besides a strong prejudice in favor
of educating their children under their own eyes. Mr. Middleton, in his
capacity of professor, had seen too much of the temptations of college
life to be willing to trust his boys too early to its dangers. And as
for sending the girls away from home, Mrs. Middleton would not hear of
it for an instant.
After grappling with the difficulty for a while, they conquered it by
concluding to engage a graduate of the university as tutor, to ground
young people in what are called the fundamental parts of an English
education, together with the classics and mathematics; and also to
employ an accomplished lady to instruct them in music and drawing. This
school was always under the immediate supervision of the master and
mistress of the house. One or the other was almost always present in the
schoolroom. And even if this had not been so, the strictest propriety
must have been preserved; for the governess was a discreet woman, nearly
fifty years of age; and the tutor, though but twenty-five, was the
gravest of all grave young men.