MIGNONETTE,

~A SKETCH,

BY THE AUTHOR OF THE CURATE OF HOLY CROSS.

"Then in life's goblet freely press
The leaves that give it bitterness,
Nor prize the coloured waters less,
For in thy darkness and distress

New light and strength they give.
And he who has not learnt to know
How false its sparkling bubbles show,
How bitter are the drops of woe

With which its brim may overflow,

He has not learn'd to live."-LONGFELLOW.

PRINTED BY MESSRS. PARKER, CORNMARKET, OXFORD.

Mignonette.

CHAPTER I.

THE CARNATION.

Thou hast call'd me thine angel in moments of bliss,

And thine angel I'll be 'mid the horrors of this,

Thro' the furnace unshrinking thy steps to pursue,

And shield thee and save thee or perish there too.-MOORE.

ABOUT this time the social circle at Lamford received addition in the shape of two visitors, with whom we may as well make acquaintance during the ten days or more that Herbert is lying ill at Bickerton.

Of these visitors, the first was that Arthur Deane of whom we heard something at the Lamford ball, and who has now come down on more extended leave to pass a few months with his family at Natchetts: the second, Mr. Edward Wordsworth, of whom we have heard so much in connection with the succession to the estate of Bickerton Firs. Of the first of these two characters, little need be said to occupy our time. He was outwardly a piece of eccentricity, and probably beneath it concealed a natural shallowness of VOL. II.

B