Our readers must imagine that two years and four months have elapsed since our last visit to the inmates of Oakwood. It was the first week in March that Edward Fortescue (only wanting ten days for the completion of his fourteenth year) quitted a home, which was happier than any he had ever known, to enter the world as a sailor; and it is the 7th of June, two years later, the day on which Ellen Fortescue completes her fifteenth year, that we recommence our narrative.
Over this interval, however, much as we are anxious to proceed, we must take a brief glance, clearly to understand the aspect of the Oakwood home affairs, which, from the increasing age of the younger members, had undergone some slight change. The greatest and most keenly felt was the departure of Percy and Herbert for college, the October twelvemonth after Edward had gone; the house seemed actually desolate without them. Percy's wild jokes and inexhaustible spirits, and Herbert's quiet, unobtrusive kindness, much as they had always been truly appreciated by their home circle, still scarcely seemed to have been fully felt till the young men were gone; and the old house actually seemed enwrapped in a silence, which it required very determined effort on the part of all who remained in the least degree to dispel.
Our readers who are mothers, and earnest ones, will easily understand the anxious tremblings of Mrs. Hamilton's heart, when she parted from her boys for the world: for such, to spirits fresh, boyish, unsophisticated, as they still were, Oxford could not fail to be. For Herbert, indeed, she had neither fear nor doubt: no sneer, no temptation, no bad example, would affect him, in whom every passing year seemed to increase and deepen those exalted feelings which, in his earliest childhood, had "less in them of earth than heaven." His piety was so real, his faith so fervent, his affections so concentrated in his home and in one other individual, his love and pursuit of study so ardent and unceasing, his one aim, to become worthy in heart and mind to serve God as his minister, so ever present, that he was effectually guarded even from the world. Percy had none of these feelings to the same extent, save his ardent love for home and its inmates--his mother, above all. He did, indeed, give every promise that the principles so carefully instilled had taken firm root, and would guide his conduct in the world; but Mrs. Hamilton was too humble-minded--too convinced that every human effort is imperfect, without the sustaining and vitalizing grace of God, to rest in security, as many might have done, that _because_ she had so worked, so prayed, she _must_ succeed. She was hopeful, indeed, very hopeful--how could she be otherwise when she beheld his deep, though silent, reverence for sacred things--his constant and increasing respect and love for his father--his devoted affection for herself--his attachment to Herbert, which seemed so strangely yet so beautifully to combine almost reverence for his superior mind and holier spirit, with the caressing protectiveness of an older for a younger--a stronger for a weaker? There was much in all this to banish anxiety altogether, but not from such a heart as Mrs. Hamilton's, whose very multiplicity of blessings made her often tremble, and led her to the footstool of her God, with a piety as humble, as constant, as fervent, as many believe is the fruit of adversity alone.