The Sun.
London, England, 1847-05-03 00:00:00

" This became the purp,se of her life. The morn-
ing sun shone down upon the faded house, and found the
resolution bright and fresh within the bosom of its soli-
tary mistress. Through all the duties of the day, it
animated her ; fur Florence hoped that the more she
knew, and the more accomplished she became, the more
glad he would be when he came to know and like her.
Sometimes she wondered, with a swelling heart, and

rising tear, whether she wag proficient enough in any
thing to surprise him when they should become corn.

!miens Sometime, she tried to think if there were any
kind of knowledge that would bespeak his interest more

readily than another. Always : at her books, her music,

and her work: in her morning walks, and in her nightly
prayers : she had hnr engrossing aim in view. Strange
study for a child, to learn the road to a hard parent's
heart

" There were many careless loungers through the
street, as the summer evening deepened into night, who
glanced across the road at the sombre house, and saw
the youthful figure at the window, such a contrast to it,
looking upward at th. stars as they began to shine, who
would have slept the worse it' they had known on what
design she mused so steadfastly. The reputation of the
mansion as a haunted house, would not have been the
gayer with som,, humble d.'•ellers elsewhere, who were
struck by its external gloom in passing and repassing
on their daily avocations, and so named it, if they
could have read its story in the darkening face. But
Florence hid her sacred purpose, unsuspected and un-
aid. d : and studied only how to bring her father to the
understanding that she loved him, and made no appeal
against him in any wandering thought.
" Thus Florence lived alone in the deserted house, and
day succeeded day, and still she lived alone, and the
monotonous walls looked down upon her with a stare, as

if they had a Gorgon-like intent to stare her youth and
beauty into stone."
The repetition of the last sentence is a clever con-
trivance, and it is the more effective as the sentence
has a sort of rhythm about it that is bewitching.
The description of the lonely dwelling is a companion
picture
to the " flaunted House," by Thomas Hood
—both delineations singular for their exactitude and
Daturalness.

PL( IOUGH.
This useful periodical c as usual, a consider-
able quantity of valuable information to the class to
'here is a good which it is especially directed
and another
The natural history
graving of a " Scotch Galloway
en-
of " the Kent two rest plough.
of the potato is given with details re,
abbs:itution
pearances observed in the progress
mdeysterious
ofsrt'heeeting the ap.
disease that has occasioned such fear,fit
and misery in the sister kingdom.
cul-
ture" gives some valuable hints for the cultivnonO
this useful le:zetable. In "domestic fires" the appli-
cability of chalk to the purpose of combustion is ad-
vocated, and its economy explained, there are the
usual accounts of agricultural meetings in various
parts of the country.

BRISTOL StIGAR•MARKET, APRIL 30.—The sugar-
market has been dull this week, and the transactions
comparatively unimportant ; but prices are again evi-
dently lower, the determination shown to sell, and the
pressure for money will, it is expected. prevent the
market recovering itself at present, and the dealers,
coniequently, buy with caution, and only for their im-
znEdi.:e wants.
A meeting of Members of Parliament took place
on ,Saturday, at the residence of Lord Robert Grosvenor,
Park-street, on therttibject-Cf Mr..Spooner's Bill for the sup-
pression of trading in induction and prostitution. In con-
sequence of the death of Lord Cowley, Lord Robert Grows-
'Pr Rai not present on the

steps, creaked and shook. Keys rusted in the locks of
doors. Damp started on the walls, and as the stains
came out, the pictures seemed to go in and secrete them-
selves. Mildew and mould began to lurk in closets.
Fungus trees grew in corners of the cellars. Dust accu-
mulated, nobody knew whence nor how ; spiders, moths,
and grubs were heard of every day. An exploratory
black-beetle now and then were found immoaable upon
the stairs, or in an upper room, as wondering how he
got there. Rats began to squeak and scuffle in the night
time, through dam galleries they mined behind the
panelling.
" The dreary magnificence of the state rooms, seen
imperfectly by the doubtful light admitted through
closed shutters, would have answered well enough for an
enchanted abode. Such as the tarnished paws of gilded
lions, stealthily put out from beneath their wrappers ;
the marble lineaments of busts on pedestals, fearfully
revealing themselves through veils ; the clocks that
never told the time, or, if wound up by any chance,
told it wrong, and struck unearthly numbers, which are
not upon the dial ; the accidental tinklings among the
the pendant lustres, more startling than alarm-bells ;
the softened sounds and laggard air that made their way
among these objects, and a phantom crowd of others,
shrouded and hooded, and made spectral of share
besides, there was the great staircase, ef But,
his little
where the '
the place so rarely set his foot, and by which
child had gone up to Heaven. There were other stair-
cases and passages where no one went for weeks to-
gether ; there were two closed rooms associated with
i i
dead members of the family, and with whispered
lections of them ; and to all the h()use but Florence,
there was a gentle figure moving throughhno. a touch of
ithe solitude
and gloom, that gave to every lifeless z
present human interest and wonder.
" For Florence lived alone in the deserted house, and
day succeeded day, and still she lived alone, and the
cold walls looked down upon her with a vacant stare, as
it they had a Gorgon-like mind to stare her youth and
beauty into stone.
The grass began to grow upon the roof, and in the
crevices of the basement paving. A scaly crumbling
vegetation sprouted round the windowsills. Fragments
of mortar lost their hold upon the insides of the unused
chimneys, and came dropping down. The two trees
with the smoky trunks were blighted high up, and the
withered branches domineered above the leaves.
Through the whole building, white had turned yellow,
yellow nearly black ; and since the time when the poor
lady died, it had slowly become a dark gap in the long
monotonous street.
" But Florence bloomed there, like the king's fair
daughter in the story. Her books, her music, and her
daily teachers, were her only real companions, Susan
Nipper and Diogenese excepted : of whom the former,
in her attendance on the studies of her young mistress,
began to grow quite learned herself, while the latter,
softened possibly by the same influences, would lay his
head upon the window•ledge, arid placidly open and
shut his eyes upon the street, all through a summer
morning ; sometimes pricking up his head, to look with
great significance after some noisy dog in a cart, who
was barking his way along, and sometimes, with an ex-
asperated and unaccountable recollection of his supposed
enemy in the neighbourhood, rushing to the door,
whence, after a deafening disturbance, he woulelcome
jogging back with a ridiculous complacency that be-
longed to him, and lay his jaw upon the window-ledge
again, with the air of a dog who had done a public
service.
" So Florence lived in her wilderness of a home,
within the circle of her innocent pursuits and thoughts,
and nothing harmed her. She could go down to her
father's rooms now, and think of him, and suffer her
loving heart humbly to approach him, without fear of re-
pulse. She could look upon the objects that had sur- I
rounded him in his sorrow, and could nestle near his
chair, and not dread the glance that she so well remem-
bered.. She could render him such little tokens of her
duty and service, as putting everything in order for him
with her own hands, binding little nosegays for his table,
changing them as one by one they withered and he did
not come back, preparing something for him every
day, and leaving some timid mark of her
pre.ence near his usual seat. To- day, it was
a little painted stand for his watch ; to-morrow,
she would be afraid to leave it, and would substitute
some other trifle of her making not so likely to attract
his eye. Waking in the night, perhaps, she would
tremble at the thought of his coming home and angrily
rejecting it, and would hurry dawn with slippered feet
and quickly- beating heart, and bring it away. At
another time, she would only lay her face upon his desk,
and leave a kiss there, and a tear.
" Still no one knew of this. Unless the household
found it out when she was not there—and they all held
Mr. Dumbey's rooms in awe—it was as deep a secret in
her breast as what had gone before it. Florence stole
into those rooms at twilight, early in the morning, and
at times when meals were served down stairs. And al-
though they were in every nook the better and the
brighter fur her care, she entered and passed out as
quietly as any sunbeam, excepting that she left her light
behind.
" Shadowy company attended Florence up and down
the echoing house, and sat with her in the dismantled
rooms. As if her life were as enchanted vision, there
arose out of her solitude ministering thoughts, that made
it fanciful and unreal. She imagined so often' what her
life would have been if her father could have loved her,
and she had been a favetrite child, that sometimes, for
the moment, she almost believed it was so, and, borne
on by the current of that pensive fiction, seemed to re-
member h ay they had watched her brother in his grave
together; how they had freely shared his heart between
them; how they were united in the dear remembrance
of him; how they often spoke about him yet; and her
kind father, looking at her gently, told her of their com-
mon hope and trust in God. At other times 'he pic-
tured to herself' her mother yet alive. And, oh! the
happiness of falling on her neck, and clinging to her with
the love and confidence of all her soul! And, oh, the
desolation of the solitary house again, with evening corn-
ing on, and no one there!
" But there was one thought, scarcely shaped out to
herself, yet fervent and strong within her, that upheld
Florence when she strove and filled her true young
heart, so sorely tried, with constancy of purpose. Into
her mind, as into all others contending with the great afflic-
tion of our mortal nature, there had stolen solemn won-
derings and hopes, arising in the dim world beyond the
present life, and murmuring, like) faint music, of recog-
nition in the far off land between her brother and her
mother: of some present consciousness in both of her:
some love and commiseration for her: and some know-
ledge of her as she went her way upon the earth. It was
a soothing consolation to Florence to give shelter to these
thoughts, until one day—it was soon after she had last
seen her father in his own room, late at night—the fancy
came upon her, that, in weeping for his alienated heart,
she might stir the spirits of the dead against him. Wild,
weak, childish, as it may have been to think so, and to
tremble at the half-formed thought, it was the impulse of
her loving nature; and from that hour Florence strove
against the cruel wound in her ereast, and tried to think
of him whose hand had made it, only wish hope.
" Her father did not know—she held to it from that
time--how much she loved him. She was very young,
and had no mother, and had never learned, by some fault
or misfortune, how to express to him that she loved him.
She would be patient, and would try to gain that art
in time, and win him to a better knowledge of his only
child.