MABEL'S PROGRESS.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "AUNT MARGARET'S TROUBLE."

BOOK II.

CHAPTER I. A BACKWARD GLANCE.

PHILIP EARNSHAW, Mabel's father, a
scientific chemist of some standing, had worked his
way to a good position in the scientific world,
by dint of enormous industry and considerable
talent. He had a younger brother, who was
also a chemist, and for whom his influence
procured an engagement as superintendent of some
large chemical works in the north.

This brother, John Earnshaw, was a lively
well-looking young man, fonder of play than of
work; but on the whole fairly steady, and
generally considered by his intimates a "very
good fellow." One day he astonished and
shocked his family, who were rigid
Presbyterians, by bringing home as his wife a young
lady who had been performing for a couple
of seasons at the theatre of the little provincial
town in which he lived. Marry an actress! No
words can describe the horror of his relatives;
curiously enough, it was the most distant of
his kinsfolk who appeared to find the enormity
of John's proceeding the most intolerable. It
seemed as if the acuteness of their suffering on
the occasion were in exact proportion to the
unlikelihood of their ever being brought into
personal contact with the young couple. One
old lady, who had resided for five-and-thirty
years in one of the Orkney Islands, and who
had never manifested the slightest intention of
quitting them, took the trouble to write a long
letter to her third cousin, John Earnshaw, for
the express purpose of informing him that, after
the way in which he had disgraced the family,
she felt reluctantly compelled to cast him off for
ever.

And it must be confessed, that over this letter
her cousin and his bride enjoyed a very hearty
and innocent laugh.

Mary Earnshaw was no beauty. She was
scarcely even pretty. But she was sweet,
modest, sensible, and as simple-minded and
unsophisticated a girl as one would be likely to find
in—well, say in Belgravia—perhaps even a trifle
more so.

She loved her husband with a very devoted
and unselfish affection, and set herself earnestly
to become a good notable housewife, and to
make his home happy. In both endeavours she
thoroughly succeeded. They lived for ten years
in peace and contentment, and during that
time three fine children were born to them.
John Earnshaw continued in his position at the
chemical works, and, as neither he nor Mary
was ambitious, nor greedy after riches, he found
his salary sufficient for their wants.

But a heavy shadow of misfortune darkened
their lives. Literally a shadow that blotted
out the external sunshine from John Earnshaw,
and, for a season, quenched the rays of
hope and cheerfulness within him. He became
blind.

The affliction fell upon him gradually, and at
first its dreadful extent was not suspected.
But a time of agonising suspense followed,
when husband and wife went through
alternations of hope and despair that racked them
almost beyond endurance. At last the final
sentence was pronounced. Total and hopeless
blindness for life.

And now, John Earnshaw, even in the first
fulness of his affliction, perceived how great a
blessing God had given him in the brave
faithful loving woman whom he had taken to
his bosom. Of all John Earnshaw's relations,
his brother Philip alone had abstained from
expressing any violent disapprobation of his
marriage. He acknowledged John's right to
choose for himself, and, having made acquaintance
with his pleasant sister-in-law during a
flying visit on business to the north, became
evermore her staunch friend. Mary Earnshaw's
simple heart overflowed with gratitude to her
husband's brother. She had looked forward to
his visit with awe and trepidation. Philip was a
very great personage in the estimation of his
brother's household; and when he came, and,
instead of a dry stern pedantic man of science, such
as she had pictured to herself, she found a handsome,
genial, courteous gentleman, who behaved
to her with a mixture of tenderness and deference
such as one might show to a younger sister,
her delight and gratitude knew no bounds, and
she enshrined Philip in her heart from that time
forth as one to be only less beloved and
honoured than her husband.

When the calamity of blindness fell upon
John Earnshaw, Philip was newly married. He
had made a love-match after living a bachelor
until middle life, and had taken to wife a