‘I never shall get through these accounts!’ is the soliloquy of Miss Gwynne, to whom we return with much pleasure, on my part, at least, after a separation of six years.

She is seated in a gloomy but comfortable dining-room, in a house situated in one of the squares at the East End of London. We left her in her large, airy, country home, looking out upon a beautiful view of hill and valley we find her in a close, dark square, with nothing to enliven the scene without but a few dingy shrubs, a row of tall gaunt houses, and a smoke-discoloured, soot-filled atmosphere. We left her unhappy and discontented we find her happy and contented. We left her with a mind harassed by uncertain plans, disappointed hopes, and humbled pride we find her with a mind strengthened by good purposes, holy aspirations, and prayers for humility. Still, we left her and find her Winifred Gwynne. She has not lost her idiosyncrasy.

Reader, be not hasty to pronounce upon the suddenness of these changes. Six years spent principally amongst the earnest minded, laborious clergy of London and their families, in the heart of the most wretched, squalid parish, amongst the lowest, most depraved, most ignorant, most utterly miserable set of people in England, would sober the most thoughtless woman in the world, provided she had a heart. And Freda has not only a heart, but one earnestly desirous of doing good.

She has found vent for her energy, occupation for her time, a bank for all the money she possesses; therefore we find her in the midst of papers covered with figures, containing accounts of ragged schools, which she is labouring to reckon up, in the simplest of morning dresses, without ornament or extraneous adornment. She is somewhat paler and thinner than she used to be amongst the breezy hills of Wales, but her eyes are brighter, and the expression of her countenance is gentler.

‘How stupid I am!’ she exclaims. ’Gladys would reckon them up directly, but she is at the school, and I am ashamed to ask Nita, with all her accounts.’

She pauses a moment and lays down her pen. Her eyes fall upon an unopened letter.

‘And I declare I have not broken the seal of my own father’s letter,’ she mutters, performing this duty as she does so, and running through it with occasional comments.

’"We hope you will come and spend Christmas ” I suppose I must “and see your little brother, who longs to see sister Freda again ” Humph! but who cut her out of Glanyravon Park and all thereto belonging, though he certainly is a dear little man. “Her ladyship quite well, and desires her love.” I suppose I ought to be glad and try to return the love. “Mrs Gwynne Vaughan and her children were here yesterday. She asked for you, and the little ones wished to know when you were coming home ” I am much obliged to her, and am afraid I am not too anxious to see either her or her husband, in spite of their civility. “Little Harold is really a wonderful child! He begins to spell already!” So like my good father. Well, I ought to be thankful he is happy, and that it all turned out so much better than I expected. But I can’t help feeling a kind of wicked disappointment when I think that Lady Mary should be quite as good a tactician as a second wife, as she was before she married again. But, I hope, I am happy that she makes poor papa comfortable and doesn’t worry him to death. I don’t think he loves her now half as well as he does me; still, perhaps she suits him better, because she manages him, and I never could. But the tyfydd is a dear little fellow, and I am really fond of him.’

Miss Gwynnes soliloquy is cut short by a rap at the door, followed by the entrance of Rowland Prothero, who says, as he bows and seems about to retreat,

‘I beg your pardon I was told Mr Jones was here.’

‘Oh, do come in!’ says Miss Gwynne, rising, and advancing to meet Rowland; ’I cannot get through these accounts. I have been reckoning and reckoning ever since breakfast, and they will not come right. I should be so much obliged to you if you would just look them over for me.’

Rowland seated himself at Freda’s desk, and began at once to do her bidding. The ragged school was the one in which he was so much interested, and that he had been instrumental in establishing.

Whilst Miss Gwynne had been living with her friend, Mrs Jones, she had seen a great deal of Rowland; they had, in fact, been thrown much together. At first, Rowland ceased to come to consult the Joneses, or to spend his few spare hours with them, when he heard that Freda was there; and, of course, they and she understood and respected his reasons for absenting himself; but in the course of time, they met at Sir Philip Payne Perry’s, at his rector’s, and elsewhere, and his reserve slightly wore off. When Freda began to assist Mrs Jones in her parish work, and threw herself, heart and soul, into the ragged school, they met of necessity very frequently. Freda was so studiously polite in her manners to him, and so careful to avoid every subject that would recall their old relations at Glanyravon, that he gradually felt more at his ease with her, and it ended by his resuming his old, friendly intercourse with Mr and Mrs Jones. But Freda knew well that, in spite of her best efforts to propitiate him, he never forgot those words, ’Do you know who I am, and who you are?’ He was always gentlemanlike, always kind, always ready to do anything she asked him, but he never relaxed the somewhat formal respect of his manner. In society, he was quite different with every one else to what he was with her. With the Perrys he was as much at ease as if he were their own son; and they seemed almost to consider him as such. At his rector’s he was the life of their little circle, and might have been, Freda shrewdly suspected, united to it by a link closer than that of curate, had he so chosen; for there was a very pretty daughter who evidently looked upon him with favourable eyes. Amongst the respectable portion of his flock he was a general favourite, and all the young ladies, as young ladies will, worked with and for him; not only in the matter of schools, but in slippers and purses. What was still more clear and satisfactory to Freda was, that he made way amongst the miserable poor.

The ragged school children loved him, and through them, he got at the hearts of some of their degraded parents. His seemed a labour of love with every one but her. She received his marked politeness and nothing more. But he interested her daily. Some new trait of character would break out some little touch of deep feeling some symptom of a highly sensitive nature, which told her how much he must have felt her cutting words. He was proud, too, and she liked him for it, although she was striving to humble her own pride. What would she not have given to have recalled those words! The Rowland Prothero of London, esteemed and loved by the wise and good, for his unpretending but strenuous parochial labours, his clear, forcible, but very simple preaching was to her quite a different person from him of Glanyravon Farm, the son of her father’s tenant. In short they were no longer identical. As she was no longer the heiress of Glanyravon, but simply Miss Gwynne, Mrs. Jones’ friend so he was Mr. Rowland Prothero, a respectable and respected London clergyman.

And these are the relations under which they appear, sitting near one another over the accounts of the ragged school, which Freda has undertaken to keep.

‘I think there is a slight fault here, Miss Gwynne,’ he says, pointing out an error in calculation.

’Of course, I never had a head for figures, and Mrs. Jones could never get me to do my sums.’

’Still, the account is quite right in the main, the errors were in the adding up, and it is rightly balanced.’

’Thank you, I am so very much obliged to you. I should never have got through them. And now, will you tell me of those wretched people that Mr. Jones would not let me go and see.’

’I gave them the money you kindly sent, or, at least, laid it out for them, as they would have spent it in gin, and they are already more comfortable; but the father is gone away, and the mother apparently dying.’

‘Is there no way of alleviating all this wretchedness?’

’I fear none. Sin is at the root, and as long as the present world lasts, there must be misery with it.’

Rowland spoke these words in an unusually melancholy and depressed tone of voice, which caused Miss Gwynne to look up from the papers, directly at him. He was paler than usual, and his lip quivered. He met her glance, and making an effort to rise, said hastily,

’Can I have the honour of doing anything more for you, Miss Gwynne. I am sure I can return you the thanks of the committee, indeed of every one concerned for

’I want no thanks, I deserve no thanks from any one; are you ill, Mr. Rowland? You have been in some of those dreadful haunts, and they have upset you. May I get you something?’

‘Thank you, I am quite well.’ Rowland’s lip quivered still more and he grew still less calm, as he again met Miss Gwynne’s eye fixed on him with evident interest.

’I am sure you are ill; you must allow me the privilege of a parishioner, if not of an old friend, and let me ask what is the matter?’

Her manner was so kind, that Rowland’s reserve was for a moment overcome.

‘Thank you, Miss Gwynne my poor sister.’

’Yes, what of her? I assure you I am truly interested for her; poor Netta!’

’I fear she is in serious trouble, I scarcely know what myself as yet; but she, her husband and child have left the house, and Howel’s creditors have taken possession of all his effects. No one knows where they are gone, or what is to become of them.’

Rowland had not the courage to tell Miss Gwynne that the police were searching for Howel right and left upon a charge of forgery.

‘Poor Netta! I am very, very sorry. What can have reduced him to this?’

’Gaming, horse-racing, speculating! These will waste the largest fortune and ruin the fairest hopes. But he deserves it all, only my poor sister is the victim, and the respectability of an honest name is impeached.’

’Oh no poor Netta’s hasty marriage and wilful temper were the causes of her trouble, it can have nothing to do with your family; besides, many people of high family and position are obliged to fly for debt.’

’That is dishonour enough, Miss Gwynne, but this this is worse; Howel is suspected of of forgery.’

Rowland gave Miss Gwynne one quick, searching glance as he said that word, and then rose to go. She rose, too, but putting out her hands, and looking him full in the face, kindly and gently, she said,

’Mr. Prothero, I am very sorry for you; for Netta; for all. But if this is true, the sin and the shame will rest with him who caused them it cannot fall on you or yours.’

Rowland shook the offered hand, and then left the room.

In the hall he met Gladys, who had just come in from the school. Frisk was barking and jumping about her with great animation, not having grown, as Freda foretold, a useless and fat London dog. When Rowland appeared, he transferred his attentions to him, and looked much disappointed at receiving none in return.

Rowland shook hands with Gladys, and asked her to come with him into Mr Jones’ little study, where he told her, more clearly than he had told Miss Gwynne, what he knew of Howel and Netta.

He said that he had been to their house the previous day in the afternoon, and had found it occupied by sheriffs’ officers and policemen, who were trying, in vain, to ascertain from the servants where their master and mistress were. All that they knew was that their master did not sleep in the house the previous night, and that their mistress left it that morning. Rowland had waited until late at night, but no further intelligence was gained.

He gleaned that Howel was accused of having forged cheques, at different times, to a very large amount, in the names both of Sir Samuel Spendall and Sir Horatio Simpson. The frauds had been discovered through a cheque on the latter’s bank, purporting to be written by him for five hundred pounds, received by Howel a few weeks before. Sir Horatio Simpson having gone himself to his bankers for some money, it was found that he had overdrawn his account, and, upon examining his late cheques, he utterly disclaimed that of Howel, and declared it forged. The result of this was a general examination of his banking accounts for the last four years, and the discovery of forgeries, by alteration of figures and forged signatures, to the amount of some five or six thousand pounds.

At the same time Sir Samuel Spendall’s attorneys found, from a rigid examination of that baronet’s affairs, that Howel’s claim on him did not amount to two-thirds of his demand, and that various signatures to betting debts, and loans of money, etc., were forgeries.

In addition to this, Howel’s own debts, both on the turf and to his tradesmen, were enormous, and ignominy surrounded him on all sides.

Rowland groaned aloud as he told Gladys these horrible truths, and Gladys had no words of comfort; all she could say was,

’It is not poor Netta’s fault; it is not yours, Mr Rowland, or that of any one belonging to you.’

‘But the shame, Gladys; you know my father, it will be his death.’

’Oh no, sir, he always expected something of the kind. I have often heard him say so. If we could only find Mrs Jenkins and her child it would not be so bad.’

Mr Jones came in, and Gladys left the room and went to Miss Gwynne.

Gladys has become the friend and confidential adviser of every member of that small household; no one but herself considers her as a servant. She acts as housekeeper for Mrs Jones, maid to Miss Gwynne, school teacher and district visitor to Mr Jones and Rowland, almoner and confidante to all. Gladys, within doors, Miss Gladys, without; no one knows that she has any other name. In spite of her beauty, her youth, her timidity, she goes amongst scenes and people, from whom most women, even the best, would shrink, and seems to bear about with her a charmed life and invisible strength that nothing can destroy.

Amongst the wretched Irish who inhabit a portion of that vast, depraved parish, she has an influence that even the clergy cannot boast, due to her Irish extraction and slight accent; and the sufferings she has herself undergone from gaunt famine and grim death, make her keenly alive to their wants and feelings. No one has such power over the poor untutored heathen children of the ragged school as she has, and no one loves them as she does. She, too, like her mistress, has found her vocation in their city home; who cannot find a vocation in any home, if they will only look around them for it?

Whilst Rowland and Mr Jones discuss the sad news Rowland has to tell, Miss Gwynne, Mrs Jones and Gladys discuss it also, for Mrs Jones has joined the pair in the dining room. There is but one feeling in that household sorrow for Rowland and his family, anxiety about Netta. Tears are in the eyes of all those true-hearted women as they think of the probable fate of the once bright little belle of their country neighbourhood, deserted, perhaps amongst the wild wildernesses of London houses.

Mr Jones endeavours to console Rowland by suggesting that if Netta is left by her husband she will surely fall back upon her brother; and when he has exhausted what little portion of hope he can inspire, Rowland turns resolutely to subjects that must be attended to, even if his heart were breaking from sorrow.

The respected rector of that large parish was in very uncertain health, and had gone abroad with his family for three months, leaving all the parochial duties in the hands of his two curates. They were heavy enough for three clergymen, but Mr Jones and Rowland found them almost too weighty for them, unassisted by their chief; however, they fought manfully through them, Sundays and week days.

Rowland refused Mr and Mrs Jones’ invitation to dinner, and, crossing the square, entered his solitary lodging in one of the opposite houses, and began to write to his brother Owen. He told him all that he knew of Howel and Netta, and begged him to break it to their parents as best he might.

When he had finished his letter he prepared to go out again. His landlady brought him some luncheon, but he could not touch it. He went first to his ragged school, and there the sight of those children of crime and infamy recalled his little niece to his mind, and made his heart sink still lower with the fear of what she might become. Never had he spoken with such feeling to the motley throng that stood about him as he did that day. Then he had to thread some of the haunts whence those children came to seek out the miserable parents to whom they had been a sort of introduction, and never before had he experienced so forcibly that he was their brother, even theirs, as now that he knew that his sister’s husband was ‘a thief and a forger;’ he could almost fancy that they already pointed to him as belonging, at least, to one as degraded as themselves.

That evening he read prayers and lectured in one of the churches. He lectured extempore, and it was noted by all his congregation that more than once his feelings nearly overcame him. They thought and talked of the fact, when, at a later period, they heard of his family sorrow. But they all said that his ‘word was with power,’ and there was many a moist eye amongst them as he warned them, in language made even more forcible than usual by the events of the day, against the pleasures and vices of the world.

After the service many of the school teachers and Scripture-readers met him in the vestry to have their work allotted, and their word of advice and encouragement. Again he pressed upon them the subject brought home to his heart, that of resisting in youth the ’temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil.’

His youthful regiment of soldiers talked to one another afterwards of the earnestness and piety of Him who led them on in their battle against evil, and prayed to become more like one who was so devoted to ’fighting that good fight,’ which they had enlisted to join in.

Tired and exhausted, Rowland returned to his lodging. He tried to review the events of the day, but in doing so, fairly broke down. He had been striving to keep his mind in subjection by beating down his monster enemy, pride, for the last six years; but he found that he was still rampant within him. It was not simply the grief for a sister’s distress and a brother-in-law’s sin that he felt, but strong personal mortification. How could he think of self, of the Perrys, of his rector, of his family, of his parishioners and their opinion, above all, how could he think of Miss Gwynne, who disdained him, at a time when every personal feeling ought to be merged into sympathy with others? He prayed and struggled against the tempter; prayed for his sister; above all, for Howel; in words too fervent and holy for these pages; and went to bed and slept from mere exhaustion of mind and body. Little did Netta imagine, when she made that disobedient step into the dark future, what misery it would bring upon all who loved her!

Pause, then, and think, all you young women who may be meditating a similar course, even whilst reading this story, or may be at issue with your parents, because their experience shows them a future which your inexperience cannot show you! Pause and think that Netta is no fictitious character, her story no mere creation of an author’s brain, but the portrait and history of one out of hundreds of wilful daughters brought to shame and grief, and bringing all belonging to them to shame and grief by an unblessed and unholy marriage.