ame de Genlis, no Miss Edgeworth; no 'Evenings at
Home,' no 'Children's Friend,' no 'Parent's Assistant.' Venetia loved
her book; indeed, she was never happier than when reading; but she
soon recoiled from the gilt and Lilliputian volumes of the good Mr.
Newbury, and her mind required some more substantial excitement than
'Tom Thumb,' or even 'Goody Two-Shoes.' 'The Seven Champions' was
a great resource and a great favourite; but it required all the
vigilance of a mother to eradicate the false impressions which such
studies were continually making on so tender a student; and to
disenchant, by rational discussion, the fascinated imagination of her
child. Lady Annabel endeavoured to find some substitute in the essays
of Addison and Steele; but they required more knowledge of the
every-day world for their enjoyment than an infant, bred in such
seclusion, could at present afford; and at last Venetia lost herself
in the wildering pages of Clelia and the Arcadia, which she pored over
with a rapt and ecstatic spirit, that would not comprehend the warning
scepticism of her parent. Let us picture to ourselves the high-bred
Lady Annabel in the terrace-room of her ancient hall, working at
her tapestry, and, seated at her feet, her little daughter Venetia,
reading aloud the Arcadia! The peacocks have jumped up on the
window-sill, to look at their friends, who love to feed them, and by
their pecking have aroused the bloodhound crouching at Lady Annabel's
feet. And Venetia looks up from her folio with a flushed and smiling
face to catch the sympathy of her mother, who rewards her daughter's
study with a kiss. Ah! there are no such mothers and no such daughters
now!

Thus it will be seen that the life and studies of Venetia tended
rather dangerously, in spite of all the care of her mother, to the
development of her imagination, in case indeed she possessed that
terrible and fatal gift. She passed her days in unbroken solitude, or
broken only by affections which softened her heart, and in a scene
which itself might well promote any predisposition of the kind;
beautiful and picturesque objects surrounded her on all sides; she
wandered, at it were, in an enchanted wilderness, and watched the deer
reposing under the green shadow of stately trees; the old hall
itself was calculated to excite mysterious curiosity; one wing was
uninhabited and shut up; each morning and evening she repaired with
her mother and the household through long gall