C66 THE CATASTROPHE OF TWELVE HOURS. 



CHAPTER III. 



" The mother and the wife." SHAKSPEARE. 



Sarah Hodgson was the remains of a very pretty woman, and 

 although traces of suffering were visible in her face, she was still 

 good-looking. She appeared to be about forty years of age, and a 

 certain something not to be described was yet sufficient to indicate 

 that brighter scenes and happier prospects had been once familiar to 

 her. Married early in life to the man of her choice, with the sanction 

 and high approbation of both her then surviving parents, she had 

 left them a happy though weeping bride, and departed from her 

 quiet and retired mountain-home to accompany her husband into 

 the centre of a large manufacturing town. 



For some years she was an equally happy wife, a family was 

 rapidly born to her, and the world went well with them. In the 

 meantime her father died, and her mother doatingly attached to her 

 as her sole surviving child, left her native home and the graves of 

 her husband and children to live with her son-in-law. But a sad 

 change before long came over their fair prospects ; visionary specu- 

 lations reduced them to poverty, while bad passions and baneful 

 habits developed themselves in him on whom the happiness of so 

 many was now dependent, and the mother and daughter had long 

 trod the thorny path of adversity. 



Passive courage that most beautiful attribute of woman had, 

 however, borne Sarah through her difficulties, aided by a devoted 

 attachment to her family and her mother, and by undying love for 

 her husband, who had indeed in too many instances shewn himself 

 utterly unworthy of it. Many of her children had been removed by 

 death, and she had laid them in their graves with a mother's sorrow, 

 but with no farther regret ; for their home had been one of ceaseless 

 struggling with poverty, and, in spite of all her efforts, much was 

 exhibited before them which tended to their demoralization. Her 

 beautiful example her patience under all sufferings her unceasing 

 devotion to their comfort, had, however, produced the most beneficial 

 effects on the character of her surviving children, and all looked up to 

 her with a love almost amounting to idolatry. For some time back 

 also, her husband had much reformed his habits, and a gleam of 

 hope seemed breaking through the dark horizon which had so long 

 surrounded her. 



Her mother possessed in a great degree the same excellence of dispo- 

 sition, but the change had come over her too late in life to accommodate 

 herself readily to its privations, and one of Sarah's greatest trials had 

 been the occasional querulence of her whom she so much reverenced. 

 She had, however, gradually almost forgotten her former wants, and 

 both were now engaged in earnest endeavours to cultivate and 

 strengthen the improvement in Robert's morals, rarely looking back 

 to a former state of enjoyment which they felt could never return. 



For a time after the departure of the husband and children, Sarah 

 and her mother sat in silence on opposite sides of the almost expiring 



