Daisy Burns (Volume 2)   By: Julia Kavanagh (1824-1877)

Produced by Daniel FROMONT

COLLECTION

OF

BRITISH AUTHORS.

VOL. CCLXIV.

DAISY BURNS BY JULIA KAVANAGH.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

TAUCHNITZ EDITION

By the same Author,

NATHALIE 2 vols.

GRACE LEE 2 vols.

RACHEL GRAY 1 vol.

ADELE 2 vols.

A SUMMER AND WINTER IN THE TOW SICILES 2 vols.

SEVEN YEARS AND OTHER TALES 2 vols.

FRENCH WOMEN OF LETTERS 1 vol.

ENGLISH WOMEN OF LETTERS 1 vol.

QUEEN MAB 2 vols.

BEATRICE 2 vols.

SYBIL'S SECOND LOVE

DORA 2 vols.

SILVIA 2 vols.

BESSIE 2 vols.

JOHN DORRIEN 2 vols.

DAISY BURNS;

A TALE

BY

JULIA KAVANAGH,

AUTHOR OF "NATHALIE."

COPYRIGHT EDITION .

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

LEIPZIG

BERNHARDT TAUCHNITZ

1853.

JULIA KAVANAGH

DAISY BURNS.

CHAPTER I.

It has chanced that for a week or more this narrative has been laid aside. This evening I thought I would resume it, and, before doing so, I looked back on what I had written.

Alas, how long it takes us to forget the angry and evil feelings of our childhood! How I traced, in this record of the past, a lingering animosity against the enemy of my youth, which years, it seems, had failed to efface from my heart! How sad and humbling a lesson has this been to me, of passion warping judgment and holy charity forgotten!

I have represented Miriam without one redeeming trait, and conscience tells me that she was not thus. I now remember many touches of human feeling and human kindness, which, I feel it remorsefully, need not have been omitted, when all that was evil was so faithfully registered.

She had many high qualities. In worldly affairs she was generous and disinterested. Her word was inviolable; she gave it rarely, and never broke it. She was devoted to her blind old nurse, and patient with her infirm aunt. Her temper was calm and enduring; she had in her something of the spirit which makes martyrs, and could have borne persecution with unshaken fortitude. She never spoke of religion, and I doubt if she had any religious feeling; but she was charitable to the poor; she had sympathy for their misery and compassion too for bodily suffering: I remember that once, when I cut my hand rather severely, she showed a concern which even I felt to be sincere. Had I been wholly in her power, and provoked her to the utmost, I knew she would neither have ill used me herself, nor allowed me to be neglected by others. Her hatred was pitiless; yet in one sense it was not mean, for it disdained to inflict useless pangs. She had an object in tormenting me, but to do so gave her no pleasure. I know that had I not been so tenacious of the affection of Cornelius, so obstinate and proud, she would never have sought my ruin; but she was not one to brook the rivalry or opposition even of a child; I chose to place myself in her path, and she treated me as an obstacle to be removed, or, if that failed, to be conquered, and, if needful, crushed.