Miss Monro

“ Mr. Corbet used to leave his tutor and Mr. Wilkins and saunter into the library. There sat Ellinor and Miss Monro, each busy with their embroidery. He would bring a stool to Ellinor’s side, question and tease her, interest her, and they would become entirely absorbed in each other, Miss Monro’s sense of propriety being entirely set at rest by the consideration that Mr. Wilkins must know what he was about in allowing a young man to become thus intimate with his daughter, who, after all, was but a child. ”

“ The appointment of physician to Bethlehem and a great reputation in the treatment of insanity were transmitted in the Monro family for several generations. Monro had acquired (probably on his travels) a taste for the fine arts, especially engravings, and assisted Strutt in the preparation of his 'History of Engravers.' He is also said to have communicated notes to Steevens for his edition of Shakespeare. A portrait of him is in the College of Physicians. His son Thomas (1759–1833) is separately noticed. ”

“ But one night before this, when all windows and doors stood open to admit the least breath that stirred the sultry July air, a servant on velvet tiptoe had stolen up to Ellinor’s open door, and had beckoned out of the chamber of the sleeper the ever watchful nurse, Miss Monro.
“A gentleman wants you,” were all the words the housemaid dared to say so close to the bed-room. And softly, softly Miss Monro stepped down the stairs, into the drawing-room; and there she saw Mr. Livingstone. ”

“ They came home, looking serious and tired: yet they could not account for their fatigue by the length of their walk; and Miss Monro, forgetting Autolycus’s song, kept fidgeting about Ellinor, and wondering how it was she looked so pale, if she had only been as far as the Ash Meadow. To escape from this wonder, Ellinor went early to bed. Mr. Wilkins was gone, no one knew where, and Ralph and Miss Monro were left to a half-hour’s tête-à-tête. ”

“ At twelve o’clock, Ellinor put away her books with joyful eagerness, kissed Miss Monro, asked her if they should go a regular walk, and was always rather thankful when it was decided that it would be better to stroll in the garden—a decision very often come to, for Miss Monro hated fatigue, hated dirt, hated scrambling, and dreaded rain; all of which are evils, the chances of which are never far distant from country walks. ”

“ Next to her anxiety about Ellinor, Miss Monro liked to dilate on the mystery connected with Mr. Dunster’s flight; for that was the word she employed without hesitation, as she gave him the account of the event universally received and believed in by the people of Hamley. How Mr. Dunster had never been liked by any one ”

“ When Miss Monro returned to the bedroom, Ellinor was in a heavy feverish slumber: so feverish and so uneasy did she appear, that, after the hesitation of a moment or two, Miss Monro had no scruple in wakening her.
But she did not appear to understand the answer to her request; she did not seem even to remember that she had made any request.
The journey to England, the misery, the surprises, had been too much for her. The morrow morning came, bringing the formal free pardon for Abraham Dixon. The sheriff’s order for her admission to see the old man lay awaiting her wish to use it ”

“ The dittay against the lady set forth a series of attempts at serious crime, partly prosecuted by natural means, and partly by superstitious practices. It appeared that she desired to put her eldest step-son out of the way, not, as might have been supposed, to favour the succession of her own offspring, but that her brother, George Ross of Balnagowan, might be free to marry Robert Monro’s wife ”

“ Miss Monro fondled and purred inarticulately through her tears over her recovered darling, before she could speak intelligibly enough to tell her that Canon Livingstone had come straight to see her immediately on his return to East Chester, and had suggested her journey to Hellingford, in order that she might be of all the comfort she could to Ellinor. ”

“ Three days of this moist, warm, growing weather, and the green grass would spring, just as if life—was what it had been twenty-four hours before.
When all this was done and said, it seemed as if Ellinor’s strength and spirit sank down at once. Her voice became feeble, her aspect wan; and although she told Miss Monro that nothing was the matter, yet it was impossible for any one who loved her not to perceive that she was far from well. The kind governess placed her pupil on the sofa, covered her feet up warmly, darkened the room, and then stole out on tiptoe, fancying that Ellinor would sleep. ”

“ Captain George Monro, probably a son of Sir Harry Monro, Bart., also saw something of the barbarities at the Abbaye, and on December 17, describing how people were stopped in the streets, watches and rings taken, and even earrings pulled off, he wrote: "I myself never move out but with pistols in my pocket, as I find them more necessary here than in Turkey." Monro remained till the condemnation of Louis XVI., and sent despatches chiefly relating to the British Jacobins in Paris, with whom he pretended to fraternise, but his position was unofficial and indeed unsafe. ”

“ Miss Monro would gladly have made a festival of her recovery, and have had her conveyed into the unused drawing-room. But Ellinor begged that she might be taken into the library—into the schoolroom—anywhere (thought she) not looking on the side of the house on the flower-garden, which she had felt in all her illness as a ghastly pressure lying within sight of those very windows, through which the morning sun streamed right upon her bed—like the accusing angel, bringing all hidden things to light. ”

“ TO MISS MONROE
[SKERRYVORE, BOURNEMOUTH, JUNE 1886.]
MY DEAR MISS MONROE, - I am ill in bed and stupid, incoherently stupid; yet I have to answer your letter, and if the answer is incomprehensible you must forgive me. You say my letter caused you pleasure; I am sure, as it fell out, not near so much as yours has brought to me. The interest taken in an author is fragile: his next book, or your next year of culture, might see the interest frosted or outgrown; and himself, in spite of all, you might probably find the most distasteful person upon earth. ”

“ She was thinking of going to the prison in the county town, to see the old man herself, but Ellinor could perceive that all these endeavours and purposes of Miss Monro’s were based on love for her own pupil, and a desire to set her mind at ease as far as she could, rather than from any idea that Dixon himself could be innocent. Ellinor put down the letters, and went to the door, then turned back, and locked them up in her writing-case with trembling hands; and after that she entered the drawing-room, looking liker to a ghost than to a living woman. ”

“ So he, though grave, and middle-aged, and somewhat grey, divided attention and remark with his lovely bride, and her pretty train of cousin bridesmaids. Miss Monro need not have feared for Ellinor: she saw and heard all things as in a mist—a dream; as something she had to go through, before she could waken up to a reality of brightness in which her youth, and the hopes of her youth, should be restored, and all these weary years of dreaminess and woe should be revealed as nothing but the nightmare of a night. ”

“ The young lady whom you received into your house as the daughter of your old friend, was in reality the person engaged by Miss Monroe to fulfil the duties of her maid on board ship, after her native attendant had been landed at Malta. Her real name, as I have told you, is Mary O'Grady, and she has proved herself a valuable coadjutor to Miss Monroe in assisting her to carry out a programme, which she must have arranged with her lover, Mr. Danvers, before she left Pekin. ”

“ Again old Monro watches from his fortress-walls the steadily approaching foe, and looks in vain for help, save to his own brave heart. I see the light of conquest shining in his foeman's eye, darkened by the shadow of the fate that waits his coming on a bleak Northern hill but, generous in the hour of victory, he shall not be less noble in defeat,—for to generous hearts all generous hearts are friendly, whether they stand face to face or side by side. ”

“ Montcalm kept it several days, till the English rampart was half battered down; and then, after saluting his enemy with a volley from all his cannon, he sent it with a graceful compliment to Monro. It was Bougainville who carried it, preceded by a drummer and a flag. He was met at the foot of the glacis, blindfolded, and led through the fort and along the edge of the lake to the intrenched camp, where Monro was at the time. "He returned many thanks," writes the emissary in his Diary, "for the courtesy of our nation, and protested his joy at having to do with so generous an enemy. ”

“ Wilkins’s engagements were. If he had nothing better to do that evening, he was either asked to dine at the parsonage, or he, in his careless hospitable way, invited the other two to dine with him, Ellinor forming the fourth at table, as far as seats went, although her dinner had been eaten early with Miss Monro. She was little and slight of her age, and her father never seemed to understand how she was passing out of childhood. Yet while in stature she was like a child; in intellect, in force of character, in strength of clinging affection, she was a woman. ”

“ Wilkins was in good humour with the world in general at dinner-time, and it needs little in such cases to condense and turn the lowering tempers into one particular direction. As long as Ellinor and Miss Monro stayed in the dining-room, a sort of moody peace had been kept up, the ladies talking incessantly to each other about the trivial nothings of their daily life, with an instinctive consciousness that if they did not chatter on, something would be said by one of the gentlemen which would be distasteful to the other. ”

“ It was not that the good lady did not quite acknowledge the great cause her pupil had for grieving—deserted by her lover, her father dead—but that she could not bear the outward signs of how much these sorrows had told on Ellinor. Her love for the poor girl was infinitely distressed by seeing the daily wasting away, the constant heavy depression of spirits, and she grew impatient of the continual pain of sympathy. If Miss Monro could have done something to relieve Ellinor of her woe, she would have been less inclined to scold her for giving way to it. ”

“ All these remarks did not come near Ellinor to trouble her life. To her, her dear father was the first of human beings; so sweet, so good, so kind, so charming in conversation, so full of accomplishment and information! To her healthy, happy mind every one turned their bright side. She loved Miss Monro—all the servants—especially Dixon, the coachman. He had been her father’s playfellow as a boy, and, with all his respect and admiration for his master, the freedom of intercourse that had been established between them then had never been quite lost. ”

“ When Robert Munro was defeated by Owen Roe O'Neill at Benburb on 5 June 1646, George Monro, who, with the rank of colonel, was in command of three troops of horse and 240 musqueteers, occupied an isolated position in dangerous proximity to the enemy, but after the battle with 'his party miraculously retreated home from the enemy' 'without the loss of a man' (Rushworth, Historical Collections, pt. iv. vol. i. p. 400) . In 1648 the Scottish parliament recalled Monro from Ireland to join the expedition into England under Hamilton for the relief of the king (Guthry, Memoirs, p. 260) . ”

“ Is she a princess or only an American?"
I glanced at the Reverend Ronald. I imagined he looked pale; at any rate, he was biting his under lip nervously and I believe he was in fancy laying his serious, Scottish, allopathic, Presbyterian heart at Francesca's gay, American, homoeopathic, Swedenborgian feet.
"It is a pity Miss Monroe is such an ardent republican," he said, with unconcealed bitterness; "otherwise she ought to be a duchess. I never saw a head that better suited a coronet, nor, if you will pardon me, one that contained more caprices." ”

“ I have no doubt the poor woman suffered terribly from sea-sickness, as it was her first voyage, and I have equally no doubt that Miss Monroe worked on her fears, and persuaded her to land at Malta, and return to China by the next packet. Step number two was to find a suitable person, who for a consideration, would be willing to play the part of the Pekin heiress among the heiress's friends in England, while the young lady herself arranged her private affairs to her own liking. ”

“ I rendered Miss Monroe that service which one female should afford another in such a case; and I cannot think of accepting any recompense."
With these words she laid two of the notes upon the table.
"You are really a most extraordinary woman," cried Greenwood, who was perfectly astonished at the idea of any one in her class of life refusing money. "Will you not permit me to offer you a ring—a watch—or some trinket—"
"No, sir," replied Marian, with severe firmness of tone and manner. "Miss Monroe is so kind—so good—so gentle, I would go to the end of the world to serve her." ”

“ I am not come to steal the fruit, but to succor humanity in distress. Miss Monroe insisted that I should borrow the inn ladder. She thought a rescue would be much more romantic than waiting for Miss Grieve. Everybody is coming out to witness it, at least all your guests,—there are no strangers present,—and Miss Monroe is already collecting sixpence a head for the entertainment, to be given, she says, to Mr. Macdonald's sustentation fund. ”

“ The "party of conspirators here," wrote Monro on December 17th, "have formed themselves into a society," prepared for the most desperate measures against their native country. They included Sir Robert Smith, a banker at Paris, Paine, Frost, Rayment, Sayer, Joyce, Henry Redhead Yorke, and Robert Merry, husband of the actress Miss Brunton. ”