The Bracelets Or, Amiability and Industry Rewarded
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Maria Edgeworth
Although born in England in 1768, Maria Edgeworth was raised in Ireland from a young age after the death of her mother. After nearly losing her sight at age fourteen, Edgeworth was tutored at home by her father, helping to run their estate and taking charge of her younger siblings. Over the course of her life she collaborated and published books with her father, and produced many more of her own adult and children’s works, including such classics as Castle Rackrent, Patronage, Belinda, Ormond and The Absentee. Edgeworth spent her entire life on the family estate, but kept up friendships and correspondences with her contemporaries Sir Walter Scott and Lord Byron, and her writing had a profound influence upon Jane Austen and William Makepeace Thackeray. Edgeworth was outspoken on the issues of poverty, women’s rights, and racial inequalities. During the beginnings of famine in Ireland, Edgeworth worked in relief and support of the sick and destitute. She died in 1849 at the age of 81.
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The Bracelets Or, Amiability and Industry Rewarded - Maria Edgeworth
The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Bracelets, by Maria Edgeworth
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Title: The Bracelets
Author: Maria Edgeworth
Release Date: February 17, 2004 [EBook #11121]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BRACELETS ***
Produced by Internet Archive; University of Florida, Children, Andrea
Ball and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
THE BRACELETS;
OR,
AMIABILITY AND INDUSTRY REWARDED.
BY
MARIA EDGEWORTH,
AUTHOR OF POPULAR TALES,
MORAL TALES,
ETC. ETC.
With Illustrations from Original Designs.
1850.
CONTENTS
THE BRACELETS.
CONTINUATION OF THE BRACELETS.
ILLUSTRATIONS
The Bracelets. Edgeworth
Two girls
Treasure box
Appleton List of Books
Blossoms of Morality
Child's Own Story Book
Mamma's Bible Stories
Very Little Tales for Very Little Children
Divine and Moral Songs
The Prize Story Book
Rhymes for The Nursery
Uncle John's Fancy Picture Books
THE BRACELETS.
In a beautiful and retired part of England lived Mrs. Villars, a lady whose accurate understanding, benevolent heart, and steady temper, peculiarly fitted her for the most difficult, as well as most important of all occupations—the education of youth. This task she had undertaken; and twenty young persons were put under her care, with the perfect confidence of their parents. No young people could be happier; they were good and gay, emulous, but not envious of each other; for Mrs. Villars was impartially just. Her praise they felt to be the reward of merit, and her blame they knew to be the necessary consequence of ill conduct; to the one, therefore, they patiently submitted, and in the other consciously rejoiced. They rose with fresh cheerfulness in the morning, eager to pursue their various occupations; they returned in the evening with renewed ardour to their amusements, and retired to rest satisfied with themselves and pleased with each other.
Nothing so much contributed to preserve a spirit of emulation in this little society as a small honorary distinction given annually, as the prize of successful application. The prize this year was peculiarly dear to each individual, as it was the picture of a friend whom they all dearly loved—it was the picture of Mrs. Villars in a small bracelet. It wanted neither gold, pearls, nor precious stones, to give it value.
The two foremost candidates for the prize were Cecilia and Leonora. Cecilia was the most intimate friend of Leonora, but Leonora was only the favourite companion of Cecilia.
Cecilia was of an active, ambitious, enterprising disposition; more eager in the pursuit than happy in the enjoyment of her wishes. Leonora was of a contented, unaspiring, temperate character, not easily roused to action, but indefatigable when once excited. Leonora was proud, Cecilia was vain. Her vanity made her more dependent upon the approbation of others, and therefore more anxious to please, than Leonora; but that very vanity made her, at the same time, more apt to offend. In short, Leonora was the most anxious to avoid what was wrong, Cecilia the most ambitious to do what was right. Few of their companions loved, but many were led by Cecilia, for she was often successful; many loved Leonora, but none were ever governed by her, for she was too indolent to govern.
On the first day of May, about six o'clock in the evening, a great bell rang, to summon this little society into a hall, where the prize was to be decided. A number of small tables were placed in a circle in the middle of the hall; seats for the young competitors were raised one above another, in a semicircle, some yards distant from the table; and the judges' chairs, under canopies of lilacs and luburnums, forming another semicircle, closed the amphitheatre. Every one put their writings, their drawings, their works of various kinds, upon the tables appropriated for each. How unsteady were the last steps to these tables! How each little hand trembled as it laid down its claims! Till this moment every one thought herself secure of success, but now each felt an equal certainty of being excelled; and the heart which a few minutes before exulted with hope, now