For some hours I was inconsolable; but at length tired nature befriended me, and I wept myself to sleep. The next morning, before I was sufficiently awake for recollection, I again, in a confused sense of pain, began my instinctive wailing. I was, however, somewhat comforted by the examination of my new jet ornaments; and the paroxysms of my grief thenceforth returned at lengthening intervals, and with abating force. Yet when I passed my mother's chamber-door, and remembered that all within was desolate, I would cast myself down at the threshold, and mix with shrieks of agony the oft-repeated cry of Mother! mother! Or, when I was summoned to the parlour, where no one now was concerned to promote my pastimes, or remove my difficulties, or grant my requests,--on the failure of some of my little projects, I would lean my head on her now vacant seat, and vent a quieter sorrow, till reproof swelled it into loud lamentation. These passing storms my father found to be very hostile to the calm which he had promised himself in a fortnight of decent seclusion from the cares of the counting-house. Besides, I became, in other respects, daily more troublesome. The only influence which could bend my stubborn will being now removed, he was hourly harassed with complaints of my refractory conduct. It was constantly, 'Sir, Miss Ellen won't go to bed,'--'Sir, Miss Ellen won't get up,'--'Sir, Miss Ellen won't have her hair combed,'--'Sir, Miss Ellen won't learn her lesson.' My father having tried his authority some half-a-dozen times in vain, declared, not without reason, that the child was completely spoiled; so, by way of a summary cure for the evil, so far at least as it affected himself, he determined to send me to a fashionable boarding-school. In pursuance of this determination I was conveyed to ---- House, then one of the most polite seminaries of the metropolis, and committed to the tuition of Madame Duprè. My father, who did not pique himself on his acquaintance with the mysteries of education, gave no instructions in regard to mine, except that expense should not be spared on it; and he certainly never found reason to complain that this injunction was neglected. For my own part, I submitted, without opposition, to the change in my situation. The prospect of obtaining companions of my own age reconciled me to quitting the paternal roof, which I had of late found a melancholy abode.