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Contents (32)
  1. Miss Mackenzie
  2. Table of Contents
  3. Chapter I. The Mackenzie Family
  4. Chapter II. Miss Mackenzie Goes to Littlebath
  5. Chapter III. Miss Mackenzie’s First Acquaintances
  6. Chapter IV. Miss Mackenzie Commences Her Career
  7. Chapter V. Showing How Mr Rubb, Junior, Progressed at Littlebath
  8. Chapter VI. Miss Mackenzie Goes to the Cedars
  9. Chapter VII. Miss Mackenzie Leaves the Cedars
  10. Chapter VIII. Mrs Tom Mackenzie’s Dinner Party
  11. Chapter IX. Miss Mackenzie’s Philosophy
  12. Chapter X. Plenary Absolutions
  13. Chapter XI. Miss Todd Entertains Some Friends at Tea
  14. Chapter XII. Mrs Stumfold Interferes
  15. Chapter XIII. Mr Maguire’s Courtship
  16. Chapter XIV. Tom Mackenzie’s Bed-Side
  17. Chapter XV. The Tearing of the Verses
  18. Chapter XVI. Lady Ball’s Grievance
  19. Chapter XVII. Mr Slow’s Chambers
  20. Chapter XVIII. Tribulation
  21. Chapter XIX. Showing How Two of Miss Mackenzie’s Lovers Behaved
  22. Chapter XX. Showing How the Third Lover Behaved
  23. Chapter XXI. Mr Maguire Goes to London on Business
  24. Chapter XXII. Still at the Cedars
  25. Chapter XXIII. The Lodgings of Mrs Buggins, Née Protheroe
  26. Chapter XXIV. The Little Story of the Lion and the Lamb
  27. Chapter XXV. Lady Ball in Arundel Street
  28. Chapter XXVI. Mrs Mackenzie of Cavendish Square
  29. Chapter XXVII. The Negro Soldiers’ Orphan Bazaar
  30. Chapter XXVIII. Showing How the Lion Was Stung by the Wasp
  31. Chapter XXIX. A Friend in Need Is a Friend Indeed
  32. Chapter XXX. Conclusion

Chapter II.
Miss Mackenzie Goes to Littlebath

I fear that Miss Mackenzie, when she betook herself to Littlebath, had before her mind’s eye no sufficiently settled plan of life. She wished to live pleasantly, and perhaps fashionably; but she also desired to live respectably, and with a due regard to religion. How she was to set about doing this at Littlebath, I am afraid she did not quite know. She told herself over and over again that wealth entailed duties as well as privileges; but she had no clear idea what were the duties so entailed, or what were the privileges. How could she have obtained any clear idea on the subject in that prison which she had inhabited for so many years by her brother’s bedside?

She had indeed been induced to migrate from London to Littlebath by an accident which should not have been allowed to actuate her. She had been ill, and the doctor, with that solicitude which doctors sometimes feel for ladies who are well to do in the world, had recommended change of air. Littlebath, among the Tantivy hills, would be the very place for her. There were waters at Littlebath which she might drink for a month or two with great advantage to her system. It was then the end of July, and everybody that was anybody was going out of town. Suppose she were to go to Littlebath in August, and stay there for a month, or perhaps two months, as she might feel inclined. The London doctor knew a Littlebath doctor, and would be so happy to give her a letter. Then she spoke to the clergyman of the church she had lately attended in London who also had become more energetic in his assistance since her brother’s death than he had been before, and he also could give her a letter to a gentleman of his cloth at Littlebath. She knew very little in private life of the doctor or of the clergyman in London, but not the less, on that account, might their introductions be of service to her in forming a circle of acquaintance at Littlebath. In this way she first came to think of Littlebath, and from this beginning she had gradually reached her decision.