Page:Memoir and correspondence of Caroline Herschel (1876).djvu/37

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Chap. I.]
Early Recollections.
17

appearance among them. The visit was a very brief one, offering no hope of any intention to settle in Hanover; the father was well aware that he at least could not look forward to another meeting on earth, while to the poor little unnoticed girl, this visit and its attendant circumstances stood out in her memory as fraught with anguish, which even her unskilled pen succeeds in representing as a grief almost too deep for words.

"Of the joys and pleasures which all felt at this long-wished-for meeting with my—let me say my dearest brother, but a small portion could fall to my share; for with my constant attendance at church and school, besides the time I was employed in doing the drudgery of the scullery, it was but seldom I could make one in the group when the family were assembled together.

"In the first week some of the orchestra were invited to a concert, at which some of my brother William's compositions, overtures, &c., and some of my eldest brother Jacob's were performed, to the great delight of my dear father, who hoped and expected that they would be turned to some profit by publishing them, but there was no printer who bid high enough.

"Sunday the 8th was the—to me—eventful day of my confirmation, and I left home not a little proud and encouraged by my dear brother William's approbation of my appearance in my new gown."

Not only was she disappointed in her fervent hope that the longed-for brother would not come at the very time when she was obliged to be much from