“Well, if you do not wish it. But why will you not tell? You are afraid of her; what power has she over you?”
“I do not know. I mean I do; I want to tell you, but I don’t dare to. Let us talk about your rat—poor Pip.”
“How very queer you are, Nan! If there is a subject that I hate talking about it is about Pip.”
“But why?”
“I will tell you why. I have not told anybody else, not even Nora, but I will tell you. I ought not to have gone away that day in the country when Pip was so ill. It was awfully selfish of me! Perhaps if I hadn’t gone he would not have had that fit, poor dear! and he might have been alive still.”
“He might, of course,” said Nan, who knew well that he would have been alive, for certainly Jack would not have got at him had Kitty remained at home.
“That is why I am so absolutely miserable when I think about it,” continued Kitty. “The poor darling died quite neglected; even you did not go up to see him, because I asked you not.”
“And if,” said Nan, trembling very much—“if Pip had not died in the way you think, but from a sort of an accident, how would you feel then?”
“How would I feel if Pip had met with an accident? But he did not meet with an accident.”
“But let us suppose,” said Nan—“it is fun sometimes to suppose—let us suppose that he did, that that was the way he died.”
“I cannot suppose what did not happen, and I hate to talk of it.”
“But if it had, and—and somebody was to blame, how would you feel towards that somebody?”
“You really are too extraordinary, Nan! I should hate that somebody. I tell you what it is,” continued Kitty, “I would never forgive that person—never, never. But there! what nonsense you are talking! Nothing of the kind did happen. That is not your secret, is it?”
“Oh! of course not—of course not,” said Nan, frightened, and plunging into the biggest lie she had yet told. “No, no—of course not; only I like to wonder and think things out. It amuses me; I was always given that way.”
“Well,” said Kitty, “you gave me a fright. You talked as if it might be the case; and your voice was so queer and shaky! I do believe there is a mystery, but of course it is not that.”
“No, it is not that.”
“You did not go up to see Pip?”
“Of course not.”
“I am sorry I asked, for of course you would not do it, as I told you not. Nan darling, do please tell me what makes you so unhappy; please tell me. Let us forget about my little Pip. He is in his grave, poor, darling little rat, and all his troubles are over. He was so affectionate, and I was so fond of him! But he will never feel any pain ever again. And I love you, Nan; and Noney and I are wretched to think that you are so unhappy.”
“It is all right,” said Nan. “I will try not to be unhappy in the future. I have things that worry me now and then.”
“I will tell you what one of them is: you are afraid of Augusta; she has a power over you. You will be all right again when she goes away.”
“I don’t know,” said Nan; “perhaps so.”
Kitty could get nothing further out of Nan, and as it was now time to get up, she went slowly back to her own room.
Nora raised her head when Kitty came.
“Well,” she said, “have you discovered anything?”
“Nothing. I begin to think Nan a very strange little girl. Do you know, she asked me such a funny question! She said, ‘Suppose Pip had died by an accident, and somebody was to blame, how would you feel towards the somebody?’”
“What did you say?”
“That I would hate that somebody, and never forgive her.”
“I wonder why she said it,” continued Nora.
“Oh! I am sure I don’t know. I asked her point-blank if Pip had come by an accident, and she said ‘No,’ and that nobody had been upstairs. She is a very strange girl, but I love her all the same.”
On the following Sunday Nan came to Mrs. Richmond with a request.
“I do so want to see Mr. Pryor!” she said. “I have not seen him for two or three months; and he said that he was always at home on Sundays. May I go there this afternoon with Susan? Do, please, let me, Mrs. Richmond.”
“Certainly, Nan dear; I am always glad that you should see your mother’s dear old friend.”
So after early dinner, Nan, dressed in her pretty and neat mourning, started off, accompanied by Susan, to visit Mr. Pryor. She had not ventured to the house where her mother had died before, for on the last occasion of their meeting Mr. Pryor had come to see her. The door was opened by Phoebe, who, in her delight at seeing Nan, forgot all decorum, and shocked Susan almost out of her wits by flinging her arms round the little girl’s neck and hugging her tightly.
“Oh, Miss Nan! it is good to see you; and my missus, Mrs. Vincent, will be that pleased! You will come down, miss, and have a cup of tea with my mistress before you go back, won’t you? Oh! it is elegant you look. What a pretty frock, miss! It ain’t cut by our pattern, be it, miss?”
“No,” said Nan. “Please, Phoebe, can I see Mr. Pryor?”
“It is delighted he will be to see you, darling. I’ll just run up and ask him. Won’t you come into the parlour, dear? The parlour lodgers has gone, and there is no one there at present. Wait a minute, love, while I inquire whether Mr. Pryor is in. Oh! of course he must be; but I’ll go and find out.”
Nan and Susan went into the parlour, and presently Phoebe rushed downstairs.
“Mr. Pryor says you are to go up this very minute, miss. And he has ordered tea for two, and muffins and cream. And perhaps this young person would come to the kitchen.”
Poor Phoebe glanced with admiring eyes at Susan. Susan’s manners were staid and of a rebuking character. She did not think Phoebe at all the sort of girl she would care to associate with; but as Nan said in a careless tone, “Yes, Susan, go downstairs,” and then ran by herself to the drawing-room floor, there was nothing for it but to obey.
“What an elegant young lady Miss Nan has grown,” said Phoebe. “Come downstairs, won’t you, miss? My mistress will make you right welcome.”
So Susan had to make the best of it, and tripped down, accompanied by Phoebe.
Upstairs a very hearty welcome had taken place. Mr. Pryor had kissed Nan, and taken her hand and made her seat herself in the most comfortable armchair in the room; and then he had stood in front of her and looked her all over, from her head to the points of her neat little shoes.
“Well, Nancy,” he said, “and how goes the world?”
“I am very unhappy,” replied Nan at once. “For a time I felt better, but I am unhappy now. I have a great big secret, and it weighs on me and gets heavier and heavier every day; and I can never tell it, not to you nor to anybody; and I can never, never, never now be the best girl that mother wanted me to be.”
“That is very sad indeed, Nancy,” replied her friend; “and I cannot understand it, my dear. Nobody ought to be in the position you have just described yourself to be in, far less a little girl who is treated with such kindness and love.”
“It is because I am loved, and because they are so sweet, that I am so dreadfully unhappy,” said Nan. “I have told a lot of lies, Mr. Pryor, and I can never unsay them. I can never tell the truth, for if I did those whom I love would cease to love me. When it began I did not think it would be such a big thing, but now it has grown and grown, and I can think of nothing else. My lessons, and my play, and my walks, and even dear little Jack, are not a bit interesting to me because of this big Thing. There is no way out, Mr. Pryor; there is no way out at all.”
“That is not true, Nancy, my dear.”
Mr. Pryor sat down and looked thoughtful. The little girl’s face, the tone of her voice, the suffering which filled her eyes, showed him that her sorrow, whatever its nature, was very real.
“Suppose we ask God to help us out of this,” he said after a moment’s pause.
“I don’t want to ask God, for I know what He will say, and I cannot do it.”
“What will God say, Nancy?”
“That I must tell—that I am to tell the people what I did. And they will never, never forgive me, and I cannot tell—I cannot tell, Mr. Pryor.”
“Then, my dear Nancy, why did you come to see me?”
“Because I thought perhaps you would find the middle way.”
“The middle way, Nancy?”
“The way between the very naughty and the very good. There must be a middle way, and I want to get into it and to keep in it. Cannot you find it for me?”
“I have never heard of it, Nancy—never. I am afraid there is no middle way. You have done, I take it, something wrong; and you have, I take it, told a lie about it.”
“That is it.”
“And one lie, as is invariably the case, has led to another, and to another, and to another.”
“Oh yes, Mr. Pryor, that is certainly it.”
“And each lie makes your poor little heart feet more sad, and each lie shuts out more and more of the beautiful sunshine of God’s love from your spirit. Nancy, there is no middle way. You must go on telling those lies, and adding to the misery of your life, and getting lower and lower and your heart harder and harder, until after a time that happens which”——
“What?” said Nan. “You frighten me.”
“That happens which is the result of sin. You do not suffer any more pain; your conscience ceases to prick you; that voice within you is tired, and will not speak any more because you have treated it so badly. That is what will happen in the lower path on which you are preparing to walk.”
“You terrify me. I am sorry I came. I will not stay any longer. I could not tell.”
“Come here, Nancy, and let us talk it over.”
“I cannot—I do not want to say any more. Let us forget it.”
“My dear child, you would not have come to me if you had not hoped”——
“Yes; I hoped that you would show me the middle path.”
“There is none. Nancy dear, will you not confide in me if I faithfully promise that I will not tell any one what you have done.”
Nan paused to think.
“I should like to,” she said, “but I have promised not to tell.”
“Who did you promise?”
“I cannot even tell you that. Perhaps I will some day; perhaps I will get the person to allow me to tell you. It is a dreadful thing, and it seemed so small at the beginning! I am a very unhappy girl.”
“It requires a little pluck to get out of this dilemma, Nancy. But the strong hand of God would help you over this crisis in your life, and, lo and behold! the darkness would go, and sunshine and joy would be yours again.”
“I hoped so once, but I spoke to Kitty the other morning. I made up a sort of case, and I tried to find out what she would feel; and she said that if anybody had done such an awful thing, that person would be her enemy, and she would never, never forgive her. And then she asked me what I meant, and if anybody had done it; and I told a lot of fresh lies, and said no—nobody had done it; and I cannot go to Kitty now and tell her that I did it after all.”
“You are very mysterious, Nancy, and you make me very unhappy; but if you have quite made up your mind to go on being a naughty girl and adding to this burden of lies, I will not talk about it any more just now. But I will pray a great deal for you, and beg of God not to let your conscience go to sleep.”
“Oh, please, do not, for I am so miserable!”
“Here comes the tea. Will you pour me out a cup?” was Mr. Pryor’s answer.
Phoebe, with her beaming face, brought in the tray.
“If you please, miss, Mrs. Vincent would like to see you very much before you go away. Susan is having an agreeable time in the kitchen with a new-laid egg and buttered toast to her tea; and Mrs. Vincent will be so glad to see you once again, miss!”
Nan murmured something. Phoebe left the room. Even Phoebe noticed the shadow on the little face.
“Now, come,” said Mr. Pryor; “you know exactly how I like my tea; pour it out for me. One lump of sugar and a very little cream. Ah! that is right.”
Nan ministered to the dear old gentleman, and as he chatted upon every subject but the one closest her heart, she tried to cheer up for his sake.
By-and-by her visit came to an end. She bade Mr. Pryor good-bye. He told her that he would be in any day if she wished to speak to him, but he did not again allude to her secret. Mrs. Vincent was enraptured with Nan’s appearance, and made her turn round two or three times in order to get a good view of the cut of her dress.
“I declare, Phoebe,” she said, “you could take the pattern of that in your mind, so to speak. It is a very stylish little costume; most elegant it would look on my little granddaughter, Rosie Watson.”
Phoebe sniffed in a somewhat aggressive way; she did not consider that Rosie Watson had any right to the same pattern as Nan. Soon afterwards Susan and Nan left the house and went back to Mayfield Gardens.
Nan was so unhappy that night that she could not sleep. She was glad that she had a room to herself, for it did not matter how often she tossed from side to side, or how often she turned her pillow, or how often she groaned aloud. Mr. Pryor’s words, “There is no middle path,” kept ringing over and over in her ears. She thought of her mother, too, and of what her mother would feel if she saw her now—a little girl surrounded by every kindness, surrounded by luxuries and the good things of life, and yet, because she was afraid, going down and down and down the broad and steep path which led to destruction.
“It means that I will not see mother if I do not tell,” thought the child; and then she burst into tears. Towards morning she made up her mind that she would try to overcome her terrors; she would at least see Mr. Pryor and tell him exactly what had happened—she would tell him the whole truth—and be guided by his advice.
“Perhaps he will not think it necessary for me to tell everything,” thought the child. “Anyhow, I know he will not be hard on me, for I do not think he could be that on any one.”
Having finally made up her mind to confide in Mr. Pryor, she became soothed and comparatively happy, and dropped off towards morning into a quiet sleep.
She overslept herself, as was but natural, and had to jump up and dress in a hurry; but hurry as she would she was late for breakfast. Miss Roy said:
“Nancy, this is not as it should be.”
But she was a very gentle and considerate person, and when she saw how pale Nan’s face looked, and how sad was the expression round her lips, she forbore to chide her further.
The children started off for school immediately after breakfast, and the day’s routine proceeded as usual. In the afternoon Nan went up to Miss Roy and made a request.
“I want to know if you will do something for me; there is something I want very, very badly.”
“What is it, my dear?” asked the governess.
“Will you walk with me as far as Mr. Pryor’s? I want to see him.”
“But, my dear Nancy, you saw him yesterday.”
“But I want to see him awfully badly again to-day.”
“That sounds rather absurd.”
“He was a great friend of mother’s, and it is most important; may I go, Miss Roy?”
Just at that moment Augusta strolled into the schoolroom.
“Ah, Nancy!” she said, “you promised to hold this wool for me. There is a great lot to be wound; it will take us quite half-an-hour. Come, we may as well start; I have got to wind all the coloured balls and put them in order for Lady Denby’s bazaar.”
“I cannot do it this evening,” replied Nan, shrugging her shoulders and turning back in sheer desperation to speak to Miss Roy.
“And I am afraid,” said Miss Roy, “I cannot go with you, dear, so there is an end of it.”
“What is it?” said Augusta. “What does she want, Miss Roy?”
“Why, this silly little girl,” said Miss Roy, who saw no reason for keeping Nan’s request a secret, “wants me to walk with her as far as Mr. Pryor’s.”
“Who in the name of fortune is Mr. Pryor?” asked Augusta.
“A friend of mine, and you have nothing to do with him,” said Nan, speaking fast, and her cheeks flushing with anger.
“Hoity-toity!” cried Augusta. “But I rather think I have something to do with all your friends; for are you not my very own most special friend—are you not, Nan? Come here and tell me so; come and tell me so now before Miss Roy.”
“I won’t,” said Nan.
“But I think you will, darling. Just come along this minute.”
Nan went as if some one were pulling her back all the time. She got within a foot of Augusta; there she stood still.
“Nearer still, sweet,” said Augusta. “You are my very great friend, and I am your very great friend.”
“How mysterious you are, Gussie,” said Miss Roy. “Why, of course, everybody knows that you and Nancy are great friends.”
“That is all right,” said Augusta, “I just wish to proclaim it in public. I am very proud of our friendship.—I like you immensely, Nancy; all my life long I hope to be good to you. And now, kneel; you will oblige me by winding this wool.”
“I cannot. I must go out this evening.”
“And I cannot go with you, Nancy, so there is an end of it, I fear,” said Miss Roy; and she walked out of the room, feeling rather annoyed with Nancy.
“Now, Nancy, what is it?” asked Augusta.
“Nothing. I will hold your wool while you wind.”
“What a cross face! It is not at all agreeable to me to have a girl like you standing in front of me. And I am so good to you, and absolutely soiling my conscience for your sake—for, of course, I ought to tell what I know; I ought, but I will not. Now then, smile, won’t you?”
“I cannot.”
“Well, then, you need not smile. Here, hold this wool.”
The next half-hour was occupied by poor Nan in holding skeins of wool until her arms ached. At the end of that time, to her great relief, Augusta was called by Mrs. Richmond to go downstairs. Nan had the schoolroom to herself. She stood still, pressing her hand to her eyes. The next instant Augusta dashed into the room.
“Hurrah!” she said, “my dear aunty Jessie is going to take me to the theatre. I shall be out the whole evening. What fun! We are to get ready immediately; we will be off in no time.”
Augusta ran off to her own bedroom, and Nan went slowly into hers. Quick as thought she made up her mind. If no one would take her to Mr. Pryor, she would go to visit him alone. Miss Roy would be busy downstairs for some time and would not miss her; Mrs. Richmond and Augusta would be out; the two girls were spending the evening with friends.
“The thing is too important. All my future hangs on it. I must see him, and soon,” thought the child.
She put on her hat and coat, watched her opportunity, and slipped downstairs. She got out without any one noticing her, and having a very good eye for locality, in course of time found her way to Mr. Pryor’s lodgings. She had walked the entire distance; it took her exactly half-an-hour. Trembling in every limb, she mounted the steps and rang the bell. How often she had stood on those steps by her mother’s side! That failing form, that wan face, those loving eyes, all returned to her memory now.
“It is for mother’s sake—for mother’s sake,” she said to herself; and then Phoebe opened the door. She gave a start of rapture, and catching hold of Nan’s hand, pulled her into the house.
“Why, Miss Nan,” she said, “this is better and better. Yesterday evening you came unexpected, and to-day you come again. But you are all alone, miss; where is Susan?”
“I ran away this time, and you must not tell anybody, Phoebe.”
“Oh, ain’t you got spirit just?” said Phoebe in a tone of admiration. “But, miss, I hopes you won’t get into trouble.”
“No, no. I mean it does not matter. I want to see Mr. Pryor at once.”
“Oh, Miss Nancy! ain’t you heard, miss?”
“No. What—what?”
“Why, my dear, I am afraid you will be disappointed. He got a telegram this morning from his son, who is took very bad in Spain, and he has gone off to him. You know he had only one son, and he lives most of his time at Madrid, and he is took shocking bad—almost at death’s door—with some sort of fever; and the dear old gentleman was near off his head all day, and he has gone to him. He is away, Miss Nan, in the train, being whirled out of London by this time. You cannot see him, miss, however hard you try.”
“It does not matter,” said Nan. She spoke in a low tone; there was a sense at once of relief and of disappointment in her breast. It seemed to her at that moment that her good angels left her, and that her bad angels drew near. Nevertheless, she was relieved.
“I will see you back if you wish, miss.”
“No; it does not matter. I will get home as soon as I can.”
“Have you any message, miss? Perhaps mistress has Mr. Pryor’s address.”
“No; I could not write anything. Good-bye, Phoebe.”
“And you will not see my mistress?”
“No; I cannot.”
“And you would not like me to see you back?”
“No, no; I will go alone.”
Before Phoebe could utter another word, Nan was running up the street in the direction of Mayfield Gardens.
“God did not want me to tell, and there must be a middle path—there must,” thought the child.
She got back to the house without any one missing her. She went upstairs again to the schoolroom. A moment or two later she had taken off her hat and jacket, put them away neatly in the orderly little room which nurse insisted on her keeping, and sat down by the schoolroom fire. The day had been a warm one and the fire had only been lit an hour ago, but Nan felt cold, and was grateful for its warmth. She crouched near it, shivering slightly.
“I would have done it,” she said to herself, “if Mr. Pryor had been at home; but God sent him away, and—well, I cannot do it now. I hope my conscience will not trouble me too badly. I will try to be awfully good in every other way, and I must forget this; I must—I must.”
It was a few days after Nan’s stolen visit to Mr. Pryor that great excitement reigned in the house in Mayfield Gardens. In the first place, there had come a letter which greatly concerned Augusta. This letter was from her mother, begging of Mrs. Richmond to look after Augusta for a year, for Mrs. Duncan and her husband were going to South America on special business. They would be wandering about from place to place for quite that time, and it would suit Mrs. Duncan uncommonly well if Augusta remained with her sister. Mrs. Richmond herself spoke to Augusta about it.
“If you can put up with me, dear,” she said, “I shall be glad to have you; but you know that ours is a somewhat humdrum life, and you are older than my girls. Your mother proposed as an alternative that you should go to a very fashionable finishing-school, where you would have a good deal of excitement and interest and be prepared for your entrance into society.”
“It does not matter,” said Augusta. “I am just fifteen. When father and mother come back I shall be only sixteen; it will be time enough then to go to a finishing-school. And I am very happy with you, Aunt Jessie.”
“I am glad of that, my dear; and I like to have you. Well, you can run upstairs to the schoolroom and tell the children; I am sure they will be delighted.”
“The only one who may not be delighted is Nan Esterleigh,” remarked Augusta in a dubious voice.
“Come, my dear child, what do you mean? Nan not delighted! Why, I thought you were such special friends!”
“To tell you the truth, Aunt Jessie, I do not quite understand Nan; she is a very strange little girl. I have done my utmost to be friendly with her.”
“That you certainly have, darling.”
“And although to all appearance she is devoted to me, that is not the case in reality. I think if you were to question her you would find she does not like me at all. It is the fact of Nan’s extraordinary attitude towards me that makes me have any doubt of staying with you for the next year, sweet Aunt Jessie.”
“Then, my dear child, if such is the case I will have a talk with Nan myself. You certainly must not be made unhappy by any such ridiculous reason. Nan is a dear little girl, and I promised her mother to bring her up and do for her and make her happy, but I certainly did not mean her to be rude or unpleasant to my own sister’s child.”
“Oh! I do not mind, Aunt Jessie; do not worry her. I just thought I would mention it. Perhaps I shall win her in the end if I continue to be awfully kind, as I have been in the past. I take a lot of notice of her, as you know.”
“That you certainly do, dear.”
“And you are so good to her—so wonderfully good!” continued Augusta.
“Never mind that, my child; I could never be anything else. And Nan owes me nothing; I have said that before.”
Augusta kissed her aunt, and presently ran upstairs to the schoolroom. The children were having breakfast when she entered.
“Hurrah! Good news,” said Augusta. “Of course, that is how people take it. You thought, all of you, that I would be going back to father and mother in a few weeks’ time. Well, I am not; I am to stay here for a year—a year, positive. I am to be with you day and night for twelve whole months. When you go to the country I will go with you, and when you come back from the country I will come back with you. And I am to have regular lessons from this at school; and—— Oh, dear me! Nancy, you are glad, whoever else is sorry.”
“Yes—of course,” said Nancy. She said it in a trembling voice, and her face turned from white to red, and then from red to white again.
“Does she not look enraptured,” said Augusta, turning with laughing eyes to Kitty.
Kitty made no reply. She was glad on the whole that her cousin should stay. “The more the merrier” was her motto. She felt almost annoyed with Nan for the peculiarity of her attitude.
But the tidings that Augusta was to stay with them was completely eclipsed by other news, which filled the hearts of the two little girls, Kitty and Nora, with untold bliss.
“What do you think?” said Kitty, rushing into the room just as Nora and Nan were putting on their hats to go to school. “Uncle Peter is coming here to-day. He will stay for a fortnight or three weeks, mother says. Oh, this is heavenly! I am nearly off my head with delight.”
“Who is Uncle Peter? What does it mean?” said Nan.
“You will know what it means when you have seen him,” said Kitty; “but I will try and tell you something. It means the height of happiness; it means the extreme of joy; it means—oh, everything delightful! He is just perfect! He will be so sweet to you, too, Nan! He will be sweet to Augusta. He will be sweet to us all. He is father’s youngest brother—much, much younger than father. He is quite young still, and he is a captain in the army. And he is great fun—oh! great fun—and the house gets full of sunshine when he is with us.”
“I have never seen him,” said Augusta; “I should like to.”
“He will be sweet to you, Gussie. He will be delightful to us all. Oh, it is too good news! You never saw anything like the delight mother is in. I must rush off now and tell nursey; won’t she be glad!”
That day as she walked to school, and worked at her lessons, and came back again, there were three pieces of news rushing backwards and forwards in poor Nan’s heart. Two of them were bad, and one was good. Mr. Pryor was away, therefore there was no middle path; Augusta—the terrible Augusta, whom she hated and feared—was absolutely to live in the house for a whole year; and the children’s uncle Peter, the man who made everything right and turned gloom into sunshine, was coming to stay with them.
On her way to school Nan made up her mind to a certain course of action. When she had done so she was full of a sense of relief. She resolved to tell Augusta what she had determined to do as soon as possible. And as the two girls generally had the schoolroom to themselves after early dinner, her opportunity was not far to seek.
On this special day the whole house was more or less in a state of excitement; the spare room—the best spare room of all, the room which was called the Blue Room—was being got ready. The housemaids were busy turning out all the furniture, sweeping and dusting, polishing and cleaning.
“We never give that room except to some one who is very, very sweet,” said Nora; “but nothing is good enough for Uncle Peter.”
Mrs. Richmond’s face fairly shone with pleasure, and her little daughters laughed often for no special reason, the invariable remark being, “It is only because of Uncle Peter.” But they had gone back to school, and the midday meal was over, and Nan and Augusta were alone in the schoolroom. Augusta was seated in a rocking-chair in the window, Jack curled up in her lap. Jack had long ceased to take any notice of Nan, and Nan had sorrowfully resigned him to his real mistress.
“He is my dog no more,” the little girl thought; but the weight on her heart prevented her feeling the loss of Jack as she otherwise would have done.
Nan sat at the table, her lesson-books piled up in front of her; Augusta was buried in a new story-book, and forgot every one but herself. Presently Nan spoke.
“Augusta,” she said, “I have been thinking.”
“Well?” said Augusta. She put down her book and glanced at Nan.
Nan had a frown between her brows, but notwithstanding this fact her handsome little face looked very striking.
“She will be far more beautiful than any of us when she is grown-up,” thought Augusta. “Why should she have such a remarkable face? I hate her for it.”
“Unless you have something very important to say, please reserve your conversation until I get to a less fascinating part of my book,” said Augusta. “The hero is on the eve of proposing to the heroine, and I cannot make out whether she will accept him or not.”
“That is only a book, and I am real,” was Nan’s answer. “I want to say something to you.”
“Yes?”
“I have been making up my mind. You know what happened on the day you came.”
“Oh, that old story over again!” said Augusta. “Well, of course I know.”
“I cannot forget it.”
“So I see. You certainly have a terribly tender conscience, seeing the way you abuse it.”
“Oh, you do not know how unhappy I feel! You were surprised when, a night or two ago, I wanted to see Mr. Pryor. I will tell you what I did; I do not mind confessing to you. No one would take me, and I ran there all the way by myself.”
“You did, Nan! You are a daring little piece. Upon my word, there is something I rather admire about you. I could not be so out and out wicked—not for anybody.”
“All the same, I think you are wickeder than me, Augusta,” said Nan.
“You do, do you? Well, now, do you think that is a very polite thing to say, particularly when you have put yourself in my power as you are doing?”
“I am so much in your power,” replied poor Nan, “that a little more or a little less does not matter. I did go and see Mr. Pryor.”
“And whoever is this wonderful Mr. Pryor?”
“He is an old gentleman—awfully good.”
“Awfully dull, you mean.”
“No; that he is not. He is not a bit dull; he has always been great fun. He lived in the house with me and mother, and when mother died he was so kind! And when mother was ill he often talked to her, and he told me—— Oh Augusta! please—please listen. He told me that mother wanted me to be the best girl.”
“Poor thing! it is well that she is out of the world,” said Augusta.
“I know it is, Augusta—I know it is—for I am not a bit good; but Mr. Pryor wants me to be good, and I went to see him, but—— Oh, well! never mind; he is gone.”
“What! has he died too?”
“No, he is not dead, but it is as bad as if he were to me. He has gone to Spain to see his son, who is very ill. I went to visit him all for nothing.”
“You disobeyed Aunt Jessie for nothing. Certainly you are a nice girl! Don’t you think you owe something to her?”
“I owe a lot to her. Now, Augusta, I am coming to what I want to say to you. I want to forget what happened that time, and I want to live quite straight from this out. I am going to put all the past away from me, and I want to live straight.”
“What do you mean by straight?”
“Oh! how am I to explain? I want to get in the middle of the road, you know—always in the middle, never going the least bit to the left or the right.”
“That sounds very pretty, but the meaning of it is beyond me,” said Augusta.
“You would understand if you tried to; you are not at all stupid, you know.”
“Thanks, dear, for the compliment.”
“And I wanted to tell you I am going to keep straight; and as you are to be here for a year”——
“Ah! I thought the shoe pinched in that direction,” said Augusta, with a laugh.
“It does, Gussie—it does. I am ever so sorry! I could have loved you, of course; but I have always been just afraid of you.”
“And you will go on being afraid of me, honey, won’t you?”
“That is what I do not want to be. I want you never, never again to tempt me to be naughty. Do not tempt me any more, Augusta; that is what I want to ask.”
“You are a nice girl! I tempt you! What next?”
“Oh! you know you did. You know but for you I would have told all about Pip. You know but for you—— Oh Augusta! how can you pretend? You know; you must know.”
“I know you are a very stupid, silly little girl, and that you grow more troublesome and more silly every day. Why, what is the matter now?”
“I cannot bear it,” said Nan.
She gave a cry and burst into floods of tears.
Now, this was by no means what Augusta wished. Nan in tears—in violent tears—was intolerable. She put down her book. She advanced towards Nan; then she stood still.
She stood absolutely still, staring straight before her; for the door was open, and a tall young man, with slim and graceful figure, bright blue eyes, curly hair, and the pleasantest face in the world, was standing on the threshold.
“I am Uncle Peter,” he said in the gayest of voices. “Is anybody at home?”
Poor Nan dashed away her tears. The stranger—this delightful uncle of the little girls—even he was to see her in disgrace and in tears. Augusta spoke at once.
“I am Augusta Duncan,” she said. “I am no relation of yours, but I do hope you will take me for a niece too. Aunt Jessie will be so sorry to miss you! But she will be back again in an hour or two.”
“And this little girl?” said Uncle Peter. He glanced with the kindest of expressions in his eyes at Nan. “She is a little bit troubled about something.”
“Nan darling, do cheer up now,” said Augusta; “do, darling—do.”
Augusta went up to Nan and kissed her.
“What a kind—hearted girl!” thought Captain Richmond. “And what a cross face the little one has! But she seems to be in trouble all the same.”
“Come!” he said in a pleasant voice; “no one cries when I am by. I hate tears so much that they never flow when I am in the neighbourhood. You must cheer up now that I have come to the house. And is no one else at home? Is there no one to welcome me but a pretence niece, and the other”——
“Oh! no niece at all—no niece at all,” said poor Nan; “but I wish I was.”
“Then you shall be; you shall be little niece—— What is your name?”
“Nancy.”
“Little new niece Nancy. Come over here.”
So Nan went to the Captain, and he put his arm round her waist, and she leant up against him while he chatted to Augusta.
He did not say another word to her, but once he took her little hand and squeezed it. What was the matter with her? All her sorrows seemed to go, and all her anxieties to melt into thin air. Augusta was doing the grown-up young lady, chatting on all sorts of subjects, and Nan did not speak a word—not even once did she open her lips—but when Captain Richmond looked down at her she raised her eyes and looked full at him.
“Cross!” he said to himself; “why, it is one of the dearest little faces in the world. But who is the poor little one, and why was she so very sad when I put in my appearance?”
“We must get you tea; you shall have it in the schoolroom,” said Augusta. “Aunt Jessie will not be in till about six o’clock; you know, no one expected you until the evening.”
“It is my way always to do the unexpected,” replied Captain Richmond. “I took an earlier train and got here about six hours before I was expected. And where are my nieces proper? Why do not they come to embrace their uncle?”
“They are at school; but, oh! won’t they be delighted? I am afraid your room is not ready. Nan, go and tell the servants that Captain Richmond has come. Go at once, dear, and order tea up here.—Do you greatly mind, Uncle Peter (because I must call you that), having tea in the schoolroom with us?”
“I should love it,” replied Captain Richmond. “But see, Nan, little one, that you order a big tea. I want a whole pot of sardines—there is nothing on earth I love like sardines—and a couple of new-laid eggs, and toast and cream. Do you understand?”
“Cross!” he said to himself; “why, it is one of the dearest little faces in the world.”
“Cross!” he said to himself; “why, it is one of the dearest little faces in the world.”
“Cross!” he said to himself; “why, it is one of the dearest little faces in the world.”
“Oh yes,” said Nan, colouring very high; “and may you not have muffins, don’t you think?”
“I do quite think I might. Now be quick, little woman, and order the biggest tea cook will send up.”
“He is good,” thought Nan as she went singing down the passage. “He is nice. He is quite as nice as Kitty said he was; I think he is even nicer. It is not what he says; it is the look in his eyes. I am sure he keeps in the middle of the road, and I will—I will keep there notwithstanding Augusta. Oh! I am glad he has come. He makes me feel strong. I was so shaky, as if I had no backbone, but I think he will give it to me—I am sure he will give it to me—and I will keep in the middle of the road. Oh! he is nice—he is.”
While Nan was away Captain Richmond asked one or two questions about her of Augusta.
“Who is that dear little mite?” he said. “What a sweet little face she has!”
“She is a little girl to whom Aunt Jessie is very kind,” replied Augusta.
“Any one would be kind to her; she looks such a sweet little thing!”
Augusta longed to give some of her true opinions of Nan, but she was far too astute for this.
“Of course, she is a very nice child,” she said; “and she is greatly to be pitied.”
“Poor little thing! What was she crying about? Her sobs were so bitter!”
“She is very sensitive; I was just trying to put a little common-sense into her.”
“She wants very special treatment,” said Captain Richmond. “I am glad I have come; I always like children of that sort. She is in deep black, too.”
“She is in mourning for her mother.”
“Oh! an orphan? Poor little one! Is her father alive?”
“No. I think perhaps, Uncle Peter, you ought to know: dear Aunt Jessie is supporting her for nothing. Is it not splendid of her?”
“It is the sort of thing my sister-in-law would do,” replied the Captain; and he gave Augusta a very straight and cold look out of his eyes. She saw that he did not think the better of her for having made this speech, and jumped up to get the table ready for tea.
The meal was in full progress; Nan, at Captain Richmond’s special request, was pouring out cup after cup for his benefit; Augusta was seated near, with flushed cheeks, entertaining him to the best of her abilities, when shouts and whoops were heard, and Nora and Kitty danced into the room.
Then indeed there were high-jinks.
“Oh, for shame! Uncle Pete—oh, for shame! to come beforehand.—Augusta, how long have you had him?—Nan, is he not just—just as nice as I said?” These words came from Kitty.
“You really make me blush, Kitty; you must be careful what you say,” remarked her uncle. “Do not mind her, Nancy; I am a very ordinary person, with lots of faults.”
“You have not a fault—not one,” said Nora.
“Oh! haven’t I? I will just declare to you now a very big fault of mine. It is this—I hate being praised.”
The Captain looked as if he meant this, for his bright blue eyes flashed fire just for an instant, but then they resumed their old merry expression.
“I have all kind of plans to propose,” he said. “I shall be here for at least a fortnight, and then I am not going very far away—only as far as Aldershot—so you will see a good bit of me.”
It was a week later. Every one in the house had got accustomed to the presence of Captain Richmond, and Nan more fully, day by day, endorsed Nora’s and Kitty’s verdict with regard to him. He was delightful; he was kind; he was sunshiny. It seemed much easier to be good now that he was there. The children—even Augusta—were all anxious to please him, and at odd moments when lessons were over, and on half-holidays, he always had a pleasant scheme to propose, and would take his four nieces, as he called them, to all kinds of places which Nan had never seen before. When there, he had a way of singling her out, taking her hand, and explaining things to her, so that from the first she was his very special little friend.
A week went by in this fashion, and then all of a sudden, just when they least wished for it, came a pouring wet Sunday. It was early in June and the weather ought to have been fine. Captain Richmond said the clerk of the weather-office was seriously to blame; but whoever was wrong, the clouds were unmistakably there, and out of their sullen depths poured the rain without a moment’s intermission. The children had managed to go to church in the morning, but in the afternoon it was hopeless.
“Uncle Peter,” said Kitty, “come up to the schoolroom and let us have a cosy time.”
“I am quite agreeable,” replied the Captain.
“But, Peter,” said his sister-in-law, “I am expecting quite a number of guests this afternoon; you surely will not leave me in the cold!”
Uncle Peter put on a very wry face.
“You know, Jessie,” he answered, “that I am not at all fond of what may be called callers; I never know what to say to them, and I do not think they find me at all agreeable. May I not go and be happy in my own way with the children?”
“Very well,” said Mrs. Richmond in a resigned voice; “but please send Augusta downstairs, for she always helps me so nicely to entertain my Sunday visitors.”
“And now come, Uncle Peter—do not let us delay—come at once,” said Kitty.
So, with Kitty hanging on one arm and Nora appropriating the other, the Captain made his way to the schoolroom. Here he was welcomed with shouts of glee by Nan and Augusta. Chairs were pulled forward, and the little party settled themselves in a happy circle.
“Oh Gussie!” said Kitty all of a sudden, “I quite forgot; mother wants you to go downstairs and help her entertain the Sunday visitors.”
“Oh, but I won’t! It is quite too bad,” said Augusta, flushing with indignation. “Why should I?”
“You do most Sundays, and you always said you liked it so much.”
“Well, I won’t go now; it is not fair.—I need not go, need I, Uncle Peter?”
“You must arrange that with your aunt, Augusta; it is not my affair.”
Once again Captain Richmond put on that straight look which Augusta both adored and feared. It always caused her heart to palpitate, and gave her a sensation of longing to be quite a different girl from what she really was. She got up now, frowning as she did so.
“It is too bad,” she said—“just when we were going to have real fun.”
“If you like, Augusta,” suddenly said Nan, “I will go down when half the time is up, and you can come back. I dare say Mrs. Richmond will not mind; she only wants some one just to hand round the cups of tea.”
“Oh no; that would never do,” said Captain Richmond. “I will go down when half the time is up and send you back, Augusta. Nan is too young to be initiated into the ways of drawing-room folks.”
So Augusta had to go, very unwillingly, and the two little sisters and Nan were alone with the Captain.
“Now, Uncle Peter,” said Kitty the moment the door closed behind Augusta, “we want you to be your very nicest self.”
“And what is my nicest self?” he answered.
“We want you to be your exciting self.”
“You quite mystify me, Kitty. I should like to know when I am nicest. And I never knew before that I was exciting.”
“But you are when you make schemes.”
“Oh! that is it, is it?”
“And we want a big, big scheme now—something to last us for months—something to—— You know what I mean, don’t you, Noney?”
“To rouse us all up—to make us walk with our heads in the air,” said Nora.
“Dear me! How very funny!”
“We want to be soldiers. Do you not remember you talked to us before about being soldiers? Let us be soldiers for a bit, and make lovely plans, and you be our captain,” said Kitty again.
“Well, of course you can be soldiers; that is easy enough.”
“But you must settle a sort of victory time for us—a great big reward time—and let it come three months from now, after we come back from the summer holidays, orperhapsbefore. Plan it all out, Uncle Peter; plan everything out as straight as possible. Make us soldiers, and give us a battle to fight.”
“Dear me!” said Uncle Peter, “this is quite a Sunday afternoon talk. Do you mean it in the religious sense?”
“Oh yes, if you like; but what we want is to have something to fight hard about.—Don’t you think so, Nan?”
Nan’s face had turned very white; her eyes, shining with intense earnestness, fixed themselves on Captain Richmond’s face.
“A sort of moral battle,” said the Captain. “Well, of course it can be done. I will plan it all out and tell you what we will do to-morrow; I cannot think of it in an instant. Those who wish to join must be regularly enrolled as soldiers.”
“Soldiers under Captain Richmond,” laughed Nora—“or Captain Peter, as we always call you. You will have to set us things to do, and you will have to write to us from Aldershot, and you must make a whole lot of punishments if we go wrong. Oh! it will be exciting—quite splendid.”
Just then Miss Roy came into the room.
“How cosy you all look!” she said “What is up?”
“We are frightfully excited,” said Nan. “We are going to be turned into soldiers, and we are going to fight under the banner of Captain Peter. This is our captain,” she added, touching the young soldier’s arm with great affection; “there is nothing we would not do for him—nothing.”
“I declare you quite touch me,” said the good-natured fellow. “Well, I will think something out and let you know to-morrow. Now let us talk of something commonplace.”
The conversation was merry and full of laughter; the wet afternoon was forgotten. Augusta came back long before they expected her.
“There are no visitors,” she said, “and Aunt Jessie did not want me.”
“I was just coming down, but this is much pleasanter,”—said the Captain.
“Oh Augusta! we have something wonderful to tell you,” said Nora. “Sit right down here in this comfortable chair.—Please, Uncle Peter, tell her.”
“Oh! it is a wild scheme of these little folk,” he answered. “I do not suppose a great tall girl like Augusta will join under any consideration whatever. Well, it is this, my dear niece Gussie—these children want to become soldiers.”
“Play soldiers?” asked Augusta.
“No, not exactly, but good, tough, moral soldiers; and they want to enlist under me, and I am to help them, forsooth! I will draw up plans, and those who want to join can be enrolled to-morrow afternoon. But I do not suppose you will care about it.”
“Oh yes, but I will!” said Augusta. Her eyes wore a startled look; a red flush came into her cheeks. She looked at Nan, who shuffled uneasily and looked down.
“I shall join,” she said the next moment; “it sounds very exciting, and the sort of thing I should like.”
“Then there will be four of us.—Perhaps Miss Roy will join too?” said Kitty.
“Yes, dear; I should quite like to,” said the governess. “I want something to stimulate me, and I should like to serve under Captain Peter.”
“Then I shall deserve my captaincy,” said the young man.—“And now, chicks, I am going away, for you have given me a pretty nut to crack. We will arrange to meet here at six o’clock tomorrow, when I shall have all my plans drawn up.”
When the Captain left the room the four children were silent for a short time; then Miss Roy burst in.
“My dears,” she said, “the clouds are breaking; there is a ray of sunshine. We will have tea immediately, and then get ready to go to evening service.”
As Nan knelt in church she thought of Captain Peter, and wondered what sort of soldier she would turn out under his leadership.
“If it were not for Augusta I should be the happiest of girls,” she thought. “I do hope that to be one of his soldiers will mean lots of hard lessons and stiff sort of things to do, and it won’t mean being good and straight and honourable. Oh! I do hope and trust he won’t want us to be any of those, for I am not straight, Gussie is not straight. Oh dear! oh dear! it is exciting. I am afraid.”
Augusta rather avoided Nan that evening, to Nan’s own great relief. The next day brought as usual a rush of work, with no opportunity for any private talks, and it was not until a few minutes to six that Augusta and Nan found themselves alone.
Nan had gone into her room to brush her hair, preparatory to the Captain’s visit, when there came a tap at her door and in walked Gussie.
“Well, Nan,” she said, “are you prepared for this?”
“Prepared for what?” asked Nancy.
“You know what I mean: for this sort of soldier business—folly, I call it. Of course, I am going to join; but are you?”
“Yes, Augusta, I am,” said Nancy. She spoke in a very firm voice.
“Well, all right; you know what it means, I suppose. There will be a lot of morality in the matter.”
“What do you mean by morality?”
“Keeping straight—keeping in the centre of that road where you want to walk, but where you never do walk. I thought I would warn you. If you are thinking of doing what the others are going to do, you will have an impossible time; but do not say I did not warn you.”
“No, I won’t, Augusta. Oh! please remember that you are not”——
“That I am not what?”
“That you are not going quite straight yourself.”
“You little wretch!” said Augusta. “If you ever dare—dare to breathe what I in a moment of kindness helped you to do, won’t you catch it from me? You do not know what I can be when I am really your enemy. Your own position, too; what are you in this house? A nobody. There! I will say no more.”
Augusta ran out of the room. Nan stood white and trembling. She clasped her hands together; her eyes, brimful of tears, were fixed on the window.
“How am I to bear it?” she thought. “Just when I was beginning to be so happy! Why am I so awfully miserable? I wonder what it means. I do think that I really quite hate Augusta.”
Just then Kitty’s gay voice was heard.
“Come, Nancy; our captain will arrive in a minute or two, and he will want all the soldiers to be waiting for him.”
Kitty’s laughing face, wreathed in smiles, was poked round the door. Nan made an effort to cheer up.
“How white you look!” said Kitty. “Is anything worrying you?”
“Oh no; nothing really.”
“I thought you would be so glad about this! You do not know what heavenly plans Uncle Peter is always making up. I will tell you about some of his funny plans when we were children another time; but of course there is nothing like this, and it was my thought to begin. You will see how splendidly he will draw up his rules, and how easy and yet how difficult it will be to obey them. He has a sort of way of searching through you, and dragging the best out of you, and crushing down the bad in you. Oh, he is a darling! He is like no one else in the world.”
“I think so too,” said Nan.
“And yet you look so sad, Nancy! I am sure you need not be, for every one is so fond of you! And as for Uncle Peter, there is hardly anything he would not do for you. He always calls you his dear little new niece; he is quite as fond of you as if you were his real niece.”
“Is he—is he really?” said Nan. “Would he be as fond of me if he knew”——
“Knew what, Nan?”
“That I—— Oh Kitty! you know that I have no money, and you know that”——
“Now stop,” said Kitty. “If you do want to make me angry you will talk of that sort of thing again; it is very unfair of you after what mother said.”
“Oh, then, I won’t—I won’t!”
“If that is all that is worrying you, cheer up; Uncle Peter does not want sad faces.”
“And if—— Suppose—suppose I was not good at any time, would he hate me then?” asked the little girl.
“I am sure he would not. Once, do you know, I did such a naughty thing! I spilt a lot of ink on the carpet. I was a tiny child, and when Miss Roy came in—Miss Roy had not been with us more than a month, and I did not know how kind she would be—I said pussy had jumped on the table; and I had scarcely said it before Uncle Peter came in—he was staying in the house, you know. He sat down by the fire. It was wintertime, and he asked me to come and sit on his knee; and he put his arm round me, and I sat there so cosy, though I had a big, big ache in my heart. Miss Roy quite believed me about pussy, and she got the ink wiped up, and washed the carpet with milk, so that it should not show; and then she went out of the room, and I nestled up close to Uncle Peter. There was a big pain in my heart. Uncle Peter looked straight down at me.
“You see how the milk has taken out the ink; you can scarcely see it at all now,” he said; and then he raised my face and looked into my eyes, and he said, “Kitty, it was not worth while.”
Then I knew that he knew; and, oh, I cried so! And I said, “Did you hear?” And he said, “I saw you spill the ink, and I heard.”
“And, oh! I was so sad, and he comforted me. He was not angry after the first, but he got me to go straight up to Miss Roy and tell her the truth. It was awfully hard to do, but I did it; and then he forgave me, and I had no more pain in my heart. Come now, Nan—come.”
“I want to kiss you first,” said Nan. “Kitty, you do not know how much I love you. I love you better at this moment than I have ever done before.”
The schoolroom was very daintily arranged; there were flowers on the mantelpiece and on a little table, near which an arm-chair had been placed for Uncle Peter. On the table were some sheets of foolscap paper, a bottle of ink, pen, blotting-paper, &c. Just as the children entered, the door was opened and Uncle Peter himself came in. He generally wore a smiling face, but now he looked grave and determined. He walked across the room with, as Nan expressed it, his most military step. He stopped when he came opposite the children, and bowed gravely to them, and then sat down in the chair.
“It is too exciting for anything!” thought Kitty. “How is he going to begin? I am sure he has made all his plans. I can judge that by his face; it is the sort of face which makes me thrill and want to do anything in the world for him.”
Miss Roy had taken her place with the children. She looked grave and earnest, too, and Augusta for a wild moment wished she was out of it. Then the Captain raised his eyes. He had been arranging the paper before him, and trying the pen to see if it would write smoothly. Now he began to address the little group in front of him.
“I have been thinking over our scheme,” he said in his most pleasant voice; “and if you are all determined, I want you to take, not an oath to me—nothing of that sort—but to take a promise, by which you will be enrolled. The regiment in which you will be members we will call the Royal True Blue. I am its captain, general, or what you will; and, as far as possible, the rules which will guide your conduct will be much the same rules as a real regiment which serve our King would have. Loyalty will be its motto. There are three ways in which the soldiers can serve in the Royal True Blue. They can serve by keen attention to intellectual matters, by keen attention to physical matters, and by keen attention to morals.”
Miss Roy nodded her head as each of these remarks fell from the Captain’s lips.
“I quite agree with you,” she said; and then she coloured slightly.
The Captain looked at her and gave a smile.
“There will be,” he said, “different grades, of course; month by month the soldiers will rise to higher and higher responsibilities. There will be an orderly-book, in which Miss Roy, in my absence, must write down the events of every day truthfully, exactly as they occur to her. Neglect of the different heads under which the soldiers serve will merit punishment; careful attention to these details will merit rewards. I shall visit the soldiers’ camp at least every month, have a consultation with Miss Roy, who will be my sergeant, and measure out my rewards and punishments accordingly. I should like this scheme to continue until the end of the summer holidays, when to the victorious soldier I will award, if she deserves it, something similar to the Victoria Cross. It will be a cross made of silver, tied with blue ribbon, and will be as far as possible an imitation of the cross which her late beloved Majesty gave to her most distinguished soldiers. Perhaps you all understand what alone wins a Victoria Cross? It is given ‘for valour’—for valour, as a rule, in the field of battle. Now, as you are all soldiers you must have a field of battle. Your battlefield is in this house; wherever you are together, whether you are in the country or in town; in your school; in your own rooms, when you lie down and when you rise up: at all times you soldiers of the Royal True Blue will be in the battlefield, and doubtless a time for valour will arrive—when one of you will endanger herself for the sake of another. It is possible that none of these soldiers will win the Royal Cross, but I mean to hold it out as an incentive—the very best I can give. And now, children, I have lectured enough; will you each in turn come forward and make the necessary promise?”
“Oh, this is dreadful!” said Augusta; she squeezed Nan’s hand in her excitement. “I—I do not think I can.”
“But I can,” said Nan. “I can; I mean to.”
“What is it, Augusta—are you frightened?” said the Captain. “Oh, come! you promised to join; do not draw back now. You do not know what a world of good it will do you. This scheme means bracing; it means a strong effort to do the right. Come! if you live in this house you will have a dull time if you are not a soldier.”
“All right,” said Augusta; “but I will not be the first to take the promise.”
“Then you shall be the first, Kitty,” said the Captain; “that is only right, for it is your scheme.”
Kitty rose from her chair and came forward. Captain Richmond had some small pieces of blue ribbon fastened with silver mottoes. He held one of these up, and Kitty approached. He took her hand, looked solemnly into her eyes, and said:
“Are you willing to serve in the Royal True Blue as a soldier of the King of Heaven? Are you willing to obey the rules of the regiment, to be loyal and true, to shun what is deceitful and wrong? Are you willing?”
“Yes,” said Kitty.
Then the Captain bent forward and kissed her.
“This is our seal of consecration,” he said; “and here is your motto. Wear it openly when you like, or when you do not care to show it to the world keep it safely hidden, but never lose it. On the day it is taken from you you are disgraced; you lose this ribbon as a soldier loses his sword—only by public disgrace.”
Kitty went back to her seat trembling and with tears in her eyes. The same promise was exacted from the others, and then Captain Richmond looked at the four.
“I am very proud of my battalion,” he said, “and I think you will all do well, soldiers of the Royal True Blue. Now, I want to give you a few directions. There are three distinct paths in which the soldiers must walk. First, there is the path of intellect. Now, that means great attention to your lessons at school; it means diligent reading. I do not mean that kind of slippery reading which goes on when one is thinking of a hundred things at the same time: I do not mean the reading of silly novels. I mean the reading of good books, stimulating, with nice thoughts in them. There is nothing to my mind like the life of a soldier, and there is nothing more splendid than to read accounts of what brave soldiers have done; and as you five are now soldiers, you might, during the months that you servo under me, read as many books about soldiers as possible. I can furnish you with a list. I believe such reading will do you a lot of good. This, of course, is not a command of mine; it is a suggestion which you may like to carry out. In the orderly-book there will be careful reports of your transgressions in intellectual respects; the number of bad marks at school, the getting down to the bottom of your form, lateness also in attending your different classes, will all mean marks against you. On the other hand, diligence in learning, briskness and anxiety to excel, will mean good marks. I will explain the marks to my sergeant, Miss Roy, presently. So much for intellect. Now we come to the physical part of the scheme. I believe very strongly in physical exercise. I do not mean the sort of exercise which tires one to death—over-cycling, for instance, or playing lawn-tennis too long—but I do mean steady exercise every day; and part of your duties will be your drill. I will speak to Mrs. Richmond, and she will get a real army sergeant to come here daily to drill you. You will feel as you are marching, and turning from right to left, and going through the different manœuvres that you are real soldiers, and it will do you a world of good. Other exercise ought also to be taken, and under this head I would advocate early rising. I would also advocate order and neatness. Each day ought to be planned out, and there ought to be very little time for idling, for a real soldier in the enemy’s country has to be on the alert morning, noon, and night. He ought never to be away from his post; he ought to watch for the approach of the enemy at every corner, at every unexpected point. We now come to the third head, which surely is the most important of all, for in my regiment, the Royal True Blue, I want to have soldiers worthy of the name: a coward would be detestable to me; a liar could not be borne. I want my soldiers to be straight, to be upright, to be honourable; I want them to walk in the middle of the road.”
“Oh! oh!” suddenly came from Nan’s lips.
The Captain gave her a long, penetrating glance. She coloured, and dropped her head.
“It can be done,” he said, “but it is not specially easy; and I hope it will be done. And now, surely we have had enough morality and enough solemn talk even for the soldiers of the True Blue. I propose an entertainment this evening. I have consulted with your mother, and she gives me leave to take you all to the theatre—yes, every single one of you—to see a fine play about a soldier and how he acted under difficulties.”
The wild delight of the children at this last announcement can be better understood than explained. Captain Richmond knew what he was about; he knew that the eager young minds had gone through sufficient strain. The girls rushed off to their rooms, and the Captain and Miss Roy were alone.
“It is very good of you to join this,” he said, turning to the governess.