“No; I suppose he was one of an indistinguishable troop of schoolboys.”
“I remember Lord Rotherwood’s good nature and fun when he met the bedraggled party,” said Magdalen, smiling.
“That is what every one remembers about him,” said Lady Merrifield, smiling. “You have imported a large party of youth, Miss Prescott.”
“My young sisters,” responded Magdalen; “but I shall soon part with Agatha; she is going to Oxford.”
“Indeed! To which College? I have a daughter at Oxford, and a niece just leaving Cambridge. Such is our lot in these days. No, not this one, but her elder sister Gillian is at Lady Catharine’s.”
“I am going to St. Robert’s,” said Agatha, abruptly.
“Close to Lady Catharine’s! Gillian will be glad to tell her anything she would like to ask about it. You had better come over to tea some afternoon.”
The time was fixed, and then Magdalen showed some of the advertisements of tuition in art, music, languages, and everything imaginable, which had begun to pour in upon her, and was very glad of a little counsel on the reputation of each professor. Lady Merrifield saying, however, that her experience was small, as her young people in general were not musical, with the single exception of her son Wilfred, who was at home, reading to go up for the Civil Service, and recreating himself with the Choral Society and lessons on the violin. “My youngest is fifteen,” she said, “and we provide for her lessons amongst us, except for the School of Art, and calisthenics at the High School, which is under superior management now, and very much improved.”
Mysie echoed, “Oh, calisthenics are such fun!” and took the reins to drive away.
“Oh! she is very nice,” exclaimed Mysie, as they drove down the hill.
“Yes, there is something very charming about her. I wonder whether Sam made a great mistake.”
“Mamma, what do you mean?”
“Have I been meditating aloud? You said when you met her at Castle Towers, she asked you whether you had a brother Harry.”
“Yes, she did. I only said yes, but he was going to be a clergyman, and when she heard his age, she said he was not the one she had known; I did not speak of cousin Henry because you said we were not to mention him. What was it, if I may know, mamma?”
“There is no reason that you should not, except that it is a painful matter to mention to Bessie or any of the Stokesley cousins. Harry was never like the rest, I believe, but I had never seen him since he was almost a baby. He never would work, and was not fit for any examination.”
“Our Harry used to say that Bessie and David had carried off all the brains of the family.”
“The others have sense and principle, though. Well, they put their Hal into a Bank at Filsted, and by and by they found he was in a great scrape, with gambling debts; and I believe that but for the forbearance of the partners, he might have been prosecuted for embezzling a sum—or at least he was very near it; besides which he had engaged himself to an attorney’s daughter, very young, and with a very disagreeable mother or stepmother. The Admiral came down in great indignation, thought these Prescotts had inveigled poor Henry, broke everything hastily off, and shipped him off to Canada to his brothers, George and John. They found some employment for him, but Susan and Bessie doubt whether they were very kind to him, and in a few years more he was in fresh scrapes, and with worse stains and questions of his integrity. It ended in his running away to the States, and no trace has been found of him since. I am afraid he took away money of his brothers.”
“How long ago was it, mamma?”
“At least twenty years. It was while we were in Malta.”
“Who would have thought of those dear Stokesley cousins having such a skeleton in their cupboard?”
“Ah! my dear, no one knows the secrets of others’ hearts.”
“And you really think that this Miss Prescott was his love?”
“I know it was the same name, and Bessie told me that he used to talk to her of his Magdalen, or Maidie; and when I heard of your meeting her at Castle Towers I wondered if it were the same. And now I see what she is, and what she is undertaking for these young sisters; I have wondered whether your uncle was wise to insist on the utter break, and whether she might not have been an anchor to hold him fast to his moorings.”
“Only,” said Mysie, “if he had really cared, would he have let his father break it off so entirely?”
“I think your uncle expected implicit obedience.”
“But—,” said Mysie, and left the rest unsaid, while both she and her mother went off into meditations on different lines on the exigencies of parental discipline and of the requirements of full-grown hearts.
And, on the whole, the younger one was the most for strict obedience, the experienced parent in favour of liberty. But then Mysie was old-fashioned and dutiful.
“What idle progeny succeedTo chase the rolling circle’s speed,Or urge the flying ball.”—Gray.
“What idle progeny succeedTo chase the rolling circle’s speed,Or urge the flying ball.”—Gray.
Theafternoon at Clipstone was a success. Gillian was at home, and every one found congeners. Lady Merrifield’s sister, Miss Mohun, pounced upon Miss Prescott as a coadjutor in the alphabet of good works needed in the neglected district of Arnscombe, where Mr. Earl was wifeless, and the farm ladies heedless; but they were interrupted by Mysie running up to claim Miss Prescott for a game at croquet. “Uncle Redgie was so glad to see the hoops come into fashion again,” and Vera and Paula hardly knew the game, they had always played at lawn tennis; but they were delighted to learn, for Uncle Redgie proved to be a very fine-looking retired General, and there was a lad besides, grown to manly height; and one boy, at home for Easter, who, caring not for croquet, went with Primrose to exhibit to Thekla the tame menagerie, where a mungoose, called of course Raki raki, was the last acquisition. She was also shown the kittens of the beloved Begum, and presented with Phœbus, a tabby with a wise face and a head marked like a Greek lyre, to be transplanted to the Goyle in due time.
“If Sister will let me have it,” said Thekla.
“Of course she will,” said Primrose. “Mysie says she is so jolly.”
“Dear me! all the girls at our school said she was a regular Old Maid.”
“What shocking bad form!” exclaimed Primrose. “Just like cads of girls,” muttered Fergus, unheard; for Thekla continued—“Why, they said she must be our maiden aunt, instead of our sister.”
“The best thing going!” said Fergus.
“Maiden aunts in books are always horrid,” said Thekla.
“Then the books ought to be hung, drawn, and quartered, and spifflicated besides,” said Fergus.
“Fergus doesn’t like anybody so well as Aunt Jane,” said Primrose, “because nobody else understands his machines.”
Thekla made a grimace.
“Ah!” said Primrose. “I see it is just as mamma and Mysie said when they came home, that Miss Prescott was very nice indeed, and it was famous that she should make a home for you all, only they were afraid you seemed as if—you might be—tiresome,” ended Primrose, looking for a word.
“Well, you know she wants to be our governess,” said Thekla.
“Well?” repeated Primrose.
“And of course no one ever likes their governess.”
This aphorism, so uttered by Thekla, provoked a yell from Primrose, echoed by Fergus; and Primrose, getting her breath, declared that dear Miss Winter was a great darling, and since she had gone away, more’s the pity, mamma was real governess to herself, Valetta, and Mysie, and she always looked at their translations and heard their reading if Gillian was not at home.
“And they are quite grown-up young ladies!”
“Mysie is; but I don’t know about Val. Only I don’t see why any one should be silly and do nothing if one is grown up ever so much,” said Primrose.
“As the Eiffel Tower,” put in Fergus.
“Nonsense!” said Primrose, bent on being improving. “Don’t you know what that old book of mamma’s says, ‘When will Miss Rosamond’s education be finished?’ She answered ‘Never.’”
Thekla gave a groan, whether of pity for Rosamond or for herself might be doubted; and a lop-eared rabbit was a favourable diversion.
There was a triad who seemed to be of Rosamond’s opinion regarding education, for Agatha was eagerly availing herself of the counsel of Gillian, and the books shown to her; with the further assistance of the cousin, Dolores Mohun, now an accredited lecturer in technical classes, though making her home and headquarters at Clipstone.
Thekla’s views of young ladyhood were a good deal more fulfilled by the lessons on cycling which were going on among the other young people after the game of croquet had ended. Every size and variety seemed to exist among the Clipstone population, under certain regulations of not coasting down the hills, the girls not going out alone, and never into the town, but always “putting up” at Aunt Jane’s.
Vera and Paulina were in ecstasy, and there was a continual mounting, attempting and nearly falling, or turning anywhere but the right, little screams, and much laughter, Jasper attending upon Vera, who, in spite of her failures, looked remarkably pretty and graceful upon Valetta’s machine; while Paula, whom Mysie and Valetta were both assisting, learnt more easily and steadily, but looked on with a few qualms as to the entire crystal rock constancy that Vera had professed, more especially when Jasper volunteered to come over to the Goyle and give another lesson.
Magdalen, after her game at croquet, had spent a very pleasant time with Lady Merrifield and her brother and sister, till they were imperiously summoned by Primrose to come and give consent to the transfer of Phœbus, or to choose between him and the Mufti, to whom Thekla had begun to incline.
The whole party adjourned to the back settlements, where Magdalen was edified by the antics of the mungoose, and admired the Begum and her progeny with a heartiness that would have won Thekla’s heart, save that she remembered hearing Vera say, over the domestic cat in the morning, that M.A.’s were always devoted to cats. But, on the whole, the visit had done much to reconcile the young sisters to their new surroundings; books, bicycles, and kitten had reconciled them even to the intimacy with “swells.”
The hired bicycle and tricycle had arrived in their absence, and the moment breakfast was over the next morning, the three younger ones all rushed off to the enjoyment, and, at ten minutes past the appointed hour for the early reading and study, Agatha felt obliged to go out and tell them that the M.A. was sitting like Patience on a monument, waiting for them; on which three tongues said “Bother,” and “She ought to let us off till the proper end of the holidays.”
“Then you should have propitiated her by asking leave after the Scripture was done,” said Agatha; “you might have known she would not let you off that.”
“Bother,” said Vera again; “just like an M.A.”
“I did forget,” said Paula; “and you know it was only just going through a lesson for form’s sake, like the old superlative.”
They had, in fact, read the day before; when Thekla had made such frightful work of every unaccustomed word, and the elders by one or two observations had betrayed so much ignorance alike of Samuel’s history and of the Gospel of St. Luke, that she had resolved to endeavour at a thorough teaching of the Old and New Testaments for the first hour on alternate days, giving one day in the week to Catechism and Prayer Book.
She asked what they had done before.
“Mrs. Best always read something at prayers.”
“Something?”
“Something out of the Bible.”
“No, the Testament.”
“I am sure it was the Bible, it was so fat.”
“And Saul was in it, and we had him yesterday.”
“That was St. Paul before he was converted,” said Paula.
There their knowledge seemed to end, and it further appeared that Mrs. Best heard the Catechism and Collect on Sundays from the unconfirmed, and had tried to get the Gospel repeated by heart, but had not succeeded.
“We did not think it fair,” said Vera. “None of the other houses did.”
“Yes,” said Agatha, “Miss Ferris’s did.”
“Oh, she is a regular old Prot,” said Paula, “almost a Dissenter, and it is not the Gospel either, only texts out of her own head.”
“Polly!” said Agatha. “Texts out of her own head!”
“It is Bible, of course, only what she fancies; and they have to work out the sermon, and if they can’t do the sermon, a text. They might as well be Dissenters at once!” said Paula.
“Janet M’Leod is,” said Vera. “It was really Dissentish.”
Magdalen could not help saying, “So you would not learn the Gospel because Dissenters learnt pieces of Scripture! You seem to me like the Roman Catholic child, who said there were five sacraments, there ought to be seven, but the Protestants had got two of them.”
She was sorry she had said it, for though Agatha laughed, the other two drew into themselves, as if their feelings were hurt. “These are the boarding-house habits,” she said. “What is done at the High School itself?”
“The Vicar comes when he has time, and gives a lecture on an Epistle,” said Agatha, “or a curate, if he doesn’t; but I was working for the exam., and didn’t go this last term. What was it, Polly?”
“On the—on the Apollonians,” answered Paulina, hesitating.
“My dear, where did he find it?”
“I know it was something about Apollo,” said Vera.
“It was Corinthians,” said Paula. “I ought to have recollected, but the lectures are very dull and disjointed; you said so yourself, Nag, and the Rector is very low church.”
“So you could not learn from him!”
“Really, sister,” said Agatha, “the lectures are not well managed, they are in too many hands, and too uncertain, and it is not easy to learn much from them.”
“Well, that being the case, I think we had better begin at the beginning. Suppose I ask you to say the first answer in the Catechism.”
On which Vera said they had all been confirmed except Thekla, and passed it on to her.
However, the endeavours of that half-hour need not be recounted, and the moment half-past ten chimed out the young ladies jumped up, and would have been off to the bicycles, if Magdalen had not felt that the time was come for asserting authority, and said, “Not yet, if you please. We cannot waste whole days. You know Herr Gnadiger is coming to-morrow, and it would be well to practise that sonata beforehand; you ought each to practise it; Paula, you had better begin, and Vera, you prepare this first scene of Marie Stuart to read with me when Thekla’s lessons are over. Change over when Paula has done.”
“It is of no use my doing anything while anyone is playing,” said Vera.
“Nonsense,” Agatha muttered; but Magdalen said, “You can sit in the drawing-room or your own room. Come, Tick-tick, where’s your slate? Come along.”
“Don’t sulk, Flapsy,” said the elder sister, “it is of no use. The M.A. means to be minded, and will be, and you know it is all for your good.”
“I hate my good,” said naughty Vera.
“So does every one when it is against the grain,” said Agatha; “but remember it is a preparation for a free life of our own.”
“It is our cross,” said Paula, as she placed herself on the music stool with a look of resignation almost comical.
Nor did her performance interfere with the equations which Agatha was diligently working out; but Vera, though refusing to take refuge from the piano, to which, in fact, she was perfectly inured, worried her elder as much as she durst, by inquiries after the meaning of words, or what horrid verb to look out in the dictionary; and it was a pleasing change when Paula proceeded to work the same scene out for herself without having recourse to explanations, so that Agatha was undisturbed except by the careless notes, which almost equally worried Magdalen in the more distant dining-room.
This was really the crisis of the battle of study. As the girls were accustomed to it, and knew that they were of an age to be ground down, they followed Agatha’s advice, and submitted without further open struggle, though there was a good deal of low murmur, and the foreman’s work was not essentially disagreeable, even while Vera maintained, what she believed to be an axiom, that governesses were detestable, and that the M.A. must incur the penalty of acting as such.
Very soon after luncheon appeared three figures on bicycles. Wilfred Merrifield, with Mysie and Valetta, come to give another lesson on the “flying circle’s speed.”
Magdalen came out with her young people to enjoy their amusement, as well as to watch over her own precious machine, as Vera said. It was admired, as became connoisseurs in the article; and she soon saw that Wilfred was to be trusted with the care of it, so she consented to its being ridden in the practice, provided it was not taken out into the lanes.
Mysie turned off from the practising, where she was not wanted, and joined Miss Prescott in walking through the garden terraces, and planning what would best adorn them, talking over favourite books, and enjoying themselves very much; then going on to the quarry, where Mysie looked about with a critical eye to see if it displayed any fresh geological treasures to send Fergus in quest of. She began eagerly to pour forth the sister’s never-ending tale of her brother’s cleverness, and thus they came down the outside lane to the lower gate, seeing beforehand the sparkle of bicycles in its immediate proximity.
It was not open, but Vera might be seen standing with one hand on the latch, the other on Magdalen’s bicycle, her face lifted with imploring, enticing smiles to Wilfred, who had fallen a little back, while Paula had decidedly drawn away.
None of them had seen Magdalen and Mysie till they were round the low stone wall and close upon them. There was a general start, and Vera exclaimed, “We haven’t been outside! No, we haven’t! And it is not the Rockquay Road either, sister! I only wanted a run down that lane up above.”
Wilfred laughed a little oddly. It was quite plain that he had been withstanding the temptress, only how long would the resistance have lasted?
Downright Mysie exclaimed, “It would have been a great shame if you had, and I am glad Wilfred hindered you.”
“Thank you,” said Magdalen, smiling to him. “You know better than my sisters what Devon lanes and pneumatic tyres are!”
Perhaps Wilfred was a little vexed, though he had resisted, for he was ready to agree with Mysie that they could not stay and drink tea.
But he did not escape his sister’s displeasure, for Mysie began at once, “How lucky it was that we came in time. I do believe that naughty little thing was just going to talk you over into doing what her sister had forbidden.”
“A savage, old, selfish bear. It was only the lane.”
“Full of crystals as sharp as needles, enough to cut any tyre in two,” said Mysie.
“Like your tongue, eh, Mysie?”
“Well, you did not do it! That is a comfort. You would not let her transgress, and ruin her sister’s good bicycle.”
“She is an uncommonly pretty little sprite, and the selfish hag of a sister only left orders that I was to take care of the bike! I could see where there was a stone as well as anybody else.”
“Hag!” angrily cried Mysie, “she is the only nice one of the whole lot. Vera is a nasty little thing, or she would never think of meddling with what does not belong to her, or trying to persuade you to allow it.”
“I call it abominable selfishness, dog in the mangerish, to shut up such a machine as that, and condemn her sisters to one great lumbering one.”
“That’s one account,” said Valetta. “Paula said it was only till they had learnt to ride properly, and till the stones have a little worn in.”
“Yes,” said Mysie, “I could see Vera is an exaggerating monkey, just talking over and deluding Will, just as men like when they get a silly fit.”
By this time Wilfred had thought it expedient to put his bicycle to greater speed, and indulge in a long whistle to show how contemptible he thought his sisters as he went out of hearing.
“Paulina is nice and good,” said Valetta, “she has heard all about St. Kenelm’s, and wants to go there. Yes, and she means to be a Sister of Charity, only she is afraid her sister is narrow and low church.”
“That is stuff and nonsense,” said Mysie. “I have had a great deal of talk with Miss Prescott. She loves all the same books that we do. She is going to have G. F. S. and Mothers’ Union, and all at poor Arnscombe, and she told me to call her Magdalen.”
With which proofs of congeniality Valetta could not choose but be impressed.
Earn well the thrifty months, nor wedRaw Haste, half-sister to Delay.—Tennyson.
Earn well the thrifty months, nor wedRaw Haste, half-sister to Delay.—Tennyson.
Thedeferred expedition to Rockquay also began, Magdalen driving Vera and Thekla. She was pleased with her visitors, and hoped that the girls would feel the same, but Vera began by declaring thatthatMiss Merrifield was not pretty.
“Not exactly, but it is an honest, winning face.”
“So broad, and such a wide mouth, and no style at all, as I should have expected after all that about lords and ladies! An old blue serge and sailor hat!”
“You don’t expect people to drive about the country in silk attire?”
“Well, perhaps she is not out! Sister, do you know I am seventeen?”
“Yes, my dear, certainly.”
“Oh, look, look, there’s a dear little calf!” broke in Thekla, “and, oh! what horns the cows have. I shall be afraid to go near them! Was it only a sham mad bull when the little girl ran into the pond?”
“It was the railway whistle, and she had never heard it in the fields. She rushed away in a great fright and ran into the pond, full of horrible black mud. The gentlemen heard the scream and dragged her out, and it would have all been fun and a good story if she had not been so much afraid of the French lady’s maid. It is curious how the sight of those brown eyes brought the whole scene back to me. We all grew so fond of Mysie Merrifield in the few days we spent together, and she is very little altered.”
“Is she out?” asked Vera once more.
“Oh, yes, she cannot be less than twenty.”
“And I am seventeen,” said Vera, returning to the charge. “I ought to be out.”
“If there are nice invitations, I shall be quite ready to accept them for you.”
“But I am too old for the schoolroom and lessons and masters.”
“Too old or too wise?” said Magdalen laughing.
“I have got into the highest form in everything. Every one at Filston of my age is leaving off all the bother.”
“Not Agatha.”
“Oh, but Agatha is—!”
“Is what?
“Agatha is awfully clever, and wants to be something!”
“Something? But do you want to evaporate? To be nothing at all, I mean,” said Magdalen, seeing her first word was bewildering, and Thekla put in—
“Flapsy couldn’t go off in steam, could she? Isn’t that evaporating?”
“I think what she wants is to be a young lady at large! Eh, Vera? Only I don’t quite see how that is to be managed, even if it is quite a worthy ambition. But we will talk that over another time. Do you see how pretty those sails are crossing the bay?”
Neither girl seemed to have eyes for the lovely blue of the sea in the spring sunshine, nor the striking forms of ruddy peaks of rock that enclosed it. Uneducated eyes, she thought, as she slowly manœuvred the pony down the steep hill before coming to the Rockstone Cliff Road. The other two girls were following her direction across field and road, and making their observations.
“A dose of lords and ladies,” said Agatha.
“I thought they were rather nice,” said Paula.
“I see how it will be,” said Agatha. “They will patronise the M.A. as Lady Somebody’s old governess, and she will fawn upon them and run after them, and we shall be on those terms.”
“But I thought you meant to be a governess?”
“I shall make my own line. I know how swells look on a governess of theancien régime, and how they will introduce her as the kindly old goody who mends my little lady’s frock!”
“The girl had not any airs,” said Paula. “She told me about the churches down there in the town—not the ones we went to on Sunday; but there’s one that is very low indeed, and St. Andrew’s, which is their parish church, was suiting the moderate high church folk; and there is St. Kenelm’s, very high indeed, Mr. Flight’s, I think I have heard of him, and it is just the right thing, I am sure.”
“Don’t flatter yourself that the M.A. will let you have much pleasure in it. It is just what people of her sort think dangerous.”
“But do you know, Nag, I do believe that it is the church that Hubert Delrio was sent down to study and make a design for.”
“Whew! There will be a pretty kettle of fish if he comes down about it! That is, if he and Flapsy have not forgotten all about the ice and the forfeits at Warner’s Grange, as is devoutly to be hoped.”
“Do you hope it really, Nag, for Flapsy really was very much—did care very much.”
“I have no great faith in Flapsy’s affections surviving the contact with greater swells.”
“Poor Hubert!”
“Perhaps his will not survive common sense. I am sure I hope not for both their sakes.”
“But, Nag, it would be very horrid of them if they had no constancy,” declared the more romantic Paula.
“It will be a regular mess if they do have it, and bring on horrid scrapes with the M.A. Just think. It is all very well to say she has known Hubert all his life; but she can’t treat him as a gentleman, or she won’t. She has a position to keep up with all these swells, and he will be only the man who paints the church! I only hope he will not come. There will be nothing but bother if he does, unless they both have more sense and less constancy than you expect. Well, this really is a splendid view. Old Mr. Delrio would be wild about it.”
Here the steep and stony hill brought them into contact with the pony carriage, nor were there any more confidential conversations. The pony was put up at the top of the hill leading from Rockstone to Rockquay, and thence the party walked down for Miss Prescott to make a few purchases, and, moreover, to begin by gratifying Thekla’s reiterated entreaty for a bicycle, though, as she was unpractised and growing so fast, it was decided to be better to hire a tricycle for practice, and one bicycle on which Vera and Paula might learn the art.
The choice was a long one, and left only just time for a peep into the two churches and a study of the hours of their services. St. Kenelm’s was decided to be a “perfect gem,” ornaments, beauty, and all, a little overdone, perhaps, in Magdalen’s opinion, but perfectly “the thing” in her sisters’.
This St. Andrew’s fulfilled to her mind, being handsome, reverent, and decorous in all the arrangements, while to the younger folk it was “all very well,” but quite of the old times. Little did they know of “old times” beyond the quarter century of their birth! Poor old Arnscombe might feebly represent them, but even that had struggled out of the modern “dark ages.” Magdalen had decided on talking to Agatha and seeing how far she understood the situation, and she came to her room to put her in possession now that Mrs. Best had left the guest chamber free.
“This is your home when you are here. You must put up any belongings that you do not want to take to St. Robert’s.”
“Thank you; it is a nice pleasant room.”
“And, my dear, may I stay a few minutes? I think we had better have a talk, and quite understand one another.”
“Very well.”
It was not quite encouraging, but Agatha really wished to hear, and she advanced a wicker chair for her elder sister, and sat down on the window seat.
“Thank you, my dear; I do not know how much Mrs. Best has told you.”
“She told us that you had always been very good to us, and that you had been our guardian ever since we lost our mother.”
“Did she tell you what we have of our own that our father could leave us?”
“No.”
“What amounts to about £40 a year apiece. Mrs. Best in her very great goodness has taken you four for that amount, though her proper charge is eighty.”
“And she never let any one guess it,” said Agatha, more warmly, “for fear we might feel the difference. How very good of her.”
She seemed more impressed by Mrs. Best’s bounty than by Magdalen’s, but probably she took the latter as a matter of course and obligation; besides, the sense of it involved a sum in subtraction. However, this was not observed by her sister, who did not want to feel obliged.
“Now that this property has come in,” continued Magdalen, “we can live comfortably together upon it for the present, and your expenses at Oxford can be paid, as well as masters in what may be needful for the others, and an allowance for dress. I suppose you will want the £40 while you are at St. Robert’s, besides the regular expenses?”
“Thank you,” warmly said.
“But I want you to understand, as I think you do, about the future, for you must be prepared to be independent.”
“I should have wished for a career if I had been a millionaire,” said Agatha.
“I believe you would, and it is well that you should have every advantage. But the others. If I left you all this property, it would not be a comfortable maintenance divided among four; and you would not like to be dependent, or to leave the last who might not marry to a pittance alone.”
“Certainly not,” said Agatha, with flashing eyes.
“Then you see that it is needful that you should be able to do something for yourselves. I can give one of you at a time the power of going to the University.”
“I don’t think Vera or Polly would wish for that,” said Agatha.
“Well, what would they wish for? I can do something towards preparing them, and I can teach Thekla, but I should like to know what you think would be best for them.”
“Vera’s strong point is music,” said Agatha. “She cares for that more than anything else, and Mr. Selby thought she had talent and might sing, only she must not strain her voice. I don’t believe she will do much in any other line. And Polly—she is very good, and always does her best because it is right, but I don’t think anything is any particular pleasure to her, except needlework. She is always wanting to make things for the church. She really has a better voice than Flapsy, and can play better, but that is because she is so much steadier.”
“Seventeen and sixteen, are they not?”
“Yes; but Polly seems ever so much older than Flapsy.”
“Mrs. Best showed me that she had higher marks. She must be a thoroughly good girl.”
“That she is,” cried Agatha, warmly. “She never had any task for getting into mischief.”
“Well, they are both so young that a little study with me will be good for them, and there will be time to judge what they are fit for. In art I think they are not much interested.”
“Paula draws pretty well, but Vera hates it. Old Mr. Delrio is always cross to her now; but—” Agatha stopped short, remembering that there might be a reason why the drawing master no longer made her a favourite pupil.
“Do you think him a good judge?”
“Yes; Mrs. Best thinks much of him. He had an artist’s education, and sometimes has a picture in the Water Colour Exhibition; but I believe he did not find it answer, and so he took our school of art.”
Agatha had talked sensibly throughout the conference, but not confidentially; much, in fact, as she would have discussed her sisters with Mrs. Best. She was glad that at the moment the sound of the piano set them listening. She did not feel bound to mention to “sister” any more than she would to the head mistress, that when staying at Mr. Waring’s country house a sort of semi-flirtation had begun with Hubert Delrio, a young man to whose education his father had sacrificed a great deal, and who was a well-informed and intelligent gentleman in all his ways. He had engaged himself to the great firm of Eccles and Beamster, ecclesiastical decorators, and might be employed upon the intended frescoes of St. Kenelm’s Church.
Ought “Sister” to be told?
But Agatha thought it would be betraying confidence to “set on the dragon”; and besides nobody ever could tell how much Vera’s descriptions meant. She knew already that the sweetest countenance in the world and the loveliest dark eyes belonged to a fairly good-looking young man, and she could also suspect that the “squeeze of my hand” might be an ordinary shake, and the kneeling before the one he loved best might have been only the customary forfeit. On the whole, it would be better to let things take their course; it was not likely that either was seriously smitten, and it was more than probable that Hubert Delrio would be too busy to look after a young lady now in a different stratum, and that Vera would have found another sweetest countenance in the world.
All this passed through her mind while Magdalen listened, and pronounced—
“That is brilliant—a clever touch—only—”
“Yes, that is Vera—I know what you are noticing, but this is only amusement; she is not taking pains.”
“It is very clever—especially as probably she has no music. But there—”
“Polly’s? Oh, yes; she is really steady-going. That is just what you will find her. This is a charming room, sister; thank you very much.”
“Make it your home, my dear.”
But in reality they were not much nearer together than before the conference.
“Have we not all, amid earth’s petty strife,Some pure ideal of a nobler life?We lost it in the daily jar and fact,And now live idly in a vain regret.”Adelaide Procter.
“Have we not all, amid earth’s petty strife,Some pure ideal of a nobler life?We lost it in the daily jar and fact,And now live idly in a vain regret.”
Adelaide Procter.
Agathawas so much absorbed in her preparation for St. Robert’s that she did not pay very much heed to her younger sisters or their relations with Magdalen. She had induced them to submit to the regulation of their studies with her pretty much as if she had been Mrs. Best, looking upon her, however, as something out of date, and hardly up to recent opinions, not realising that, of late, Magdalen’s world had been a wide one.
Perhaps, in Agatha’s feelings, there was an undercurrent inherited from her mother, who had always felt the better connected, better educated step-daughter, a sort of alien element, exciting jealousy by her companionship to her father, and after his death, apt to be regarded as a scarcely willing, and perhaps censorious pay-master.
“Your sister might call it too expensive.” “I must ask your sister.” “No, your sister does not think she can afford it. I am sure she might. Her expenses must be nothing.” All this had been no preparation for full sisterly confidence with “Sister,” even when a sort of grudging gratitude was extracted, and Agatha had been quite old enough to imbibe an undefined antagonism, though, being a sensible girl, she repressed the manifestations, kept her sisters in order and taught them not to love but to submit, and herself remained in a state of civil coolness, without an approach beyond formal signs of affection, and such confidence.
It was the more disappointing to Magdalen, because Agatha and Paulina both showed so much unconscious likeness to their father, not only in features, but in little touches of gesture and manner. She longed to pet them, and say, “Oh, my dears, how like papa!” but the only time she attempted it, she was met by a severe, uncomprehending look and manner.
And Agatha went away to Oxford without any thawing on her part.
The only real ground that had been gained was with little Thekla, who was soon very fond of “Sister,” and depended on her more and more for sympathy and amusement. Girls of seventeen and sixteen do not delight in the sports of nine-year-olds, except in the case of special pets andprotégées, and Thekla was snubbed when a partner was required to assist in doll’s dramas, or in evening games. Only “Sister” would play unreservedly with her, unaware or unheeding that this was looked on as keeping up themétierof governess. Indeed, Thekla’s reports of schoolroom murmurs and sneers about the M.A. had to be silenced. Peace and good will could best be guarded by closed ears. Yet, even then, Thekla missed child companionship, and, even more, competition, the lack of which rendered her dull and listless over her lessons, and when reproved, she would beg to be sent to school, or, at least, to attend the High School on her bicycle. Not admiring the manners or the attainments of the specimens before her, Magdalen felt bound to refuse, and the sisters’ pity kept alive the grievance.
She had, however, decided on granting the bicycles. She had found plenty of use for her own, for it was possible with prudent use of it, avoiding the worst parts of the road, to be at early celebration at St. Andrew’s, and get to the Sunday school at Arnscombe afterwards; and Paulina, with a little demur, decided on giving her assistance there.
At a Propagation of the Gospel meeting at the town hall, the Misses Prescott were introduced to the Reverend Augustine Flight, of St. Kenelm’s, and his mother, Lady Flight, who sat next to Magdalen, and began to talk eagerly of the designs for the ceiling of their church, and the very promising young artist who was coming down from Eccles and Beamster to undertake the work.
The church had not yet been seen, and the conversation ended in the sisters coming back to tea, at which Paula was very happy, for the talk had something of the rather exclusive High Church tone that was her ideal. She had seen it in books, but had never heard it before in real life, and Vera was in a restless state, longing to hear whether the promising young artist was really Hubert Delrio, and hoping, while she believed that she feared, that she should blush when she heard his name. However, she did not, though Mr. Flight unfolded his rough plans for the frescoes, which were to be of virgin and child martyrs, Magdalen hesitating a little over those that seemed too legendary; while old Lady Flight, portly and sentimental, declared them so sweet and touching. After tea, they went on to the church. Just at the entrance of the porch, Vera clutched at Paula, with the whisper, “Wasn’t that Wilfred Merrifield? There, crossing?”
“Nonsense,” was Paula’s reply, as she lingered over the illuminated list of the hours of services displayed at the door, and feeling as if she had attained dreamland, as she saw two fully habited Sisters enter, and bend low as they did so.
The church was very elaborately ornamented, small, but showing that no expense had been spared, though there was something that did not quite accord with Magdalen’s ideas of the best taste; so that when they went out she answered Paula’s raptures of admiration somewhat coldly, or what so appeared to the enthusiastic girl.
The next day, meeting Miss Mohun over cutting out for a working party, Magdalen asked her about the Flights and St. Kenelm’s.
“He is an excellent good man,” said Jane Mohun, “and has laid out immense sums on the church and parish.”
“All his own? Not subscription?”
“No. He is the only son of a very rich City man, a brewer, and came here with his mother as a curate, as a good place for health. They found a miserable little corrugated-iron place, called the Kennel Chapel, and worked it up, raising the people, and doing no end of good till it came to be a district, as St. Kenelm’s.”
“Very ornamental?”
“Oh, very,” said Jane, warming out of caution, as she felt she might venture showing city gorgeousness all over. “But it is infinitely to his credit. He had a Fortunatus’ purse, and was a spoilt child—not in the bad sense—but with an utterly idolising mother, and he tried a good many experiments that made our hair stand on end; but he has sobered down, and is a much wiser man now—though I would not be bound to admire all he does.”
“I see there are Sisters? Do they belong to his arrangements?”
“Yes. They are what my brother calls Cousins of Mercy. The elder one has tried two or three Sisterhoods, and being dissatisfied with all the rules, I fancy she has some notion of trying to set up one on her own account at Mr. Flight’s. They are both relations of his mother, and are really one of his experiments—fancy names and fancy rules, of course. I believe the young one wanted to call herself Sister Philomena, but that he could not stand. So they act as parish women here, and they do it very well. I liked Sister Beata when I have come in contact with her, and I am sure she is an excellent nurse. They will do your nieces no harm, though I don’t like the irregular.”
Of this assurance Magdalen felt very glad, when at the door of the parish room, where the ladies were to hold a working party for the missions, Carrigaboola Missions at Albertstown, she and her nieces were introduced to the two ladies in hoods and veils; and Paula’s eyes sparkled with delight as she settled into a chair next to Sister Mena. She looked as happy as Vera looked bored! Conversation was not possible while a missionary memoir was being read aloud, but the history of Mother Constance, once Lady Herbert Somerville, but then head at Dearport, and founder of the Daughter Sisterhood at Carrigaboola. To the Merrifields it was intensely interesting, and also to Magdalen; but all the time she could see demonstrations passing between Paula and Sister Mena, a nice-looking girl, much embellished by the setting of the hood and veil, as if the lending of a pair of scissors or the turning of a hem were an act of tender admiration. So sweet a look came out on Paula’s face that she longed to awaken the like. Vera meantime looked as if her only consolation lay in the neighbourhood of a window, whence she could see up the street, as soon as she had found whispers to Mysie Merrifield treated as impossible.
The party at the Goyle had begun to fall into regular habits, and struggles were infrequent. There was study in the forenoon, walks or cycle expeditions in the afternoon, varied by the lessons in music and in art, which Vera and Paula attended on Wednesdays and Fridays, the one in the morning, the other after dinner. It was possible to go to St. Andrew’s matins at ten o’clock before the drawing class, and to St. Kenelm’s at five, after the music was over. Magdalen, whenever it was possible, went with her sisters on their bicycles to St. Andrew’s, and sometimes devised errands that she might join them at St. Kenelm’s, but neither could always be done by the head of the household. And she could perceive that her company was not specially welcome.
Valetta, the only one of the Clipstone family whose drawing was worth cultivating, used to ride into Rockstone, escorted by her brother Wilfred, who was in course of “cramming” with a curate on his way to his tutor, and Vera found in casual but well-cultivated meetings and partings, abundant excitement in “nods and becks and wreathed smiles,” and now and then in the gift of a flower.
Paula on the other hand found equal interest and delight in meetings with Sister Mena, especially after a thunderstorm had driven the two to take refuge at what the Sisters called “the cell of St. Kenelm,” and tea had unfolded their young simple hearts to one another! Magdalen had called on the Sisters and asked them to tea at the Goyle, and there had come to the conclusion that Sister Beata was an admirable, religious, hardworking woman, of strong opinions, and not much cultivated, with a certain provincial twang in her voice. She had a vehement desire for self-devotion and consecration, but perhaps not the same for obedience. She sharply criticised all the regulations of the Sisterhoods with which she was acquainted, wore a dress of her own device, and with Sister Mena, a young cousin of her own, meant to make St. Kenelm’s a nucleus for a Sisterhood of her own invention.
Sister Mena had been bred up in a Sisterhood’s school, from five years old and upwards, and had no near relatives. Mr. Flight was Saint, Pope and hero to both, and Mena knew little beyond the horizon of St. Kenelm’s, but she and Paula were fascinated with one another; and Magdalen saw more danger in interfering than in acquiescing, though she gave no consent to Paulina’s aspirations after admission into the perfect Sisterhood that was to be.
“Why then should vain repinings rise,That to thy lover fate deniesA nobler name, a wide domain?”—Scott.
“Why then should vain repinings rise,That to thy lover fate deniesA nobler name, a wide domain?”—Scott.
Thefriendship with the Sisters was about three weeks old when, one morning, scaffold poles were being erected in the new side aisle of St. Kenelm’s Church, and superintending them was a tall dark-haired young man. There was a start of mutual recognition; and by and by he met Paula and Vera in the porch, and there were eager hand-clasps and greetings, as befitted old friends meeting in a strange place.
“Mr. Hubert! I heard you were coming!”
“Miss Vera! Miss Paula! This is a pleasure.”
Then followed an introduction of Sister Mena, whose elder companion was away, attending a sick person.
“May I ask whether you are living here?”
“Two miles off at the Goyle, at Arnscombe, with our sister.”
“So I heard! I shall see you again.” And he turned aside to give an order, bowing as he did so.
“Is he the artist of those sweet designs?” asked Sister Mena.
“Did we not tell you?”
“And now he is going to execute them? How delicious!”
“I trust so! We must see him again. We have not heard of Edie and Nellie, nor any one.”
“He will call on you?” said Sister Mena.
“I do not think so,” said Paula. “At least his father is really an artist, but he is drawing-master at the High School, and Hubert works for this firm. They are not what you call in society, and our sister is all for getting in with Lady Merrifield and General Mohun and all the swells, so it would never do for him to call.”
“She would first be stiff and stuck up,” said Vera, “and I could not stand that.”
“I thought she was so kind,” said Mena.
“You don’t understand,” said Vera. “She would be kind to a workman in a fever; but this sort—oh, no.”
“To be on an equality with the man painting the church?” said Paula. “No, indeed! not if he were Fra Angelico and Ary Scheffer and Michelangelo rolled into one.”
At that moment the subject referred to in that mighty conglomeration reappeared. He was a handsome young man, his touch of Italian blood showing just enough to give him a romantic air; and Sister Philomena listened, much impressed by the interchange of question and answer about “Edie and Nellie,” and the dear Warings, and the happy Christmas at the Grange; and Vera blushed again, and Paula coloured in sympathy, as it appeared that Mr. Delrio had never had such a splendid time.
The colloquy was ended by Mr. Flight being descried, approaching with his mother, whereupon the two girls fled away like guilty creatures.
Presently Vera exclaimed, “Oh, Polly dear, what a complication! Poor dear fellow! he cares for me as much as ever.”
“And you will be staunch to him in spite of all the worldly allurements,” said Paula.
“Well, I mean Mr. Wilfred Merrifield is not half so handsome,” returned Vera.
“Nor is he engaged in sacred work; only bent on frivolity,” said Paula; “yet see how the M.A. encourages him with tennis and games and nonsense.”
Poor M.A., when the encouragement had only been some general merriment, and a few games on the lawn Paulina, who had heard many confidences when Vera returned from Waring Grange, believed altogether in the true love of the damsel and Hubert Delrio, who had been wont to single out the prettiest of the girls at Filstead, and she was resolved to do all she could in their cause, being schoolgirl enough to have no scruple as to secrecy towards Magdalen, though on the next opportunity she poured out all to Sister Philomena’s by no means unwilling ears.
Lovers had never fallen within the young Sister’s experience, either personally or through friends; and they had only been revealed to her in a few very carefully-selected tales, where they were more the necessary machinery than the main interest, for she had been bred up in an orphanage by Sister Beata, and had never seen beyond it. So to her Paula’s story, little as there was of it, was a perfect romance, and it gained in colour when she related it to her senior.
Sister Beata hesitated a little, having rather more knowledge of the world, remembering that Vera Prescott was not eighteen years old, and doubting whether an underhand intimacy ought to be encouraged; but then Mr. Flight had spoken of Mr. Delrio as a highly praiseworthy young man, of decided Catholic principles; he was regular at Church services, and had dined or supped at the Vicarage. The intercourse, as the girls had explained, had been sanctioned by Mrs. Best in their native town, where all parties were well known, and thus there could be no harm in letting it continue. While as to the elder Miss Prescott, she was understood to be unduly bent on county and titled society, and to be exclusive towards inferiors. Moreover, she was an attendant at St. Andrew’s Church, and thus regarded as out of the pale of sympathy of the St. Kenelm’s flock.
So no obstacle was put in the way of the gossips, for they were really nothing more, except that there was admiration of the designs for the side chapel, which were of the Scripture children on one side, and on the other of child martyrs. Now and then there was a reference to the chilliness and hardship of living with an unsympathising sister, and being obliged to go to churches of which they did not approve. Sometimes too there were airy castles of a distant future to be shared by the magnificent architect, together with Vera, while Paula nursed in the convent with Mother Beata and Sister Philomena.
But all this did not prevent an excitement and eager laughter and chatter whenever Wilfred Merrifield came in the way, and he certainly was enough attracted by Vera’s pretty face and lively graces to make his sisters think him very absurd; but his mother had seen so many passing fancies among her elder sons as to hold that blindness was better than serious treatment.
There was the further effect that Magdalen had no suspicion that the vehement attraction to St. Kenelm’s went beyond the harmless quarter of the two nursing Sisters and some hero worship of Mr. Flight. Miss Mohun, who knew everything, had indeed hinted that something foolish might be going on there; but Magdalen had not decided on the mutual fairness of the two congregations, and deferred investigation till Agatha should come home, when she would have a reasonable, if cold, person to deal with. Nor did Thekla’s chatter excite any suspicion; for the only time when she had been present at a meeting with Mr. Delrio, she had been half bribed, half threatened into silence, and she was quite schoolgirl enough to feel that such was the natural treatment of authority, though she had become really fond of “sister.”
“Can I teach thee, my beloved? can I teach thee?”E. B.Browning.
“Can I teach thee, my beloved? can I teach thee?”
E. B.Browning.
Agathacame home in due time, and Magdalen sent her sister to meet her at the station, where they found a merry Clipstone party in the waggonette waiting for Gillian, who was to come home at the same time. There was so much discussion of the new golf ground, that Vera had hardly a hand or a glance to bestow on Mr. Delrio, who jumped out of the same train, shook hands with Agatha, and bestirred himself in finding her luggage and calling a cab.
“How he is improved! What a pleasing, gentlemanly fellow he looks!” she exclaimed, as she waved her thanks, while driving off in the cab.
“Is he not?” said Paula, while Vera bridled and blushed. “You will be delighted with his work. I never saw anything more lovely than little St. Cyriac the martyr.”
“He is taken from Mrs. Henderson’s little boy,” added Vera; “such a dear little darling.”
“And his mother is to be done; indeed, he has sketched her for St. Juliet.”
“Flapsy! St. Romeo, too, I suppose?”
“Nonsense, Nag! There really was a St. Juliet or Julitta, and she was his mother, and they both were martyrs. I will tell you all the history,” began Paula; but Agatha interposed.
“You must like having him down here. Sister must be much pleased with him. She used to like old Mr. Delrio.”
“Well, we have not said much about him,” owned Paula. “He does not seem to wish it, or expect to be in with swells.”
“We could not stand his being treated like a common house-painter and upholsterer,” added Vera.
“Surely no one does so,” said Agatha.
“Not exactly,” said Paula; “at least, he has had supper at St. Kenelm’s Vicarage with Lady Flight, and luncheon at Carrara with Captain and Mrs. Henderson.”
“Because he wasdoingthe child,” interposed Vera; “and Thekla says that Primrose Merrifield says that her Aunt Jane—that is, old Miss Mohun—says that Lady Flight is not a gentlewoman.”
“What has that to do with Magdalen?”
“Why, she is so taken up with those swells of hers, especially now that there is a talk of Lord Somebody’s yacht coming in, that she would never treat him as on equal terms, but just keep him at a distance, like a mere decorator.”
“That seemed to me just what you were doing,” said Agatha, “when he was so kind and helpful about my box.”
“Oh,theywere all there, and we did not want to be talked of,” said Vera, blushing. “He understands.”
“He understands,” repeated Paula. “We do see him at the church and at the Sisters’. Those dear Sisters! There is no nonsense about them. You will love them, Nag.”
“Well, it does not seem to me to be treating our own sister Magdalen fairly.”
“The M.A.!” said Vera, in a tone of wonder.
“No; not to be intimate with a person you do not introduce to her, because you do not think she would consider him as on equal terms.”
“Sister Beata quite approves,” added Paula, sincerely, not guessing how little Sister Beata knew of the situation, of which she only heard through the medium of her own representations to Sister Mena.
The two girls rushed into the charms of these two Sisters, and the plan for an entertainment for the maidens of the Guild of St. Milburgha, at which they were to assist. It lasted up to the gate of the Goyle, where Magdalen and Thekla were ready to meet them; and they trooped merrily up the hill, Agatha keeping to Magdalen’s side in a way that struck her as friendly and affectionate. It seemed to be more truly cominghomethan the elder sister had dared to anticipate; nor, indeed, did she feel the veiled antagonism to herself that had previously disappointed her.
The talk was about St. Robert’s, about Oxford in general, the new friends, the principal, the games, the debates, the lectures, the sermons, the celebrities, the undergraduates, the concerts, the chapels, the boats, the architecture; all were touched on for further discussion by and by as they sat at the evening meal, and then on the chairs and cushions in the verandah; and through all there was no exclusion of the elder sister, but rather she was the one who could appreciate the interest of what Agatha had seen and heard; and even she was allowed to enter into the amusement of an Oxfordbon mot, sometimes, indeed, when it was far beyond Paula and Vera.
There was no doubt that the term had much improved Agatha even in appearance and manner. She held herself better, pronounced better, uttered no slangish expressions, and twice she repressed little discourtesies on the part of her sisters, and neglects such as were not the offspring of tender familiarity, but of an indifference akin to rudeness. Magdalen had endured, knowing how bad it was for their manners, but unwilling to become more of an annoyance than could be helped. The indescribable difference in Agatha’s whole manner sent Magdalen to bed happier than she had been since the arrival of her sisters, and feeling as if Agatha had come to her own side of a barrier.
Perhaps it was quite true; for the last two months had been a time of growth with the maiden, changing her from a schoolgirl to a student, from the “brook to the river.” She had, indeed, studied hard, but that she had always done, as being clever, intellectual and ambitious. The difference had been from her intercourse with persons slightly her elders, but who did not look on authorities as natural enemies, to be tolerated for one’s own good. There had been a development of the conscience and soul even in this first term that made her regard her elder sister not merely with a sense of compulsory gratitude and duty, but with sympathy and fellow feeling, which were the more excited when she saw her own chilliness of last spring carried further by the two young girls.
So breakfast went off merrily; and after the round of the garden and the pets, Agatha promised to come, when summoned, to hear how well Thekla could read French. In the meantime she waited in the morning-room, looking at her sisters’ books; Vera pushed aside the Venetian blind.
“Don’t come in that way, Flapsy!” called Paula. “You’ll be heard in the dining-room, and the M.A. will tremble at your dusty feet.”
“They aren’t dusty,” said Vera, pulling up the blind with a clatter.
“Aren’t they?” laughed Paula, pointing.
“You had better go and wipe them,” said Agatha.
“I don’t believe in M.A.’s fidgets,” returned Vera.
“But I do, in proper deference to the head of the house,” said Agatha, gravely.
“Murder in Irish!” cried Vera, bouncing away, while Paula argued, “Really, Nag, life is not long enough to attend to all the M.A.’s little worries.”
“Polly, dear, I am afraid we have been on a wrong tack with our sister. I don’t like calling her by that name.”
“You began it!” exclaimed Vera, dashing in by the door as she spoke.
“I could not have meant it as a nickname to be always in use.”
“Oh yes, you did, I remember”—and an argument was beginning, which Agatha cut short by saying, “Any way, it is bad taste.”
“Nag has been so much among the real M.A. that she is tender about their title.”
“She wants to be one herself,” said Vera; “and so she will if she goes on getting learned and faddy.”
“In both senses?” said Paula.
Agatha laughed a little, but added, “No, Polly, the thing is that it is hardly kind or right to put that sort of label upon a person like Magdalen—who has done so much for us—and—”
The perverse young hearts could not bear a touch on the chord of gratitude; and Paula burst in, “Label or libel, do you mean?”
“It becomes a libel as you use it.”
“Do you want us to call her sister or Magdalen, the whole scriptural mouthful at once?”
“I believe that to call her Magdalen or Maidie, as my father did, would make her feel nearer to us than the formal way of saying ‘Sister.’”
“I don’t mind about changing,” said Paula. “She can never be the same to us as dear Sister Mena.”
“She is so tiresome,” added Vera. “She bothers so over my music; calling out if I make ever so small a slip, and making me go over all again.”
“Well she may,” said Paula. “She is making little Tick play so nicely. Just listen! But I can’t bear her dragging us off to that horrid old Arnscombe Church and the nasty stuffy Sunday school.”
“That reminds me,” said Agatha; “Gillian Merrifield met a relation of Mr. Earl’s, who said that Miss Prescott had brought quite new life and spirit to the poor old man, who had been getting quite out of heart for want of any one to help and sympathise with him.”
“Then he ought to make his services more Catholic,” said Paula. “But nothing will wean her from the old parochial idea. Why, she would not let me give my winter stockings to Sister Beata’s poor girls, but made me darn them and put them by.”
“Yes, and mine, which were bad enough to give away, she made me darn first,” cried Vera. “She is ever so much worse than the superlative about mending one’s clothes.”
“There ought to be another degree of comparison,” said Paula,—“Botheratissima!”
“For, only think!” said Vera. “She won’t let us have new hats, but only did up the old ones, and not with feathers, though there is such a love at Tebbitts’s at Rockstone.”
“She says it is cruel,” said Paula.
“Cruel to me, I am sure; and what difference does it make when the birds are once killed?”
“Well, she did give us those lovely wreaths of lilies,” said Paula.
“Of course, but nothing to make them stylish! What’s the good of being out if one is to have nothingchic? And she won’t let me have a hockey outfit. She says she must see more of it to be able to judge whether to let us play!”
“That just means seeing whether her dear Merrifields do,” said Paula.
“Gillian did at St. Catherine’s. But you will know soon. Did I not hear something about a garden party?”
“Oh, yes; she is talking of one, but it will be all swells and croquet, and deadly dull.”
“I thought you seemed to be getting on well with the swells, if you mean the Merrifields, especially Wilfred, if that is his name.”
“Bil—Bil! Oh, he is all very well,” said Vera, “if he would not be always so silly and come after me! As if I cared!”
“And only think,” said Paula, “that she was going to have it on the very day that St. Milburga’s Guild has their festival! Just as if it was on purpose!”
“Did you ask her to keep clear of your engagements?”
“I told her, but I don’t think she listened.” And as another grievance suggested itself to Vera, she declared, “And she won’t let us join the Girls’ Magazine Club, because she saw one she didn’t like on somebody’s table. As if we were little babies!”
“She won’t let us order books at the library, but gets such awfully slow ones,” chimed in Paula, “or only baby stories fit for Thekla. She made me return that book dear Sister Mena lent me, because she said it was Roman Catholic.”
“And hasn’t she got Thomas à Kempis on her table? and I’m sure he was Roman Catholic. There’s consistency!”
“You don’t understand,” began Agatha. “He was a great Saint before the Catholics became so Roman.”
“Oh, never mind! It is anything to thwart us,” cried Vera. “It is ever so much worse than school.”
“But,” began Agatha, and the tone of consideration to that one conjunction caused an outburst. “Oh, Nag, Nag, if you are gone over to the enemy, what will life be worth?”
As that terrible question was propounded, in burst Thekla with, “Oh, Nag, Nag, they are cutting the hay in the high torr field, and sister says we may go and see them before I read my French.”
“Oh!” cried Vera, with a prolongation into a groan, “is she going to be tiresome?”
“She has come to be quite a don,” said Paula; “but never mind, we will soon make her all right again.”
The two sisters had to go to their different classes in the afternoon, and wanted Agatha to go with them; but it was a very warm day, and she preferred resting in the garden, and, to Magdalen’s surprise and pleasure, conversation with her. At first it was about Oxford matters, very interesting, but public and external to the home, and it did not draw the cords materially closer; but when Thekla had privately decided that even hanging upon the newly recovered Nag was not worth the endurance of anything so tedious, and had gone off to assist her beloved old gardener in gathering green gooseberries, Magdalen observed that she was a very pleasant little pupil, and was getting on very well, especially with arithmetic.
“That was the strong point in the junior classes,” said Agatha; “better taught than it was in my time.”
“I wish she could have more playfellows,” said Magdalen. “She would like to go to the High School at Rockquay, but there are foundations I should wish to lay before having her out of my own hands.”
“I should think you were her best playfellow. She seems very fond of you, and very happy.”
“Yes,” said Magdalen, rather wistfully. “I think she generally is so.”
“Maidie! may I call you by the old home name?” And as Magdalen answered with a kiss and tearful smile, “Do tell me, please, if Polly and Flapsy are nice to you?”
Magdalen was taken by surprise at the pressure of the hand and the eyes that gazed into her face full of expression.