The Family at Misrule

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Family at Misrule "POPPET FLUNG UP HER ARMS, AND WITH A WILD, PIERCING SHRIEK FLEW ACROSS THE ROOM." "There's nothing them kids could do as 'ud surprise me," he said, as he took a fresh supply of mustard and settled down again. He had known the family for seven years, so the remark was not unjustifiable. Martha had withdrawn to a back room with the manager. She explained that his young waiter was the son of a gentleman; she gave him Captain Woolcot's address that he might be reimbursed for the breakages. "But 'owever he got 'ere, so help me, I can't imagine," she said. "Why, he's in America." She put out her hand to touch the lad and feel if he were real flesh and blood, the evidence of her senses could not be accredited. "It's really you, is it?" she said slowly. But Bunty did not answer; he seemed half stupefied, and was standing perfectly still, while Poppet sobbed and asked questions and clung to him. Such a tall, gaunt boy he had grown. His face was thin and sharp, there was a look of silent suffering in his eyes and round his lips, his clothes hung loosely on him, and were threadbare to the last degree. "Get your hat and come with us, Master John," she said, a touch of her old sharpness in her manner to him. "Don't take on so, Miss Poppet. Hush! every one is looking at you; be quiet now, an we'll go to the Gardens, or somewhere where we can talk, and then we'll go home." "I can't go home," Bunty said faintly. He wondered if those five terrible months behind him were a dream; or if little trembling Poppet, who was holding him so tightly, was a vision his disordered imagination had called up. "Oh, I can't go home, of course," he said, and pushed his thick hair back in a tired kind of way. "Hush, Poppet; go home with Martha like a good girl, and, on no account, say you've seen me. Promise me——" He did not wait for an answer, however, but made fresh confusion by fainting dead away on the floor at Martha's feet. The manager of the restaurant felt himself a very ill-used man that such things should happen at his busiest time; but he was not inhuman, and the boy's deathly face and the little girl's exceeding distress touched him. Besides, Malcolm was his most regular customer; it would be unwise to offend him. So he helped to lift the boy into an inner room, gave Martha brandy and water, and recommended burnt feathers. "I'll go and send a tellygrum for the Captain," Malcolm said, picking up his hat. He too felt ill-used, for there were some choice morsels still on his plate, and there was no knowing when he would get his pudding. But Poppet caught his coat sleeve. "Not father, on any account," she said. "Esther, or Meg, or even Pip—but oh, not father!" "No, you'd better not fetch the Captain," Martha said. "Oh no, he wouldn't do at all. Better telegraph for Miss Meg—she's got a head on her. The missus is ill with a headache, so it's no good fetching her—yes, send for Miss Meg." It was between half-past one and two when all this happened; at five Bunty was half-sitting, half-lying on the old, springless sofa in the nursery. Poppet had squeezed herself on the half-inch of space he had left, and was gazing at him, a look of great content and unspeakable love on her little face; and Meg on the low rocking-chair beside them was holding a hand of each. The others had been turned out. Bunty lay with his face to the wall and his lips shut in a dogged kind of way when they had all crowded round asking questions; and at last Meg, seeing he was totally unfit for any excitement or distress, persuaded them to leave him to Poppet and herself till he was stronger. And when the room was quiet, and Meg rocking softly to and fro, and Poppet occasionally rubbing her smooth little cheek against his old coat, he told them everything of his own accord. He had not been to America at all, he had never even heard of a boat called the Isabella ; it must have been some other boy the police had heard of, and a chance resemblance that made them connect the two. He had been in or near Sydney all the time, living he hardly knew how. The first month he had done odd jobs, fetched and carried for a grocer in Botany. Then he had managed to get a place on a rough farm in the Lane Cove district, where he was paid four shillings a week and given board and lodging—of a kind. But there had been a long spell of rainy weather and rough westerly winds, and he had been in wet things sometimes from morning to night. "And it gave me fever—rheumatic—pretty badly," he said; "so they shipped me down to the hospital here in Sydney." Poppet buried her nose in the sofa cushion, and Meg gave an exclamation of horror. "And you didn't tell the people who you were, and send for us?" she said, wondering if this could be the same boy who, when he was small, required the sympathies of the house if he scratched his knees. "How could I?" was Bunty's low reply, "when you didn't know about that !" Meg held his hand closer. "Didn't the people at the hospital ask who you were?" she said. "I told them I hadn't any home, and my name was John Thomson," he answered. "Of course they thought I was nothing but a farm boy. Well, I was there a long time—about two months, I think; it seemed like years." Meg's face was pale, and her eyes full of hot tears. She pictured the poor lad lying in that hospital bed week after week, strange faces all around him, strange hands ministering to him,—weak, racked with pain, and yet with almost incredible strength of mind persevering in his determination not to let his family know anything. "How could you help sending for us?" she said, in a low tone. He moved his head a little restlessly. "I knew you were all sick of me, and ashamed of me. I know I'm not like the rest of you, and I kept saying I'd get well and work hard and do something to make you respect me before I came back." Respect him! In Poppet's eyes Nelson was less of a hero, Gordon had infinitely less claim to glory. "Two or three times I nearly told the nurse," he continued, half-shamefacedly; "the pain was pretty bad, I couldn't go to sleep for it, and I thought I'd like Poppet to come,"—he gave her hand a rough squeeze,—"but then I used to stuff the blanket in my mouth and bite it, and it kept me from telling her. I used to have to shut my eyes so I shouldn't see her coming to my end of the ward; I used to get so frightened I'd say it without meaning to." "And then," said Meg—the narration was almost too painful—"what did you do then—when you got better?" The rest of the story he hurried over; it made him shudder a little to think of it all, now he was lying in this dear old room with two faces full of love close to him. He had not been strong enough for any regular work after he came from the hospital. He had twelve shillings of his wages left, and this kept him for a fortnight, with the help of what he received for an odd job or two. The last week had been the worst of all. On Saturday he had elevenpence only left; he lived on it that day, Sunday, and Monday, sleeping in the Domain at night. On Tuesday he had in the course of his wanderings come to Malcolm's favourite restaurant, and lingered around it, trying to feed his poor hungry body with the appetising smells that issued from the door. At last he could bear it no longer; he went in and asked if they wanted a boy to wash up or wait, offering to do so in return for food and a bed at night. They had been very pushed for help, for one of the waiters had fallen ill, and they told him he could try it for a day or two. All Tuesday he worked hard there, washing up, peeling potatoes, running errands; the meals seemed more than ample repayment to him in his half-starved state. On Wednesday the absent waiter had sent word to say he would be at his duties the following day. Just as Bunty was lading his tray to carry it round he dropped a couple of tumblers,—he had broken two or three things the previous day,—and the manager in annoyance told him he could stay the rest of the day but need not come back to-morrow. Sick at heart at the thought of the streets again, the poor boy had picked up his tray and gone out into the big room with it. And the next minute there came that wild, glad shriek, and Poppet had flung herself upon him half mad with joy. Just as the tale ended Nellie burst into the room. She went straight over to the sofa and fell down on her knees beside it. "Oh, how can you ever forgive us, Bunty!" she said, tears brimming over in her eyes. "Oh, Bunty, I shall never forgive myself, never!" Esther had followed, her face' shining with gladness. "Mr. Burnham is here," she said, "and——" "Bunty never did it, 'twath Bully Hawkinth!" burst out Peter, pushing Nellie aside, and actually trying to kiss his injured brother in his excitement. Bunty rose to his feet, pale, trembling. "What is it, Esther?" he said. "Nellie—tell me!" "Only it was young Hawkins after all who took the money," said Esther, in tones that trembled with gladness for the news, and grief for the poor boy's unmerited sufferings. "He broke his collar bone at football yesterday, and he thought at first he was going to die; he confessed it to his mother, and made her send word to school. Mr. Burnham has come straight here with the news, and says he can never forgive himself for all you have suffered over it." "Oh, Bunty! how hateful we were not to believe you," said Nellie, wiping her eyes; "we don't deserve for you to speak to us." But Bunty put his poor rough head down on the cushions again, and great hard sobs broke from him, sobs that he was bitterly ashamed of, but that he had absolutely no strength to restrain. No one would ever know quite how wretched this thing had made him. However warm the welcome home had been, there would always have been that cloud. The relief was almost too much for him in his weak state. At night, when Meg was tucking Poppet up in bed, the little girl sat up suddenly. "Meg, that is the most wonderfullest tree in the world," she said in a low, almost reverential tone. Meg asked her to explain, and she told how she and Martha had walked backwards three times, around the "wishing-tree" in the Botanical Gardens. Meg stooped down and kissed the dear little face; how she envied Poppet to-day! she was the only one who had had faith all the time. "What did you wish?" she asked, though she knew without telling. "That Bunty might be found this vewy day, and that they might find out about the money." "But I think I know a little girl who has said that in her prayers every day for five months," whispered Meg. "Which do you think answered, God or the tree?" The little girl was quiet for a minute, then she knelt up on her pillow and drooped her sweet, grave face with its closed eyelids over her two small hands. When she cuddled down among the clothes again, she drew Meg's bright head down to her. "I was thanking Him," she said. CHAPTER XIII. PARNASSUS AND PUDDINGS. "When for the first time Nature says plain 'No To some 'Yes' in you, and walks over you In gorgeous sweeps of scorn." Pip had not spoken to Meg for over three weeks. There had been one fiery outbreak consequent upon Miss Jones' dismissal of him. When he learnt Meg had been to her he had accused his sister of treachery, of trying to ruin his happiness; he had been willing, he said, to put off the question of marriage for a year or two, but no power on earth would have made him promise to give Mabelle up. And she had given him up! Put him aside as if he had been a schoolboy, or a worn-out glove! And with astonishing firmness. He had even seen her already walking out with a man who sold saucepans and kettles and fire-grates in the one business street of the suburb. No wonder his cup of bitterness seemed running over; no wonder he felt Meg had sinned beyond forgiveness in thus interfering. His last examination had not, it was found, been hopelessly bad, and he had been granted a " post mortem ." But even then he did not attempt to work. He used certainly, to stay in his bedroom, where his table stood with its wild confusion of books and papers, but he would sit hour after hour staring moodily in front of him, with never a glance at the Todhunter or Berkeley that so urgently required his attention. Or he would read poetry, lying full length on his bed,—Keats, Shelley, and Byron, tales of blighted passion and hopeless grief, till his eyes would ache with the tears his young manhood forbade to fall, tears of huge self-pity and misery. Surely since the creation there had been no one quite so wretched, so utterly bereft of all that made life worth living! How grey and monotonous stretched out the future before him! The probable length of his life made him aghast. The sheer uselessness of living, the hollow mockery of the sunshine and laughter and birds' songs, and the intolerable length of hours and days, seemed each day to strike him with fresh force. After a certain time his mood induced poetic outpourings. He thought himself just as wretched,—even more so, indeed; but the mere fact that his feelings were able to relieve themselves in this way showed the first keenness was passing. "HE WOULD SIT HOUR AFTER HOUR STARING MOODILY IN FRONT OF HIM." Sheet after sheet of University paper was covered with wild, impassioned addresses in the shape of sonnets and odes, or, when the pen was too full for studied forms, of eloquent blank verse. For instance, the following poem struck him as exceptionally fine. He composed it at midnight, after eating his heart out in misery all the day. It was written in his blackest writing, as might be expected, and upon a sheet of grey note paper,—the University buff had suddenly offended his sense of fitness. "Oh, what is life when all its joys are fled! I am in love with Death's long dreamful ease. Over my head I hear th' unwelcome tread Of future years; my aching eye still sees New suns arise and set, and seasons wane. I would take arms against this sea of pain, I would embrace Earth's sea and sink to rest, For ever lulled upon her soothing breast! I would fling off this gift of Life, as you, O bitter Love, flung me aside, your you! O Love, O Love, O bitter, beauteous Love, Heartless and cold, but still my one fair dove! What is this life that some find strangely fair, When but to think brings sorrow and despair? What is this life when love, your love, lies dead, And mine, too much alive, slays me instead? I will give up, go down,—there is a sea, A winding sheet, kept cool and green for me. I will give up, go down! Yet, Love, but smile, But stretch to me that hand so soft and white, That seemed my own, that sad, sweet little while, And all grows day, for ever dead the night." He was not at all sure when he read it the eighth or ninth time that the mantle of the "Sun-treader" had not fallen upon him, that Helicon's drying fount would not spring up afresh at his bidding. Other men in love, he knew, had made verses, but they were of the mawkish, sentimental kind his more fastidious taste rejected, the kind that generally began something like— "Oh, Star of Beauty, all the night Thou shinest in the sky; For thee the dark doth grow quite bright— Oh, hear my plaintive sigh!" His, he felt, were strong with the strength born of fathomless misery, and sweet with the bitter-sweet of undying and spurned love. One day he met Mabelle; she was walking to church with her fat, honest old mother, who preferred a man of saucepans with money far before one of irreproachable shirt cuffs and empty pockets. She smiled at him from her brown, beautifully lashed eyes, a kind of for-goodness-sake-try-to-make- the-best-of-it-and-don't-look-so-tragic smile, but he interpreted it as a sign of softening. When he got home he sent her the poem,—if anything in the wide world could touch her beautiful, stony heart he thought that would. He entrusted it to the common post, and waited with an undisciplined heart for the answer. It came on a Monday morning. Poppet took it from the postman and carried it up to him, but she was too busy with a scheme of Bunty's to notice how white he turned, and how his hand trembled. It was painfully short and to the point:— "What's the use of writing poetery to me when all's up and done with? I showed it to Ma and Pa and some one else, and they thort it very fine; but said you oughtent to write it as some one else writes poetery for me now. I think it's very nice of course and I'll keep it this time but don't send any more. "Your friend only and nothing more, "Miss JONES (not Mabelle). "P.S.—I suppose I may as well tell you as I'm engaged to be married to Mr. Wilkes." That was Pip's death-blow, and, if a paradox may be allowed, from that minute he began to live again. The thought that his cherished poem had been submitted to the critical gaze of a man who sold frying pans and wrote "poetery" himself, stung him to madness. He sat down and attacked his hydrostatics with savage frenzy to prevent himself doing anything desperate. He even played in a football match the next week, a thing he had not done for a long time; and he took food less under protest. But Meg he could not forgive; his manner to her, if compelled to speak, was cold and contemptuous; when possible he totally ignored her presence. The girl found such conduct very hard indeed to bear from her favourite brother, especially as it was only her keen anxiety for his welfare that had made her act as she had done; she bore it in silence, however, and without reproaching him. Some day, she knew, he would thank her from his heart, and for the present she must content herself to lie under the ban of his displeasure. To solace herself she took to making puddings, learning the technicalities of meat cooking, and concocting queer-smelling bottles of stuff she labelled mushroom ketchup, tomato sauce, and Australian chutnee in her neatest hand. Esther smiled a little when first these operations began. Meg had hitherto expressed the frankest dislike for culinary engagements. Nellie laughed openly. "Her 'prentice hand she tried on us, And then she cooked for Alan, oh!" she said one day, shaking her head as she eyed a surprisingly queer-looking conglomeration Meg called amber pudding. "Many thanks, but no, Meg dearest; I think I will finish with honest bread and cheese!" "Esther?" said Meg, pausing with uplifted tablespoon, and taking no notice of Nell's sarcasm beyond blushing finely. "You'll try a little, won't you? I'm sure it's very nice." But even Esther looked dubious; the frothed icing on top had an elegant appearance certainly, but underneath was a mass of strange colour and consistency. "Dear Meg," she said, "I am like the French lady, you know,—I eat only my acquaintances. Nellie, pass me the cheese." But this sort of thing did not damp Meg's spirits, not at least for more than a day or two. Perhaps the next three or four puddings would be long-established favourites that no one could take exception to, but after that there would appear one or two of French title and unknown quantities. Now and again indeed they turned out brilliant successes, that every one praised and longed for more of; but most often, it must be confessed, they were failures, very trying to the tempers and digestions of all who ventured on a helping. "It was well to be Alan," Nellie said, "with nine innocent people submitting themselves daily to the dangers of poisoning or lifelong indigestion, just that in future he might escape and have his palate continually pleased." "If I can't practise on my own family," demanded Meg, smiling however, "how am I to get experience? All of you have excellent digestions, so it will not do you any real harm." And she persevered with so much determination that they only groaned inwardly when a "confection à la Marguerite," as Nellie called it, took the place of old favourites, such as plum puddings, apple pies, roly-polys and Queens. Every one accepted their portion in meekness, and really tried to say encouraging things, especially if her face was hot and anxious. Bunty was just beginning to find his place in the family again. But he was a changed boy. No one could doubt that those five hard months had had the most beneficial effect on his character, although they had made him so white and hollow-cheeked. He was stronger morally, more self-reliant. The rough usage he had received seemed to have quite dissipated his cowardice, and with it the inclination to falsehood. He was almost pitifully careful not to make the slightest untrue statement about anything; and now the barriers of reserve between himself and Meg were broken down, she was able to help him more, and put herself more in his place. Poppet was as much as ever his faithful little companion; there was absolutely nothing the child would not have done for this dear, recovered brother. She even consulted Meg as to the practicability of learning Latin, just that she might look up his words for him every evening in the dictionary. But as three-syllabled words in her own language made her pucker up her poor little brows, and as English grammar still had power to draw weary, dispirited tears, Meg advised a short postponement. CHAPTER XIV. MUSHROOMS. "In what will all this ostentation end?" A new house had been built lately not very far from Misrule, a grand, showy-looking place, or red brick, in the Elizabethan style, which the suburbs of Sydney are just beginning to affect largely. The grounds were laid out by a landscape gardener, and there were velvet lawns, carpet beds, and terraces reaching down to the river, where at Misrule there was only a wilderness of a garden with broken palings, and a couple of sloping paddocks where long rank grass and poppies flourished. Then the carriage drive,—such a grand, smooth, red sweep, serpentining up to the great porch. The Misrule drive was hardly red at all; the gravel had mostly vanished, the dead leaves were generally of Vallambrosian thickness, and weeds raised cheerful heads at intervals. The name of the people who had built the new house was Browne,—Fitzroy-Browne, with a hyphen and an e. Mr. Fitzroy-Browne was a railway contractor, and had builded himself an ample fortune out of a Government that not yet had need to cheese-pare. There were three or four Misses Fitzroy-Browne, that fashionable boarding-schools, dressmakers, and several seasons had done their best for. There was a Mr. Fitzroy-Browne junior, who waxed his moustache, wore clothes of chessboard device, and kept racehorses. And there was Mamma Fitzroy-Browne, who was fat and good-natured, and said "Bless yer 'art" with a cheeriness refreshing in these days of ceremony, and then pulled herself up short and looked unhappy. Poor Mamma Browne! who sometimes thought wistfully of the long-dead days when Papa had been only an honest navvy, and her little girls and boy too small to snub and suppress her, and order her about. Mamma Browne, who had liked her little old "best" room, with its big round table, holding the Bible, three gilt-edged books, and some wax grapes under a glass shade, far better than her grand new drawing-room, that was like a furniture show-place, all mirrors and cabinets, and green and gold. How many Mamma Brownes there are in Australia! It is quite pitiful. Good dear creatures, with their bones too set to adapt themselves to the change the golden days have brought; poor simple-minded things, who, having consistently left "h" out of their language for forty or fifty years, cannot remember it now till an embarrassed cough or a blush and sneer from a Miss Hyphen Browne makes their old hearts ache for shame of themselves. Dear housewives, who wasted not their husbands' substance in the old days, and now bring down vials of contempt from the daughters for anxious watchfulness over reckless servants! Sociable old bodies, to whom a cup of tea in the kitchen with a gossiping friend had been happiness, but "At Homes," thronged with stylish people whose speech fairly bristled with h's and g's, bewildering misery. Comfortable women who have weaknesses for violet, crimson, and bright brown, with large bonnets heavily trimmed, and are sternly arrayed in fashionable no colours, and for bonnets forced to wear a bit of jet, a flyaway bow and strings, that they say piteously feels as if they had no head covering at all. I should like to build a Home for them, these dear, fat, snubbed orphans of society that is altogether too fine for them—I said fat , because if you notice it is always the fat ones who get into trouble: the thin ones can shape themselves into place better,—to build a Home full of small cosy rooms, with centre tables, and chairs, not artistically arranged but set straight against the walls, with vases (pronounced vorses) in pairs everywhere, waxen fruit and flowers under glass, and china animals that never were on sea or land. There should always be a tea-pot, warmly cosied, cups big enough to hold more than one mouthful and not sufficiently precious to make one uncomfortable, plates of cake, cut, not in finikin finger strips, but in good hearty wedges. These to be in readiness for all the dear old vulgar friends who had not got to fortune yet and loved to "drop in." And if I had a uniform at all for my orphans it should be of a good warm purple, with plenty of fringe and plush and buttons; and the standard weight of the bonnets should be thirteen ounces. All this because of Mrs. Fitzroy-Browne! Captain Woolcot had told Esther she need not call when the new people came to the district: he said he "hated mushroom growths, especially when they were so pretentiously gilt-edged,"—which was rather a mixed metaphor, by the way but no one could tell him so. For some time therefore all the young Woolcots saw of the "mushrooms" was on Sundays, when a pew that had belonged to two sweet old maids—grey-clad always, sisters and lovers, never apart even in their recent deaths—blossomed out into a gay dressmaker's showroom, from which all the congregation could during sermon time take useful notes for the renovation of their wardrobes. Nellie's hats were good signs of the times. The boys chaffed and scorned her unmercifully, but the poor child had such a weakness for having things "in fashion" that for her very life, when the Misses Fitzroy-Browne's trimmings were all severely at the back of their hats, she could not leave hers at the front. Or if their frills crept up into the middle of their skirts and had an insertion heading, how could she be strong-minded enough to let hers remain on the hem with only a gathering thread at the top? Poor Nellie! she had a great, secret hankering for the flesh-pots of Egypt. The love of pretty things amounted to a passion with her, and the shabby carpets, scratched furniture, and ill-kept grounds of Misrule were a source of real trouble to her. Privately, she took a great interest in the rich Brownes, and envied them not a little. Their grand house and beautiful grounds, their army of trained servants, their splendid carriages and horses, and their heaps of dresses and jewellery seemed to the half-grown girl the most desirable things on earth. But if you had put it to the test whether she would change Esther's beautiful, quiet grace of manner for Mrs. Browne's nervous fussiness; her soldierly, upright father for little, mean-looking Mr. Browne; handsome, careless Pip, who looked like a king in his flannels and old cricket cap, for Mr. Theodore Fitzroy-Browne of the careful toilets and bold eyes; or sweet, gracious Meg, who always said the right thing at the right time, for one of the over-dressed, gushing Miss Brownes, I think—even with all the money thrown in—she would have clung to Misrule. For their part, the Brownes took a great interest in the Woolcot family, and felt themselves much aggrieved that, with all their shabbiness, they had been too "stuck-up" to call upon them. They would have liked Pip for their "At Homes" and dances; and the young, grave-faced doctor, who was always turning in at the Misrule gate; Meg, who looked "such a lady"; and Nellie, whose beautiful face would be so great an attraction to—at any rate—the masculine portion of their guests. When, after some five or six months, no cards from Captain, Mrs., and Miss Woolcot had been deposited at the shrine of their wealth, they began to make overtures themselves. "MEG AND NELLIE HAD BEEN HELPING TO DECORATE THE CHURCH ONE AFTERNOON." Meg and Nellie had been helping to decorate the church one afternoon,—it was Easter-time,—when two of the Misses Browne came in, followed by a man in livery, bearing a great basket of exquisite white roses, and kosmea. Mrs. Macintosh, the clergyman's wife, introduced the girls to each other, since they were so close, and they hammered their fingers and exchanged civilities together for the next hour. Miss Browne at the end of that time wanted to know if they were not passionately fond of tennis. "Oh yes—very," said Nellie. "We love it!" "Of course you have a court?" "Only a chip one the boys made; but it does very well." It was Meg's answer. Nellie grew red, and wondered why her sister could not have contented herself with "Yes, of course!" seeing there was small chance the Fitzroy-Brownes would ever be asked inside the gates of Misrule. Miss Browne was silent a minute, then she said,— "We have three beautiful grass courts. I wish, Miss Woolcot, you would come up and have a game with us sometimes—and your sister, of course; we should be glad to see your brother as well, if he would care to come." Meg tried not to look surprised, and did her best to find "the right word for the right place." "Thank you very much," she said; "but our afternoons are very much filled, I am afraid we should not be able to." "Then come in the morning," urged Miss Browne. "We always practise in the morning—it fills the time, for, of course, there is nothing else for us to do." "I am always busy in the morning, and my brother is at lectures," Meg said; "thank you all the same." "Well, your sister," said Miss Browne. "Won't you come, Miss Nellie? You can't be busy as well." Nell looked at Meg as much as to say, "Why can't we?" but Meg was somewhat annoyed at the persistency. "I am very sorry, but Nellie still studies in the morning," she said, just a little stiffly; "she is not old enough to be emancipated yet." "Well, I think it's very mean of you, you know," was Miss Browne's answer; but she had not taken offence, for Meg's tone had been pleasant. "Still, if ever you can find time, we shall be delighted to see you; we are always at home on Tuesdays and Fridays, evenings as well as afternoons; or if you just sent me a little note to say you were coming I would stay in." Again Meg thanked her politely, if not warmly, and managed not to commit herself to a promise. She moved away, however, from the danger of it as soon as she could, and helped Mrs. Macintosh to decorate the chancel with kosmea and asparagus grass. But the Misses Browne kept the not unwilling Nellie close to them, chattering to her, flattering her adroitly, altogether treating her as if she were quite grown up, instead of not yet sixteen. She was much easier to get on with than Meg, although she was a little shy. They found out from her, by dint of much questioning, that the young man with earnest eyes was Dr. Alan Courtney, and that—"yes, he was engaged to Meg." They learnt that Pip was in his second year, and went out a great deal; also that he played tennis splendidly, and had won the singles tournament at the University, but that he liked football much better. That the thin boy with brown, rough hair was John, and the little bright-faced girl who wore big hats and always sat next to him was Winifred. How Poppet would have smiled to hear her baptismal name! That Pete—Rupert and Essie were the "second family," and that the tall, beautiful girl they at first had thought was the eldest Miss Woolcot was the step-mother. Meg intimated to Nellie it was glove-putting-on time, and tried to draw her away, but Mrs. Courtney came up at the moment and engaged her attention. "I wish you could have come to tennis," the eldest Miss Browne said, "or to our evenings; we have such awfully jolly ones." Nellie admitted, half hesitatingly, that she should like to "very much indeed." "It's a shame for a pretty girl like you to stay at home," Miss Isabel said. "It isn't fair to the poor men, my dear." Nellie blushed exquisitely, and both the Misses Browne thought she was the sweetest-looking girl they had ever seen. "I'm not out yet, of course," she said shyly. "I suppose I shall go to places when I'm as old as Meg." But they seemed to think that was a very old-fashioned notion. When they were fifteen, and even younger, they said, they had gone to parties and no end of things. "I don't suppose you could just run up to us one day next week by yourself, and have a game with us?" insinuated Miss Browne, who would fain show the glories of Trafalgar House to this young girl, who was trying, unsuccessfully, to hide her well-worn gloves from their gaze. Nellie was "afraid not," but the "not" was very dubious; she was wondering if she could not manage it in some way, and when Meg, released from Mrs. Courtney, came down the church for her, the first seeds of the intimacy had been sown. CHAPTER XV. THE GOVERNMENT OF MEG. "Alas! how easily things go wrong." A week later, cards, very thick, gilt-edged, and perfumed, arrived at Misrule, requesting the pleasure of the company of Mr. Philip and the Misses Woolcot's company at an "At Home" at Trafalgar House. Pip said it was "fair cheek." Meg raised her eyebrows, but Nellie longed ardently to accept, and almost wept when a formal answer pleading regret and a prior engagement was sent in return. A fortnight passed, and more cards arrived. MR. AND MRS. FITZROY-BROWNE. The Misses Woolcot, FRIDAY EVENING. Dancing. R.S.V.P. Meg left out the "prior engagement" this time in her reply, and merely "regretted the Misses Woolcot could not have the pleasure, etc." But the girls gushed over Nellie just as much whenever they met her. She used to go occasionally to the Parsonage to play mild tennis with Mr. Macintosh's delicate son, who had been ordered the exercise. The Misses Browne also went there at times; they considered that to visit there on equal terms was a hall mark of gentility, and persevered therefore, even though they yawned afterwards all through the drive home. They always drove wherever they were going, they seemed to think foot exercise below them. It was even said that when they went to return a call of the Macarthys who lived two doors off, they went in their great open carriage, with high-stepping horses, coachman, and footman complete. So, also, whenever they went to the little homely Parsonage on the hill top, the imposing equipage took them there, the footman stood in petrified state while they alighted, and afterwards handed the two racquets out with as much ceremony as if he was assisting in some public function. Innate good taste sometimes whispered to Nellie that these things ought not to be so, but she generally chose to be conveniently blind. How could she find fault with them when they petted her and flattered her till her silly little head was swimming? when they pressed gifts upon her,—a gold bangle that one of them wore and she had admired, a brooch with a tiny chrysophrase heart, even a parasol composed of billowy chiffon. She had the good sense certainly to refuse the presents, though she looked at them with longing eyes, but none the less she admired and envied girls who had it in their power to make the offers. "Your people seem determined not to come to our house," Miss Isabel said one day on the Parsonage tennis ground. "They—they have so many engagements," said Nellie, with hesitating mendacity and a blush of distress. What would they say if they knew the contempt the cards met with at Misrule? Miss Browne spoke of the great ballroom at Trafalgar House, of illuminated grounds, of the throngs of guests; to Nellie, who had not yet been allowed more harmful dissipation than tea-parties, picnics, and children's romps, it sounded entrancing. "Yes, I should love to come," she said wistfully, as they once again regretted she should not give the world an opportunity to see her beauty. The child naturally was flattered that two grown-up young ladies should take so much notice of her, and tell her so frequently of her good looks; it seemed strange, even to her, that with all their money and friends they should trouble to make much of a girl of her age who never wore anything more expensive than muslin, crepon or serge, and always trimmed her own hats. The reason was that the Misses Browne, though they had really taken a genuine liking to the shy, beautiful-faced child, had a great respect for the name of Woolcot, the high esteem in which the family was held, peccadilloes notwithstanding, and envied greatly their unquestioned entry into the society that, strive as they would, opened not its doors for them. And they thought, if they could once get on to a friendly footing at Misrule, other people in the neighbourhood who had looked coldly on them hitherto would immediately hold out hands of friendship, and come to their doors with the magic bits of pasteboard they so desired. The best means to this end they considered would be to dazzle the eyes of the family with the luxury and unstinted wealth at Trafalgar House. But Nellie was the only one they could get hold of, so they fed her young vanity without stint, and tried to lure her up to the great red mansion. "Yes, I should love to come," she had said on this occasion. They were standing on the Parsonage court after a sett, Nell in a pink cambric blouse and well-worn serge skirt, the Misses Browne in elaborate costumes of Liberty silk with crossed tennis racquets worked all round the skirts. "Well, come ," they said,—"don't wait for the others; we want you ,—why can't you come even if they won't?" "Oh," said Nell, who had not dreamed of independent action, "how could I if Esther and Meg don't?" Miss Browne gave a little laughing sneer. "What a good little girl it is! Does it always ask permission for everything, and do exactly as it's told? Why, when we were your age we never dreamt even of consulting our parents where we went, and they never dreamt of interfering. Why, it's a very old-fashioned notion to be in bondage like that to your parents." Nell flushed half-shamefacedly. She began to believe that she really gave in too much to her elders, that she ought to have more freedom, and be more independent, now she was nearly "grown up." "Perhaps I will come some day," she said a little uncertainly. "Just show them a few times that you are not a child, to be dictated to as they wish," advised Miss Isabel; "after that it will be quite easy. Why, I'd just like to hear ma or pa say we shouldn't go here or mustn't go there, shouldn't you, Beatrice?" Beatrice's laugh of utter scorn was sufficient answer. "Why, it's just the other way," she said: "we tell ma what to do." "Some day" Nellie had said, but had not imagined how soon the day would be offered to her. General Blaxland, the head of the forces in New South Wales, had decided to send a certain Lieutenant Holloway and Captain Birsted to India, with a view to gaining information from the forces there about several reforms he wished to introduce into the colony. Just at the last Lieutenant Holloway fell ill, and the General had asked our Captain whether he could manage to tear himself away from the bosom of his family for the time required, or whether they must send one of the younger lieutenants. The Captain had asked for a day to think it over, hastened home to Misrule, and told Esther if she would go with him he would accept, for it would be a delightful holiday for both. Esther was charmed with the idea. India had always seemed a kind of beautiful enchanted country to her, where Arabian Night kind of entertainments went on from morning to night. She begged for small Essie's company, but the Captain would not hear of such a tie. So as they would only be away four months Esther at length consented, and delivered her baby into Meg's care with numberless injunctions. There was one week of wild confusion at Misrule. The children had holidays from lessons; dressmaking and millinery seemed going on all over the house; trunks, cabin boxes, and portmanteaux stood gaping open in Esther's room, and the Captain had a fit of intense irritability all the time. Monday, the day the Orotava started, came at last, and Meg awoke from the confused dream she had been in all the week to find herself on the Quay waving a wet handkerchief to a boat almost out of sight, and only refraining from more tears by a hastily got up argument between Peter and Essie. "Ze tissed me last," said Essie, trying to derive tearful superiority from the fact. "The waved to me latht, tho there!" Peter said. "Ze never!" said Essie. "The did!" cried Peter. Meg thought it time to put away her handkerchief and interpose herself between the two "grass orphans," or the quarrel would end in Essie slapping Peter, and Peter growing red and pushing her down on the ground. Every one was looking a little grave and upset. It is impossible to see a great ship bearing our dear ones move slowly away toward the wide, terrible ocean without quickened heart-beatings, and serious if not misty eyes, even if they are only going for a very little time, and accidents are unheard-of things with such splendid ships. Meg proposed an adjournment. "Let's go and have tea and cakes or ice-creams at Quong Tart's" she said. "Who'll pay?" asked Bunty the practical. Meg waited a moment; she half hoped Pip would come with them, his own merry self again, and offer to "go halves," but he made no movement. "I might take it out of the housekeeping money just this once," she said. "Seven of us,—that would be three-and-six; only, Peter, you mustn't ask for ice-cream too if you have a custard roll or anything; every one can only have one thing, or it makes it too expensive." Pip moved away. "Won't you come, Pip?" she said half beseechingly, and catching his coat sleeve. But he gave her a cold look. "No, thanks," he said, and walked off. So only six of them went to drown their grief in tea and ice-cream. There had been talk of asking Mrs. Hassal to come down and look after Misrule and its inmates for the four months; but then, what would have become of Yarrahappini? Meg begged her father to have no one. Surely, she said, for that short time she was capable of being head of the house. The cook was a married woman, and would give an air of steadiness to the place; Martha was thoroughly reliable; and Pat had the virtue of doing as he was told. There would be herself and Pip in authority, with Nellie as aide-de-camp; Bunty was a changed character; and as to Poppet, Peter, and Essie, any one with a little tact could manage them. So it was decided at last, and Meg picked up the reins of government with a pleasurable feeling of responsibility and no misgivings whatever. Pip felt he had done his duty for the time when he spoke a word in season to Peter and threatened "hidings" innumerable if he waxed obstreperous. But the aide-de-camp was tried and proved wanting,—all the trouble that followed came through her. Meg, who desired everything to go on smoothly and pleasantly, made a point of consulting Nellie in many things, and treating her as an equal in age. As it happened, it was the worst policy she could adopt just then, for it strengthened the younger girl's growing ideas of independence. A little firmness—a mother's firmness—and the enforcement of unquestioned authority at this juncture would have saved her from many a subsequent heartache. But alas! there was no mother, and Meg's rule was certainly not despotic, though it was firm in its way, and answered excellently with the young ones. "Where are you going, Nell?" she said one afternoon, going up into the bedroom, and finding her young sister in the midst of as elaborate a toilet as her simple clothes would allow. "Up to Trafalgar House for tennis, that's all!" Nell replied, in a tone whose studied nonchalance was somewhat overdone. Meg fairly gasped. Was she going to have open rebellion among her subjects as soon as this? "You are going to do nothing of the kind, I hope," she said, with considerable warmth in her tone. "What are you thinking of? Of course you can't accept hospitality from people we refuse to visit!" "Oh, that's all nonsense!" Nellie replied, fluffing a strand of hair backward with the comb and pinning it up into a roll. "I consider Esther and you were very rude and unneighbourly not to call on them, and it's no reason I should be impolite as well!" "But you can't do such an impossible thing!" Meg cried. "Don't be such a child, Nellie. Go to the Parsonage, or the Courtneys, or anywhere if you want a game; but, for goodness' sake, keep away from that horrid place!"

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