.. -*- encoding: utf-8 -*-

.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 48304
   :PG.Title: The Family at Misrule
   :PG.Released: 2015-02-18
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: Ethel Turner
   :MARCREL.ill: \A. \J. Johnson
   :DC.Title: The Family at Misrule
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1895
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

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THE FAMILY AT MISRULE
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      THE FAMILY AT MISRULE.

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      BY

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      ETHEL TURNER,

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      AUTHOR OF
      "SEVEN LITTLE AUSTRALIANS," "THE STORY OF A BABY," ETC

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      "Ah that spring should vanish with the Rose!
      That youth's sweet-scented manuscript should close!"
      \            THE RUBÁIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYÁM.

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      "To youth the greatest reverence is due."
      \                                        JUVENAL.

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      *WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY A. J. JOHNSON.*

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      LONDON:
      WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED,
      WARWICK HOUSE, SALISBURY SQUARE, E.C.
      NEW YORK AND MELBOURNE.

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      TO
      CHARLES COPE,
      MY STEPFATHER AND FRIEND

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      E. S. T.,
      LINDFIELD, SYDNEY.

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   CONTENTS.

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   CHAP.

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I.  `PICKING UP THREADS`_
II.  `SCHOOL TROUBLES`_
III.  `A PASSAGE-AT-ARMS`_
IV.  `A SUMMER'S DAY`_
V.  `BETWEEN A DREAM AND A DREAM`_
VI.  `TO-MORROW`_
VII.  `A LITTLE MAID-ERRANT`_
VIII.  `ONE PARTICULAR EVENING`_
IX.  `THAT MISCHIEVOUS CUPID`_
X.  `NEEDLES AND PINS`_
XI.  `A DAY IN SYDNEY`_
XII.  `THREE COURSES ONE SHILLING`_
XIII.  `PARNASSUS AND PUDDINGS`_
XIV.  `MUSHROOMS`_
XV.  `THE GOVERNMENT OF MEG`_
XVI.  `MORE MUTINY`_
XVII.  `A DINNER PARTY`_
XVIII.  `"HOW GOOD YOU OUGHT TO BE!"`_
XIX.  `HEADACHE AND HEARTACHE`_
XX.  `MY LITTLE ONE DAUGHTER`_
XXI.  `THE SEVENTH DAY`_
XXII.  `AMARANTH OR ASPHODEL`_
XXIII.  `LITTLE FAITHFUL MEG`_
XXIV.  `"IN THE MIDNIGHT, IN THE SILENCE OF THE SLEEP-TIME"`_
XXV.  `HERE ENDETH`_

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   Contents tailpiece

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.. _`PICKING UP THREADS`:

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   THE FAMILY AT MISRULE.

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   CHAPTER I.

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   PICKING UP THREADS.

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   "Should auld acquaintance be forgot?"

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There was discord at Misrule.

Nell, in some mysterious way, had let down
a muslin frock of last season till it reached her
ankles.

And Meg was doing her best to put her foot
down upon it.

In a metaphorical sense, of course.  Meg Woolcot
at twenty-one was far too lady-like to resort to a
personal struggle with her young sister.

But her eyes were distressed.

"You can't say I don't look nice," Nell said.
"Why, even Martha said, 'La, Miss Nell!' and held
her head on one side with a pleased look for two
minutes."

"But you're such a child, Nellie," objected Meg.
"you look like playing at being grown up."

"Fifteen's very old, *I* think," said Miss Nell,
walking up and down just for the simple pleasure
of hearing the frou-frou of muslin frills near her
shoes.

"Ah well, I do think I look nice with my hair
done up, and you can't have it up with short frocks."

"Then the moral is easy of deduction," said Meg
drily.

"Oh, bother morals!" was Nell's easy answer.

She tripped down the verandah steps with a
glance or two over her shoulder at the set of the
back of her dress, and she crossed the lawn to the
crazy-looking summer-house.

"Oh dear!" sighed Meg.

She leaned her face on her hands, and stared
sadly after the crisp, retreating frills and the shimmer
of golden hair "done up."  This was one of the
days when Meg's desires to be a model eldest sister
were in the ascendency, hence the very feminine
exclamation.

She had not altered very much in all these live
long years—a little taller perhaps, a little more
womanly, but the eyes still had their child-like,
straightforward look, and the powdering of freckles
was there yet, albeit fainter in colouring.

She still made resolutions—and broke them.  She
still wrote verses—and burnt them.  To-day she
was darning socks, Pip's and Bunty's.  That was
because she had just made a fresh resolve to do
her duty in her state of life.

At other times she left them all to the fag end
of the week, and great was the cobbling thereof to
satisfy the demands of "Clean socks, Meg, and look
sharp."

Besides darning, Meg had promised to take care
of the children for the afternoon, as Esther had
gone out.

Who were the children? you will ask, thinking
five years has taken that title away from several of
our young Australians.

The General is six now, and answers to the
name of Peter on the occasions that Pip does not
call him Jumbo, and Bunty, Billy.  Nell, who is
inclining to elegant manners, ventures occasionally
in company to address him as Rupert; but he
generally winks or says "Beg pardon?" in a vacant
kind of way.

Baby also has become "Poppet," and handed
down her name of long standing to a rightful
claimant who disjointed the General's nose nearly
three years ago and made our number up to seven
again.

Just a wee, chubby morsel of a girl it is, with
sunshiny eyes and sunshiny hair and a ceaseless
supply of sunshiny smiles.

Even her tears are sunshiny; they are so short-lived
that the smiles shine through and make them
things of beauty.

The boys generally call her "The Scrap," though
she is as big as most three-year-olds.  She was
christened Esther.

And Poppet is still a child,—to be nine is scarcely
to have reached years of discretion.

She has lost her chubbiness, and developed
abnormally long, thin legs and arms, a surprising
capacity for mischief, and the tenderest little heart
in the world.

So Meg's hands were fairly well filled for the
afternoon, to keep these three young ones in check,
darn the socks, and superintend kitchen arrangements,
which meant Martha Tomlinson and the cook.

She had not bargained for the tussle with Nell too.

That young person was at a difficult age just now:
too old—in her own eyes, at any rate—to romp with
Bunty and Poppet; too young to take a place beside
Meg and pay visits with Esther,—she hung between,
and had just compromised matters by letting down
her frocks, as years ago Meg had done in the privacy
of her bedroom.

Her early promise of good looks was more than
fulfilled, and in this long, pale blue muslin, and
"picture" hat, cornflower-trimmed, she looked a
fresh enough young beauty to be queen of a season.
The golden hair had deepened, and was twisted up
in the careful, careless way fashion dictated.  The
complexion was wonderfully pure and bright for
Australia, and the eyes were just as dewy and soft
and sweetly lashed as ever.

But not yet sixteen!  Was ever such an
impossible age for grown-up rights?  Just because she
was tall and gracefully built was no reason why
she should consider herself fit to be "out," Meg
contended—especially, she added, with a touch of
sisterly sarcasm, as she had a weakness for spelling
"believe" and "receive" in unorthodox ways, and
was still floundering wretchedly through her first
French author—*Le Chien du Capitaine*.

Poppet's legs dashed across the gravel path under
the window; Peter's copper-toed boots in hot pursuit
shone for a second and vanished.

"Where's Baby, I wonder?" Meg said to herself.

The child had been playing with a chair a little
time back, dragging it up and down the verandah
and bumping it about noisily; now all was silent.
She went to the foot of the stairs, one of Bunty's
socks more "holey" than righteous drawn over her
hand.

"What you doing, Essie?" she called.

"Nosing, Mig," said a little sweet voice from a
bedroom,—"nosing at all."

"Now, Essie!"—Meg's voice took a stern note,—
"tell me what you are doing!"

"Nosing," said the little voice; "I'se velly dood."

.. _`"'I'SE VELLY DOOD.'"`:

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   :alt: "'I'SE VELLY DOOD.'"

   "'I'SE VELLY DOOD.'"

"Quite sure, Essie?"

"Twite; I isn't dettin' wet a bit, Miggie."

Up the stairs Meg ran at a swift pace; that last
speech was eminently Baby's, and betokened many
things.

"Oh, you wicked child!" she cried, and drove an
unsummoned smile away from her mouth corners.

The big water-jug was on the floor near the
washstand, and small Essie with slow and deep
enjoyment was standing with one wee leg in the
jug and the other on the oilcloth.  The state of the
lace sock and little red shoe visible betrayed the
fact that the operation had been reversed more than
once.

This was an odd little characteristic of Essie's,
and no amount of scolding and even shaking could
break her of it.  Innumerable times she had been
found at this work of iniquity, dipping one leg after
the other in any water-jugs she found on the floor.
And did Martha, in washing floors, leave her bucket
of dirty water one moment unguarded, Essie would
creep up and pop in one little leg while she stood
her ground with the other.

Meg dried her, scolding hard all the time.
"All your shoes are spoiled, Baby, you naughty
girl; what *am* I to do to you?"

"Velly solly," said Baby cheerfully.

She squeezed a tear out of her smiling eyes when
Meg bade her look at the ruin of her pretty red
shoes.

"And you told me a story, Essie; you said you
were good, and were not getting wet."

Meg held the little offender away from her, and
looked upon her with stern reproach.

"But on'y my legs was dettin' wet—not me,"
explained Essie, with a sob in her voice and a dimple
at the corner of her mouth.

There was nothing of course to be done but put
the water-jug into its basin, and carry the small
sinner downstairs in dry socks and ankle-strap
slippers that showed signs of having been wet
through at some time or other.

Bunty was lying on his back on the dining-room
couch, which Meg had left strewn with footwear
waiting to be paired and rolled up.

"Oh, John!" she said vexedly, seeing her work
scattered about the floor.

"John" took no notice.  I should tell you, perhaps,
that, since starting to school, Bunty's baptismal
name had been called into requisition by authorities
who objected to nicknames, and his family fell into
the way of using it occasionally too.

He was a big, awkward lad, tall for his thirteen
years, and very loosely built.  Nell used to say
complainingly that he always looked as if he needed
tightening up.  His clothes never fitted him, or
seemed part of him, like other boys' clothes.  His
coats generally looked big and baggy, while his
trousers had a way of creeping up his ankles and
showing a piece of loose sock.

In the matter of collars he was hopeless.  He
had a daily allowance of one clean one, but, even if
you met him quite early in the morning, there would
be nothing but a limp, crooked piece of linen of
doubtful hue visible.  He had the face of a boy
at war with the world.  His eyes were sullen,
brooding—his mouth obstinate.  Every one knew
he was the black sheep.  He knew it himself, and
resented it in silence.

Poppet understood him a little—no one else.  He
was at perpetual enmity with his father, who had no
patience with him at all.  Esther excused him by
saying he was at the hobbledehoy stage, and would
grow up all right; but she was always too busy to
help him to grow.  Meg's hands were full with Pip;
and Nell, after a try or two to win his confidence,
had pronounced him a larrikin, undeserving of
sisters at all.

So Poppet undertook him.  She was a faithful
little soul, and in some strange way just fitted into
him, despite his awkward angles.

Sometimes he would tell her things, and go to
a great deal of trouble to do something she
particularly wanted; but then again he would bully her
unmercifully, and make her life not worth living.

"Why don't you play cricket, or do something,
John?" Meg said, snipping off an end of cotton very
energetically.  "I hate to see a great boy like you
sprawling on a sofa doing nothing."

"Do you?" said John.

"What made you so late home from school?  It's
nearly teatime.  I hope it wasn't detention again."

"It was," said John.

"Oh, Bunty, that means Saturday taken again,
doesn't it?"

"It does."  John rolled over, and lay on his other
side, his eyes shut.

"Bunty, why *don't* you try?" Meg said; "you
are always in scrapes for something.  Pip never
got in half so many, and yet *he* wasn't a model boy.
Will you promise me to try next week?"

There was a grunt from the sofa cushion that
might be interpreted at will as negative or affirmative.

Nell came into the room, her hat swung over her arm.

"Get up, John," she said; "what a horrid boy
you are!  Look at your great muddy boots on the
sofa!  Meg, I don't know how you could sit there
and see him.  Why, if we sat down, we'd get our
dresses all spoiled."

"Good job too," said John, not moving a hand.

Nellie regarded him with frankest disgust.  "What
a collar!" she said, a world of emphasis on the
"what."  "I declare the street newsboys and
match-sellers look more gentlemanly than you do."

The tea-bell rang upstairs; John sat up instantly.

"I hope you saved me more pudding to-day,
Meg," he said.  "I never saw such a stingy bit as
you kept yesterday."

Nell's scarlet lips formed themselves into
something very like "pig" as she turned on her heel to
leave the room.  Then she said "Clumsy wretch!"
with startling suddenness.  John had set his "great
muddy boot" down on one of her pretty flounces,
and a sound of sundering stitches smote the air.

"Beg pardon," said John, with a fiendish light of
triumph in his eyes.  Then he went upstairs two
steps at a time to discuss his warmed-up dinner
while the others had tea.





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.. _`SCHOOL TROUBLES`:

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   CHAPTER II.


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   SCHOOL TROUBLES.

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..

   |  "A heart at leisure from itself
   |  To soothe and sympathise."

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Poppet and Peter were discussing many things
in general, and the mystery of life in particular.
They were sitting crouched up together in an
old tank that had been cast out in the first paddock
because it leaked.  It was after tea, and Poppet had
a little dead chicken in her hand that she had picked
up in the garden.

"Ith got wheelth inthide it, and when they thop
ith deaded," Peter was saying,—"thust like my
thteam engine, thath what tith."

"I think being alive is very funny," Poppet said,
looking earnestly at the little lifeless body.  "All
those chickies was eggs, and then sud'nly they begin
running about and enjoying themselves, and *then*
sud'nly they tumble down dead, and even the doctor
can't make them run again."

"Yeth," said Peter, his eyes very thoughtful as
he tried to grasp great things.  "Prapth you might
tumble down like that, Poppet; all *your* wheelth
might thtop."

"Or yours," urged Poppet.  Death was in her
hand.  She did not like to feel that ever her active
little body could lie like this fluffy, silent one, and
so made the likelihood more general.

"Yeth," said Peter; "and *oneth*, Poppet, I nearly
*wath* deaded, and Judy thaved me."

"*You* don't remember," Poppet said, in a voice of
great scorn.  "You was only a little, tiny baby, just
beginning to walk, Peter.  But I was there, and
remember *everything*."

"You wath athleep, Poppet," Peter objected,—Poppet's
air of superiority irritated him.  "Meg told
me about it when I had the meathleth, and the thaid
that you wath athleep, tho there!"

"At any rate, Peter, I think you are old enough
to stop lisping," Poppet said severely, finding
herself worsted.  "You are six now, and only
babies of ten months lisp.  *I* never lisped at all."

Peter went red in the face.

"I don't lithp; you're a thtory-teller, Poppet
Woolcot!" he said, drawing in his tongue with a
great effort at straight pronunciation.

Poppet jeered unkindly, then she caught sight of
Bunty strolling aimlessly about the garden, and she
squeezed herself out of the tank and stood upright.

"Don't go," said Peter.  "Leth play Zoo, Poppet,
and you can be the lion thith time, and I'll feed
you!"

But not even this inducement had any effect.

"I want to talk to Bunty," the little girl said,
looking across with a half-troubled light in her eyes
to where Bunty's old cap was visible.  "I can play
with you when he's at school.  You can go and
have a game with Baby."

She went away, leaving him disconsolate, and
crushed herself through a broken paling into the
garden.

She would like to have gone up to Bunty and
slipped her arm through his and asked him what
had made him so exceptionally glum and silent these
last few days.

But she knew him better than that.  She was
very wise for her nine years.

She fell to weeding her garden with great industry
while he was walking on the path near it.  Then
when he rambled farther away, she hovered about
here and there, now plucking a flower, now giving
chase to a great praying mantis.  She was within
a few feet of him all the time.

"What *are* you buzznaccing about like this for?"
he said at last irritably, when her short holland
frock appeared at every path he turned down.  He
threw himself down on the grass, and pulled his
cap over his eyes.

"Flibberty-Gibbet had a tic in his head this morning,"
said the little girl, sitting down beside him
Turk fashion.

"Well, *I* don't care," Bunty said, with almost a
groan.

A look of anger crept up into the little sister's,
earnest eyes.

"I 'spect it's that old Burnham again," she said
wrathfully.  "What's he been doing *this* time?"

Bunty groaned again.

"Was it your Greek?" she said, edging nearer.
"Howid stuff!  As if you could be espected to get
it right *always*!"

There was another smothered sound from beneath
the cap.

"Was it that nasty algebra?" said the little,
encouraging voice.  It was so tender and anxious
and loving that the boy uncovered his eyes a
little.

"I'm in the *beastliest* row, Poppet," he said.

Poppet's little, fair face was ashine with sympathy.

"I'd like to *hammer* that Mr. Burnham," she said.
"How did it happen, Bunty?"

Bunty sat up and sighed.  After all, it would be
a relief to tell some one; and who better than the
faithful Poppet?

"Well, you know Bully Hawkins?" he said.

"Oh yes," said the little girl; and she did,
excellently—by hearsay.

"Well, on Monday he was on the cricket pitch
practising, and Tom Jackson was bowling him—he'd
made him.  And when I went down—I was crossing
it to go up to Bruce—he jumped on me, and said I
was to backstop.  I said I wasn't going to—why
should I go after his blooming balls?—and he said
he'd punch my head if I didn't.  And I said, 'Yes,
you do,' and walked on to Bruce.  We were going
to play marbles.  And he came after me, and hit me
over the head and boxed my ears and twisted my
arms."

"Bully!" said Poppet, with gleaming eyes.
"What did you do, Bunty? did you knock him
down?  I hope you made his nose bleed,—I'd—I'd
have *flattened* him!"

Bunty gave her a look of scorn.

"He's sixteen, and the size of a prize-fighter!"
he said.  "I'd have been half killed.  No;
Mr. Burnham was just a little way off, and I let
out a yell to him, and he came up and I told of
him."

"Bunty!" said Poppet.  The word came out like
the report of a pistol, and her red lips shut again
very tightly to prevent any more following.

.. _`"MR. BURNHAM CAME UP AND I TOLD OF HIM."`:

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   :alt: "MR. BURNHAM CAME UP AND I TOLD OF HIM."

   "MR. BURNHAM CAME UP AND I TOLD OF HIM."

This touch of cowardice, this failure to grasp
simple honour in Bunty's character, was a perpetual
grief and amazement to her little fearless soul.  But
he would brook no advice nor reproach from her,
as she knew full well, and that is why her lips had
closed with a snap after that one word.

But he had seen the look of horror in her eyes.

"D'ye think I'm going to be pummelled just as
that brute likes?" he demanded angrily.  "He's
always bullying the fellows in our form, and it'll do
him good to get a taste of what he gives us.
Mr. Burnham said he hated a bully, and he just walked
him up to the schoolroom and gave him six."

Still Poppet was silent; her face was flushed a
little, and she was pulling up long pieces of grass
with feverish diligence.  In her quick little way she
saw it all, and felt acutely just how the boys would
look upon Bunty's behaviour.

"What an idiot you are, Poppet!" he said
irritably, as she did not speak; "as though a bit of
a girl like you knows what it is at a boys' school.
I'm sorry I told you—I—I won't tell you the
rest."

Poppet choked something down in her throat.

"Do tell me, Bunty," she said; "I didn't mean
to be howid.  Go on—I only couldn't help wishing
you could have foughted him instead of telling,
because—well, I espect he'll be worse to you than
ever now, and the other fellows too."

"That's it," Bunty said, with a groan.  "Oh, but
that's not half of it yet, Poppet.  I almost wish I
was dead."

Something like a tear forced itself beneath his
eyelids and trickled down his cheeks.  Poppet's.
heart expanded and grew pitiful again instantly
His face was close to her knee, and wore so miserable
an expression that in a sudden little burst of love
she put down her lips and kissed him half-a-dozen
times.

He sat up instantly and looked ashamed.

"How often am I to tell you I hate mugging?"
he said gruffly.  "If you go on like this, I won't tell
you."

"I beg your pardon," Poppet said very humbly;
"really, I won't again, Bunty.  Do go on."

"Well, after that, I went round the side of the
school—you know that path, near the master's
windows.  Well, I'd nothing much to do, and the bell
hadn't gone, and I was just chucking my cricket
ball up and down; there was a tree, and I tried to
make it go up in a straight line just as high, and
the next minute I heard a crash, and it had gone
through Mr. Hollington's window."

"Good gracious!" Poppet said, with widening
eyes; then she gave a little joyful jump.  "I've
got thirteen shillings, Bunty, from the pound
Mr. Hassal gave me; I'll give it to you to get it mended
with.  Oh, it won't be such a very bad row; you
can 'splain it all to Mr. Hollington."

"That's not all," Bunty said.  "Thirteen shillings!
You might as well say ha'pennies.  I stood there
for a bit and no one came, and at last I went in
and looked about, and what do you think?—no one
had heard!"

"Oh!" breathed Poppet.  She scented the old
trouble again.

"But you see it was such an awful crash.  I
knew it was more than the window.  And every one
was out in the playground,—even Mr. Burnham had
just gone out again for something, and Mr. Hollington
had gone home early.  So I first went quietly
upstairs, and no one was about, so I went into
his room to get the ball, because my name was on
it.  And there were two glass cases on top of one
another under the window with eggs and specimens
and things in, and they were all smashed."

Poppet drew a long breath that ended in a whistle.
She was wishing she had not bought that set of
gardening tools that cost six shillings, and that
shillingsworth of burnt almonds—perhaps a
sovereign——

"It wasn't school-time," Bunty was whispering
now, "and no one had seen—not a soul, Poppet.
Poppet, it was an accident; why should I go and
tell of myself?  Why, I might have been expelled;
and think what the governor would say.  So——"

"Yes," said Poppet steadily, "go on, Bunty."

He had paused, and was digging up the earth with
his broken pocket-knife.  "So—go on."

"So, when we were all in afternoon school,
Mr. Burnham came in and asked who did it."

"Yes, Bunty—*dear*."  A red colour had crept up
into the little girl's cheeks, her eyes were full of
painful anxiety.  "You said you had, Bunty—didn't
you, Bunty dear?  Oh, Bunty, of *course* you said you
had."

"No, I didn't," burst out her brother.  "How
could I after that, you idiot you?  What is the good
telling you things?  Why I didn't know what would
have happened.  When he asked us separately I
just said 'No' in a hurry, and then I couldn't say
'Yes' after, could I?"

Again Poppet was silent, again there was the look
of amaze and grief in her wide, clear eyes.  Bunty
pulled his old cap over his face again—he hated
himself, and most of all he hated to meet the honest,
sorrowful eyes of his little sister.

"Couldn't you tell now, Bunty?" she said softly.
"Go to-night—I'll come with you to the gate—oh, do,
Bunty dear.  Mr. Burnham is not vewy howid
perhaps, and canings don't hurt vewy much—let's go
to-night, and by to-morrow it'll all be over."

"It's no good."  A sob came from under the cap.
"Oh, Poppet, it'll be awful to-morrow!  Oh, *Poppet*!
Some one had seen, after all.  Just as I left school
Hawkins came up to me.  He hadn't been there
when Burnham asked us, and didn't hear anything
till after school, and he said he saw me coming out
of Hollington's room, and creeping down the passage
with a cricket ball in my hand, and he went in to
report it to Burnham just as I came home, to pay
me out for getting him a swishing."

Poppet was crying, though she hardly knew it.
Such a terrible scrape, and such a lie at the back of
it—what could be the end of it?

"Oh, Bunty!" she said, and put her face right
down in the long grass.  The earth and the tears
got mixed, and smirched the clearness of her
skin—there was a wet, black smudge all down her poor
little nose.

"Poppet!" cried Meg's voice, preceding her down
the path in the dusk.  "Are you really sitting on
the grass again when I've told you so often how wet
the dew makes it?  John, how can you let her, when
you know how she coughs!  Go to bed at once,
Poppet, it's after eight; and you haven't touched
your home-lessons, John—really it's one person's
work to look after you—and where is that coat with
the buttons off?"

"On my bed," "John" said sulkily.

"I wish you'd hang it up—what's the use of pegs?
Poppet, go in when I tell you—don't be naughty.
Now, John, go and start your lessons.  You'd better
do them in your bedroom, you make such a litter
downstairs."

Meg turned to go back, Poppet's reluctant hand
held fast.

"Can't I stay five minutes, *please*, Meg?" the
little girl said, looking up beseechingly.

Even in the fading light Meg saw the sweet
brimming eyes and quivering little lips.

"John!" she said angrily, "you've been bullying
the poor little thing again; I simply *won't* have
it—I shall speak to father."

"Oh, shut up!" said John; and he moved away
wearily up to the house.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A PASSAGE-AT-ARMS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER III.


.. class:: center medium bold

   A PASSAGE AT ARMS.

.. vspace:: 1

..

   |  "Oh the day when thou goest a-wooing,
   |  Philip, my king."

.. vspace:: 2

Meg was a little "put out," as it is popularly
called, this evening,—she was not generally
so short with the young ones.  The good fit had
worn away during the endless process of darning,
and she had jumped up at last, stuffed all the work
into the gaping stocking-bag, and said to herself
that eldest sisters were mistaken and wrongful
institutions.

But that did not give Baby Essie her tea, nor
yet put her lively little ladyship to bed; and since
Esther was out, there was no one else to undertake it.

And when that was done Pip came in and asked
her in his off-hand manner to "just put a stitch in
that football blazer."

The stitch meant a hundred or two, for it was
slit from top to bottom.

And then Esther came home—a quieter Esther,
an Esther of less brilliant colouring than you used
to know, for there are not many "fast colours"
beneath Australian skies—and with her the Captain,
grown more short-tempered with the lapse of years,
and an income that did not grow with his family.
And again it was "Meg."

The seltzogene was empty.  The Captain asked
some one to tell him what was the use of having
a grown-up daughter—he could not answer the
question himself.

The lamb was a shade too much cooked, and the
Golden Pudding a shade too little.  He wanted to
know whether Meg considered it below her to
superintend domestic matters.  In his young days
girls, etc., etc.  She went from the dinner-table at
the end of the meal with hot cheeks.

"I never chose to be eldest—I was made so;
and I don't see I should be scapegoat for
everything!" she said, sitting down on the arm of the
lounge on which lay six feet of the superior sex in
the shape of Pip.

There was a wrathful look in her blue eyes, and
she had ruffled her fair hair back in a way she
always did in moments of annoyance.

"Why don't you make that conceited little chit
help?" Pip said between puffs at his cigar.

"Nellie!" ejaculated Meg in surprise.

"Yes, Nellie," said Pip.  He looked across to
where she was making a picture beautiful to the
most critical eye in a hammock a yard or two
distant.  "Is her only mission in life going to be
looking pretty?"

"Oh," Meg said, "she's too young, of course,
Pip.  Why, she's only fifteen, though she is so tall!
Oh, of course it can't be helped—only it's annoying.
But what have you got your best trousers on for,
Pip, again, and that blue tie?  You had them last
night and the night before!"

Pip's handsome face coloured slowly.

"You've got a fair amount of cheek of your own,
Meg," he said, collecting the cigar ash in a little
heap very carefully, and then blowing it away with
equal industry.  "I wonder when you'll learn to
mind your own business.  I should imagine I'm
old enough to choose my own clothes."

"Only she's a horrid, vulgar girl, that's all," Meg
said slowly, and colouring on her own account.
"Pip, I don't know how you can, really I don't—a
common little dressmaker.  Oh yes, we know all
about it; Peter saw you last night, and Poppet the
night before."

"Peter be—Poppet be——  What the deuce do you
mean spying after me?" stormed Pip, sitting upright
and looking wrathfully at his sister.  "If I choose
to take a walk with a pretty girl, is it any concern of
yours?"

.. _`"'PRETTY!' SAID NELL—'PRETTY!  WHY, SHE BLACKENS HER EYEBROWS, I'M CERTAIN.'"`:

.. figure:: images/img-035.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: "'PRETTY!' SAID NELL—'PRETTY!  WHY, SHE BLACKENS HER EYEBROWS, I'M CERTAIN.'"

   "'PRETTY!' SAID NELL—'PRETTY!  WHY, SHE BLACKENS HER EYEBROWS, I'M CERTAIN.'"

"Pretty!" said Nell, who had come up at his
raised voice,—"pretty!  Why, she blackens her
eyebrows, I'm certain; and you should have seen
her hat last Sunday—a green bird, some blue,
lumpy plush, and a bunch of pink chiffon."

"Upon my word," said Pip,—he was white with
anger, and his eyes blazed,—"upon my word, I've
got two nice sisters.  Trust a girl for running down
another pretty one.  You're jealous, that's what it
is, because you know you can't hold a candle to her."

"Her father sells kerosene and butter—he's a
*grocer*!" Nellie said, with a fine swerve of her delicate
lips.  "Upon *my* word, Pip, I should think, with
all the pretty girls there are about here, you might
fall in love with a lady."

"She *is* a lady," Pip contended hotly.  "She
works with her needle, perhaps—she's not been
brought up in selfish idleness like you girls—but her
manners are a long sight better than yours, and
she'd blush to say small-minded things like you do."

It occurred to Meg that it *was* small-minded, and
she said no more.

But there was nothing Nellie enjoyed more than
a sparring match with her eldest brother when the
advantage was on her side, and had he not called
her a conceited chit?

"There's one thing—you'd get your groceries at
a reduction," she said meditatively.  "I think their
sardines are only 5-½*d.* a tin; they'd let *you* have
them for 5*d.* perhaps, considering all you've spent
in chocolates and eight-button gloves.  Meg, I *did*
think that packet of lovely gloves in his bedroom
was for his dear little sisters, until——"

"Until you forfeited them by your abominable
behaviour!" Philip cried jesuitically.

But Nellie gave him a pitying glance.  "Until
I saw the size was too utterly impossible for
the hands of ladies,—o-o-h, Pip, don't, you hurt
me—ah-h-h, you're bruising my arm—stop it, Pip!"

Pip was twisting her soft, muslin-covered arms
back in the torturous way boys learn at school,
and in a minute she was compelled to call for
mercy.

"Down on your knees!" he cried, forcing her
down into that humble position.  "Now, apologise
for all the caddish things you've said about Miss
Jones; begin at once,—now, one, two, three—say,
'I apologise.'"

"Never!" screamed Nell, struggling desperately;
"I'll die first,—o-o-h, ah-h-h, oh—'I—I—I
apologise'—you donkey!"

"More than that,—'I should be glad to be half as
beautiful and good and lady-like.'"

"'B-beautiful and good and l-l-lady-like," repeated
Nell, with a gasp and a cry between each word.
"Oh, Meg, make him stop!"

"'I only said those caddish things because I
was jealous of her superiority'—hurry up, now!"  A
scientific turn accompanied his sentence.

"'C-caddish things because I was jealous—superiority,'—oh,
Pip!  Meg! somebody, quick—he's half
killing me!"  Tears of pain and mortification had
started to her eyes.

"Let her go, Pip," Meg said; "you really hurt."  She
pulled at his arm, and he released his victim,
who fell in a heap on the floor, and said he was
"a h-h-horrid w-wretch, and she w-wished she had
no brothers."

Pip picked up his hat and settled his pale blue tie,
which had become somewhat disarranged.

"Good-night; I hope you'll learn and inwardly
digest your lesson, my child," he said, going out
upon the gravel.

But Nellie sprang to her feet, and called after him
all down the path till he reached the gate, "Candles,
sardines, needles and pins, size nine gloves! ask
her what she blacks her eyebrows with!"

Meg was looking troubled.  She was sitting on
the lounge he had quitted, and her fair brows were
knitted beneath the soft, straying hair.

"Nell dear, it *is* vulgar," she said, "and it *is*
small.  I don't know where the distinction of ladies
comes in if we say things like that.  Perhaps the
little dressmaker really wouldn't."

"But we are ladies," Miss Elinor said, her small
head in the air,—"nothing can alter that.  Our father
is a gentleman, our mother was a lady—we are ladies."

"Not if we act like servant girls," Meg said quietly.
"If you found a bit of glass under all the conditions
you'd expect to find a diamond, and yet it didn't
shine like a diamond, then it wouldn't be a diamond,
would it?"

"Now don't get elder-sistery and moralous,"
said Nell; albeit she was a trifle ashamed, for she
prided herself certainly upon being a little lady to
her boot toes.  "Meg, I thought of doing up that
white crepon Esther gave me into a kind of evening
dress, just for little evenings, you know, at the
Baileys or Courtneys, or anywhere, or when we
have people here.  Would you make the body as
a blouse with big frills over the shoulders, or with
a yoke and gathered into the waist?  The blouse
way would be easier, for there's no lining, you know."

"Oh, the blouse, I think," Meg said, half
abstractedly.  "Do you know if Poppet has gone to
bed, Nell?  I don't think I saw her come in, and
her cough was bad last night."

"I don't know.  Meg, I'll give you half-a-crown
for that silver belt of yours; I've got a little money
left in my allowance yet, and you never wear it.
Half-a-crown would buy you a new book, or one of
those burnt straw sailor-hats, and the belt would
look lovely with the white dress."  The younger
girl looked persuasively at the elder.

"But I gave seven-and-sixpence for it," Meg
objected, "and it's nearly new."

"But you never wear it—what's the good of a
thing you don't wear?" contended Nellie, who had
set her heart upon it.  "If you think it's too little,
say two shillings and that light blue blouse of
mine that you like."

Meg put the blouse on mentally.

"Well, I like myself in pale blue," she said; "yes,
I'll do that—only I hope it's not torn or anything.
Oh! and Nell, I think you might go and see if
Poppet is in the garden; I've done ever so much
to-day, and you've only been reading."

But Nellie was comfortably in the hammock again
among the cushions.

"Oh, Poppet never does anything *I* tell her,"
she said; "you'd better get her yourself—all the
children mind you more than me, you have so much
more patience, Megsie."

So it was Meg who had disturbed the important
*tête-à-tête* between Bunty and his little sister; Meg
who had separated them abruptly, almost unkindly,
at a crisis of great moment; and Meg who had seen
the little girl actually into bed, and administered a
dose of eucalyptus against the cough.

But it was also Meg who went down in the
drawing-room presently, and played Mendelssohn's
tender, exquisite Love Song, and a rippling, laughing
little bit of Grieg, and a Sonata of Beethoven's, to
a father half asleep on the sofa and a young man
very wide awake on a neighbouring chair.

And it was Poppet who made hay, and crept
along the passage in her little nightgown to the
room where Bunty was sitting with his head on
his arms and misery in his eyes.

And it was Poppet who, after torrents of abuse
and vituperation from the unhappy lad, succeeded
in extracting a promise that he should own up
everything bravely in the morning, and not shirk
his punishment whatever it was.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A SUMMER'S DAY`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER IV.


.. class:: center medium bold

   A SUMMER'S DAY.

.. vspace:: 1

..

   |  "Happy in this, she is not yet so old
   |  But she may learn; happier than this,
   |  She is not bred so dull but she can learn."

.. vspace:: 2

The next day was exceedingly hot, one of those
moist, breathless days that make February
the most unpleasant month in the year to Sydney
folks.

Every one in the house felt utterly limp and cross
and miserable, and daily duties were performed in
as slipshod and languid a manner as possible.  The
cook had made a great pan of quince jam, and
brought it into the breakfast-room on a tray for
Esther to tie down.  And Esther was sitting in the
rocking-chair trying to make up her mind to do
it, and wondering whether it would be easier to
use string or paste.  Small Esther was making a
terrible noise.  She owned dolls and bricks, little
tea-services, and baby furniture—all the toys that
well-regulated little girls are supposed to love; she
generally tired of them, however, after a few minutes'
play.

At present she had made a tram of six heavy
leather chairs, with the armchair for "motor," and her
little sweet face was scarlet and wet with the exertion
of dragging them into place.

In addition to this she had taken the fire-irons
out of the fender, and was rowing, or in some way
propelling the train forward—to her own satisfaction,
at any rate—by brandishing the tongs wildly about
while she stood in the motor and shouted and cried,
"Gee up!"

"Essie," big Esther said at last, "you must be
quiet.  Poor mamma's head aches.  Where's your
doll?  That's not a pretty game."

"All bwoked," said Essie; "gee up, old twain."
Bang, bang, clatter, clatter.

"Essie, put those things away at once."  Esther
noticed the poker for the first time.  "You naughty
girl, you are scratching the chairs dreadfully."

"But I can't make ze twain puff-puff wifout,"
objected the engine-driver, "an' we has to go to
Bwisbane; det up wif you."  She leaned over the
tall back of her locomotive, and made vigorous hits
at the legs of it.

So vigorous indeed that the chair went over with
a crash, precipitating Essie and the poker and tongs
and shovel in four different directions.

"Oh dear," said Esther, and sighed before she
attempted to go to the rescue.  Essie was always
tumbling from somewhere or other and never got
much hurt, and really it was terribly hot.

"Oo-oo-oh!" said a very small voice.  It
quavered for a minute.  If the anxiously examined
little fat knees had been scratched, it would have
broken into a despairing yell, but they were whole,
and the motor had misbehaved itself.

"Beast!" she said, picking herself up in a great
hurry,—"howid old pig!"  Then she seized the
poker and beat the prostrate chair with all her
small, angered strength.

"Essie," big Esther said languidly—she had found
with thankfulness she need not move from the
chair,—"Essie, I shall whip you, if you use naughty
words like that."

"But I was zust dettin' to Bwisbane—so it *is* a
pig," Essie maintained.  Then she climbed up again,
and the journey proceeded.

In the nursery Meg was supposed to be giving
lessons to Peter and Poppet, and superintending the
more advanced studies of Nellie; for the last nursery
governess had left suddenly, and the Captain had
professed himself unable to afford another until the
next quarter.

Meg used to provide herself with a book during
these daily struggles, to be indulged in at times when
her supervision was not required.  It had been an
"improving" book for the last month, for she had
lately been finding out how wofully ignorant she
was when she talked to the young man who had
listened to her playing last night.  To-day it was
Browning, because he had looked horrified to find
she never read any of his poems, on the plea that he
was acknowledged to be difficult to understand.

It was a pity she chose "Filippo Baldinucci on
the Privilege of Burial" for her first essay,
especially as it was such a hot day; but she had
determined to read, dauntlessly, the first poem the book
opened at.

"Do this sum, Poppet," she said, setting a multiplication
with eight figures in each line—"dear, *what*
a greasy slate; and Peter, if you drop any blots on
your copy, you will have to write it again this
afternoon."

Peter was sucking a little lump of ice he had
stolen out of the ice-chest.  Poppet asked him for
a bit to clean her slate with, but he considered this
such waste of precious material that he swallowed it
in a hurry and choked.  Poppet asked if she might
go and wet her sponge; but Meg said no, it always
took a quarter of an hour to do that simple act, if
she escaped from the room.  So Peter offered to
breathe on it for her.

"Both of us will," said Poppet,—"you on the top
half, and me on the bottom."

Meg was taking a cursory glance at "Filippo,"
and groaning mentally; she did not hear the
arrangement for the slate-cleaning until the
heads bumped violently and the two began to
quarrel.

"You licked it with your tongue," Poppet said.

"I never—I wath only breathing with my lipth on
it," declared Peter.

"I saw the end of your tongue hanging out,"
Poppet maintained.

"You're a thtory-teller, Poppet."  Peter's face
began to get red.  "I wath only breathing, tho
there."

"Peter, go and sit at the other end of the table.
Poppet, if you put out your tongue at Peter again,
I shall make you stand in the corner."  Meg put a
pen in the Browning to keep it open, and went over
to Nell at the window to see how "Le Chien du
Capitaine" was progressing.

"Oh, Nell!" she said.

The French dictionary lay face downwards on the
broad window-sill; "Le Chien" was face upward on
Nell's knee, but on the top of it was "Not Wisely,
but too Well."

"Oh!" said Nell, with a gasp, her eyes misty, her
cheeks flushed,—"oh, it's no use scolding, Meg,—I
absolutely must finish this; I'm just where Kate
is—Oh, Meg, you *are* horrid!"

For Meg had taken forcible possession of the dark
green book, and had picked up the dictionary.

"You know you are not to read in the morning,"
she said; "and I don't think you ought to read a love
story like this till you're eighteen at least.  Really,
Nellie, it's no use me pretending to overlook you;
you've done one page of 'The Dog' in three mornings.
I'll have to tell father I must give up the pretence of
teaching."

"Here, give it to me," Nellie said, sighing
wistfully; "it ought to be called 'The Pig,' I think,
it's so detestable.  Put 'Not Wisely' on the table,
Miggie, so I can see the title and get occasional
refreshment."

Then Meg returned to the "Privilege of Burial."  Her
first thought, when she had read the piece
through, was that Browning was not a true poet,
however great a man he might be; and her second
that Allan Courtney must be exceedingly clever to be
able to enjoy such reading; her third was sorrow at
the poor brains she felt she must possess not to be
able to enjoy it too.

She tried another at random—"Popularity."  It
was rather better she decided, though she had no very
clear idea of the meaning; and oh! that terrible last
verse,—was it an enigma, or could clever people see
the sense instantly?—

   |  "Hobbs hints blue—straight he turtle eats:
   |  Nobbs prints blue—claret crowns his cup
   |  Nokes outdares Stokes in azure feats,—
   |  Both gorge.  Who fished the murex up?
   |      What porridge had John Keats?"
   |

The deep sigh that accompanied the third vain
reading of it, disturbed Peter in his occupation of
putting flies in the ink, fishing them out, and letting
them crawl over to Poppet.

Poppet at her side of the table was similarly
occupied, only she had captured a March-fly, and it
made beautifully clear tracks right across to Peter.

"Is your sum finished, Poppet?" Meg said abstractedly,
pondering even as she spoke, what Keats,
who was a god to her, had to do with porridge.

Poppet put her hand over the March-fly and
confessed it was not quite.

"How many rows have you done?"

The answer came in a whisper, "Not quite one."

"I shall keep you in to do it then after four,"
Meg said in her sternest voice; "and, *Peter*, look at
your copy."

In the excitement of getting the half-drowned flies
safely across Peter had made a landing-place of his
copy-book, and great was the inkiness of it.

"Oh, bleth it!" he said ruefully.

.. _`"'PETER, LOOK AT YOUR COPY.'"`:

.. figure:: images/img-049.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: "'PETER, LOOK AT YOUR COPY.'"

   "'PETER, LOOK AT YOUR COPY.'"

Poppet's head was within an inch of her slate.
She was working now at a startling pace, and
counting on her fingers in a loud whisper.  What
would Bunty say if he came home, and she was not
there to ask how he had got on, and sympathise with
the red marks that were sure to be on his hands?

Nellie had translated five lines, and was occupied
in a vain search for the dictionary meaning of
*pourra*.

"I believe it's 'pour,' and 'ra' is a misprint that's
got tacked on," she said, "or else this beautiful
dictionary has left it out, there are ever so many
words I can't find, Meg."

"Oh," said Meg, her patience flying away on
sudden wings, "what is the use of anything?  I
won't teach you any more, any of you.  Peter wrote
far better a month ago than he does now; Poppet's
taken an hour to do a row of multiplication by six,
and you are looking in the dictionary for *pourra*.
It's simply wasting all my time to sit here."

The problem, "who fished the murex up?" had
not improved my eldest heroine's temper.  Her
cheeks were pink, and her eyes sparkled, she threw
out her hands in a little dramatic way.  "You can
go, Peter, you can go and make mud pies of the
universe, if you like; Poppet, you can go too, tear your
dress, and climb as many trees as you please; Nellie,
you can sit in front of the looking-glass the rest of
the day and read every novel in the house,—why
should *I* care?  I won't teach any more."

She flung herself down on the old horse-hair sofa,
opened her Browning, and turned her face to the wall.

And they all went, not at first, but presently and
by degrees.

"The thaid we could," whispered Peter.

"Did she *mean* it?" Poppet said doubtfully.

"Of courth," said Peter; "I'm going, at any rate.
The thaid I wath to; I'm not going to dithobey her,"
and he slipped out on tip-toe.  Poppet worked to the
end of the line by seven, then she remembered she
had forgotten to "carry" all the way, and she grew
afraid that Peter would get to the birds' eggs she
was putting in compartments for Bunty.

So she also, after a glance or two at her sister's
back hair, slipped off her chair and stole softly
away.

And Nellie drew "Not Wisely" to her own end
of the table with the aid of a long ruler; then she
followed the example of her iniquitous juniors and
departed noiselessly.

It was nearly an hour before Meg turned round
again.  She had lost herself in some wonderful
poems now,—"The Flight of the Duchess," "By the
Fireside," and some of the shorter love pieces; she
began to see possibilities of beauty and enjoyment,
and felt glad with a great gladness that she was able
to appreciate them even in a slight degree.

Then the silence struck her.  Surely if Poppet
were doing her sum, her pencil would be squeaking;
and surely if Peter were engaged as he should be
on his copy, he would be breathing laboriously and
giving occasional little impatient grunts to testify to
each fresh blot.

She looked round, and saw the deserted room.

"Took me at my word!" she said aloud.  "They
might have known I didn't mean it, young
scamps,—Nellie too."

Then she smiled indulgently.  The exquisite
tenderness and the strength of the love pieces had
softened and braced her at the same time.

"They're very young," she said, as she went out
after them, "and—really it's very hot."

This was all in the morning.  At night there was
another breeze.

Bunty did not eat his pudding.  That of itself
was phenomenal, for it was brown with sultanas
and had citron peel at wide intervals; generally
he managed three servings, and, even then, said they
might have made it in a bigger basin.  But to-night
he said "No pudding" in a sullen voice, and kicked
the legs of his chair monotonously with his boot
heels.

"You might have the common politeness to say
thank you, I think," said Nellie, who was officiating
at nursery tea in Meg's absence.  "What a boor
you are getting, John."

"Oh, go and hang yourself," he returned.  He
pushed his chair back from the table, and went out
of the room with lowering brows.

Poppet slipped down from her chair.

"Sit down instantly, Poppet; do you think I'm
going to allow you to behave like this?" Nellie
cried.  "If John has no more manners than a
larrikin, you are not to follow his example.  Sit down,
I tell you, Poppet; *do* you hear me?"

"Can't you see how white he is?" said the little
girl, her lips trembling.  "Nellie, I can't stay—no, I
don't want pudding."  She darted across the room
and down the passage after him.

The boys' bedrooms opened on to a long landing
with a high staircase window at the end that looked
straight out to the river and the great stretch of
gum trees on the Crown lands.

Bunty was standing staring out, his hands thrust
in his pockets; the setting sun was on the stained
window-panes, and his face looked ghastly in the
red light.

"Was it very bad?" said the little, tender voice
at his elbow.

He turned round, and looked at his young sister
for a minute in silence.

"Look here, Poppet," he said, and his voice
sounded strange and strangled; "I know I tell lies
and do mean things—I can't help it sometimes, I
think I was made so; but I haven't done this new
thing they say I have—Poppet, I swear I haven't."

"I know you haven't," the loving voice said;
"what is it, Bunty?"

He gave her a fleeting, grateful glance.  "I can't
tell you, old girl—you'll know soon enough,—every
one thinks I have; it's no good me saying anything
nothing's any good in the world."  He leaned his
forehead on the cold window-pane and choked
something down in his throat.  "To-morrow, Poppet,
they'll say all sorts of things about me; but don't
you believe them, old girl—will you?—whatever they
say, Poppet—promise me."

"I pwomise you, Bunty, faithf'lly," the little girl
said, an almost solemn light in her eyes.  She could
never remember Bunty quite like this before.  There
was a despairing note in his voice, and really the red
sunset light made his face look dreadful.

"Give us a kiss, Poppet," he whispered, and put
his face down on her little, rough, curly head.

The child burst into tears of excitement and
fright—everything seemed so strange and unreal.
Bunty had never asked her for a kiss before in his
life.  She clung to him sobbing, with her small, thin
arms around his neck and her cheek against his.
Both his arms were round her, he had lifted her
up to him right off the ground, and his cheeks were
almost as wet as hers.

There was a step, and he set her down again and
turned away.

"Where are you going?" she asked half fearfully.

"To bed," he said gruffly.  "My head aches.
Good-night."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`BETWEEN A DREAM AND A DREAM`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER V.


.. class:: center medium bold

   BETWEEN A DREAM AND A DREAM.

.. vspace:: 1

..

   |  "It isn't the thing you do, dear,
   |    It's the thing you leave undone,
   |  Which gives you a bit of heartache
   |    At the setting of the sun—
   |  The loving touch of the hand, dear,
   |    The gentle and winsome tone,
   |  That you had no time nor thought for,
   |    With troubles enough of your own."

.. vspace:: 2

Such a troubled night poor little Poppet had.
Twice she woke up with a stifled scream, and
lay awake afterwards hot and trembling in the dark.
The third time she slept, she dreamed Bunty had
thrown a stone at the schoolmaster's house, which
was all built of glass; she heard the crashing and
splintering of it as it came down in a heap, forms,
blackboards, boys, and masters, all flying in different
directions.  Then a great voice that sounded like
thunder asked if John Woolcot had done this, and
all the world seemed listening for the answer.  And
Bunty was standing near a great red window, with
a frightened look on his face, and he said, "No, I
never."  Then there was a loud shouting and hissing,
and a dozen hands caught hold of the boy and
hurried him away.

"What are they going to do with him?" some
one asked of a giant who was sitting peeling a
cricket-ball as if it were an orange.  And the
giant, who had Bully Hawkins' face, laughed,
and said, "They're putting him in the guillotine;
listen to that snap—his head has just fallen off;
I'm going to have it for a ball because he wouldn't
scout!"

The snap that woke the poor dreaming child was
the banging of the bedroom door.

Nell had just come in, gone to the glass, given her
hair a few pats and light touches, and hurriedly
slipped on her best bronze shoes,—it was nine
o'clock, and some late visitors had come—men with
gold buttons.

"Oh-h-h!" said the little sobbing figure, sitting
up in bed.  "Oh-h-h—oh-h—oh, *Nellie*!"

"Don't be silly, Poppet; go to sleep at once,"—the
elder sister gave her a hasty pat.  "Lie down,
and don't be naughty; you've been eating apples
again late, I expect, and it's made you
dream,—there, I must go."

The child clung to her.

"Bunty!" she said,—"is he dead?  did they
take his head?—oh, Bunty!"

"You silly little thing, don't I tell you you've been
dreaming!"  Nellie laid her down impatiently and
tucked the clothes round her.  "There, go to sleep;
I have to go down, there are visitors.  I'll leave the
candle if you like."

Poppet put her head under the clothes and sobbed
hysterically; the little, narrow bed with its spring
mattress was shaking.

"Oh!" said Nellie,—"oh dear, this *is* tiresome!
Poppet, do you want anything?  Would you like
a drink?—oh, I'm in such a hurry,—what is it,
Poppet?  What's the use of being silly, now?
When a dream's gone, it's gone.  Stop crying at
once, or I shall be very angry, and go and leave
you in the dark!"

The bed shook even more violently.

"M-M-Meg!" was the word that came with a
choking sound from under the counterpane,—"oh,
M-M-Meg!"

"All right, I'll send her if you'll be good,—not
for a minute or two, because she's talking to some
gentlemen, but as soon as I can whisper to her.
Here, drink this water before I go, and stop
sobbing.  You're too big a girl to go on like this,
Poppet."

Nellie's voice had a stern note in it,—she thought
kindness would make her cry more, and there really
was not time to argue with her.

.. _`"MEG CAUGHT A GLIMPSE OF SOMETHING WHITE OUTSIDE BUNTY'S DOOR."`:

.. figure:: images/img-059.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: "MEG CAUGHT A GLIMPSE OF SOMETHING WHITE OUTSIDE BUNTY'S DOOR."

   "MEG CAUGHT A GLIMPSE OF SOMETHING WHITE OUTSIDE BUNTY'S DOOR."

Five, six, seven minutes slipped away after she
had gone; then Meg came running lightly upstairs
and into the room the child shared with Nellie.

"She's too excitable—I'll have to make her go
to bed earlier," she thought, as she crossed over to
the tossed bed.  "Nightmare—poor little mite!"

But there was only a pillow and a tossed heap
of clothes—the bed was empty!

"She's gone down for more light and company.
How unkind of Nellie!" she said aloud, starting
off in quest of her.  She looked in the different
bedrooms as she passed, then in the nursery, which
was brightly lighted but deserted.

The boys' landing was in darkness; but at the
end of it she caught a glimpse of something white
outside Bunty's door.

"Poppet!" she cried, hurrying down.  "Oh,
Poppet, nothing on your feet, and only your
nightgown!"

She picked her up in her arms, nine years old
though she was.

But the child was nearly beside herself, and
struggled back to the ground, beating with her
small hands against the lower panels of the door.

"Bunty!" she said, "Bunty!  Bunty!  Can't you
hear me, Bunty?  Oh, Bunty!"

"John!" Meg called sharply, "answer at once!"

"What?" said Bunty's voice in its gruffest tone.
"For goodness' sake leave me alone!  What on
earth do you want?  Don't be an idiot, Poppet."

The very gruffness and crossness of the reply
reassured the child—it was so unmistakably Buntyish.
Her sobs grew less and less wild—she even
permitted Meg to lift her up in her arms again.

"Good-night, Bunty," she said in a small voice
with a pitiful hiccough at the end.

"Oh, good-night," he said.

And then Meg carried her off.

Such a tender, gentle, soothing Meg she was,
even though some one was waiting impatiently in
the drawing-room and the evening was almost over.

She took the child into her own room, and put
her into her own bed with the pink rosebud
hangings and pale pink mosquito nets that Poppet had
always thought the prettiest things in the world.

And she bathed her face with lavender-water, and
sprinkled the same refreshing stuff on the white,
frilled pillows, and talked to her in a pleasant,
matter-of-fact way that dispelled the horrors of the
night entirely.

The little girl told her dream.  She longed to pour
all Bunty's troubles into this dear, big sister's ear!
But that of course was forbidden.

One thing she did venture to say, as she lay
cuddled up with her face luxuriously against Meg's
soft breast.

"Dear Megsie, couldn't you be sweet and dear
to Bunty too?  Poor Bunty, everybody gets on to him."

"My pet, he won't let people be nice to him,"
said Meg in a troubled way.

"I don't mean kiss him or anything," the little
girl said; "only don't call him 'John'—it's such an
ugly name; and don't keep saying 'Don't!'; and
don't let Nellie keep telling him he's dirty and
clumsy,—please, dearest Megsie!"

Meg kissed her silently.

What a wise little child it was!  What a dear little
child!  And oh, what a poor little child, for it had
never in its life known a mother!

Her thoughts leapt back across the years to that
dear, fading memory of her mother.  She saw the
bedroom, with the bright lights that seemed strangely
painful in such a place.

"I want to see them all, John, please," the voice
from the pillows had said when the Captain moved
away to turn the gas down; "it can't hurt me now."

And they had gathered up close to the white
pillows that gleamed with the loose, bright hair—all
the little, frightened children,—herself, hardly
thirteen; Pip in a sailor suit and his eyes red; little
dear Judy with wild, bright eyes and trembling
lips; Nellie with a headless doll clasped in her
arms; Bunty in a holland pinafore stained with jam.

Nobody heeded the tiny baby that lay just in the
hollow of mother's arm,—what was a baby, even
one almost new to them all, when mother was
dying?

But the next day, when all was over, and every one
was tired of crying and feeling the world had stopped
for them for ever, the strange nurse brought in the
little lonely baby and gave it to Meg to nurse,
because she was the eldest.

"You'll have to be its mother now, little miss,"
she said, as she laid it in all its long, many clothes
in Meg's frightened arms.

Its mother!

The scene came vividly before Meg's eyes to-night,
as she sat with the poor child close in her arms.

She bent her head in an agony of shame and sorrow.

How she had failed! how she had neglected,
scolded, grown impatient with, laughed at, her little
trust!  Loved her, of course; but life was such a
confusing, busy, quarrelling, pleasure-seeking kind
of thing at Misrule, and she had forgotten so often,
and been so taken up with her own affairs, that she
had not had time to "be a mother" to her little
sister.

"Oh, Poppet!" she said, in a voice full of
passionate regret; and Poppet slipped her dear, thin
little arms around her neck and clung closer, as if
she almost knew what the trouble was.

But presently the child fell asleep, and Meg
stayed there, motionless, on the bed edge, looking
down at the small, flushed cheeks, where the black
lashes lay still heavy and wet.

There was a strange look of Judy about the little
face to-night, and altogether it made Meg forget the
visitors downstairs, Alan, Nell's impatience,
everything but the little dead mother and the knowledge
that her place was not well filled.  She thought of
Bunty, sullen, hard, untruthful, and growing more
so every day—Bunty, whose nature no one but
Poppet had a key to, and even hers would not
always turn.

If the little mother had lived, he would have been
very different.  Poor lad! perhaps he was unhappy
too—he had been even more gloomy and silent than
usual these last few days; she would go to him now,
and try to get into his confidence by degrees.

She slipped Poppet's little warm hand out of her
own and put it softly on the pillow.

"Well, this *is* too bad of you," said Nellie, putting
her head into the door.  "You've no regard for
appearances, really, Meg.  It's an hour since you
left the room, and I've been making excuses for you
all the time.  Why don't you come down?  There's
only Esther and me to entertain them all, and Alan
Courtney's been looking at the photograph album
for half an hour, and not spoken a word.  You are
too bad.  Sitting here with Poppet all this time—she's
asleep too.  Talk about spoiling the children!"

Meg got up, her eyelashes wet, her face very
sweet in its new gravity.

"I sha'n't come down again," she said in a low
tone.  "Tell them Poppet was not well, and I had
to stay with her; indeed, I cannot come, Nellie."

Nellie glanced at her impatiently; she did not
understand the strange, moved look on her sister's
face—it had been unclouded and laughing an hour
ago; how could she guess she had been holding
hands with the dead all this little while?

Besides, her conscience reproached her about
poor little Poppet, and it made her feel irritable.

"I never saw any one like you for moods, Meg,"
she said crossly.  "A minute ago you were laughing
and talking to Alan Courtney, and now you're
looking like a funeral hearse; and I think it's very
rude not to come down and say good-night.  They
asked me to sing the 'Venetian Boat Song' too, and
you know I can't play my own accompaniment."

"Dear Nell, another night," Meg whispered; "and
hush, you will disturb Poppet.  Go down again
yourself now, or Esther will be vexed.  Wish
them good-night for me; I have to speak to Jo—Bunty."

Nellie's face still looked vexed.  She had practised
her somewhat difficult song, and was ambitious to
sing it since they all pressed her so.

"I can see Alan thinks it strange of you vanishing
like that," she said grumblingly.  "He told me to
be sure to make you come down again."

Then Meg blushed—a beautiful, warm, tender
blush that crept right up to the little straying curls
on her forehead.  They had been talking about
books, she and Alan, before she came upstairs; and
in a sudden fit of petulance with herself she had
said she was "a stupid, ignorant thing, and would
not talk to him about books again, because she
knew he was laughing at her for knowing so little."

And oh! what was it his eyes had said when they
flashed that one quick, eager look into hers? what
was it that softly breathed "Meg" had meant?

Nellie had whispered in her ear the next second,
"Poppet's crying herself nearly into a fit for you;
can you go to her for a minute?"

It seemed almost a week ago now since she had
gone.  In some indefinable way she seemed to have
grown older in that one hour, to have got away from
all these things that had engrossed her before.

"Come on; why *shouldn't* you?" Nell said persuasively,
quick to take advantage of that sudden blush.

Just a moment Meg hesitated,—it would be very
sweet to go down to the room again and lose this
heavy-heartedness in "the delight of happy laughter,
the delight of low replies."

But poor, misunderstood Bunty whom they all
"got on to"—her neglected duty!  Had she any
right to be enjoying herself just now, any right to
chase away these new feelings?

She turned away with a sudden lifting of head.

"No, I am not coming; say good-night for me."

"Stay away then," said Nellie in exasperation.
So Meg went down the landing once more to the
boys' end.

"Bunty," she said, knocking softly, "I want to
come in; may I?"

There was an impatient grunt inside.

"What on earth do you want?  Can't you give a
fellow a bit of peace?  What are you after now?
Yes, I've put my dirty socks in the linen basket."

"It isn't that, Bunty; I only want to talk to you
for a little."  Meg's voice was very even and patient.

But "Blow being talked to!" was Bunty's grateful
and polite reply.  He was weary of sisterly
"talkings."

"I'm not going to lecture you or anything like
that, Bunty.  I *wish* you'd open the door.  What
have you fastened yourself in for?"  Meg beat a
little tattoo on the wood and rattled the handle.

"What a nuisance you are, Meg; why on earth
can't you go away and let a fellow be quiet?  I'm
not going to open the door, so there."  His voice
sounded from the bed across the room; he had not
even attempted to come near the door.

"Oh, very well," said Meg, seeing it was useless,
to-night, at least, with that barrier of pine between
them.

"Good-night, old fellow.  I don't see why you
should be so grumpy with me."

"I'll talk to him to-morrow," she said, as she
went downstairs with a free heart to the
drawing-room again.

But, alas! to-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow!





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`TO-MORROW`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VI


.. class:: center medium bold

   TO-MORROW.

.. vspace:: 1

..

   |  "What's done we partly may compute,
   |    But know not what's resisted."

.. vspace:: 2

They did not find it out till nearly nine o'clock.

Bunty was frequently late for his breakfast,
so no one remarked upon his absence this particular
morning.  Only Meg kept his coffee hot, and sent his
chop back to the kitchen to be put in the oven—an
unusual piece of consideration, for she used to say
he deserved everything to be cold and greasy if he
got up so late.

But Nellie, who was cutting the sandwiches as
usual for his school lunch, cried out for him.  "I
can't find John's lunch serviette anywhere," she
said, putting in a generous supply of fat beef.
"I ask him every day to leave it out of his bag.
What a tiresome boy he is!  I won't give him
another one this morning; he had one yesterday."

"Poppet, go and tell John he'll be late for
school," Meg said.  "Tell him it's a quarter to
nine—he won't have time to eat his breakfast."  Poppet
departed, her own bright merry self again;
the events of last night had vanished from her with
her dreams.

But she came back with a half-startled face.
"He's not there, Meg; his hat's gone too, and his
school-bag.  I 'spect he got something in the pantry
and went early; perhaps there is something on at
school; and—and—I think he must have made his
bed himself, because—it—it's made."

She looked half pitifully, half eagerly at Meg, as
if asking for a denial of her horrible suspicions.
"Come and look," she said.

Meg got up and followed her; Nellie laid down
the breadknife and went too,—it was beyond credence
that Bunty should be up early and make his own
bed.  Peter and Essie brought up the rear, of
course.

"It—it's very strange," Meg said, her face quite
pale as she looked round the room.  The bed had
evidently not been slept in, for no boy could have
made it look as neat as it did; it was just as Martha
had left it yesterday morning.  There was a suit
missing—not his best one, but the one he wore
alternate weeks at school—a couple of shirts too, and
some socks and collars.  Nellie darted to his little
red post-office money-box; it had been prised
open—he had lost the key long since—and was empty.

"He had two and fourpenth ha'penny in it," said
Peter, "cauth I athked him one day."

"He's run away," said Nellie.  "Oh, the bad,
wicked boy!"

"Hush," said Meg.  She feared for the effect
the blow would have on Poppet, and caught the
child's hand and drew her to her side.

"Run away!" repeated Poppet.

Every vestige of colour had dropped out of her
face; it wore a strained, unchildlike look, and her
eyes were heavy.

Meg drew her closer still and stroked her hair.

"Perhaps it's a mistake, dear.  Oh, he's only
gone to school, or camping, or something, and didn't
tell us; there's no need to trouble," she said.  But
she felt terribly uneasy.

Poppet did not look up.  She was thinking of
the red-stained window and the kiss last night—thinking
of the school troubles, and the boy's strange
behaviour, and hints at worse.

There was a loud, angry voice calling from the
nursery, and every one trooped back in amaze.
What was the Captain doing in their own special
room at breakfast-time?

Esther was there, too, with horrified eyes, and
Pip with a look of fierce disgust on his face.

How red their father's face was! how his moustache
bristled!  Peter shrank close up behind Meg, and
wondered if it was about yesterday's lessons.

"Father," Meg said, white to the lips, "what *is*
the matter?  Esther, can't you speak?  Oh, Pip,
what is it?"

"Matter!" shouted her father; "I'm disgraced—we're
all disgraced.  Where is he?  Heavens!  I'll
cut the skin off his back!  Peter, get my horsewhip;
he's no son of mine!  I'll turn him off—I'll have
him locked up.  Where is he? where is the young
thief?  Only let me get hold of him.  Bring him
here at once, Pip.  Where's that horsewhip,
Peter?"

"He's run away, we think," Nellie said in a
trembling voice; and there was a great silence for
two minutes, broken only by a very deep breath from
Poppet.  Then Meg's voice was heard.

"What has he done?" she said, "because—because—oh,
indeed, I believe we have all been
misunderstanding the poor boy."

"Misunderstanding!" echoed her father, with
almost a snort of anger.  "Read that, miss, and
don't talk nonsense!"

.. _`"'READ THAT, MISS, AND DON'T TALK NONSENSE!'"`:

.. figure:: images/img-073.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: "'READ THAT, MISS, AND DON'T TALK NONSENSE!'"

   "'READ THAT, MISS, AND DON'T TALK NONSENSE!'"

He passed her a letter that had just been brought
him, and Meg read it and grew pale; Nellie read it
and crimsoned; Poppet picked it up in her little
shaking hands and looked piteously from one to the
other,—that black, thick writing—oh, what was it
all about?

Meg told her afterwards, for it was no use trying
to put the child off, and indeed it seemed she knew
more than they did.

The letter was from the head master.  It stated
everything that Bunty had confessed to Poppet
about the broken window and glass cases, about the
lie he had told when taxed with it.  But then the
terrible part came.  On the desk five sovereigns were
lying in a little heap when the master was called
out of the room; it was one of the boys' fees, and
the master was in the act of entering the amount
in the book when he was sent for.  He was detained
a quarter of an hour, and when he returned the
window and the glass cases were broken, and the
money had gone!

Now there was no one on the top floor at all
during the time, it seemed—that was the mystery
that had puzzled every one.  But then it came
out that Hawkins, who was waiting in Mr. Burnham's
own room for his caning, had seen John
Woolcot come creeping down the stairs just after
the crash, with a white face and the cricket-ball in
his hand.  Woolcot, too, when he found his lie of
no avail, had confessed to the smashing, but denied
having taken the money.  The head master regretted
having to perform such a painful duty as communicating
the intelligence to his father; but there seemed
no doubt that the boy had committed the theft, and
under the circumstances perhaps it would be wiser
if he were removed from the school.

No wonder the Captain raved and stormed! no
wonder Esther and the elder girls looked pale and
horrified, and Pip disgusted beyond words!  He was
guilty—there was no doubt of it in their minds.
The fact of his running away was sufficient proof of
it; and they all remembered his strange behaviour
yesterday.  It was in vain poor little Poppet
protested again and again and again that "he didn't do
it—oh, indeed he didn't do it.  Yes, he had broken
the glass; and yes, he had told a lie; but oh, indeed
he had not stolen."

"How do you know, miss?" her father said
sharply; "what proof have you that he didn't?"

"He told me he didn't," said the poor little mite.
"Oh, he *said* he didn't,—oh, why won't you believe
it?  Meg, I tell you he *said* he didn't."

But even Meg could not believe, so lightly was
Bunty's word held amongst them.

For the first day the Captain was too angry even
to attempt to find traces of his son.  He declared he
would never own him again, never have him inside
his doors.

But afterwards, of course, he saw this was
impossible, and he put the matter in the hands of the
police, gave them a full description of the lad's
personal appearance, and offered a reward for
finding him.

To the head master of the school he sent a curt
note stating the boy had run away, so he could
make no inquiries, and enclosing a cheque for five
pounds to make up for what was lost.  Of course
the cheque was a tacit acknowledgment of his
guilt.

A week slipped away without any clue being
found.  Then a detective brought news.

A boy answering to the written description had
gone on board a vessel to San Francisco as cabin
boy the very day in question.  There seemed no
doubt as to his identity.  The Captain said it was
the best thing that could have happened.  It was
a rough ship, and the boy would have exceedingly
hard work and discipline—it might be the making
of him.  He sent a cable to reach the captain in
America, when the boat arrived, to ask him to
see the lad was brought safely back in the same
capacity.

And then everything at Misrule resumed its
ordinary course.  Bunty was safe, though they
could not hear of him or see him for four or five
months; it was no use being unsettled any longer.

But Poppet made a small discovery one day.
She found her little money-box empty under her
own bed, with a bit of dirty paper stuck in the slit.
"I'll pay you back," it said in Bunty's straggling
hand; "you said you'd lend me the thirteen shillings.
I have to go, Poppet; it's no good stopping here—no
one believes you.  Don't forget what you promised.
You can have my tortoise for your own.  It's
in the old bucket under the house.  Don't forget to
feed it; it likes bits of meat as well as bread.  I'd
like to say good-bye, but you always cry and make
a fuss, and I have to go.  You're the only one worth
anything anywhere.  Oh, and don't forget to change
its water often,—well water has more insects in
than tap."

"Don't forget what you promised," repeated
Nell, as she read the almost undecipherable epistle
in her turn.  "What did you promise, Poppet?"

"That I would believe him," the little girl said,
with a sweet, steadfast look in her eyes.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A LITTLE MAID-ERRANT`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   A LITTLE MAID-ERRANT.

.. vspace:: 1

..

   |  "There's nothing on earth half so holy
   |  As the innocent heart of a child."

.. vspace:: 2

It was in the midst of morning lessons soon after
at the Beltham Grammar School that an odd
thing happened.

It was very hot; not a breath of wind came in at
the open doors and windows—nothing but the blazing
sunlight that lay in hot patches on the floor, and
slowly baked blackboards and slates and desks.
It was a very long room, this "Great Hall," as they
called it; half-a-dozen classes were at work in it,
with as many masters; and at the end, on a little,
raised platform, sat Mr. Burnham in front of his
desk.  He was looking through the Euclid exercises
of the fourth form, and his brow kept criss-crossing
with lines of annoyance at any noise,—the hot,
slumbrous air was quite enough to bear, without
the occasional down-crashing of a pile of slates or
the upsetting of a form.

Then came the loud note of the locust—the
whir-r-r, and pen-inimitable sound of its wings,
inside the room, not out.  Who had dared to bring
one of the prohibited creatures into school, after the
endless penalties that had been imposed for the
offence?  Mr. Burnham scored a red line through
one of the exercises and stood up in his place, a
heavy frown on his face.

And at the same moment a very small shadow
fell just inside the entrance door at the far end of
the room, and a very small knock sounded there.
Nobody said "Come in," though a hundred and
fifty pairs of eyes went in the direction with the
swiftness natural to gratitude for any break in
the monotony of morning school.  Then there
stepped over the threshold a little, slight
girl,—a little girl with a very short, holland frock, a
great sun-hat, and no gloves; a little girl with a
white, small face, great frightened eyes shining
strangely, and soft lips very tightly closed.  Up
the long, long room she went, both little hands
held tightly together in front of her.  No one could
tell from the way she walked how her poor little
knees were shaking and her poor little heart was
beating.

For a minute Mr. Burnham's frown did not
disappear—not till he noticed how white her face was;
he told himself he had never seen a child's face
so white in all his life.

"What is it, little girl?" he said, and really
thought he made his voice quite gentle and
encouraging, though to Poppet it sounded terrible.

"I——" she said—"you——"  Something rose
in her throat that would not be strangled away,
her face grew even whiter, and her lips, white
too, twitched a little, but the words would not
come.

He took her hand, the little trembling, shut, brown
hand, and held it between his own.

"There is nothing to be afraid of, my child; tell
me what it is you want"; he drew her closer to the
desk, and sat down.  He seemed less formidable in
that position than towering above her—his eyes
looked strangely kind; could it really be the terrible
Mr. Burnham she had heard so much about?  The
hand he held fluttered a minute, then her lips moved
again:

"Bunty didn't do it," she said in a whisper.

"Eh? what?" he said, mystified.

"He didn't do it—Bunty didn't do it—oh, indeed."

"But who is Bunty? and who are you, my little
maid?" Mr. Burnham said, with a smile that lit up
his thoughtful eyes.

"He's my brother," she said in a voice that had
gained a little strength.

.. _`"'BUNTY DIDN'T DO IT,' SHE SAID IN A WHISPER."`:

.. figure:: images/img-081.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: "'BUNTY DIDN'T DO IT,' SHE SAID IN A WHISPER."

   "'BUNTY DIDN'T DO IT,' SHE SAID IN A WHISPER."

Then it struck her Bunty was not so called at
school.

"His name's John Woolcot," she added, with
downcast eyes; "I'm Poppet."

Then Mr. Burnham remembered everything, and
his eyes grew stern as he thought of the boy there
had been so much trouble with; but they softened
as they fell again on the little, white, eager face.

"And his little sister is taking up his cudgels;
thankless work, I'm afraid—eh?" he said quizzically.

Poppet was calm now,—the worst part of the ordeal
was over, and she had actually gained the dread
head master's ear; she must make the most of her
time.

"Won't you believe him?" she said; "indeed he
didn't do it—oh, indeed."

"What?" he asked,—"break the window—tell
a lie—anything?  Why, my little child, he owned
to it."

"Yes," said Poppet, "he bwoke the glass, I know;
and yes, he did tell one story."  Her face fell after
the last sentence, and a little red crept into her cheek.
"But he didn't take the money—oh no, no!—oh,
Bunty wouldn't be a thief—oh, not for anything and
anything—oh, indeed."

The boys were staring at the little, white-faced
girl at the head master's desk, though they could
not hear what was being said.

"Would you like to come and talk to me
privately?" Mr. Burnham said.

And "Oh-h-h!" was Poppet's only answer; but
the gratitude in her eyes was so intense, he guessed
a little what the ordeal had been to her.

Away down the long room she went again, only
this time her hand was being held in a firm, kindly
grasp.

"Oh!" she said again, when near the door a
great, slouching fellow with a big head moved to
help another boy with a blackboard.

"What?" said Mr. Burnham, when they were
outside; he had noticed her intense interest.

"Was that Bull-dog Hawkins—the fellow that
told?" she said.

He smiled somewhat; Hawkins was not a
favourite of his, and the fitting name sounded odd
on the little girl's lips.

"His name is Hawkins," he said; "and yes, he
gave the information; but that has nothing to do
with it, my child.  Now, tell me what it is you have
to say."

He had taken her into a little room the walls of
which were lined with books; he drew up a chair for
himself, and one for her, but she preferred standing
against his knee.

Almost she convinced him, so great was the belief
in her shining eyes, so utterly unshaken her trust.
She told him everything, and he listened patiently
and attentively even to the smallest detail, asking
a question here and there, but for the most part
letting her tell her story in her own way.

When she told of the kiss by the staircase window,
she broke down a little; but he slipped his arm round
her waist, and she shed her tears on his coat
sleeve,—how Bunty would have stared!  She showed the
dirty scrap of paper, and he read it thoughtfully.

"If only he had never told a lie before," he said,
"then perhaps——"

Oh, if only she could have flung back her head
and said, "He has never told a lie in his life, sir;
never—never!"

Shame at not being able to do so made the dear,
curly head droop a little, and two more tears forced
their way from under her eyelids and fell sadly
down her cheek.

"I'm sure he never will again!" she said, with
sorrowful hopefulness.  "But, oh, sir, he couldn't
be a thief!  Oh, how *could* he?"

"Well, I don't see how he could be altogether
bad with such a little sister," he said slowly.
"What sort of a boy is he at home?  Is he good
to you?"

"Oh yes," said Poppet,—"oh yes, indeed!"

And it is a fact that not a single act that disproved
this came to the little girl's mind.  She remembered
nothing but the times he had been good to her.

"Twice I was sent to bed without tea, and he
bwought me all his pudding in some newspaper,"
she said eagerly; "and when I had difeeria, and
they wouldn't let him in, he used to climb up the
creeper when no one was in the room and smile at
me through the window.  An' another time I was
ill he sat on the mat outside the door all night;
Meg found him in the morning asleep with his head
on the oilcloth.  An' when it was my birthday—I
was nine—and he had no money, so he sold his
guinea-pigs to one of the fellows—and he liked them
better than anything he'd got—and he went and
bought me a doll's pwambulator, 'cause Peter
smashed mine with filling it with stones.  Oh, and
lots and lots and lots of things!  He was *vewy*
good to me—oh, indeed!"

Such a flushed, little, eager face it was now—such
a fluent little tongue that told of Bunty's goodness!
The child's beautiful trust, affection, and courage
had quite touched the head master's heart.

He took a bunch of keys from his pocket.

"You are a dear, brave, little girl, Poppet," he
said.  "By the way, haven't you a prettier name
than that?"

"Oh, it's Winifred, of course, really," said Poppet.

"Something in a name," he said, half to himself.
Then aloud:

"Well, Winifred, then, just because you have
believed in your brother and done this for him, I
am going to reward you in the way I know will
gladden you most."

He unlocked a tin box on the table, and counted
out five sovereigns, while the surprise in Poppet's
eyes deepened every minute.

"Have you a purse?" he asked.

"No," she said in a very low tone.  It made her
feel fit to cry to think he should give her money,
even such a large, beautiful amount, for doing this.

"Because I want you to give this to Captain
Woolcot," he continued, "and tell him I have had
reason to doubt whether John was guilty, and until
I am perfectly sure it is not fair to the lad to take it."

How Poppet's eyes shone, albeit the tears were
not dry! how her lips smiled and quivered! and how
the glad, warm colour rushed all over her little,
sweet face!  Not a word of thanks she said, and
he would not have had it; only she clung very tightly
to his arm for a minute, and hid her face.  When
he saw it, he felt he had had more than thanks.

And that was not all he did.  He took her back
with him to the schoolroom, and walked up to the
raised platform, and held her hand all the time.

"Boys," he said, in his clear, far-carrying voice,
"I have reason to believe that John Woolcot is not
guilty of the theft that you have all heard of.  I
wish you all to give him the benefit of the doubt,
since he is not here to clear himself.  For my part,
I believe him innocent."

How the boys cheered!  It was not that Bunty
was a special favourite, though he had his own
friends; but they felt it was expected of them, and
it was another break in the monotony to be able
to do so.  Besides, they felt a vague pity and
admiration for the little girl standing there, with
such a smiling, tear-wet face.

After that Mr. Burnham took her all the way
home to Misrule himself.  Meg and Nellie went into
the drawing-room to see him, and Poppet slipped
away.  He told them what the child had done,
praised her high courage and simple faith.  "If,"
he said, as he took his leave an hour later,—"if all
my boys had such sisters as little Poppet is, my
school would be a better place, and later, the world."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`ONE PARTICULAR EVENING`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VIII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   ONE PARTICULAR EVENING.

.. vspace:: 1

..

   |  "O world, as God has made it!  All is beauty,
   |  And knowing this is love, and love is duty."

.. vspace:: 2

It was Peter who first noticed Meg's face one
particular evening.  He and Poppet were doing,
or making a pretence of doing, preparation for the
next day, and Nellie was reading a novel in the
only armchair the nursery held.

Meg came in at nine o'clock—nearly an hour
past the usual time to send the little ones to bed.
"Thust look at Meg'th fathe!" Peter said, and
rounded his eyes at her.  Of course every one
looked instantly.

It was like a blush rose.  A delicate, exquisite
flush had crept over it, her eyes were soft and
dewy, her lips unsteady.

"Peter dear, come to bed; now, Poppet," she
said; and even in her voice there was a new note.

Nellie laid down her book and looked at her
sister in surprise.  She had only just discovered she
was beautiful.  Hitherto it had seemed to be tacitly
allowed that she herself had monopolised the good
looks of the family; so to discover this sudden beauty
in Meg rather amazed her.

She looked to see if it had anything to do with
her dress; no, she had worn it scores of times
before.  It was a muslin, pale blue, rather
old-fashioned in make, for the body fitted plainly with
the exception of a slight gathering at the neck.
The skirt was very long, and ended in a crossway
frill at the hem,—how graceful it made her look!
In her waistband she had stuck some cornflowers
vividly blue.

And her hair!  Nellie devoted a surprisingly long
time daily to the erection of an elaborate coiffeur
on her own beautiful head; but surely Meg's had a
grace of its own, from its very simplicity.  It was
drawn back loosely that it might wave and curl as
it pleased, and then was twisted into a shining knot
halfway down her head.

And that exquisite pink in her cheeks!

"Oh, Meg!" Nellie said, half guessing, half shy.

"Dear Peter—oh, Poppet, do come!" Meg entreated.
The pink had deepened, her eyes had
grown distressful.  Both children rose and followed
her without a word; they had the native delicacy
that every unspoiled child possesses.

But Nellie had lost interest in her book,—what
was a fictitious tale of love, when she might hear of
one in real life within these very walls?

She went downstairs and into the drawing-room.
"Who's in the study, Esther?  I can hear voices,"
she said sharply.

Esther was reading, lying on the sofa, her dark,
beautiful head against the yellow, frilled cushions.
She turned a leaf before she replied.

"Oh, only father and Alan Courtney," she said,
with a studiously matter-of-fact air.

"I *thought* so!" Nell exclaimed, with a deep
breath; then she sat down at the foot of the sofa
and looked at Esther.

"Well?" Esther said, feeling the gaze before
she reached the end of the next page; then she
smiled.

"Is he really asking father?" Nell asked breathlessly.

"I'm not at the keyhole," Esther replied.

"And I wish I was," Nell said with fervour.

Then they looked at each other again, and again
Esther smiled.  "How pretty she looked to-night!"
she said meditatively.

"Very, very," Nell answered eagerly; "why, I
couldn't help staring at her."

"I'm very fond of Alan myself; he's a thoroughly
good fellow.  I think they are excellently suited," the
young stepmother said.

Nellie was silent a minute.  "I wish he looked
older," she said; "thirty is the proper age for a
man, *I* think.  And I'd rather he had a long, fair
moustache; his eyes are not bad; but I wish he
wouldn't rumple his hair up straight when he gets
excited."

Esther smiled indulgently at Nellie's idea of a
hero.

"As long as he makes her happy," she said, "I'll
forgive him for being clean-shaved.  Why are you
looking at me like that, Nell?"

"I was thinking how very pretty you are yet,
Esther," was the girl's answer, spoken thoughtfully.
Esther's beauty did strike her on occasion, and
to-night, with the dark, bright face and rich, crinkly
hair in relief against the cushions, it was especially
noticeable.

"Yet," repeated Esther, "I'm not very old, Nell,
am I?  Twenty-five is not very old."  Her eyes
looked wistfully at the very young lovely face of
her second step-daughter.

"Oh no, dear—oh no, Esther," said Nell, quick
to notice the wistfulness; "why, of course it is very
young; only—oh, *Essie*!"

"What?" said Esther in surprise.

"How *could* you marry father?"  She crept up
closer, and put her shining head down beside the
dark one.  "Of course I don't want to hurt your
feelings, but really he is so very middle-aged and
ordinary; were you really in *love*, Essie?"

But Esther was spared the embarrassing answer
by the entrance of the Captain and Alan.

You all saw Alan last five years ago, when he
used to go on the river boat every morning to his
lectures at the university.  His face is even more
earnest and grave than before; life is a serious
business to this young doctor, and the only
relaxations he allows himself are football and Meg.

His eyes are grey, deeply set; his patients and
Meg think them beautiful.  His dark hair has a
wave in it, and is on end, for of course he has been
somewhat excited.

The Captain does not look unamiable.

Alan has only just begun to practise, certainly;
but then he has three hundred a year of his own,
and his prospects are spoken of as brilliant.  Still,
he has the air of having grudgingly conferred a
favour, and he goes out to smoke his cigar and
think it over.

"All well?" ask Esther's arched eyebrows.  And
"All is well" Alan answers with a grave, pleasant
smile.

"Dear boy, I *am* so glad," she says.  There is a
moisture in her dark eyes as she gives him her
hand, for Meg is very dear to her.

.. _`"HE BENDS HIS TALL, BOYISH-LOOKING HEAD SUDDENLY, AND KISSES THE HAND HE HOLDS."`:

.. figure:: images/img-093.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: "HE BENDS HIS TALL, BOYISH-LOOKING HEAD SUDDENLY, AND KISSES THE HAND HE HOLDS."

   "HE BENDS HIS TALL, BOYISH-LOOKING HEAD SUDDENLY, AND KISSES THE HAND HE HOLDS."

He looks at her in silence for a minute; then he
bends his tall, boyish-looking head suddenly, and
kisses the hand he holds.

"I am glad too," Nellie whispers, with something
like a sob in her throat; she too holds out her hand.

"Dear little Nell!" he says; and such a happy
light is in the eyes that look down at her that she
quite forgives his lack of good looks.  "Dear little
Nell!"

He does not kiss *her* hand—it is too little and
childish, he considers; but he stoops and takes a
first brotherly kiss from the soft cheek nearest to
him, and though she blushes a little, she is
impressed with the dignity that attaches to a future
brother-in-law.

Then he goes.  Meg has refused to be visible again
to-night to him, and Nellie flies up the staircase.

"*Dear* Meg," she pleads at the door—it is locked,
and doesn't open for a minute.

But the tone turns the key, and the sisters are
in each other's arms.

Just the room you might expect Meg to have.
It is fresh, simple, and daintily pretty.  The floor is
covered with white China matting; the bed hangings
have loose pink roses on a white ground; the pillows
have hem-stitched frills.  There is a bookcase on
one wall, in which the poets preponderate; the
dressing-table is strewn with the pretty odds and
ends girls delight in; there is a writing-table that
looks as if it is used often; and in the window
stands a deep wicker chair with rose-pink cushions
double frilled.

On the walls there are some water-colours of Meg's
own, pretty in colouring, but shaky as to perspective.
Two lines she has illuminated herself,—

   |  "Lord, help us this and every day
   |  To live more nearly as we pray."

The gold letters are a little uneven, perhaps; but she
wears them in her heart besides, so it does not matter.
There is an engraving in an oak and gold frame—"Songs
of Love"; Meg loves the exquisite face of
the singer, and the back of the sweet little child.
There is a long photo-frame with a balcony rail:
here is Essie all dimpled with her sauciest smile;
Poppet and Peter's heads close together like two
little bright-eyed birds; Nell, a little self-conscious
with the camera so close; Esther looking absurdly
girlish; Pip in his cap and gown when they were
delightfully new.  Bunty always refused to put on
an engaging smile and submit himself to the
photographer, so he is not represented.

And over the mantelpiece, in an ivory frame, is
an old, fading likeness of a little thin girl with a
bright face and mischievous eyes, and rough, curly
hair—Judy at ten.

It had taken all the time you have been looking
at the room for the girls to kiss each other and say
little half-laughing, half-crying words.  Then Nellie
forced Meg into the wicker chair, and knelt down
herself, with her arms round her sister's waist.

"You darling," she said.  "Oh, Meg, how glad
I am!  Dear, dear Meg, I do hope you'll be
happy—impossibly happy."

It was the first connected sentence either of them
had spoken.

"I couldn't be happier," was Meg's whisper.

"But always, always, dear—even when your hair
is white, and there are wrinkles here and here and
here."  She touched the smooth cheeks and brow
with tender fingers.

There was a little silence fraught with love, the
two bright heads leaning together; then Meg spoke,
shyly, hesitatingly:

"Alan—Nell dear—you do—like him?"

"Oh, he's well enough—oh yes, I'm very fond
of Alan," said Nell.  "Of course I don't consider
him half good enough, though, for you."

"Oh, Nellie!" Meg looked quite distressed.
"Why, it is the other way, of course.  He is so
clever—oh! you don't know how clever; and I am
such a stupid thing."

"Very stupid," assented Nellie; but her smile
differed.

"And he is always thinking of plans to do good
to the lower classes.  Nell, you cannot think how
miserable some of them are; though they don't half
realise it, they get so dulled and weary.  Oh, Nellie
dear, I *do* think he is the very best man in the
world."  The young, sweet face was half hidden
behind the deep cushion frill.

"Well, you are the very best woman," Nell said
very tenderly, and meant it indeed.

Pretty giddy little butterfly, that she was just
now, she often paused in her flights to wish she
could grow just as sweet and good and true and
unselfish as Meg without any trouble.

"The *very* best woman," she repeated; but Meg's
soft hand closed her lips and stayed there.

"If you *knew* how I'm always failing," she said,
with a deep sigh.

"But the trying is everything," Nell said.

Then there were more tender words and wishes,
and Nellie went to bed, stealing on tip-toe down the
passage, for time had flown on noiseless wings and
the household was asleep.  And Meg took down the
ivory frame, and put her lips to the laughing
child-face.

"Oh, Judy," she said, "I wish you knew.  Dear
little Judy, I *wonder* if you know?"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THAT MISCHIEVOUS CUPID`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER IX.


.. class:: center medium bold

   THAT MISCHIEVOUS CUPID.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: center

   "For boys say, Love me or I die."

.. vspace:: 2

University examinations are not things to
be postponed with polite little notes like
inconvenient balls or picnics.  And, given the early days
of December, and a young man who steadfastly
refused to acknowledge this fact, what use was it
even to trouble to scan the lists?

Of course Philip was plucked.

In October he had brought down his father's
wrath upon him by failing to get through in a class
examination; and any one who had had experience
of the Captain's would have thought that would
have been quite enough to make him take a good
place at the end of his second year.

But, as I said, his name was conspicuous by its
absence.

"Oh, Philip!" Nell said, an accent of reproach
on the first syllable; "and even that stupid Burton
boy is through."

"Oh, Pip!" said Meg.  "What *will* father say?"

It was the day the lists were out at the university,
and Philip had just communicated the agreeable
intelligence to his sisters in the midst of his third
pipe after dinner.

And the strange part was, he did not seem to care
twopence—the orthodox measure of indifference.

He lolled back on the lounge, and made fantastic
figures with the smoke from his pipe; he did not
even seem to hear what the girls were saying.

And when he came out of his father's study, after
a *mauvais quart d'heure* of unusual elasticity, there
was not a trace of repentance on his face, nothing
but obstinacy in his eyes, and lips all pursed up
for a careless whistle when the distance from the
room should be respectable enough.

But later on in the evening Meg caught a glimpse
of his face when he thought he was quite unobserved,
and its restless, unhappy look gave her a curious
feeling of surprise and anxiety.

She remembered all at once that she had quite
forgotten of late to take an interest in this eldest
brother of hers.

The "time o' day" that it was just now in her
life made it excusable, perhaps.  She had a latchkey
to a little heaven of her own, where she might
retreat whenever earth grew troublous or commonplace;
sometimes she stayed there too long and
grew forgetful.  And though she had taken Poppet
as her special charge, and formed endless resolutions
as to her future treatment of poor, prodigal Bunty,
she had let Pip slip away.

He was from home so much was the excuse she
made to herself now—at lectures most of the day,
and no one knew where in the evening; how could
she be all she should to him?  She had kept a
sisterly eye on his clothes, darned all manner of
sweet little dreams into the heels and toes of his
socks, and even embroidered him a 'varsity cap so
that he should not be jealous of the one she had
worked for Alan.

But there she had stopped, and it struck her
suddenly to-night that this big, tall fellow with the
manly shoulders and boyish, unhappy face was
almost as a stranger to her.

Where had all his fun, his schoolboy teasings,
his high spirits and absurdities, gone to?  Surely
it was only yesterday he used to pull their hair and
slaughter their dolls and come for three servings of
pudding!

She gazed at him with great earnestness as he
sat motionless at the table, looking, not at the book
before him, but straight opposite at the wall where
Poppet had spilt the ink; and it came to her with
a strange pang of pain that Pip, dear old madcap,
merry Pip, was a man.

All the young light had gone from his eyes; they
were graver, sterner than the boy's eyes, and yet
full of a troubled unrest.  Then his mouth was
firmer, and it was not only the soft, dark line of an
incipient moustache that made it seem so; the
careless laughter lines around it no longer showed, his
very lips seemed to have grown straighter.

But even as Meg watched, all her heart in her
eyes, those same lips unclosed, and a half
tremulous curve of pain appeared at each corner and
made them look very boyish again.  He put up
his hand and pushed his crisp hair away from his
forehead with a weary gesture.  She could look no
longer.

She went up to the table and slipped an arm
round his shoulder.

"Dear old fellow," she said; "oh, I am so sorry
about the exam."

"The exam.!" he repeated.  "Oh, you needn't
bother, old girl; I don't care.  What's an
exam. fifty years hence?"

His lips were under his own control again.

The girl's arm went from his shoulder to his neck.
"Dear Pip, I wish you'd tell me things sometimes;
don't shunt me altogether because I'm only your
sister.  Pip, couldn't you tell me?  I know you're
in trouble; couldn't I help a bit?  Dear old fellow,
there's nothing I wouldn't do."  Such an earnest,
loving voice it was.

But he freed his neck, and put her away almost
roughly.

"Help me!" he said bitterly; "you're the last
in the world who would.  Yes, I'm in trouble,
perhaps; but it's a trouble you girls and Esther
would do your best to increase."

Meg's eyes filled, but she would not be repulsed.
"Try me," she said.  "Is it gambling, Pip?  Are you
in need of money?  Is it debts?  Have you done
anything you daren't tell father?"  She put her arm
round his shoulder again; but he stood up hastily
and pushed her aside.

"It's nothing you can help, Meg.  No, it's none
of those things.  As to telling you, I'd sooner cut
my tongue out!  There, I didn't mean to hurt you,"
for Meg's lips had trembled; "but oh, it would
be impossible for you to understand.  Why, you'd
be the first to be against me."  He went over to
the door, and picked up his straw hat from the
side-table on the way.

Meg followed him.  "Sha'n't you ever tell me?"
she said.  "Not to-night, perhaps, as you don't want
to, but another time Pip; indeed, you shouldn't be
disappointed in me.  Just promise you'll tell me
another time."

"You'll know before the month's out," he said,
and laughed half wildly as he closed the door behind
him.

As a matter of fact, a trivial accident happened,
and she knew before the next day was out.

They were having afternoon tea down near the
river, and it being Sunday afternoon and pleasantly
cool, the Captain had strolled down with Esther, and
was seated on the grass leisurely examining some
letters that had come by the Saturday afternoon's
post and been laid aside.  There was a bill amongst
them that he had had no part in making, a tailor's
bill, with what seemed to him superfluous blazers,
flannels, and such things, down.  On ordinary
occasions he would only have grumbled moderately
and as a matter of duty, for Pip was not particularly
extravagant.  But to-day, with his son's recent
failure fresh in his mind, he felt he could be
explosive with perfect justice.  So he despatched
Peter up to the house to request Pip's immediate
presence.  Pip was on the point of going out, and
came with a half-aggrieved, half-aggressive look on
his face.

But before there was time for even the preliminaries
of warfare, Essie created a diversion by
tumbling out of the moored boat in which she and
Poppet were sitting into the deep, clear water of
the river.

Pip's coat was off before any one had even time
to scream, he flung it into Meg's lap right over the
teacups, and was swimming out to the little dark
bobbing head in less time than it takes to write it.

Nellie and Poppet had screamed, a strange,
strangled cry had broken from Esther's lips, and
the Captain had put his arm round her and said,
"Don't be foolish, she's quite safe," in a sharp
voice; but his face was white under its bronze,—this
little saucy-faced baby daughter of his had crept
closer to his heart than any of his other children.

Of course she was quite safe.  Here was Pip
scrambling up the bank again, and holding her up
in his arms, a little dripping figure in a white frock
and pinafore, one foot quite bare, the other with
only the sock on.

Such gurgling little sobs of fright and relief she
gave, such leaps and shudders of joy and terror, as
they carried her up to the house wrapped in her
father's coat.

But now she was safe and unhurt Meg did not
follow the rest of the family into the bedroom with
her.  Instead she went into her own, and sank down
on the ottoman at the bed foot, white to the lips and
trembling like an old, old woman,—not on Essie's
account, the danger had been so short-lived, but in
that breathless moment something terrible had come
to her knowledge.

.. _`"A LITTLE DRIPPING FIGURE IN A WHITE FROCK AND PINAFORE."`:

.. figure:: images/img-105.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: "A LITTLE DRIPPING FIGURE IN A WHITE FROCK AND PINAFORE."

   "A LITTLE DRIPPING FIGURE IN A WHITE FROCK AND PINAFORE."

I told you Pip had thrown his coat to her over the
tea-things; it had fallen on her lap with a jerk, and
the contents of one pocket had been precipitated on
to the tray.

A tobacco pouch, a fountain pen, and a pipe she
had replaced hastily.  A letter had fallen face
upwards—even in the confusion she had seen it was addressed
to "Miss Mabelle Jones," in her brother's bold
writing.

But the thing that had taken all the colour and
life from her face, she had not put back in the pocket
at all, when Pip had taken the coat.  She held it at
the present time in her tightly shut, trembling hand,
and every minute the horror in her eyes deepened.
Then she said, "Pip!" in a low, wailing voice,
and opened her hand and looked again at the thing.

The tissue paper was still there, and on its
whiteness, shining bravely up into the wild eyes above
it, lay a little gold wedding-ring.

There was a step outside her door—Pip's step; he
had been to his room to change to dry things, and
was coming back.  For a minute he stopped, and
Meg went paler than ever; then he went on, along
the passage and down the staircase.

She could hear him in the lower hall,—could he
be going out again?  She started to her feet as the
door banged, and went hastily over to the window.
No; he had his old tennis cap on, and was going very
slowly across the grass towards the river, his eyes
searching the ground.  He had evidently missed it
already, and surmised it had fallen from the pocket,
either as he carried his coat to the house or when
he flung it to Meg.  She gave him just time to get
down to the water, and then, with the small, terrible
thing tightly held in her hand, she went almost
blindly down the stairs and over the grass after him.

He was kneeling down just beside the tea-things,
groping about in the long grass.

"Have you lost anything?" Meg asked, in a
voice that seemed to have no connection with
herself, so faint and far away it sounded.

"Er—only the stem of my pipe," Pip said, a dull
flush on his forehead.

He overturned a cup, spilt the milk into the
biscuit barrel, and said something under his breath.

"Is this what you have lost, Pip?"

Meg's voice came in almost a whisper, with a note
of great yearning in it,—oh, if only he would laugh,
and give a ridiculously simple explanation of it all!
She hardly dared to look at his face for fear of what
she should find there; her hand, outstretched to him
with the gold circle on its palm, trembled like a
leaf.

The scarlet leaped up into his face as if he had
been a girl; his very brow and neck and ears were
deeply dyed.  He snatched the ring from the little
soft palm, and held it in his own closed hand; his
eyes were like coals on fire.

But Meg faced him quietly; all her courage
gathered in her hands now the need had come.

"You were going to marry the little dressmaker,
Philip," she said.

He told her a lie, two or three lies; then he
abused her violently for her interference and prying;
then, kneeling as he was, he put both his arms
round her waist and prayed her, if she had any
love for him, not to try to ruin the happiness of his
life.

Oh the young, wild, passionate face, the imploring
words!  It almost broke Meg's heart to see him.
Such a boy again,—oh, surely not a man now,—not
twenty yet, and so headstrong.  She felt years and
years older than he—felt almost as if she were his
mother, and he a child begging to play with the
fire.

Strange wisdom came to her.  She neither railed
nor mocked, reproached nor wept.  "And after
you are married, what then, Pip?" she said, her
voice quite even.  "Fifty pounds a year won't
go very far; and I suppose father will stop even
that."

He flung back his head with its crisp waves and
curls, the light came into his eyes.

"I can work," he said, and smiled proudly.

Meg looked merely thoughtful.

"Of course you can," she said; "but of course
you will get a bare nothing at first.  And, Pip,
excuse me saying it, aren't you rather selfish?  *You*
might be able to rough it; but wouldn't it be very
hard on her?  Dear Pip, haven't you too much
pride to ask any woman in the world to be your
wife, and not have a penny to offer her or a house
to take her to?"

This was a new view of the case to Pip.  It had
certainly not occurred to him it was hard on her; all
the sacrifice had seemed on his side, and he had
rejoiced to make it.

"She doesn't mind; she knows I'd have to begin
from the beginning," he said, half sulkily.

"But wouldn't she rather wait?  There is every
chance of a bright future before you, as you know,
Pip, with all the influence father has.  Pip, I am
sure she would rather wait and come to you when
you are able to take her proudly before every one,
than marry you now and make you sink into a
fifth-rate clerk for the rest of your life."

She held her head on one side argumentatively;
the colour was beginning to creep back into her
cheeks.

As for Pip, he was both surprised and sobered at
her moderation.  She had not said a word against
the girl he loved, she had not been contemptuous;
she was only laying before him, clearly and rationally,
what he had seen and refused to see himself.

The conversation spread itself out over hours;
dusk was beginning to fall before they turned to go
in again.  It would take half this book to narrate
everything that was said, but in the end the victory
was to Meg.

When it came to the crisis she had been very firm.

Unless he would promise her, before God and
before heaven, before their dead mother and all he
held holy, not to marry the girl secretly, she should
immediately inform his father, who, until he was of
age, could make the thing impossible.

If, on the other hand, he would go back to his old
life and work with all his will, as it was only right and
just he should do, and if at the end of two years he
was just as much in love with her as ever, and if there
was nothing against her but her lowly position, then
she, Meg, would withdraw her opposition, and even
do all she could to help him forward.  She felt safe.

"Think how much better you will know each
other by then," she said cheerfully, as they walked
back to the house, both feeling they had been near
a volcano's edge.  "Why, how long have you
known her, Pip?"

And his answer was the least bit shamefaced.

"Three months—nearly four, at least."

He had the unpleasant feeling of having been
conquered; but deep in his secret heart there was
relief; that it had been taken out of his hands.  He
had known he was making shipwreck of his life,
known he was bringing bitter trouble upon his family
by this hot haste; but Mabel (with two l's and an e)
had been so insistent about an immediate marriage,
and he so deeply in love and fearful of losing her,
that he had felt the world was well lost.

And what Meg said was very true.  It would be
more manly of him to work first, and take a wife
when he had something to keep her on.

His Spanish castles raised themselves rapidly
against the early evening sky.  He would work for
two or three years as never man worked yet, and
marry "Mabelle" at the end of that time; then he
would take her to England that she might grow
a little more educated and polished (oh, Pip, Pip!),
and then bring her back and present her proudly
to Esther and his father and sisters.

His face looked quite young and bright again by
the time they reached the front door.

"You're a well-meaning little thing, Meg," he said,
and kissed her patronisingly; it was not in nature
that he should feel quite proper gratitude.

Meg drew a series of long breaths of relief as
she took off her hat upstairs and smoothed her
hair for tea.

"Oh, *who* would have brothers?" she asked her
image in the glass; but it only looked back at her
and smiled mournfully.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`NEEDLES AND PINS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER X.


.. class:: center medium bold

   NEEDLES AND PINS.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: center

   "Something attempted, something done."

.. vspace:: 2

Snip, snip.  Bits of silesia and common red
cashmere worked their way to the edge of the
table, and from there dropped to the floor where
there was a glorious litter.  Buzz, buzz, bang
against the window-panes went the body and wings
of a great "meat" fly.  Whirr, whirr, the sewing-machine
fled frantically over the silesia in the places
where the scissors had gone snip, snip.  From the
trees across the road came the maddening sound of
many locusts; the great fly on the hot window-glass
was half killing itself in the effort to outdo
them in noise.

"What ever was she?" sighed Miss Mabelle Jones.

She got up from the machine with a length of
grey webbing in her hand, and looked absently
about for a few minutes.  She had written the
measurement of a customer's waist on the back of
a card of buttons, she remembered; but the question
was, where were the buttons?

"If only he had money of his own now," she
said aloud, which had no apparent connection with
waist measurements, but showed that dressmakers'
thoughts occasionally run on other things besides
gatherings, crossway flounces, and boned bodices.
Then she found the card in the leaves of the *Young
Ladies' Journal*; and the comment, "Thirty-five
inches, fat old thing," had a connection.

She held the webbing against the tape measure,
and cut it off at thirty-five with quite a vicious little
snip.

"Stuck up things," she muttered.  "I wouldn't be
seen in the plain, common dresses they wear for
anything—no style at all.  Why, Miss Woolcot's
at church on Sunday was just fourpence-ha'penny
print, and nothing else."

Then she gasped, and put down the underskirt she
was making in a great hurry.  Just outside the
window stood Miss Woolcot herself, looking
half-hesitatingly at the fly-spotted card that said "Miss
Mabelle Jones, Costumiere and Modiste."  The next
minute the knocker sounded.

The father of Miss Mabelle Jones, as mentioned
before, earned an honest livelihood by vending tea
and sugar, wax candles, and such—not to speak of
sardines.  There were great white letters on his
window that asked, for the benefit of humanity,
"Who brought down Sydney prices?" and vivid
red ones that answered boldly and with generous
flourishes, "Why, Thomas Jones of course, the
People's Friend.  One pound of fine white sugar
given away with every pound of tea."

The shop was at the corner.  The little side-door
and window had been given to Miss Jones when she
had set up for herself and lengthened her baptismal
name by two letters.

Good Mrs. Jones was cutting up carrots for haricot
mutton in the back kitchen, when her daughter burst
in upon her.

"Go and let that young lady in; say I'll be down
presently—say I'm engaged for a bit," she said,
pulling off as she spoke the housewifely apron that
protected the front of her mother's dress.

But "Bless us, girl" was Mrs. Jones's rather
aggrieved reply; "you always see folks in that
dress, and you always let 'em in yourself.  This
'arryco won't be fit for pa if I go and leave it."

"It isn't ordinary folks—it's a real swell; it's—it's
his sister, the eldest one," said Miss Jones, in
great agitation.  "There, she's knocked again; oh,
for goodness' sake be quick, ma!  The room's all in
a mess too."

Mrs. Jones with a sigh set aside her toothsome
"'arryco" and proceeded to the door.

"Can I see Miss Jones?" asked the pale young
lady on the doorstep.

And "She'll be down presently; she's cleanin'
herself," answered Mrs. Jones, leading the way into
Mabelle's room, and moving a heap of work off a
chair.

"Sit down, miss, and I'll go and 'urry her up.
You can be lookin' at the fashun plates; they're the
latest styles in London"; and she kindly put a heap
of coloured supplements, depicting ladies' fearfully
and wonderfully arrayed, at Meg's elbow.

It was more than a quarter of an hour before
Miss Jones made her appearance, and oh, what a
change was there!

She wore a "costume" of bright terra-cotta
poplin, with insertion bands of black lace over pink
ribbon at intervals up the skirt and round the
body.

The sleeves were enormous—gigot shape; there
were numberless gold and silver bangles at her
wrists, several brooches at her neck, and a gold-headed
pin was stuck through her hair.  She had white
canvas shoes with tan bands.

That she was pretty there was no doubt.  She had
a bright complexion, scarlet lips, and large heavily
lashed brown eyes, very soft and beautiful; her
hair, which was much frizzed, was black and silky.

"I regret that circumstances over which I had
no control compelled me to keep you waiting so
long; but I was engaged with some one who was in
a great hurry," she said, which sounded very well,
for she had composed it while she curled her hair.

Only she accented the second half of "circumstances,"
and deprived her poor little last word of
its rightful "h."

"I have plenty of time," Meg said.  "It does not
matter at all."  Then she paused, and in the little
space of clock-ticking Miss Jones examined her.

Meg's dress was one of the despised prints—a
tiny blue spot on a white ground, very clean and
fresh.  There was a band of blue belting at her
waist, and one on her sailor-hat.  Her shoes were
very neat, black with shining toe-caps; her gloves
fitted without a crease, and were beyond reproach.

No jewellery at all, as Miss Jones noted, but a
little gold-bar brooch fastening her spotless collar.
A lady every inch, though the dress was home-made
and had cost under five shillings.

In a vague, slow way Miss Jones felt the difference
and was dissatisfied.  She almost wished she had
not put on her best dress, as it was only early
morning.

"You want to see me; is it about a dress?" she
asked; for Meg had half unconsciously picked up
one of the magazines and opened it at "The Latest
in Skirts."

"No," said Meg.  "It is about my brother Philip
I have come."  She put the paper down; and Miss
Jones, somewhat overawed by the quiet dignity of
her manner, had small idea of the way her heart
was beating.

"By an accident it came to my knowledge that
you and my brother were thinking of an immediate
marriage," Meg said; "and I came to have a quiet
talk to you, Miss Jones, because I felt sure you
could not know quite all the unhappiness such a
course would bring."

Miss Jones's fine eyelashes were lying on her
cheek; her face glowed a little with sudden colour.
Pip had not been to see her the night before, as
Meg knew; he had had an engagement that she
took care he should not break, and now this early
morning visit anticipated him.

"He told you?" she asked in a low tone.

"Yes, when I had found out everything," Meg
answered.  Then she leaned a little more towards
the pretty dressmaker.

"Miss Jones, he is such a boy, poor Philip.  Since
you love him so much, how can you bear to spoil
his future?"

.. _`"'MISS JONES, HE IS SUCH A BOY, POOR PHILIP.'"`:

.. figure:: images/img-119.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: "'MISS JONES, HE IS SUCH A BOY, POOR PHILIP.'"

   "'MISS JONES, HE IS SUCH A BOY, POOR PHILIP.'"

Miss Jones lifted her eyes and bridled a little.

"Of course, I knew you wouldn't think me good
enough," she said.

"But," said Meg simply, "how could I think so?
I do not know you.  What I mean is, marriage with
any one till he is older would be ruin to him.  Surely
you must see the unhappiness it would bring upon
you both.  In the first place, what could you live
upon?"

Miss Jones was silent a minute.

"He could work like other people, I suppose,"
she answered; "he said he could, and I wouldn't
mind going on sewing too for a bit."

"Oh, he would be willing to work, I know,"
Meg said; "but what could he do?  It is harder
in the present state of things for sons of gentlemen
to find anything to do than labouring men.  And he
is not half educated yet.  Now, in a few years he
will be, I trust, in very different circumstances, and
able to support a wife in comfort."

"I don't mind being rather poor," Miss Jones
replied; "and I'm not going to give him up just
because you don't think me fine enough for you."

Meg looked at her steadily.  "Of course," she
said, "now I have found it out, there is no possibility
of a marriage for two years.  My brother is not of
age, and my father naturally will forbid it."

Then she softened again, for the girl's eyes had
an unhappy look in them.  "I expect I seem severe
to you, Miss Jones; but, indeed, all I am thinking
of is my brother's happiness.  If I thought it would
truly be for his good, I would not say a word.  And
you—you love him too—won't you show your love
by not standing in his light?"

"You seem to think it's as easy to give him up
as drop your 'andkerchief," said Miss Jones, in a
voice that shook a little.  "If you'd a young man,
how d'you think you'd feel if any one came to you
and said as you couldn't make him happy because
you wasn't as fine as him?"

"If I had a lover," Meg said softly, "I would
not bring unhappiness upon him for all the world.
If I had a lover, and thought my love could only
do him harm, I would never see him again."

"Oh-h-h," said Miss Jones,—"oh-h dear!"

Some tears gathered on her black lashes, and
slipped slowly down her cheeks.  They were clear
tears too, and the lashes had not changed colour.
Meg remembered Nellie's accusation and blushed.

"W-what is it you want me to do?" the young
dressmaker said.  "Oh-h, you are cruel."

Meg felt she was, but kept telling herself she
must save Pip.  Still, the girl's tears and large,
beautiful eyes touched her tender heart.  She put
out her hand impulsively and took the one with
needle-marked fingers; she held it in hers while she
talked to her gently and wisely and firmly.  She
spoke of Pip's extreme youth, of his penniless
condition, his dependence on the Captain.  "My
father is a hard man, and a poor man.  I don't think
he would ever forgive or recognise my brother again
as long as he lived," she said.  "Then again, Philip
has been used to comfort and certain luxuries all his
life—to mixing in good society.  He would be
miserable, and make you miserable too, to go to
such utterly changed conditions.  Not one unequal
marriage in fifty is happy—it is almost impossible
they should be; and think how young he is."

"I 'adn't quite made up my mind," Miss Jones
said, feeling she needed some justification.  "Yes, I
know he'd got the ring—he bought it as soon as I
said yes; and at first I thought as it would be nice
to be married straight off, but often when he wasn't
here I used to think as I wouldn't after all."

"That was very wise of you," said Meg fervently,
"very good of you.  Oh, I knew I should only have
to represent things to you a little for you to see
how unwise it would be."

Miss Jones looked a little gratified, though still
somewhat mournful.  She felt very much like one
of the heroines in her favourite *Bow Bells* or *Family
Novelettes*, sacrificing herself in this noble manner
for the good of her lover.  But secretly, like Pip,
she too felt a trifle relieved.

All her life she had been used to poverty.  Things
had been a little more "genteel" with them since
she had been earning money of her own; but still
there was the never-ending struggle of trying to
make sixpence buy a shillingsworth.  And, from
all accounts, it would only be intensified by marriage
with this handsome youth she had been so taken
with lately.  She thought of a certain faithful
ironmonger whose heart had been half broken lately by
her coldness to him.  He was spoken of already
as a "solid" man—a shilling need only do its
legitimate work if she yielded to his entreaties and
married him.  Perhaps, after all, it was unwise for
a girl in her position to think of a "gentleman
born"; and yet Pip's way of speaking, his nice linen
cuffs and gold links, his well-cut serge suits, had
been a great happiness to her.

"Well?" said Meg softly, breaking in at length
upon her train of thought.

"Oh, I s'pose I'll give him up," she answered,
somewhat ungraciously.

"How good you are!" Meg said.

"Of course it's 'ard and all that; but I don't want
to make him un'appy and his family set against
him—I'd rather sacrifice myself."  Miss Jones cast down
her lashes and looked heroic.  "I suppose, though,
I'll have a fine piece of work with him when he
comes."

Meg had no doubt of it.

"But you will be very firm, won't you?" she
said anxiously.  "Remember, you have promised
me to leave him quite free—to refuse to be even
engaged for at least two years."

"Oh, I'll manage him, someway; but I quite
expect he will want to shoot either himself or me,"
was the dressmaker's answer, spoken with a certain
melancholy enjoyment.

Then Meg shook hands with her warmly, affectionately
even—she felt she almost loved her—and
took her departure.

"But Pip will never forgive me," she said to
herself, as she walked home again.  "Oh, never,
never, never!"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A DAY IN SYDNEY`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XI.


.. class:: center medium bold

   A DAY IN SYDNEY.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: center

   "To Mr. O'Malley in foreign parts."

.. vspace:: 2

Once a month Martha Tomlinson had a day's
holiday.  She generally chose Wednesdays,
because, she used to say, if there was any luck
flying about in a week, that was the day on which
it fell to earth.  She certainly had illustrations for
her theory that Poppet at least used to think were
wonderful.  For instance, one Wednesday she had
picked up a sixpence with a horseshoe on the side
the Queen's head is generally seen—the omen had
struck her as almost good enough to be married on.
Another time the young man she "went walking
with" had been within an ace of buying a pee-wit
hat that was cheap certainly, but was moth-eaten
in a place or two.  If, now, she had gone on Thursday,
it would have been too late to prevent it, and
Tuesday it would have been too soon.  It was a
clear case of luck, there was no doubt.

One time, indeed, she had been tempted to take a
Thursday instead, as the weather looked threatening
on the Wednesday; but after a little deliberation,
she thought it would be better to keep to her rule.
And on the Thursday she had almost gone there
was a collision between the river boat and one
going to Balmain,—no one hurt certainly, but then,
as she very truly remarked, there might have been.
There had never been a collision in the memory of
any of the family, for she questioned each and all,
on a Wednesday.

The man in corduroy trousers still came to see
her, and they still only talked of their marriage as
the "far-off divine event" of their lives; in all
probability they would be talking of it just the
same ten years hence.  They were not like the
usual happy-go-lucky, improvident Australians
of their class, who married first, and wondered
where the bread and meat were coming from second.

Malcolm was a Scotchman, and was saving up to
buy a house of his own—he did not believe in lining
landlords' pockets with his earnings.  It would, with
the strip of land he wanted, be four hundred odd
pounds, and he had already saved £75.  Martha
had £15 in the bank, but then hers would have
to go in furniture and clothing.  Pip calculated
that Malcolm would be seventy-two, and Martha
a gay young thing of sixty-nine, by the time
the house was built and furnished; but Martha
was more hopeful, and did not leave such a
margin for the "strikes" Malcolm seemed to revel in.

Now this particular Wednesday, Martha had
asked, as a great favour, that Poppet might go with
her to town.  The little girl was her favourite
among all the children, and her warm heart quite
ached to see the child moping as she had done since
Bunty's disappearance.  Every day, while the nursery
tea-things were being washed up, Poppet used to
stand beside her, with big mournful eyes, wondering
"if just this minute Bunty was climbing a mast; if
he was very tired of salt meat and weevily biscuits;
if his feet got very cold swilling the decks down;
if—if—if——"

Martha's brother had been a sailor, so Martha
knew more about life on board ship than any
one else in the house; hence her great attraction.

Esther, after a consultation with Meg, gave
permission; the child was fretting herself thin and pale,
and any change did her good.

Of course when Poppet was dressed and standing
on the verandah, engaged in the vexatious task of
pulling her gloves over her little brown hands, Peter
wanted to come too.

"You're a thneak, Poppet, going and having
pleathure, and me thtuck here doing nothing," he
said.  "I'm coming too."

"In that dirty old suit, and mud on the end of
your nose?" said Poppet, with the virtuous tone a
spotless white frock, whole stockings, and clean boots
made justifiable.

"Of courth I can wath my noth, and the thuit
ithn't dirty if you bruth it."  He took out a crumpled
ball of handkerchief, dipped one corner in the goldfish
bowl inside the hall door, and polished his small
nose with great energy.  "There, ith it off?"

Martha came out, resplendent in a green cashmere
made in the very latest style, a green hat with pink
ostrich feathers, and a green parasol.

Peter looked impressed, and said nothing more
about accompanying them; Poppet was nobody,
of course, even though her new boots had twelve
buttons against his own six; but even his young
soul felt the impossibility of a sailor suit no longer
new being seen within a yard of that magnificent
new costume of Martha's.

He contented himself with looking after them
enviously as they went down the drive, and kicking
the verandah post with his small strong boots.

"Tthuck up thingth!" he muttered, turning away
to look for means of amusement.  "I'll thutht pay
that Poppet out."

Martha had ideas of her own as to the proper way
a holiday should be spent, and had determined
Poppet should have a day she would long remember.
One thing only Poppet asked for, and that was that
they should walk about Circular Quay for a little
time and look at the great ships, and especially any
that were bound for America.

In her pocket the little girl had a blotted note
she had written some days ago.  On the envelope,
in very bad, unsteady writing, there was this
strange address:—

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center

   "TO BUNTY IN AMERICA.

"On the ship *Isabela* plese will the capten give
this to Bunty."

.. vspace:: 2

There was a pencil mark through Bunty, and
John Woolcot was written in brackets.

Inside the envelope was much paper and many
smudges made by the tears that fell all the time the
pen went slowly along the lines.

.. vspace:: 2

"Oh Bunty do come home, Bunty dere there is
nothing to be fritened of.  Mr. Barnham doesn't
beleeve you took it and the boys chered you like
anything and Meg is going to be nice always the
tortus is very well and I give it beefstake every day
I can get any you would be serprised to see what
it can eat.  Oh Bunty do be quick home oh you
mite have told me you were going Bunty I'd have
come with you or anything do you have to go up
the masts.  I'm so fritened you'll fall overbord I've
put 10 pense in here so you can buy things when
you're on shore I wish I had more Martha says the
biskits are full of weevuls.  Dere Bunty oh do
come home quick quick oh Bunty if only you'll
come I'll always do things for you and never
grumbil whatever it is I know I used to be horid
and grumbling before but just you see do you have
to swil the deks with no boots.  Martha says so.
Oh dere Bunty DO come home.  I've beleeved you
all the time Bunty dere of corse.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

"Your loving sister,
    "POPPET.

.. vspace:: 1

"P.S.—Be sure to come quick."

.. vspace:: 2

For a long time the little girl could think of no
possible way of getting this letter to her brother.
Meg had said the post-office would be no use, for
in all probability the boat bearing it would pass in
mid ocean the one bringing Bunty back.

But it had struck Poppet lately that if only
she could give it to the captain of some other boat
going to America, he would know just where the
boat was and be able to send it on.

That was the hope that was making her eyes
grow full of light as the river boat got nearer and
nearer to Sydney, and hundreds of tall masts and
interlacing yards stood against the blue of the sky
or the brown-grey of the great warehouses.

How beautiful the harbour looked to-day!  There
was a cool breeze blowing, and it ruffled the waters
into a million little broken waves that leaped and
danced in the clear morning sunshine.

Up near the Quay there was all the picturesque
untidiness and bustle of busy shipping; but out
farther the sun and the waves and the drifting
clouds had it their own way, and made a hundred
shifting pictures.  Sometimes a white sail glittered
in the sun, then a brown one would make a spot
of warm colour.  The great boats to Manly left
long majestic trails of white foam behind them,
and little skiffs got into the wash and rocked
joyously.

On the North Shore the many buildings showed
white and clean in the sunlight; farther to the left
the houses were fewer, and beautiful gardens stretched
down to the water's edge.  Still farther away, across
the white-tipped waves, were shores with backgrounds
of thickly-growing gums; and higher, the soft blue
line of hills.

Poppet's very heart was in her eyes as the boat
stopped at the Erskine Street Wharf and the gangway
was put down.  She pinched Martha's arm gently
and whispered to her not to forget.

Martha spoke to a sailor who was sitting smoking
on an inverted cask.

She "supposed the boats to America went
from the Quay, didn't they now?—or was it from
Wooloomooloo?"

But he "supposed there were boats and boats
to America.  There was sich as the *Mariposa*, which
carried swells and was a fine boat; and sich as the
*Jenny Lind*, which took oil and was not a fine boat!"

"Do you know the *Isabella*?" said Poppet's little
eager voice.

"Captain Brown?—well, I reckon I do, little
miss," he said, and chewed a bit of tobacco thoughtfully.
"Bloomin' old tub!  I was on her five year."

Poppet nearly fell upon him,—she could not wait
while he said all he knew about it in his slow
roundabout way.

"Is he a cruel man? don't they have vegetables
to eat? do the little boys have to go up the masts? are
there weevils in the biscuits? oh! and won't he let
them have their boots on when they swill the decks?"

But it turned out that the *Isabella* he was on was
a schooner plying between Melbourne and the
South Sea Islands.  He rather fancied there was a
brig of the same name that went to San Francisco
or Boston, or "one of those places."

Poppet's face had fallen again.

"Do you know of *any* boats that go to America?"
she said in a forlorn tone.  "Oh, do please try and
think if you know of *any*."

Martha explained rapidly, *sotto voce*: "The
young lady's brother had run away, and was on
that boat; she was fretting her little heart out to get
a letter to him; couldn't he pacify her some way? she
herself knew it was impossible."

The sailor looked kindly at the little sweet face
under its broad-brimmed hat.

"I have a mate on the *Jenny Lind*, little miss,—how'd
it be if I gave him the letter?  He's a good-hearted
chap, and would try his best; he'd be sure
to know where the *Isabella is*, and could easy
send it."

"That would be best, Miss Poppet dear," said
Martha; "give it to this nice kind man and he'll
send it."

"Is he going to America soon?  Do you think
he would see the *Isabella*?" the little sad voice said.

And the sailor's answer was certainly very
reassuring: the *Jenny Lind* sailed in two days, and
was sure to meet the *Isabella*, in which case the
letter would be delivered into Bunty's hands.

Poppet handed over her letter with a sigh of
relief; she had hardly dared to hope a boat would
leave so soon.

Martha thanked the man, opened her green
parasol, and walked on.  Poppet lingered half a
minute.

"If you should happen to meet him anywhere,"
she said hurriedly,—"you might, you know, as
you're a sailor too: he's a tallish little boy, with
brown eyes, and his hair's rather rough,—you won't
forget, will you?"

"Not I," he said warmly, shaking the small hand
she held out,—"a tallish little boy with brown
eyes,—oh! I'd easy know him."

Then she caught up Martha, who was beckoning
impatiently, and felt a load was off her mind.

Such a morning they had!  They went to the
waxworks in George Street first, and saw
bush-rangers, an aboriginal murderer, and other pleasing
characters, with life-like eyelashes and surprisingly
beautiful complexions.  Then they climbed all the
way to the top of the Town Hall—Martha knew the
caretaker—and had the pleasure of seeing the city
in miniature far below.  The Cathedral being next
door came in for a turn, but seemed rather flat after
the waxworks.  After that they went through the
five arcades systematically, flattening their noses at
each interesting window, and telling each other
what they would buy if they had the money.

.. _`"THEY WENT TO THE WAXWORKS IN GEORGE STREET FIRST."`:

.. figure:: images/img-135.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: "THEY WENT TO THE WAXWORKS IN GEORGE STREET FIRST."

   "THEY WENT TO THE WAXWORKS IN GEORGE STREET FIRST."

It was twelve o'clock when they had finished with
the Strand, and they were to meet Malcolm, who
was going to take them somewhere to lunch, at
half-past one.

"There's just time for the Botanicking Gardens,"
said Martha, wiping her heated face and setting her
splendid hat straight at one of the narrow slits of
mirror in the arcade.

So away they posted, up King Street, down
Macquarie Street, and away down the broad,
beautiful, shady walk in the Domain.

There was not time to "do" the Gardens
thoroughly, so they only walked rapidly up some
of the paths, paused for a moment to look at the
blue harbour beyond the low sea wall, and then
walked three times solemnly and backwards around
the wishing-tree near the entrance gates.

"What did you wish, Martha?" Poppet said,
as they walked up again towards the statue of
Captain Cook, where they were to meet Malcolm.
"I hope you wished about Bunty."

But Martha had been selfish enough to desire
fervently that Malcolm should never go on strike
again.

"Oh, you never get your wish if you tell what
it is," she said evasively.

"Don't you?" said Poppet anxiously.  "Oh dear,
and I was nearly telling mine.  You can't guess in
the slightest, Martha, can you?  You have no idea,
have you, Martha?"

"Not the slightest," said Martha of the warm
heart,—"not the least little bit, Miss Poppet."

"And you always get your wish, Martha?"

"Oh, of course."

Years after, Poppet's faith in that wonderful
wishing-tree was unshaken.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THREE COURSES ONE SHILLING`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   THREE COURSES, ONE SHILLING.

.. vspace:: 1

..

   |  "Yesterday's errors let yesterday cover;
   |  Yesterday's wounds which smarted and bled
   |  Are healed with the healing which night has shed."

.. vspace:: 2

Poppet had been for lunch with Esther or
Meg to the Fresh Food and Ice Company,
Quong Tart's, and such places on various occasions.
But the restaurant to which Malcolm and Martha
took her was quite a new experience.  She did not
know the name of the street it was in, but it
was not very far from the Quay, and there was
a rather mixed, if interesting, assembly of diners.
Not that it was a particularly low-class place; it
had a very good name for the excellency of its
food and its moderate prices, and its patrons
comprised poor clerks who minded fashion less than
a good dinner,—tradesmen, sailors, and occasional
wharf labourers.  Martha had asked Malcolm
whether, as she had Poppet with her, they had
better go to some place higher up town.  Malcolm,
who dined there regularly, seemed to see no reason
why he should change his custom for a little slip
of a girl under ten.

As for Poppet, it was all one with her where
she went, and while Martha and Malcolm were
studying the bill of fare, she fell to watching some
sailors at an adjoining table with the deepest
interest.

"Now, Miss Poppet," said Martha, "what will you
have?  Me and Malcolm have fixed on sucking pig,
sweet potatoes and baked pumpkin, but I think
you'd better have something plainer; there's roast
mutton, or corned beef, or beefsteak pie."

"Why," said Poppet, "we have *those* things at
home.  No, I'll have sucking pig too, please, Martha;
I like tasting new things."

"Did you ever!" remarked Martha, looking
troubled; "it might make you ill, Miss Poppet dear.
Have corned beef like a good little girl."

But Poppet could be firm on occasion.  She did
not dine at a restaurant every day, and when she
did she had no intention of confining herself to
ordinary things.

"Sucking pig for two," said Malcolm to the waiter,
and paused for Poppet's order.

"For three," said Poppet, softly but firmly.
While he had gone to execute the order, she
occupied herself with considering what pudding she
would have.  There were five or six down on the
list: plum duff, apple pie and custard, treacle
rolypoly, stewed pears, and macaroni and cheese.  She
was wavering between macaroni and plum duff,
when the waiter returned with the three great
steaming plates of sucking pig and vegetables.

Malcolm and Martha were soon busily occupied,
both considering it would be sheer wilful waste, after
paying a shilling each, to leave an atom on their
plates; but Poppet found a very little satisfying, and
fell to watching the sailors again.

She heard them give their orders—five of them,
each a different meat and different vegetables;
she wondered how the waiter could keep it all in
his head, and watched quite anxiously when he
returned with the tray to see if he made any
mistake.

Just behind the screen where they filled the
trays somebody stood handing plate after plate to
the one busy waiter.  Presently, as the place filled
more and more she heard him say he must have
some one to help at once, a number of people were
waiting.

A boy in a long white apron stepped out from
the screen, a tray with three corned beefs, two
sucking pigs, and a roast mutton in his hand.

"Miss Poppet, dear, do eat up your potato," said
Martha, pausing with a knifeload midway between
her plate and mouth.  But Poppet's face was deadly
pale, and in her eyes was a look of strange wildness.

"She's ill," said Martha; "I knew she oughtn't
to have it."  She looked at Malcolm in a helpless
way for a second, and then pushed back her chair
to go round to the child.

But Poppet flung up her arms, and with a wild,
piercing shriek darted from her place and flew across
the room.

There was a crash of crockery, one of those slow,
piece-after-piece crashes, when you wonder if there
can be anything left to be broken, angry words from
the waiter and manager, confusion and laughter on
the part of the diners, blankest amazement on the
faces of Martha and Malcolm, and in the midst a
small girl in a white frock and big hat clinging
frantically to "a tallish little boy with brown eyes
and dark, rough hair,"—a shabby, white-faced boy
in a waiter's apron.

"Oh-h-h-h!" she sobbed, "oh-h-h! oh-h-h-h! *Bunty!*"  She
laughed and sobbed and laughed again.

This extraordinary scene went on for two or
three minutes; then the manager recovered his wits
and began to storm, and Martha, still wearing an
expression of stupefaction, made her way to the
group.

Malcolm, after an expressive shoulder shrug,
returned to his sucking pig, which he was enjoying
immensely.

.. _`"POPPET FLUNG UP HER ARMS, AND WITH A WILD, PIERCING SHRIEK FLEW ACROSS THE ROOM."`:

.. figure:: images/img-141.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: "POPPET FLUNG UP HER ARMS, AND WITH A WILD, PIERCING SHRIEK FLEW ACROSS THE ROOM."

   "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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`PARNASSUS AND PUDDINGS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XIII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   PARNASSUS AND PUDDINGS.

.. vspace:: 1

..

   |  "When for the first time Nature says plain 'No
   |  To some 'Yes' in you, and walks over you
   |      In gorgeous sweeps of scorn."

.. vspace:: 2

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."`:

.. figure:: images/img-153.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: "HE WOULD SIT HOUR AFTER HOUR STARING MOODILY IN FRONT OF HIM."

   "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:—

.. vspace:: 2

"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.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

"Your friend only and nothing more,
    "Miss JONES (not Mabelle).

.. vspace:: 1

"P.S.—I suppose I may as well tell you as I'm
engaged to be married to Mr. Wilkes."

.. vspace:: 2

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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`MUSHROOMS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XIV.


.. class:: center medium bold

   MUSHROOMS.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: center

   "In what will all this ostentation end?"

.. vspace:: 2

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."`:

.. figure:: images/img-167.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: "MEG AND NELLIE HAD BEEN HELPING TO DECORATE THE CHURCH ONE AFTERNOON."

   "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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE GOVERNMENT OF MEG`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XV.


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE GOVERNMENT OF MEG.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: center

   "Alas! how easily things go wrong."

.. vspace:: 2

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.

.. class:: center white-space-pre-line

   MR. AND MRS. FITZROY-BROWNE.
   *The Misses Woolcot,*
   FRIDAY EVENING.
   *Dancing.  R.S.V.P.*

.. vspace:: 2

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!"

.. _`"'NELLIE, I FORBID YOU TO GO!' MEG CRIED."`:

.. figure:: images/img-182.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: "'NELLIE, I FORBID YOU TO GO!' MEG CRIED."

   "'NELLIE, I FORBID YOU TO GO!' MEG CRIED."

Nellie proceeded quietly with her dressing, the
resolute light in her eyes not a whit diminished.
She buttoned her blue tennis blouse, brushed some
specks of dust off her skirt, and put a piece of
clean belting in her silver waist-clasp.

"I can't believe you're in earnest," Meg began
again; "why, you *must* remember father expressly
said we were not to go!"

"He did not tell me; he only said Esther needn't
call,—that's not forbidding *me*!" Nell said calmly.

She put on her sailor hat, stuck the pins through
with great care, and made a few little deft dabs
at her fluffy side hair.  Then she put on her very
best gloves and picked up her racquet.

"Nellie, I *forbid* you to go!" Meg cried, finding
neither reasoning nor asking would answer.
"Remember, I have been left here in charge of you
all, and I absolutely *forbid* you to go near those
Brownes!"

"Pooh!" said Nellie, "I'm nearly as old as you—I'm
too big to be forbidden.  Give your orders to
Peter and Poppet—I'm *going*!"

And she went.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`MORE MUTINY`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XVI.


.. class:: center medium bold

   MORE MUTINY.

.. vspace:: 2

..

   |  "Gently scan your brother man.
   |    Still gentlier sister woman,
   |  An' if they gang a trifle wrang
   |    To step aside is human."

.. vspace:: 2

That was the first battle; another followed
quickly on its heels; and then there came a
long and sorrowful peace.

Meg had been exceedingly angry about it—and
with justice.  She marvelled, not only at Nellie's
rebellion, but that she should care to mix with
such "impossible" people, as she called them.

"It isn't as if they were merely homely and
uneducated," she said; "but their vulgarity and
pretentiousness are enough to make any one sick!"

However, as Nellie was very quiet—docile even—after
the one outbreak, and as it was not possible
to keep up an unfriendly spirit for ever, she thought
she had better overlook it as a first and last offence;
more especially as she remembered her own mad
infatuation for Aldith MacCarthy, when she had
been even older than Nell was now.

But she warned her with much resolution in her tone.

"You only leave me one course, Nellie," she
said.  "I have been left in charge, and if you won't
obey orders—I'm sure I try to give as few as
possible—I shall be compelled to write to
Mr. Hassal and ask him either to send you to school
till father comes back or else to let some one come
here whose authority you will respect."

Then she softened, and put her arms round her
sister.

"Don't make it so hard for me, Nell," she said,
almost with tears in her eyes; "there's nothing
in moderation I'd try to stop you, but you really
must see I can't let you grow intimate with these
people."

But Nellie had not responded with her usual
sisterly hug and kiss.  She wriggled away from the
encircling arms and gave a little impatient toss of
her head.

"What a fuss you make about things, Meg!" she
said pettishly.  "I do wish you'd leave me alone!
I'm not a child, and I'm not going to be ordered
about like one."

Then came the next war.

Cards for a dinner-party arrived from the
"unsnubbable" Brownes—Bunty's adjective.

"Put them in the fire," Pip said.  "No answer
is the best for such people."

If there had been some pretty faces among the
feminine portion of the Browne household Pip
would not have been so scornful of the overtures,
but the girls were each and all undeniably plain.
For the days that intervened between the arrival
of the cards and the date of the dinner-party Meg
was exceedingly busy.

She had a dressmaker in the house making winter
frocks for Poppet and Essie; that took up much
of her time.  Besides this, two great cases of quinces
and apples had been sent to them from Yarrahappini,
and, with Martha's help, she was converting
them into jam and jelly.

Bunty also had been unwell, and from school a
day or two, and Peter had one of his perverse fits
upon him.  She had not had time to give the
Fitzroy-Brownes as much as a passing thought; and as
the new daily governess made no complaint about
Nellie's morning studies she concluded all was
going on well.

Judge therefore her immeasurable amaze when,
going up to the bedroom on the date of the
dinner-party, and just after nursery tea was over,
she discovered Nellie again in the act of making
a "toilette."  She had the white crepon dress on;
it nearly touched the ground in front, and trailed a
little behind.  There was soft lace in the neck and
sleeves of it, and on her bosom a cluster of the
exquisite pink roses that climbed all over the tool-shed.
She had white suede gloves and black pretty shoes,
both new, as the gap in her small allowance
testified.

Excitement had lent a brilliant colour to her
cheeks; her eyes, with their thick, curled lashes,
were like stars.  For one second Meg paused,
struck with the wondrous, exceeding beauty of her
young sister; the next she realised what she was
dressed for.

"Where are you going?" she said, merely as a
matter of form—of course she knew.

"I'm going to the Fitzroy-Brownes at Trafalgar
House for a small dinner-party,—seven to ten,
carriages at half-past," Nellie said, with elaborate
attention to detail.  "Is there anything else you
would like to know?"

Meg went a little white.

"You don't move from this house, Nellie!" she
said, and her lips set themselves firmly.  "You can
take off that dress as soon as you like!"

Nellie twisted a long lace scarf round her beautiful
shining head.

"It's no use making a bother," she said; "I've
made up my mind to go, and I'm going!"

"I refused the invitation," Meg said, catching at
a straw.

"But I accepted," was Nellie's answer.  "I met
Isabel yesterday and promised."

For ten long minutes did Meg argue, reason,
coax, and appeal to Nellie's better judgment: the
fear of Isabel's sneers, together with the thought
of the cost of her shoes and gloves, were of more
avail.  The girl was quietly obdurate; Meg found
she was not even listening to her.

"They are sending a brougham down to pick
me up at the Bentleys," she said, when Meg was
almost exhausted; "I shall miss them if I wait any
longer."  She moved to the door.

But a flame of righteous anger sprang up in
Meg's eyes.  She hastened down the corridor to
Pip's room, and laid the case in a few words before
him.

Offended as he was with his sister, he could not
refuse to uphold her in a matter like this—especially
as he had such a vast contempt for the "mushrooms."

He caught Nellie on the staircase.

"Don't be such a little idiot!" he said.  "Go
and take that frippery off at once!"

"Go and mind your own business, Philip
Woolcot!" retorted Nellie.

"Well, of all little donkeys!" he said.  "Do you
actually mean to say, Meg, she was going off on
her own hook, without you or me or any one?"

"I certainly do think she's losing her senses!"
Meg said in exasperation.

Philip surveyed her in silence for a minute—her
exquisite, childish, unformed beauty even appealed
to his coldly fraternal eyes.  He smiled almost
benignly.

"Be a good little chicken," he said; "wait three
or four years, and you shall revel in this sort of
thing till you find it's all vanity."

Three or four years!  Nellie's eyes flashed
defiance at them both.

"I'm *going*," she said, in a low, very determined
voice.  She brushed past Meg and went down five
stairs.

But "Are you, my lady?" quoth Pip.  He jumped
the steps, caught her, and held her fast.

She struggled violently—anger and excitement
lent her unnatural strength—and she freed herself
at length, and fled in wild, mad haste down the
stairs and to the front door.  Once in the brougham,
which was only a little way off, and she knew she
could bid defiance to all the Megs and Pips in the
world!

But Pip's blood was up.  He had no intention of
letting a little chit like Nellie get the upper hand
of him, even if there were no real object at stake.
As it was, the thought of his pretty, innocent little
sister in the company of the "off crowd" of men he
had seen young Fitzroy-Browne take home, and the
loud women with whom he felt instinctively the girls
consorted, made him shudder.

"Are you going to stay at home quietly?" he
said, fire in his dark eyes as he caught her by the
arms just as she was pulling the door handle back.

"No, I'm not!" she said stormily.

For answer he picked her right up in his arms as
if she had been Poppet.

"Where shall I put her, Meg?  I'm going to lock
her up," he called breathlessly; she was not fragilely
light.

Meg was a little startled at such a summary
proceeding; then she decided rapidly it was the only
thing to be done at the juncture.

"Here!" she cried, "in her own bedroom."  She
flung open the door, and he strode down the passage
with his struggling burden in its dainty dress and
sweet, crushed roses.

They left her the light.  There was a shelf of books
to occupy her if so she liked, also her work-basket,
with a fleecy cloud she was crocheting; she would be
able to fill the time.  But they locked the door very
carefully, and took the key downstairs with them.

"You must have been exceedingly careless, Meg,
to let her get to know them," Pip said, with masculine
inclination to locate blame.

Meg told of the introduction and subsequent
meetings—how it seemed impossible to get the
people to accept the frequent if delicately-conveyed
hints that their acquaintance was not desired.  She
kept the tennis episode to herself, for she feared it
would only make him more harsh and overbearing
to Nellie, and do no good.

When they were separating some time later she
looked wistfully up at him.

"Dear Pip, aren't you ever going to forgive me?"
she said; "can't you see I only did it for your
good?  Do let us kiss and be friends again."

He looked at her very coldly and sternly; the old
bitter curve showed at his mouth.

"No," he said, "I shall never forgive you while
I live, Meg."  Then he turned and went out of the
room.

Meg went upstairs, tired, dispirited.  Tears
smarted in her eyes from her rebuff.  Nellie, she
knew, was thinking hard thoughts of her; Alan had
not written to-day, for some reason or other; and all
the world seemed wrong.  She went into her room
and sat down, with a sob and some splashing tears,
in the dark by the window.

.. _`"HER DESCENT FROM HER OWN BEDROOM WAS ALMOST EASY."`:

.. figure:: images/img-192.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: "HER DESCENT FROM HER OWN BEDROOM WAS ALMOST EASY."

   "HER DESCENT FROM HER OWN BEDROOM WAS ALMOST EASY."

Such a great calm sky of pale, sweet stars; such
a hushed, faint breath in the tall gum trees; such
a low, soothing lapping of little river waves!

In an hour she was very strong again; her eyes
were dry and calm and brave; there was a great,
sweet peace in her heart.

She thought she would read for a little time, and
grow still calmer.  There was her Browning on the
writing table—he had strengthened her often since
she had begun to know him; and there were a couple
of books Alan had lent her: "At the Roots of the
Mountains," and something of Pierre Loti's.  She
fingered them a moment.

But first she would go and speak to Nellie, who
would be calmer too by now,—poor pretty Nellie,
with her childish defiance and longings for "other
things."  She went down the passage, softly, by
Peter's room and Bunty's.  The light was shining
beneath Nellie's door; the poor little prisoner was
not asleep, then.

She stopped and inserted the key with a flush of
shame: how ignominious it must feel to be locked in!

"Dear Nell——" she began, and then stopped aghast.

The room was empty.

.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A DINNER PARTY`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XVII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   A DINNER PARTY.

.. vspace:: 1

..

   |  "Oh, would I were dead now,
   |  Or up in my bed now,
   |  To cover my head now
   |  And have a good cry!"

.. vspace:: 2

Trafalgar House, if you please.  Time,
about eight o'clock.  Dramatis personæ some
fifteen brilliantly-dressed ladies, and as many
gentlemen in regulation evening attire.

A great long table, magnificently set, and ablaze
with tiny electric lamps cunningly hidden among
foliage and splendid flowers.  At one end
Mrs. Fitzroy-Browne in rich black satin, a truly astonishing
cap, and twice as many glittering rings as she
had fingers.

Mrs. Fitzroy-Browne, with a large fixed smile
that only her fork or spoon ever
disturbed—Mrs. Fitzroy-Browne, with one anxious eye on the
waiting servants, one half frightened on her son
and daughters, and only the large smile for the
guests.

At the head Mr. Fitzroy-Browne, a small, neat
man, with little eyes and a half-apologetic,
half-assertive manner, as if he were begging your
pardon for the great wealth that made you mere
nobodies, and at the same time hugging himself
mightily.

.. _`"AWAY DOWN NEAR ONE END SAT NELLIE."`:

.. figure:: images/img-195.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: "AWAY DOWN NEAR ONE END SAT NELLIE."

   "AWAY DOWN NEAR ONE END SAT NELLIE."

At intervals down the sides the Misses Fitzroy-Browne,
in *decolleté* dresses of latest style.

Sandwiched with them and other females with
large bare arms and rough, fashionally-coiffeured
hair, net-covered, men of various sorts and
conditions,—self-made men like their host, who came
to approve the show money could make; a few of
better position, who enjoyed the wines and good
dinner and despised the vulgarity of the givers; a
good-looking adventurer or two of higher society,
remittance men, who, having almost outrun the
constable, as a last resource came heiress-hunting.

In the middle of one side Mr. Adolphus Fitzroy-Browne,
with a large expanse of white shirt front,
a pink-edged tie, great diamond studs, and a red
silk sash tied at one side instead of a waistcoat.

And away down near one end, a stout American
Hebrew, dinner intent, on one side, a young man
of the puppy order on the other, sat Nellie,—Nellie,
looking like a little lonely field flower sprung up
in a bed of gaudy dahlias,—Nellie, in a white, simple
dress of home make, high-necked, long-sleeved, with
the dying pink roses at her breast, and a silver
"wish" bangle that cost half-a-crown for her only
jewellery.

Poor little Nell!  Never perhaps in all her fifteen
years had she been so immeasurably miserable and
uncomfortable.

In the drawing-room the women had stared her
up and down in scorn, and rustled about in
voluminous silken and velvet skirts; the thought of her
own plain, high-necked dress made her cheeks burn.
The Misses Browne had been too busy with
entertaining to do more than give her a nod and a word
or two as they introduced several of the men to her.

"Daughter of Captain John Woolcot," she overheard
one of them whisper once,—"poor, but of very
good family, related to a title; great friend of dear
Isabel's; pretty little thing, yes; quite a charity to
show her some life."

Nellie had blushed hotly, and shrunk back into
a corner.  Oh, if only there had been a door near
and she could have slipped out and flown through
the night back to dear, despised Misrule.  If only
the floor would open and mercifully swallow her out
of sight!  If only there was a window near, through
which she could make her exit from Trafalgar House
for ever!  But alas! the drawing-room was upstairs
here, and there were no convenient tanks and
thickly-wooded creepers such as had made her
descent from her own bedroom almost easy.  There
was a little patch of green on her skirt, and a pin
held together a ripped flounce, but, certainly, no one
in that gay assemblage suspected her of leaving her
own home by any more unusual mode of exit than
the front door.  It was even worse when a move
was made towards the dining-room, and she was
assigned to a youth in a chokingly high collar, a
youth who said ya-as and haw, and left out his r's
and g's because he had been told it was "as done in
London."

She was in a hot state of nervous distress even
when no one was speaking to her; it was increased
tenfold when she found this man evidently expected
her to talk and be talked to all the time.

He asked her whose dancing she liked best,
Sylvia Grey's or Marion Hood's.

"—I don't know either of them," she answered,
wondering distressfully if she ought to use her
silver knife and fork or an ordinary fork only for
the paté-de-something that the footman had just
given her.

"Haw," said the youth, "at the
theatre,—don't-cher-know,—haw—haw, very good."

Nellie's cheeks burned.  He looked at her with
impertinent admiration.

"Like to see a garl blush myself, don't-cher-know,"
he drawled, "shows they're young.  Lord! what
wouldn't the old ones give to do it—our friend Miss
Isabel, for instance?"

Nell's pink deepened to scarlet under the cool
audacity of his stare.  This was the first experience
of the kind she had had in her life; all the men she
had hitherto met on equal terms had been gentlemen
unmistakably.

But she did not speak; her long eyelashes lay
almost tremblingly on her cheek, and she took a
mouthful or two of the paté; she had decided to use
the fork, and then crimsoned afresh to see most of
the others employing knife as well.  The pastry broke
up into little flaky pieces; in vain her one implement
chased them round her plate, she could only get a
crumb to stay on the prongs each time.

"Haw—what lovely long lashes you've got,
Miss—haw—Woolcot, wasn't it?  I suppose that's why
you keep persistin' in lookin' down, isn't it now?"
said the voice at her elbow.

She looked up in desperation, her cheeks aflame
again.

"Haw, that's better," he said; "now I can see
your eyes.  I couldn't when you kept them so cruelly
hidden, don't cher see."

Then the Hebrew neighbour claimed her attention.

"Grand finisht dot vash at Randwick, Sat'day,"
he said.  The servants were bringing him fresh
supplies, so he could spare time for a minute to
speak to the pretty little girl beside him.

"Yes," assented Nellie in a hurry.  She had not
caught what he said, but thought it would be easier
to assent than tell him so.

"And vich horse vos it you vos backing?" he
pursued.

Then she had to explain she had not heard what
he said; and afterwards, that she had never been
to the races in her life.

The Hebrew had no other conversation at command
just then, so he returned to his fresh plateful,
and left her to her other neighbours, who smiled
openly, but made no movement to help her when
a servant brought champagne, and she was perplexed
to know whether she ought to offer one of the many
glasses beside her or remain passive.  She had never
thought it possible for a meal to last the interminably
long time this one did.

The others seemed to be enjoying themselves
exceedingly.  There was loud talking and laughing
on both sides, wine was flowing freely, and there
was an exhaustless supply of good things to eat.

Nellie wondered miserably if Meg had found her
out, as she dipped her finger tips into the Venetian
glass finger bowl.  There was a tiny William Alan
Richardson rosebud floating there; Meg had had
a cluster stuck in her waistband when she had been
entreating her to give up this dinner.  Dear, dear
Meg! and to think she had vexed and worried and
grieved her like this, just for the sake of these
horrible people and their thrice horrible dinner-party!

Her eyes ached with tears, there was a lump in
her throat, a tightness at her heart; the young man
at her elbow was talking, but she neither heard his
words nor turned her head.  Then he laughed out,
and the Hebrew gentleman touched her arm.  All
the ladies had risen and were on their way to the
door; she only was sitting still, her gloves yet off,
her young, unhappy face downcast.  A wave of
colour rushed into her cheeks, and as she jumped up
hurriedly, every one was looking at her, half amusedly,
half admiringly.  Isabel at the door waited for her,
a little vexed.

"What *were* you dreaming of?" she said.  "Why,
you haven't even got your gloves on."

"Dear Miss Isabel," Nellie said, entreaty almost
tearful in her voice, "do let me go home now.
Indeed I must,—oh do, do, do!"

But "What nonsense, child!" Isabel answered,
and bore her along with the others into the brilliantly
lighted drawing-room.

Here it was not quite so bad.  Nell saw a chair
half hidden behind a window-curtain, and felt she
had indeed come into a haven of peace when she
gained it.  No one disturbed her for a time; some
of the girls yawned openly, and kept their speech for
the arrival of the gentlemen; one or two frankly
closed their eyes to show the small appreciation they
had for their own sex; the others discussed the
men, their moustaches, money, eyes, figures, in a
way that made the one violet in the room want to
shrivel up or turn rosy for the shame of her
girlhood.

They all ignored Mamma Browne, who had a
spacious velvet sofa all to herself; she would have
liked to knit or do something with her fingers, but
the girls had told her it wasn't "good form," so she
only twisted them in and out of each other, and
wondered if the people would go at eleven or twelve,
and whether they had noticed that only three servants
waited instead of the five they always had for
the parties.

Then she noticed the little lonely figure in white
by the great window.  There was a droop about the
little sweet mouth and a misty look in the sweet eyes
that quite touched her kind old heart.  She got up
and waddled slowly across the floor.  "Come and
sit on the sofy with me, dearie," she said; and all
Nellie's heart went out to her.

The sofa was in a deep window at the end of the
room, quite away from the loud-voiced, finely-dressed
girls who so overpowered her.

"Oh, do let me stay with you all the time, please!"
she said, as she nestled down close to the motherly,
capacious-looking old lady.  "Oh, it is much nicer
here—may I?"

"Why, of course," said Mrs. Browne; "why, I'll
be glad to 'ave you; you ain't been enjoyin' yourself,
I'm thinkin'?"

"Oh," said Nellie, who was a polite little soul,
even in distress, "oh, it has been very nice, I'm sure,
only I don't go to dinner parties yet, and so I am a
little shy, I suppose."

"Well, I ain't enjoyed it," said Mrs. Browne, with
a sigh; "they worrit my life out, these parties, and
unsettle the servints, and make all the house rumpled
up, and then no one says thank you or likes you a
bit better for it all."

She felt she might ease her poor old heart a little
to this young girl, whose dress was not fine enough
to make her haughty, and whose face was sweetly
sympathetic.

"Oh, I'm sure every one has enjoyed it very much,
and thinks it is very kind of you to give such a nice
party," Nellie said, touched by the tired quaver in
the speaker's voice.

"Me!" the old lady replied, with a touch of bitterness.
"I'm only their mother, I don't give it, bless
your soul!—all the good mothers is nowadays, is to
mind the servints and take blame when things go
wrong.  Me!  All I 'ave to do is to order dinner and
stay up till every one's gone."

She rocked herself to and fro unhappily; her state
of bondage was beginning to tell upon her.

"Ha' you got a mother?" she asked, turning
sharply on her young guest.

And Nellie's reply was very low and sad: "She
died nine years ago."

The poor child was in the mood to-night to
long inexpressibly for the soft arms and breast
of a mother.  There was silence for a few
minutes.

"Ah!" said Mrs. Browne, and her voice also was
very low, and a little unsteady with tears, "she was
fortunit, mothers had oughter die when their childers
is little and loves them.  When childers is growed
up mothers is only in the way."

Nellie stretched out her young hand and stroked
the poor old fat one that was tremblingly smoothing
imaginary creases out of the sofa seat.  "Why, I
would give all the world if my mother were alive,"
she said, with eager hurrying lips, "and Meg and Pip
would,—all of us, dear Mrs. Browne.  I think it is
just when we are grown up we love mothers best,
and want them most."

"Not me," was the slow, sad answer, accompanied
by a furtively wiped tear.  "Not mothers as ain't been
learned grammar proper when they was young.
Them's the kind of mothers as had oughter die
afore their boys and girls are growed up."

Then the gentlemen came in, and there was a
louder buzz of talk, a new settlement of chairs, and
presently some excessively noisy music.

"I'm just goin' to get something for my 'ed, it
aches so bad," Mrs. Browne whispered to Nellie
after a time; "they won't notice if I slip out when
Miss 'Udson goes to the pianee."

Nellie lifted eager eyes.  "Let me come with
you,—oh, please!" she said impulsively, and the next
minute the two were stealing out of the nearest
door together.

In the dimly-lighted bedroom the old lady gave
way altogether, and sobbed for a long time in a
heartbroken way, much to Nellie's distress.

"Oh, I wish I was dead, I do—I wish I was
dead!" she said, with a little rocking movement to ease
the sorrow of her poor old heart.  She mopped at her
eyes occasionally with her lace-trimmed handkerchief;
in olden days she would have put her apron
over her head and shed her tears behind its screen;
but even that solace was denied her now.

Nell found eau-de-Cologne on the dressing-table,
and insisted on bathing her head with it, and then
fanning slowly with a palm leaf till the poor thing's
agitation calmed and the burning head was a little
cooler.

"I think I've let things worrit me too much
to-day," was her faltering excuse when, half an hour
later, she awoke to the fact that Nellie was still
fanning her; "but no one knows what my poor 'ed
'as been lately.  Marthy the parlour-maid was sick
last night, poor thing, and I sat with her till near
two; and James the other footman begged me to let
'im go off—they said 'is little girl was bad with
scarlet-fever.  I 'ad to let 'im, of course, and you
could see 'ow vexed Pa was when we was
short-'anded at table.  It worrited me awful."

There was a rustle of silken skirts along the
corridor, and a patter of high-heeled shoes.  Isabel
had suddenly missed her young guest, whose eyes
she had so wanted to dazzle; it struck her with
infinite vexation that it was more than probable
she was with her mother, despising her hugely for
her ungrammatical language and many banalities.

"Well, really!" she said, sweeping into the
bedroom, and looking vexedly at the two on the sofa.

Mrs. Browne struggled instantly to her feet.

"I'm just comin', my dear,—comin' this minute,"
she said, in a voice whose nervousness struck Nellie
as strangely pathetic.  "I thought the folk wouldn't
be missin' me just for a bit."

"Oh, I never expect *you* to do things like other
hostesses," her daughter answered rudely.  Then
she turned to Nellie.

"I don't know what you want to run away like
this for; I shall begin to think you're not enjoying
yourself.  Come, we're going into the ballroom to
have a dance or two: can you do the cotillon?"

She swept her away to the lights and music again,
to fresh vexation of spirit that self-forgetfulness for
a time had made less keen.

In the midst of a waltz with her odious dinner
companion Nell caught sight of her so-called hostess,
who had followed her daughter back to the room.

She was sitting, poor fat old creature, on a stiff
chair near the wall, blinking patiently at the dancers,
the large set smile on her face again, and a headache
pucker on her forehead.

To Nellie the one bright spot in that dreadful
evening was the thought of her touching, surprised
gratitude at the trifling service she had done her.

"I just wish you was my little girl!" was her
wistful speech at parting, when twelve o'clock put
an end to the revels,—"oh, 'ow I wish you was
my little girl!"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`"HOW GOOD YOU OUGHT TO BE!"`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XVIII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   "HOW GOOD YOU OUGHT TO BE!"

.. vspace:: 1

..

   |  "Greater than anger
   |  Is love, and subdueth."

.. vspace:: 2

The silence of midnight hung over all the
house—there was darkness in all the rooms
save one.  Outside, the rain was falling, but
without noise; sometimes the wind blew it against the
window-panes in little gusts like the light spray of
waves, but for the most part it fell in straight,
silent sheets upon the soaking garden and paddocks.
Now and again the same fitful wind stirred a
Japanese sun-blind at the end of the side verandah.
It had a broken pulley, and was hauled up slant-wise;
when the wind stirred, it moaned and creaked
like a live creature.

Meg was sitting on the drawing-room hearthrug,
her head in her hands, her fair hair rumpled back
from her forehead, her eyes, intensely thoughtful,
fixed on the ashes in the grate.  Early in the
evening a fire had been lighted; for, although it was
only May, it had been a chilly day.  The fire had gone
out, however, and Meg had not noticed this, though
she had been staring hard at it most of the time.

Only one gas-jet was alight, and it was turned low—the
room had almost an eerie look in the faint light.
A great vase of pampas grass and bulrushes loomed
tall and ghostly from the corner near the piano; and
a wet, dull moon—when the drifting clouds
permitted—looked in at a little side window where the
blind was not drawn.

Every one in the house was asleep but Meg.

She was sitting up for Nellie.

Pip had gone out before she had found the bird
was flown from the cage in which he had locked
her.  There was a smoking concert at one of the
Colleges, and he had left word that he should not
be back that night at all—the last boat left so
ridiculously early that one of the men had offered
him a bed.

So Meg kept her lonely watch with cold feet and
low spirits.

She was wondering if it was not very selfish of
her to think of being married.  Alan had given her
a year, under protest,—at the end of that time he
would assuredly claim her.  No one was less
conceited than our sweet, pale Margaret, but she could
not help seeing that things would be much worse
at Misrule when her place knew her no more.
There was little, eager Poppet with her excitable
nature and wonderful capacity for feeling
everything,—who would listen patiently to all her funny
little plans and thoughts, or take an interest in her
keen childish troubles and joys?  Poor, reclaimed
Bunty, whose sullen reserve and brooding fits of
depression she was just beginning to understand
and sympathise with—if the old days of "John"
and carping blame began again, his character would
be ruined.

And Pip, who had just left his glad boyhood paths
and was stepping so carelessly into the strange,
sorrowful ones of manhood, where there were
precipices and pitfalls at every turn,—how she
longed to be at his elbow again, giving him the
right kind of help!  He had spurned her away just
now, she knew; but soon, she felt certain, she could
slip back to him as if nothing had happened, and
keep him from worse things, perhaps.

But not if she made fresh ties for herself.

She told some of her fears, half falteringly, to
Alan.

"I think you must give me longer," she said.

But he only laughed at her.  Men never
understand these things.

"I didn't think you were conceited, Meg," he
said; "why, Nellie will make a model eldest sister,
by-and-by, of course.  And I have far more need
of you than these children have.  And I'm not
going to take you to New Zealand or the Islands;
we shall live somewhere in Sydney, and you will
still be able to keep your eye on Bunty's
collar,—that's the greatest grievance, isn't it?"

Meg was trying to imagine beautiful, spoilt Nell
as a model eldest sister this evening as she sat on
the hearthrug.  Why, not one of the young ones
would have acted so wrongfully, so utterly foolishly
as she had done about these Brownes; the girl had
no "balance" naturally, and her great beauty already
seemed likely to prove as much of a snare as
beauty is popularly supposed to be.  She was not
even decently educated; the daily governess they
had had so long had been a person of weak will,
and Nellie in especial had learned or refused to learn
much as she pleased.  True, she could play and
sing fairly well, and write a ladylike hand; but her
French was hopeless, her slate pencil had not
travelled beyond discount and the rule of three, and
her acquaintance with the great lights of English
literature was so restricted that, though she knew
Shakespeare wrote "Romeo and Juliet," and
"Paradise Lost" was composed by one John Milton,
nearly all the other names she met conveyed nothing
more to her mind than that they were "men at the
end of the history book."

Meg's lips grew severe as the night wore on.
In truth she did not know what to do in this
crisis, she felt so young and powerless.  If Nellie
insisted on going to Trafalgar House every night
of her life, how could she prevent it?  She told
herself her sister knew this, and was taking
advantage of their father's absence in an exceedingly
unworthy way.

Through the rain came the half-deadened sound
of wheels along the road.  Meg stood up, cramped
and cold, sick at heart.  How she did dread and
detest "scenes," and she knew there must be one!

The gate clicked, but no wheels came up the
drive.  Meg pulled herself together and went out to
the front door with a little shiver.  She knew exactly
how it would all be: Nell would be flushed and
beautiful and defiant; she would brush past her and
go upstairs in her pretty, white trailing gown, her
head very high.  She would most probably say
"Mind your own business" or "Hold your tongue,"
for both these phrases were in Miss Nellie's
vocabulary of anger.  And then she would lock her
bedroom door and go to sleep, rebellious as ever.

Her cold hand pulled back the heavy fastening of
the door when light footsteps fell on the verandah.
She stood there in silence.  But oh! such a little
woebegone, dripping wet figure was there, with no
wrap on at all, and only a bit of soaking lace on
her head!

"Oh, Meg!" she said, and sprang into her sister's
arms with a hysterical sob of relief.  "Oh, Meg,
Meg, Meg! oh, my darling old Meg!"

What could Meg do?

Be angry when the wilful, beautiful creature was
sobbing so pitifully?

Shake her aside and speak coldly when she was
clinging to her with such a passion of love and relief?
She kissed the face, wet with rain and tears.

"Come and get your wet things off, dear," she
said; "you should have driven up to the door, the
drive's so long."

"I was afraid it would wake every one," was
Nellie's answer, broken in three places.

Even when Meg had taken off, with her own
hands, the poor spoiled white dress, and wet white
gloves, and little muddy shoes; when she had made
up a crackling fire of wood in the bedroom open
fireplace, and brought her own cosy red dressing-gown
and a white shawl for array, Nellie still wept
heartbrokenly.

She was overwrought with the excitement of her
escape, the evening, and her return.  And now
Meg's tenderness and utter absence of reproach
broke her down altogether.

She put her head on the arm of the easy chair,
and all her body shook with sobs.

Meg only stroked the wealth of beautiful hair she
had let down to dry; she felt it better not to speak
at all.

By-and-by she slipped out of the room and stole
down to the kitchen.  When she returned, Nellie
was a little calmer, and even gave a wet look of
interest at the tray she carried.  There was a little
old saucepan on it, a tin of *café-au-lait*, two cups,
sugar in a saucer, the end of a loaf of bread, and some
pineapple jam.

"I couldn't find the butter," she said, half
apologetically, as she set down her load on the bed edge.

"Oh, I don't deserve it!" wept Nellie, meaning less
the butter than Meg's kindness.

They had to use the water out of the wash-stand
bottle, and in the absence of spoons had to stir their
cups with the bone ends of their toothbrushes, but
the meal gave them both new life and spirits.  Meg
toasted the bread on the end of her knife and spread a
piece thickly with the toothsome jam.  She proffered
it to Nell with burnt cheeks and a gay little laugh.

"Oh, *Meg*, you are the best girl on earth!" the
girl said, flinging her arms impetuously around her
sister's neck.  "I'm not fit to black your boots!
there's nobody just like you, Meg, in all the world.
Oh, Meg darling, why can't you make me more like
you?"

.. _`"'LOOK!' SAID MEG."`:

.. figure:: images/img-215.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: "'LOOK!' SAID MEG."

   "'LOOK!' SAID MEG."

Meg only kissed her for answer, kissed her with
a sweet, moved look on her face.  And then Nellie
told everything: how she had dropped from the
window on to the tanks and scrambled down from
there with the help of the creeper, how she had
been in time for the brougham they had sent, how
utterly miserable she had been all the evening.

She declared their own comparative poverty
seemed beautiful against the Brownes' wealth and
glaring vulgarity.

Meg saw all the girl's sensitive nature had suffered,
and uttered not a word of rebuke; she even said they
would keep the affair to themselves, and not tell Pip.

But she dropped one little word in season before
she went to her own room to bed.

The dressing-gown suited the girl's exquisite
young beauty marvellously; all the time they had
talked Meg could not help admiring.

When they got up she drew her quietly to the
long glass of the dressing-table.

Oh the wonderful picture it showed! the rich,
warm colouring of the graceful gown, the young
sweet face with its dewy eyes and tremulous lips
and pink flush, and all the soft great waves of riotous
hair one golden splendour to her waist!

"Look!" said Meg.

The girl looked at her image shyly, almost
shamedly, but with a certain little glad quickening
at her heart.

"Oh, *Nellie*! how good you ought to be!" whispered
the elder girl, and kissed her and slipped away.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`HEADACHE AND HEARTACHE`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XIX.


.. class:: center medium bold

   HEADACHE AND HEARTACHE.

.. vspace:: 1

..

   |  "Look where the healing waters run,
   |  And strive and strain to be good again."

.. vspace:: 2

Poor little Nell,—it was almost pitiful to see
how good she tried to be after her escapade.
There was absolutely nothing she would not have
done for Meg.  She begged to be allowed to help
in the housekeeping, offered to take the darning
of Bunty's socks and Peter's terrible stockings as
her own particular work, and sternly refrained from
looking in her glass when it was not necessary for
the straight set of her collar or respectable
appearance of her hair.

She consulted Meg as to the best study she could
take up—she said she felt ashamed to be so
dreadfully ignorant.

"Why, I haven't read anything better than Jessie
Fothergill and Rhoda Broughton this year," she
said, in a tone of stern surprise at herself.

Meg suggested the "Essays of Elia," "The Professor
at the Breakfast Table," "Sesame and Lilies,"
Lives of various poets.

"You can go then gradually to something deeper,"
she said.  "I'm afraid you might be discouraged if
you started on anything more solid just yet."

But Nellie's zeal was too tremendous for half
measures.

During the morning of the day after the dinner
party, Meg had occasion to go into the nursery for
something or other during Miss Monson's hours, and
with difficulty restrained a smile.

Nellie always studied—or pretended to—at a
rickety-legged draught-table in the window.  Her
working materials hitherto had consisted of a chased
silver pen that looked too elegant to write with,
an ornamental inkstand with violet and red ink,
a box of chocolates, a novel in brown paper covers,
"Le Chien," highly dilapidated, and "Samson
Agonistes," which she was supposed to be studying
in detail.

This morning all was changed.  There was
black ink in the bottles, the silver pen was invisible,
and a plain penny red one occupied its place on the
stag's head.  No trace of chocolates, no covered
fiction at all.  Instead, a pile of books selected from
the study simply because they were the most solid
looking and driest on the shelves.  The choice
had occupied Nellie for almost an hour; if any she
took down had spaced matter, light-looking
conversations, or broken-up paragraphs she instantly
replaced them.  She had finally selected and carried
to the nursery, to Miss Monson's incredulous
surprise, the following six: "Sartor Resartus," "The
Wealth of Nations," "Marcus Aurelius," "Mazzini's
Essays," the "Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire,"
and Johnson's "Rasselas."

When Meg came in she was struggling with
Carlyle, fingers at ears to keep him quite apart from
the object lesson on Ants which Miss Monson was
delivering to Poppet and Peter.  In the afternoon
she practised for two consecutive hours, not waltzes
and scraps from the "Mikado" and "Gondoliers"
and "Paul Jones" as usual, but Plaidy's technical
studies and Czerny's Velocity Exercises and a fugue
from Bach.

At night she took out a quantity of red wool
that she found in a box, and began to crochet a
petticoat for an old woman who lived in a tumble-down
bark hut near the river, and had the reputation
of being mother of two bushrangers who had been
shot, sister to a famous murderer, and daughter
of one of the early Botany Bay convicts.

But of course such an abnormal state of goodness
could not be expected to continue uninterruptedly,
at any rate in its early days.  In less than a
fortnight the silver pen made its reappearance, and
violet ink crept back into one of the bottles.  The
crochet needle was slipped out of the sixth row of
the petticoat and made to work fleecy white wool
up into that pretty style of head wrap known as a
"fascinator."

"Oh, I didn't do anything so very dreadful, after
all," she said to herself, with the blunted memory of
ten days.  "Dear old Meg is always a little inclined
to make mountains out of molehills."

At first there had been a little real fright mixed
with the thought of the dinner-party.  Five days
after it was over, she was in at the chemist's spending
eighteenpence of her allowance on a sweet little
bottle of scent for Meg.

And one of the grooms from Trafalgar House
came in with a prescription.

"The old lady's pretty bad," he said, in answer
to a question of the chemist that Nell had not
caught, "and two more of the maids are down."

Nellie lingered a few minutes, counted her change
several times, examined the nail and tooth-brushes
displayed in a glass case, and read an advertisement
setting forth the merits of somebody's pills.

The man said he would call back for the medicine
in half an hour, and departed.  Then she went back
to the counter.

"Is it Mrs. Fitzroy-Browne who is ill?" she asked,
remembering with a pang the poor old woman's
wistful "I just wish you was my little girl!"

"Yes, she's down with scarlet-fever—several of
the servants too," he said, and went to the gas to
melt some sealing-wax.

The girl went home with a grave face.  Apart
from regret at the old lady's illness, there was the
fear that she herself might have caught it.  She
went straight to her room and examined her tongue
anxiously at the glass; then she held one wrist
gravely with a finger and thumb, and asked herself
if she felt feverish.

But the pulse was calm, the tongue healthily
red,—she laughed at herself.

"I never felt better in my life," she said aloud.
After some deliberation she decided she would
not tell Meg.  "She'd only worry, and prepare
herself for my immediate funeral," she thought.  "I
should be all over red spots by now if I had
got it."

So that is how it happened, when ten days had
gone and she still felt exuberantly well, that the
silver pen returned and the fascinator was
commenced.  One could not wear sackcloth for ever.

She even borrowed "Comin' thro' the Rye" and
"Joan" from a girl-friend; and "Rasselas" and
"Sartor Resartus" slipped down behind the table
and were forgotten.

But she had intended all the time to consult Alan.
He had been away for almost a fortnight in Victoria,
or she would have asked him before.

The afternoon he returned, and as soon as she
could get him away from Meg, she asked him if he
would come down into the garden with her, as she
wanted to ask him something very particularly.

The young doctor laughed, and put himself very
much at her service.

"I hope it's not about the style of hats in
Melbourne," he said in mock alarm, as they went down
the path; "for I culpably forgot to notice.  If it's
only sleeves, now, I can tell you—they're up to the
ears, and a yard and a half wide."

"It's about the state of my health," she said
sententiously,—"I wish to consult you *professionally*,
Dr. Courtney!"

He put on a sympathetic look.

"The heart, I suppose?" he said.

But Nell stopped short in the summer-house.

"Don't be stupid!" she said.  "Look here, Alan,
have I, or have I not, got scarlet-fever?"

He could not help laughing.  It seemed so absurd
for a fine girl—the picture of health—to ask such
a question.

"Your skin is cool—your pulse normal—your
tongue fit for a health advertisement.  If you have
got it you're managing to conceal it very well," he
said.  "You might give me the recipe for my other
patients."

"I was talking to some one who had scarlet-fever
just after," Nell returned,—"that's all."

There was no fun in Alan's face now.

"When?" he said sharply.

"Oh, nearly a fortnight ago!"

"You've not got it, then," he said.  "Did you
change your things after?—take every precaution?
How did it happen?"

She told him everything, blushing hotly at the
surprise in his face when he heard she had been to
Trafalgar House.

He looked exceedingly serious over it.

"There's no knowing what may be the end of it,"
he said, a frown of anxiety on his brow.  "How
could you do such a thing, Nellie?  You might
have known Meg's judgment would be good."

"But you say I haven't got it," the girl answered,
resenting the elder-brotherly tone of reproof, "so
there's no need for any more fuss."

"How do I know you did not bring it home with
you and give it to one of the others?" he said
shortly.

Nell looked aghast.

"Why, I couldn't do that, could I?" she said,
with startled eyes.  "I never dreamt any one but
I could have got it."

"You ought not to have been allowed with the
others," he said.  "However, as things are, I
daresay no harm has been done.  No one has been
complaining of headache or sore throat, have they?"

Nellie thought hard for a minute or two.  She
reviewed each member of the family rapidly in
succession, and tried to remember if any one's appetite
had failed at any meal lately, that was always the
great test of health at Misrule.

"No," she said at last.  Then she caught her breath.

"Essie had a headache this morning," she faltered.
"Oh, but she fell down and bumped her head, so
that accounts, and she ate four jam tarts yesterday
when no one was in the room; that's the cause of
hers, Alan, isn't it?—oh, you can see it is."

"I'll look at her," he said.  "Does Meg know
anything about all this?"

"I didn't like to worry her," Nellie answered,
and followed him up the path like a criminal found
out in blackest iniquity.  She had never dreamed
she was endangering the others.  Poppet met them
on the second path.

"Afternoon tea's ready, and Meg says aren't
you two ever coming in.  No, I don't want any,
there's only gingerbread."

.. _`"PETER WAS ENGAGED IN CHASING A FAT DUCK."`:

.. figure:: images/img-225.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: "PETER WAS ENGAGED IN CHASING A FAT DUCK."

   "PETER WAS ENGAGED IN CHASING A FAT DUCK."

Alan felt her pulse, and asked to see her tongue.

"There's something alarming in a little girl who
doesn't like gingerbread," he said; but there was a
professional look in his eye.

"She never eats gingerbread," Nell exclaimed,
almost indignant with him for having fears when
the child looked so rosy.

"Poppet's all right," he said in a low tone, as
they went on; and Nellie could have cried in her
relief.

"Peter next," she said.

They went down into the paddock, where Peter
was engaged in chasing a fat duck from end to end,
without a thought in his mind of being cruel to it.
He was hot, certainly, but that was the exertion of
running and shouting.

"Is your throat sore?" Nellie burst out, before
they fairly reached him.

"I thould think I can thout if I like," he said
in an injured tone, taking her anxious query for
sarcasm.

Alan caught him by the back of his sailor
coat.

"Mad, quite mad," he said—"only lunatics rush
about like this.  Hold him while we find out the
symptoms, Nellie, and see whether we'll have to
extract his teeth, or put his legs in
plaster-of-Paris."

"He's all right too, I think," he said, when the
released boy sprang away again after the duck, that
was panting in a corner with one anxious eye on
its enemy.

"Bunty's *beautifully* well," Nell said eagerly, as
they went up to the house again.  "You should
just see him eat, Alan.  And Pip is splendid, so is
Meg, as you can see."

Meg was standing on the front verandah, a
troubled look in her eyes.

"Oh, there you are!" she said.

"Here we are," said Nellie.  She drooped her
eyes guiltily.  "Is the tea cold?"

But Meg did not answer her.

"I wish you'd come and look at Essie, Alan,"
she said.  "She's been eating pastry, and it's
upset her, poor little thing.  I don't like her looks."

"Does her head ache?" Nellie asked with dry lips.

"She says her head aches, her throat aches,
and her legs ache,—everything aches," was Meg's
answer.  "Esther always gives her aconite if she's
out of sorts, Alan.  I gave her five drops this
morning: was that right?"

"Quite," he said; "I'll go up and look at her now."

He went up the stairs behind Meg, a very grave
look in his eyes.

And Nellie followed with a face as colourless
as the great white roses she had stuck in her belt
so lightheartedly half an hour ago.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`MY LITTLE ONE DAUGHTER`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XX.


.. class:: center medium bold

   MY LITTLE ONE DAUGHTER.

.. vspace:: 1

..

   |        "Misery,—oh!  Misery,
   |  This world is all too wide for thee!"

.. vspace:: 2

The very next day came a letter from India.

"Oh, this beautiful, beautiful country!" wrote
Esther.  "Oh, the colouring, the life in everything I
I cannot tell you how *new*, painfully new, Australia
seems compared with it.  Imagine a little perky,
pretty cottage beside a grand old castle, whose
walls bear the mark of centuries.  India is the castle.
Or a nice, clean, healthy child in pinafores, very
fond of play, and more than a little inclined to
be spoilt, beside an old, old seer with a grand
head grown white with wisdom, and wide eyes dim
with staring at eternity.  Australia is the nice clean
child.

"It is the age of the place that sobers me.  I feel
I ought to go about on tiptoe and speak in a whisper
half the time.  We are at Ajmere just now: from
the window here I can see a white temple on the
peak of wild mountains.  It is called Taraghur, or
the abode of the stars, and the Mohammedans make
pilgrimages to it.  Yesterday we rode (I wear a white
linen habit and a helmet, girls) to Pookur, twelve
miles away.  It is a spot considered sacred by the
Hindoos; indeed, it is one of the most sacred places
in India.  There is a lake lying in a basin among
the hills, with its banks studded with buildings, old
temples, and gardens, and in the centre a ruined
fane I am afraid to say how many hundreds and
hundreds of years old.

"To-morrow we go to Musseerabad, where the
garrison is that your father has to take notes about;
then on to Oodeypore; after that I am not certain of
the programme, only—don't all exclaim at once, or
I shall hear even at this distance—we cannot possibly
be back in the time we said.  Your father has written
for two months' extension, and really, though of
course I want to see you all, and ache sometimes
for a sight of my baby's little dear dirty face, I
shouldn't like to come without seeing more.  Fancy
if we had to come back without visiting the Taj
Mahal!  My only anxiety is that any one should be
ill; but then, again, I don't see why any one should
be so inconsiderate,—you've all managed to keep in
splendid health for years; just keep a clean bill till
I get back, and then you shall all take it in turns
if you like.  Dear Meg, keep Essie's hands from
picking and stealing.  I dreamt the other night she
ate a cocoanut and went in a fit.  And Peter, my
precious son, don't climb the pine tree till mum
comes back—if you must break your dear little
collar bone at least give me the satisfaction of seeing
it done.  Of course there is no earthly reason why
any of you should be ill, but I worry a little at times;
I suppose it is because of the difficulty in getting
letters.  We never know where we are going next,
so they can't send on the mails from Bombay to us
till we write for them.  I will send you, by the next
mail, an address to write to: we have not decided
yet whether we are going to Hyderabad, Madras,
or Calcutta.  We are picking up presents for you
all,—the loveliest chessmen for Pip, a wonderful
cabinet of Bhoondee carving for Meg, moonstones
from Ceylon for Nell,—something for every one.
Such a box we shall have.

"Good-bye, my chickies all; take care of yourselves,
and have as good a time as you can.  If you
should be just a little extravagant with the
housekeeping money, Meg, I won't scold you much; you
can let Bennett's bill run if you like, and have a
little garden party or jollification.  Every one kiss
my little one daughter for me.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

"Your loving old mother,
    "ESTHER."

.. vspace:: 2

It was only the last part they heeded.  What
were descriptions of old temples to them with that
little tossing head on the pillow?

"Oh, Esther,—poor, poor Esther!" Meg said,
with the first sob in her throat since Alan had
pronounced it to be the fever—"oh, *if* she
knew!"  But she was mercifully spared that knowledge.
They held a grave consultation together, Meg, Nell,
Pipi and the family doctor, while Alan stayed at the
bedside.  It really seemed useless to send for the
travellers to come home.  If it was only a slight
attack the child would be quite well again by the
time they returned; if—there was a catching of
breaths—if even the very worst should happen,
still they could not be home in time, and oh! what
agony of mind they would have during the long
voyage.  It was even no use sending a cable until
they received Esther's next letter, for they had no
address.

The doctor decided the matter.

"Don't send," he said; "please God we'll have
the little woman up and well in no time.  I will
send in a trained nurse, she shall have every care
possible.  Mrs. Woolcot could not do anything
further if she were here herself.  Now about the
other little folks."

It had been decided at once to send the others
away from fear of infection.  Pip had even suggested
packing them off by the early morning train to
Yarrahappini.

But the doctor shook his head.  There was the
chance that they had the germs in their systems
even now; it was neither fair to send them into other
families, nor yet wise to allow them to go far from
home nursing.

There was a furnished cottage about half a mile
up the road: he advised that Poppet, Peter, and
Bunty should be removed there until all danger of
infection was over.

"This young lady might go to look after them,"
he said, laying his hand on Nellie's shoulder.  "They
will want some one, of course, and Miss Margaret
will be quite sufficient to help the lady I shall send in."

Nellie lifted great beseeching eyes, rimmed with
the shadows of a sleepless night.

"Oh, let me stay! oh, I must stay,—it would
kill me to have to go!" she said, with a great sob.

"Of course you will have to go, Nellie," Pip said
hastily; "don't make extra trouble by being
tiresome,—surely you have done enough."

"Oh, hush!" said Meg.

Pip knew now how the infection had been brought,
and could not find any excuse for his sister.

.. _`"'OH, LET ME STAY!  OH, I MUST STAY!'"`:

.. figure:: images/img-233.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: "'OH, LET ME STAY!  OH, I MUST STAY!'"

   "'OH, LET ME STAY!  OH, I MUST STAY!'"

But Meg saw the wince of pain that his words
caused the poor girl, and knew a little what an
agony of remorse she was suffering.

"She'll be out of the danger, too," Pip added, a
little ashamed of himself when he saw the beautiful,
miserable eyes.

Out of the danger!  And the girl was in such a
frenzy of repentance and grief, she would gladly have
laid down her life just to see Essie go flying down
the drive in a losing race with Flibbertigibbet.

She caught the doctor's arm.

"I would watch night and day—I would do anything
in the world, anything—oh! *let* me stay," she
said.

"Poor little girl!" he answered, and patted her
bright head; he had learnt something of the heart
apart from its physiological formation during his long
practice.  "Poor little girl! standing still is very
hard work, isn't it?  But all soldiers can't fight at
the same time, you know.

   |  "'Yours not to reason why,
   |  Yours but to do or die.

That's not for sword-soldiers only, little girl."

Poor Nellie! no punishment on earth could have
been harder for her.  To die—that would be quite
easy, pleasant even; but to remain passive—oh! it
needed greater courage than hers.

To go away, to leave the house, and not even
venture past the gates again for weeks, not to see
the little sweet sister upon whom her wilfulness alone
had brought this suffering, not even to have the
relief of spending her strength in nursing!  To go
away, and eat and sleep and pass the time doing
ordinary things, and trying to keep Bunty, and
Poppet, and Peter comfortable and happy!

No one would ever know quite what it cost the
girl, but it had to be done.

"Mayn't I just see her for one minute, Meg?"
she said, her courage failing her at the last minute.

It almost made Meg cry to see the utter despair
and misery on her face, and to have to refuse her.

"Alan shall tell you every day how she is.
Dear Nell, you know I dare not let you go into the
room."

Then she went away to take up her post with the
nurse.  And Nellie, with that unutterable ache at
her heart, had to go and collect the clothes they
would all need, the books, playthings,—everything.

She and Poppet, with Bunty's help, were to do the
work of the cottage between them.  At first, Meg
had thought of letting Martha go with them, but
afterwards it occurred to her it might be better to
let Nellie cook, wash up, and see to everything, just
to keep her time occupied.

Bunty was to go to school daily, but Miss Monson
relinquished her duties for a time.  She had two
little sisters and a baby brother at home; no one
could say that Peter or Poppet would not sicken
personally, and she dare not run the risk.  "But
Nellie can easily manage the little ones," she said,
"and even keep up her own studies; she will have
plenty of time."

The little sick child was put into Esther's room,
and a bed made up on the sofa for Meg or the nurse.
The window looked straight to the gate, and could
be seen through a gap in the acacias.  They arranged
a code of signals to be waved by Meg through it
three times a day.  She kept a walking-stick of
the Captain's just near the window, and with it a
white towel, an old red dressing-gown of Poppet's,
and a black wool shawl belonging to Martha.  The
black signal meant "Better,"—not for worlds would
they have used the black for "Worse"; the white
meant "No change"; the red, "Not so well."

And when that was settled, and every other little
matter, and the dogcart filled and sent off with the
luggage, then the four sorrowful little figures walked
slowly down the drive, waved with wet eyes to Meg
at the window, and disappeared round the bend in
the road.

And Misrule, strangely quiet for days and days,
saw only the silent-footed nurse in her grey dress
and cap, and poor Meg with her young shoulders
weighed down with the responsibility; the two
doctors, Alan and the old one, on occasion, and the
maids.  Nobody shouted in the nursery or quarrelled
and laughed along the passages; no little girls ran
lightly down the stairs; no boys tramped up with
muddy boots.  No ringing voices floated from the
grounds through the open windows; no flying figures
and yelping dogs went down the drive.

Meg's face grew grave and old-looking those long,
slow, silent days when there was so little to be done
and so much to fight for.  She lost her old trick of
dimpling when she smiled—she almost lost the trick
of smiling at all.  Always there was a picture before
her eyes,—Esther coming towards her, radiant with
the happiness of home-coming, Esther with
outstretched arms and bright eyes with no shadow of
suspicion in them.

Always the picture was speaking—

"Meg, where is Essie?—what have you done with
my baby, Meg?"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE SEVENTH DAY`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXI.


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE SEVENTH DAY.

.. vspace:: 1

..

   |  "When the heart is sick,
   |  And all the wheels of Being slow."

.. vspace:: 2

Seven leaden days had come and gone.  To-night
they said the little child would die or live.
But the second would need almost a miracle.

All day the red signal had drooped out of a
front upstairs window of Misrule.  Five times had
the children from the cottage trailed with sick hearts
up the long red road to the house, and each time
had that sorrowful signal been there.

Meg's heart had bled as she floated it out in
the morning; only that they had her faithful
promise they should not be deceived, she could not
have borne to put it there.  "Not so well," they
had agreed it should mean, but her heart said
"Dying" as she fastened it, and she knew the
little anxious-eyed group at the gate would read
it so.

Such a tiny darling it was, such a wee frail body
for the fierce fever to feed upon.  How could it
stretch out its little listless hands and grasp strongly
at that strange thing Life that was slipping so fast
away?  And ah, God! that those standing by so wild
with grief might not put out their eager hands and
seize it for her!

After the fifth sad journey the children dragged
to the cottage again and cried themselves sick.
Poppet began.  The minute they got inside the
little front room she dropped down in a heap on
the oilcloth and sobbed in a wild hysterical way
that shook her poor little body all over.  Peter fell
down beside her and cried in the bitter, astonished,
whole-souled fashion of very small children.  And
Bunty put his rough head down on the table with
both his arms round it.  Nellie walked past them
all into her tiny bedroom, and only God saw her
despairing grief.  They had had tea before they
went the last time, and the early winter darkness
had fallen already, though it was only seven o'clock.

Alan had promised to come in at nine and give
them the latest report, but how could any of them
see the end of that interval with such wet eyes?
Time seemed to have ceased for them altogether just now.

After a time, however, Peter sat up straight and
looked around; childish tears, thank Heaven, dry
quickly.  There was one of his little tin soldiers on
the hearthrug, and he picked it up gratefully and
held it in his small warm hand.  Near the fender
two of the horsemen with red caps were lying; he
would like to have reached them as well, only
Poppet's chest was on his other arm, and he could
not bear to disturb her.

Five more minutes ticked away by the funny old
clock on the mantelpiece.  It pointed to a quarter
to eight, and had just struck eleven; they all knew
by that it was about twenty minutes past seven.

Peter sighed, and very, very softly withdrew his
small cramped arm; he waited a minute or two
longer, and then crawled over to the horsemen.  He
felt a chastened joy to find all the boxful in the
fender just as he had left them yesterday after the
war against the Matabele tribes.  He had painted
one of them black for Lobengula, and it reminded
him of the exciting game he had had over his
capture.  He wondered, poor little tear-weary boy,
would Essie mind very much if he had a little, only
a little, game very quietly on the floor now; the
oilcloth had beautiful yellow squares, all ready for
the different detachments.

Poppet's head was turned the other way; he
fancied she was asleep, she lay so still; Bunty at
the table had stopped breathing loudly; perhaps he
was asleep too; and Nellie was in her room.

.. _`"'NELTHONETH COPPED THE IMPITH!'"`:

.. figure:: images/img-241.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: "'NELTHONETH COPPED THE IMPITH!'"

   "'NELTHONETH COPPED THE IMPITH!'"

He marshalled the little figures up in rows, army
against army; the brass toy cannon he gave to the
English, but to make up, he put a few more men on
the side of the Matabeles.  He always felt secretly
sorry for them, and often gave Lobengula loopholes
of escape that he did not permit to Nelson, Gordon,
and Marlborough, who, with small-boy enthusiasm,
he had placed in command of his British forces.

The clock struck six, indicated eight, and meant
half-past seven.  Then the stillness of the little
lamp-lit room was suddenly broken.

"Nelthonth copped the Impith! hurrah—hip, hip,
hur——"

Poppet sat up speechless.  Poor little sinful Peter
lowered his head at her accusing eyes and whimpered
softly.

"You *cwuel* boy!" she said

"I wath only picking them up," he returned, so
bitterly ashamed he could not be quite truthful.

"*I've* been cwying hard all the time," was Poppet's
sorrowfully superior answer; she was feeling
disappointed with herself at being so near her own last
tear, and it made her more severe with him.  "I
don't b'leeve you care a *bit*."

"I'm thorrier than you, tho there!" he retorted
tearfully.

"Why, you've hardly cwied at all!"

"I have, I cried for hourth,—you're a thtory,
Poppet."

Bunty bade them hold their tongues.  He got up
and reached "Hereward the Wake" off the side
table to try to occupy his thoughts with; he was
half through "Tom Floremall's School Days," and it
lay open on the same table, but he felt it would have
been unfeeling to read anything so light.

The example, however, encouraged the children.
Poppet put out her hand and caught the black
kitten that had tapped her shoulder temptingly once
or twice; she cuddled down on the hearthrug with
it, after giving Peter a kiss of forgiveness.

And Peter, utterly relieved, banged Marlborough
and Lobengula together in such fierce single combat
that it is wonderful neither of them was decapitated.

The door handle turned and Nellie came in again,
Nellie with a sheet-white face, heavy wet lashes, and
swollen eyes.

"I'm going up again," she said.

"Tho 'm I," said Peter, springing to his feet.

"An' me," Poppet cried.

"Come on," said Bunty, picking up his hat.

But Nellie shook her head.

"You know your cold's bad again, Poppet; and,
Peter dear, it's after your bedtime,—you *must* stay,"
she said.  "Oh, Bunty, *do* stop with them."

"I'm sure——" Bunty answered, with
contradictory accent.

Nellie caught a sob.

"I shall *die* if I don't go this minute," she said
passionately.

She moved to the door, but Bunty had gone
before her.

"We *can't* leave them,—oh, *Bunty*, if only you'd
stay!"  She held his coat sleeve and tried to force
him back.

"I want to hear as much as you do," he said, with
all his old gruffness; "here, let go."

"I tell you I shall go mad—*mad*—if I don't go!"
the girl said wildly.  He saw the burning look in
her eyes, the pain at her lips, and fell back suddenly,
awkwardly.

"All right, go on," he said.

Then his just wakening brotherly-protection ideas
occurred to him.

"I say, you can't go," he said; "don't be a silly.
You're only a girl, and it's dark,—let me go, Nell;
I'll run all the way, and come straight back and
tell you."

"I *must* go," she repeated hoarsely.  "Make them
go to bed; give Poppet her medicine; don't leave
the matches near Peter."

She slipped off his detaining hand, and the next
minute was flying up the road through the cold
white moonlight; a small dark figure with desperate
eyes, and the wretchedest little heart in the world.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`AMARANTH OR ASPHODEL`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   AMARANTH OR ASPHODEL?

.. vspace:: 1

..

   |  "Falling with my weight of cares
   |  Upon the great world's altar stairs,
   |  That slope through darkness up to God."

.. vspace:: 2

All the way she never stopped once,—it was
nearly a mile.  Her heart was in her throat,
her breath coming in great choking pants; her knees
were trembling as she stumbled up against the old
Misrule gate, and clung to it blind and giddy for a
moment.

There was a step on the footpath—it stopped at
the gate.  Some one came and peered at her and
uttered a cry of surprise.

"Why, Nellie!"

"How—is—she?"

She gasped the words, swayed, and recovered herself.

"I'm just going in again," Alan said.  He slipped
his arm round her and steadied her—"I told you
not to come again, Nellie."

.. _`"'OH, LET ME COME!' SHE IMPLORED."`:

.. figure:: images/img-246.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: "'OH, LET ME COME!' SHE IMPLORED."

   "'OH, LET ME COME!' SHE IMPLORED."

"I couldn't help it."

He saw she couldn't, and did not scold her.

"But what am I to do with you?" he said in
dismay.

He was anxious to get in, and now here was this
poor, trembling, wild-eyed girl on his hands.

"Oh, *let* me come!" she implored.  There was a
sob rising in her throat.

Then he did scold her a little.  Surely she was
not going to trouble them on this terrible night?
Meg was all courage, and quite calm, and so relieved
to know the children were being well looked after,—she
must not fail them all now at the crisis.

The sob was strangled instantly.

"I'll stay," she said,—"only—oh, *Alan*, come out
and tell me soon!"

He promised he would.  He drew her just within
the gate and wrapped his overcoat round her, for
she was jacketless, of course.

"I trust you not to come past the hedge," he said.
"See, stand here, and I can find you easily.  There
now, dear, I *must* go."

"A minute—is she in—real danger, Alan?  Is
she going to die?"

Oh the wide, beseeching eyes, full of moonlight
and misery!

He had never told a lie in his life,—never even
charged one to his medical conscience; but his arm
clasped her more strongly, more tenderly.

"She is in danger," he said quietly.  "We are
afraid she cannot live; but there is always hope,
and the next hour will decide."

She pushed him forward.

"Go!" she said, "go!" and he kissed her
forehead and went.

She paced up and down by the low pittosporum
hedge that divided the garden from the shrubbery
next the fence, and she held her hands so tightly
together, that she felt the pain as far as her elbows.

It was full moon to-night.

She remembered when it had been new,—a little,
friendly, pretty crescent.  They had sat out on the
verandah—four or five of them—watching it rise,
and Alan had said it

   |  "Was like a little feather
   |  Fluttering far down the gulf."

But Pip said he thought that man saw things
straighter who found "the curled moon more like
a bitten biscuit thrown out of a top-story window
in a high wind."  Meg culled from "Endymion."  "The
beautiful thing," she said,

   |  "'Only stooped to tie
   |  Her silver sandals, ere deliciously
   |  She bowed into the heavens her timid head."
   |

And Bunty said, "What rot!"

How happy and light-hearted they had been
then!  Oh the strange and sad and oh the glad
things that happen in this world between the
crescent moon and the full!

Such a white cold moon it was, so far away,
so wondrously large and calm.  It suggested the
immeasurable vastness of the universe, the
infinitesimal smallness of herself.  Her heart sickened
and died within her,—what use was it for her to
pray and weep and beat her hands to such a
far-off sky?  What madness to suppose the great high
awful God beyond it would put forth His saving hand
just because one small insignificant creature down
on earth prayed to Him!  Such a faultful creature
too; all her life through she could not remember one
really good thing she had done, nothing but wrong-doings,
littlenesses, and selfishness came to her mind.
She looked away from the sky and scornful moon,
she went to and fro with her eyes on the white
ground.

"Of *course* it's no use," she muttered, and held
her hands together more tightly.

A buggy stopped at the gate.  The old doctor
got out; he told the coachman not to drive in, but
to wait there.

Two people passing up the road saw him, and
crossed over.

"How's the little girl?" they said.

And "Very bad, poor baby," was his answer.
"I ought to have been here before, but have been
at a deathbed."

"Whose?" they asked, in the lowered tones death
claims.

"Mrs. Fitzroy-Browne," he said, and hurried
away up to the house.

Nellie went back to the low hedge.  From there
she could just see the palely-lighted window
upstairs, and the large shadows on the blind.  She
saw Meg move across to the corner where the bed
stood, then the nurse's cap was outlined, Alan's head
and shoulders, the doctor's.

More and more icy grew the hand at her heart,
whiter and whiter shone the moon, longer and
longer every minute took to pass.  A sudden gust
of wind blew over the pampas clumps full into her
face, and the air was still again.  Perhaps with that
very wind Essie had left them.

She fell on her knees with wide, outstretched
arms, and dropped her face on the low hedge.  The
twigs and leaves scratched and pricked her, the
ground made her knees ache, the night air was
freezing her; but that was happiness.  The sky she
dare not look at; but she was compelled to pray
again, just to say God, God, God! and shiver and
writhe and bite her lips.  There was no help for
her on earth, and she must shriek to God even
though He heard not.

Suddenly the moonlight faded, the garden, the
silent house, the pale lights.

She was at the top of a hill, and at the foot was
the reddest sunset the world had ever seen.  She
was a little child again, flying from the bark hut
and awful gathering shadows to the fence that
skirted the road along which help would come.
She was a child flinging herself on the ground, face
downward, and crying, "Make her better, God!—God,
make her better,—oh, *can't* you make her better!"

But Judy had died.  He had not listened to her
then, He would not listen now.

She lifted a face of agony and looked at the sky
again.  It had grown softer, a grey more tender,
and deepened with blue; the moon hung lower, a
yellow warmth had crept into it.

Her tears gushed out again, and poured in hot
streams down her face.

"Dear God!" she whispered,—"oh, my dear,
great God, I will be so good—only let her live,
just let her live—such a little thing, God, such a
little baby thing,—oh, you wouldn't take her from
us, my great God—I will give you all my life, God!
I will be good always, I will go to church always,
and do everything you want me to, only don't take
her away, God!  Please, Jesus, ask Him,—dear,
sweet Jesus, don't let Him take her; oh, my sweet,
kind Christ, let her stay here!"

Her face fell into the hedge once more, and her
lips babbled the wild, pitiful, bargaining prayer that
only One could understand.

It seemed hours that she knelt there, praying,
sobbing, and shivering, before Alan came as he
had promised.

She heard his step coming down the path, and
she struggled to her feet and forced herself forward.

But he was going past her,—had he forgotten her?

No, she knew; the child was dead, and he could
not tell her.

He had passed the hedge and was going on to the
gate; she stumbled along after him, but he did not
seem to hear her.

"Alan!" she said, as he pulled the chain aside
to go out.  Her voice sounded hollow and far away.

He stopped, but did not look at her.

"I—know," she said.

He nodded.

"Dead—dead—dead!" she said.

But he spoke then.

"Essie is better," he said; "she will live now."

She caught at the palings; all the world was
moving about her, the sky, the ground beneath
her feet.

"Better," she told herself—"better, better—can't
you hear?"

Then she noticed Alan's face.  It was deathly
white, his lips were trembling and twitching, his
eyes were wild.

"What?" she whispered.

"Meg has got it," he said with a great sob in his
voice; and he brushed past her and went away.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`LITTLE FAITHFUL MEG`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXIII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   LITTLE FAITHFUL MEG.

.. vspace:: 1

..

   |  "And shadow, and silence, and sadness
   |  Were hanging over all."

.. vspace:: 2

Pip had a time of unhappiness almost as great
as that Nellie had gone through.

He was playing chess at the Courtneys to keep
from thinking, when Alan came in with the news
that Meg had the fever.

All the colour dropped from his brown, handsome
face; he started up in his place, the queen he had
just captured still in his hand; he went out of the
room and out of the house without a word.  Andrew
caught him up when he had gone some hundred
yards up the road.

"Here's your hat, old fellow," he said, and Pip
took it without thanks and walked on.

Little faithful Meg, whose worst fault had been
loving him too well to let him spoil his life!  And
he had shaken her aside time after time when she
had tried to end the quarrel—he had told her he
would never forgive her!

And now, perhaps, he would never have the chance.

He pulled back the gate at Misrule with fingers
as nerveless as the veriest girl; he turned to go up
to the house the short way, by the pittosporum
hedge.  There was a little dark heap of something on
the wet grass in front of him; he touched it with his
foot, and then bent down in horror.

It was his second little sister, sobbing as if her
heart would break; she was face downwards, her
arms spread out, her whole body convulsed.

So stunned and shaken with his grief had Alan
been, he had utterly forgotten, when he left the
poor child, that she was not at her proper place for
the night; he had gone straight home to see if there
had been a call for him, then off to a serious case of
typhoid in Fivedock, for doctors cannot sit down
and give themselves up to their grief, however great
the cause.

Pip tried to raise the girl, but she stiffened herself
and resisted him; when she had flung herself down
she had prayed passionately that she might die, and
here was some one come to disturb her.

But surely it could not be careless Pip who held
her so tenderly, when at last he did manage to lift
her,—Pip who stroked her hair, and rubbed his
cheek against hers, and let her finish her bitter
weeping on his shoulder.

When he felt how cold and damp she was, he stirred.

"You must come home, old girl," he said.

"Here," she said—"I must stay here!  I
shall nurse her, but she'll die—oh!  I know she'll
die."

Pip groaned: he knew it himself, he would not
give himself the slightest hope; and the bitterness
was as of death itself.

But he saw Nellie was totally unfit to go into an
infected house that night.

"To-morrow," he said; "come down to the
cottage now; there's the nurse there, and the
servants; you'll be ill yourself next."

"I want to be—oh, why *can't* I die?" she wailed.
"It's all me, every bit of this, and God won't let me
die."

Oh the young miserable face, so white and wet
in the moonlight!  A great lump came into Pip's
throat, and in his heart a sudden knowledge of the
dearness of his sisters.

"Oh, you poor little thing!" he said.

He put her on the old seat under the mulberry
tree near, and went away.

When he came back he was leading one of the
horses by the bridle over the grass.

"What are you going to do?" she asked
miserably.

And "Ride you home," was his answer.

.. _`"HE LED THE HORSE OUT OF THE GATE, AND CARRIED HER TO IT."`:

.. figure:: images/img-257.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: "HE LED THE HORSE OUT OF THE GATE, AND CARRIED HER TO IT."

   "HE LED THE HORSE OUT OF THE GATE, AND CARRIED HER TO IT."

He led the horse out of the gate, carried her to
it, and put her just on the saddle; then he got up
himself behind, and held her with one hand and
the reins with the other.

That is how they reached the cottage.

The children were in bed, and poor Bunty, weary
of waiting, had fallen asleep sitting bolt upright in
a chair.

Pip woke him, gently enough.

"Make up the fire," he said.

The boy fell to the task with all his heart, so
dreadful was his sister's face.  The clatter woke
Poppet; she slipped out of bed and came in to them
in her little nightgown, her eyes heavy with sleep
and the struggle between forgetfulness and remembrance.

"Baby!" she said.  Then her eyes flew open,
and the colour died out of her little flushed cheeks.
What made Nellie look so terrible?

"Better, much better—getting well," was Pip's
hasty answer.  He did not want another ill on his
hands.

The child gasped with relief.

"Go and get something on," said Pip; "and
bring Nell a big shawl or rug, and put something
on your feet."

She came back with a great blanket for Nellie—she
had pinned her little flannel petticoat round
her own shoulders, and stuck her feet into
goloshes.

Bunty made coffee—a great jugful.  The grounds
were floating on the top, certainly, but it was very
hot.  Pip made the girl drink two full cups and
eat a big piece of bread and butter—he heard she
had had neither dinner nor tea.

Then she crept close to him again.  What a dear
big brother he was, and how much less terrible
things looked here in the firelight, with his arm
round her, than when she lay prone on the wet
grass under the white, far moon.

They dare not tell Poppet to-night, her eyes were
far too bright, her cheeks too flushed.  So Bunty,
at a whisper from Nell, picked her up and carried
her off to bed again.

"I'll stop with you till you go to sleep," he said,
feeling her chest heave.

"I b'leeve they're 'ceiving me," said the poor little
child.  "I heard Nell whisper to you!  Oh, Bunty,
*tell* me!—oh, Baby, Baby!"

He reassured her eagerly.  The crisis was quite
past; the doctor said she could not *help* getting
better now.  Why, they would be playing with her
again now in no time!

She cried a little from the relief, and then dropped
off to sleep, holding tightly to his gentle, roughened
hand.

In the sitting-room Pip was comforting Nellie as
tenderly and pitifully as if he had been a woman
and she a poor, little, hurt child.  They had never
known each other before—these two—and both
were touched and surprised at the beauty of the
new knowledge.

He agreed that she must go to Misrule and help
to nurse, but thought they would wire up to
Yarrahappini and ask Mrs. Hassal to come down to the
cottage instead of getting any one strange.  Nellie
thought it an excellent suggestion, and made him
draft a telegram immediately, so that it might be
sent first thing in the morning.

When he thought she was calm again, and fit to
be left he saw her into her own bedroom, and made
her promise to go direct to bed and try her best to
sleep, since so much depended on her now.

Such a poor, scratched, swollen face it was lifted
to him for a good-night kiss, so different from the
brilliant, beautiful, rebellious one that had defied
him on the night of that trouble-causing dinner
party.

He took the front door key with him, and went
out, riding slowly back to Misrule, though he had
no business there, as he knew.  He put his father's
horse back into the stable, and learnt from the man,
who had just gone to bed, that Martha was with
Essie and the nurse with Meg.

Then he went round into the garden, and to the
side of the house where Meg's bedroom was.

There was a white, flat paling fence separating
that part of the garden from the paddocks; he sat
down on it and watched the light on her white blind
with a despairing expression in his eyes.

He would have given all the world for a kiss from
her, a smile of forgiveness; his love for Mabelle lay,
a cold thing, almost dead, in his breast; he felt he
could never breathe on it and warm it to life again.

To him, as to Nellie, this great white awful night
brought back to memory the red red sunset and
purple black shadows of the evening Judy had died.
Like Nellie, he too fell on his knees, and prayed as he
had only prayed that one other time in his life.  And,
like Nellie too, he prayed despairingly and
without faith because that other prayer had not been
answered.  It was midnight when he had ridden
back; he stopped there in the white, hushed garden
till the moon began to fade out of the sky and a
pale flush of rose crept up from the river.  He was
stiff and cold from his long watch; on the ill-kept
strip of grass beneath the lighted window he had
worn a path with his pacings, and his heart was
heavier than ever.

When five o'clock came he still lingered; he was
watching for the first opening door.  To wait for
her smile and forgiveness till she was better—to
wait—to miss it for ever, perhaps—was more than
he could bear to contemplate.  He wrote her a little
eager loving note on the back of an envelope from
his pocket; his sister, his dear, sweet old Meg,
would she ever forgive him?

He thought he would give it to Martha the minute
there was a stir of life within the house, and he
went softly round the verandah to the side door;
it was always opened first, he knew.  He stood there
more than half an hour, listening for a footstep on
the stairs, for the creak of a door or the sound of a
voice.

On the weather-worn wall near there were a
number of marks and names and dates; it was the
measuring wall of the family.  It carried his thoughts
back a long, long time.  It was nearly seven long
years since the first marks were made: the little one,
only a couple of feet off the ground, was marked
"The General,"—Pip remembered Esther had to
hold him there, for it was before he could walk.
Then all the small steps above it—Baby, and Bunty,
and Nell—such a little Nell; Judy, with a crossing
out at her name and a mark lower down—he
remembered finding out after he had measured her
first, that she had tacked a bit of wood on to each
heel of her shoes; then himself, and Meg topping
them all.

The last marks were recent; they had measured
merrily just before Esther went away, to see if
any one could possibly grow in such a short time.
He himself was at the top now, ten inches past Meg,
and Nellie and Bunty were nearly up to Meg.  How
nearly the new little mark that meant Essie had
never risen any higher!  And Judy, dear, dear
little Judy, so quick growing, so eager-eyed—her
mark was no longer among them.

It forced itself upon Pip that perhaps never again
would he put the flat book on Meg's bright head
and crush down, ere he measured her, the fluffy hair
that gave her an unlawful inch.

He turned on his heel from the wall; the mark
seemed on his heart.

Some one opened a verandah door some distance
away and stepped out into the garden.  It was the
nurse, heavy-eyed, pale-cheeked, come out for a
breath of the quickening morning.  She did not see
the unhappy boy standing there, but went down the
path towards the sun-touched river, and left the door
open behind her.

Pip slipped in, on uncontrollable impulse.  He
stole through the quiet hall and up the staircase;
he went softly down the upstairs passage—and
Meg's door was open.

She was quite alone, lying among the pillows,
with her bright hair loose, her cheeks a little flushed,
but her eyes open and quite natural.  The next
second he was in the room kneeling by the bedside,
and kissing the little hot hand on the counterpane.

"Just say you forgive me, Meg darling—darling!"
he implored, the tears rolling down his cheeks.

She sat up in distress.

"Oh, go away!" she cried.  "Oh, Pip, how mad
of you—dear Pip, you'll catch it!"

But he would not loose her hand.

"Will you?" he said.

She moved to put her arm round his neck, then
remembered and shrank back.

"Why, there is nothing," she said; "it was you
to forgive me—if you do I am more than glad;
now do go, old fellow."

"Lie down," he said, standing up again; it had
only just struck him he might be doing her harm.

"There, lie so,—keep still, for heaven's sake.  I
only came to tell you you're the best sister on earth,
and I've been a brute to you.  Meg, I'll promise you
faithfully never to think of Mabelle again—oh, good
God!  I haven't made you worse, have I?"  For
Meg put her hand up to her head with a sudden
movement.

"Not an atom," she said, "the cloth was wetting
my neck, that's all.—you've made me better indeed
with that promise; now go, Pip dearest, this minute,
and change everything—promise me; think of the
children; get a suit out of your room and have
a bath."

The nurse's step was on the stairs; he kissed her
hand again and fled.

Afterwards he felt he had done a selfish thing,
and made himself miserable over it.  Perhaps he
had excited and worried her, perhaps it would make
her worse; and suppose he gave the infection to
Peter or Poppet!

He took his evening clothes, they were the only
ones left in his room, and he went down to the river
with a slow and heavy step.

Then he undressed and swam about for nearly
twenty minutes, so determined was he not to carry
home a microbe.  He even struck out into the
middle, and braved any sharks that might be yet
unbreakfasted.  Then he made his toilet again,
swallow-tail and all, carefully washed the clothes he
had taken off, and laid them on the grass to dry.

A man he knew, coming down to the water with
his towels over his shoulder, met him on the way
to the cottage and stared amazedly.

"You're fairly late home, old chap," he said;
"where in the world have you been?"

Pip only shook his head and pushed on.  He was
far too unhappy to stay and explain.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`"IN THE MIDNIGHT, IN THE SILENCE OF THE SLEEP-TIME"`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXIV.


.. class:: center medium bold

   "IN THE MIDNIGHT, IN THE SILENCE OF THE SLEEP TIME."

.. vspace:: 1

..

   |  "Have I not trodden a weary road
   |      Saint, my Saint?
   |  And where, at last, shall be my abode,
   |      Oh, my Saint?"

.. vspace:: 2

But Meg only had it very lightly, or those two
poor human hearts could not have borne their
misery.  She was not half so ill as Essie had been;
she was not delirious at all, and she never went
near to the great wide sea whose cold waves had
washed up to the little baby feet.

When she woke after a troubled sleep in the
afternoon, there was Nellie standing by the bedside
looking at her, with all her heart in her eyes.

"What about the children?" she said with
instant anxiety.  "You oughtn't to be here."

But Nell stooped and kissed her.

"It's just where I ought to be," she said, "and
Esther's mother will be here this evening, to look
after the children,—don't worry."

Meg turned over restfully; how good it was
to feel there would be a sister near always
instead of the strange hands and face of a nurse!
What a relief, now the strain was over, to be able
to give up and be taken care of instead of taking
care!

In the morning, when she woke, her first question
again, after hearing Essie was improving fast, was
what about the children?

Mrs. Hassal had come, Nell said; Mr. Gillet had
brought her, and they were both at the cottage.
Mr. Gillet was much distressed to hear she was ill,
and had sent kindest regards and hopes for a speedy
recovery.

For a moment the long-unheard name brought
no connection with it to Meg; then she saw the
burnt grass paddocks, the dingy sheep, the
homestead and clustering cottages of Yarrahappini.

She called to mind his little room as she had seen
it when she went for the keys of the storeroom.
She was surprised to still remember, after all these
years, her astonishment at finding the keeper of
the stores with the room of a gentleman.

She could remember the rows of books, the
medallion of Shelley, the pictures, the little
breakfast table—even the silver chased vase with the
passion flowers in it.

She wondered if he had kept the blue ribbon she
had given him; even now her cheeks coloured above
their fever to think how intolerant she had been in
those days.  But perhaps she was just as bad now,
or had other faults still worse; she tossed unhappily
and thought upon all the mistakes she was for ever
making.  Then Nellie's cool fingers touched her
forehead and replaced a wet, lavender-sweet handkerchief,
and she dropped off into an uneasy slumber.

She thought they were binding her head round
and round with ribbon, pale blue with creases in it;
it held her down to the bed so that she could not
move; and there in the dancing river little Essie was
struggling, the grey look of death on her small
sweet face.

Then that torture shifted, and it was Pip who was
struggling, and he could not put out his arms to
swim because he had a monstrous gold wedding-ring
binding them to his body.  And Peter was at the
top of the forbidden tree, and Poppet shrieking to
him to come down.  And Bunty was in the hospital
with scarlet fever, and they could not give him
medicine because he would not tell his name.

For several days troubles of this kind lasted, with
short unrefreshing waking intervals when her mouth
was parched, her throat swollen, and her head throbbing.

On the sixth morning she opened her eyes about
eleven o'clock.  Nellie was mixing lemon drink at a
small table, and Alan was standing by the bedside,
Alan with a face grown quite haggard, and a look in
his eyes that had never quite left them since she fell
ill.

"Am I getting better or worse?" she said, for his
look made her suddenly fearful for herself.

But he brightened instantly, for, in truth, the
anxiety was almost over, only he could not shake
it off at once.

"Much better," he said.  "Do you know you have
been asleep since nine last night?"

"How many hours is that?" she asked, with
smiling languor; "my brain's asleep yet, I can't
count."  But neither could he.  His lip trembled
suddenly, and he put his face down on hers.

She slipped her thin hands round his neck.

"Poor old fellow!" she said, "dear old fellow!
I'm going to get better immediately now."

"Try to go to sleep again," he whispered, putting
a kiss on each eyelid to keep them shut.  "Please,
my little, pale daisy."

The eyelashes lay quite still, but the lips smiled up
to him.  Then, before she knew it, she was asleep
again, her breathing regular, her skin cool.  And
when she woke she was far on the road to recovery.
But down in the cottage, while Essie and Meg were
struggling slowly up the beautiful tiring hill of
convalescence, a terrible tragedy had happened.

In the middle of one night, Poppet, sleeping in a
little made-up bed in the room with Mrs. Hassal, woke
up hot and choking.  One side of the room was in
a sheet of fire; the curled, leaping tongues of flame
came nearer every instant.

She sprang out of bed shrieking wildly, and pulled
and shook poor little Mrs. Hassal, who, half
suffocated with the smoke, lay motionless.

Pip slept at the Courtneys now, since the cottage
was so taxed for room, Bunty and Peter across the
passage, and Mr. Gillet had a camp bed in the sitting-room.
No one had wakened till the little girl's wild
shrieks rang through the house; the smoke had
stupefied them all.

Then there was a terrible scene of confusion.  The
door of the bedroom was in a blaze—all the wall
adjacent; the flames were licking at the long French
window, and the curtains already burning.

Mr. Gillet went back one second for his thick coat,
which he had not put on at first; then, shielding his
face with his arm, he sprang into the room through
the window, calling to Bunty to stand outside.

.. _`"He sprang through the flames, the child close in his arms."`:

.. figure:: images/img-271.jpg
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   :alt: "He sprang through the flames, the child close in his arms."  The Family at Misrule. Page 271.

   "He sprang through the flames, the child close in his arms."  The Family at Misrule. Page 271.

Poppet, mad with terror, was still pulling at
Mrs. Hassal, and the mosquito nets of the bed had just
caught.

He pushed the child aside, and bade her go into
the one safe corner.  Then he enveloped Mrs. Hassal
in the blanket, carried her across the room,
and hastily put her through the window to
Bunty.

Then he went back for the little girl,—Meg's little
sister.

He took off his coat to wrap her in, as the other
bedclothes had caught, but as he did so Bunty
threw back the big blanket, and he used it instead.

The flames at the window were growing worse,
but he sprang through them, the child close in his
arms.  When they took the blanket off her not a
hair of her head was hurt.

One breathless second they looked at the burning
room together from the safe vantage ground of the
grass plot at the side.

Then Mr. Gillet started forward again.

"I've left my coat," he said.

Mrs. Hassal held his arm.  "As if that matters,"
she answered indignantly.

"But there's something I rather prize in it," he
said; "there's no danger,—see, I'll have the blanket
this time."

He flung it round his head and shoulders, and
went through the window again.

"Catch!" he cried, and threw the rough serge
coat far out to them.

.. _`"THE BOY SEIZED HIM BY THE SHOULDERS AND DRAGGED HIM OUT THROUGH THE BLAZING GAP."`:

.. figure:: images/img-272.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: "THE BOY SEIZED HIM BY THE SHOULDERS AND DRAGGED HIM OUT THROUGH THE BLAZING GAP."

   "THE BOY SEIZED HIM BY THE SHOULDERS AND DRAGGED HIM OUT THROUGH THE BLAZING GAP."

They saw him in the burning window putting his
arms up to dive out.  But even as he did so there
was a crash and fall—a great burning rafter had
dropped from the ceiling.

Bunty was the hero now.  He put his coat over
his head and dashed into the room.

Mr. Gillet had fallen just inside, the blanket still
around him.

With incredible strength and courage the boy
seized him by the shoulders, dragged him out
through the blazing gap and into safety, amid the
shouts of the awakened neighbours, who had come
too late to be of use.

But the man was dead.

The rafter had struck his temple, and he had no
more days of life to ruin, no more with which to
redeem past ruin.

They did not tell Meg until long after, not until
Blue Mountain air had blown the last of the fever
away, and all the seven were together for the last
week before coming home.

Then they gave her the something he had "rather
prized."

She sobbed and went away from them all when
she had opened the little parcel and seen its
pitifulness.

It was nothing but the length of ribbon, the blue
faded, and still creased as it had tied her hair.

On the paper wrapping it he had written, "My
soft-eyed girl St. Cecily."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`HERE ENDETH`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXV.


.. class:: center medium bold

   HERE ENDETH.

.. vspace:: 1

..

   |  "God's in His heaven,
   |  All's right with the world."

.. vspace:: 2

Such a day!  The spring of the year in the
sky, and on the river, and on the land.
September at its happiest, fresh and young, and
gladdening as a maiden stepping with shining eyes
and light feet into a world that she knows she is
going to brighten.

Blue in the sky, blue deeper and sun-flecked in
the river, a glory of roses in the garden, a yellow
splendour of wattles in the bush.

Tea was spread on the lawn, not under a tree, but
out in the sunshine that no one could get enough of.
Even the cakes had a light-hearted look; and as for
the shining kettle on the lamp, it was absolutely
bubbling with good spirits.  They were all there,—the
seven and Mrs. Hassal, all mentally on tiptoe,
physically in comfortable attitudes, sitting or lying
round the cloth.

The Captain and Esther were expected every minute.

Peter wanted to begin on the little cakes that had
such a fascinating bit of peel on the top of each.

"Leth go halveth in one, Nell," he said; "we
ought to tathte them firtht,—prapth you forgot the
thugar."

But Nellie assured him they were sweetness itself,
and removed the plate into the middle of the cloth,
where they could not lead his fingers into temptation.

She consoled him with two lumps of sugar, and he
gave Poppet one and bet her he could suck his for
a longer time than she could without it breaking.

Alan was hammering at a tipsy-looking erection
of posts halfway down the drive, that said
"Welcome" in pink and white roses, and threatened to
fall and engulf any one passing underneath.  Bunty
had made it, Alan was only trying to ensure the
safety of Esther's head.

Near the door was another arch; it was very low—both
the Captain and Esther would have to go under
it doubled up: it was done in ferns and red geraniums
and blue flag lilies and yellow "bunny rabbits,"
and it said "Wellcome."

This was the architecture of Peter and Poppet; the
choice of flowers and handing up had been Essie's
work.

The kettle boiled over.  Meg took the opinions of
the company as to whether she should make the tea
or wait.  The travellers were coming overland from
Brisbane, and the man had already gone to the station
with the dogcart.  It always made the Captain
irritable to be met by half his family on a station,
so they were all assembled at home instead.  Nellie
counselled waiting, tea brewed too long was "horrid."

Pip said no one would know what they were
drinking, so it did not matter.

Swift wheels on the road, a shriek from Peter and
Poppet, and the question was decided.  Meg filled up
the teapot and cosied it, then snatched Essie up in
her arms and went down the path.  Oh, thank God,
thank God she had her to take!

Esther leapt out before the horse fairly stopped,
just as impetuously young as ever.  She devoured
Essie, lifted big Peter right up in her arms, laughed
and cried over the others.

No one said anything the pen could catch for
the next ten minutes; every one spoke at once and
laughed at once; every one asked questions and no
one waited for answers.

It was the Captain of course who first made a
whole speech.  "We've been travelling for
hours,—haven't you any tea for Esther, Meg?"

Then they all trooped up under the arches to the
white cloth, flower-strewn, and Flibbertigibbet had
improved the shining time by drinking the milk.

.. _`"THE WHOLE SIX RUSHED TO PICK HER UP."`:

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   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: "THE WHOLE SIX RUSHED TO PICK HER UP."

   "THE WHOLE SIX RUSHED TO PICK HER UP."

Martha came down with more, her very forehead
sharing in the great smile that widened all her
features.

She shook the Captain's hand and Esther's; then
small Essie ran before her, and she pulled up her
apron to catch a sudden sob and went away.

Little Mrs. Hassal picked up the child,—just her
own little girl Esther over again.  She gave her a
lump of sugar and squeezed her tenderly for nothing
in particular.  Then Nellie crept round and took her
to find the prettiest cake of all, and Pip rode her
round and round on his shoulders and kissed her
again and again when she happened to stand near him.

And once, when running back from the house with
her grand new doll for inspection, her eager little
feet tripped and she fell on the path, the whole six
started up and rushed to pick her up.  Esther told
herself she had left her darling in loving enough
hands, she need not have worried so.

"But she seems a little thinner to me, Meg," she
said; "I don't know if it is my fancy."

Then they all grew silent, and each one waited for
the other to tell.

It was Nellie who spoke at last, and told the story,
and Esther's tears fell and she clasped her baby
close to her breast and thanked God who had been
so good to her.  And the Captain put out his hand
and drew his eldest daughter closer to him, and said
he did not think Alan could have her now.

It is only four o'clock, and the spring glad
sunshine is still over everything; the feast is at its
height, and all faces untroubled again.  Let us leave
them here.

Esther is leaning against her husband, her bright
face full of content and happiness; once or twice her
eyes have gone skywards, and the light in them has
deepened.  Essie is in her arms, saucy and dimpled:
she knows she is the undisputed queen of that
gathering, and is taking advantage of her power by
giving all manner of sweet little commands.

Peter is still engaged on the cakes; he is only
eating the tops of them where the peel nestles, but
no one has noticed.  He has just informed Esther
of the progress he has made in her absence.

"I tharcely drop any blotht now," he said; "I've
gone into theven times, I'm learning peninthulath,
and I've thtopped lithping."

As no one disputes any of his statements, and as
no one smiles openly, he is quite happy in his
present occupation.  Poppet seems to have grown;
she is thinner than ever,—arms and legs, as Bunty
says, and nothing else worth mentioning.  He forgets
the heart; it is just the same dear loving tender little
one, with room for all the world, and one warm,
special corner for himself.

Bunty's collar this afternoon is a sign of the times;
it is perfectly white and almost unrumpled; the whole
of it is visible, and his jacket does not fit
extraordinarily badly.  His mouth is firm, but hardly
strikes one as obstinate now, and the brooding light
that used to be in his eyes shows very seldom.
Pip says if some day the boy becomes a great hero
it will not surprise any one in the family at all,
despite those early days he is so bitterly ashamed of.

This is quite a different Nellie from the one who
went over this same lawn in her first long dress.
More beautiful if possible: the shining hair and
dewy, long-lashed eyes, the clear colouring, and slim,
straight figure are just the same, but there is a
deeper look in the young eyes, a sweeter, graver
expression about the young mouth.  She will be
that gladdening thing, an exceedingly beautiful
woman; she will be more, a good woman and a noble.

Meg,—well, Meg is Meg.

A little thin and pale-looking from the fever, a
little quieter, and, if possible, even more sweet, more
womanly and lovable than ever.  Alan is at one
side of her, her family at the other; so far they
possess her equally, and perhaps the standing
between is the happiest time of her life.

Pip is stretched on the ground, six feet of splendid
young manhood; his laugh is good to hear, his
cheeks have the tint of health, he measures a
surprising number of inches round the chest.  Surely
it is reasonable to suppose his blighted affections
have not done him irreparable mischief!  Peter lets
a light in on the subject.  He has finished the
cakes, and is at liberty again to pour out all the
events of note that have happened during Esther's
absence.

He has informed her that "the catht had four
kittenth, that his betht thuith grown too thmall for
his legth, that the butcher thent the chopth and
thteak too late for breakfatht, and Meg got another
one named Thmitherth, and that a thtorm of hail
had thmathed the thtudy window."

Then his eye fell upon his eldest brother, and
his young catholic mind found an item of news
concerning him.

"An' Mith Joneth ith married to the man at the
thauthpan thop; me and Poppet peeped in at the
church, and the looked thplendid.  And Pip wath awful
mad, but he'th gone on Mith Thybil Moore now."

And as Miss Sybil Moore was the exceedingly
pretty daughter of new delightful neighbours, and
as Mr. Philip coloured somewhat warmly and
inverted the young scamp in great haste, there seemed
a probability of pleasant truth in the statement.
Especially as Meg smiled contentedly.

Esther spoke of Indian scarfs and shawls and
gauzes the boxes held.

"They will do beautifully for charades and
theatricals," she said.

"Or playing at being grown up," said Poppet.

The Captain leaned back against a tree.  "There
is not much playing about it," he said.  "I must be
getting an old man; how fast you are all growing
up."

"What's dwowing up?" asked Essie.

"I used to think it was just long dresses and
done-up hair," sighed Nellie; "or a stick and a
moustache."

"And not doing as you're told," supplemented
Poppet.

"An' eating thingth and not getting thick."  It
was Peter's amendment.

Meg only smiled.

But there was a faint curve of sadness as well
as the smile on her young lips—and one was for
sweet, buried childhood, and one for the broadening
days.

.. vspace:: 3

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   THE END

.. vspace:: 3

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   UNWIN BROTHERS, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON.

.. vspace:: 4

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   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 4

.. class:: center x-large bold

   Works by Ethel Turner

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   (MRS. H. E. CURLEWIS).

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center large bold

   The Story of a Baby.

.. class:: center

   Illustrated by FRANCES EWAN and others.


.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center large bold

   Seven Little Australians.

.. class:: center

   With Twenty-six Illustrations by A. J. JOHNSON.



.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center large bold

   The Family at Misrule.

.. class:: center

   A Sequel to the above.

.. class:: center

   With Twenty-nine Illustrations by A. J. JOHNSON.


.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center large bold

   Three Little Maids.

.. class:: center

   Illustrated by A. J. JOHNSON.


.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center large bold

   The Camp at Wandinong.

.. class:: center

   Illustrated by FRANCES EWAN and others.



.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center large bold

   Miss Bobbie.

.. class:: center

   Illustrated by HAROLD COPPING.



.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center large bold

   The Little Larrikin.

.. class:: center

   Illustrated by A. J. JOHNSON.

.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center white-space-pre-line

   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center x-large bold

   The "Tip-Cat" Series

.. class:: center

   (BY THE AUTHOR OF 'LADDIE')

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center large bold

   Tip-Cat.

.. class:: center

   By the Author of 'Laddie.'

A very pathetic story of hardships and sacrifice, telling how the
tenderness and generosity of one may make life smooth and happy for
others.


.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center large bold

   Dear.

.. class:: center

   By the Author of 'Laddie.'

The love-story of the daughter of a simple-hearted country clergyman.
The way she is deprived of her lover, and duped into marrying
the squire's son, and the final attainment of her heart's desire, are told
with great charm and pathos.


.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center large bold

   Pen.

.. class:: center

   By the Author of 'Laddie.'

A story of the neglect of two motherless children.  The sketches of
character and touching love passages are exceedingly well told.


.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center large bold

   My Honey.

.. class:: center

   By the Author of 'Laddie.'

"It is always a pleasure to meet with a book by the authoress of
'Tip-Cat.'  The story is full of charming character
drawing."—*Graphic*.


.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center large bold

   Rob.

.. class:: center

   By the Author of 'Laddie.'

"Interestingly written, and will be read with equal pleasure by
members of either sex."—*Westminster Gazette*.


.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center large bold

   Lil.

.. class:: center

   By the Author of 'Laddie.'

"A volume of interesting reading that should attract all young
people."—*Sunday School Recorder*.


.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center large bold

   Our Little Ann.

.. class:: center

   By the Author of 'Laddie.'

The story of a girl who from the time she left the country for town
led a chequered life.  The various episodes are cleverly connected, and
the descriptive portions well told.


.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center large bold

   Laddie, etc.

.. class:: center

   By the Author of 'Tip-Cat.'

"It is possible that 'kiddie' may become a classic."—*Chambers'
Journal*.


.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center large bold

   The Captain of Five.

.. class:: center

   By MARY H. DEBENHAM.

"Every human being over seven and under seventy will agree in
pronouncing it delightful."—*Daily Chronicle*.


.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center large bold

   Hollyberry Janet.

.. class:: center

   By MAGGIE SYMINGTON ("Aunt Maggie").

"An excellent addition to a charming series."—*Academy*.


.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center large bold

   The Pattypats.

.. class:: center

   By H. ESCOTT-INMAN.

"One of the most delightfully droll story-books that it is possible
to conceive of.  Brimful of quaint and wonderful notions, and teeming
with mirth and 'go.'"—*The Teachers' Aid*.

.. vspace:: 3

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   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center x-large bold

   The Youths' Library.

.. vspace:: 2

\1 From Log Cabin to White House,  By W. M. Thayer

.. vspace:: 1

\2 Robinson Crusoe, By Daniel Defoe

.. vspace:: 1

\3 Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress

.. vspace:: 1

\4 Grimm's Fairy Stories

.. vspace:: 1

\5 Grimm's Fairy Tales

.. vspace:: 1

\6 Swiss Family Robinson

.. vspace:: 1

\7 Andersen's Popular Tales

.. vspace:: 1

\8 Andersen's Stories

.. vspace:: 1

\9 Boys' Own Sea Stories

.. vspace:: 1

\10 Two Years before the Mast, By R. H. Dana

.. vspace:: 1

\11 Scottish Chiefs, By Jane Porter

.. vspace:: 1

\12 Ivanhoe, By Sir Walter Scott

.. vspace:: 1

\13 Romance of Navigation, By Henry Frith

.. vspace:: 1

\14 Prisoners of the Sea, By F. M. Kingsley

.. vspace:: 1

\15 Westward Ho!, By Charles Kingsley

.. vspace:: 1

\16 Arabian Nights Entertainments

.. vspace:: 1

\17 Black Man's Ghost, By J. C. Hutcheson

.. vspace:: 1

\18 Frank Allreddy's Fortune, By Franklin Fox

.. vspace:: 1

\20 Two Years Ago, By Charles Kingsley

.. vspace:: 1

\21 The Last of the Barons, By Bulwer Lytton

.. vspace:: 1

\22 Harold, By Bulwer Lytton

.. vspace:: 1

\23 The Holy War, By John Bunyan

.. vspace:: 1

\24 The Heroes, By Charles Kingsley

.. vspace:: 1

\25 The Beachcombers, By Gilbert Bishop

.. vspace:: 2

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   WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED.

.. vspace:: 6

.. pgfooter::