Charlotte M. Yonge

“ Lady Merrifield laughed. “Four years may do a good deal at that time of life,” she said. “I suppose no time ever so changes—changes—what shall I say?—eyes—views—characters. Only constancy in absence is the dangerous thing. There are distinguished examples of—of the mischief of being constant without knowing what one is constant to. Virulent constancy, as Mrs. Malaprop has it.”
Magdalen thanked and smiled. Perhaps there was a certain virulent constancy in a remote corner of her heart which had been revived by a certain indescribable look in the eyes and contour of Bessie Merrifield. ”

“ I wish he could have seen more of David.”
“Did your mother hear of this ray of hope?”
“Susan thought it best not to tell her. We used to hear her murmuring his name among all ours in her prayers, Susie, Sam, Hal, Bessie, and so on; but she never was herself enough to understand, and they thought it might only stir her up to expect to see him. Oh, Aunt Lily, I don’t think you—any of you—would have gone on so; but you are all much more affectionate and demonstrative than our branch of the family.” ”

“ She was now nineteen, and her desire to devote herself to a Sisterhood had never wavered, and intercourse with Sister Angela had only strengthened it.
“Oh, Maidie!” she said, “I do not think there can be any life so good or so happy as being really given up to our Lord and His work among the sick and poor.”
“My dear, He can be served if you are in the world, provided you are not of the world, and if you keep yourself from the evil.”
“Yes; but why should I run into the world? It is not evil, I know, so far as you and all your friends can manage; but it stirs up the evil in one’s self.” ”

“ It had made her more womanly, or at least less childish; and the intercourse with Hubert Delrio became an increasing delight to her sisters, who had never known anything so like a brother.
He was at first shy and not at ease with Magdalen, who, on her side, perceived the lack of public school and university training; but in grain he was so completely a good man, a churchman, and a gentleman, and had so much right sense as well as talent, that she liked him thoroughly and began to rely on him, as a woman with unaccustomed property is glad to do with a male relation. ”

“ Alexis’s achievements with the croquet ball, or his information about the Red Indians and Onomootka, she was equally ungracious to all; she scolded Thekla for crumpling her skirt, and was quite sure that Paula had on the wrong fichu that was meant for her. Each bridesmaid had been presented with a bracelet, like a snake with ruby eyes; but Vera, fingering hers with fidgeting petulance, seemed to have managed to loosen the clasp, and when arranging her dress for the evening thought that her snake had escaped. ”

“ Nor did she like the atmosphere of the Whites and Rocca Marina for her feather-brained young sister. “Dolores had no great opinion of her Aunt Adeline,” she said.
“My dear,” said Magdalen, as they sat over their early fire, “I have talked it over with Lady Merrifield and Miss Mohun, and they both tell me that Mrs. White is very sensible, and sure to be discreet for any girl in her charge—probably better for Flapsy than a more intellectual woman.”
“But—! Such a marriage as this one!” said Agatha.
“It was Mr. White’s own niece, and taken out of Mrs. White’s hands,” said Magdalen. ”

“ Cherry was so delighted at our coming to live here. She loved the old struggling days.”
“Fulbert said he never felt as if he had been at home till he came here. He never took to Vale Leston.”
“Clement and Cherry have settled in very happily,” said Robina, “with convalescent clergy in the Vicarage.”
“I say, Angel, let us have a run over there,” cried Bernard, “you and I together, for a bit of mischief.”
“Do, do let us! Though this is real home, our first waking to perception and naughtiness, it is more than Vale Leston. We seem to have been up in a balloon all those five happy years.” ”

“ Those dear Sisters! There is no nonsense about them. You will love them, Nag.”
“Well, it does not seem to me to be treating our own sister Magdalen fairly.”
“The M.A.!” said Vera, in a tone of wonder.
“No; not to be intimate with a person you do not introduce to her, because you do not think she would consider him as on equal terms.”
“Sister Beata quite approves,” added Paula, sincerely, not guessing how little Sister Beata knew of the situation, of which she only heard through the medium of her own representations to Sister Mena. ”

“ It did much, as Agatha had said, to make the new scheme of Penbeacon acceptable though.
“That comes of making one’s nest,” she sighed, “and thinking one’s self secure in it for life! Oh! it is worse and more changeable in this latter century than in any other! Does the world go round faster?”
“Of course it does,” said Geraldine. “Think how many fashions, how many styles, how many ways of thinking, have passed away, even in our own time.” ”

“ They found the housemaid in possession of the bedrooms, so that the unpacking plans could not conveniently be begun; and while Agatha was struggling with the straps of a book box, Thekla burst in upon them.
“Oh, Nag, Nag, there is the loveliest angel of a bicycle in the stable, and a dear little pony besides! ‘New tyre wheels,’ he says.”
“A bicycle! Well, if she has got it for us, she is an angel indeed,” said Vera.
“It is a big one,” said Thekla, “but the pony is a dear little thing; Pixy is his name, and I can ride him! Do come, Flapsy, and see! Earwaker will show you. ”

“ All three laughed, and Vera added, “All the girls say she can’t be less than fifty.”
“Topsy! You know she is only sixteen years older than I am.”
“Well, that’s half a hundred!”
“Sixteen and nineteen, what do they make?”
“Oh, never mind your sums. She has got the face and look of half a hundred!”
“Now, I thought her face and her dress like a girl’s,” said Paulina.
“Yes,” said Vera, “that’s just the way with old maids. They dress themselves up youthfully and affect girlish airs, and are all the more horrid.”
“That’s your experience!” said Agatha. ”

“ Agatha tried to believe it, for the sake of hushing the exhausted Paula, who almost went into hysterics, as she laughed at the notion of to-morrow’s telegram that Vera was safe at Filsted; and then allowed herself to be calmed enough to sleep, while Agatha revolved the notion, but found herself unable seriously to believe, that sufficient grievance could be brought against sister to induce any man in his senses to take such a step. ”

“ She was not at all desirous of falling back from Dolores, whose grave steadiness and fortitude, the result of a truly brave and deep trust, had given her a sense of confidence and protection. So they wrote, and arranged for their passage, and, with Magdalen, spent the intermediate time in needful preparations at Belfast, and in an expedition to the Causeway, where they laid in a stock of notes and observations, all in a spirit that made Magdalen feel that she knew both in a manner she had never done before, and loved them with a deep value and confidence. ”

“ Altruism will not stand without a foundation,” said Dolores.
“Mysie has been impressing on me, with what she heard from Phyllis Devereux, of the work Sister Angela has been doing at Albertstown—the most utter self-abnegation, through bitter disappointment in her most promising pupils—only the charity that is rooted could endure. It is just the old difference Tennyson points out between Wisdom and Knowledge.”
“And with wisdom come those feminine attributes that Agatha began asking about.” ”

“ I rather suspected,” said Agatha.
“I should think the best thing for Sister Mena would be to go to a good school, leave off her veil, in which she looks so pretty, and be treated like an ordinary girl,” said Lady Merrifield.
“That is just what Sister Beata intends,” said Miss Mohun. “She is to sink down into Miss Marian Jenkins, to wear a straw hat and blue frock, and go to school with the other girls, the pupils, while Sister Beata begins life as a probationer at Dearport.”
“Poor Sister Beata!”
“She says she has experienced that it is best to learn to obey before one begins to rule. ”

“ You had better go and find Paula.”
“Only, sister, please do understand that I care for Hubert with all my heart,” said Vera, much less childishly than Magdalen had expected.
However, she went, while Magdalen succeeded in saying what she had intended—that Hubert must not consider himself in the smallest degree bound by what had been accident, entirely unintentional and innocent.
“You are generous, Miss Prescott. You understand! But the world! It was public.”
“Never mind the world. You see what sensible people think.” ”

“ So breakfast went off merrily; and after the round of the garden and the pets, Agatha promised to come, when summoned, to hear how well Thekla could read French. In the meantime she waited in the morning-room, looking at her sisters’ books; Vera pushed aside the Venetian blind.
“Don’t come in that way, Flapsy!” called Paula. “You’ll be heard in the dining-room, and the M.A. will tremble at your dusty feet.”
“They aren’t dusty,” said Vera, pulling up the blind with a clatter. ”

“ Bessie declared herself delighted with the chance of seeing Lady Ivinghoe, whom she considered more to realise the beauty of women than any one she had hitherto beheld, and the fair face had not lost its simplicity, but rather gained in loveliness by the sweetness of early motherhood, as she and Phyllis sat by Mysie, regaling her with tales of what they regarded as the remarkable precocity of the infant Claude, reluctantly left to his grandmother. ”

“ And certainly I never saw any one more taking than Sister Angela. She is so full of life, and of a certain unexpectedness, and one knows she has done such noble work. I want to see more of her.”
“You will,” said Mysie. “Mamma is going to ask her to come, for Phyllis says there is no one that Bernard cares for so much. She was his own companion sister.”
“Magdalen might have the little cornstalk,” said Valetta.
“Well,” said Mysie, “it is rather funny to have two—what shall I say?—willow widows, and a child that is neither of theirs! How will they settle it?” ”

“ Every one at Filston of my age is leaving off all the bother.”
“Not Agatha.”
“Oh, but Agatha is—!”
“Is what?
“Agatha is awfully clever, and wants to be something!”
“Something? But do you want to evaporate? To be nothing at all, I mean,” said Magdalen, seeing her first word was bewildering, and Thekla put in—
“Flapsy couldn’t go off in steam, could she? Isn’t that evaporating?”
“I think what she wants is to be a young lady at large! Eh, Vera? Only I don’t quite see how that is to be managed, even if it is quite a worthy ambition. But we will talk that over another time. ”

“ Now, however, still holding his sister’s hand, he drifted into all the particulars of the little ways, the baby language, the dawning understanding, and the very sudden sharp illness carrying the beautiful boy away almost before they were aware of danger; and he took out the photograph from his breast, and showed her the little face, so recalling old fond remembrances. “Forbear to cry, make no mourning for the dead,” he repeated. “Yes, the boy is saved the wear and tear and heat and burthen of the day, but it is very hard to be thankful.” ”

“ Poor M.A., when the encouragement had only been some general merriment, and a few games on the lawn Paulina, who had heard many confidences when Vera returned from Waring Grange, believed altogether in the true love of the damsel and Hubert Delrio, who had been wont to single out the prettiest of the girls at Filstead, and she was resolved to do all she could in their cause, being schoolgirl enough to have no scruple as to secrecy towards Magdalen, though on the next opportunity she poured out all to Sister Philomena’s by no means unwilling ears. ”

“ You see, Bear, how can a man be always dawdling about with a lot of girls? There’s Dolores bothering with her science, and Fergus every bit as bad; and Mysie after her disgusting schoolchildren; and Val and Prim horrid little empty chatterboxes; and if one does turn to a jolly girl for a bit of fun, their tongues all go to work, so that you would think the skies were going to fall; and if one goes in for a bit of a spree, down comes the General like a sledge-hammer! ”