Charlotte M. Yonge

“ If even mother is not superior to the old prejudice, who will be? And it is very hard on a fellow; for three parts of my time is taken up by this eternal cramming—I should have no heart for it but for her—and I can’t be going over to Sirenwood as I used to go to Rockpier, while my mother vexes herself about it, in her state. If she were up and about I should not mind, or she would know better; but what can they—Lenore, I mean—think of me, but that I am as bad as the rest? ”

“ I fancy he feels their mother’s neglect of them.”
“I’m sure I gave her credit for having none,” said Rosamond.
“Ah!” said Jenny, “you should have heard her condolences with my sister Mary on her last infliction. Fancy Mary’s face!”
“No doubt it was to stem a torrent of nursery discussions,” said Cecil. “Such bad taste!”
“Which?” murmured Rosamond under her breath, with an arched eyebrow.
“Plain enough,” said Frank: “if a woman is a woman, the bad taste is to be ashamed of it.”
“Yes,” said Cecil, “that is the way with men; they would fain keep us down to the level of the nursery.” ”

“ She left them to their dewy walk in the Rectory garden to the last minute at which breakfast could be swallowed, and told Jenny that she was to drive him in the pony-carriage to Hazlett’s Gate; she would take care of Herbert.
“You ought to be asleep, you know,” said Jenny.
“My dear, I couldn’t sleep! There’s a great deal better than sleep! Is not Herbert going to get well? and aren’t you jolly again and Archie back again? Sleep!—why I want to have wings and clap them—and more than all, is not Mr. Charnock off and away to-morrow? Sleep indeed!—I should like to see myself so stupid.” ”

“ It was my wife who saw you in the churchyard, and sent me after you. She is watching for you.”
Archie, still bewildered, as if spell-bound by his ticket, muttered, “I thought I should have time to walk over and look at Strawyers.”
“Joanna is here.”
“Julius! It is too much. You are sure I am awake? This is not the old dream!” cried the exile, grasping his cousin’s arm quite gainfully.
“I am a waking man, and I trust you are,” said Julius. “Come into the light. No, that is not Jenny on the step. It is my Rose. Yes, here he is!” ”

“ Easterby said, “After all, charity is the true self-acting balance to many a sweet untaught nature. Self-denials which spring out of love are a great safeguard, because they are almost sure to be both humble and unconscious.”
And Julius went away cheered as he thought of his Rosamond’s wells of unselfish affection, confident that all the cravings for variety and excitement, which early habit had rendered second nature, would be absorbed by the deeper and keener feelings within, and that these would mount higher as time went on, under life’s great training. ”

“ She was going to an evening party, and though usually passive as to dress, she was so changeable and difficult to satisfy that Grindstone grew cross, and showed it by stern, rigid obedience. And Cecil well knew that Grindstone; who was in authority in the present house, hated the return to be merely the visitor of Alston and Jenkins.
In the drawing-room Cecil fluttered from book to window, window to piano again, throwing down her occupation at every sound and taking up another; and when at last Raymond came in, his presence at first made her musings seem mere fancies. ”

“ Tom was a more ordinary youth, even more lazy and quiet in the house, though out of it he amazed Frank and Charlie by his dash, fire, and daring, and witched all the stable-world with noble horsemanship. Hunting was prevented, however, by a frost, which filled every one with excitement as to the practicability of skating.
The most available water was a lake between Sirenwood and Compton; and here, like eagles to the slaughter, gathered, by a sort of instinct, the entire skating population of the neighbourhood on the first day that the ice was hard enough. ”

“ Poynsett.
“I don’t,” said Frank, boyishly.
“Because you’ve no wife to take you in hand,” retorted Jenny.
“For my part,” said Mrs. Poynsett, “I can’t see what women want. I have always had as many rights as I could exercise.”
“Ah! but we are not all ladies of the manor,” said Jenny, “nor do we all drive coaches.”
“I observe,” said Cecil, with dignity, “that there is supposed to be a license to laugh at Mrs. Duncombe and whatever she does.”
“She would do better to mind her children,” said Frank.
“Children! Has she children?” broke in Anne and Rosamond, both at once. ”

“ Within, I mean?”
“Jenny, you know better!”
“Then, Lenore, if so, and it is only your sister who objects, not your father himself, ought you to torment poor Frank by acting indifference when you do not feel it?”
“Am I untrue? I never thought of that. I thought I should be sacrificing myself for his good!”
“His good? O, Lenore, I believe it is the worst wrong a woman can do a man, to let him think he has wasted his heart upon her, and that she is trifling with him. You don’t know what a bad effect this is having, even on his prospects. ”

“ Cecil had never been in the house before, having only left her card, though she had often met the sisters. She found herself in a carpeted hall, like a supplementary sitting-room, where two gentlemen had been leaning over the wide hearth. One, a handsome benignant-looking old man, with a ruddy face and abundant white whiskers, came forward with a hearty greeting. “Ah! young Mrs. Poynsett! Delighted to see you!—Frank Charnock, you’re come in good time; we are just going down to see the puppies before luncheon. ”

“ Poynsett a beautiful bouquet, for the elderly spinsters, she said, sat on the stairs and kept up a constant supply; and she had also some exquisite Genoese wire ornaments from Cecil’s counter, and a set of studs from a tray of polished pebbles sent up from Vivian’s favourite lapidary at Rockpier. She had been amused to find the Miss Strangeways hunting over it to match that very simple-looking charm which Lena wore on to her watch, for, as she said, “the attraction must either be the simplicity of it, or the general Lena-worship in which those girls indulge.” ”

“ Halloo, Mungo! Rats, rats, rats!”
A prodigious scratching and snorting was audible in what had been a cellar of the quondam Rectory; and Rollo, becoming excited, dashed up to the scene of action, with a deep bass war-cry, while, to Rosamond’s great amusement, “rats” was no less a peal to Rector and senior; and for the next quarter of an hour the three clergymen moved bricks, poked with their sticks, and cheered on the chase till the church clock struck one, the masons began to return from dinner, and the sounds of the bell at the Hall recalled the party to order. ”

“ It required a lively imagination to devise situations for the stalls; but Mrs. Duncombe valiantly tripped about, instructing her attendant carpenter with little assistance except from the well-experienced Miss Strangeways. The other ladies had enough to do in keeping their plumage unsoiled. Lady Tyrrell kept on a little peninsula of encaustic tile, Cecil hopped across bird-like and unsoiled, Miss Slater held her carmelite high and dry, but poor Miss Fuller’s pale blue and drab, trailing at every step, became constantly more blended! ”

“ He was right; Mrs. Poynsett was touched by finding that Cecil clung to them rather than to her sublime family, and especially by the design as to little Raymond, though she said that must never be mentioned; nothing must bind so young a creature as Cecil, who really did not know what love was at all.
“She is afraid the sight of her is distressing to you,” said Rosamond.
“Poor child, why should she?” said Mrs. Poynsett. “She was the victim of an unsuccessful experiment of my dear boy’s, and the unsuspecting instrument of poor Camilla’s vengeance. That is all I see in her.” ”

“ Miles’s geniality made all at ease that came near him, and Anne, though never a conversational person, was a quietly kind hostess, much beloved by all who had experienced her gentleness, and she had Frank and Lena to give distinction in their different ways to her London parties, as at Compton, Rosamond never failed to give everything a charm where she assisted in planning or receiving.
Rosamond would never cease to love society. Even had she been a grandmother she would have fired at the notion of a party, enjoy, and render it enjoyable ”

“ The cost must have been enormous, and her delicate and spirituelle beauty was shown to the greatest advantage; but as the audience was far too scanty to be worth beginning upon, Cecil, with a sigh at the folly of maternal idolatry, went to hunt up her ladies from gazing at the babyish amusements of their offspring; and Miss Moy, in spite of her remonstrance, jumped up to follow her; while Mrs. Duncombe, the only good mother in this new sense, remained, keeping guard lest curiosity, and the echo of piano music, which now began to be heard, should attract away any more of the ladies. ”

“ Frank offered to ride home, and send the carriage for Cecil; but the Duncombes proposed to take her and drop her at home; and to this she consented, rather to Frank’s dismay, as he thought of their coach appearing at his mother’s door.
Lady Tyrrell took her up to resume her hat; and on the way, moved by distaste to her double surname, and drawn on by a fresh access of intimacy, she begged to be called Cecil—a privilege of which she had been chary even in her maiden days; but the caressing manner had won her heart, and spirit of opposition to the discouragement at home did the rest. ”

“ Raymond’s eager question was what Rosamond had done with her charge.
“Left her at the Infirmary;—but, oh! you’ve not seen baby?”
“Seen—seen what! your baby?” asked Raymond, as if he thought Rosamond’s senses astray, while his bachelor friend was ready to laugh at a young mother’s alarms, all the more when Julius answered, “It is too true; the baby and her nurse have not been seen here since ten o’clock; and we are seriously afraid the girl may have been beguiled to those races. ”