Charlotte M. Yonge

“ After all no harm would have been done if—Harry and Gillian being both off guard—Valetta had not exclaimed most unreasonably in her disappointment—
‘I knew the fun would be spoilt the instant Dolores came in for it.’
‘Yes, Mr. Murderer, you squashed my little finger and all but smothered me,’ cried Fergus, throwing himself on Dolores and dropping her down.
‘Don’t! don’t! you know you mustn’t,’ screamed valiant Mysie, flying to the rescue.
‘Murderers! Murderers must be done for,’ shouted Wilfred, falling upon Mysie. ”

“ Oh, dear! it is enough to make anybody cross and stupid. Oh, I am so glad to be back again.’
‘I’m sure I am glad you are,’ and there was a little kissing match. ‘You’ll always come to my room, won’t you? Do you know, when Constance came to luncheon, I only shook hands, I wouldn’t try to kiss her. Was that unforgiving?’
‘I am sure I couldn’t,’ said Mysie; ‘did she try?’
‘I don’t think so; I don’t think I ever could kiss her; for I never should have said what was not true without her, and that is what makes Uncle Reginald so angry still. He would not kiss me even when he went away. ”

“ Isn’t that making too much of such things as girls like us can do.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Mysie, knitting her young brows; ‘you see if we are as bad as ever we can be while we are at home, it is really and truly as bad in us ourselves as in shocking people that run away, because it shows we might have done anything if we had not been taken care of. And the poor son felt as if he could not be pardoned, which is just what you do feel.’
‘Aunt Lily forgives me,’ said Dolores, wistfully. ”

“ Dolores did not feel drawn to confession, but she knew that when Aunt Jane once set herself to ask questions, there was no use in trying to conceal anything. So she made answers, chiefly ‘Yes’ or No,’ and her aunt, by severe and diligent pumping, had extracted bit by bit what it was most essential should be known, before the gong summoned them. Dolores would rather have been a solitary prisoner, able to chafe against oppression, than have been obliged to come down and confront everybody; but she crept into the place left for her between Mysie and Wilfred. ”

“ Dolores had hoped to confide her alarms to Constance’s sympathetic ear, but her friend, who had written and dreamt of many a magnificently titled scion of the peerage, but had never before seen one in her own house, had not a minute to spare for her, being far too much engrossed in observing the habits of the animal. These certainly were peculiar, since she insisted on a waltz round the room with the tabby cat, and ascended a step-ladder, merrily spurning Jasper’s protection, to insert the circle of tapers on the crowning chandelier. ”

“ Meantime Mysie had forgotten how time flew in her belief that in one minute more the young doves would want to be fed, and then in amusement at seeing them pursue their parents with low squeaks and flutterings, watching, too, the airs and graces, bowing, cooing, and laughing of the old ones. When at last she was startled by hearing eleven struck, there had to be a great hunt for Dolores in the drawing-room and garden, and when at last Miss Hacket’s calls for her sister brought the tow downstairs more than ten minutes had passed! ”

“ Gillian and Mysie were much impressed by the intelligence of their cousin’s illness when they came to their mother’s room on the way to breakfast, and Mysie turned to her sister, saying, ‘There Gill, you see she did care, though she didn’t cry like us. Being ill is more than crying.’
‘Well,’ said Gillian, ‘it is a good deal more than such things as you and Val cry for, Mysie.’
‘It was a trial such as you don’t understand, my dears,’ said Lady Merrifield. ”

“ But if any mischief does happen, or accident, I promise you, Dolly, you shall have the telling of it, if you have had ever so little to do with it, and then mamma will write to Uncle Regie that you have proved yourself truthful.’
Dolores did not seem much consoled by this curious promise, and Mysie’s childishness suddenly gave way to something deeper. ‘I suppose,’ she said, ‘if one is true, people find it out and trust one.’
‘People can’t see into one,’ said Dolly.
‘Mamma says there is a bright side and a dark side from which to look at everybody and everything,’ said Mysie. ”

“ New Year’s night was always held to be one of especial merriment, but Lady Merrifield was so much tired out by her expedition that she hardly felt equal to presiding over any sports, and proposed that instead the young folk should dance. Gillian and Hal took turns to play for them, and Uncle Reginald and Fly were in equal request as partners. It was Mysie who came to draw Dolores out of her corner, and begged her to be her partner—‘If you wouldn’t very much rather not,’ she said, in a pleading, wistful, voice. ”

“ But Fly had been courted enough by all the cousinhood to have become exacting and displeased at having any rival to the honour of her hand—so she pouted and said, ‘I don’t care about it, if you have her. I shall sit between Val and Jasper.’
One must be thirteen, with a dash of the sentiment of a budding friendship, to enter into all that ‘sitting by’ involves; and in Mysie’s case, here was her compassionate promise standing not only between her and the avowed preference of one so charming as Fly, but possibly depriving her of the chances of the wonders of the Butterfly’s Ball. ”

“ Jasper whistled.
‘Aunt Ada said,’ added Gillian, ‘that if she got too tiresome, mamma had Uncle Maurice’s leave to send her to school.’
‘That would be no good to me,’ said Jasper, ‘for she would still be here in the holidays.’
‘Has she been getting worse?’ asked Harry.
‘No, I don’t know that she has,’ said Gillian, ‘except that she runs after that Constance more than ever. But, I say, Jasper, mamma says she is particularly anxious that there should be no teasing of her; and you can hinder Wilfred better than anybody can. ”

“ Indeed, the aunt came to the conclusion that though Dolores alone might still have been sullen, morose and disagreeable, perhaps very reserved, she never would have kept up the systematic deceit but for Constance. The errors, regarded as sin, weighed on Lady Merrifield’s mind, but she judged it wiser not to press that thought on an unprepared spirit, trusting that just as Dolores had wakened to the sense of the human love that surrounded her, hitherto disbelieved and disregarded, so she might yet awake to the feeling of the Divine love and her offence against it. ”

“ For Rotherwood’s sake, dear old fellow. Yes, I should.’
‘Ah, well! You are a bit of a grande dame yourself. Ada enjoys it, too, or I don’t think I ever should go there.’
‘Surely Victoria behaves well to you?’
‘Far be it from me to say she is not exemplary in her perfect civility to all her husband’s relations. Ada thinks her charming; but oh. Lily, you’ve never found out what it is to be a little person in a great person’s house, and to feel one’s self scrupulously made one of the family, because her husband is so much attached to all of them. ”

“ Val!’
‘You must wait for them, Japs,’ said Gillian. ‘They are having their dresses changed; and, don’t you remember, I always go to Miss Hacket’s.’
‘Botheration! What for?’
‘You know very well.’
‘Oh yes. To help her to write touching verses about the sweet dead dove, with voice and plumage soft as love, eh? Only, Gill, I’m afraid your memory is failing, if you don’t know the evening gun from rifle practice.’
‘Nonsense! that’s no concern of mine,’ said Gillian, opening the front door, very anxious to get Dolores away from hearing anything worse. ”

“ What’s the matter? who is ill?’
‘Oh, please come, mamma, Dolly is choking and crying in such a dreadful way, and I can’t stop her.’
‘I give up, Lily. This is mother-work,’ said Miss Mohun.
Hurrying upstairs, Lady Merrifield found very distressing sounds issuing from Dolores’s room; sobs, not loud, but almost strangled into a perfect agony of choking down by the resolute instinct, for it was scarcely will.
‘My dear, my dear, don’t stop it!’ she exclaimed, lifting up the girl in her arms. ‘Let it out; cry freely; never mind. She will be better soon, Mysie dear. ”

“ And then suddenly looking up, ‘Oh, Aunt Lily! everybody is angry but you—you and Mysie! Please go on being kind! I believe you’ve been good to me always.’
‘My dear, I’ve tried,’ said Lady Merrifield, with fears in her brown eyes and a choke in her voice caressing the hand that had been put into hers. ‘I have wished very much to make you happy with us; but the ways of a large family must be a trial to a new-comer.’
Dolores raised her face for a kiss, and said, ‘I see it now. ”

“ But what I complain of, Jane, in the young folk that come across me is not over-knowledge, but want of knowledge—want of general culture. This Dolores, for instance, can do what she has been taught better than Mysie, some tings better than Gillian, but she has absolutely no interest in general knowledge, not even in the glaciers which she has seen; she does not know whether Homer wrote in Greek or Latin, considers “Marmion” a lesson, cannot tell a planet from a star, and neither knows nor cares anything about the two Napoleons. ”

“ Now, Wilfred and Valetta, remember that is not right to force a person into play against her will. And as to the shooting near, but not at her, you both know perfectly well that it is forbidden. So give me your bow, Wilfred. I shall keep it for a week, that you may remember obedience.’
Wilfred looked sullen, but obeyed. Dolores could not call her aunt unjust, but as she look round, she met glances that made her think it prudent to shelter herself among the elders. Aunt Jane asked what the game was.
‘The Thorn Fortress,’ said Gillian. ”

“ I have been trying to remember Dolores on that dreadful Sunday at the hotel, when Uncle Maurice came to see us, just when papa was setting off for Bombay, but it all seems confusion. I can think of nothing but a little black, shy figure. I remember Phyllis telling me that she thought I ought to do something to entertain her, but I could not think of a word to say to her.’
‘For which perhaps she was thankful,’ said her brother.
‘I am not sure. You are all too apt, when you are shy, to console yourself with fancying that you are doing as you would be done by. ”

“ Maurice Mohun is such a clever man, and that you saw a great deal of his friends.’
‘I used,’ said Dolores, thinking of those days of her mother when she was the pet and plaything of the guests, incited to say clever and pert things, which then were passed round and embellished till she neither knew them nor comprehended them.
‘That is what I pine for!’ exclaimed Miss Constance. ‘Nobody here has any ideas. You can’t conceive how borne and prejudiced every one her who is used to something better! ”

“ The departure of the boys was a great relief to Dolores. Her aunt did not rank her with Valetta and Fergus, but let her consort with herself and Gillian, and this suited her much better. Even Gillian allowed that she was ever so much nicer when there was no one to tease her. It was true that Jasper certainly, and perhaps Wilfred, would not have molested her if she had not offended the latter, and offered herself as fair game; but Gillian, who had to forestall and prevent their pranks, could not feel their absence quite the privation her sisterly spirit usually did! ”

“ This year’s series began with a little chestnut curl of Primrose’s hair, fastened down on a card by Gillian, and rose to a beautiful drawing of a blue Indian Lotus lily, with a gorgeous dragon-fly on it, sent by Alethea. The Indian party had sent a card for every one—the girls, beautiful drawings of birds, insects, and scenery; the brother, a bundle of rice-paper figured with costumes, and papa, some clever pen-and-ink outlines of odd figures, which his daughters beguiled from him in his leisure moments! ”