Ethel Turner

“ There were helpless young sisters and brothers in her family, and an invalid mother; the father dying suddenly, left nothing but the big house to them, where they had lived so long. Miss Mayne opened a boarding-school in it.
"Soon, soon," she said desperately to her eager lover from the seas. There were all sorts of things, she told herself, in the pleasant Bag of Hope that hangs suspended above the world; someone would leave them a legacy, the boys would get on, the next sister Marie would take her place. ”

“ The school was pairing for its daily walk with the governess.
"There wouldn't be any of that if Jessop were steering here," said the Captain, "or that, or that," and he indicated a couple of round-shouldered, pasty-faced girls. He was standing with his wife at the window of her private sitting-room, and watching the procession fall into order.
"There's only one girl in the lot who looks what I'd call 'fit,’" he continued. "There, that bright-looking little thing in blue can't stand still a moment. Look at her! There! the old hen's after her. Ah! going to make her walk all by herself. ”

“ He almost forgot the pale girl who had given him back the ring that still lay in his desk, but no other woman appealed to him strongly enough for marriage, and he led a jovial, pleasant enough life, ploughing the great oceans, familiar with every continent, finding friendliness in every aspect of the stars. ”

“ Black," said the wily little party, who knew how to get her own way, "it is only because people are not accustomed to seeing girls have fun yet. If those ladies had been passing the Grammar School and seen two boys doing it, they simply wouldn't have glanced at them twice," and Mrs. Black, grown quite thin and harassed-looking in this little time, felt compelled to send her away with only the mildest reproof.
Cricket was not a brilliant success yet. The Captain himself marked out the ground, put in the stumps, and established himself as umpire. ”

“ Edna, for instance—left to herself, or managed as Mr. Jessop would have managed her, she would be another bright, fresh woman like Mrs. Greville, next door. And here am I trying all I know to make her—like myself."
"Mrs. Greville!" said the Captain, who had his own old-fashioned ideas about women. "I don't like those loud, advanced young women myself. You won't go far wrong if you make the little beggar like yourself, my dear. But I'd let her off her lines sometimes, perhaps."
The patches on his wife's cheeks burned more deeply. ”

“ Coming straight from the salt freshness and sunshine of his healthy life, the still greyness of hers filled all his nature with remorse and a rush of compassion. The mother was long since dead, the family was scattered, but the quiet, old-fashioned school still went on, the quiet, old-fashioned mistress still at the head. ”

“ Jessop intended to ever have his daughter (when he had one) taught to sew? What new form of cricket for girls was it that Mr. Jessop had invented?"
"Oh, hang Jessop!" said the Captain, at last, in strong irritation. He found himself wishing heartily he had checked his first mate's theories and experiments, and made him give the whole of his time to seamanship.
Two or three of the elder girls about this time had asked to be removed from the school. Mrs. Black saw them go, quite unmoved. "It is too late for these elder ones," she said; "their bones are too set. ”

“ She had actually begun to say, from sheer force of habit: "Bring me fifty lines for being unladylike, Edna Royd," and then had been obliged to cough the sentence aside.
"Sit down in your seat, Edna," was all she said; but the imp seized her rule and was up again in a second like a jack-in-the-box.
"Why—why," she almost shrieked, "boys play cricket! We'll have to get a bat and ball!" ”

“ The Captain swept the light drawing-room chairs aside and entered, and the blockade was over.
But Mrs. Black's courage for Mr. Jessop's experiment never rose again. She was quite passive; when her husband next day sent all the girls to pack their boxes, and set Miss Hargraves to write notes to all the parents, she offered no resistance.
Edna wept bitterly at going; she promised anything, anything, if only she need not leave. "I'll stop being a boy, I'll be the properest, quietest girl in the world if you'll only keep me," she said with streaming eyes. ”

“ Minnie handed up a stack of smudged slates to her, and Mrs. Black's quick pencil ticked off the number and found it correct.
"Yours, Edna?" she said coldly.
"I haven't finished," said Edna. "Mine took twice as long to do as Minnie's."
Mrs. Black looked at the slate. "Smoking is an abomination for silly girls, but all nice, jolly boys do it," the imp had written, unsparing of trouble.
"Edna, Edna!" said the headmistress, "what shall I do with you? There is no punishment left."
"Trounce me," said Edna cheerfully. "Go on, Mrs. Black. Treacle always gets trounced. ”

“ Black saw that her experiment would have its difficulties, and resolved to find out Mr. Jessop's theories in this respect.
"Look here, girls," she said—and that of itself was a concession; a month ago she would have said "Attention, young ladies!"—"you must all use your good sense, and do everything in moderation. I told you I was going to let you act as if you were boys; I see I must modify that and say more as if you were boys. I want you all to become hardy and fearless and self-dependent—that is the chief thing. I shall no longer set Edna fifty lines if I see her up a tree or on a fence ”

“ No, no, it is all wrong—a woman when she is my age should either be a happy, busy wife and mother, or else a bright, happy woman of business, just as a single man would be. Not a repressed, half-trained, nervous, dependent woman like I am. ”

“ The girls here were all young, and more of them followed her lead blindly; they listened with the fascination of horror to her wild scheme.
"But there's Hannah in the house, and old John, and Miss Hargraves," said one; "and I'm certain Nellie Green and Florrie Edwards and Inez Flavelle wouldn't join."
"So much the worse for them," said the small rebel darkly. "When we are mistresses of the position, we will remember it and show them no mercy. But, for the present, we must render them ineffectual. ”

“ Thoughts of all the other rebellious girls she had had in her care from year to year crowded upon the distressed lady—what bright, original women they might have made, she said to herself, if she had only let them alone, instead of forcing them into machinery that turned out only one pattern! ”

“ Her face looked grey, deeply sorrowful; it was being forced upon her that her cherished experiment was failing. And yet, and yet——
"There isn’t another course open to you," the Captain said. "Be a sensible woman; send the girl home quietly to-morrow, or else do as I have so long asked you—give up the school entirely."
"No," she said quickly, "not that—not that; we must think of Janet and little Marie." Then she sighed profoundly to think it was not to he hers to make another Mrs. Greville of naughty Edna. ”

“ You will write the imposition just as I set it five hundred times, and add to it: 'I must not be impertinent,' five hundred times. You will bring me both impositions next Thursday. Of course, you must stay in both half-holidays and write them. ”

“ Edna mingled her tears with Minnie's as she was hustled up through the garden.
"Y-y-you know q-quite well all b-b-boys learn to s-s-smoke, Mrs. Black," was her tearful reproach when brought before the head-mistress. "My b-brother T-Treacle did when he was only t-t-ten. I am turned twelve, and Minnie's thirteen; it was quite t-time we b-began."
"Even your brother wouldn't have touched a villainous pipe," said the still irascible Captain. "Boys have the sense to try on cigarettes."
Edna looked at him reproachfully through her sickly tears. "You never smoke them," she sobbed ”