Frances E. Crompton

“ But Freda Kingley flew past the rosebeds without stopping or letting Helena stop, and, excited by her example, the three boys and Maggie came rushing after them, till the run almost grew into a race, so that when at last the very active young lady condescended to pull up to take breath, Helena was redder and hotter than she had ever been before in her life. ”

“ But Helena was not happy in her mind about little Leigh.
"It's so damp and chilly in here under the bridge," she said to Freda. "He's sure to catch cold unless he gets a run in the sunshine."
"He must be awfully delicate then," said Hugh, with some contempt in his voice. "You should see the wettings we get—even Maggie, and she's a girl."
At this Leigh grew very red, and Helena found he was going to burst out crying, which would not have been a very good way of showing he was a man, I consider. ”

“ Helena stared, which made Freda laugh still more, Hugh joining her.
"I don't understand what you mean," said the little girl at last, when she could speak.
"Oh, it's nothing you need mind," said Hugh good-naturedly. "It only means you're not up to much running—you've not been training yourself for it. Freda was nearly as bad once, before I went to school; she didn't understand, you see. But the first holidays I took her in hand, and she's not bad now—not for a girl. ”

“ Do not give in for fear of vexing them; they will like you all the better in the end if they see you try to be as good and obedient out of sight, as when your Father and I are with you. Do you understand, dears?"
"Yes," said Helena, "of course we won't do anything naughty, Mamma," though in her heart she thought that "running wild" sounded rather nice.
"And you, boys?" added their Mother, "do you understand, too?"
"Yes, Mamma," they said, Willie adding, "If you're not there or Nurse, we'll do whatever Nelly says."
"That's right," said Mrs. Frere. ”

“ Freda Kingley had had a lesson too, I am glad to say.
That very afternoon she and Hugh walked over to Halling Park, to "find out" if Leigh was all right.
And this gave Mrs. Frere a good opportunity of showing the kind-hearted but thoughtless children the risk they had run of getting themselves and their little friends into real trouble—above all, by concealing their foolish play, and causing Nelly and her little brothers for the first time in their lives to act at all deceitfully.
"You will be afraid to let them play with us any more," said Freda very sadly, "and I'm sure I don't wonder." ”

“ It's much worse for me than for Willie and Leigh, for they've got each other," which was certainly true.
Still, she was not at all an unhappy little girl, though she was very sorry for herself sometimes, and did not always quite agree with her Mother when she told her that it was better to have no companions than any whom she could not thoroughly like.
"I don't know that, Mamma," Helena would reply. "It would be nice to have other little girls to play with, even if they weren't quite perfection." ”

“ And tell him that it makes me so much happier to think that you won't be alone.—
"Your own Mother."
"This letter will smell queer, darling; it will be fumigated before posting."
It must be owned that when Bertie Fellowes received this letter, which was neither more nor less than a shattering of all his Christmas hopes and joys, that he fairly broke down, and hiding his face upon his arms as they rested on his desk, sobbed aloud. The forlorn boy from India, who sat next to him, tried every boyish means of consolation that he could think of. ”

“ That was another horrid thing, that nobody seemed to be able to look after us at all; we could have got into all sorts of mischief if we had wanted, but everything was so dreadful that it made us not want. ”

“ Willie broke in at this.
"The fish aren't so silly," he said. "The water-hens would scatter away, I daresay, if you threw stones. But Papa doesn't like us to startle them, so it would be no good trying."
"Water-hens!" exclaimed the Kingley children all together. "What are they like? Do let's go and look at them. We've never seen any."
"And most likely we won't see them now," said Helena. [23] "They're very shy creatures. And we mustn't startle them, as Willie says."
"Oh, bother!" said Freda; "it wouldn't hurt them for once. And who would know? Anyway, let's go to the bridge." ”

“ By the time Miss Ware, who was a kind-hearted, sensible, pleasant woman, came to tell Fellowes how sorry she was for him and his disappointment, the worst had gone by, and the boy was resigned to what could not be helped. [9]
"Well, after all, one man's meat is another man's poison," she said, smiling down on the two boys; "poor Tom has been looking forward to spending his holidays all alone with us, and now he will have a friend with him. Try to look on the bright side, Bertie, and to remember how much worse it would have been if there had been no boy to stay with you." ”

“ Frere saw on her toilet-table was a note addressed rather shakily in pencil, to "dear Mamma."
It was only a few lines, but it made her hurry to throw on her dressing-gown and hasten to the nursery.
"How is Leigh?" were her first words to Nurse.
"Willie at once sat straight up in bed."
"He's got a little cold in his head, ma'am, but nothing [39] much," was the cheerful reply, and Mamma saw by the child's face that there were no signs of anything worse.
"But, Miss Helena," Nurse went on, "has had a bad night, and her head is aching, so I thought it better to keep her in bed to breakfast." ”

“ Frere liked home teaching best for girls, and the little boys were as yet too young for anything else. Willie was only seven and a half, and Leigh six. Helena was nearly ten.
They lived in the country—quite in the country, and a rather lonely part too. So they had almost no companions of their own age, and the few there were within reach they seldom saw. One family in the neighbourhood, where there were children, always spent seven months abroad; another home was saddened by the only son being a cripple and unable [16] to walk or play ”

“ Freda replied; "but I don't want [20] four o'clock to come too soon; we should like a good long time for playing first."
Mrs. Frere smiled.
"Well, it is scarcely half-past two yet," she said. "When four o'clock or half-past four comes, I daresay you will not feel sorry, for you will have had time to get hungry by then."
"All right," said Freda; "come along then, Nelly," for she had already caught up Helena's short name. "Hugh and Maggie and I have got heaps of fun in our heads." ”

“ We could make that our dressing-room, or our bathing-van, whichever you like to call it."
"But," interrupted Helena, "you couldn't undress; we've no bathing-dresses, and——"
"How stupid you are!" interrupted Freda, in her turn. "We'd have to take off our shoes and stockings, of course, [24] and we can't do that on the sloping bank; under the bridge is just the place. And we can pretend it's the sea, and that we're going to bathe properly, and shiver and shudder and push each other in. Oh! it'll be great fun—come along, all of you, do." ”

“ They had never heard of a tom-boy before, and could not make out if it meant a boy or a girl, till afterwards, when Helena explained it to them, and then Willie said he had thought it must mean a girl, "'cos of Maggie being a girl's name."
"I hope you will like them all," said Mrs. Frere. "By their Mother's account they seem to be very hearty, sensible [18] children; indeed, she says they are just a little wild, for she and Mr. Kingley have been a great deal abroad, and the three younger children were for two years with a lady, who was rather too old to look after them properly." ”

“ It isn't safe for Leigh."
"How cross you are!" said Freda coolly. "I was just going to tell you to come out. I think it's all right now; they've moved on. We can make a rush for the house across the grass somehow, can't we? There must be some back way in, where we shouldn't meet anyone. Then you [32] and I can take Leigh up to the nursery and say he had an accident, which is quite true—and when he's clean again he can come out to us and your Mamma needn't know anything about it. The rest of us are all quite tidy—quite as tidy as can be expected after running about."
Helena did not reply. ”

“ Hugh and Freda were rather unusually quiet, at which their Mother and elder sister rejoiced.
"I do hope," said Sybil, as she drove home with Mrs. Kingley, leaving the younger ones to follow as they had [35] come, "I do hope those Frere children, though they are younger, will have a good influence upon Hugh and the girls, Freda especially. She has been getting wilder and wilder. And Helena is such a lady-like, well-bred little girl." ”

“ T'S a welly anxietious thing, yoasting chestnuts is," Rupert said, shaking his head seriously.
Rupert is only four years old, but he is very fond of grand words. He speaks quite plainly and nicely, Nurse says (excepting the v's and r's) , only, of course, he cannot remember always just the shape of the big words; but he uses much grander ones than I do, though I am nearly six.
But he is the nicest little boy in all the world, and we do love each other better than anybody else at all, after Mother and Father.
We made what Rupert calls an "arranglement" about always being friends with each other ”

“ Willie considered; he had good ideas sometimes, though Helena often called him slow and stupid.
"I know what," he said. "You shall write a letter to Mamma—now, this minute. I've got paper and ink and pens and everything, in my new birthday writing-case, and I've got matches. Since my birthday, Papa said I might have them in my room."
For Willie was a very careful little boy. ”