L. T. Meade

“ Harriet now called her companion to her in an imperious voice.
“Come here, this minute, you silly!” she said. “Why do you stand there with your mouth gaping and your legs far apart? You look for all the world like one of those foolish sheep on the back lawn.”
“I am not a sheep; you needn’t say it,” answered Jane.
She had reached Harriet’s side by this time.
“Well, come for a walk with me in the paddock,” said Harriet. “I don’t want to be cross to you, Jane, but really that new girl, Robina—she is past bearing.” ”

“ Now look here, Janie; you are not going to lose your pluck. You think it very dreadful to betray Harriet, but let me tell you that it is fifty thousand times more dreadful to allow a wicked girl like Harriet to have the control and the guidance of a sweet, dear little boy like Ralph. We ask you for Ralph’s sake, therefore, to be brave in this matter, to confess your own sin, and to throw yourself—first on the mercy of God, who is always willing to forgive us when we repent, and next on the mercy of Mr Durrant and your school-fellows. ”

“ I believe, too, in the law of kindness, and I fully believe in that everlasting law of God’s forgiveness. I trust, Jane, that this will prove a lesson to you, and that you will turn over a new leaf; and if, in the future, I can help you, I will: and I know your kind school-fellows will not forsake you. Patience Chetwold, my dear, you have earned my undying gratitude. By your promptness and decision and cleverness and bravery you have saved my dear little son from the greatest catastrophe which could ever have occurred to him. ”

“ Harriet was hurried along with her companions from one room to another, from one point of enjoyment to another.
When they had examined the house and expressed themselves satisfied with their sweet little bedrooms, and when they had glanced at the tea-table, and observed the numbers of cakes which it contained, and the vast piles of bread and butter and the dishes full of jam and the plates of fruit and the combs of honey, and all the other imaginable good things that go to make up that meal of all meals—an English nursery tea, they were hurried off to the stables. ”

“ They had come at this moment to the margin of the round pond, and there were the water-lilies with all their cups of white and gold wide open, the sun shining on them, and there was the water itself glistening in the sunlight; and there was the willow bough. Robina turned away with a sick heart.
“I mean you could not understand,” she said, “and that is the worst thing of all: and I can’t explain, I can’t! Let me go back please, to-day: and as you cannot love me after this, forget me utterly.”
“It must be as you wish, of course,” said Mr Durrant, very coldly. ”

“ You shall ride Bo-peep, and I will ride whichever donkey you have selected. I love riding a donkey, it is such fun.”
“Oh!” said Harriet; “oh!—before I’d demean myself to tell such lies! You love to ride on a donkey, do you? Then ride one, I am sure I don’t care. But as to my demeaning myself by getting on your pony’s back—I may be small, but I’m not as small as all that! No: go, both of you; I hate and detest you both. Ralph, you need not consider me your mother any more. I am not your school-mother—I am nothing at all to you. I am just a very cross, angry girl and oh, do go away, please!” ”

“ Come and kiss us; do, do!”
“Oh, you darlings! you pets!” said Robina.
She went noisily into the nursery, and alack! and alas! the next minute the door slammed after her. Violet’s little rosy face turned pale, and the real Rose began to cry.
“Aunt Felice will come up and scold!” said Violet. “Oh, put us into bed, do! and don’t go away—please, please, Wobina!”
“No, I won’t,” said Robina. “I don’t mind a bit whether I’m scolded or not. Of course, I didn’t mean to slam the door. You little darlings, both of you! You sweet pets! Here I am back again, and won’t we have good times! ”

“ If there was one thing more than another that she pined and longed for, it was to take possession of that poor, weak, suffering, nervous mother of hers, and give her some of her own strength, some of her own life. It was one of Robina’s hidden, unspoken griefs that her mother never understood her, and that she turned away from her child to Aunt Felicia for sympathy. ”

“ Come back immediately, and stand by my side, Ralph. Robina Starling, being out of the question, you have got to choose another school-mother. Whom do you love best in this room? Think well, my boy, and don’t allow false ideas even of bravery and of unselfishness to blind your eyes to those still nobler qualities of truth and integrity. A few days ago, the contest seemed to me to rest entirely between Harriet Lane and Robina Starling. But now that Robina has withdrawn, you are at liberty to choose any girl here present. ”

“ My home, compared to yours, is, oh! so rough; and my people are oh! so poor! You don’t know, perhaps, that I am supported at Mrs Burton’s school by an aunt who grudges every penny of the money she spends on me. To be educated by a man like that, to be able to live here until I am quite grown-up—oh, it would make such a difference! You don’t want these advantages as badly as I want them. Give up your chance, you have but to help me with Ralph. He loves me better than you now; you have but to say a few words to Mr Durrant, and the deed is done.”
“And what words are those?” said Robina. ”

“ Make your choice freely, my son; choose without fear or compunction, the one who in all respects will help you to be good, to be true, to be honourable.”
“She saved my life twice,” murmured Ralph under his breath, and then he looked full at Harriet and came a step forward. “I don’t quite understand, father,” he said, “all that you said about being very true, and very, very good. But I do know when a girl nearly gets drownded herself to save a boy like me; and I therefore choose—” again he went a step forward.
But just at that moment there came an interruption. It came from Patience Chetwold. ”

“ I ought to tell Mr Durrant that I listened: I ought to explain to him what really happened. Oh, what—what am I to do! Ralph of course loves Harriet best now. He naturally thinks her conduct heroic. He is the sort of boy to be enraptured with a deed of that sort; and she did it all on purpose—on purpose—and just to win his love from me. Oh, how am I to bear it! Why did I ever know Ralph? Why was I ever sent to school? I was happy enough at home. There were troubles, of course. There was poor Aunt Felicia, and there was mother—darling mother, who never did understand me, much as I cared for her. ”

“ Where you don’t rule me,—Felicia,—my husband does; and where my husband doesn’t, the little children do; and where the little children don’t, Robina does; and where Robina doesn’t, the servants do. I am ruled by everyone; I am the most ruled out person on earth; I have not a bit of colour or opinion left. When Bo-peep was here, I felt a little happier than I had done for some time, because the animal seemed to like me without wanting in the very least to get the upper hand of me. ”

“ When Harriet and Pattie, two flushed and intensely happy little girls, left the small theatre Harriet knew at once by the changed light how long she must have been within.
“Oh please,” she said, turning to Mr Frost, “we have enjoyed ourselves tremendously; but what is the hour, please?—oh, I do hope it isn’t late: I wanted to take Ralph back to school before five o’clock.”
“Five o’clock!” said Mr Frost with a roaring laugh. Really he was rather a noisy young man. “Why, it’s long past seven. You don’t suppose we have had all that fun in no time at all?” ”

“ Mr Durrant moved rather impatiently. “I have never coerced Ralph in the least,” he answered. “My endeavour has been from his birth to allow my dear little boy to choose for himself. I believe in the young, clear judgment of extreme youth. I think that little children can penetrate far. Of all your school-fellows he chose you, Robina; and who, my dear child, could have been more worthy?”
“But I am full of faults,” said Robina, tears springing to her eyes; “you don’t really know me. At home I am often blamed. My Aunt Felicia doesn’t think highly of me. ”

“ Why shouldn’t we all keep on being good? why should we be jealous?”
“Who says anyone is jealous?” said Harriet.
“Oh, Harriet!” said Frederica; “you know you are, just a little bit.”
“I don’t wonder she’s jealous!” suddenly burst from Jane. “Robina has taken her place in class. Harriet is our clever one; she doesn’t want to—to—”
“Oh, I am sure she is not small-minded enough for that,” said Frederica at once. “If a cleverer girl comes to the school—”
“She is not cleverer!” burst from Harriet. ”

“ Harriet, you don’t think so!” said Vivian Amberley, the youngest of the four sisters, and in consequence the most petted. “I can’t bear girls with squints,” she added.
“But that would be better than having a hunchback,” said Jane.
“She is sure to have something,” continued Harriet. “It may not be either of these, but something. She is small, and ugly, and frightened—that I am certain of. Oh, of course we’ll have to be good to her; but at the same time, what I say is this, girls: we’ll have to let that young ’un know at once that she is not to have her own way about everything.” ”

“ Miss Felicia, from a sheltered corner of her sister’s bedroom, watched them as they passed up and down.
“He has, my dear sister,” she remarked, “the most honourable carriage of the head: it is but to look at that man to see what he is. You, dear, at least, won’t throw any obstacle in the way of Robina’s good luck: all her life long it will be remembered in her favour that she was selected by Malcolm Durrant to be the companion of his little boy during his own absence.” ”

“ Harriet immediately saw that she had gone too far. She altered her tone.
“Please forgive me, Ralph,” she said. “I know I am cross; I wanted so very much to go to that picnic, and I can’t because of you.”
“I don’t understand,” said Ralph. “I wouldn’t mind.”
“Yes,” said Harriet crossly; “that’s not the question. You are considered a baby, and you must be treated as one.”
“I aren’t a baby!” said Ralph, in great indignation. “Father said I am a real manly boy.”
“Well, prove yourself one,” said Harriet. “Don’t cry when I speak a little sharply, and don’t worry me about the gipsies. ”

“ Since Robina had come, Harriet had rather avoided her. She had been jealous, poor child, from the first moment; but now she altered her tactics, and forcing her way through the group, sat down close to the new favourite.
“There’s no room here,” said Robina. “Go a little further off, please, Harriet; you are pushing little Annie and making her cry.”
“I don’t care twopence for little Annie!” cried Harriet, rudely. “I have as good a right to sit here as anybody else. Don’t press me, Annie; if I am in the way, you’re the person to make room, not me. Go back to your nursery, won’t you?” ”

“ As we get older, we cannot quite get away from our cares, however hard we try to do so; but when we are young, we are meant to be like the young birds and the young lambs and the young puppy dogs and the young kittens—all gaiety and sunshine, and lightness of heart. I have on board this yacht with me, a crew and an excellent sea-worthy captain and a first mate and all the rest, and I also have nine young people who none of them exceed twelve years of age. ”

“ I am calling the house by that name in advance, for I mean to have the sunshine in it day and night; and by the special sort of sun that I allude to, I mean Kindness, Charity, Unselfishness, Forbearance; and last, but not least, Love. I mean, too, that Pleasure should enter the house—nice, jolly Pleasure—and that Care should keep her wrinkled old face out-of-doors. ”

“ Jane gave utterance to a very quick sigh. Vivian was perhaps the girl in the third form who had the weakest character. She was not like her two elder sisters: she could be very good with good girls and quite naughty with girls who were not good. Jane had always known this fact, and had always been terribly afraid that Harriet would make use of Vivian, and turn her to her own purposes. In that case, of course, Harriet would never speak to poor Jane again; and Jane did care for her and could be intensely jealous about her. ”

“ I thought after the fright you got with regard to Ralph when we were at school that you would let him alone in the future; but you are just as bad as ever.”
“I am,” said Harriet; “I am worse than ever. I am not very happy at home, and I have not the advantages that Robina has.”
“Robina has one thing that you have not,” said Jane, stoutly. “She really and truly loves little children. Don’t you remember how sweet she was to Curly Pate? She has a way about her that all little children like: I suppose it is partly because she has got two little sisters of her own. ”

“ She joined Mr Durrant, and they talked together for some minutes with great apparent earnestness. Meanwhile, Ralph rushed up to Harriet.
“Isn’t the day lovely?” he said; “won’t it be nice when we are bobbing up and down in the water? I’ll show you how well I can swim, Harriet. I can swim, you know, but I can float better than I can swim.”
“You must be careful not to go out of your depth,” said Harriet. “Of course you can swim, although you are such a little boy, and when you are tired, your father will let you ride on his back. What fun that will be! Your father is so strong, and big.” ”