Rosa M. Gilbert

“ Miss Davis was startled. "Do I look as if I loved nobody?" she asked.
"A little," said Hetty.
"Then I must be wrong. It cannot be good to look as if one loved nobody. At the same time it is very necessary to curb all one's feelings. Phyllis, for instance, would not respect me if she thought me what she would call sentimental. And even Nell would perhaps smile at me as a simpleton if she saw me looking for particular affection. Even you, Hetty—you who think so much about love!—could I manage you at all if I did not know how to look stern?" ”

“ Well, my dear, I must first thank God."
"Oh, Miss Davis, I wish you would beat me."
"No, dear, I won't beat you. Only don't another time think it good fun to cut a poor governess to the heart. Perhaps you thought I had not much feeling in me."
"Not very much," said Hetty. "I knew you were very good, and strong, and wise, and learned; but I did not know you could love people."
"You know it now. For the future do not think that because people are colder in their manner than you are they are therefore heartless. ”

“ Rushton's carriage drew up that day before the door of Wavertree Hall.
Mrs. Enderby was seated at her embroidery in the drawing-room beside her small elegant tea-table, and looked the very ideal of an English gentlewoman in her silver-gray silk and delicate lace ruffles, and with her fair, almost colourless hair twisted in neat shining braids round the back of her head. With her own faint sweet smile she welcomed her sister-in-law and inquired kindly for her health; and then she turned to Hetty, who stood gazing steadily in her face, utterly unconscious of her own look of anxious inquiry. ”

“ Enderby. "You knew that Mr. Enderby had refused to allow the dog to come here. You ought to have remembered his wishes. He has been very good to you, and you must learn to obey him."
"It is cruel of him not to let me have Scamp," persisted Hetty; "he never bites anyone, and he is better than the other dogs. Why can I not have him for my own?"
"I will not answer that question, Hetty; it must be enough for you that you are to obey. You must stay here by yourself till you are in a better state of mind."
Then Mrs. Enderby went away, and Hetty fell into another agony of grief, thinking about Scamp. ”

“ Kane, beginning to feel hurt at the child's coldness. "Come now, have you never a kiss to give to the poor old mammy that nursed you?"
Hetty held up her round sweet face, as fair and fresh as a damask rose, to be kissed, and submitted to Mrs. Kane's caresses rather from consciousness that she ought to do so, than from any warmth of gratitude in her own heart. So far from being grateful to the homely sun-burned woman who hugged her, she felt a sort of resentment towards her for finding her on the sea-shore and making a cottage child of her. ”

“ She thought the girl had fairly earned a holiday and a treat.
Hetty was more nervous over this drawing than she had been over any of the others. With them she had been only working to please herself, and of her own free will; but now it seemed as if the eyes of the world were upon every line she drew. She spoiled several beginnings; and at last, flushed and feverish, had to put away the work till to-morrow.
"Drawing seems to be not all unmixed happiness any more than dates," said Miss Davis, smiling at her anxious face. "Come now and have some tea, or you will get a headache." ”

“ But Hetty, you are a jolly queer girl I can tell you, and I can't half understand you. Think of anyone standing two hours to be pierced through and through with cold, rather than drop a fellow's string and run away!"
Hetty looked at him wistfully, recognizing the truth that he never could understand the sort of feeling that led her into making, as he considered, such a fool of herself. Miss Davis gazed at her kindly and pityingly, thinking of how many hard blows she would get in the future, in return for acts like that which had so puzzled Mark. ”

“ Hetty was dressed in a dark crimson velvet frock, trimmed with rich old yellow lace, which enhanced the warmth and richness of her complexion, and gave a reflected glow to her dark and deep-fringed eyes. A crop of crisp short curls of a dusky chestnut colour was discovered when her hat was removed. No ungenerous prejudice prevented Mrs. Enderby from acknowledging at the first glance that Hetty had a most charming countenance.
"And this is Hetty! how she has grown!" said Mrs. Enderby, taking the child's little hand between her own and looking at her in a friendly manner. ”

“ The same thrill of delight that had enraptured her when, as a babe not higher than the flag leaves, she stretched her hands towards the yellow lilies, pierced her now, but with a stronger, more conscious joy.
When Mrs. Kane returned she found her ready to take a more hopeful view of the future that was at hand.
"I have got to go," she said; "and I am going. But I may come to you when I like. And when the pride gets bad I will always come."
Mrs. Kane promised to keep Scamp for her own, and so Hetty could see all her friends at once when she visited the cottage. ”

“ The last evening spent by Hetty in the drawing-room at the Hall was that one on which she had entertained the company with her mimicries. Then, full of pride and delight in her own powers of giving amusement, she had felt herself in a position to despise all disapproval and dislike. Now, how was she fallen! Yet Mr. and Mrs. Enderby received her kindly, and paid her as much attention as if she had been an ordinary visitor. ”

“ But it is to be understood that such advantages are to be given to her only to fit her to be a governess. I am anxious that every one should be good to her, but I do not intend her to have such luxuries as would but prepare her for great unhappiness later on in her life."
"Hetty will never get on with that sort of thing," said Phyllis. "She is too proud and too impertinent."
"My dear Phyllis, I believe she has a good heart; and she has been, and will be, severely tried. Any failure of generosity on the part of my good little girl will disappoint me sadly." ”

“ Phyllis and Nell, who were three and two years older than herself, had begun to talk of the joys which the magic age of eighteen had in store for them. They would leave off study and go forth into the enjoyment of their youth in a flattering world. Idleness, pleasure, happiness awaited them. No one could say they were not sufficiently well educated to take that graceful place in life which Providence had assigned to them; Hetty was rebuked for being less learned than she ought to be, because for her there was no graceful place prepared ”

“ If nobody cared about her, what did it matter whether she was a dunce or not? So she said boldly that she had been learning nothing; and then the two Enderby girls lifted up their heads and stared at her in sheer amazement.
Hetty's face grew crimson, and her pride arose within her.
"After all," she said, "it is much better fun to play and amuse yourself all day than to sit poring over books. Study does not make people prettier or pleasanter." ”

“ The wintry evening was just beginning to close in and the short twilight to fall on the lonely road, blotting out the red berries on the trees, when a sound of wheels and the cracking of a carter's whip struck upon Hetty's ears. Scamp had heard them first and rushed away barking joyfully in the direction of the sound, to meet the carter, whoever he might be, and to tell him to come on fast and take up Hetty in his cart and bring her safely home. ”

“ Mrs. Rushton was unlike her in every respect, low in size, plump, smiling, and dressed in the most becoming and elegant fashion. Mrs. Enderby spoke slowly and with deliberation; Mrs. Rushton kept chattering incessantly.
"Well, Amy," said the former, "I hope you will talk to William about it, and perhaps he may induce you to change your mind. Here he is," as a gentleman was seen coming across the lawn.
Mrs. Rushton shrugged her shoulders. "My dear Isabel," she said, "I do not see what William has to do with it. I am my own mistress, and surely old enough to judge for myself." ”

“ Her reasons for everything she said and did were so ready and so plausible, that it required a rather clever and far-seeing person to detect the deep-rooted pride and self-complacency that lay beneath them. To manage all things quietly her own way, to be accounted wise and good, and greatly superior to ordinary girls of her age, was as the breath of life to Phyllis. To have to stand morally or actually in the corner with other naughty children was a humiliation she had unfortunately never experienced, but was one which would have done her a world of good. ”

“ Reine looked in her face with that long strange gaze which had so impressed Hetty's heart and imagination, smothered a sob, snatched a kiss from her sister's quivering lips, held her a moment in a close embrace, and then turned abruptly and was gone.
"Miss Gaythorne seems a rather impulsive young lady," said Miss Davis disapprovingly. "I wish she had taken a fancy to some one else than my pupil. You must try to forget her, Hetty. Girls like her, with wealth and power and nobody to control them, are apt to become capricious, and work mischief with people who have business to attend to. ”

“ Nobody else loves me," cried Hetty, with a burst of tears.
Mrs. Kane was by her side in a minute. "Not love you! don't they, my dear? Well, there's somebody that loves you more than Scamp, that I know. Come, now, dry your eyes and eat a bit. There's a nicer cup of tea than they'd give you at the Hall; for the little brown pot on the hearth makes better tea than ever comes out of silver. I was a maid in a big house once myself, and I know the difference." ”

“ At last becoming thoroughly tired she closed her book and raised her eyes wearily, when they fell on a jar of wild flowers which yesterday she had arranged and placed upon a bracket against the wall. It was spring, and in the jar was a cluster of pale wood-anemones with some sprays of bramble newly leafed. Hetty's eyes brightened at the sight of these flowers, and noted keenly every exquisite outline and delicate hue of the group. It seemed to her at the moment that she had never seen anything so beautiful before. ”

“ Under a great sycamore tree at the foot of a hill stands the forge, a cave of fire glowing in the shadows, a favourite place for the children to linger on their way to school, watching the smith hammering at his burning bars, and hearing him ring his cheery chimes on the anvil. Who shall say what mystery surrounds the big smith, as he strides about among his fires, to the wide bright eyes that peer in at him from under baby brows, or what meanings come out of his clinking music to four-year-old or eight-year-old ears? ”

“ Rushton's "at home" days was noticed and petted by fashionable ladies and gentlemen, her beauty praised openly to her face, her pretty clothes remarked upon, and her childish prattle laughed at and applauded as the wittiest talk in the world.
Certainly there were many days when Hetty's presence was wearisome and intolerable to her benefactress, and then she was banished to a large gloomy room at the top of the London house, and left to the tender mercies of a maid, who did not at all forget that she was only Mrs. Kane's little girl from the village of Wavertree, and treated her accordingly. ”

“ When the meal was over Miss Davis proposed a walk in the garden before study time.
"Can you play lawn tennis?" asked Nell as they walked towards the tennis-ground.
"No, I never play at anything," said Hetty sadly, "When not with—my mamma," she said with a flash of the eyes at seeing Phyllis looking at her, "I have always been alone."
Miss Davis glanced at the child with pity, but Hetty, catching her eye, would not bear to be pitied.
"It is much pleasanter to be with grown people in the drawing-room," she said. "I should not like at all to live as you do." ”

“ Phyllis and Nell now came into the school-room and looked greatly surprised at sight of the dog, Hetty's angry face, and Miss Davis's looks of high displeasure. They took their places in silence at the breakfast table.
"I am not likely to forget it," retorted Hetty bitterly. "At Amber Hill everybody was kind to me. Nobody is kind here."
"You are a most ungrateful girl," said Miss Davis. "What would have become of you if Mr. and Mrs. Enderby had not been kind?" ”

“ Rushton's property has gone to her husband's brother, who is not a very generous man, I fear, and the rest, which returns to your father, is in trust for his children. He does not feel himself called upon to deprive you of what is lawfully yours in order to give a fortune to a foundling child."
"I would rather give her some of my money than have her here," said Phyllis bluntly.
"You must get over that feeling, Phyllis. It is perhaps a little trial to us all to have a stranger among us, but we will endeavour to be kind, and all will be for the best."
"And is Hetty to be our own, own sister?" ”

“ How a baby ever lived through the storm to be washed in by the sea alive always beats me when I think of it, it seems so downright unnatural; and yet that's the way that Providence ordered it, Mrs. Ford."
"I suppose all her folks were drowned?" said Mrs. Ford.
"Most like they were, for it was a bad wreck, as I've heard," said Mrs. Kane. "Leastways, nobody has ever come to claim her, and no questions have been asked. Unless it was much for her good I would fain hope that nobody ever will claim her now. Wild as she is, I've grown to love that little Hetty, so I have. ”

“ To be exactly like Miss Davis. To look like her, think like her, be as well informed, as independent, as much respected; to teach as well, speak as wisely, be called an admirable woman who had fought her own way against poverty in the world, this was what Hetty had been assured by Mr. and Mrs. Enderby ought to be the object of her ambition and the end of all her hopes. And Hetty tried honestly to will as they willed for her good. ”

“ So you see I am not the kind of girl to be going out to parties."
"You will have to be very learned if you are going to be a governess," said Grace; "I suppose you are always studying."
"I work pretty hard at my books," said Hetty; "but I am not clever. And how I am ever to be as well informed as Miss Davis I don't know. Some things I remember quite well, and other things I am always forgetting. I am sure if I ever get any pupils they will laugh at me. I wish I could live in a little cottage in the fields, and work in a garden and sell my flowers." ”