Aunt Barbara

“ Aunt Barbara is in bad circumstances; if I am not mistaken, she will very soon turn to you in her money matters, and with Mascha she will play the rôle of an indulgent step-mother, who flatters the step-child in order not to offend the father. If Mascha is to prosper, she must live with people who understand her, who love her, but who are conscientious enough to be severe with her, and to guide her from time to time, tenderly but firmly, in the right way. She is much too gifted, much too obstinate for one to dare to leave her to herself. ”

“ Her eyes would wander to Aunt Barbara, sitting up straight and still, and looking out of the window at the sky. At length Hatty said, “Do lie down, Aunt Barbara; I am sure you would be more comfortable. Let me fix your pillows nicely for you.”
“I never go to bed when I can sit up. I was not brought up to loll about and make myself sick by being lazy,” said Aunt Barbara.
Hatty tried to read for a few moments more; then Aunt Barbara moved, and she looked at her again.
The old lady evidently wanted something she could not find in her pocket, and yet did not feel like getting up. ”

“ Another of Aunt Barbara’s quiet ways of helping was to divert Pilarica’s headlong rushes upon her brother to impart some news of burning importance,—how Bastiano had promised her a hat woven of rushes or how Don Quixote had slipped off the stepping-stones and splashed down into the brook. Aunt Barbara had only to whisper Bat to send the little girl dancing away out of doors again, trilling like a penitent lark:
“Who is the student—hark, oh hark!—
Who studies best in the deepest dark? ”

“ I want to know how we have disappointed you—Madelon and I—for you are disappointed; tell me, Horace—I am really anxious to know."
"Dear Aunt Barbara, I am not at all disappointed; or, if I am, it is not your fault or hers—quite the reverse. Nothing but the perversity of human nature. Shall I own the truth? All these years I have kept in my mind a dear little girl in a shabby old frock which she had outgrown—a dear, affectionate little soul, with so few ideas on people and things, that she actually took me for one of the best and wisest of human beings. ”

“ Aunt Barbara said, and her lip began to quiver as she sat down upon one of the seats in the square, and looked helplessly up at the policeman. She was not afraid of him, nor of the five others of the craft who knew her by sight, and stopped to hear what she had to say. She never dreamed that they could suspect her of wrong, and they did not when they heard her story, and saw the truthful, motherly face. Perhaps they could help her, they said, and they asked the name of the runaway. ”

“ Her aunt’s queer little ways only made her feel, then, that it was for her she had learned to save even the shreds she cut off when she was sewing. After the orphan girl was grown, she was married to a very kind gentleman. This gentleman was so grateful to the aunt for her care of the orphan, that he wanted her to come and live with them in her comfortable home; but Aunt Barbara said—”
“There, there, Mother! you have let it out,” exclaimed the children in a breath.
“Don’t, don’t,” said Hatty; “what did Aunt Barbara say, Mother?” ”

“ In this remote little world of ours, Barbara, we get into ruts, and come to think that the only way is our way."
Barbara's eyes were glowing with enthusiasm. She had discovered Aunt Kitty's heart,—and now she was discovering a breadth and insight which she could never have believed possible in that competent but seemingly restricted brain. If Aunt Hitty could thus lift herself to look beyond the atmosphere of Second Westings, and to understand people different from those she had always been used to, she must be a very great woman. Barbara's eyes flamed with the ardour of her appreciation. ”

“ Longton as well as Aunt Barbara. Oh, it would be the event of her life! But how was all this to happen if she could not be provided with a suitable costume?
"What it comes to is this," she said to herself. [205] "The thing, to be done at all, ought to be done well; the girls will laugh at me if I turn up in sateen, with sixpence-halfpenny bunches of daffodils. I'd rather not act if I can't have a nice dress. Aunt Barbara might manage it somehow."
Dorothy did her lessons in her den that evening, although there was no fire and the weather was still cold. ”

“ I am sure nobody ought to be oppressed as Aunt Barbara oppresses me: it is just like James V. of Scotland when the Douglases got hold of him! I wonder what is the use of being a countess, if one never is to do anything to please oneself, and one is to live with a cross old aunt!”
Most likely everyone is of Lady Caergwent’s morning opinion—that Lady Barbara Umfraville was cross, and that it was a hard lot to live in subjection to her. ”

“ Thy Aunt Barbara–––”
“Is my aunt, and thy eldest sister. All she does is square and upright; what she says, it were well for the rest of the town to take heed to. It would please Aunt if thou showed Wolf Baikie thou had dancing shoes and also knew right well how to step in them.”
22
“Well, then, thou shalt have thy way. I will wash, I will comb my hair, I will put on clean linen and white socks and my buckled shoes. That is all I will do! I will not change my suit––no, I will not!” ”

“ I am sorry!”
“I and Marcus and Meg and all of us are sorry we were so naughty. It was our fault, Aunt Barbara,—and we mean to be better,” said Hatty, eagerly.
“Poor old Aunt Barbara did wrong, too, child. God has laid her on her bed of sickness to think, and he has raised her up again for some good purpose. Perhaps he wanted to give her an opportunity to be more like [74] what a person ought to be, who has had more than seventy years of blessings, and who has the promise of a home in Heaven. ”

“ At night you would just be dashed to pieces in a minute."
"Oh, what shall I do?" cried Barbara, the perils of her adventure just beginning to touch her imagination.
"Let me take you to my grandmother's," he pleaded. "And we will paddle back to Second Westings to-morrow."
Barbara burst into a storm of tears.
"Never! never! never!" she sobbed. "I'll die in the rapids before I'll ever go back to Aunt Hitty! Oh, why did I like you? Why did I trust you? Oh, I don't know what to do!" ”

“ Marcus rested his hatchet on the board, and looked up.
“You are a wasteful boy!” began Aunt Barbara. “You ought to be ashamed to cut up that good board!”
“Don’t mind her,” said Marcus, in an undertone, as he resumed his work.
“Wait a minute, Marcus,” said Hatty; and then raising her voice she called out, “Aunt Barbara, we want a coop for the chickens—some dear little bantams I brought from grandma’s!”
“Chickens!” said Aunt Barbara, much as if she had said bears! “What on earth did you bring them here for? why, they’ll ruin everything in the garden, and crow so in the morning nobody can sleep.” ”

“ Within three days the old life had taken Barbara back at every point, and she felt as if she had awakened from a brilliant but oppressive dream. Of course it was interesting telling it all—or not quite all—to every one; to every one the truth, yet not to each the same story. There was one emphasis for Aunt Hitty and Doctor Jim, one for the Reverend Jonathan Sawyer, one for Mercy Chapman, and one much more vivid and enlightening for old Debby. ”

“ I know what my aunts will be like: they will be just like ladies in a book. They will be dreadfully fashionable! Let me see—Aunt Barbara will have a turban on her head, and a bird of paradise, like the bad old lady in Armyn’s book that Mary took away from me; and they will do nothing all day long but try on flounced gowns, and count their jewels, and go out to balls and operas—and they will want me to do the same—and play at cards all Sunday! ”

“ I think of the old life, but it is not all with pleasure, and I know why Aunt Barbara—and yet I do love it so much, and you are a part of it, Monsieur Horace—when you speak your vice seems to bring it back ”

“ Aunt Barbara was placed on a comfortable chair by the window; Mrs. Lee took the baby,—and then Jane and the children went out into the peach orchard, with Mrs. Sparrow.
The farmer’s wife knew exactly to what trees to take them; and she reached up and picked two of the largest peaches Hatty had ever seen, and placed one in the little girls’ hands. Away went Hatty back to the house with her treasures, and when she had given them to Aunt Barbara and her mother, she was ready for her own pleasure.
Hatty was learning to think of others first, even in trifles. ”

“ The ladies in the drawing-room had borne a good deal; but Aunt Jane was by this time looking meekly distracted; and Lady Barbara sallying out, met the Arab Sheikh with his white frock over his head, descending the stairs in the rear, calling to his tribe in his sweet voice not to be so noisy—but not seeing before him through the said bournouse, he had very nearly struck Lady Barbara with his parasol before he saw her. ”

“ Hatty laid the great Bible on Aunt Barbara’s lap, and for a few moments the old lady seemed nodding; but she soon began to rub her spectacles as if they were not clean, and then she put her hand to her head, and said, “old folks can’t sit and read all day like young ones.” ”

“ She gave Barbara a vehement squeeze, looked her up and down, and exclaimed:
"Land sakes alive, Miss Barby, why, if you hain't been an' growed up over night. What've they been doin' to you over there?"
"It was you did it, Debby, much as anybody!" And Barbara flicked her petticoats audaciously before the old woman's eyes, to emphasise their added length. "Such lovely things have happened; and Aunt Hitty and I have made up; and I've so much to tell you, that I must come over some day and spend the whole day with you, after Uncle Bob goes away. ”

“ Barbara whispered, after they had followed him successfully from Notre Dame to St. Etienne, and from there to Napoleon's Tomb. "He speaks French—I heard him. Besides, he is too stout for the solicitor."
"He may be padded," Aunt Anne said wisely. "People of that kind can do anything. There is something in his walk that assures me it is he, and I must see him without his spectacles." ”

“ In the month of her return Barbara had been born. A year ago her aunt, to whom she owed the care of her young girlhood, had died, and Barbara had found herself, at twenty-three, mistress of a liberal fortune and of her own future. Japan had always exercised a potent spell over her imagination. She pictured it as a land of strange glowing trees, of queer costumes and weird, fantastic buildings. More than all, it was the land of her mother's life-romance, where her father had loved and died. There was one other tangible tie—her uncle, her mother's brother, was Episcopal bishop of Tokyo. ”

“ Barbara, who at her too fond aunt's request had been granted the privilege of taking tea in the drawing-room, stuffed the better half of a jam sandwich into her mouth and came.
"Do you see those rich-looking pink cakes?" I asked her. "You shall have one as soon as we've had a little talk."
"The biggest and pinkiest one?" demanded Barbara.
"Yes. Now tell me—don't you think that people ought always to speak the truth, and to be especially careful not to distort the remarks of others?" ”

“ Barbara had convictions which her aunt was powerless to undermine, and seemed to set such a value upon herself that no man was able to make the slightest impression on her. She had barely refrained from laughing outright at the compliments of recognised wits, and half a dozen gallants with amorous intentions had been baffled and put to shame. Lord Rosmore, whose way with a woman was pronounced irresistible, had declared her adorable, but impossible, and Judge Marriott had promised Lady Bolsover a very handsome gratuity if she could persuade her niece to favour him and become his wife. ”

“ For God’s sake, stop!” said Anthony, “I am a brute to have spoken like that, and I’m helpless; that’s the worst of it. Oh! my darling, don’t you understand? Don’t you understand?”
“No,” answered Barbara, shaking her head and beginning to cry.
“That I love you, that I have always loved you, and that I always shall love you until—until—the moon ceases to shine,” and he pointed to that orb which had appeared above the sea.
“They say it is dead already, and no doubt will come to an end in due course like everything else,” remarked Barbara, seeking to gain time. ”

“ Bone of her bone and flesh of her flesh, the daughter of the dead Constance was thrilled unspeakably with a tenderness that the other had never given him.
"Sit down, my dear," said Ambrose North, slowly releasing her. "I want to talk to you—of her. Did I hear Aunt Miriam go out?"
"Yes, just a few minutes ago."
"You are almost twenty-two, are you not, Barbara?"
"Yes, Daddy."
"Then you are a woman grown. Your dear mother was twenty-two, when—" He choked on the words.
"When she died," whispered Barbara, her eyes luminous with tears. ”

“ Barbara broke into a clear peal of laughter, and clapped her hands with a fine assumption of glee.
"Oh, you silly, silly child!" she exclaimed. "It was Uncle Bob, of course, that I was thinking of when I said that. I love Uncle Bob better than any one else in the world,—far better than I love you, Robert, I can tell you that. But I care for you almost as much as for Aunt Hitty. Cary Patten! Why, he and these other nice men who are making things so pleasant for me, they are just new friends. I like them, that's all. You are altogether different, you know. ”