Girls of the Forest

GIRLS OF THE FOREST

GIRLS OF THE FOREST

L. T. MEADE

AUTHOR OF ALWYN’S FRIENDS, BEYOND THE BLUE MOUNTAINS,

GOOD LUCK, PLAYMATES, PRETTY GIRL AND

THE OTHERS, THE PALACE BEAUTIFUL, ETC.

AKRON, OHIO

MACLELLAN ·N·Y· COMPANY

PUBLISHERS

BIOGRAPHY AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

L. T. Meade (Mrs. Elizabeth Thomasina Smith), English novelist, was born at Bandon, County Cork, Ireland, 1854, the daughter of Rev. R. T. Meade, rector at Novohal, County Cork, and married Toulmin Smith in 1879. She wrote her first book, Lettie’s Last Home, at the age of 17, and since then has been an unusually prolific writer, her stories attaining wide popularity on both sides of the Atlantic.

She worked in the British Museum, lived in Bishopsgate Without, making special studies of East London life, which she incorporated in her stories. She edited the Atlanta, a magazine, for six years. Her pictures of girls, especially in the influence they exert on their elders, are drawn with intuitive fidelity, pathos, love, and humor, as in Girls of the Forest, flowing easily from her pen. She has traveled extensively, and is devoted to motoring and other outdoor sports.

Among more than fifty novels she has written, dealing largely with questions of home life, are: A Knight of To-day (1877), Bel-Marjory (1878), Mou-setse: a Negro Hero (1880), Mother Herring’s Chickens (1881), A London Baby: The Story of King Roy (1883), Two Sisters (1884), The Angel of Life (1885), A World of Girls (1886), Sweet Nancy (1887), Nobody’s Neighbors (1887), Deb and The Duchess (1888), Girls of the Forest (1908), Aylwyn’s Friends (1909), Pretty Girl and the Others (1910).

GIRLS OF THE FOREST.

CHAPTER I.

THE GUEST WHO WAS NEITHER OLD NOR YOUNG.

It was a beautiful summer’s afternoon, and the girls were seated in a circle on the lawn in front of the house. The house was an old Elizabethan mansion, which had been added to from time to time—fresh additions jutting out here and running up there. There were all sorts of unexpected nooks and corners to be found in the old house—a flight of stairs just where you did not look for any, and a baize door shutting away the world at the moment when you expected to behold a long vista into space. The house itself was most charming and inviting-looking; but it was also, beyond doubt, much neglected. The doors were nearly destitute of paint, and the papers on many of the walls had completely lost their original patterns. In many instances there were no papers, only discolored walls, which at one time had been gay with paint and rendered beautiful with pictures. The windows were destitute of curtains; the carpets on the floors were reduced to holes and patches. The old pictures in the picture gallery still remained, however, and looked down on the young girls who flitted about there on rainy days with kindly, or searching, or malevolent eyes as suited the characters of those men and women who were portrayed in them.

But this was the heart of summer, and there was no need to go into the musty, fusty old house. The girls sat on the grass and held consultation.

“She is certainly coming to-morrow,” said Verena. “Father had a letter this morning. I heard him giving directions to old John to have the trap patched up and the harness mended. And John is going to Lyndhurst Road to meet her. She will arrive just about this time. Isn’t it too awful?”

“Never mind, Renny,” said her second sister; “the sooner she comes, the sooner she’ll go. Briar and Patty and I have put our heads together, and we mean to let her see what we think of her and her interfering ways. The idea of Aunt Sophia interfering between father and us! Now, I should like to know who is likely to understand the education of a girl if her own father does not.”

“It is all because the Step has gone,” continued Verena. “She told us when she was leaving that she meant to write to Aunt Sophia. She was dreadfully cross at having to go, and the one mean thing she ever did in all her life was to make the remark she did. She said it was very little short of disgraceful to have ten girls running about the New Forest at their own sweet will, without any one to guide them.”

“Oh, what a nuisance the Step is!” said Rose, whose pet name was Briar. “Shouldn’t I like to scratch her! Dear old Paddy! of course he knows how to manage us. Oh, here he comes—the angel! Let’s plant him down in our midst. Daisy, put that little stool in the middle of the circle; the Padre shall sit there, and we’ll consult as to the advent of precious Aunt Sophia.”

Patty, Briar, and Verena now jumped to their feet and ran in the direction where an elderly gentleman, with a stoop, gray hair hanging over his shoulders, and a large pair of tortoise-shell spectacles on his nose, was walking.

“Paddy, Paddy! you have got to come here at once,” called out Briar.

Meanwhile Verena took one of his arms, Patty clasped the other, Briar danced in front, and so they conducted him into the middle of the group.

“Here’s your stool, Paddy,” cried Briar. “Down you squat. Now then, squatty-vous.”

Mr. Dale took off his spectacles, wiped them and gazed around him in bewilderment.

“I was construing a line of Virgil,” he said. “You have interrupted me, my dears. Whatever is the matter?”

“We have brought the culprit to justice,” exclaimed Pauline. “Paddy, forget the classics for the time being. Think, just for a few moments, of your neglected—your shamefully neglected—daughters. Ten of them, Paddy, all running wild in the Forest glades. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? Don’t you feel that your moment of punishment has come? Aunt Sophia arrives to-morrow. Now, what have you got to say for yourself?”

“But, my dear children, we can’t have your Aunt Sophia here. I could not dream of it. I remember quite well she came here once a long time ago. I have not got over it yet. I haven’t really.”

“But she is coming, Paddy, and you know it quite well, for you got the letter. How long do you think you can put up with her?”

“Only for a very short time, Pauline; I assure you, my darling, she is not—not a pleasant person.”

“Describe her, Paddy—do,” said Verena.

She spoke in her very gentlest tone, and held out one of her long white hands and allowed her father to clasp it. Verena was decidedly the best-looking of the eight girls sitting on the grass. She was tall; her complexion was fair; her figure was naturally so good that no amount of untidy dressing could make it look awkward. Her hair was golden and soft. It was less trouble to wind it up in a thick rope and hairpin it at the back of her head than to let it run wild; therefore she was not even untidy. Verena was greatly respected by her sisters, and Briar was rather afraid of her. All the others sat silent now when she asked the old Padre to describe Aunt Sophia.

“My dear,” he answered, “I have not the slightest idea what her appearance is like. My memory of her is that she was fashionable and very conventional.”

“What on earth is ‘conventional’?” whispered Pat.

“Don’t interrupt, Patty,” said Verena, squeezing her father’s hand. “Go on, Paddy; go on, darling of my heart. Tell us some more. Aunt Sophia is fashionable and conventional. We can look out the words in the dictionary afterwards. But you must know what she is like to look at.”

“I don’t, my dears; I cannot remember. It was a good many years ago when she came to visit us.”

“He must be prodded,” said Briar, turning to Renny. “Look at him; he is going to sleep.”

“Excuse me, girls,” said the Squire, half-rising, and then sitting down again as Verena’s young hand pushed him into his seat. “I have just made a most interesting discovery with regard to Virgil—namely, that——”

“Oh, father! we don’t want to know about it,” said Briar. “Now, then, Renny, begin.”

“Her appearance—her appearance!” said Verena gently.

“Whose appearance, dear?”

“Why, Aunt Sophia’s; the lady who is coming to-morrow.”

“Oh, dear!” said Mr. Dale; “but she must not come. This cannot be permitted; I cannot endure it.”

“Paddy, you have given John directions to fetch her. Now, then, what is she like?”

“I don’t know, children. I haven’t the slightest idea.”

“Prod, Renny! Prod!”

“Padre,” said Verena, “is she old or young?”

“Old, I think; perhaps neither.”

“Write it down, Briar. She is neither old nor young. Paddy, is she dark or fair?”

“I really can’t remember, dear. A most unpleasant person.”

“Put down that she is—not over-beautiful,” said Verena. “Paddy, must we put on our best dresses when she comes—our Sunday go-to-meeting frocks, you know?”

“Children, wear anything on earth you like, but in Heaven’s name let me go away now! Only to think that she will be here to-morrow! Why did Miss Stapleton leave us? It is really too terrible.”

“She left,” said Briar, her eyes twinkling, “because we would call her Step, which means step-mother. She was so dreadfully, dreadfully afraid that you might find it out.”

“Oh, children, how incorrigible you are! The poor woman! I’d sooner have married—— I—I never mean to marry anybody.”

“Of course you don’t, Padre. And you may go now, darling,” said Verena. “Go, and be happy, feeling that your daughters will look after you. You are not lonely, are you, darling, with so many of us? Now go and be very happy.”

Eight pairs of lips blew kisses to the departing figure. Mr. Dale shambled off, and disappeared through the open window into his study.

“Poor dear!” said Verena, “he has forgotten our existence already. He only lives when he thinks of Virgil. Most of his time he sleeps, poor angel! It certainly is our bounden duty to keep him away from Aunt Sophia. What a terror she must be! Fancy the situation. Eight nieces all in a state of insurrection, and two more nieces in the nursery ready to insurrect in their turn!”

“Something must be done,” interrupted Pauline. “Nurse is the woman to help us. Forewarned is forearmed. Nurse must put us up to a wrinkle or two.”

“Then let’s go to her at once,” said Verena.

They all started up, and, Verena leading the way, they went through the little paddock to the left of the house, and so into a yard, very old-fashioned and covered with weeds and cobble-stones. There were tumble-down stables and coach-houses, hen-houses, and buildings, useful and otherwise, surrounding the yard; and now in the coach-house, which for many years had sheltered no carriage of any sort, sat nurse busy at work, with two little children playing at her feet.

“Don’t mind the babies at present,” said Verena. “Don’t snatch them up and kiss them, Briar. Patty, keep your hands off. Nurse, we have come.”

“So I see, Miss Verena,” said nurse.

She lifted her very much wrinkled old face and looked out of deep-set, black eyes full at the young girl.

“What is it, my darling child?”

“How are we to bear it? Shall we fall on our knees and get round you in a little circle? We must talk to you. You must advise us.”

“Eh, dears!” said nurse. “I am nearly past that sort of thing. I’m not as young as I wor, and master and me we’re both getting old. It doesn’t seem to me to matter much now whether a body’s pretty or not, or whether you dress beautiful, or whether a thing is made to look pretty or otherwise. We’re all food for worms, dears, all of us, and where’s the use of fashing?”

“How horrid of you, nurse!” said Verena. “We have got beautiful bodies, and our souls ought to be more beautiful still. What about the resurrection of the body, you dreadful old nurse?”

“Oh, never mind me, dears; it was only a sort of dream I were dreaming of the funeral of your poor dear mother, who died when this dear lamb was born.”

Here nurse patted the fat arm of the youngest hope of the house of Dale, little Marjorie, who looked round at her with rosy face and big blue eyes. Marjorie was between three and four years old, and was a very beautiful little child. Verena, unable to restrain herself any longer, bent down and encircled Marjorie with her strong young arms and clasped her in an ecstatic embrace.

“There, now,” she said; “I am better. I forbid all the rest of you girls to touch Marjorie. Penelope, I’ll kiss you later.”

Penelope was seven years old—a dark child with a round face—not a pretty child, but one full of wisdom and audacity.

“Whatever we do,” Verena had said on several occasions, “we must not let Penelope out of the nursery until she is quite eight years old. She is so much the cleverest of us that she’d simply turn us all round her little finger. She must stay with nurse as long as possible.”

“I know what you are talking about,” said Penelope. “It’s about her, and she’s coming to-morrow. I told nurse, and she said she oughtn’t never to come.”

“No, that she oughtn’t,” said nurse. “The child is alluding to Miss Tredgold. She haven’t no call here, and I don’t know why she is coming.”

“Look here, nurse,” said Verena; “she is coming, and nothing in the world will prevent her doing so. The thing we have to consider is this: how soon will she go?”

“She’ll go, I take it,” said nurse, “as soon as ever she finds out she ain’t wanted.”

“And how are we to tell her that?” said Verena. “Now, do put on your considering-cap at once, you wise old woman.”

“Yes, do show us the way out, for we can’t have her here,” said Briar. “It is absolutely impossible. She’ll try to turn us into fine ladies, and she’ll talk about the dresses we should have, and she’ll want father to get some awful woman to come and live with us. She’ll want the whole house to be turned topsy-turvy.”

“Eh!” said nurse, “I’ll tell you what it is. Ladies like Miss Tredgold need their comforts. She won’t find much comfort here, I’m thinking. She’ll need her food well cooked, and that she won’t get at The Dales. She’ll need her room pretty and spick-and-span; she won’t get much of that sort of thing at The Dales. My dear young ladies, you leave the house as it is, and, mark my words, Miss Tredgold will go in a week’s time at the latest.”

CHAPTER II.

A HANDFUL.

The girls looked full at nurse while she was talking. A look of contentment came into Verena’s face. She shook herself to make sure she was all there; she pinched herself to be certain that she was not dreaming; then she settled down comfortably.

“There never was anybody like you, nursey,” she said. “You always see the common-sense, possible side of things.”

“Eh!” said nurse. “If I hadn’t seen the common-sense, possible side of things many years ago, where would I be with the handling and bringing up of you ten young ladies? For, though I say it that shouldn’t, there ain’t nicer or bonnier or straighter children in the whole Forest; no, nor better-looking either, with cleaner souls inside of them; but for all that, anybody else”—and here nurse gave a little sort of wink that set Pauline screaming—“anybody else would say that you were a handful. You are a handful, too, to most people. But what I say now is this. You needn’t take any notice of me; you can keep your own counsel and say nothing; but if you want her to go—the lady that has no call to be here—the lady that’s forced herself where she ain’t wanted—why, you have got to be handfuls. And now I’ll go into the house with my two precious lambs.”

The elder “precious lamb” looked very cross at being suddenly informed that she was to go indoors while the sun shone so brightly and the summer warmth surrounded her.

“No, I won’t,” said Penelope. “I am going to stay out with the others. I’m a very big girl; I am not a baby any longer. And you aren’t to keep me in the nursery any longer, Verena. And I won’t be naughty. I’ll make up to Aunt Sophia like anything—that I will—if you keep me in the nursery any longer.”

This was such a daring threat that, although Penelope was not thought much of as a rule, the girls looked at her now with a sort of awe.

“She might as well stay for a quarter of an hour longer, mightn’t she, nursey?” said Briar.

“No, that she ain’t to do, Miss Rose. She comes right indoors and prepares for her bed like a good child. Is it me that’s to be shortened of my hours of rest by a naughty little thing like this? Come along this minute, miss, and none of your nonsense.”

So Penelope, her heart full of rage, retired into the house with nurse and baby Marjorie.

“I hope she won’t do anything mean and nasty,” said Pauline. “It’s the sort of thing she would do, for she’s frightfully clever.”

“Oh, we needn’t consider her,” said Verena. “Do let’s make up our minds what to do ourselves.”

“I have all sorts of things in my head,” said Patty. “The pony-carriage might break down as it was coming from the station. I don’t mean her to be badly hurt, but I thought she might get just a little bit hurt, so that she could stay in her bed for twenty-four hours. An aunt in bed wouldn’t be so bad, would she, Renny?”

“I don’t know,” said Verena. “I suppose we must be polite. She is mother’s half-sister, you know. If mother were alive she would give her a welcome. And then Padre will have to talk to her. He must explain that she must go. If he doesn’t, we will lead him a life.”

The girls talked a little longer. They walked round and round the ugly, ill-kept lawn; they walked under the beautiful trees, entwined their arms round each other’s waists, and confabbed and confabbed. The upshot of it all was that on the following day a very large and very shabby bedroom was got ready after a fashion for Miss Tredgold’s arrival; and John, the sole factotum of the establishment—the man who cleaned the boots and knives, and swept up the avenue, removed the weeds from the flower-beds, cleaned the steps whenever they were cleaned, and the windows whenever they were cleaned—appeared on the scene, leading a tumble-down, knock-kneed pony harnessed to a very shabby pony-cart.

“I’m off now, miss,” he said to Verena, pulling a wisp of hair as he spoke. “No, miss, there ain’t any room. You couldn’t possibly sit on the back seat, for it’s as much as ever I’ll do to bring the lady home in this tumble-down conveyance. Our own is too bad for use, and I had to borrow from Farmer Treherne, and he said he wouldn’t trust any horse but old Jock; this carriage will just keep together until the lady’s here.”

“But whatever he thinks,” said Verena, “do you suppose we can have a smart, neat carriage ready to take Miss Tredgold back again this day week? You will see about that, won’t you, John?”

“I will, miss. There’ll be no difficulty about that; we’ll get the lady away whenever she wants to go.”

“Very well. You had better be off now. You must wait outside the station. When she comes out you are to touch your hat and say, ‘This is the carriage from The Dales.’ Be sure you say that, John. And look as important as ever you can. We must make the best of things, even if we are poor.”

“You never saw me, miss, demeaning the family,” said John.

He again touched his very shabby hat, whipped up the pony, and disappeared down the avenue.

“Now, then,” said Briar, “how are we to pass the next two hours? It will take them quite that time to get here.”

“And what are we going to give her to eat when she does come?” said Patty. “She’ll be awfully hungry. I expect she’ll want her dinner.”

“Dinner!” cried Josephine. “Dinner! So late. But we dine at one.”

“You silliest of silly mortals,” said Verena, “Aunt Sophia is a fashionable lady, and fashionable ladies dine between eight and nine o’clock.”

“Do they?” said Josephine. “Then I’m glad I’m not a fashionable lady. Fancy starving all that long time! I’m always famished by one o’clock.”

“There’s Penelope!” suddenly said Patty. “Doesn’t she look odd?”

Penelope was a very stout child. She had black eyes and black hair. Her hair generally stood upright in a sort of halo round her head; her face was very round and rosy—she looked like a kind of hard, healthy winter-apple. Her legs were fat, and she always wore socks instead of stockings. Her socks were dark blue. Nurse declared that she could not be fashed with putting on white ones. She wore a little Turkey-red frock, and she had neither hat nor coat on. She was going slowly and thoughtfully round the lawn, occasionally stooping and picking something.

“She’s a perfect mystery,” said Pauline. “Let’s run up to her and ask her what she’s about.”

Catching Patty’s hand, the two girls scampered across the grass.

“Well, Pen, and what are you doing now? What curious things are you gathering?” they asked.

“Grasses,” replied Penelope slowly. “They’re for Aunt Sophia’s bedroom. I’m going to make her bedroom ever so pretty.”

“You little horror!” said Pauline. “If you dare to go against us you will lead a life!”

Penelope looked calmly up at them.

“I’ll make a bargain,” she said. “I’ll throw them all away, and be nastier than you all—yes, much nastier—if you will make me a schoolroom girl.”

Pauline looked at her.

“We may be low,” she said, “and there is no doubt we are very poor, but we have never stooped to bribery and corruption yet. Go your own way, Penelope. If you think you can injure us you are very much mistaken.”

Penelope shook her fat back, and resumed her peregrinations round and round the lawn.

“Really she is quite an uncomfortable child,” said Pauline, returning to her other sisters. “What do you think she is doing now? Picking grasses to put in Aunt Sophia’s room.”

“Oh, let her alone,” said Verena; “it’s only her funny little way. By the way, I wonder if Padre has any idea that Aunt Sophia is coming to-day.”

“Let’s invade him,” said Patty. “The old dear wants his exercise; he hasn’t had any to-day.”

The eight girls ran with whoops and cries round the house. Penelope picked her grasses with more determination than ever. Her small, straight mouth made a scarlet line, so tightly was it shut.

“I am only seven, but I’m monstrous clever,” she whispered to herself. “I am going to have my own way. I’ll love poor Aunt Sophy. Yes, I will. I’ll kiss her, and I’ll make up to her, and I’ll keep her room full of lovely grasses.”

Meanwhile the other girls burst into the study. A voice was heard murmuring rapidly as they approached. A silvery-white head was bending over a page, and some words in Latin came like a stream, with a very beautiful pronunciation, from the scholar’s lips.

“Ah, Verena!” he said, “I think I have got the right lines now. Shall I read them to you?”

Mr. Dale began. He got through about one line when Patty interrupted him:

“It can’t possibly be done, Paddy. We can’t listen to another line—I mean yet. You have got to come out. Aunt Sophia is coming to-day.”

“Eh? I beg your pardon; who did you say was coming?”

“Aunt Sophia—Miss Tredgold. She’s coming to-day on a visit. She’ll be here very soon. She’s coming in an old cart that belongs to Farmer Treherne. She’ll be here in an hour; therefore out you come.”

“My dears, I cannot. You must excuse me. My years of toil have brought to light an obscure passage. I shall write an account of it to the Times. It is a great moment in my life, and the fact that—— But who did you say was coming, my dears?”

“Really, Paddy, you are very naughty,” said Verena. “You must come out at once. We want you. You can’t write another line. You must not even think of the subject. Come and see what we have done for Aunt Sophia. If you don’t come she’ll burst in here, and she’ll stay here, because it’s the most comfortable room in the house. And she’ll bring her work-basket here, and perhaps her mending. I know she’ll mend you as soon as she arrives. She’ll make you and mend you; and you need mending, don’t you, dear old Padre?”

“I don’t know, my dears. I’m a stupid old man, and don’t care about dress. Who is the person you said was coming? Give her some tea and send her away. Do you hear, Verena? Give her tea, my darling, and—and toast if you like, and send her away. We can’t have visitors here.”

“Patty!” said Verena.

Patty’s eyes were shining.

“Pauline!”

The two girls came forward as though they were little soldiers obeying the command of their captain.

“Take Padre by the right arm, Pauline. Patty, take Padre by the left arm. Now then, Paddy, quick’s the word. March!”

Poor Mr. Dale was completely lifted from his chair by his two vigorous daughters, and then marched outside his study into the sunshine.

“We are not going to be cross,” said Verena, kissing him. “It is only your Renny.”

“And your Paulie,” said the second girl.

“And your Rose Briar,” said the third.

“And your Patty,” said the fourth.

“And your Lucy,” “And your Josephine,” “And your Helen,” “And your Adelaide,” said four more vigorous pairs of lips.

“And we all want you to stand up,” said Verena.

“Good heavens! I did think I had come to the end of my worries. And what on earth does this mean? Penelope, my child, what a hideous bouquet you have in your hand! Come here and kiss father, my little one.”

Penelope trotted briskly forward.

“Do you like my red frock, father?” she asked.

“It is very nice indeed.”

“I thought it wor. And is my hair real tidy, father?”

“It stands very upright, Penelope.”

“I thought it did. And you like my little blue stockings, father?”

“Very neat, dear.”

“I thought they wor.”

“You look completely unlike yourself, Penelope. What is the matter?”

“I want to be a true, kind lady,” said the little girl. “I am gathering grasses for my aunty; so I are.”

She trotted away into the house.

“What a pretty, neat, orderly little girl Penelope has become!” said Mr. Dale. “But—— You really must excuse me, my dear girls. You are most charming, all of you. Ah, my dears!—so fresh, so unsophisticated, so—yes, that is the word—so unworldly. But I must get back to my beloved Virgil. You don’t know—you can never know—what a moment of triumph is mine. You must excuse me, darlings—Verena, you are nearly grown up; you will see to the others. Do what you can to make them happy—a little treat if necessary; I should not mind it.”

“Give us fourpence to buy a pound of golden syrup for tea, please, Padre,” suddenly said Briar. “If there is a thing I love, it is golden syrup. A pound between us will give us quite a feast—won’t it, Renny?”

“Only we must save a little for the aunt,” cried Patty.

“I do hope one thing,” said Pauline: “that, whatever her faults, she won’t be greedy. There isn’t room for any one to be greedy in this house. The law of this house is the law of self-denial; isn’t it, Padre?”

“I begin to perceive that it is, Pauline. But whom are you talking of?”

“Now, Padre,” said Verena, “if you don’t wake and rouse yourself, and act like a decent Christian, you’ll be just prodded—you’ll be just shaken. We will do it. There are eight of us, and we’ll make your life a burden.”

“Eh—eh!” said Mr. Dale. “Really, girls, you are enough to startle a man. And you say——”

“I say, Paddy, that Miss Sophia Tredgold is on her way here. Each instant she is coming nearer. She is coming in the old pony cart, and the old pony is struggling with all his might to convey her here. She is coming with her luggage, intending to stay, and our object is to get her to go away again. Do you hear, Padre?”

“Yes, my dear, I hear. I comprehend. It takes a great deal to bring a man back down the ages—down—down to this small, poor, parsimonious life; it takes a great deal. A man is not easily roused, nor brought back; but I am back now, darlings.—Excuse me, Briar; no more prodding.—Hands off, Pauline.—Hands off, Patty. Perhaps I had better tidy myself.”

“You certainly would look nicer, and more like the owner of The Dales, if you got into your other coat,” said Briar.

“Shall we all come up and help you, Padre?” called out the eight in a breath.

“No, no, dears. I object to ladies hovering about my room. I’ll run away now.”

“Yes, yes; and you’d better be quick, Padre, for I hear wheels.”

“I am going, loves, this moment.”

Mr. Dale turned and absolutely ran to the shelter of the house, for the wheels were getting near—rumbling, jumping, uncertain. Now the rumbling and the jumping and the uncertainty got into the avenue, and came nearer and nearer; and finally the tumble-down pony cart drew up at the house. The pony printed his uncertain feet awkwardly but firmly on the weed-grown sweep in front of the unpainted hall door, and Miss Tredgold gazed around her.

Miss Tredgold was a very thin, tall woman of about forty-five years of age. She was dressed in the extreme of fashion. She wore a perfectly immaculate traveling dress of dark-gray tweed. It fitted her well-proportioned figure like a glove. She had on a small, very neat black hat, and a spotted veil surrounded her face. She stepped down from the pony cart and looked around her.

“Ah!” she said, seeing Verena, “will you kindly mention to some of the ladies of the family that I have arrived?”

“I think I need not mention it, because we all know,” said Verena. “I am your niece Verena.”

“You!”

Miss Tredgold could throw unutterable scorn into her voice. Verena stepped back, and her pretty face grew first red and then pale. What she would have said next will never be known to history, for at that instant the very good child, Penelope, appeared out of the house.

“Is you my Aunty Sophy?” she said. “How are you, Aunty Sophy? I am very pleased to see you.”

Miss Sophia stared for a moment at Penelope. Penelope was hideously attired, but she was at least clean. The other girls were anyhow. They were disheveled; they wore torn and unsightly skirts; their hair was arranged anyhow or not at all; on more than one face appeared traces of recent acquaintance with the earth in the shape of a tumble. One little girl with very black eyes had an ugly scratch across her left cheek; another girl had the gathers out of her frock, which streamed in the most hopeless fashion on the ground.

“How do you do?” said Aunt Sophia. “Where is your father? Will you have the goodness, little girl, to acquaint your father with the fact that his sister-in-law, Sophia Tredgold, has come?”

“Please come into the house, Aunt Sophy, and I’ll take you to father’s study—so I will,” exclaimed champion Penelope.

CHAPTER III.

PREPARING FOR THE FIGHT.

Penelope held up a chubby hand, which Miss Tredgold pretended not to see.

“Go on in front, little girl,” she said. “Don’t paw me. I hate being pawed by children.”

Penelope’s back became very square as she listened to these words, and the red which suffused her face went right round her neck. But she walked solemnly on in front without a word.

“Aunties are unpleasant things,” she said to herself; “but, all the same, I mean to fuss over this one.”

Here she opened a door, flung it wide, and cried out to her parent:

“Paddy, here comes Aunt Sophia Tredgold.”

But she spoke to empty air—Mr. Dale was still busy over his toilet.

“Whom are you addressing by that hideous name?” said Miss Sophia. “Do you mean to tell me you call your father Paddy?”

“We all do,” said Penelope.

“Of course we do,” said Verena, who had followed behind.

“That is our name for the dear old boy,” said Pauline, who stood just behind Verena, while all the other children stood behind Pauline.

It was in this fashion that the entire party invaded Mr. Dale’s sanctum. Miss Tredgold gazed around her, her face filled with a curious mixture of amazement and indignation.

“I had an intuition that I ought to come here,” she said aloud. “I did not want to come, but I obeyed what I now know was the direct call of duty. I shall stay here as long as I am wanted. My mission will be to bring order out of chaos—to reduce all those who entertain rebellion to submission—to try to turn vulgar, hoydenish little girls into ladies.”

“Oh, oh! I say, aunty, that is hard on us!” burst from Josephine.

“My dear, I don’t know your name, but it is useless for you to make those ugly exclamations. Whatever your remarks, whatever your words, I shall take no notice. You may struggle as you will, but I am the stronger. Oh! here comes—— Is it possible? My dear Henry, what years it is since we met! Don’t you remember me—your sister-in-law Sophia? I was but a little girl when you married my dear sister. It is quite affecting to meet you again. How do you do?”

Miss Tredgold advanced to meet her brother-in-law. Mr. Dale put both his hands behind his back.

“Are you sorry to see me?” asked Miss Tredgold. “Oh, dear, this is terrible!”

The next instant the horrified man found that Miss Tredgold had kissed him calmly and with vigor on each cheek. Even his own children were never permitted to kiss Mr. Dale. To tell the truth, he was the last sort of person anybody would care to kiss. His face resembled a piece of parchment, being much withered and wrinkled and dried up. There was an occasion in the past when Verena had taken his scholarly hand and raised it to her lips, but even that form of endearment he objected to.

“I forgive you, dear,” he said; “but please don’t do it again. We can love each other without these marks of an obsolete and forgotten age. Kissing, my dear, is too silly to be endured in our day.”

That Miss Tredgold should kiss him was therefore an indignity which the miserable man was scarcely likely to get over as long as he lived.

“And now, girls,” said the good lady, turning round and facing her astonished nieces, “I have a conviction that your father and I would have a more comfortable conversation if you were not present. Leave the room, therefore, my dears. Go quietly and in an orderly fashion.”

“Perhaps, children, it would be best,” said Mr. Dale.

He felt as though he could be terribly rude, but he made an effort not to show his feelings.

“There is no other possible way out of it,” he said to himself. “I must be very frank. I must tell her quite plainly that she cannot stay. It will be easier for me to be frank without the children than with them.”

So the girls left the room. Penelope, going last, turned a plump and bewildered face towards her aunt.

But Miss Tredgold took no more notice of Penelope than she did of the others. When the last pair of feet had vanished down the passage, she went to the door and locked it.

“What are you doing that for?” asked Mr. Dale.

“My dear Henry, I locked the door because I wish to have a quiet word with you. I have come here—I will say it plainly—for the sole purpose of saving you.”

“Of saving me, Sophia! From what?”

“From the grievous sin you are committing—the sin of absolutely and completely neglecting the ten daughters given to you by Providence. Do you do anything for them? Do you try in the least to help them? Are you in any sense of the word educating them? I scarcely know the children yet, but I must say frankly that I never came across more terribly neglected young people. Their clothes are in rags, they are by no means perfectly clean in their persons, and they look half-starved. Henry, you ought to be ashamed of yourself! I wonder my poor sister doesn’t turn in her grave! When I think that Alice was their mother, and that you are bringing them up as you are now doing, I could give way to tears. But, Henry, tears are not what are required. Action is the necessary thing. I mean to act, and nothing will turn me from that resolution.”

“But, my dear Sophia, I have not met you for years. To be frank with you, I had almost forgotten your existence. I am a terribly busy man, Sophia—a scholar—at least, I hope so. I do not think the children are neglected; they are well, and no one is ever unkind to them. There is no doubt that we are poor. I am unable to have the house done up as poor Alice would have liked to see it; and I have let the greater part of the ground, so that we are not having dairy produce or farm produce at present. The meals, therefore, are plain.”

“And insufficient; I have no doubt of that,” said Miss Tredgold.

“They are very plain,” he answered. “Perhaps you like dainty food; most ladies of your age do. I must be as frank with you as you are with me. You won’t like our table. Sometimes we do without meat for a week at a time.”

“I do not care if you never touch meat again,” said Miss Sophia. “Thank goodness, with all my faults, I am not greedy.”

“What a pity!” murmured Mr. Dale.

“What was that you said? Do you like greedy women?”

“No, Sophia; but I want to put matters so straight before you that you will consider it your bounden duty to leave The Dales.”

“Where my duty calls me I stay, whatever the circumstances, and however great the inconveniences,” remarked Miss Sophia.

“Well, Sophia, your attitude and manner and words distress me considerably. But I must speak to you again. I am busy now over a most important matter. I have just discovered——”

“A gold mine on your estate?”

“No; something fifty times more valuable—a new rendering——”

“Of what, may I ask?”

“‘The noblest meter ever moulded by the lips of man.’ Bowen is quite wrong in his translation; I am about to prove it. I allude to Virgil’s Æneid.”

“Good heavens!” exclaimed Miss Tredgold, “is the man staring mad? Now, my dear fellow, you have got to put up with me. I can tell you plainly that it will be no treat to live with you. If it were not for my sister I would leave this house and let you and your family go your own way to destruction; but as Alice was so fond of me, and did her best for me when I was a little girl, I mean to do my best for your children.”

“But in what way, Sophia? I told you I was poor. I am poor. I cannot afford a governess. Verena can darn quite nicely, and she knows a little about plain needlework. She turned a skirt of her own a month ago; her work seemed quite creditable, for I did not notice it one way or the other.”

“Oh, you man—you man!” said Miss Tredgold.

“And the other children are also learning to use the needle; and most of them can read, for all the novels that I happen to possess have been removed from the bookshelves. The girls can read, they can write, and they can use their needles. They are thoroughly happy, and they are healthy. They do not feel the heat of summer or the cold of winter. The food is plain, and perhaps not over-abundant, but they are satisfied with it. They don’t worry me much. In short, it is only fair to say that I am not well enough off to keep you here. I cannot possibly give you the comforts you require. I should be glad, therefore, my dear Sophia, if you would be kind enough to leave The Dales.”

“Now listen to me, Henry. I have resolved to stay, and only force will turn me out. My heavier luggage is coming by the carrier to-morrow. I brought a small trunk in that awful little conveyance which you sent to meet me. As to the money question, it needn’t trouble you, for I shall pay for all extras which my presence requires. As to luxuries, I am indifferent to them. But I mean the girls to eat their food like ladies, and I mean the food to be well cooked; and also everything in the house shall be clean, and there shall be enough furniture in the rooms for the ordinary requirements of ordinary gentlefolks. I shall stay here for at least three months, and if at the end of that time you do not say to me, ‘Sophia, I can never thank you enough for what you have done,’ I shall be surprised. Now I have stated exactly the position of things, and, my dear Henry, you are welcome to go back to your work. You can study your beloved Virgil and gloat over your discovery; but for goodness’ sake come to dinner to-night looking like a gentleman.”

“My wardrobe is a little in abeyance, Sophia. I mean that I—I have not put on an evening coat for years.”

“You probably have one at the back of nowhere,” said Miss Tredgold in a contemptuous tone. “But, anyhow, put on the best you have got. Believe me, I have not come to this house to sit down with my hands before me. I have come to work, to renovate, to restore, to build up. Not another word, Henry. I have put the matter into a nutshell, and you and your children must learn to submit to the arrival of Sophia Tredgold.”

At these words the good lady unlocked the door and stepped out.

As she walked down the passage she heard the quick trampling of many feet, and it occurred to her that some of the girls must have been listening at the keyhole.

“I can’t allow that sort of thing again,” she said to herself. “But now—shall I take notice?”

She stood for a moment thinking. The color came into her cheeks and her eyes looked bright.

“For my sister’s sake I will put up with a good deal,” was her final comment; and then she went into the hall.

There was a wide old hall leading to the front stairs, and in this hall now stood the good child Penelope. She had brought in a quantity of fresh grasses, and had a piteous and beseeching expression on her face. Miss Tredgold took no notice of her. She stood by the open hall door and looked out.

“Might be made a pretty place,” she said aloud.

Then she turned to go upstairs, sighing as she did so. Penelope echoed the sigh in a most audible manner. Miss Tredgold was arrested by the sound, and looked down.

“Ah, little girl!” she said. “What are you doing here?”

“I thought perhaps you’d like me to help you,” said Penelope. “I wor waiting for you to come out of Pad’s room.”

“Don’t use that hideous word ‘wor.’ W-a-s, was. Can you spell?”

“No; and I don’t want to,” said Penelope.

“We’ll see about that. In the meantime, child, can you take me to my room?”

“May I hold of your hand?” said Penelope.

“May you hold my hand, not of my hand. Certainly not. You may go on in front of me. You have got clearly to understand—— But what did you say your name was?”

“Penelope.”

“You must clearly understand, Penelope, that I do not pet children. I expect them to be good without sugar-plums.”

Now, Penelope knew that sugar-plums were delicious. She had heard of them, and at Christmas-time she used to dream of them, but very few had hitherto come into her life. She now looked eagerly at Miss Tredgold.

“If I are good for a long time without them, will you give me two or three?” she asked.

Miss Tredgold gave a short, grim laugh.

“We’ll see,” she said. “I never make rash promises. Oh! so this is my room.”

She looked around her.

“No carpet,” she said aloud; “no curtains; no pictures on the walls. A deal table for a dressing-table, the muslin covering much the worse for dirt and wear. Hum! You do live plain at The Dales.”

“Oh, yes; don’t us?” said Penelope. “And your room is much the handsomest of all the rooms. We call it very handsome. If you wor to see our rooms——”

“Were to see——”

“Yes, were to see,” repeated Penelope, who found this constant correction very tiresome.

“And may I ask,” exclaimed Miss Tredgold suddenly, not paying any heed to the little girl’s words, “what on earth is that in the blue mug?”

She marched up to the dressing-table. In the center was a large blue mug of very common delft filled with poor Penelope’s grasses.

“What horror is this?” she said. “Take it away at once, and throw those weeds out.”

At that moment poor Penelope very nearly forsook her allegiance to Aunt Sophia. She ran downstairs trembling. In the hall she was received by a bevy of sisters.

“Well, Pen, and so you have bearded the lion! You took her to her room, did you? And what did she say? Did she tell you when she was going away?”

“Yes, did she?” came from Verena’s lips; and Pauline’s eager eyes, and the eyes of all the other children, asked the same question.

Penelope gave utterance to a great sigh.

“I thought I’d be the goodest of you all,” she said. “I maded up my mind that I just would; but I doesn’t like Aunt Sophia, and I think I’ll be the naughtiest.”

“No, you little goose; keep on being as good as you can. She can’t possibly stay long, for we can’t afford it,” said Verena.

“She’ll stay,” answered Penelope. “She have made up her mind. She throwed away my lovely grasses; she called them weeds, my darlings that I did stoop so much to pick, and made my back all aches up to my neck. And she said she hated little girls that pawed her. Oh, I could cry! I did so want to be the goodest of you all, and I thought that I’d get sugar-plums and perhaps pennies. And I thought she’d let me tell her when you was all bad. Oh, I hate her now! I don’t think I care to be took out of the nursery if she’s about.”

“You certainly are a caution, Penny,” said Verena. “It is well that you have told us what your motives are. Believe me, there are worse places than that despised nursery of yours. Now, I suppose we must get some sort of dinner or tea for her. I wonder what Betty is doing to-day, if her head aches, and if——”

“Oh, come along; let’s go and find out,” said Pauline. “I feel so desperate that I have the courage for anything.”

It is to be owned that the Dales did not keep an extensive establishment. Old John pottered about the gardens and did what little gardening he thought necessary. He also did odd jobs about the house. Besides John, there was Betty. Betty ruled supreme as cook and factotum in the kitchen. Betty never asked any one for orders; she got what she considered necessary from the local tradesmen, or she did without. As a rule she did without. She said that cooking was bad for her—that it made her head and back ache. On the days when Betty’s head or back ached there was never any dinner. The family did not greatly mind. They dined on these occasions on bread, either with butter or without. Betty managed to keep them without dinner certainly at the rate of once or twice a week. She always had an excellent excuse. Either the boiler was out of gear, or the range would not draught properly, or the coals were out, or the butcher had failed to come. Sometimes the children managed to have jam with their bread-and-butter, and then they considered that they had a very fine meal indeed. It mattered little to them what sort of food they had if they only had enough; but sometimes they had not even enough. This more constantly happened in the winter than in the summer, for in the summer there was always plenty of milk and always plenty of fruit and vegetables.

When Betty heard that Miss Tredgold was coming to stay she immediately gave Verena notice. This was nothing at all extraordinary, for Betty gave notice whenever anything annoyed her. She never dreamed of acting up to her own words, so that nobody minded Betty’s repeated notices. But on the morning of the day when Miss Tredgold was expected, Betty told nurse that she was about to give a real, earnest notice at last.

“I am going,” she said. “I go this day month. I march out of this house, and never come back—no, not even if a dook was to conduct me to the hymeneal altar.”

Betty was always great on the subject of dukes and marquises. She was seldom so low in health as to condescend to a “hearl,” and there had even been a moment when she got herself to believe that royalty might aspire to her hand.

“She must be really going,” said Verena when nurse repeated Betty’s speech. “She would not say that about the duke if she was not.”

“You leave her alone,” said nurse. “But she’s dreadful put out, Miss Renny; there’s no doubt of that. I doubt if she’ll cook any dinner for Miss Tredgold.”

Verena, Pauline, and Penelope now rushed round to the kitchen premises. They were nervous, but at the same time they were brave. They must see what Betty intended to do. They burst open the door. The kitchen was not too clean. It was a spacious apartment, which in the days when the old house belonged to rich people was well taken care of, and must have sent forth glorious fires—fires meant to cook noble joints. On the present occasion the fire was dead out; the range looked a dull gray, piles of ashes lying in a forlorn manner at its feet. Betty was sitting at the opposite side of the kitchen, her feet on one chair and her capacious person on another. She was busily engaged devouring the last number of the Family Paper. She had come to a most rousing portion in her story—that part in which the duke marries the governess. Betty was, as she said, all in a twitter to see how matters would end; but just at this crucial moment the girls burst in.

“Betty, do stop reading,” said Verena. “She’s come, Betty.”

“I know,” cried Betty. “I’m not deaf, I suppose. John told me. He brought her, drat him! He says she’s the sort to turn the house topsy-turvy. I’ll have none of her. I won’t alter my ways—no, not a hand’s-turn—for the like of her, and I go this day month.”

“Oh, Betty!” said Verena.

“I do, my dear; I do. I can’t put up with the ways of them sort—never could. I like you well enough, young ladies, and your pa; and I’d stop with you willing—so I would, honey—but I can’t abide the likes of her.”

“All the same, she’s come, Betty, and we must have something for dinner. Have you anything in the house?”

“Not a blessed handful.”

“Oh, Betty!” said Verena; “and I told you this morning, and so did nurse. We said we must have dinner to-night at seven o’clock. You should have got something for her.”

“But I ain’t done it. The stove’s out of order; we want the sweep. I have a splitting headache, and I’m just reading to keep my mind off the pain.”

“But what are we to do? We must get her something.”

“Can’t she have tea and bread-and-butter? We’ve half-a-pound of cooking butter in the house.”

“Are there any eggs?”

“No. I broke the last carrying it across the kitchen an hour ago. My hands were all of a tremble with the pain, and the egg slipped.”

“Betty, you are too dreadful! Won’t you put that paper down and try to help us?”

Betty looked at the three faces. In their shabby dresses, and with their pretty, anxious eyes, Verena having a frown between her charming brows, they made a picture that struck the cook’s heart. With all her odd and peculiar ways, she was affectionate.

“Are you fretting about it, Miss Renny?” she asked.

As she spoke she put down her feet and pushed the tempting number of the Family Paper from her.

“There!” she said; “poor little Miss Dunstable may marry the Dook of Mauleverer-Wolverhampton just as soon as she pleases, but I won’t have you put out, Miss Renny.”

“I did want something nice for dinner,” said Verena.

“Then I’ll manage it. There ain’t a better cook than I anywhere when I’m put on my mettle. Miss Penny, will you help me?”

“Certainly,” said Penelope.

“Well, run into the garden and pick all the peas you can find. There’s a nice little joint in the larder, and I’ll roast it, and you shall have a beautiful dinner. Now off you go, dears. You shall have custard-pudding and cream and strawberry-jam afterwards.”

“Oh, how nice!” cried Penelope, with a little gasp. “Be sure you give us plenty of strawberry-jam, and make a very large custard-pudding, for there’s such a lot of us to eat the things, and I generally get the teeniest little bit.”

“You are a nursery child, and it’s in the nursery you’ll have your tea,” said Verena in a stern tone. “Go and pick the peas.”

“Not me,” said Penelope.

She sat down just where she was, in an obstinate heap, in the middle of the floor.

“If I are not to eat those peas I don’t pick ’em,” she said. “I wor going to be kind, but I won’t be kind if I’m to be turned into a nursery child.”

“Oh! do let her come to the dining-room just for to-night,” pleaded Pauline.

“Very well, then; just for once,” said Verena.

CHAPTER IV.

THE LIFE OF MISRULE.

Dinner went off better than the girls had expected. But to Miss Tredgold it was, and ever would be, the most awful meal she had eaten in the whole course of her existence. The table was devoid of all those things which she, as a refined lady, considered essential. The beautiful old silver spoons were dirty, and several of them bent almost out of recognition. A like fate had befallen the forks; the knives were rusty, the handles disgracefully dirty; and the tablecloth, of the finest damask, was almost gray in color, and adorned with several large holes. The use of serviettes had been long abolished from The Dales.

The girls, in honor of the occasion, had put on their best frocks, and Verena looked fairly pretty in a skimpy white muslin made in an obsolete style. The other girls each presented a slightly worse appearance than their elder sister, for each had on a somewhat shabbier frock, a little more old-fashioned and more outgrown. As to Mr. Dale, it had been necessary to remind him at least three times of his sister-in-law’s arrival; and finally Verena had herself to put him into his very old evening-coat, to brush him down afterwards, and to smooth his hair, and then lead him into the dining-room.

Miss Tredgold, in contradistinction to the rest of the family, was dressed correctly. She wore a black lace dress slightly open at the neck, and with elbow sleeves. The children thought that she looked dazzlingly fashionable. Verena seemed to remember that she had seen figures very like Aunt Sophia’s in the fashion books. Aunt Sophia’s hair in particular absorbed the attention of four of her nieces. How had she managed to turn it into so many rolls and spirals and twists? How did she manage the wavy short hair on her forehead? It seemed to sit quite tight to her head, and looked as if even a gale of wind would not blow it out of place. Aunt Sophia’s hands were thin and very white, and the fingers were half-covered with sparkling rings, which shone and glittered so much that Penelope dropped her choicest peas all over her frock as she gazed at them.

John was requisitioned to wait at table, and John had no livery for the purpose. The family as a rule never required attendance at meals. On this occasion it was supposed to be essential, and as Betty refused point-blank to stir from the kitchen, John had to come to the fore.

“No, no, Miss Renny,” said Betty when poor Verena begged and implored of the good woman to put in an appearance. “No, you don’t. No, you certain sure don’t. Because you looked pretty and a bit coaxing I gave up Miss Dunstable and the Dook of Mauleverer-Wolverhampton two hours ago, but not another minute will I spare from them. It’s in their select society that I spend my haristocratic evening.”

Verena knew that it would be useless to coax Betty any further. So John appeared with the potatoes in a large dish on a rusty tray, each potato having, as Betty expressed it, a stone inside. This she declared was the proper way to cook them. The peas presently followed the potatoes. They were yellow with age, for they ought to have been eaten at least a week ago. The lamb was terribly underdone, and the mint sauce was like no mint sauce that Miss Tredgold had ever dreamed of. The pudding which followed was a pudding that only Betty knew the recipe for, and that recipe was certainly not likely to be popular in fashionable circles. But the strawberry-jam was fairly good, and the cream was excellent; and when, finally, Miss Tredgold rose to the occasion and said that she would make some coffee, which she had brought down from town, in her own coffee-pot on her own etna, the girls became quite excited.

The coffee was made, and shed a delicious aroma over the room. Mr. Dale was so far interested that he was seen to sniff twice, and was found to be observing the coffee as though he were a moth approaching a candle. He even forgot his Virgil in his desire to partake of the delicious stimulant. Miss Tredgold handed him a cup.

“There,” she said. “If you were ever young, and if there was ever a time when you cared to act as a gentleman, this will remind you of those occasions.—And now, children, I introduce you to ‘Open sesame;’ and I hope, my dear nieces, by means of these simple cups of coffee you will enter a different world from that which you have hitherto known.”

The girls all drank their coffee, and each pronounced it the nicest drink they had ever taken.

Presently Miss Tredgold went into the garden. She invited Verena and Pauline to accompany her.

“The rest of you can stay behind,” she said. “You can talk about me to each other as much as you like. I give you leave to discuss me freely, knowing that, even if I did not do so, you would discuss me all the same. I am quite aware that you all hate me for the present, but I do not think this state of things will long continue. Come, Verena; come, Pauline. The night is lovely. We will discuss nature a little, and common sense a great deal.”

The two girls selected to walk with Miss Tredgold looked behind at the seven girls left in the dining-room, and the seven girls looked back at them with a mixture of curiosity and pity.

“Never mind your sisters now,” said Miss Tredgold. “We want to talk over many things. But before we enter into any discussion I wish to ask a question.”

“Yes,” said Verena in her gentle voice.

“Verena,” said her aunt suddenly, “how old are you?”

“Fifteen,” said Verena.

“Precisely. And on your next birthday you will be sixteen, and on the following seventeen, and on the next one again eighteen. You have, therefore, nearly three years in which to be transformed from a little savage into a lady. The question I now want to ask you is: Do you prefer to remain a savage all your days, uneducated, uncultured, your will uncontrolled, your aspirations for good undeveloped; or do you wish to become a beautiful and gracious lady, kind, sympathetic, learned, full of grace? Tell me, my dear.”

“How can I?” replied Verena. “I like my life here; we all suit each other, and we like The Dales just as it is. Yes, we all suit each other, and we don’t mind being barbarians.”

Miss Tredgold sighed.

“I perceive,” she said, “that I shall have uphill work before me. For you of all the young people, Verena, are the easiest to deal with. I know that without your telling me. I know it by your face. You are naturally gentle, courteous, and kind. You are easy to manage. You are also the most important of all to be brought round to my views, for whatever you do the others will do. It is on you, therefore, that I mean to exercise my greatest influence and to expend my heaviest forces.”

“I don’t quite understand you, Aunt Sophia. I know, of course, you mean kindly, but I would much rather——”

“That I went away? That I left you in the disgraceful state in which I have found you?”

“Well, I don’t consider it disgraceful; and——”

“Yes? You would rather I went?”

Verena nodded. After a moment she spoke.

“It seems unkind,” she said—“and I don’t wish to be unkind—but I would rather you went.”

“And so would I, please, Aunt Sophia,” said Pauline.

Miss Tredgold looked straight before her. Her face became a little pinched, a little white round her lips.

“Once,” she said slowly, “I had a sister—a sister whom I loved. She was my half-sister, but I never thought of that. She was to me sister and mother in one. She brought me up from the time I was a little child. She was good to me, and she instilled into me certain principles. One of these principles can be expressed in the following words: God put us into the world to rise, not to sink. Another of her principles was that God put us into the world to be good, to be unselfish. Another one, again, was as follows: We must give account for our talents. Now, to allow the talent of beauty, for instance, to degenerate into what it is likely to do in your case, Verena, is distinctly wicked. To allow you to sink when you might rise is sinful. To allow you to be selfish when you might be unselfish is also wrong. Your talents, and the talents of Pauline, and the talents of your other sisters must be cultivated and brought to the fore. I want to tell you now, my dear girls, that for years I have longed to help you; that since your mother’s death you have scarcely ever been out of my mind. But circumstances over which I had no control kept me away from you. At last I am free, and the children of my sister Alice are the ones I think most about. I have come here prepared for your rebellion, prepared for your dislike, and determined not to be discouraged by either the one or the other. I have come to The Dales, Verena and Pauline, and I mean to remain here for at least three months. If at the end of the three months you ask me to go, I will; although even then I will not give you up. But until three months have expired you can only turn me out by force. I don’t think you will do that. It is best that we should understand each other clearly; is it not, Verena?”

Verena’s face was very white; her big brown eyes were full of tears.

“I ought to be glad and to say ‘Welcome.’ But I am not glad, and I don’t welcome you, Aunt Sophia. We like our own way; we don’t mind being savages, and it is untrue that we are selfish. We are not. Each would give up anything, I think, for the other. But we like our poverty and our rough ways and our freedom, and we—we don’t want you, Aunt Sophia.”

“Nevertheless you will have to put up with me,” said Miss Tredgold. “And now, to start matters, please tell me exactly how you spend your day.”

“Our life is not yours, Aunt Sophia. It would not interest you to know how we spend our day.”

“To-morrow, Verena, when the life of rule succeeds the life of misrule, I should take umbrage at your remark, but to-night I take no umbrage. I but repeat my question.”

“And I will tell you,” said Pauline in her brisk voice. “We get up just when we like. We have breakfast when we choose—sometimes in the garden on the grass, sometimes not at all. We walk where we please, and lose ourselves in the Forest, and gather wild strawberries and wild flowers, and watch the squirrels, and climb the beech-trees. When it is fine we spend the whole day out, just coming back for meals, and sometimes not even then, if Betty gives us a little milk and some bread. Sometimes we are lazy and lie on the grass all day. We do what we like always, and always just when we like. Don’t we, Renny?”

“Yes,” said Verena. “We do what we like, and in our own way.”

“In future,” said Miss Tredgold, “you will do things in my way. I hope you will not dislike my way; but whether you like or dislike it, you will have to submit.”

“But, Aunt Sophia,” said Verena, “what authority have you over us? I am exceedingly sorry to seem rude, but I really want to know. Father, of course, has authority over us, but have you? Has anybody but father? That is what I want to know.”

“I thought you might ask something of that sort,” said Miss Tredgold—“or, even if you did not ask it, you might think it—and I am prepared with my answer. I quite recognize that in the case of girls like you I have no authority, and I cannot act fairly by you until I have. Now, my dear girls, please understand that before I go to bed to-night I get that authority. I shall get it m writing, too, so that you can none of you gainsay it, or slip past it, or avoid it. When the authority comes, then will also come the happy life of rule, for the life of misrule can never be really happy—never for long. Believe me, I am right.”

Pauline pulled her hand away from Aunt Sophia’s. She ran to the other side of Verena.

“I don’t like you, Aunt Sophia,” she said, “and I don’t want you to stay. Renny, you don’t like her either, and you don’t want her to stay. We don’t believe all the things you are saying, Aunt Sophia. You can’t look into our hearts, and although you are clever, you can’t know all about us. Why shouldn’t we be wild in our own fashion? We are very happy. To be happy is everything. We have only been unhappy since we knew you were coming. Please go away; please do.”

“You cannot influence me, Pauline. I love you too well to desert you. Now I am going into the house. You can discuss me then with your sister to your heart’s content.”

Miss Tredgold went very slowly towards the old and dilapidated house. When she reached the hall door she turned and looked around her.

“I certainly have tough work before me. How am I to manage? If I were not thinking so much of Alice, I should leave these impertinent, neglected, silly girls to their fate. But no—I seem to see my sister’s eyes, to hear her voice. I can so well understand what she would really want me to do. I owe a great debt of gratitude to my beloved sister. I am free, hampered by no ties. I will reform these wild young nieces. I will not be easily deterred.”

Miss Tredgold clasped her hands before her. The moon was rising in a silvery bow in the sky; the air was deliciously fresh and balmy.

“The place is healthy, and the children are strong,” she thought, “notwithstanding their bad food and their disreputable, worn-out clothes. They are healthy, fresh, good-looking girls. But this is summer-time, and in summer-time one puts up with discomforts for the sake of air like this. But what about winter? I have no doubt they have scarcely any fires, and the house must be damp. As the children grow older they will develop rheumatism and all kinds of troubles. Yes, my duty is plain. I must look after my nieces, both soul and body, for the future.”

As Miss Tredgold thought these last thoughts she re-entered the house. She walked through the desolate rooms. It was now twilight, but no one thought of lighting lamps, or drawing curtains, or shutting windows. Miss Tredgold stumbled as she walked. Presently she found that she had wandered in the neighborhood of the kitchen. She had no intention of bearding Betty in her den—she had no idea that there was a Betty—but as she was near the kitchen, and as under that doorway alone there streamed a light, she opened the door.

“Is there any one inside?” she asked.

A grunt in the far distance came by way of response. The fire was out in the stove, and as Miss Tredgold grew accustomed to the gloom she saw in the farthest corner something that resembled the stout form of a woman, whose legs rested on one chair and her body on another. A guttering dip candle was close to her side, and a paper book was held almost under her nose.

“I am sorry to disturb you,” said Miss Tredgold, “but I have come for a light. Will you kindly inform me where I can get a candle?”

“There ain’t none in the house.”

The book was put down, and the angry face of Betty appeared to view.

“Then I fear I must trouble you to resign the one you yourself are using. I must have a light to see my way to my bedroom.”

“There ain’t no candles. We don’t have ’em in summer. This one I bought with my own money, and I don’t give it up to nobody, laidy or no laidy.”

“Am I addressing the cook?”

“You are, ma’am. And I may as well say I am cook and housemaid and parlor-maid and kitchen-maid and scullery-maid all in one; and I does the laundry, too, whenever it’s done at all. You may gather from my words, ma’am, that I have a deal to do, so I’ll thank you to walk out of my kitchen; for if I am resting after my day of hard work, I have a right to rest, and my own candle shall light me, and my own book shall amuse me. So have the goodness to go, ma’am, and at once.”

“I will go,” replied Miss Tredgold very quietly, “exactly when I please, and not a moment before. I wish to say now that I require breakfast to be on the table at nine o’clock, and there must be plenty of good food. Do you mean to say that you have not got food in the house? You can, I presume, send out for it. Here is a half-sovereign. Spend it in what is necessary in order to provide an abundant meal on the table to-morrow morning for the use of Mr. Dale, myself, and my nieces.”

What Betty would have said had there been no half-sovereign forthcoming history will never relate. But half-sovereigns were very few and very precious at The Dales. It was almost impossible to get any money out of Mr. Dale; he did not seem to know that there was such a thing as money. If it was put into his hand by any chance, he spent it on books. Betty’s wages were terribly in arrears. She wanted her wages, but she was too generous, with all her faults, to press for them. But, all the same, the touch of the gold in her hand was distinctly soothing, and Miss Tredgold immediately rose in her estimation. A lady who produced at will golden half-sovereigns, and who was reckless enough to declare that one of these treasures might be spent on a single meal, was surely not a person to be sniffed at. Betty therefore stumbled to her feet.

“I beg your pardon, I’m sure, ma’am; and it’s badly we does want some things here. I’ll get what I can, although the notice is short, and the dook’s nuptials, so to speak, at the door.”

“What!” said Miss Tredgold.

“I beg your pardon again, ma’am, but my head aches and I’m a bit confused. I’m reading a most wonderful account of the wedding of the Dook of Mauleverer-Wolverhampton.”

“I never heard of him.”

“He’s marrying a young girl quite in my own station of life—one that was riz from the cottage to the governess-ship, and from the governess-ship to the ducal chair. My head is full of Her Grace, ma’am, and you’ll excuse me if I didn’t rightly know to whom I had the honor of talking. I’ll do what I can. And perhaps you’d like to borrow one of my dip candles for the present night.”

“I should very much,” said Miss Tredgold. “And please understand, Betty—I think you said your name was Betty—please understand that if you are on my side I shall be on your side. I have come here meaning to stay, and in future there will be a complete change in this establishment. You will receive good wages, paid on the day they are due. There will be plenty of money and plenty of food in the house, and the cook who pleases me stays, and the cook who displeases me goes. You understand?”

“Sakes!” muttered Betty, “it’s nearly as exciting as the doocal romance.—Well, ma’am, I’m of your way of thinking; and here’s your candle.”

CHAPTER V.

IN THE STUDY.

Miss Tredgold was the sort of woman who never let the grass grow under her feet. She felt, therefore, altogether out of place at The Dales, for at The Dales there was time for everything. “Time enough” was the motto of the establishment: time enough for breakfast, time enough for dinner, time enough for supper, time enough for bed, time enough for getting up, time enough for mending torn garments; surely, above all things, time enough for learning. To judge by the manner in which the family at The Dales went on, life was to last for ever and a day. They never hurried; they put things off when it pleased them; they stopped in the middle of one pursuit and turned to something else when the fancy took them; they were unruffled by the worries of life; they were, on the whole, gay, daring, indifferent. There was no money—or very little—for the future of these girls; they were absolutely uneducated; they were all but unclothed, and their food was poor and often insufficient. Nevertheless they were fairly happy. “Let well alone” was also their motto. “Never may care” was another. As to the rush and toil and strain of modern life, they could not even comprehend it. The idea of not being able to put off an engagement for a week, a month, or a year seemed to them too extraordinary to be believed. They were too young, too healthy, too happy to need to kill time; for time presented itself to them with an agreeable face, and the hours were never too long.

But although they were so indifferent to weighty matters, they had their own enthusiasms, and in their idle way they were busy always and forever. To have, therefore, a person like Aunt Sophia put suddenly into the middle of their gay and butterfly lives was something which was enough to madden the eight healthy girls who lived at The Dales. Aunt Sophia was, in their opinion, all crotchets, all nervousness, all fads. She had no tact whatsoever; at least, such was their first opinion of her. She put her foot down on this little crotchet, and pressed this passing desire out of sight. She brought new rules of life into their everyday existence, and, what is more, she insisted on being obeyed. With all their cleverness they were not half so clever as Aunt Sophia; they were no match for this good lady, who was still young at heart, who had been highly educated, who was full of enthusiasm, full of method, and full of determination. Aunt Sophia brought two very strong essentials with her to The Dales, and there was certainly little chance of the girls getting the victory over her. One thing which she brought was determination, joined to authority; the other thing was money. With these two weapons in her hand, what chance had the girls?

It might have been supposed that Miss Tredgold had done enough on the first night of her arrival. She had to a great extent vanquished the cook; and she had, further, told Verena and Pauline what lay before them. Surely she might have been contented, and have taken her dip candle in its tin candlestick and retired to her own room. But that was not Aunt Sophia’s way. She discovered a light stealing from under another door, and she made for that door.

Now, no one entered Mr. Dale’s room without knocking. None of the girls would have ventured to do so. But Aunt Sophia was made of sterner stuff. She did not knock. She opened the door and entered. The scholar was seated at the far end of the room. A large reading-lamp stood on the table. It spread a wide circle of light on the papers and books, and on his own silvery head and thin aquiline features. The rest of the room was in shadow. Miss Tredgold entered and stood a few feet away from Mr. Dale. Mr. Dale had already forgotten that such a person as Miss Sophia existed. It was his habit to work for a great many hours each night. It was during the hours of darkness that he most thoroughly absorbed himself in his darling occupation. His dinner had been better than usual, and that delicious coffee had stimulated his brain. He had not tasted coffee like that for years. His brain, therefore, being better nourished, was keener than usual to go on with his accustomed work. As Miss Sophia advanced to his side he uttered one or two sighs of rapture, for again a fresh rendering of a much-disputed passage occurred to him. Light was, in short, flooding the pages of his translation.

“The whole classical world will bless me,” murmured Mr. Dale. “I am doing a vast service.”

“I am sorry to interrupt you, Henry,” said the sharp, incisive tones of his sister-in-law.

At Miss Tredgold’s words he dropped his pen. It made a blot on the page, which further irritated him; for, untidy as he was in most things, his classical work was exquisitely neat.

“Do go away,” he said. “I am busy. Go away at once.”

“I am sorry, Henry, but I must stay. You know me, don’t you? Your sister-in-law, Sophia Tredgold.”

“Go away, Sophia. I don’t want to be rude, but I never see any one at this hour.”

“Henry, you are forced to see me. I shall go when I choose, not before.”

“Madam!”

Mr. Dale sprang to his feet.

“Madam!” he repeated, almost sputtering out his words, “you surely don’t wish me to expel you. You don’t intend to stand there all night. I can’t have it. I don’t allow people in my study. I am sorry to be discourteous to a lady, but I state a fact; you must go immediately. You don’t realize what it is to have a brain like mine, nor to have undertaken such a herculean task. Ah! the beautiful thought which meant so much has vanished. Madam, you are responsible.”

“Stop!” interrupted Miss Tredgold. “I will go the moment you do what I want.”

“Will you? I’ll do anything—anything that keeps you out of this room.”

“That is precisely what I require. I don’t wish to come into this room—that is, for the present. By-and-by it must be cleaned, for I decline to live in a dirty house; but I give you a fortnight’s grace.”

“And the rendering of the passage is beyond doubt, according to Clericus—— I beg your pardon; are you still speaking?”

“Yes, Henry. I am annoying you, I know; and, all things considered, I am glad, for you need rousing. I intend to sit or stand in this room, close to you, until morning if necessary. Ah! here is a chair.”

As Miss Tredgold spoke she drew forward an unwieldy arm-chair, which was piled up with books and papers. These she was calmly about to remove, when a shriek from the anguished scholar stopped her.

“Don’t touch them,” he exclaimed. “You destroy the work of months. If you must have a chair, take mine.”

Miss Tredgold did take it. She now found herself seated within a few yards of the scholar’s desk. The bright light from the lamp fell on her face; it looked pale, calm, and determined. Mr. Dale was in shadow; the agony on his face was therefore not perceptible.

“Take anything you want; only go, woman,” he said.

“Henry, you are a difficult person to deal with, and I am sorry to have to speak to you as I do. I am sorry to have to take, as it were, advantage of you; but I intend to stay in this house.”

“You are not wanted, Sophia.”

“I am not wished for, Henry; but as to being wanted, no woman was ever more wanted.”

“That you are not.”

“I say I am; and, what is more, I intend to remain. We need not discuss this point, for it is settled. I take up my sojourn in this house for three months.”

“Three months!” said Mr. Dale. “Oh, my word! And this is only June. From June to July, from July to August, from August to September! It is very cruel of you, Sophia. I did not think my poor wife’s sister would torture me like this.”

“For the sake of your family I intend to stay, Henry. You will have to submit. I do not leave this room until you submit. What is more, you have to do something further. I want you to give me authority over your children. The moment I have it—I want it in writing, remember—I will leave you; and I will trouble you in the future as little as woman can trouble man. You will have better meals; but that you won’t care about.”

“The coffee,” murmured Mr. Dale.

“Yes, you will have plenty of that delicious coffee. You will also have cleaner rooms.”

“This room is not to be touched; you understand?”

“For the present we will let that matter lie in abeyance. Come, give me your authority in writing, and I leave the room; but if you don’t, I stay in this chair—your chair, Henry Dale—all night if necessary.”

If ever there was a poor, bewildered man, it was Mr. Dale at that moment. He did not give many thoughts to anything on earth but his beloved studies; but, all the same, when he had time for a momentary reflection that he possessed girls, he felt that he quite liked them. In his own fashion he was fond of Verena; and once when Briar had a very bad cold he sat with her for a very few minutes, and recommended her to try snuff. He did not wish to make his children unhappy, and he thought that the advent of Miss Tredgold would have that effect on them. But, after all, a determined woman like her must be humored; and what were the children compared to his own most valuable work? In the days to come they would be proud to own him. He would be spoken of as the very great English scholar whose rendering of Virgil was the most perfect that had ever been put into English prose. Oh! it was impossible to hesitate another moment. The woman was in his chair, and his thoughts were leaving him.

“Madam,” he said, “you have taken me at a cruel disadvantage. I am seriously sorry for my poor children.”

“Never mind about that now, Henry. You are, I perceive, a wise man. You can rest assured that I will do what is best both for you and for them.”

“Very well, madam, I yield.”

“You give me absolute authority to do what I think best for your children?”

“Ye—s.”

“To reorganize this household?”

“Not this room.”

“With the exception of this room.”

“I suppose so.”

“You will uphold my authority when the girls come to you, as perhaps they will, and ask you to interfere?”

“Oh, Sophia, you won’t be hard on the poor children?”

“I will be just to them. You will uphold my authority?”

“Ye—s.”

“If I think it necessary to punish them, you won’t condemn the punishment?”

“Oh, please, Sophia, do go away! The night is passing quickly. I never think well by daylight.”

“Put it on paper, Henry. Or stay! that will take too long. Give me a sheet of paper; I will write what I require. I only want your signature.”

Poor Mr. Dale had to search among his papers for a blank sheet. Miss Sophia seized his special stylographic pen, pressed very hard on the nib, and wrote what she required. Mr. Dale felt certain he would find it quite spoilt when he came to use it again. But at last all her requirements were on paper, and Henry Dale wrote his signature at the end.

“Thank you, Henry; you have acted wisely. You have your study now to yourself.”

Miss Tredgold bowed as she left the room.

CHAPTER VI.

TOPSY-TURVYDOM.

The fortnight that followed was not likely to be forgotten by the young Dales. It would live in the remembrance of each child old enough to notice. Even Penelope found the course of events interesting—sometimes irritating, it is true; sometimes also delightful; but at least always exciting. Miss Tredgold never did things by halves. She had got the absolute authority which she required from the master of the house, and having got it she refrained from annoying him, in any way whatsoever. His meals were served with punctuality, and were far more comfortable than they had ever been before. He was always presented with a cup of strong, fragrant, delicious coffee after his dinner. This coffee enabled him to pursue his translation with great clearness and accuracy. His study up to the present was left undisturbed. His papers were allowed to remain thick with dust; his chairs were allowed to be laden with books and papers; the carpet was allowed to remain full of holes; the windows were left exactly as the scholar liked them—namely, tightly screwed down so that not even the faintest breath of heaven’s air could come in and disarrange the terrible disorder.

But the rest of the house was truly turned topsy-turvy. It was necessary, Miss Tredgold assured the girls, to have topsy-turvydom before the reign of order could begin.

At first the young Dales were very angry. For the whole of the first day Verena wept at intervals. Pauline sulked. Briar wept one minute and laughed the next. The other children followed in the footsteps of their elders. Penelope was now openly and defiantly a grown-up child. She belonged to the schoolroom, although no schoolroom as yet existed at The Dales. She defied nurse; she took her meals with her sisters, and pinched baby whenever she found her alone. Miss Tredgold, however, took no notice of the tears or smiles or groans or discontented looks. She had a great deal to do, and she performed her tasks with rectitude and skill and despatch. New furniture was ordered from Southampton. She drove to Lyndhurst Road with Verena in the shabby trap which had first brought her to The Dales. She went from there to Southampton and chose new furniture. Verena could not help opening her eyes in amazement. Such very pretty white bedsteads; such charming chests of drawers; such nice, clean-looking carpets!

“Surely, Aunt Sophia,” she said, “these things are not for us?”

“They certainly are, my dear,” replied her aunt; “for in future I hope you will live as a lady and a Christian, and no longer as a savage.”

The furniture arrived, and was put into the rooms. Pretty white curtains were placed at the windows; the paint was washed, and the paper rubbed down with bread.

“Fresh decoration and repainting must wait until I get the children to London for the winter,” thought Aunt Sophia.

But notwithstanding the fact that paint and paper were almost non-existent by this time at The Dales, the house assumed quite a new air. As to Betty, she was in the most extraordinary way brought over absolutely to Miss Tredgold’s part of the establishment. Miss Tredgold not only raised her wages on the spot, but paid her every farthing that was due in the past. She spoke to her a good deal about her duty, and of what she owed to the family, and of what she, Miss Tredgold, would do for her if she proved equal to the present emergency. Betty began to regard Miss Tredgold as a sort of marchioness in disguise. So interested was she in her, and so sure that one of the real “haristocrats” resided on the premises, that she ceased to read the Family Paper except at long intervals. She served up quite good dinners, and by the end of the fortnight few people would have known The Dales. For not only was the house clean and sweet—the drawing-room quite a charming old room, with its long Gothic windows, its tracery of ivy outside, and its peep into the distant rose-garden; the hall bright with great pots of flowers standing about—but the girls themselves were no longer in rags. The furniture dealer’s was not the only shop which Miss Tredgold had visited at Southampton. She had also gone to a linen draper’s, and had bought many nice clothes for the young folks.

The house being so much improved, and the girls being clothed afresh, a sufficient staff of servants arrived from a neighboring town. Betty was helped in the kitchen by a neat kitchen-maid; there were two housemaids and a parlor-maid; and John had a boy to help in the garden.

“Now, Verena,” said Miss Tredgold on the evening of the day when the new servants were pronounced a great success, “what do you think of everything?”

“You have made the place quite pretty, Aunt Sophia.”

“And you like it?”

“I think you mean to be very kind.”

“My dear Verena, do talk sense. Don’t tell me that you don’t feel more comfortable in that pale-gray, nicely fitting dress, with the blush-rose in your belt, and that exceedingly pretty white hat on your head, than you did when you rushed up to welcome me, little savage that you were, a fortnight ago.”

“I was so happy as a savage!”

“And you are not happy now?”

“I think you are kind, Aunt Sophia, and perhaps—I shall get accustomed to it.”

Her aunt whisked round with some impatience.

“I hope so,” she said; “for, whether you like it or not, you will have to put up with it. I fully intend to be kind, but I also mean to be very firm. I have now got the home in which you live into decent order, and you yourselves are respectably clothed. But I have not yet tackled the most important part of my duties, my dear Verena.”

“Oh, please, Aunt Sophia, what else is necessary?”

Miss Tredgold threw up her hands.

“A great, great deal more,” she cried. “I have not yet touched your minds; and I fear, from the way you speak, that I have scarcely touched your hearts. Well, your bodies at least are attended to, and now come your minds. Lastly, I hope to reach the most important of all—your hearts. Verena, I must probe your ignorance in order to stimulate you to learn. You, my dear, will be grown up in three years, so that you in particular have a vast lot to do.”

“But I hate learning, and I shouldn’t like to be a learned woman,” said Verena. “Mother knew a lot of things, but she wasn’t learned like father.”

“Good gracious, child! I don’t want you to be like your father. To tell the truth, a bookworm such as he is is one of the most irritating persons in existence. But there! What am I saying? I oughtn’t to speak against him in your presence. And your poor mother loved him, oh, so much! Now then, dear, to return to yourself and your sisters. I presume that you would like to be a useful and valuable member of society—a woman who has been trained to do her best, and to exercise the highest influence over all those with whom she comes in contact. Influence, which springs from character, my dear Verena, is the highest power that any one can get. Now, an ignorant person has little or no influence; therefore, to be kind and sympathetic and useful in the future, you must know many things. You have not a minute to lose. I appeal to you for your mother’s sake; for my dear, dear sister would have liked her eldest child to be—ah, Verena!—so good and so true!”

“You touch me, Aunt Sophy,” said Verena, “when you talk of mother. You touch me more than words can say. Yes, I will try to be good; but you must bear with me if I don’t take the yoke too kindly at first.”

“Poor child! I will try to make it light for you. Now what is the matter, Penelope?”

“Please, please, Aunt Sophy,” said that young person, rushing up at the moment.

“Hold yourself erect, my dear; don’t run quite so fast. There! you have got a rent already in your new frock. Now what do you want?”

“May I be a schoolroom little girl in the future?”

“What are you now?”

“Nursey says I’m nursery. But I don’t want to be nursery; I want to stay always with my own good Aunty Sophy. That is what I want. May I be a schoolroom child?”

“In the first place, you are not to call me ‘aunty.’ I am Aunt Sophia to you. I dislike abbreviations.”

“What’s them?”

“Say, ‘What are they?’”

“What are they?”

“I will tell you another time. How old are you, Penelope?”

“I wor seven my last birthday, one month agone.”

“Your grammar is disgraceful, child. Please understand that the schoolroom has its penalties.”

“What’s them?”

“Again I shall have to correct you. ‘What are they?’ is the sentence you ought to use. But now, my dear, I don’t approve of little girls learning much when they are only seven years old; but if you wish to be a schoolroom girl you will have to take your place in the schoolroom, and you will have to learn to submit. You will have to be under more discipline than you are now with nurse.”

“All the same, I’ll be with my own aunt,” said Penelope, raising her bold black eyes and fixing them on Miss Sophia’s face.

But Miss Tredgold was not the sort of person to be influenced by soft words. “Deeds, not words,” was her motto.

“You have said enough, Penelope,” she said. “Take your choice; you may be a schoolroom child for a month if you like.”

“I wouldn’t if I were you, Pen,” said Josephine.

“But I will,” said Penelope.

In her heart of hearts she was terrified at the thought of the schoolroom, but even more did she fear the knowledge that nurse would laugh at her if she returned to the nursery.

“I will stay,” she said. “I am a schoolroom child;” and she pirouetted round and round Aunt Sophia.

“But, please, Aunt Sophia,” said Verena, “who is going to teach us?”

“I intend to have that honor,” said Miss Tredgold.

If there were no outward groans among her assembled nieces at these words, there were certainly spirit groans, for the girls did not look forward to lessons with Aunt Sophia.

“You are all displeased,” she said; “and I am scarcely surprised. The fact is, I have not got any efficient teacher to come here just yet. The person I should wish for is not easy to find. I myself know a great deal more than you do, and I have my own ideas with regard to instruction. I may as well tell you at once that I am a very severe teacher, and somewhat cranky, too. A girl who does not know her lessons is apt to find herself seated at my left side. Now, my right side is sunshiny and pleasant; but my left side faces due northeast. I think that will explain everything to you. We will meet in the schoolroom to-morrow at nine o’clock sharp. Now I must go.”

When Miss Tredgold had vanished the girls looked at each other.

“Her northeast side!” said Pauline. “It makes me shudder even to think of it.”

But notwithstanding these remarks the girls did feel a certain amount of interest at the thought of the new life that lay before them. Everything had changed from that sunny, languorous, dolce far niente time a fortnight back. Now the girls felt keen and brisk, and they knew well that each moment in the future would be spent in active employment.

The next day, sharp at nine o’clock, the young people who were to form Miss Tredgold’s school entered the new schoolroom. It was suitably and prettily furnished, and had a charming appearance. Large maps were hung on the walls; there was a long line of bookshelves filled partly with story books, partly with history books, and partly with ordinary lesson books. The windows were draped with white muslin, and stood wide open. As the girls took their seats at the baize-covered table they could see out into the garden. A moment after they had arrived in the schoolroom Miss Tredgold made her appearance.

“We will begin with prayers,” she said.

She read a portion from the Bible, made a few remarks, and then they all knelt as she repeated the Lord’s prayer.

“Now, my dears,” said their new governess as they rose from their knees, “lessons will begin. I hope we shall proceed happily and quietly. It will be uphill work at first; but if we each help the other, uphill work will prove to have its own pleasures. It’s a long pull, and a strong pull, and a pull all together that masters difficulties. If we are all united we can accomplish anything; but if there is mutiny in the camp, then things may be difficult. I warn you all, however, that under any circumstances I mean to win the victory. It will be much easier, therefore, to submit at first. There will be no use in sulkiness, in laziness, in inattention. Make a brave effort now, all of you, and you will never regret this day. Now, Verena, you and I will have some conversation together. The rest of you children will read this page in the History of England, and tell me afterwards what you can remember about it.”

Here Miss Tredgold placed a primer before each child, and she and Verena retired into the bay-window. They came out again at the end of ten minutes. Verena’s cheeks were crimson, and Miss Tredgold decidedly wore a little of her northeast air. Pauline, on the whole, had a more successful interview with her new governess than her sister. She was smarter and brighter than Verena in many ways. But before the morning was over Miss Tredgold announced that all her pupils were shamefully ignorant.

“I know more about you now than I did,” she said. “You will all have to work hard. Verena, you cannot even read properly. As to your writing, it is straggling, uneven, and faulty in spelling.”

CHAPTER VII.

NANCY KING.

The rest of the day passed in a subdued state. The girls hardly knew themselves. They felt as though tiny and invisible chains were surrounding them. These chains pulled them whenever they moved. They made their presence felt when they spoke, when they sat down, and when they rose up. They were with them at dinner; they were with them whenever Miss Tredgold put in an appearance. Perhaps they were silken chains, but, all the same, they were intensely annoying. Verena was the most patient of the nine. She said to her sisters:

“We have never had any discipline. I was reading the other day in one of mother’s books that discipline is good. It is the same thing as when you prune the fruit trees. Don’t you remember the time when John got a very good gardener from Southampton to come and look over our trees? The gardener said, ‘These trees have all run to wood; you must prune them.’ And he showed John how, and we watched him. Don’t you remember, girls?”

“Oh, don’t I!” said Pauline. “And he cut away a lot of the little apples, and hundreds of tiny pears, and a lot of lovely branches; and I began to cry, and I told him he was a horrid, horrid man, and that I hated him.”

“And what did he answer?”

“Oh, he got ruder than ever! He said, ‘If I was your pa I’d do a little pruning on you.’ Oh, wasn’t I angry!”

Verena laughed.

“But think a little more,” she said. “Don’t you remember the following year how splendid the pears were? And we had such heaps of apples; and the gooseberries and raspberries were equally fine. We didn’t hate the man when we were eating our delicious fruit.”

Pauline made a slight grimace.

“Look here, Renny,” she said suddenly; “for goodness’ sake don’t begin to point morals. It’s bad enough to have an old aunt here without your turning into a mentor. We all know what you want to say, but please don’t say it. Haven’t we been scolded and directed and ordered about all day long? We don’t want you to do it, too.”

“Very well, I won’t,” said Verena.

“Hullo!” suddenly cried Briar; “if this isn’t Nancy King! Oh, welcome, Nancy—welcome! We are glad to see you.”

Nancy King was a spirited and bright-looking girl who lived about a mile away. Her father had a large farm which was known as The Hollies. He had held this land for many years, and was supposed to be in flourishing circumstances. Nancy was his only child. She had been sent to a fashionable school at Brighton, and considered herself quite a young lady. She came whenever she liked to The Dales, and the girls often met her in the Forest, and enjoyed her society vastly. Now in the most fashionable London attire, Nancy sailed across the lawn, calling out as she did so:

“Hullo, you nine! You look like the Muses. What’s up now? I have heard most wonderful, astounding whispers.”

“Oh, Nancy, we’re all so glad to see you!” said Briar. She left her seat, ran up to the girl, and took her hand. “Come and sit here—here in the midst of our circle. We have such a lot to say to you!”

“And I have a lot to say to you. But, dear me! how grand we are!”

Nancy’s twinkling black eyes looked with mock approval at Verena’s plain but very neat gray dress, and at the equally neat costumes of the other girls. Then finally she gazed long and pensively at Penelope, who, in an ugly dress of brown holland, was looking back at her with eyes as black and defiant as her own.

“May I ask,” said Nancy slowly, “what has this nursery baby to do in the midst of the grown-ups?”

“I’m not nursery,” said Penelope, her face growing crimson; “I’m schoolroom. Don’t tell me I’m nursery, because I’m not. We’re all schoolroom, and we’re having a right good time.”

“Indeed! Then I may as well remark that you don’t look like it. You look, the whole nine of you, awfully changed, and as prim as prim can be. ‘Prunes and prisms’ wouldn’t melt in your mouths. You’re not half, nor quarter, as nice as you were when I saw you last. I’ve just come home for good, you know. I mean to have a jolly time at Margate by-and-by. And oh! my boy cousins and my two greatest chums at school are staying with me now at The Hollies. The girls’ names are Amelia and Rebecca Perkins. Oh, they’re fine! Do give me room to squat between you girls. You are frightfully stand-off and prim.”

“Sit close to me, Nancy,” said Verena. “We’re not a bit changed to you,” she added.

“Well, that’s all right, honey, for I’m not changed to you. Even if I am a very rich girl, I’m the sort to always cling to my old friends; and although you are as poor as church mice, you are quite a good sort. I have always said so—always. I’ve been talking a lot about you to Amelia and Rebecca, and they’d give their eyes to see you. I thought you might ask us all over.”

“Oh! I daren’t, Nancy,” said Verena. “We are not our own mistresses now.”

“Well, that’s exactly what I heard,” said Nancy. “Oh, how hot it is! Pen, for goodness’ sake run and fetch me a cabbage-leaf to fan my face.”

Penelope ran off willingly enough. Nancy turned to the others.

“I sent her off on purpose,” she said. “If we can’t come to you, you must come to us. We three girls at The Hollies, and my two boy cousins, Tom and Jack, have the most daring, delightful scheme to propose. We want to have a midnight picnic.”

“Midnight picnic!” cried Verena. “But we can’t possibly come, Nancy.”

“My good girl, why not? You know I talked about it last year. We want to have one on a very grand scale; and there are a few friends at Southampton that I would ask to join us. You won’t have any expense whatever. I’ll stump up for the whole. Father gives me so much money that I have at the present moment over five pounds in the savings-bank. We will light fires in a clearing not far from here, and we will have tea and supper afterwards; and we shall dance—dance by the light of the moon—and I will bring my guitar to make music. Can you imagine anything in all the world more fascinating?”

“Oh, Nancy, it does sound too lovely!” said Briar. “I’d just give the world to go.”

“Well, then, you shall come.”

“But Aunt Sophy would not hear of it,” said Verena.

“Nonsense!” cried Briar; “we must go. It would be such a jolly treat!”

Nancy favored the eight girls with a sharp glance.

“I have heard of that dreadful old body,” she said. “Father told me. He said you’d be frumped up like anything, and all the gay life taken out of you. I came over on purpose. I pity you from the very bottom of my heart.”

“But, Nancy, you can’t think how things are changed,” said Pauline. “All our time is occupied. Lessons began to-day. They are going to take hours and hours.”

“But these are holiday times,” said Nancy. “All the world has a holiday in the middle of the summer.”

“That’s true enough,” said Verena; “but then we had holidays for over a year, and Aunt Sophia says we must begin at once. She is quite right, I’m sure; although of course we scarcely like it. And anyhow, Nancy, she won’t allow us to go to a midnight picnic; there’s no use thinking about it.”

“But suppose you don’t ask her. Of course, if she’s an old maid she’ll refuse. Old maids are the queerest, dumpiest things on the earth. I’m really thankful I’m not bothered with any of them. Oh! here comes Pen. It’s nonsense to have a child like that out of the nursery. We’d best not say anything before her. Verena and Briar, will you walk down to the gate with me? I thought perhaps we might have the picnic in a week. It could be easily managed; you know it could.”

“Oh, we must go!” said Pauline.

“I’m going,” said Josephine.

But Verena was silent.

“Here’s your cabbage-leaf. How red your face looks!” said Penelope.

Nancy turned and gazed at her. She was a bold-looking girl, and by no means pretty. She snatched the leaf angrily from Penelope’s hand, saying:

“Oh, my dear, go away! How you do worry, jumping and dancing about! And what a stupid, good-for-nothing leaf you’ve brought! Fetch me one that’s not completely riddled with caterpillar holes.”

Penelope’s black eyes flashed fire, and her face flushed.

“If I could, I would just,” she said.

“If you could you would what?” said Nancy.

“I know—I know! And I’ll do it, too.”

A provoking smile visited the lips of the child. She danced backwards and forwards in an ecstasy of glee.

“I can punish you all fine,” said Penelope; “and I’ll do it, too.”

She vanished out of sight. Now, it must be admitted that Penelope was not a nice child. She had her good points, for few children are without them; but in addition to being thoroughly untrained, to never having exercised self-control, she had by nature certain peculiarities which the other children had not. It had been from her earliest days her earnest desire to curry favor with those in authority, and yet to act quite as naughtily as any one else when she thought no one was looking. Even when quite a tiny child Penelope was wont to sit as still as a mouse in nurse’s presence. If nurse said, “Miss Penelope, you are not to move or you will wake baby,” then nurse knew that Penelope would not stir. But if this same child happened to be left with baby, so strong would be her jealousy that she would give the infant a sharp pinch and set it howling, and then run from the room.

These peculiarities continued with her growth. Nurse was fond of her because she was quiet and useful in the nursery, fairly tidy in her habits, and fairly helpful. But even nurse was wont to say, “You never can get at Miss Penelope. You can never see through what is brewing in her mind.”

Now, when Aunt Sophia appeared on the scene, Penelope instantly determined to carry out the darling wish of her heart. This was no less than to be removed from the dullness of the nursery to the fascinating life that she supposed the elder children led. To accomplish this she thought it would be only necessary to make a great fuss about Aunt Sophia, to attend to her fads, and to give her numerous little attentions. In short, to show that she, Penelope, cared very much for her new aunt. But Aunt Sophia did not care for Penelope’s fusses, and disliked her small attentions. Nevertheless, the small girl persevered, and in the end she did win a triumph, for she was promoted to the schoolroom, with its superior privileges and—alas! alas!—also its undoubted drawbacks. She, who hated lessons, must now try to read; she must also try to write, and must make valiant efforts to spell. Above and beyond all these things, she had to do one yet harder—she had to sit mute as a mouse for a couple of hours daily, with her hands neatly folded in her lap; and by-and-by she had to struggle with her clumsy little fingers to make hideous noises on the cracked old piano. These things were not agreeable to the wild child, and so uncomfortable and restrained had she felt during the first morning’s lessons that she almost resolved to humble her pride and return to the nursery. But the thought of her sisters’ withering, sarcastic remarks, and of nurse’s bitterly cold reception, and nurse’s words, “I told you so,” being repeated for ever in her ears, was too much for Penelope, and she determined to give a further trial to the schoolroom life. Now it occurred to her that a moment of triumph was before her. In the old days she had secretly adored Nancy King, for Nancy had given her more than one lollypop; but when Nancy asked what the nursery child was doing with the schoolroom folk, and showed that she did not appreciate Penelope’s society, the little girl’s heart became full of anger.

“I’ll tell about her. I’ll get her into trouble. I’ll get them all into trouble,” she thought.

She ran into the shrubbery, and stood there thinking for a time. She was a queer-looking little figure as she stood thus in her short holland overall, her stout bare legs, brown as berries, slightly apart, her head thrown back, her hair awry, a smudge on her cheek, her black eyes twinkling.

“I will do it,” she said to herself. “Aunt Sophy shall find out that I am the good one of the family.”

Penelope ran wildly across the shrubbery, invaded the kitchen-garden, invaded the yard, and presently invaded the house. She found Miss Sophia sitting by her writing-table. Miss Sophia had a headache; teaching was not her vocation. She had worked harder that day than ever in her life before, and she had a great many letters to write.

It was therefore a very busy and a slightly cross person who turned round and faced Penelope.

“Don’t slam the door, Penelope,” she said; “and don’t run into the room in that breathless sort of way.”

“Well, I thought you ought for to know. I done it ’cos of you.”

“‘I did it because of you,’ you should say.”

“I did it because of you. I am very fond of you, aunt.”

“I hope so; and I trust you will prove your affection by your deeds.”

“Bovver deeds!” remarked Penelope.

“What is that you said, my dear?”

“I say, bovver deeds!”

“I confess I do not understand. Run away, now, Penelope; I am busy.”

“But you ought for to know. Nancy King has come.”

“Who is Nancy King?”

“A girl. She’s squatting up close to Renny on the lawn, and her arm is twisted round Pauline’s waist. She’s big, and dressed awful grand. She has gold bangles on her arms, and tinkling gold things round her neck, and she’s here, and I thought course you ought for to know. I thought so ’cos I love you. Aren’t you pleased? Aren’t I the sort of little girl you could perhaps give a lollypop to?”

“No, you are not, Penelope. I do not wish you to tell tales of your sisters. Go away, my dear; go away.”

Penelope, in some wonder, and with a sense of disgust, not only with Nancy King and Miss Tredgold, but also with herself, left the room.

“I won’t tell her any more,” she thought. “She never seems to like what I do for her. She’d be pretty lonesome if it wasn’t for me; but she don’t seem to care for anybody. I’ll just rush away to nursey this very minute and tell her how I love being a schoolroom girl. I’ll tell her I dote on my lessons, and that I never for the big, big, wide world would be a nursery child again.”

“Queer little child, Penelope,” thought Miss Tredgold when her small niece had left her.

She sat with her pen suspended, lost in thought.

“Very queer child,” she soliloquized; “not the least like the others. I can’t say that I specially care for her. At present I am not in love with any of my nieces; but of all of them, Penelope is the child I like the least. She tells tales; she tries to curry favor with me. Is she truthful? Is she sincere? I have a terrible fear within me that occasions may arise when Penelope would prove deceitful. There! what am I saying? A motherless child—my own niece—surely I ought to love her. Yes, I do love her. I will try to love them all. What did she say about a girl sitting on the lawn with my girls? It is nice to talk of the Dales as my girls; it gives me a sort of family feeling, just as though I were not an old maid. I wonder what friends my girls have made for themselves round here. Nancy King. I don’t know any people of the name of King who live about here. If Henry were any one else he would probably be able to tell me. I will go and see the girl for myself.”

Miss Tredgold left the room. She had a very stately walk. The girls always spoke of her movements as “sailing.” Miss Tredgold now sailed across the lawn, and in the same dignified fashion came up to the secluded nook where the girls, with Nancy King in their midst, were enjoying themselves. They were all talking eagerly. Nancy King was seated almost in the center of the group; the other girls were bending towards her. As Miss Tredgold appeared in view Josephine was exclaiming in her high-pitched, girlish voice:

“Oh, I say, Nancy! What screaming fun!”

When Josephine spoke Lucy clapped her hands, Helen laughed, Verena looked puzzled, and Pauline’s expression seemed to say she longed for something very badly indeed.

“My dears, what are you all doing?” suddenly cried Aunt Sophia.

She had come up quietly, and they had none of them heard her. It was just as if a pistol had gone off in their ears. The whole nine jumped to their feet. Nancy’s red face became redder. She pushed her gaily trimmed hat forward over her heated brows. She had an instinctive feeling that she had never before seen any one so dignified and magnificent as Miss Sophia Tredgold. She knew that this was the case, although Miss Sophia’s dress was almost dowdy, and the little brown slipper which peeped out from under the folds of her gray dress was decidedly the worse for wear. Nancy felt at the same time the greatest admiration for Miss Tredgold, the greatest dislike to her, and the greatest terror of her.

“Aunt Sophia,” said Verena, who could be a lady if she chose, “may I introduce our special friend——”

“And crony,” interrupted Nancy.

“Our special friend, Nancy King,” repeated Verena. “We have known her all our lives, Aunt Sophia.”

“How do you do, Miss King?” said Miss Tredgold.

She favored “the young person,” as she termed Miss King, with a very distant bow.

“Girls,” she said, turning to the others, “are you aware that preparation hour has arrived? Will you all go quietly indoors?—Miss King, my nieces are beginning their studies in earnest, and I do not allow the hour of preparation to be interfered with by any one.”

“I know all about that,” said Nancy in a glib voice. “I was at a first-rate school myself for years. Weren’t we kept strict, just! My word! we couldn’t call our noses our own. The only language was parlez-vous. But it was a select school—very; and now that I have left, I like to feel that I am accomplished. None of you girls can beat me on the piano. I know nearly all the girls’ songs in San Toy and the Belle of New York. Father loves to hear me when I sing ‘Rhoda Pagoda.’ Perhaps, Miss Tredgold, you’d like to hear me play on the pianoforte. I dote on dance music; don’t you, Miss Tredgold? Dance music is so lively; it warms the cockles of the heart—don’t it, Miss Tredgold?”

“I don’t dance, so it is impossible for me to answer,” said Miss Tredgold. “I am sorry, Miss King, to disturb a pleasant meeting, but my girls are under discipline, and the hour for preparation has arrived.”

Nancy shrugged her capacious shoulders.

“I suppose that means congé for poor Nancy King,” she said. “Very sorry, I’m sure. Good-day, madam.—Good-bye, Renny. I’ll look you up another day.—Good-bye to all. I’m off to have a bit of fun with my boy cousins.”

Nancy swung round and left the group. She walked awkwardly, switching her shoulders and swaying from side to side, a dirty train trailing after her.

“May I ask who your friend really is?” said Miss Tredgold when she had watched the departure of this most undesirable acquaintance.

“She is Nancy King, Aunt Sophia. We have known her all our lives,” said Verena.

“My dear Verena, I have heard that statement before. Nevertheless, the fact that you have known that young person since you were little children does not reply to my question. Who is she? Where does she come from? Who is her father? I don’t remember to have heard of any gentlefolks of the name of King residing in this part of the New Forest.”

“She is not gentlefolk,” said Pauline.

Pauline came a step nearer as she spoke. Her eyes were bright, and there was a red spot on each cheek.

“But although she is not born a lady, she is our friend,” she continued. “She is the daughter of Farmer King, who keeps a very jolly house; and they have plenty of money. We have often and often been at The Hollies.”

“Oh! we get delicious apples there,” interposed Adelaide; “the juiciest you ever tasted—the cherry-and-brandy sort.”

“I have never heard of that special apple, and I dislike its name,” said Miss Sophia.—“Now come into the house, all of you.”

She did not question them further. She walked on in front.

“I can’t stand too much of this,” whispered Briar to Verena.

But Verena said “Hush!” and clasped Briar’s little hand as it lay on her arm.

They entered the house and proceeded to the pleasant schoolroom.

“It is now four o’clock,” said Miss Tredgold. “At five tea is served. As the evening is so fine, I have ordered it to be laid under the cedar-tree on the lawn. For the next hour I expect close attention to lessons. I shall not stay in the room, but you, Verena, are monitress during my absence. Please understand that I expect honor. Honor requires that you should study, and that you should be silent. Here are your books. Prepare the lessons I shall require you to know to-morrow morning. Those girls who have not made due preparation will enter into Punishment Land.”

“What in the world is that?” burst from the lips of the irrepressible Briar.

“Don’t ask me,” answered Miss Tredgold. “I hope you may never have a personal acquaintance with that gloomy country. Now farewell. For an hour fix your attention on your tasks; and adieu.”

Never before had the Dale girls found themselves in such a quandary. For a whole long hour they were prohibited by a code of honor from speaking. They were all just bursting with desire to launch forth in a fiery torrent, but they must none of them utter a single word. Verena, as monitress, could not encourage rebellion. There are some things that even untrained girls, provided they are ladies, understand by intuition. The Dales were ladies by birth. Their home had belonged to their father’s family for generations. There was a time in the past when to be a Dale of The Dales meant to be rich, honored, and respected. But, alas! the Dales, like many other old families, had gone under. Money had failed; purses had become empty; lands had been sold; the house had dwindled down to its present shabby dimensions; and if Miss Tredgold had not appeared on the scene, there would have been little chance of Mr. Dale’s ten daughters ever taking the position to which their birth entitled them. But there are some things which an ancient race confers. Noblesse oblige, for one thing. These girls were naughty, rebellious, and angry; their hearts were very sore; their silken chains seemed at this moment to assume the strength of iron fetters; but during the hour that was before them they would not disobey Miss Tredgold. Accordingly their dreary books were opened. Oh, how ugly and dull they looked!

“What does it matter whether a girl knows how to spell, and what happened long, long ago in the history-books?” thought Briar.

“Aunt Sophia was downright horrid about poor Nancy,” was Pauline’s angry thought. “Oh! must I really work out these odious sums, when I am thinking all the time of poor Nancy?”

“I shall never keep my head if this sort of thing goes on for long,” thought Verena as she bent over her page of English history. “Oh, dear! that midnight picnic, and Nancy’s face, and the dancing in the glades of the Forest. It would have been fun. If there is one thing more than another that I love, it is dancing. I think I could dance for ever.”

Verena could not keep her pretty little feet still. They moved restlessly under her chair. Pauline saw the movement, and a wave of sympathy flashed between the sisters. Pauline’s eyes spoke volumes as they encountered the soft brown ones of pretty Verena.

But an hour—even the longest—is quickly over. Five o’clock struck, and quick to the minute each girl sprang to her feet. Books were put away, and they all streamed out into the open air. Now they could talk as much as they liked. How their tongues wagged! They flew at each other in their delight and embraced violently. Never before, too, had they been so hungry for tea; and certainly never before had they seen such a delightful and tempting meal as that which was now laid for them on the lawn. The new parlor-maid had brought it out and placed it on various little tables. A silver teapot reposed on a silver tray; the cups and saucers were of fine china; the teaspoons were old, thin, and bright as a looking-glass. The table-linen was also snowy white; but what the girls far more appreciated were the piles of fruit, the quantities of cakes, the stacks of sandwiches, and the great plates of bread-and-butter that waited for them on the festive board.

“Well!” said Briar. “Did you ever? It looks just like a party, or a birthday treat, or something of that sort. I will say there are some nice things about Aunt Sophia. This is certainly better than squatting on the ground with a basket of gooseberries and a hunch of bread.”

“I liked the gooseberries,” said Pauline, “but, as you say, Briar, this is nice. Ah! here comes the aunt.”

Miss Tredgold sailed into view. She took her seat opposite the hissing urn and began to pour out cups of tea.

“For a week,” she said, “I take this place. At the end of that time Verena occupies my throne.”

“Oh, I couldn’t!” said Verena.

“Why in the world not, Renny? You aren’t quite a goose.”

“Don’t use those expressions, Pauline; they are distinctly vulgar,” said Miss Tredgold.

“Bother!” said Pauline.

She frowned, and the thought of the gooseberries and the hard crusts that used to constitute tea on many days when there was no Aunt Sophia came back to her with a sense of longing and appreciation of the golden past.

Nevertheless the girls were hungry, and the tea was excellent; and when Miss Tredgold had seen that each plate was piled with good things, and that every girl had her cup of tea made exactly as she liked it, she began to speak.

“You know little or nothing of the world, my dear girls, so during tea I intend to give you some pleasant information. I attended a tea-party last year in a house not far from London. You would like to hear all about it, would you not?”

“If you are sure it is not lessons,” said Briar.

“It is not lessons in the ordinary acception of the word. Now listen. This garden to which I went led down to the Thames. It was the property of a very great friend of mine, and she had invited what I might call a select company. Now will you all listen, and I will tell you how things were done?”

Miss Tredgold then proceeded to tell her story. No one could tell a story better. She made her narrative quite absorbing. For these girls, who had never known anything of life, she drew so vivid and fascinating a picture that they almost wished to be present at such a scene as she described. She spoke of the girls of the London world in their pretty dresses, and the matrons in their richer garments; of the men who moved about with polite deference. She spoke of the summer air, the beautiful appearance of the river, the charming punts and boats which disported themselves on the bosom of the waters.

“It must have been pretty; but rather stiff, wasn’t it?” said Verena.

“To you, my dear, it would have been stiff, for you are not yet accustomed to self-restraint, but to those who belong to that world it was nothing short of enchantment.”

“But you were in fetters,” said Pauline; “and I should hate fetters however jolly they looked.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Why, you know you are putting them on us.”

“Hush, Paulie!” said Verena.

“You are, Aunt Sophy; and you can’t be angry with me if I speak. I can’t imagine any one getting accustomed to fetters; it is quite beyond me.”

She shrugged her shoulders, and looked with her downright face full at Miss Tredgold.

“Never mind,” said that lady after a pause. “I can’t expect you to understand everything all at once; but my description of a real bit of the world can do you no harm. The world has its good points; you will find that out presently. Perhaps you may not like it, but some people do. In your case there is no saying. To-morrow I will tell you another story, but it shall be of the graver and sadder side of life. That story will also introduce the nobler side of life. But now the time has come for me to ask you a question, and I expect an answer. The time has come for me to ask a very straight question.—Verena, you are the eldest; I shall speak to you.”

“Yes?” said Verena.

She felt herself coloring. She said afterwards she knew exactly what was coming. Pauline must have known also, for she pinched Verena’s arm.

“Yes?” repeated the young girl.

“You are surprised at the story I have just related to you,” continued Miss Tredgold. “You think that the courtly grace, the sweet refinement, the elegant manners, the words that speak of due knowledge of life and men and women, represent a state of fetterdom; but you must also have felt their charm.”

“To a certain extent,” said Verena slowly, “what you have said excited me.”

“You feel it possible that, under certain circumstances, you, too, could belong to such a group?”

“Perhaps,” said Verena.

“There is not a doubt of it, my dear. A few years’ training, a little of that discipline which you call fetters, pretty manners, and suitable dress would make you quite the sort of girl who would appear amongst my cultivated friends in the garden by the River Thames. But now for my question: Could your friend, Nancy King, ever figure in such an assembly?”

“It would not perhaps be her world,” said Verena.

“You have answered me. Now I am going to say something that may annoy you; nevertheless I must say it. Your acquaintanceship with that girl as a friend must cease, and absolutely. She is not your equal. You are not to know her as a friend. If you meet her, there is no reason why you should not be civil, but civility and friendship are different things. If the time comes when she is in need or in trouble, I should be deeply sorry to think you would not help her, but as a friend she is to cease to exist for you. This is my firm command to all of you girls. There are to be no two voices on the subject. You may not agree with me now, and you may think me hard, but I insist on having my own way. You cease to know Nancy King as a friend. I shall myself write to that young person and forbid her to visit here. I will try not to hurt her; but there are certain distinctions of class which I for one must insist upon preserving. She is not a lady, she was not born a lady, and she never can be a lady; therefore, my dear nieces, you are not to know her.”

CHAPTER VIII.

MUSIC HATH CHARMS.

The girls were tired when they went to bed. The life of routine had fatigued them; although, of course, it would soon cease to do so. Notwithstanding, therefore, Miss Tredgold’s startling announcement with regard to Nancy King, they slept soundly; and the next morning when nine o’clock struck they all appeared in the schoolroom, their persons neat, their hair carefully brushed, and each pair of eyes beaming with intelligence. Even Penelope looked her very best in a clean brown holland frock, and she went quite creditably through her alphabet, and did not squiggle her pot-hooks quite as much as she had done on the previous day.

Miss Tredgold was in an excellent humor. She praised the girls, told them she was much pleased with their performances, and said further that, if only they would meet her half-way by being attentive and intelligent and earnest in their work, she on her part would do all in her power to make lessons agreeable; she would teach them in a way which would be sure to arouse their interest, and she would vary the work with play, and give them as gay a time as the bright weather and their own happy hearts would permit.

The girls felt quite cheerful; they even began to whisper one to another that Aunt Sophia was developing more and more good points as days went on.

On that afternoon a great excitement was in store, for a beautiful new piano was to arrive from Broadwood’s, and Aunt Sophia announced that she meant to play on it for the benefit of the entire household that evening.

“For, my dears,” said that good lady, “I have forgotten neither my playing nor my singing. I will sing you old-fashioned songs to-night, and I quite hope that I may lure your father from his retirement. There was a time when he was musical—very musical.”

“The dad musical!” cried Briar. “Aunt Sophia, what do you mean?”

“It is true, Rose. In the days long ago, when your mother and he and I spent happy times together, he played his violin better than any other amateur that I happen to know.”

“There is an old violin in one of the attics,” said Verena. “We have never touched it. It is in a case all covered with dust.”

“His Stradivarius,” murmured Miss Tredgold. “Oh dear! How are the mighty fallen! My dears, you had better say no more to me about that or I shall lose my temper.”

The girls could not imagine why Miss Tredgold’s eyes grew full of a certain mistiness and her cheeks were very pink with color. The next moment she looked full at her nieces.

“When your mother died she took a great deal away with her,” she said. “What would you have done, poor children! if I had not been able to come to the rescue? It does seem almost impossible that your father, my brother-in-law, has forgotten to play on his Stradivarius.”

“Well, aren’t you glad you comed?” said Penelope, marching up and standing before the good lady. “Don’t you like to feel you are so useful, the grand piano coming, and all the rest? Then you has us under your thumb. Don’t you like that?”

“I don’t understand you, Penny. You are talking in a very naughty way.”

“I aren’t. I are only saying what nursey said. Nursey said last night, ‘Well, well, drat it all! They are under her thumb by this time.’ I asked nursey what it meant, and she said, ‘Miss Penny, little girls should be seen, and not heard.’ Nursey always says that when I ask her questions that I want special to know. But when I comed down this morning I asked Betty what being under your thumb meant, and she said, ‘Oh, lor’, Miss Penny! You had better look out, miss. It means what you don’t like, miss.’ Then she said, Aunt Sophy, that old ladies like you was fond of having little girls under their thumbs. So I ’spect you like it; and I hope you won’t squeeze us flat afore you have done.”

Miss Tredgold had turned very red.

“How old are you, Pen?” she said when the loquacious child became silent.

Penelope tossed her head. “You knows of my age quite well.”

“Then I will just repeat the remark made by your excellent nurse—‘Little girls should be seen, and not heard.’ I will add to that remark by saying that little girls are sometimes impertinent. I shall not say anything more to-day; but another time, if you address me as you have just done, I shall be obliged to punish you.”

“And if I don’t dress you,” said Penelope—“if I’m awful good—will you give me sugar-plums?”

“That is a treat in the very far distance,” said Miss Tredgold.—“But now, girls, go out. The more you enjoy this lovely air the better.”

They did all enjoy it; after their hard work—for lessons were hard to them—freedom was sweet. With each moment of lesson-time fully occupied, leisure was delicious. They wandered under the trees; they opened the wicket-gate which led into the Forest, and went a short way into its deep and lovely shade. When lunch-bell sounded they returned with hungry appetites.

The rest of the day passed pleasantly. Even preparation hour was no longer regarded as a hardship. It brought renewed appetites to enjoy tea. And in the midst of tea a wild dissipation occurred, for a piano-van came slowly down the rutty lane which led to the front avenue. It stopped at the gates; the gates were opened, the piano-van came up the avenue, and John and two other men carried the beautiful Broadwood into the big drawing-room.

Miss Tredgold unlocked it and touched the ivory keys with loving fingers.

“I will play to you to-night when it is dusk,” she said to the girls.

After this they were so eager to hear the music that they could scarcely eat their dinner. Mr. Dale now always appeared for the evening meal. He took the foot of the table, and stared in an abstracted way at Aunt Sophia. So fond was he of doing this that he often quite forgot to carve the joint which was set before him.

“Wake up, Henry,” said Miss Sophia in her sharp voice; “the children are hungry, and so am I.”

Then the student would shake himself, seize the knife and fork, and make frantic dashes at whatever the joint might happen to be. It must be owned that he carved very badly. Miss Tredgold bore it for a day or two; then she desired the parlor-maid to convey the joint to the head of the table where she sat. After this was done the dinner-hour was wont to progress very satisfactorily. To-day it went quickly by. Then Verena went up to her aunt.

“Now, Aunt Sophy,” she said, “the gloaming has come, and music is waiting to make us all happy in the drawing-room.”

“I will play for you, my dears,” said Aunt Sophia.

She was just leaving the room when she heard Verena say:

“You love music, father. Do come into the drawing-room. Aunt Sophia has got her new piano. She means to play on it. Do come; you know you love music.”

“Indeed, I do nothing of the kind,” said Mr. Dale.

He pushed his gray hair back from his forehead and looked abstractedly at Miss Sophia, who was standing in the twilight just by the open door.

“You remind me, Sophia——” said Mr. Dale.

He paused and covered his eyes with his hand.

“I could have sworn that you were she. No music, thanks; I have never listened to it since she died. Your mother played beautifully, children; she played and she sang. I liked her songs; I hate the twaddle of the present day. Now I am returning to my Virgil. My renderings of the original text become more and more full of light. I shall secure a vast reputation. Music! I hate music. Don’t disturb me, any of you.”

When Mr. Dale reached his study he sank into his accustomed chair. His lamp was already lit; it burned brightly, for Miss Tredgold herself trimmed it each morning. His piles of books of reference lay in confusion by his side. An open manuscript was in front of him. He took up his pen. Very soon he would be absorbed by the strong fascination of his studies; the door into another world would open and shut him in. He would be impervious then to this present century, to his present life, to his children, to the home in which he lived.

“I could have sworn,” he muttered to himself, “that Alice had come back. As Sophia stood in the twilight I should scarcely have known them apart. She is not Alice. Alice was the only woman I ever loved—the only woman I could tolerate in my house. My children, my girls, are none of them women yet, thank the Almighty. When they are they will have to go. I could not stand any other woman but Alice to live always in the house. But now to forget her. This knotty point must be cleared up before I go to bed.”

The doors of the ancient world were slowly opening. But before they could shut Mr. Dale within their portals there came a sound that caused the scholar to start. The soft strains of music entered through the door which Verena had on purpose left open. The music was sweet and yet masterly. It came with a merry sound and a certain quick rhythm that seemed to awaken the echoes of the house. Impossible as it may appear, Mr. Dale forgot the ancient classics and the dim world of the past. He lay back in his chair; his lips moved; he beat time with his knuckles on the arms of his chair; and with his feet on the floor. So perfect was his ear that the faintest wrong note, or harmony out of tune, would be detected by him. The least jarring sound would cause him agony. But there was no jarring note; the melody was correct; the time was perfect.

“I might have known that Alice——” he began; but then he remembered that Alice had never played exactly like that, and he ceased to think of her, or of any woman, and became absorbed in those ringing notes that stole along the passage and entered by the open door and surrounded him like lightsome fairies. Into his right ear they poured their charm; in his left ear they completed their work. Virgil was forgotten; old Homer might never have existed.

Mr. Dale rose. He got up softly; he walked across the room and opened the door wide. There was a very bright light streaming down the passage. In the old days this passage was always dark; no one ever thought of lighting the lobbies and passages at The Dales. The master of the house wondered dimly at the light; but at the same time it gave him a sense of comfort.

Suddenly a voice began to sing:

The voice was sweet, pure, and high. It floated towards him. Suddenly he stretched out his arms.

“I am coming, Alice,” he said aloud. “Yes, I am coming. Don’t call me with such insistence. I come, I tell you; I come.”

He ran down the passage; he entered the central hall; he burst into the drawing-room. His eyes were full of excitement. He strode across the room and sank into a chair close to the singer.

Miss Tredgold just turned and glanced at him.

“Ah, Henry!” she said; “so you are there. I hoped that this would draw you. Now I am going to sing again.”

“A song of the past,” he said in a husky voice.

“Will this do?” she said, and began “Annie Laurie.”

Once again Mr. Dale kept time with his hand and his feet. “Annie Laurie” melted into “Home, Sweet Home”; “Home, Sweet Home” into “Ye Banks and Braes o’ Bonny Doon”; “Ye Banks and Braes” wandered into the delicious notes of “Auld Lang Syne.”

Suddenly Miss Tredgold rose, shut and locked the piano, and then turned and faced her audience.

“No more to-night,” she said. “By-and-by you girls shall all play on this piano. You shall also sing, for I have not the slightest doubt that most of you have got voices. You ought to be musical, for music belongs to both sides of your house. There was once a time when your father played the violin as no one else, in my opinion, ever played it. By the way, Henry, is that violin still in existence?”

“Excuse me,” said Mr. Dale; “I never touch it now. I have not touched it for years. I would not touch it for the world.”

“You will touch it again when the time is ripe. Now, no more music to-night. Those who are tired had better go to bed.”

The girls left the room without a word. Miss Tredgold then went up to Mr. Dale.

“Go back to your study and your Virgil,” she said. “Don’t waste your precious time.”

He looked exactly as though some one had whipped him, but he took her at her word and returned to his study.

The music was henceforth a great feature in the establishment. Miss Tredgold enhanced its value by being chary in regard to it. She only played as a special treat. She would by no means give them the great pleasure of her singing and playing every night.

“When you have all had a good day I will sing and play to you,” she said to the girls; “but when you neglect your work, or are idle and careless, or cross and sulky, I don’t intend to amuse you in the evenings. I was brought up on a stricter plan than the girls of the present day, and I mean while I am with you to bring you up in the same way. I prefer it to the lax way in which young people are now reared.”

For a time Miss Tredgold’s plans went well. Then there came a day of rebellion. Pauline was the first to openly rebel against Aunt Sophia. There came a morning when Pauline absolutely refused to learn her lessons. She was a stoutly built, determined-looking little girl, very dark in complexion and in eyes and hair. She would probably be a handsome woman by-and-by, but now she was plain, with a somewhat sallow face, heavy black brows, and eyes that could scowl when anything annoyed her. She was the next eldest to Verena, and was thirteen years of age. Her birthday would be due in a fortnight. Even at The Dales birthdays were considered auspicious events. There was always some sort of present, even though it was worth very little in itself, given by each member of the family to the possessor of the birthday. Mr. Dale generally gave this happy person a whole shilling. He presented the shilling with great pomp, and invariably made the same speech:

“God bless you, my dear. May you have many happy returns of the day. And now for goodness’ sake don’t detain me any longer.”

A shilling was considered by the Dale girls as valuable as a sovereign would be to girls in happier circumstances. It was eked out to its furthest dimensions, and was as a rule spent on good things to eat. Now, under Miss Tredgold’s reign, Pauline’s birthday would be a much more important event. Miss Tredgold had long ago taken Verena, Briar, Patty, Josephine, and Adelaide into her confidence. Pauline knew quite well that she was talked about. She knew when, the girls retired into corners that she was the object of their eager conversations. The whole thing was most agreeable to her sense of vanity, and when she suddenly appeared round a corner and perceived that work was put out of sight, that the eager whisperers started apart, and that the girls looked conscious and as if they wished her out of the way, she quite congratulated herself on the fact that hers was the first birthday in the immediate future, and that on that day she would be a very great personage indeed. As these thoughts came to her she walked with a more confident stride, and thought a great deal of her own importance. At night she lay awake thinking of the happy time, and wondering what this coming birthday, when she would have been fourteen whole years in the world, would bring forth.

There came a lovely morning about a week before the birthday. Pauline had got up early, and was walking by herself in the garden. She felt terribly excited, and almost cross at having to wait so long for her pleasure.

“After all,” thought Pauline, “Aunt Sophia has done something for us. How horrid it would be to go back to the old shilling birthdays now!”

As she thought these thoughts, Patty and Josephine, arm-in-arm and talking in low tones, crossed her path. They did not see her at first, and their words reached Pauline’s ears.

“I know she’d rather have pink than blue,” said Patty’s voice.

“Well, mine will be trimmed with blue,” was Josephine’s answer.

Just then the girls caught sight of Pauline, uttered shrieks, and disappeared down a shady walk.

“Something with pink and something with blue,” thought Pauline. “The excitement is almost past bearing. Of course, they’re talking about my birthday presents. I do wish my birthday was to-morrow. I don’t know how I shall exist for a whole week.”

At that moment Miss Tredgold’s sharp voice fell on her ears:

“You are late, Pauline. I must give you a bad mark for want of punctuality, Go at once into the schoolroom.”

To hear these incisive, sharp tones in the midst of her own delightful reflections was anything but agreeable to Pauline. She felt, as she expressed it, like a cat rubbed the wrong way. She gave Miss Tredgold one of her most ungracious scowls and went slowly into the house. There she lingered purposely before she condescended to tidy her hair and put on her house-shoes. In consequence she was quite a quarter of an hour late when she appeared in the schoolroom. Miss Tredgold had just finished morning prayers.

“You have missed prayers this morning, Pauline,” she said. “There was no reason for this inattention. I shall be obliged to punish you. You cannot have your usual hour of recreation before dinner. You will have to write out the first page of Scott’s Lay of the Last Minstrel; and you must do it without making any mistake either in spelling or punctuation. On this occasion you can copy from the book. Now, no words, my dear—no words. Sit down immediately to your work.”

Pauline did sit down. She felt almost choking with anger. Was she, an important person who was soon to be queen of a birthday, one about whom her sisters talked and whispered and made presents for, to be treated in this scant and ungracious fashion? She would not put up with it. Accordingly she was very inattentive at her lessons, failed to listen when she should, played atrociously on the piano, could not manage her sums, and, in short, got more and more each moment into Miss Tredgold’s black books.

When recreation hour arrived she felt tired and headachy. The other girls now went out into the pleasant sunshine. Pauline looked after them with longing. They would sit under the overhanging trees; they would eat fruit and talk nonsense and laugh. Doubtless they would talk about her and the birthday so near at hand. At noon the schoolroom was hot, too, for the sun beat hard upon the windows, and Pauline felt more stifled and more headachy and sulky than ever.

“Oh! please,” she said, as Miss Tredgold was leaving the room, “I can’t do this horrid writing to-day. Please forgive me. Do let me go out.”

“No, Pauline; you must take your punishment. You were late this morning; you disobeyed my rules. Take the punishment which I am obliged to give you as a lady should, and make no more excuses.”

The door was shut upon the angry girl. She sat for a time absolutely still, pressing her hand to her aching brow; then she strolled across the schoolroom, fetched some paper, and sat down to her unwelcome task. She wrote very badly, and when the hour was over she had not half copied the task assigned to her. This bad beginning went on to a worse end. Pauline declined to learn any lessons in preparation hour, and accordingly next morning she was absolutely unprepared for her tasks.

Miss Tredgold was now thoroughly roused.

“I must make an example,” she said to herself. “I shall have no influence over these girls if I let them think I am all softness and yielding. The fact is, I have shown them the south side of my character too long; a little touch of the northeast will do them no harm.”

Accordingly she called the obstinate and sulky Pauline before her.

“I am very much displeased with you. You have done wrong, and you must be punished. I have told you and your sisters that there is such a place as Punishment Land. You enter it now, and live there until after breakfast to-morrow morning.”

“But what do you mean?” said Pauline.

“I mean exactly what I say. You have been for the last twenty-four hours extremely naughty. You will therefore be punished for the next twenty-four hours. You are a very naughty girl. Naughty girls must be punished, and you, Pauline, are now under punishment. You enter Punishment Land immediately.”

“But where is it? What is it? I don’t understand.”

“You will soon. Girls, I forbid you to speak to your sister while she is under punishment. Pauline, your meals will be sent to you in this room. You will be expected to work up your neglected tasks and learn them thoroughly. You must neither play with nor speak to your sisters. You will have no indulgence of any sort. When you walk, I wish you to keep in the north walk, just beyond the vegetable garden. Finally, you will go to bed at seven o’clock. Now leave the room. I am in earnest.”

CHAPTER IX.

PUNISHMENT LAND.

Pauline did leave the room. She passed her sisters, who stared at her in horrified amazement. She knew that their eyes were fixed upon her, but she was doubtful if they pitied her or not. Just at that moment, however, she did not care what their feelings were. She had a momentary sense of pleasure on getting into the soft air. A gentle breeze fanned her hot cheeks. She took her old sailor hat from a peg and ran fast into a distant shrubbery. Miss Tredgold had said that she might take exercise in the north walk. If there was a dreary, ugly part of the grounds, it might be summed up in the north walk. The old garden wall was on one side of it, and a tattered, ugly box-hedge on the other. Nothing was to be seen as you walked between the hedge and the wall but the ground beneath your feet and the sky above your head. There was no distant view of any sort. In addition to this disadvantage, it was in winter an intensely cold place, and in summer, notwithstanding its name, an intensely hot place. No, Pauline would not go there. She would disobey. She would walk where she liked; she would also talk to whom she liked.

She stood for a time leaning against a tree, her face scarlet with emotion, her sailor hat flung on the ground. Presently she saw Penelope coming towards her. She felt quite glad of this, for Penelope might always be bribed. Pauline made up her mind to disobey thoroughly; she would walk where she pleased; she would do what she liked; she would talk to any one to whom she wished to talk. What was Penelope doing? She was bending down and peering on the ground. Beyond doubt she was looking for something.

“What is it, Pen?” called out her sister.

Penelope had not seen Pauline until now. She stood upright with a start, gazed tranquilly at the girl in disgrace, and then, without uttering a word, resumed her occupation of searching diligently on the ground. Pauline’s face put on its darkest scowl. Her heart gave a thump of wild indignation. She went up to Penelope and shook her by the arm. Penelope, still without speaking, managed to extricate herself. She moved a few feet away. She then again looked full at Pauline, and, to the amazement of the elder girl, her bold black eyes filled with tears. She took one dirty, chubby hand and blew a kiss to Pauline.

Pauline felt suddenly deeply touched. She very nearly wept herself.

“Oh, dear Penny,” she said, “how good you are! I didn’t know you’d feel for me. I can bear things better if I know you feel for me. You needn’t obey her, need you? See, I’ve got three-ha’pence in my pocket. I’ll give you the money and you can buy lollypops. I will really if only you will say a few words to me now.”

“I daren’t,” burst from Penelope’s lips. “You have no right to tempt me. I can’t; I daren’t. I am looking now for Aunt Sophy’s thimble. She was working here yesterday and she dropped it, she doesn’t know where. She’s awful fond of it. She’ll give me a penny if I find it. Don’t ask me any more. I’ve done very wrong to speak to you.”

“So you have,” said Pauline, who felt as angry as ever. “You have broken Aunt Sophia’s word—not your own, for you never said you wouldn’t speak to me. But go, if you are so honorable. Only please understand that I hate every one of you, and I’m never going to obey Aunt Sophia.”

Penelope only shook her little person, and presently wandered away into a more distant part of the shrubbery. She went on searching and searching. Pauline could see her bobbing her little fat person up and down.

“Even Penny,” she thought, “is incorruptible. Well, I don’t care. I won’t put up with this unjust punishment.”

The dinner-gong sounded, and Pauline, notwithstanding her state of disgrace, discovered that she was hungry.

“Why should I eat?” she said to herself. “I won’t eat. Then perhaps I’ll die, and she’ll be sorry. She’ll be had up for manslaughter; she’ll have starved a girl to death. No, I won’t eat a single thing. And even if I don’t die I shall be awfully ill, and she’ll be in misery. Oh dear! why did mother die and leave us? And why did dreadful Aunt Sophy come? Mother was never cross; she was never hard. Oh mother! Oh mother!”

Pauline was now so miserable that she flung herself on the ground and burst into passionate weeping. Her tears relieved the tension of her heart, and she felt slightly better. Presently she raised her head, and taking out her handkerchief, prepared to mop her eyes. As she did so she was attracted by something that glittered not far off. She stretched out her hand and drew Miss Tredgold’s thimble from where it had rolled under a tuft of dock-leaves. A sudden burst of pleasure escaped her lips as she glanced at the thimble. She had not seen it before. It certainly was the most beautiful thimble she had ever looked at. She put it on the tip of her second finger and turned it round and round. The thimble itself was made of solid gold; its base was formed of one beautifully cut sapphire, and round the margin of the top of the thimble was a row of turquoises. The gold was curiously and wonderfully chased, and the sapphire, which formed the entire base of the thimble, shone in a way that dazzled Pauline. She was much interested; she forgot that she was hungry, and that she had entered into Punishment Land. It seemed to her that in her possession of the thimble she had found the means of punishing Aunt Sophia. This knowledge soothed her inexpressibly. She slipped the lovely thimble into her pocket, and again a keen pang of downright healthy hunger seized her. She knew that food would be awaiting her in the schoolroom. Should she eat it, or should she go through the wicket-gate and lose herself in the surrounding Forest?

Just at this moment a girl, who whistled as she walked, approached the wicket-gate, opened it, and came in. She was dressed in smart summer clothes; her hat was of a fashionable make, and a heavy fringe lay low on her forehead. Pauline looked at her, and her heart gave a thump of pleasure. Now, indeed, she could bear her punishment, and her revenge on Miss Tredgold lay even at the door. For Nancy King, the girl whom she was not allowed to speak to, had entered the grounds.

“Hullo, Paulie!” called out that young lady. “There you are! Well, I must say you do look doleful. What’s the matter now? Is the dear aristocrat more aristocratic than ever?”

“Oh, don’t, Nancy! I ought not to speak to you at all.”

“So I’ve been told by the sweet soul herself,” responded Nancy. “She wrote me a letter which would have put another girl in such a rage that she would never have touched any one of you again with a pair of tongs. But that’s not Nancy King. For when Nancy loves a person, she loves that person through thick and thin, through weal and woe. I came to-day to try to find one of you dear girls. I have found you. What is the matter with you, Paulie? You do look bad.”

“I’m very unhappy,” said Pauline. “Oh Nancy! we sort of promised that we wouldn’t have anything more to do with you.”

“But you can’t keep your promise, can you, darling? So don’t say any more about it. Anyhow, promise or not, I’m going to kiss you now.”

Nancy flung her arms tightly round Pauline’s neck and printed several loud, resounding kisses on each cheek; then she seated herself under an oak tree, and motioned to Pauline to do likewise.

Pauline hesitated just for a moment; then scruples were forgotten, and she sat on the ground close to Nancy’s side.

“Tell me all about it,” said Nancy. “Wipe your eyes and talk. Don’t be frightened; it’s only poor old Nancy, the girl you have known since you were that high. And I’m rich, Paulie pet, and although we’re only farmer-folk, we live in a much finer house than The Dales. And I’m going to have a pony soon—a pony of my very own—and my habit is being made for me at Southampton. I intend to follow the hounds next winter. Think of that, little Paulie. You’ll see me as I ride past. I’m supposed to have a very good figure, and I shall look ripping in my habit. Well, but that’s not to the point, is it? You are in trouble, you poor little dear, and your old Nancy must try and make matters better for you. I love you, little Paulie. I’m fond of you all, but you are my special favorite. You were always considered something like me—dark and dour when you liked, but sunshiny when you liked also. Now, what is it, Paulie? Tell your own Nancy.”

“I’m very fond of you, Nancy,” replied Pauline. “And I think,” she continued, “that it is perfectly horrid of Aunt Sophia to say that we are not to know you.”

“It’s snobbish and mean and unlady-like,” retorted Nancy; “but her saying it doesn’t make it a fact, for you do know me, and you will always have to know me. And if she thinks, old spiteful! that I’m going to put up with her nasty, low, mean, proud ways, she’s fine and mistaken. I’m not, and that’s flat. So there, old spitfire! I shouldn’t mind telling her so to her face.”

“But, on the whole, she has been kind to us,” said Pauline, who had some sense of justice in her composition, angry as she felt at the moment.

“Has she?” said Nancy. “Then let me tell you she has not a very nice way of showing it. Now, Paulie, no more beating about the bush. What’s up? Your eyes are red; you have a great smear of ink on your forehead; and your hands—my word! for so grand a young lady your hands aren’t up to much, my dear.”

“I have got into trouble,” said Pauline. “I didn’t do my lessons properly yesterday; I couldn’t—I had a headache, and everything went wrong. So this morning I could not say any of them when Aunt Sophia called me up, and she put me into Punishment Land. You know, don’t you, that I am soon to have a birthday?”

“Oh, don’t I?” interrupted Nancy. “Didn’t a little bird whisper it to me, and didn’t that same little bird tell me exactly what somebody would like somebody else to give her? And didn’t that somebody else put her hand into her pocket and send—— Oh, we won’t say any more, but she did send for something for somebody’s birthday. Oh, yes, I know. You needn’t tell me about that birthday, Pauline Dale.”

“You are good,” said Pauline, completely touched. She wondered what possible thing Nancy could have purchased for her. She had a wild desire to know what it was. She determined then and there, in her foolish little heart, that nothing would induce her to quarrel with Nancy.

“It is something that you like, and something that will spite her,” said the audacious Nancy. “I thought it all out, and I made up my mind to kill two birds with one stone. Now to go on with the pretty little story. We didn’t please aunty, and we got into trouble. Proceed, Paulie pet.”

“I didn’t learn my lessons. I was cross, as I said, and headachy, and Aunt Sophia said I was to be made an example of, and so she sent me to Punishment Land for twenty-four hours.”

“Oh, my dear! It sounds awful. What is it?”

“Why, none of my sisters are to speak to me, and I am only to walk in the north walk.”

“Is this the north walk?” asked Nancy, with a merry twinkle in her black eyes.

“Of course it isn’t. She may say what she likes, but I’m not going to obey her. But the others won’t speak to me. I can’t make them. And I am to take my meals by myself in the schoolroom, and I am to go to bed at seven o’clock.”

Pauline told her sad narrative in a most lugubrious manner, and she felt almost offended at the conclusion when Nancy burst into a roar of laughter.

“It’s very unkind of you to laugh when I’m so unhappy,” said Pauline.

“My dear, how can I help it? It is so ridiculous to treat a girl who is practically almost grown up in such a baby fashion. Then I’d like to know what authority she has over you.”

“That’s the worst of it, Nancy. Father has given her authority, and she has it in writing. She’s awfully clever, and she came round poor father, and he had to do what she wanted because he couldn’t help himself.”

“Jolly mean, I call it,” said Nancy. “My dear, you are pretty mad, I suppose.”

“Wouldn’t you be if your father treated you like that?”

“My old dad! He knows better. I’ve had my swing since I was younger than you, Paulie. Of course, at school I had to obey just a little. I wasn’t allowed to break all the rules, but I did smuggle in a good many relaxations. The thing is, you can do what you like at school if only you are not found out. Well, I was too clever to be found out. And now I am grown up, eighteen last birthday, and I have taken a fancy to cling to my old friends, even if they have a snobby, ridiculous old aunt to be rude to me. My dear, what nonsense she did write!—all about your being of such a good family, and that I wasn’t in your station. I shall keep that letter. I wouldn’t lose it for twenty shillings. What have you to boast of after all is said and done? A tumble-down house; horrid, shabby, old-fashioned, old-maidy clothes; and never a decent meal to be had.”

“But it isn’t like that now,” said Pauline, finding herself getting very red and angry.

“Well, so much the better for you. And did I make the little mousy-pousy angry? I won’t, then, any more, for Nancy loves little mousy-pousy, and would like to do what she could for her. You love me back, don’t you, mousy?”

“Yes, Nancy, I do love you, and I think it’s a horrid shame that we’re not allowed to be with you. But, all the same, I’d rather you didn’t call me mousy.”

“Oh dear, how dignified we are! I shall begin to believe in the ancient family if this sort of thing continues. But now, my dear, the moment has come to help you. The hour has arrived when your own Nancy, vulgar as she is, can lend you a helping hand. Listen.”

“What?” said Pauline.

“Jump up, Paulie; take my hand, and you and I together will walk out through that wicket-gate, and go back through the dear old Forest to The Hollies, and spend the day at my home. There are my boy cousins from London, and my two friends, Rebecca and Amelia Perkins—jolly girls, I can tell you. We shall have larks. What do you say, Paulie? A fine fright she’ll be in when she misses you. Serve her right, though.”

“But I daren’t come with you,” said Pauline. “I’d love it more than anything in the world; but I daren’t. You mustn’t ask me. You mustn’t try to tempt me, Nancy, for I daren’t go.”

“I didn’t know you were so nervous.”

“I am nervous about a thing like that. Wild as I have been, and untrained all my life, I do not think I am out-and-out wicked. It would be wicked to go away without leave. I’d be too wretched. Oh, I daren’t think of it!”

Nancy pursed up her lips while Pauline was speaking; then she gave vent to a low, almost incredulous whistle. Finally she sprang to her feet.

“I am not the one to try and make you forget your scruples,” she said. “Suppose you do this. Suppose you come at seven o’clock to-night. Then you will be safe. You may be wicked, but at least you will be safe. She’ll never look for you, nor think of you again, when once you have gone up to bed. You have a room to yourself, have you not?”

Pauline nodded.

“I thought so. You will go to your room, lock the door, and she will think it is all right. The others won’t care to disturb you. If they do they’ll find the door locked.”

“But I am forbidden to lock my room door.”

“They will call to you, but you will not answer. They may be angry, but I don’t suppose your sisters will tell on you, and they will only suppose you are sound asleep. Meanwhile you will be having a jolly good time; for I can tell you we are going to have sport to-night at The Hollies—fireworks, games, plans for the future, etc., etc. You can share my nice bed, and go back quite early in the morning. I have a lot to talk over with you. I want to arrange about our midnight picnic.”

“But, Nancy, we can’t have a midnight picnic.”

“Can’t we? I don’t see that at all. I tell you what—we will have it; and we’ll have it on your birthday. Your birthday is in a week. That will be just splendid. The moon will be at the full, and you must all of you come. Do you suppose I’m going to be balked of my fun by a stupid old woman? Ah! you little know me. My boy cousins, Jack and Tom, and my friends, Becky and Amy, have made all arrangements. We are going to have a time! Of course, if you are not there, you don’t suppose our fun will be stopped! You’ll hear us laughing in the glades. You won’t like that, will you? But we needn’t say any more until seven o’clock to-night.”

“I don’t think I’m coming.”

“But you are, Paulie. No one will know, and you must have a bit of fun. Perhaps I’ll show you the present I’m going to give you on your birthday; there’s no saying what I may do; only you must come.”

Nancy had been standing all this time. Pauline had been reclining on the ground. Now she also rose to her feet.

“You excite me,” she said. “I long to go, and yet I am afraid; it would be so awfully wicked.”

“It would be wicked if she was your mother, but she’s not. And she has no right to have any control over you. She just got round your silly old father——”

“I won’t have dad called silly!”

“Well, your learned and abstracted father. It all comes to much the same. Now think the matter over. You needn’t decide just this minute. I shall come to the wicket-gate at half-past seven, and if you like to meet me, why, you can; but if you are still too good, and your conscience is too troublesome, and your scruples too keen, you need not come. I shall quite understand. In that case, perhaps, I’d best not give you that lovely, lovely present that I saved up so much money to buy.”

Pauline clasped her hands and stepped away from Nancy. As she did so the breeze caught her full gray skirt and caused it to blow against Nancy. Nancy stretched out her hand and caught hold of Pauline’s pocket.

“What is this hard thing?” she cried. “Have you got a nut in your pocket?”

“No,” said Pauline, instantly smiling and dimpling. “Oh, Nancy, such fun!”

She dived into her pocket and produced Miss Tredgold’s thimble.

“Oh, I say!” cried Nancy. “What a beauty! Who in the world gave you this treasure, Paulie?”

“It isn’t mine at all; it belongs to Aunt Sophia.”

“You sly little thing! You took it from her?”

“No, I didn’t. I’m not a thief. I saw it in the grass a few minutes ago and picked it up. It had rolled just under that dock-leaf. Isn’t it sweet? I shall give it back to her after she has forgiven me to-morrow.”

“What a charming, return-good-for-evil character you have suddenly become, Pauline!”

As Nancy spoke she poised the thimble on her second finger. Her fingers were small, white, and tapering. The thimble exactly fitted the narrow tip on which it rested.

“I never saw anything so lovely,” she cried. “Never mind, Paulie, about to-morrow. Lend it to me. I’d give my eyes to show it to Becky.”

“But why should I lend it to you? I must return it to Aunt Sophia.”

“You surely won’t give it back to her to-day.”

“No, but to-morrow.”

“Let to-morrow take care of itself. I want to show this thimble to Becky and Amy. I have a reason. You won’t refuse one who is so truly kind to you, will you, little Paulie? And I tell you what: I know you are starving, and you hate to go into the house for your food. I will bring you a basketful of apples, chocolates, and a peach or two. We have lovely peaches ripe in our garden now, although we are such common folk.”

Pauline felt thirsty. Her hunger, too, was getting worse. She would have given a good deal to have been able to refuse the horrid meals which would be served to her in the schoolroom. Perhaps she could manage without any other food if she had enough fruit.

“I should like some very much,” she said. “Aunt Sophia has, as she calls it, preserved the orchard. We are not allowed to go into it.”

“Mean cat!” cried Nancy.

“So will you really send me a basket of fruit?”

“I will send Tom with it the instant I get home. He runs like the wind. You may expect to find it waiting for you in half-an-hour.”

“Thank you. And you will take great care of the thimble, won’t you?”

“Of course I will, child. It is a beauty.”

Without more ado Nancy slipped the thimble into her pocket, and then nodding to Pauline, and telling her that she would wait for her at the wicket-gate at half-past seven, she left her.

Nancy swung her body as she walked, and Pauline stood and watched her. She thought that Nancy looked very grown-up and very stylish. To look stylish seemed better than to look pretty in the eyes of the inexperienced little girl. She could not help having a great admiration for her friend.

“She is very brave, and so generous; and she knows such a lot of the world!” thought poor Pauline. “It is a shame not to be allowed to see her whenever one likes. And it would be just heavenly to go to her to-night, instead of spending hungry hours awake in my horrid bedroom.”

CHAPTER X.

DISCIPLINE.

The other girls were miserable; but Miss Tredgold had already exercised such a very strong influence over them that they did not dare to disobey her orders. Much as they longed to do so, none of them ventured near poor Pauline. In the course of the afternoon Miss Tredgold called Verena aside.

“I know well, my dear, what you are thinking,” she said. “You believe that I am terribly hard on your sister.”

Verena’s eyes sought the ground.

“Yes, I quite know what you think,” repeated Miss Tredgold. “But, Verena, you are wrong. At least, if I am hard, it is for her good.”

“But can it do any one good to be downright cruel to her?” said Verena.

“I am not cruel, but I have given her a more severe punishment than she has ever received before in her life. We all, the best of us, need discipline. The first time we experience it when it comes from the hand of God we murmur and struggle and rebel. But there comes a time when we neither murmur nor struggle nor rebel. When that time arrives the discipline has done its perfect work, and God removes it. My dear Verena, I am a woman old enough to be your mother. You must trust me, and believe that I am treating Pauline in the manner I am to-day out of the experience of life that God has given me. We are so made, my dear, that we none of us are any good until our wills are broken to the will of our Divine Master.”

“But this is not God’s will, is it?” said Verena. “It is your will.”

“Consider for a moment, my child. It is, I believe, both God’s will and mine. Don’t you want Pauline to be a cultivated woman? Don’t you want her character to be balanced? Don’t you want her to be educated? There is a great deal that is good in her. She has plenty of natural talent. Her character, too, is strong and sturdy. But at present she is like a flower run to weed. In such a case what would the gardener do?”

“I suppose he would prune the flower.”

“If it was a hopeless weed he would cast it out of his garden; but if it really was a flower that had degenerated into a weed, he would take it up and put it to some pain, and plant it again in fresh soil. The poor little plant might say it was badly treated when it was taken from its surroundings and its old life. This is very much the case with Pauline. Now, I do not wish her to associate with Nancy King. I do not wish her to be idle or inattentive. I want her to be energetic, full of purpose, resolved to do her best, and to take advantage of those opportunities which have come to you all, my dear, when I, your mother’s sister, took up my abode at The Dales. Sometime, dear, it is quite possible that, owing to what will be begun in Pauline’s character to-day, people will stop and admire the lovely flower. They will know that the gardener who put it to some pain and trouble was wise and right. Now, my dear girl, you will remember my little lecture. Pauline needs discipline. For that matter, you all need discipline. At first such treatment is hard, but in the end it is salutary.”

“Thank you, Aunt Sophy,” said Verena. “But perhaps,” she added, “you will try and remember, too, that kindness goes a long way. Pauline is perhaps the most affectionate of us all. In some ways she has the deepest feelings. But she can be awfully sulky, and only kindness can move her.”

“I quite understand, my dear; and when the time comes kindness will not be wanting. Now go away and amuse yourself with your sisters.”

Verena went away. She wondered as she did so where Pauline was hiding herself. The others had all settled down to their various amusements and occupations. They were sorry for Pauline, but the pleasant time they were enjoying in the middle of this lovely summer’s day was not to be despised, even if their sister was under punishment. But Verena herself could not rest. She went into the schoolroom. On a tray stood poor Pauline’s neglected dinner. Verena lifted the cover from the plate, and felt as though she must cry.

“Pauline is taking it hardly,” thought the elder girl.

Tea-time came, and Pauline’s tea was also sent to the schoolroom. At preparation hour, when the rest of the girls went into the room, Pauline’s tea remained just where it had been placed an hour before. Verena could scarcely bear herself. There must be something terribly wrong with her sister. They had often been hungry in the old days, but in the case of a hearty, healthy girl, to do without any food from breakfast-time when there was plenty to eat was something to regard with uneasiness.

Presently, however, to her relief, Pauline came in. She looked rough and untidy in appearance. She slipped into the nearest chair in a sulky, ungainly fashion, and taking up a battered spelling-book, she held it upside down.

Verena gave her a quick glance and looked away. Pauline would not meet Verena’s anxious gaze. She kept on looking down. Occasionally her lips moved. There was a red stain on her cheek. Penelope with one of her sharpest glances perceived this.

“It is caused by fruit,” thought the youngest of the schoolroom children. “I wonder who has given Pauline fruit. Did she climb the garden wall or get over the gate into the orchard?”

Nobody else noticed this stain. Miss Tredgold came in presently, but she took no more notice of Pauline than if that young lady did not exist.

The hour of preparation was over. It was now six o’clock. In an hour Pauline was expected to go to bed. Now, Pauline and Verena had bedrooms to themselves. These were attic rooms at the top of the house. They had sloping roofs, and would have been much too hot in summer but for the presence of a big beech tree, which grew to within a few feet of the windows. More than once the girls in their emancipated days, as they now considered them, used to climb down the beech tree from their attic windows, and on a few occasions had even managed to climb up the same way. They loved their rooms, having slept in them during the greater part of their lives.

Pauline, as she now went in the direction of the north walk, thought with a sense of satisfaction of the bedroom she had to herself.

“It will make things easier,” she thought. “They will all be on the lawn doing their needlework, and Aunt Sophia will be reading to them. I will go past them quite quietly to my room, and then——”

These thoughts made Pauline comparatively happy. Once or twice she smiled, and a vindictive, ugly expression visited her small face.

“She little knows,” thought the girl. “Oh, she little knows! She thinks that she is so clever—so terribly clever; but, after all, she has not the least idea of the right way to treat me. No, she has not the least idea. And perhaps by-and-by she will be sorry for what she has done.”

Seven o’clock was heard to strike in the house. Pauline, retracing her steps, went slowly past her sisters and Miss Tredgold. Miss Tredgold slightly raised her voice as the culprit appeared. She read aloud with more determination than ever. Penelope flung down the duster she was hemming and watched Pauline.

“I a’most wish I wor her,” thought the ex-nursery child. “Anything is better than this horrid sewing. How it pricks my fingers! That reminds me; I wonder where Aunt Sophy’s thimble has got to. I did look hard for it. I wish I could find it. I do want that penny so much! It was a beauty thimble, too, and she loves it. I don’t want to give it back to her ’cos she loves it, but I should like my penny.”

Pauline had now nearly disappeared from view.

“Paulie is up to a lark,” thought Penelope, who was the sharpest of all the children, and read motives as though she was reading an open book. “She doesn’t walk as though she was tur’ble unhappy. I wonder what she’s up to. And that red stain on her cheek was fruit; course it was fruit. How did she get it? I wish I knew. I’ll try and find out.”

Pauline had now reached her bedroom. There she hastily put on her best clothes. They were very simple, but, under Miss Tredgold’s regime, fairly nice. She was soon attired in a neat white frock; and an old yellow sash of doubtful cleanliness and a bunch of frowsy red poppies were folded in a piece of tissue paper. Pauline then slipped on her sailor hat. She had a great love for the old sash; and as to the poppies, she thought them far more beautiful than any real flowers that ever grew. She meant to tie the yellow sash round her waist when she reached the shrubbery, and to pin the poppies into her hat. The fact that Miss Tredgold had forbidden her to wear this sash, and had herself removed the poppies from her Sunday hat, gave her now a sense of satisfaction.

“Young ladies don’t wear things of that sort,” Miss Tredgold had said.

“A young lady shall wear things of this sort to-night,” thought Pauline.

Having finished her toilet, she locked her door from the outside and put the key into her pocket; but before she left the room she drew down the dark-green blind. She then slipped downstairs and went out through the back way. She had to go through the yard, but no one saw her except Betty, who, as she afterwards remarked, did observe the flutter of a white dress with the tail of her eye. But Betty at that moment was immersed in a fresh installment of the wonderful adventures of the Duke of Mauleverer-Wolverhampton and his bride, and what did it matter to her if the young ladies chose to run out in their best frocks?

Pauline reached the shrubbery without further adventure. There she put on her extra finery. Her yellow sash was tied in a large bow, and her poppies nodded over her forehead.

It was a very excited dark-eyed girl who presently met Nancy King on the other side of the wicket-gate.

“Here I am,” said Pauline. “I expect I shall never have any luck again all my life; but I want to spite her at any cost, so here I am.”

“Delicious!” said Nancy. “Isn’t it good to spite the old cat? Now then, let’s be off, or we may be caught. But I say, how fine we are!”

“You always admired this bunch of poppies, didn’t you, Nancy? Do you remember? Before you went to that grand school at Brighton you used to envy me my poppies. I found them among mother’s old things, and Verena gave them to me. I love them like anything. Don’t you like them very much, placed so in front of my hat?”

“Didn’t I say, ‘How fine we are’?”

“Yes; but somehow your tone——”

“My dear Paulie, you are getting much too learned for my taste. Now come along. Take my hand. Let us run. Let me tell you, you look charming. The girls will admire you wonderfully. Amy and Becky are keen to make your acquaintance. You can call them by their Christian names; they’re not at all stiff. Surname, Perkins. Nice girls—brought up at my school—father in the pork line; jolly girls—very. And, of course, you met Jack and Tom last year. They’re out fishing at present. They’ll bring in beautiful trout for supper. Why, you poor little thing, you must be starved.”

“Ravenous. You know I had only your fruit to-day.”

“You shall have a downright jolly meal, and afterwards we’ll have fireworks; and then by-and-by you will share my bed. Amy and Becky will be in the same room. They think there’s a ghost at the other side of the passage, so they came along to my chamber. But you won’t mind.”

“I won’t mind anything after my lonely day. You are quite sure that I’ll get back in time in the morning, Nancy?”

“Trust me for that. Haven’t you got the key of your room?”

“Yes; it’s in my pocket. I left the window on the latch, and I can climb up the beech tree quite well. Oh! that reminds me, Nancy; you must let me have that thimble before I return to The Dales.”

“To be sure I will, dear. But you needn’t think of returning yet, for you have not even arrived. Your fun is only beginning. Oh! you have done a splendid, spirited thing running off in this fashion. I only hope she’ll go to your room and tap and tap, and knock and knock, and shout and shout, and get, oh, so frightened! and have the door burst open; and then she’ll see for herself that the bird has flown. Won’t she be in a tantrum and a fright! Horrid old thing! She’ll think that you have run off forever. Serve her right. Oh! I almost wish she would do it—that I do.”

“But I don’t,” said Pauline. “If she did such a thing it would almost kill me. It’s all very well for you to talk in that fashion; you haven’t got to live with her; but I have, and I couldn’t stand her anger and her contempt. I’d be put into Punishment Land for a year. And as one day has very nearly killed me, what would a year of it do? If there is any fear of what you wish for, I’d best go back at once.”

“What! and lose the trout, and the game pie, and the steak and onions, and the fried potatoes, and the apple turnovers, and the plum puffs, to say nothing of the most delicious lollypops you have ever tasted in your life? And afterwards fireworks; for Jack and Tom have bought a lot of Catherine-wheels and rockets to let off in your honor. And then a cosy, warm hug in my bed, with Amy and Becky telling ghost stories in the bed opposite. You don’t mean to tell me you’d rather have your lonely room and starvation than a program of that sort?”

“No, no. Of course I’ll go on with you. I’ve done it now, so I’ll stick to it. Oh, I’m madly hungry! I hope you’ll have supper the moment we get in.”

“Supper will be delayed as short a time as possible. It rather depends upon the boys and when they bring the trout home. But here is a queen cake. I stuffed it into my pocket for you. Eat it as we go along.”

So Pauline ate it and felt better. Her courage returned. She no longer thought of going back. Had she done so, she knew well that she would not sleep. People never slept well if they were hungry.

“No,” she said to herself; “I will go on with it now. I’ll just trust to my good luck, and I’ll enjoy the time with Nancy. For, after all, she’s twice as kind as Aunt Sophia. Why should I make myself miserable on account of a woman who is not my mother?”

The Hollies was a very snug, old-fashioned sort of farm. It had been in the King family for generations, and Mr. Josiah King was a very fine specimen of the British farmer. He was a big man with a red face, bushy whiskers, grizzled hair, and a loud laugh. The expression of his broad, square face was somewhat fierce, and the servants at the farm were afraid to anger him. He was a just enough master, however, and was always served well by his people. To only one person was he completely mild and gentle, and that person, it is needless to say, was his daughter Nancy. Nancy was his only child. Her mother was dead, and from her earliest days she had been able to twist her father round her little finger. He sent her to a smart boarding school, and no money was spared in order to give her pleasure. It was the dream of Farmer King, and Nancy’s dearest ambition also, that she should be turned into a lady. But, alas and alack! Miss Nancy could not overcome the stout yeoman blood in her veins. She was no aristocrat, and nothing could make her one. She was just a hearty, healthy happy-minded English girl; vulgar in voice and loud in speech, but fairly well-intentioned at heart. She was the sort of farmer’s daughter who would marry a farmer, and look after the dairy, and rear stalwart sons and hearty girls in her turn. Nature never intended her for a fine lady; but silly Nancy had learnt a great deal more at school than how to talk a little French very badly and how to recite a poem with false action and sentiment. She had learnt to esteem the world for the world’s own sake, and had become a little ashamed of the farmer and the farmer’s ways; and, finally, when she returned from school she insisted on the best parlor being turned into a sort of drawing-room, on her friends being regaled with late dinners, and on herself being provided with servants, so that she need not touch household work. She was playing, therefore, the game of being a lady, and was failing as she played it. She knew that she was failing, and this knowledge made her feel very cross. She tried hard to stifle it, and clung more than ever to her acquaintanceship with the Dale girls.

In her heart of hearts Nancy knew that she would very much like to milk the cows, and superintend the dairy, and churn the butter. In her heart of hearts she would have adored getting up early in the morning and searching for the warm, pink eggs, and riding barebacked over the farm with her father, consulting him on the tilling of the land and the best way to make the old place profitable; for one day it would be her own, and she would be, for her class in life, a rich girl. Just at present, however, she was passing through a phase, and not a very pleasant one. She thought herself quite good enough to go into any society; and fine dress, loud-voiced friends, and the hollow, empty nothings which she and her acquaintances called conversation seemed the best things possible that could come into life. She was, therefore, not at all in the mood to give up her friendship with the Dale girls.

Now, there never was a girl less likely to please Miss Tredgold than this vulgarly dressed, loud-voiced, and unlady-like girl. Nancy was desired to abstain from visiting at The Dales, and the Dale girls were told that they were not to talk to Nancy. Nancy’s rapture, therefore, when she was able to bring Pauline to The Hollies could scarcely be suppressed.

Amy and Becky Perkins were standing in the old porch when the two girls appeared. Nancy called out to her friends, and they ran to meet her.

“This is Paulie,” said Nancy; “in other words, Pauline Dale—Pauline Dale, the aristocrat. We ought to be proud to know her, girls. Pauline, let me introduce my special friend, Becky Perkins. She’s in pork, but that don’t matter. And my other special friend, Amy Perkins; also in pork, but at your service. Girls, you didn’t happen to notice if supper was being put on the table, did you?”

“I should think we did,” said Becky. “I smelt fish. The boys brought in a lot of trout. I’m as hungry as hungry can be.”

“Let’s run upstairs first,” said Nancy, turning to Pauline. “You’d like to take off your hat and wash your hands, wouldn’t you, my fine friend of aristocratic circles?”

“I wish you wouldn’t talk like that, Nancy,” said Pauline, flushing angrily, while the two Perkins girls looked at her with admiration.

“Well, then, I won’t,” said Nancy; “but I’m always one for my joke. I meant no harm. And you know you are aristocratic, Paulie, and nothing will ever take it out of you. And I’m terribly afraid that nothing will take the other thing out of me. I only talk to you like this because I’m so jealous. So now come along and let’s be friends.”

The two girls scampered up the old oak stairs. They ran down an uneven passage, and reached a door of black oak, which was opened with an old-fashioned latch. At the other side of the door they found themselves in a long and very low room, with a black oak floor and black oak walls. The floor of the room was extremely uneven, being up in one part and down in another, and the whole appearance of the room, although fascinating, was decidedly patchy. In an alcove at one end stood a four-post bedstead, with a gaudily colored quilt flung over it; and in the alcove at the other end was another four-post bedstead, also boasting of a colored quilt. There were two washstands in the room, and one dressing-table. The whole place was scrupulously neat and exquisitely clean, for the white dimity curtains rivalled the snow in winter, and the deal washstands and the deal dressing-table were as white as the scrubbing of honest hands could make them. The whole room smelt of a curious mixture of turpentine, soap, and fresh flowers.

“I had the lavender sheets put on the bed for you and me,” said Nancy. “They are of the finest linen. My mother spun them herself, and she put them in lavender years and years ago. I am heartily glad to welcome you, little Paulie. This is the very first time you have ever slept under our humble roof. So kiss me, dear.”

“How snug and sweet it all is!” said Pauline. “I am glad that I came.”

“This is better than lying down hungry in your own little room,” said Nancy.

“Oh, much better!”

Pauline skipped about. Her high spirits had returned; she was charmed with the room in which she was to repose. Through the lattice window the sweetest summer air was entering, and roses peeped all round the frame, and their sweet scent added to the charm of the old-fashioned chamber.

“I hope you won’t mind having supper in the kitchen,” said Nancy. “I know it’s what a Dale is not expected to submit to; but, nevertheless, in Rome we do as the Romans do—don’t we?”

“Oh, yes; but I wish you wouldn’t talk like that, Nancy. As if I cared. Whether I am a lady or not, I am never too fine for my company; and it was when Aunt Sophia wanted us to give you up that I really got mad with her.”

“You are a darling and a duck, and I love you like anything,” said Nancy. “Now come downstairs. We are all hungry, and the boys are mad to be at the fireworks.”

“I have never seen fireworks in my life,” said Pauline.

“You poor little innocent! What a lot the world has to show you! Now then, come along.”

Pauline, deprived of her hideous hat, looked pretty and refined in her white dress. She made a contrast to the showy Nancy and the Perkins girls. The boys, Jack and Tom Watson, looked at her with admiration, and Jack put a seat for Pauline between himself and his brother.

The farmer nodded to her, and said in his bluff voice:

“Glad to welcome you under my humble roof, Miss Pauline Dale. ’Eartily welcome you be. Now then, young folks, fall to.”

The meal proceeded to the accompaniment of loud jokes, gay laughter, and hearty talking. The farmer’s voice topped the others. Each remark called forth fresh shouts of laughter; and when a number of dogs rushed in in the middle of supper, the din almost rose to an uproar.

Pauline enjoyed it all very much. She laughed with the others; her cheeks grew rosy. Nancy piled her plate with every available dainty. Soon her hunger left her, and she believed that she was intensely happy.

CHAPTER XI.

THE BURNT ARM.

After supper the excitement waxed fast and furious. The boys, aided by the farmer and one of his men, proceeded to send off the fireworks. This was done on a little plateau of smoothly cut lawn just in front of the best sitting-room windows. The girls pressed their faces against the glass, and for a time were satisfied with this way of looking at the fun. But soon Nancy could bear it no longer.

“It is stupid to be mewed up in the close air,” she said. “Let’s go out.”

No sooner had she given utterance to the words than all four girls were helping the boys to let off the squibs, Catherine-wheels, rockets, and other fireworks. Pauline now became nearly mad with delight. Her shouts were the loudest of any. When the rockets went high into the air and burst into a thousand stars, she did not believe that the world itself could contain a more lovely sight. But presently her happiness came to a rude conclusion, for a bit of burning squib struck her arm, causing her fine muslin dress to catch fire, and the little girl’s arm was somewhat severely hurt. She put out the fire at once, and determined to hide the fact that she was rather badly burnt.

By-and-by they all returned to the house. Nancy sat down to the piano and began to sing some of her most rollicking songs. Then she played dance music, and the boys and girls danced with all their might. Pauline, however, had never learned to dance. She stood silent, watching the others. Her high spirits had gone down to zero. She now began to wish that she had never come. She wondered if she could possibly get home again without being discovered. At last Nancy noticed her grave looks.

“You are tired, Paulie,” she said; “and for that matter, so are we. I say, it’s full time for bed. Good-night, boys. Put out the lamps when you are tired of amusing yourselves. Dad has shut up the house already. Come, Paulie; come, Amy; come, Becky.”

The four girls ran upstairs, but as they were going down the passage which led to their pretty bedroom, Pauline’s pain was so great that she stumbled against Becky and nearly fell.

“What is it?” said Becky. “Are you faint?”

She put her arm around the little girl and helped her into the bedroom.

“Whatever can be wrong?” she said. “You seemed so lively out in the open air.”

“Oh, you do look bad, Paulie!” said Nancy. “It is that terrible fasting you went through to-day. My dear girls, what do you think? This poor little aristocrat, far and away too good to talk to the likes of us”—here Nancy put her arms akimbo and looked down with a mocking laugh at the prostrate Pauline—“far too grand, girls—fact, I assure you—was kept without her food until I gave her a bit of bread and a sup of water at supper. All these things are owing to an aunt—one of the tip-top of the nobility. This aunt, though grand externally, has a mighty poor internal arrangement, to my way of thinking. She put the poor child into a place she calls Punishment Land, and kept her without food.”

“That isn’t true,” said Pauline. “I could have had plenty to eat if I had liked.”

“That means that if you were destitute of one little spark of spirit you’d have crawled back to the house to take your broken food on a cold plate like a dog. But what is the matter now? Hungry again?”

“No; it is my arm. Please don’t touch it.”

“Do look!” cried Amy Perkins. “Oh, Nancy, she has got an awful burn! There’s quite a hole through the sleeve of her dress. Oh, do see this great blister!”

“It was a bit of one of the squibs,” said Pauline. “It lit right on my arm and burned my muslin sleeve; but I don’t suppose it’s much hurt, only I feel a little faint.”

“Dear, dear!” said Nancy. “What is to be done now? I don’t know a thing about burns, or about any sort of illness. Shall we wake cook up? Perhaps she can tell us something.”

“Let’s put on a bandage,” said one of the other girls. “Then when you lie down in bed, Pauline, you will drop asleep and be all right in the morning.”

Pauline was so utterly weary that she was glad to creep into bed. Her arm was bandaged very unskilfully; nevertheless it felt slightly more comfortable. Presently she dropped into an uneasy doze; but from that doze she awoke soon after midnight, to hear Nancy snoring loudly by her side, to hear corresponding snores in a sort of chorus coming from the other end of the long room, and to observe also that there was not a chink of light anywhere; and, finally, to be all too terribly conscious of a great burning pain in her arm. That pain seemed to awaken poor Pauline’s slumbering conscience.

“Why did I come?” she said to herself. “I am a wretched, most miserable girl. And how am I ever to get back? I cannot climb into the beech-tree with this bad arm. Oh, how it does hurt me! I feel so sick and faint I scarcely care what happens.”

Pauline stretched out her uninjured arm and touched Nancy.

“What is it?” said Nancy. “Oh, dear! I’d forgotten. It’s you, Paulie. How is your arm, my little dear? Any better?”

“It hurts me very badly indeed; but never mind about that now. How am I to get home?”

“I’ll manage that. Betty, our dairymaid, is to throw gravel up at the window at four o’clock. You shall have a cup of tea before you start, and I will walk with you as far as the wicket-gate.”

“Oh, thank you! But how am I to get into my room when I do arrive at The Dales? I don’t believe I shall be able to use this arm at all.”

“Of course you will,” said Nancy. “You will be miles better when cook has looked to it. I know she’s grand about burns, and has a famous ointment she uses for the purpose. Only, for goodness’ sake, Paulie, don’t let that burn in the sleeve of your dress be seen; that would lead to consequences, and I don’t want my midnight picnic to be spoilt.”

“I don’t seem to care about that or anything else any more.”

“What nonsense! You don’t suppose I should like this little escapade of yours and mine to be known. You must take care. Why, you know, there’s father. He’s very crotchety over some things. He likes all of you, but over and over again he has said:

“‘I’m as proud of being an honest farmer as I should be to be a lord. My grandfather paid his way, and my father paid his way, and I am paying my way. There’s no nonsense about me, and I shall leave you, Nancy, a tidy fortune. You like those young ladies at The Dales, and you shall have them come here if they wish to come, but not otherwise. I won’t have them here thinking themselves too grand to talk to us. Let them keep to their own station, say I. I don’t want them.’

“Now you see, Paulie, what that means. If father found out that your aunt had written to me and desired me to have nothing further to do with you, I believe he’d pack me out of the country to-morrow. I don’t want to leave my home; why should I? So, you see, for my sake you must keep it the closest of close secrets.”

“You should have thought of that before you tempted me to come,” said Pauline.

“That is just like you. You come here and enjoy yourself, and have a great hearty meal, and when you are likely to get into a scrape you throw the blame on me.”

“You can understand that I am very miserable, Nancy.”

“Yes; and I’m as sorry as I can be about that burn; but if you’ll be brave and plucky now, I’ll help you all I can. We’ll get up as soon as ever the day dawns, and cook shall put your arm straight.”

As Nancy uttered the last words her voice dwindled to a whisper, and a minute later she was again sound asleep. But Pauline could not sleep. Her pain was too great. The summer light stole in by degrees, and by-and-by the sharp noise made by a shower of gravel was heard on the window.

Pauline sprang into a sitting posture, and Nancy rubbed her eyes.

“I’m dead with sleep,” she said. “I could almost wish I hadn’t brought you. Not but that I’m fond of you, as I think I’ve proved. We haven’t yet made all our arrangements about the midnight picnic, but I have the most daring scheme in my head. You are every single one of you—bar Penelope, whom I can’t bear—to come to that picnic. I’ll make my final plans to-day, and I’ll walk in the Forest to-morrow at six o’clock, just outside your wicket-gate. You will meet me, won’t you?”

“But—— Oh! by the way, Nancy, please give me back that beautiful thimble. I’m so glad I remembered it! It belongs to Aunt Sophia.”

“I can’t,” said Nancy, coloring, “I lent it to Becky, and I don’t know where she has put it. I’ll bring it with me to-morrow, so don’t fuss. Now jump up, Paulie; we have no time to lose.”

Accordingly Pauline got up, dressed herself—very awkwardly, it is true—and went downstairs, leaning on Nancy’s sympathetic arm. Nancy consulted the cook, who was good-natured and red-faced.

“You have got a bad burn, miss,” she said when she had examined Pauline’s arm; “but I have got a famous plaster that heals up burns like anything. I’ll make your arm quite comfortable in a twinkling, miss.”

This she proceeded to do, and before the treatment had been applied for half an hour a good deal of Pauline’s acute pain had vanished.

“I feel better,” she said, turning to Nancy. “I feel stronger and braver.”

“You will feel still braver when you have had your cup of tea. And here’s a nice hunch of cake. Put it into your pocket if you can’t eat it now. We had best be going; the farm people may be about, and there’s no saying—it’s wonderful how secrets get into the air.”

Pauline looked startled. She again took Nancy’s hand, and they left the house together.

Now, it so happened that the the morning was by no means as fine as those lovely mornings that had preceded it. There was quite a cold wind blowing, and the sky was laden with clouds.

“We’ll have rain to-day,” said Nancy; “rain, and perhaps thunder. I feel thunder in the air, and I never was mistaken yet. We must be quick, or we’ll both be drenched to the skin.”

Accordingly the two walked quickly through the Forest path. But before they reached the wicket-gate the first mutterings of thunder were audible, and heavy drops of rain were falling.

“I must leave you now, Paulie,” said Nancy, “for if I go any farther I’ll be drenched to the skin. Climb up your tree, get into your bedroom, and go to bed. If you can manage to send that white dress over to me, I will put on a patch that even your aunt will not see. Put on another dress, of course, this morning, and say nothing about the burn. Good-bye, and good luck! I’ll be over about six o’clock to-morrow evening to talk over our midnight picnic.”

“And the thimble,” said Pauline. “You won’t forget the thimble.”

“Not I. Good gracious, what a flash! You had best get home at once; and I must run for my life or I may be struck down under all these trees.”

Pauline stood still for a minute, watching Nancy as she disappeared from view; then slowly and sadly she went up to the house.

She was too tired and depressed to mind very much that the rain was falling in showers, soaking her thin white muslin dress, and chilling her already tired and exhausted little frame. The rattle of the thunder, the bright flash of the lightning, and the heavy fall of the tempest could not reach the graver trouble which filled her heart. The way of transgressors had proved itself very hard for poor Pauline. She disliked the discomfort and misery she was enduring; but even now she was scarcely sorry that she had defied and disobeyed Aunt Sophia.

After a great deal of difficulty, and with some injury to her already injured arm, she managed to climb the beech-tree and so reach the gabled roof just under her attic window. She pushed the window wide open and got inside. How dear and sweet and fresh the little chamber appeared! How innocent and good was that little white bed, with its sheets still smoothly folded down! It took Pauline scarcely a minute to get into her night-dress, sweep her offending white dress into a neighboring cupboard, unlock the door, and put her head on her pillow. Oh, there was no place like home! It was better to be hungry at home, it was better to be in punishment at home, than to go away to however grand a place and however luxuriant a feast.

“And Nancy’s home isn’t grand,” thought Pauline. “And the food was rough. Aunt Sophia would even call it coarse. But, oh, I was hungry! And if I hadn’t been so naughty I’d have been very happy. All the same,” she continued, thinking aloud, as was her fashion. “I won’t go to that midnight picnic; and Renny must not go either. Of course, I can’t tell Aunt Sophia what I did last night. I promised Nancy I wouldn’t tell, and it wouldn’t be fair; but see if I do anything wrong again! I’ll work like a Briton at my lessons to-day. Oh, how badly my arm hurts! And what an awful noise the storm is making! The thunder rattles as though it would come through the roof. My arm does ache! Oh, what lightning! I think I’ll put my head under the sheet.”

Pauline did so, and notwithstanding the tempest, she had scarcely got down into the real warmth of her bed before sleep visited her.

When she awoke the storm was over, the sun was shining, and Verena was standing at the foot of her bed.

“Do get up, Paulie,” she said. “How soundly you have slept! And your face is so flushed! And, oh, aren’t you just starving? We only discovered last night that you hadn’t touched any of your food.”

“I’m all right,” said Pauline.

“You will try to be good to-day, won’t you, Paulie? You don’t know how miserable I was without you, for you are my own special most darling chum. You will try, won’t you?”

“Yes, I will try, of course,” said Pauline. “Truly—truly, I will try.”

CHAPTER XII.

CHANGED LIVES.

After the mental storm of the day before, Pauline would never forget the peace of the day that followed. For Miss Tredgold, having punished, and the hours of punishment being over, said nothing further to signify her displeasure. She received Pauline kindly when she appeared in the schoolroom. She took her hand and drew the little girl toward her. It was with a great effort that the poor girl could suppress the shriek that nearly rose to her lips as the unconscious Miss Tredgold touched her burnt arm.

“We will forget about yesterday, Pauline,” said her aunt. “We will go back to work this morning just as though there never had been any yesterday. Do you understand?”

“I think so,” said Pauline.

“Do you happen to know your lessons?”

“I’m afraid I don’t.”

“Well, my dear, as this is practically your first transgression, I am the last person to be over-hard. You can listen to your sisters this morning. At preparation to-day you will doubtless do your best. Now go to your seat.”

Pauline sat between Briar and Adelaide. Adelaide nestled up close to her, and Briar took the first opportunity to whisper:

“I am so glad you are back again, dear old Pauline! We had a horrid time without you yesterday.”

“They none of them know what I did,” thought Pauline; “and, of course, I meant to tell them. Not Aunt Sophia, but the girls. Yes, I meant to confide in the girls; but the atmosphere of peace is so nice that I do not care to disturb it. I will put off saying anything for the present. It certainly is delightful to feel good again.”

Lessons went on tranquilly. The girls had a time of delightful rest afterwards in the garden, and immediately after early dinner there came a surprise. Miss Tredgold said:

“My dear girls, there are several things you ought to learn besides mere book knowledge. I propose that you should be young country ladies whom no one will be ashamed to know. You must learn to dance properly, and to skate properly if there ever is any skating here. If not, we will go abroad for the purpose. But while you are in the Forest I intend you to have riding lessons and also driving lessons. A wagonette will be here at two o’clock, and we will all go for a long and delightful drive through the Forest. I am going to some stables about six or seven miles away, where I hear I can purchase some good horses and also some Forest ponies. Don’t look so excited, dears. I should be ashamed of any nieces of mine brought up in the New Forest of England who did not know how to manage horses.”

“Oh, she really is a darling!” said Verena. “I never did for a single moment suppose that we should have had the chance of learning to drive.”

“And to ride,” said Pauline.

She began to skip about the lawn. Her spirits, naturally very high, returned.

“I feel quite happy again,” she said.

“Why, of course you are happy,” said Verena; “but you must never get into Punishment Land again as long as you live, Paulie, for I wouldn’t go through another day like yesterday for anything.”

The wagonette arrived all in good time. It drew up at the front door, and Mr. Dale, attracted by the sound of wheels, rose from his accustomed seat in his musty, fusty study, and looked out of the window. The window was so dusty and dirty that he could not see anything plainly; but, true to his determination, he would not open it. A breeze might come in and disturb some of his papers. He was busy with an enthralling portion of his work just then; nevertheless, the smart wagonette and nicely harnessed horses, and the gay sound of young voices, attracted him.