QUEENIE'S WHIM

"A little way, a very little way
(Life is so short), they dig into the rind,
And they are very sorry, so they say,—
Sorry for what they find."—Jean Ingelow.

I have always thought the history of the ugly duckling one of the truest and most pathetic of all stories. It commences in the sad minor key, a long prelude of oppression, of misunderstanding. The unknown creature, sombre of plumage, makes no way among its companions; its folded-up beauties remain hidden. The duck-pond represents the world. Amidst plenty of quackery and folly the weaker goes to the wall. By and by the key changes; the long neck arches above the weeds; amid a burst of triumph the ugly duckling sails away into fairy-land a beautiful swan.

After all there is a wonderful moral hidden under these quaint old stories. Beauty and goodness always go together; the ugly sister, dropping toads instead of diamonds and roses, is only the poetical incarnation of envy and discontent; truth and mercy and kindness to the aged always unfold themselves under the garb of a beautiful young girl. And so the children glean precious stones of wisdom, odd-shaped and many-colored, out of the fanciful borders of fairy-land.

Queenie Marriott once compared herself and her little sister Emmie to the ugly duckling of the fable. "There must be two of them," she said; "only it was dubious whether either of them would become swans."

No one at Granite Lodge understood them; certainly not Miss Titheridge, or the other teachers, or the girls, unless it were Cathy, and even Cathy, much as she loved them, voted them peculiar.

Queenie was only speaking metaphorically when she made this droll simile—the grave young teacher, Madam Dignity, as the other girls had nicknamed her, was sufficiently alive to her own attractions not to fear unjust comparisons.

Without being handsome, Queenie was woman enough to know that her clear brown complexion, white teeth, and brown velvety eyes would win a certain amount of commendation. Queenie's eyes, as she well knew, were her strong point—they were of singular depth and expression. Some one once remarked that they reminded him of brown wells, for they had no bottom. Somebody was right; but they were not mild eyes for all that.

But we must tell how Queenie Marriott became a teacher at Miss Titheridge's, in the select establishment for young ladies at Granite Lodge, where her little sister Emmie was a sort of foundation scholar, or demi-semi-boarder, as one witty young lady described her, with reference to the somewhat scanty scholastic privileges eked out by Miss Titheridge in return for unmitigated drudgery on Queenie's part, and a trifling stipend paid out of Queenie's poor little purse; the contents of which barely sufficed to find them in decent clothing.

Her own and part of Emmie's board were all the wages Queenie received for her endurance and patient labor; and half of the miserable little pittance of forty pounds a year, left to her by her mother, was paid quarterly into Miss Titheridge's hand, invariably received by Miss Titheridge in the same stony manner, and acknowledged in the same words:—"I hope you and Emily will always be grateful to us, Miss Marriott, for the handsome and gratuitous manner in which my poor sister and myself have befriended you" (the second Miss Titheridge had been dead fifteen years, but it was Miss Titheridge's way always to associate the deceased as though she were still the partner of her labors). "There would have been very few in this mercenary world who would have acted as generously, but, as Caroline always beautifully puts it, we do it 'not to be seen of men.'" After which speech it was odd that the visitors to Granite Lodge, when they were ushered into the school-room, always gazed curiously at the young teacher, and then at a certain closely-cropped head in the darkest corner, and went out whispering to themselves of Miss Titheridge's Christianity and magnanimity of soul. In more than one case the story turned the scale in the mind of a dubious parent, who after such a recital could not but trust their darlings under the care of so good a creature as Miss Titheridge.

"My dear, she actually supports those two poor orphans; she assured me that a few pounds are all she receives, and that is pressed upon her. Can you conceive such generosity?" went on one warm-hearted visitor, the mother of seven female hopes, at least to Miss Titheridge; "a poor hard-working school-mistress, and treats them as though they were her own daughters."

Queenie and Em and their staunch friend Cathy could have told a different tale, less varnished and highly colored. Miss Titheridge's adopted daughters fared somewhat scantily; not indeed on the bread and water of affliction, but on bread on which the butter was spread sparingly, on cold tea, on the least tempting cuts of the joint after the young ladies were served. And they were lodged somewhat coldly, in a large roomy attic, with a draughty window and no fireplace, wherein little Em's hands became at times very blue and chilled—a place much haunted by a sportive family of mice, who gambolled and nibbled through the small hours of the night, with an occasional squeak from Mr. or Mrs. Mouse that roused Queenie, dozing uneasily under the thin blankets, and kept her awake and shivering for hours. These were hardships certainly, but, as Queenie was given to observe somewhat bitterly, she was used to hardships.

Queenie and her little half-sister Emily were the daughters of a clergyman, who held a living in the north of England, at first in Lancashire, which afterwards he had exchanged for one in Yorkshire.

Queenie never recollected her mother, but she did not long miss maternal care, which was warmly lavished upon her by her young step-mother.

Queenie was only seven years old when her father married again; he had made an excellent choice in his second wife, and, as was extremely rare in such cases, had secured a real mother for his little girl.

Mrs. Marriott was not a judicious woman in some respects, but she was extremely warm-hearted and sensitive; she would have thought it the height of injustice to make any difference between the children, even though one was her own, and she prided herself on treating them with equal tenderness.

Mr. Marriott was devotedly attached to his wife and children, and yet it could not be said that he was a happy man. He had one fault—he was a bad arithmetician; throughout his life he never could be made to understand that a pound did not consist of thirty shillings.

It sounds ludicrous, impossible. A highly educated man, and a good Christian, nevertheless it was the case. This mistaken notion spoiled his life, and brought him to his death a broken-spirited man.

Queenie never recollected the time when her father was not in debt; the sweet domestic life of the Vicarage was poisoned and blighted by this upas-tree shadow of poverty. Mrs. Marriott's pretty-girl bloom died out under it, her soft cheek grew thin and haggard. It haunted the study chair where Mr. Marriott spent hours of hard brain and heart labor for his people; it spoke despondently in his sermons; it weakened the strong head and arm, and marred their usefulness.

This man was faulty, depend on it; he had begun life at the wrong end; he had been bred up in luxury, and had educated himself to the pitch of fastidiousness; he would preach the gospel, and yet not endure hardness, neither would he lay aside the purple and fine linen that should be his by inheritance.

Fresh from the university, he had commenced life in this wise. Long before prudence would have dreamed of such a thing, he had taken a wife to himself, a beautiful young creature, also a clergyman's daughter, who brought her husband a dowry of forty pounds a year.

After her death, which occurred when Queenie was two years old, there was a long sad interval of confusion and mismanagement. An extravagant master and extravagant servants made sad havoc in an income that ought to have sufficed for comfort and competence.

The young widower was in sore plight when Emily Calcott married him, thereby angering and alienating her only remaining relative, a brother, at that time a wealthy solicitor in Carlisle.

"Heaven forbid that you should do this thing, Emily!" he had said to her, not unkindly, but with the hardness habitual to him. "If you marry Frank Marriott you will live to rue the day you ever became his wife; thriftless, extravagant, and already in debt they tell me, and burthened with a child. Pause a moment before you decide, and remember that you must choose between him and me."

Emily Calcott paused many moments before she consented to shake off the dust of her brother's house, and shut out from him the light of her fair face, the only one his crabbed and narrowed nature ever really loved. But Frank Marriott was a goodly enough man to look upon, and had dangerous gifts of persuasiveness; and pity in her soft heart was even stronger than love, and he seemed so helpless, left with his little child; and so she married him. She had walked, poor thing, open-eyed into a very pitfall of shifting perplexity. From the very first she found herself entangled in a web of every-day worry and annoyance; small debts grew larger and widened pitiably; and so the woman's honest soul grew faint and weak, and no purpose, however strong, and no effort, however well sustained, seemed to extricate them.

It was just that mistake of thirty shillings in the pound that caused the fatal mischief. Queenie, young as she was, soon grasped the truth of it all.

"We are poor because we have never learned to do without things," she said once to her father, whom she loved tenderly, and yet, saddest of all things in a girl's life, whom she somehow failed to honour. She had gone to him like a zealous young reformer, to organize a new regime in that troubled household. Her stepmother was dead—prematurely faded and worn out—and things seemed tending to some painful crisis. "It isn't honest to do what we are doing; we must measure our needs by our purse. I am not ashamed of our poverty, or of my shabby dresses," went on the girl, in a hard, proud voice, with a little gasp in it. "Mamma did not mind it, neither do I. But what shames me is to know that we have not paid people, that we never shall if we go on like this. Papa, papa, do rouse yourself, and look into things, and you will see what I mean."

"Yes, yes, child, so I will," he had answered, cowed by her earnestness and by some presentiment of the truth; but the effort killed him.

He had not been a wilfully dishonest man, he had merely "not learned to do without things," as Queenie put it in her childish way. He was a gentleman, and such things had become the necessaries of life to him. The pound had not yielded him thirty shillings after all.

People said the Vicarage was unhealthy, not properly drained and ventilated, or a low fever would not have carried off both husband and wife. But might it not have been that, in the old Biblical phrase, the man's spirit had died within him, and left him an easy prey to the fever?

Queenie thought so as she sat beside him in those long night watches. "What a fool I have been about money and everything!" she heard him mutter once. Oh, if he had only learned to do without things, how much happier for them all!

It was an unhealthy home atmosphere for a girl to breathe. Queenie grew up with two very prominent ideas: first, that money was essential to happiness, and secondly, that honesty and self-denial were two of the greatest virtues. Poverty is a hard task-master to the young. Queenie became a little hard and reticent in her self-reliance; she made bitter speeches occasionally, and had odd little spasms of repressed passion. But she had two weak points, Emmie and Cathy, and she would have worked her fingers to the bone for either.

Between her and Miss Titheridge there was war to the death. A few of the girls disliked her, two or three feared her, to the rest she was purely indifferent. She was their equal, but because of her shabbiness and poverty they choose to regard her as their inferior. Quiet disdain, unmitigated reserve should be her rôle for the future.

Neither did she owe Miss Titheridge any gratitude. Miss Titheridge had a conscientious teacher cheap, that was all. She had paid her own and Emmie's board over and over again by hours of ceaseless drudgery and painstaking work.

"She gives me stones instead of bread," she said once to her only confidante. "What do I owe her, Cathy? Has she ever a kind word or look for us? is she ever otherwise than hard on Emmie? It makes me miserable to see Emmie; she is pining like a bird in a cage. Sometimes I think I would rather live with Emmie in a garret, and take in plain needle-work. We could talk to each other then, and I could tell her stories, and make her laugh; she never laughs now, Cathy."

"Hush, Queenie; you are so impetuous. I have a plan in my head, a dear, delightful plan. We shall see, we shall see."

CHAPTER II.
GRANITE LODGE.

"O shun, my friend, avoid that dangerous coast,
Where peace expires and fair affection's lost;
By wit, by grief, by anger urged, forbear
The speech contemptuous and the scornful air."
Dr. John Langharne.

How Queenie became the under teacher at Miss Titheridge's must be told here shortly.

Queenie was only seventeen when her father died, but she had already formed her own plans of independence. The repressive atmosphere of a companion's or governess's existence was peculiarly repugnant to her taste. Teaching was indeed her forte. She had plenty of patience and industry; her love of children was deep and inherent; but she felt that she must seek another channel, where she could work off superfluous energy and attain independence. She would be a national school-mistress. Aided by a friend, of whom we must speak anon, Queenie so far carried out her determination that she spent the next two years at a training college at Durham, and had just obtained a second class certificate when new difficulties intervened.

The old nurse with whom she had placed Emmie died; the little stock of money which had been collected for the orphans by sympathizing friends was diminishing daily. Where could she find a home for Emmie? It was at this juncture that Miss Titheridge, who knew the Marriotts of old, and who was just now in sore need of an under governess, stepped in with a magnanimous offer. Miss Marriott should give her services in return for Emmie's board and education.

Queenie had hours of secret fretting before she could make up her mind to relinquish her cherished independence. Miss Titheridge was personally odious to her. The decorous rules and monotony of the life would oppress and weigh upon her. Still beggars must not be choosers, as her old friend Caleb Runciman often said; and it was for Emmie's sake. Oh, if Miss Titheridge would only be kind to Emmie, how she would work for her, how she would show her gratitude!

Futile hope! Before many months were over, Queenie bitterly rued the false step she had taken, and grew sullen with a sense of repressed wrong. Little Emmie drooped and pined in the unloving and uncongenial atmosphere. The poor little sensitive plant grew mentally dwarfed; the young shoots ceased to expand. Queenie could have wrung her hands with anguish when she thought of her own weakness and impotence to avert the mischief. Emmie's bright intelligence grew blunted; a constant system of fault-finding and rigorous punishment cowed and stupefied the child's timid spirit; only kindness and judicious training could avail with such a nature.

Emmie did not grow sullen, her temper was too sweet and mild to harbor resentful feelings; but she became morbid and over sensitive. Deprived of the recreation natural to children, her imagination became unhealthily developed; she peopled the old garret with fancies, and not infrequently raised a Frankenstein of her own creation.

Queenie sometimes found her cowering in the window recess in the twilight in a perfect stupor of terror, for which she could give no tangible reason. It was dark, and she was afraid, and she did not like to come down into the schoolroom, as she was in disgrace with Fraulein, and so on. Poor pitiful fragments out of a child's life, small every-day tyrannies, little seeds of unkindness dropped into virgin soil, to bring forth perhaps a terrible harvest.

Queenie's passionate love could not shield the little sister; the two could only cling to each other in mute sorrow, each trying to hide from the other how much they suffered.

"I am only tolerably miserable," Emmie would say sometimes, in her droll, unchildish way. "Don't cry, Queenie; you and I and dear old Caleb will live together some day I know, when I am a woman perhaps, and then we shall forget all our troubles," and Emmie would hide the little blackened hand on which Fraulein's ruler had come down so sharply that day, and say nothing of the pain, for fear Queenie should fret. But with all her childish troubles, Emmie suffered less than the elder sister. Queenie would lie awake with aching head and throbbing pulses night after night, revolving schemes for delivering them both from the house of bondage, as she phrased it.

And every night Emmie prayed her poor little prayer that she might not hate Miss Titheridge, and that she and Queenie and Caleb might live together in a little house all by themselves.

Emmie was never weary of describing this ideal house. It must have four rooms and a cupboard, and a little garden in front, where they might grow sweet peas and roses.

"I should hate to be rich; should not you, Queenie?" she would say sometimes. "Caleb would not be able to smoke his long pipes then."

Caleb Runciman was the only friend they knew outside the gates of Granite Lodge, for Queenie had long ago broken with the old acquaintances whom she had known when her father was alive. Some had been offended at her independence and unwillingness to take their advice, others had merely cooled, a few had forgotten the orphans. Queenie was too proud to remind them of her existence; but she and Emmie clung to their old friend Caleb Runciman. He was the old confidential clerk of their uncle, Andrew Calcott, who was still the principal solicitor in Carlisle.

Andrew Calcott had never forgiven his sister her marriage with Frank Marriott. She had chosen between them, he said, and must abide by her decision. The hard, jealous nature had received a secret blow from which it never recovered. In a moment of bitter passion he had uttered a terrible oath, which only poor Emily Calcott and Caleb Runciman heard, that neither she nor any child of hers should ever have a penny of his money.

"It is your money, Andrew, not mine," Emily had answered very sadly and meekly, for after her unfortunate marriage much of her old spirit had died out; "but you should not be so hard on me, my dear," and as she spoke Andrew Calcott's cheek had turned very pale.

"Depend upon it, my dear young lady, he repented of his speech the moment it had passed his lips," Caleb had said more than once to Queenie as he narrated this circumstance, which he was fond of doing with a great deal of dramatic energy. "Aye, that was a terrible oath be took, and enough to blacken any man's soul; no wonder he grows harder every year; and his temper is enough to try a saint, let alone a poor sinner like me, till we daren't answer him for fear of flying in a passion."

Mr. Calcott lived in a large handsome house in Botchergate. Queenie and Emmie had often met him when they walked out in double file to take the air, as Miss Titheridge termed the daily exercise, and Emmie had always shrunk nearer to her sister at the sight of the tall, austere-looking man, who sometimes eyed them so sternly.

Mr. Calcott knew the little girl in the shabby garment, who always walked last in the procession, holding so tightly to her companion's hand, was his dead sister's only child; he knew as well that the older girl was Frank Marriott's daughter, but he never acknowledged the relationship save by a deeper frown.

Poor old Caleb Runciman could only befriend them in secret. On their rare holidays the sisters would slip through the streets in the twilight, and steal into the small, two-storied house, with its dark entry and small wainscoted parlour looking out on the winding street.

How they loved that parlour, Emmie especially, with its slippery horsehair sofa and wooden rocking-chair. The very blue china tiles that lined the fireplace, and the red and drab tablecloth on the little round table, were objects of beauty in her opinion. Caleb, with his watery blue eyes, and cheeks like withered apples, and stubbly grey hair, was the handsomest man she had ever seen. She liked his brown, snuffy waistcoat and silver chain; his satin stock with its coral pin was simply gorgeous. Had not dear mamma when a little girl sat on his knee, and hugged him as Emmie did, when he slipped the new shilling into her hand on Christmas Eve? To pour tea out of the little black teapot and partake of hot buttered cakes that his old servant Molly had made was Emmie's greatest treat; her thin cheeks would grow quite pink with excitement, her large blue eyes, generally so dim, would widen and brighten.

"She looks almost pretty then, Cathy," Queenie would say triumphantly to her friend; "if only Miss Titheridge had not cut off her curls."

Cathy used to listen to this sisterly praise in silence. In her eyes Emmie was certainly a very plain child. She had an old, sickly-looking face, which the closely-cropped light hair did not set off to advantage; besides which, she was angular and ungainly, and her frocks were always too short for her.

Other coins besides the bright shilling found their way into the sisters' slender purses; a shy, hesitating hand would push the shining gold piece into Queenie's palm. "It is for Emmie. Bless you, my dear, that poor lamb is deprived of thousands, absolutely thousands. There, take it; I have plenty, and to spare; it will get her some toy or other." And Queenie, swallowing down the odd lump in her throat, would thank the old man, and go home rejoicing, thinking of the new hat or the warm winter stockings it would buy for Emmie.

Granite Lodge was a large grey house of imposing aspect, but hardly giving one the idea of a cheerful residence, the blank, desolate look being strongly suggestive of a jail or a work-house. One of the girls, the wag of the school, had once chalked up over the door those famous words of Dante, "All ye who enter here leave hope behind," a jest dearly rued by the whole school, and expiated by many a bitter task, the innocent suffering with the guilty. Heavy iron gates clanged to and fro with metallic sound, infusing vague sentiments of alarm in the breasts of timid pupils. The windows were high and narrow; everywhere there were grey neutral tints; the young footsteps echoed drearily on the stone hall and staircase.

It was the weekly half-holiday; the large classrooms were empty and deserted, save for one occupant. Miss Titheridge's young ladies, escorted by the English and French governesses, had gone down the town to transact all sorts of mysterious business, chiefly in the confectionery and perfumery line. Two or three of them, and these comprised the aristocracy of the school, were paying visits in the close. The chancellor's daughters, who gave themselves airs, and were consequently much petted by Miss Titheridge, had gone down to the cathedral, and were afterwards to drink tea at the Dean's, in company with a niece of one of the minor canons, thereby inspiring the remaining three and twenty young ladies with secret envy.

Miss Titheridge sat in her snug little parlour with the German governess, who was just then the reigning favorite; Miss Titheridge, like most autocrats, having always a favorite on hand, who were always arbitrarily deposed at the first symptom of independence.

The bright little French governess, Mademoiselle La Roche, had long ago fallen into disgrace, and the heavy-featured, stolid Fraulein Heimer had taken her place.

It was a damp, chilly day in October; a clinging mist pervaded the whole place; the leaves lay in rotting heaps on the garden paths; the black boughs of the almost leafless trees seemed to shiver and creak in their bareness.

Inside the prospect was scarcely more cheering. A small cindery fire burned drearily in the large class-room, scarcely driving out the damp, which seemed to settle everywhere, on the dim window-panes, on the globes and bust of Pallas, making Queenie shiver as she bent over the piles of slates and exercises at one corner of the long table.

Across the hall she could hear now and then the pleasant spluttering of logs and clink of tea-spoons; a faint perfume, redolent of tea and toast, was wafted across from the little room where Miss Titheridge and the German governess were sitting cosily in the twilight, with their feet on the fender, and a plate of buttered muffins between them. An hour hence a tempting repast of weak tea and thick bread and butter would be dispensed to Miss Titheridge's young ladies, to be enjoyed as only hungry school-girls can enjoy. But Miss Titheridge was never present on these occasions; her nerves required a certain amount of quiet, and meditation towards the close of the day was necessary to all thoughtful minds. It was a little odd that Miss Titheridge's meditations were always accompanied by a mysterious sound closely resembling somnolence.

As the dusk crept on, Queenie shivered and sighed uneasily over her task; some harassing thought evidently impeded progress. By and by she pushed the books impatiently from her, and began pacing the room with quick, restless steps, now and then pausing to rest her hot forehead against the window-pane.

"Twice this week," she muttered at last, half aloud. "I must speak, whatever happens; and yet if I should do harm? I wish Cathy were here; but no, we trouble her enough; I must act on my own responsibility; I can do anything but stand by and see it. If I were only sure of keeping my temper!"

Uttering these slightly incoherent sentences, the young governess moved slowly to the door, remaining there irresolutely a moment; and then, with a sudden determination, walked quickly across the passage, and knocked at the opposite door.

"Who wants me at this unseemly hour? Oh, it is you of course, Miss Marriott," and Miss Titheridge sat bolt upright, and glared stonily at the culprit through her spectacles.

"Ach, she is always so inconsiderate, this Meess," echoed the sympathizing Fraulein.

Miss Titheridge was a tall, masculine-looking woman, with a spare figure and a Roman nose. Why do strong-minded women invariably have Roman noses?

She was not bad-looking, and was even reported to have been handsome in her younger days, and prided herself greatly on her deportment. She wore rich silk dresses, and her spectacles had gold rims to them, and on state occasions she jangled an appalling array of massive gold fetters on her lean wrists.

Miss Caroline, on the contrary, had been a soft, helpless woman, a great sufferer, and much beloved by those who knew her. During her lifetime she had exercised a gentle influence on the sterner sister. It was noticed that Miss Titheridge was not so hard or severe when Caroline pleaded mercy.

"May I ask what is your errand, Miss Marriott?" observed Miss Titheridge, dryly, and with difficulty repressing a yawn, the long, ivory-coloured hand moving ominously to the lips.

"It is about Emmie, Miss Titheridge," answered Queenie, hurriedly, "She did not mean to be naughty, indeed, indeed she did not, only the lesson was too difficult for so young a child."

"Was this the case, Fraulein?" demanded Miss Titheridge, with a distrustful glance at the young governess.

"Ach nein; Meess has not told the truth; Meess had not given the class. I believe the little one is dull, stupid; does not, will not, do preparation," and the heavy Teutonic face looked obstinate and lowering.

Queenie absolutely loathed this woman, and dreaded her as well. Was she not the present prime minister? Miss Titheridge might have relented; Fraulein never. In vain would poor Queenie protest, and beg off punishment for the innocent little culprit.

"Indeed, indeed Emmie is not stupid; she was so bright, and learned so well; every one told me so; but she is easily frightened. Fraulein does not know how a word, a threat, scares her. The lesson was hard, and her head ached; indeed she never meant to be inattentive."

"Miss Marriott," returned Miss Titheridge, severely, as Fraulein shrugged her shoulders with a movement of dissent, "do you not know by this time how useless it is to bring these sort of complaints to me? I never dispute Fraulein's authority in such cases. If Emmie were naughty and inattentive, she must suffer the penalty of her faults. I am sorry," continued Miss Titheridge, still more severely, "that I hear Emmie is never otherwise than inattentive; she does no credit to her teachers, or to my generosity."

The steady brown light in Queenie's eyes burned ominously; it was evident that she controlled herself with difficulty; the small, nervous hands worked quickly.

"We only ask for justice. Is it just," with an inflexion of passion in her voice, "to shut up a young child in a cold, dark room, without food for hours, because she cannot do the task set her? This is Emmie's only fault, Miss Titheridge."

"Miss Marriott," returned Miss Titheridge, in the freezing tone she used to refractory pupils, "you are forgetting yourself. Fraulein is witness that you are forgetting yourself, and insulting your benefactress. No further words, I beg of you, except in apology for your intemperate speech. Fraulein has sent Emmie to her room, and there she must remain. Please to return to the duties you are at present neglecting," and Miss Titheridge closed her lips rigidly, as though with the determination to speak no more.

For a moment Queenie hesitated; a passionate impulse came in the young girl's heart, a longing to tell the women before her what she thought of them, to pour out some of the scorn she felt for their cruelty and littleness, and then, shaking off the dust from that hated place, take her little sister by the hand and go forth into the wide world to seek their fortunes.

Queenie's better judgment triumphed over these wild feelings; it would only be preparing new miseries and fresh privations for Emmie to take such a step; they must endure a little longer. She did not dare trust herself to speak, but silently left the room.

CHAPTER III.
CATHY.

"She loved me for the dangers I had passed,
And I loved her that she did pity them."
Shakespeare.

"Something unseen o'er all her form
Did nameless grace impart;
A secret charm, that won the way
At once into the heart."—Rev. John Logan.

Solitary confinement was a favorite mode of punishment at Granite Lodge; visits of condolence from sympathizing friends were sternly interdicted. Nevertheless, many small culprits had been much comforted by peppermint lozenges or acid drops, surreptitiously conveyed to them in small screws of whitey-brown paper lowered down to the window. Notes hidden in the centre of a large currant-bun had even been forwarded to the unhappy prisoner; indeed, to carry provisions to the incarcerated victim was one of the chief amusements in the school.

Poor little Emmie was not a general favorite, and no relief parties had as yet charged up the garret stairs; no odd-shaped parcels had been smuggled under black silk aprons, and passed on by sleight of hand under Miss Titheridge's very nose; nevertheless, comfort was close at hand.

As Queenie closed the door of the little parlour she could hear the voices of the girls in the lower entry. There was not a moment to be lost if she wished to elude discovery. As she sped up the broad stone staircase she could hear the harsh, rebuking tones of Miss Tozer, the English governess, with her favorite "Silence, young ladies, if you please; no infringement of the rules can be permitted."

Queenie knew well what she would see as she opened the garret door—the line of stooping shoulders against the light, the childish figure cowering down on the high, broad window-ledge; but she was hardly prepared for the words that greeted her.

"I am not a bit afraid; I have said my prayers twice over; but I sha'n't open my eyes till you speak."

"Em, darling, what do you mean?" exclaimed her sister, much startled. "Why it is only I, only Queenie."

A gasp and long-drawn sigh of relief answered her, and then a pair of cold arms were thrown delightedly round her neck, and a still colder cheek laid against her own.

"Oh, you dear old thing to come to me. However did you manage it, with the Ogre and the Griffin at home?" by which delightful sobriquets Miss Titheridge and Fraulein were often designated.

"Never mind how I managed it; I was determined to see you for a moment. I shall not be able to stop; the gong will sound for tea directly. Tell me what you meant just now."

"Oh, it was nonsense; you will be angry with me," returned Emmie, in a queer, ashamed voice, but nevertheless creeping closer to her sister.

"Am I ever angry with you, darling?"

"Never, never," vehemently; "only of course you must think it silly."

"What if I do?" with reassuring calmness.

"At twelve years old one ought to be wiser," returned poor Emmie, in a self-convicted tone. "Of course I knew there was no old man wrapped in a cloak in that corner, only it was so dark, and Jane had forgotten to bring me a candle, and the stairs would creak, and there was such a funny noise, and——"

"Oh, Em, Em!" exclaimed her sister, in such a troubled voice that the child could only hang about her fondly, and promise not to be so silly any more.

"It was so wrong and foolish of me," continued Emmie, penitently, "after all the beautiful stories you have told me about guardian angels; but I suppose I am wicked because I can't bear the dark; and when there is a great silence I always seem to hear voices like little men underground, talking and laughing in a muffled sort of way; oh, such funny little voices, only they are not quite nice."

"Now, Emmie, do you know this is quite absurd," returned her sister, suppressing I know not what pangs of pity and fond terror, and trying to speak firmly. "I wonder what mamma would say if she knew her little girl were such a coward, and thought such foolish things. I don't think we ought to be afraid in the darkness which God has made," continued Queenie, whose healthy young vitality knew none of the mysterious terrors that afflict weaker and more imaginative temperaments. "And then we are never alone, dear, never in any sense of the word. I am sure our good guardian spirit would never be allowed to leave us for a moment."

"It would be nice if one saw the angel," replied the child, doubtfully.

"Anyhow we must have faith, dear. I am afraid your head has ached terribly over those horrid lessons."

"Yes, it has been pretty bad," in a patient voice.

"And you are cold; oh, so cold, Emmie."

"I got the creeps, you know, and that always makes me cold; but I can bear that," stoically.

"The meat was burnt, and so you had hardly any dinner, and now Miss Titheridge says you must have no tea; you must be starved, absolutely starved," continued poor Queenie, rocking her in her strong young arms.

"Not quite, I only feel rather sick," returned the little prisoner, bravely.

Emmie would not have confessed for worlds the odd gnawing and emptiness that preceded her feelings of sickness. She was somewhat dainty and fastidious with regard to food, and the burnt flavor had so nauseated her that she had literally eaten nothing of the portion sent her. No wonder she had the creeps, as she phrased it in her childish way, and she was shivering with cold and superstitious terror.

"You are making me miserable," returned Queenie, in a broken voice. "I am punished as well as you, Emmie. Are you sure that you really attend in class? Fraulein declares that you never know your lessons."

"I wish Miss Titheridge would not insist on my learning that tiresome German," sighed Emmie. "She wants me to keep up with May Trever. May is ever so much stupider than I," continued Em, with no special regard to grammar; "but Fraulein never raps her over the knuckles with a ruler, or gives her disgrace tickets."

"Because May Trever is a canon's daughter," returned her sister, bitterly. "She is not poor, or friendless, or an orphan—three sins for which we must answer. But tell me truly, do you try your hardest to please Fraulein?"

"I do, I do indeed," protested the child, earnestly. "Sometimes I know my lesson quite perfectly, and then, when she looks at me with those hard steel eyes, and comes out with that sharp 'Now, little Meess, now,'"—with a faint, dreary attempt at mimicry,—"it all goes out of my head; and then the mark is put down, and I go on from bad to worse. I don't think I am really stupid, Queenie, but I am afraid I shall get so."

"No, you shall not; you must not," with a shower of healing kisses on the little careworn face. "Hark! there's the gong, Emmie; I must go."

"Must you?" in a dreary voice; and then followed a heavy sigh.

"Listen to me, darling. You shall not be long alone. Miss Titheridge and Fraulein are going out to spend the evening, and I shall tell Miss Tozer that I have a headache, and must retire early. It will be quite true, you know. Go to bed now, and try to forget that you are cold and hungry; and then I will come up, and we will have a long, beautiful talk about the cottage, and Caleb, and all sorts of nice things. You won't fret any more, Emmie?"

"No-o-o," hesitatingly; but two very large tears rolled down the thin cheeks when the door closed behind her comforter. "Oh dear, oh dear," sobbed the child; "I should not like her to know how cold and hungry I am. I think I could eat a great hunch of dry bread if Jane would bring it me; but she is such a cross old thing, and I know she won't. I wish I had asked Queenie to hide a piece of bread and butter for me. Cathy did one day, and spoiled her pretty new dress, because the butter would not come out. It is half-holiday, or else Cathy would have come up long ago. One time she brought me a Bath bun, and it was so good. I wonder if Queenie would think me wicked if I asked for something nice to eat in my prayers? No; I don't think it would be wicked, for I have not had my 'daily bread' yet."

Even the sour-tempered Miss Tozer relented with womanly compassion when she saw Queenie's pale face and heavy eyes. The girl could eat nothing. The hot weak tea seemed to choke her. The touch of the little cold hands and face seemed to haunt her. "Cruel, cruel," she muttered once between her teeth. Her hands clenched each other under the table-cloth.

"Emmie in disgrace again? Dear, dear, this is very sad. I hope all you young ladies will take example, and be more careful with your preparation," observed Miss Tozer, sententiously. "Miss Marriott, I should recommend a little soda and salvolatile. I always find it an excellent remedy for a sick-headache."

"I shall be glad if you can dispense with my services an hour earlier tonight," returned Queenie, hastily. "I think rest will be better even than salvolatile, thank you all the same."

"Just as you please," returned Miss Tozer, frigidly. Prescriptions were her hobby, and woe to the offender who refused the proffered remedy. But at Queenie's imploring glance she melted into something like good-nature. "Well, you had better try both. I am afraid the themes must be corrected, unless you finished them this afternoon. I have pressing letters awaiting my attention this evening."

"Very well; they shall be done," responded Queenie, wearily.

After all, it was not so much her head as her heart that ached. She went back to her old corner in the class-room, and worked away at the girls' blotted themes, while they sat round her whispering and laughing over their preparation.

It was not a cheerful scene. The two long deal tables were somewhat dimly lighted by oil-lamps, which at times burnt low and emitted unpleasing odours. A governess sat at the head of each table, busied over writing or fancy-work. An occasional "Silence, young ladies," in Miss Tozer's grating voice, alternated with Mademoiselle's chirping "Taisez vous, mes chères demoiselles," followed by momentary silence, soon broken by a titter. One of the girls, indeed, did not join in either the whispers or the titters, but worked on steadily, and to some purpose, for, to the surprise of her companions, she closed her books long before the allotted hour, and, with an explanatory mention to Miss Tozer about tidying her drawers, left the room unseen by Queenie.

She was a tall girl, with an odd, characteristic face, colorless complexion, and bright dark eyes. She wore her hair in singular fashion, parted on one side, and brushed even over her forehead in a long wave, and simply knotted behind.

Most people called Catherine Clayton plain, but to those who loved her this want of beauty was redeemed by an excessive animation, and by an expression of amiability and bon-hommie that irresistibly attracted.

Her figure was erect and striking. She walked, ran, and danced equally well. Movement was a necessity to her; in some moods repose was impossible. In her gestures she had the freedom and unconscious dignity of a young Indian squaw.

Catherine, or Cathy, as she was generally called by her intimate friends, had struck up a warm friendship with Queenie on the first day they met. Queenie's strange eyes drew her like magnets; their troubled pathos stimulated curiosity and invited pity. Queenie's pride and independence, her quiet reserve, only charmed the younger girl.

Cathy made swift advances, but they were only repelled by the sad-looking young governess. Cathy, nothing daunted, turned her attention to Emmie, and won her heart in a trice, and from that moment Queenie succumbed.

When Queenie loved, she loved with her whole heart; half measures were impossible; she must give entire confidence, or none at all. Her reserve, once broken through, was broken for ever. She soon made her friends acquainted with the chequered story of her past life. She told Cathy the absolute blank of the future was perfectly appalling to her.

Cathy listened and pitied, and started all sorts of vague Utopian schemes that should ameliorate the condition of her favorites.

Her own life had no bitter background. She was indeed a motherless orphan, but she was so very young when her parents died that the cloud had hardly shadowed her. She spoke of them affectionately, as of some dear unknown friends.

Queenie knew all about Cathy's home—the dull old house at Hepshaw, overlooking the churchyard and the plane-tree walk. She had even pictured to herself the granite quarries, where Garth Clayton spent long hard-working days.

Cathy was never weary of talking about Garth. She would expatiate for hours on his virtues. Was he not the stay and prop of the little household? Did not even Langley, the motherly elder sister, go to him for advice and counsel? The handsome younger brother, long, lazy Ted, was spoken about more seldom.

"Ted is just Ted," Cathy would say sometimes, in reply to Queenie's half quizzical interrogations. "A dear old fellow, of course; but he cannot hold a candle to Garth. Why Garth is a perfect king in Hepshaw. There is no one more respected. The work he does among the quarry-men perfectly astonishes our new vicar. He has classes for them, and teaches them himself, and plays cricket with them, and gets up entertainments and lectures in the school-room. Why, the men perfectly adore him."

"How I should like to live at Hepshaw!" Queenie would answer sometimes, sighing she hardly knew why.

Cathy's descriptions somehow fascinated her oddly. The little straggling market town, with its long, winding street or road; the old Deerhound Inn; the white workhouse, the church and vicarage, standing high, and overlooking the town, and set prettily among plane trees; the dark old 'Church-stile House,' with its gloomy entry, and back windows looking over the ancient monuments and tomb-stones—Queenie could see them all. She could even fancy herself walking up the steep, narrow garden of the Vicarage, between tall bushes of roses and lavender.

"The Vicarage is such an ugly, bare-looking little house; quite a shabby cottage; only Mr. Logan has made it so comfortable, and has added a room to it, such a nice room, which he has made out of the stable. I think you would like Mr. Logan, Queenie; he is quite old, nearly forty, I should think. People say he is very plain, but I think he has a nice, funny face; and he is such a character, and wears such old, patched coats, and Miss Cosie always calls him Kit, or 'Christopher, my dear.'"

"And who might Miss Cosie be?" Queenie asked, with an amused air; she dearly loved Cathy's descriptions.

"Oh, Miss Cosie was Charlotte Logan; she was his sister, and kept his house. Every one called her Miss Cosie, even the poor people; it was a name she got when a child." No, she could not describe her; she was a little woman with two big brown curls pinned to her face, and she always wore a soft grey Shetland shawl, and cooed out her words in a soft, plaintive fashion; she only wished Queenie could see her, and then Queenie sighed again.

These sort of conversations fascinated Queenie; Cathy's girlish egotism never wearied her. Garth Clayton was almost as great a hero to her as he was in his sister's eyes; she had never heard of such a man. How good he must be! She used to try to picture him to herself. "Garth is tall and good-looking; every one likes his face," was Cathy's somewhat vague description. Queenie used to long to hear more.

His handwriting was quite familiar to her; she often admired the firm, clear characters when Cathy read aloud amusing passages from his letters.

How Queenie longed for such a brother! Such a manly, protecting tenderness breathed in every line: in his injunctions to his dear little Catherine not to be homesick or neglect her studies, in his playful hints or merry descriptions of the friends and pets she had left.

"Your parrot is inconsolable, and shrieks disconsolately in our ears from morning to night, much to Langley's annoyance," he wrote once. "Ted threatens to wring its neck. I am quite sorry for the poor thing, and I believe it understands my sympathy, for it sidles up to me and looks at me with yellow, lack-lustre eyes, as much as to say, 'Where's our Cathy, old fellow?' and then clambers up my coat sleeve with beak and claw, and settles itself on my shoulder to be petted, which I suppose I do for your sake, and because poor Polly has no other friend."

"There, is not that like him?" Cathy cried, with sparkling eyes. "He is always so good to any helpless creature; he has sympathy even with my poor Polly. Mr. Logan always says unhappiness or poverty is a sure passport to Garth's heart."

"How sorry he would be for Emmie and me," thought poor Queenie, but she did not put her thoughts into words.

CHAPTER IV.
THE FEAST IN THE GARRET.

"We fell to work and feasted like the gods,
Like laborers, or like eager workhouse folk
At Yule-tide dinner; or, to say the whole
At once, like tired, hungry, healthy youth."
Jean Ingelow.

Queenie, absorbed in the themes she was correcting, was not aware of Cathy's absence from the room.

As she toiled on, correcting faulty grammar and replacing obnoxious terms, she was consumed with terrible anxiety. Emmie's thin white face came between her and the page. "What can I do to save her from this life?" was her one inward ejaculation.

She rose quite exhausted with the mental strain when her work was finished. The great stone hall with its one lamp looked dreary enough as she traversed it; all manner of weird shadows lurked in the corners of the landing-place. A rising wind moaned in the ivy outside, and shook the bare branches of the trees till they creaked under it; the moon slid wildly through the black clouds. Queenie thought of Emmie with a little shiver of apprehension, and hurried on.

"Here I am. Are you tired of waiting for me?" she exclaimed, in a tone of enforced cheerfulness, almost before she opened the door; and then she started back, and a little cry of surprise and pleasure broke from her lips at the changed aspect of the garret.

The scene was certainly unique.

The rickety table, covered with an old red shawl of Queenie's, was drawn close to the bed; two candles, one green and the other yellow, burnt cheerily in two broken medicine bottles; a few late-blooming roses in a soap-dish gave an air of elegance to the whole. A bottle of ginger wine, and various delicacies in the shape of meat pies, tarts, and large sticky Bath buns, were tastefully arranged at intervals, flanked by a pocket corkscrew, a pen-knife, tumbler, and small tin plate.

Emmie, propped up with pillows and huddled up in a warm plaid belonging to Cathy, regarded this magnificent feast with bright-eyed astonishment; she clapped her hands at the sight of her sister.

"Oh, Queenie, I am so glad you have come. Everything is ready now, only Cathy has gone down to fetch something; she has been planning this delightful surprise all day. Is it not kind of her?"

"Listeners never hear any good of themselves, so I had better make my appearance," interposed a laughing voice, at which Queenie turned hastily round.

"Oh, Cathy, Cathy, whatever should we do without you!" she cried, looking gratefully at her friend.

Cathy's eyes grew a little moist, and then she broke into a low musical laugh delicious to hear.

"Have I not done it well?" rocking herself with merriment. "Not a creature suspects anything. I shall go down presently and pretend to eat supper. Are not those candles lovely, Queenie? they make this dismal old room quite cheerful. There, wrap yourself up in my sealskin, while I help Emmie."

"Isn't it lovely!" sighed Emmie, in a tone of such heartfelt happiness, that Cathy hugged her on the spot. The cakes, the meat pie, the ginger wine seemed enchanted food to her; the roses, the colored candles, were perfectly radiant in her eyes. "It is just like a fairy story. You are our good fairy, Cathy," she cried; "I am sure I love you next best in the world to Queenie."

"How I wish Garth could see us!" laughed Cathy. She had enveloped herself in an old grey plaid, and had put one of the roses in her hair, and with her dark hair and eyes looked not unlike a gipsy. "Langley would be dreadfully shocked, but Garth would laugh first and lecture afterwards."

"You are always talking about Garth; I wish I could see him," sighed Emmie. "You never make us see him, Cathy."

Cathy pondered a moment. "It is not easy to describe people with whom you live; one is afraid of being too much prejudiced in their favor. I don't think I am wrong in calling Garth handsome, because every one says so."

"Every one is sure to be right," put in Queenie, quietly. She did not like to betray her interest, but she had always longed to be able to picture Garth. "He is tall," she hazarded, rather timidly.

"Yes, tall and fine-looking. He is eight-and-twenty, you know: he has a nice thoughtful face, rather pale; and his mouth is very firm, and shuts tightly, only the moustache hides it; and his eyes are blue-grey, just the colour I like for a man, and they look kind and gentle; and then he looks so good, as though he could never do anything wrong or mean.

"He must be a nice man," exclaimed Emmie, enthusiastically. "Then he is not like you, Cathy?"

"No," she returned, regretfully; "Langley and I are alike, only Langley is older and worn-looking; she is two years older than Garth, just thirty in fact, quite an old maid," continued the girl of eighteen, in a tone of profound pity.

"I don't think people of thirty ought to be considered quite middle-aged," remonstrated Queenie, who had long ago achieved her twentieth year.

"Not some people perhaps, but Langley looks dreadfully old; one can't tell how it was that she was considered so handsome. Her features are good, but she looks so thin and worn, and she is paler than I am, and her hair is turning grey. Langley is very nice, and good to us all, but I sometimes think that she leads too dull a life; Garth often says so. I know he will be glad that I am to go home next quarter."

"Oh, Cathy, however shall we be able to endure this place without you?" interposed her friend.

Emmie had waxed drowsy with comfort, and was dozing placidly, and the two girls had curled themselves up for warmth on the bed. Cathy had disappeared for a short time, and had come back with the announcement that the Ogre and Griffin were still out, and the other governesses at supper.

"My having a bedroom to myself makes it easier to evade rules," explained Cathy. "I have put the bolster and some clothes in the bed, and drawn the counterpane well over them, and Mademoiselle will just peep in and think I am asleep. Oh, what fun it is! How many suppers have we had in this old garret?"

"We shall soon have seen the last of them," returned Queenie, sorrowfully. "I can't bear to think of your going away."

"Poor old Queen!" responded her friend, affectionately. "It is very sad, leaving you and Emmie behind in this mouse-trap of a place. When I go home I mean to talk to Garth and Langley about you. Langley is so good, she is sure to invite you and Emmie for the summer holidays."

"Oh, Cathy, do you think so? do you really think so?" and Queenie almost gasped with surprise and joy. To take Emmie into the country again, to see the little pinched face grow round and blooming in the fine moorland air, to watch her gathering wild-flowers, or scrambling through woods, could it ever come true? For the first moment Queenie forgot everything but her little sister; the next her cheek flushed crimson—she would see Cathy's home and Garth.

"Do you really, really think it will come true?"

"True! of course it will. Garth and Langley never refused me anything, and when I tell them about you and Emmie they will be wild to know you. What walks we will have! I must show you Hepshaw Abbey, and I must bribe Garth to drive us to Karlsmere; it is such a lovely lake. And then we can go and see the King of Karldale."

"See whom?" inquired Queenie, in some perplexity.

"Oh, a friend of ours, who is called by that name; he is a gentleman farmer, and lives near the head of the lake. His real name is Harry Chester, but he is always called the King of Karldale. I am very fond of Harry."

"Indeed," with a slight stress.

"He is such a dear good fellow. I wish I could like his wife half as well."

"Oh, he is married," with a shade of disappointment in her voice.

"Married! very much so, poor fellow, and I don't think he quite likes it. She does not exactly henpeck him, but she is a fine lady, and worries him into doing things he does not like, such as taking her to Paris, and giving her expensive dresses. I am afraid she spends a great deal too much money, and that troubles Harry."

"He should keep her in order then."

"I think he tries; but Gertrude has a will of her own. She frets if he refuse to humour her, and as she is very delicate, and the doctors look very gravely at her sometimes, he is afraid not to give her her way. He sometimes talks to Langley, and she always takes Gertrude's part; why I don't know, for no one else likes her."

"How nice to know people, and to get interested in their lives," sighed the poor recluse. "You have made me quite long to know all the people in your neighbourhood, especially Mr. Logan and his sister."

"Dear Miss Cosie, how she will pet you; and you will be great friends with Mr. Logan. Do you know," in a puzzled voice, "I don't seem to get on with Mr. Logan as well as I did; he gave me lectures last holidays, and I became a little shy of him."

"And yet you are not one to mind any amount of scolding."

"Of course not, when I don't care about the people who give the scolding; but that is just it. Mr. Logan looks at one so benevolently, and yet his eyes seem to read you through and through; and then he goes on in that mild voice of his, till Miss Catherine, as he calls her, either makes a fool of herself or runs out of the room."

"But he has no right to lecture you," indignantly.

"Ah, has he not!" sighed Cathy, and the dark, brilliant eyes looked very serious for a moment. "He says we girls at the present day have such a low standard of right that we never rise above medium goodness, and are too easily satisfied with ourselves. He is always saying we have no great saints now-a-days, and that there can be no St. Augustines without Monicas."

"It is very true."

"Oh, he is such a good man, he makes one feel ashamed of one's self. When he talks one forgets his patched coat and plain face and bald head. I used to laugh when he pushed his spectacles up in that droll way, but somehow nothing seems odd about him now."

"And he is not married?"

"No, he is an old bachelor, and Miss Cosie keeps his house. I don't think he has ever been in love; Miss Cosie said so one day; he has never been able to find a woman with a sufficiently high standard, I suppose. Even Langley would not suit him, though I believe he thinks very highly of her; they have such long, serious talks. Queenie, do you recollect remarking one day that I never used slang now?"

"To be sure I do."

"Well, he cured me."

"Oh, I can comprehend the purport of the lectures now."

"Yes, he gravely remonstrated with me one day. 'Miss Catherine,' he once said, 'does it never strike you to inquire if the high-born ladies of old time ever talked slang?'"

"Well, I hope you answered him properly."

"No, I was very saucy; I told him I had no doubt they were often 'awfully jolly,' and were fast and slow and spoony no end like other people, and some of the men dreadful duffers and cads."

"Cathy, how could you?"

"My dear, it was the last outburst. Before an hour was over I was fairly crushed, and took a private vow never to utter anything but the purest English ever afterwards. It was very hard at first, and I had to inflict dreadful pinches on myself, and put endless pennies in the poor's box, before I could remember; but I am cured since."

"Yes, and it is such an improvement; I feel very much obliged to Mr. Logan."

"I took my revenge though," returned Cathy, looking a little guilty; "I went away without bidding him good-bye."

"That was hardly kind."

"So he said. I was very remorseful, and wrote him a penitent little note a week afterwards. The letter I got in return made me feel very small."

"I dare say he forgave you."

"Dear old Saint Christopher, I know he did; but he was terribly hurt; Langley told me so. I often think we are 'old men of the mountain' to ourselves. How one longs sometimes to throw off one's self and one's faults!"

"You have less than any one I know," returned Queenie, who had a warm admiration for the daring and generous-hearted girl.

"You are wrong," returned Cathy, humbly; "Mr. Logan knows me best. I do want to be true, as true as I know how to be. I think I hate conventional shams as much as he does; it is this want of truth in the world that appals one."

"And the lack of kindness," put in Queenie, who had seen the darker side of human nature.

"No, indeed there is plenty of kindness in the world. You have grown misanthropic with hard usage; you will change your mind when you come among us."

"Yes, you must make allowances for me," she said, somewhat sadly; "I have been too much in contact with coarse, selfish minds to judge leniently. Cathy, how can women be so censorious to their own sex? how can they oppress and grieve a little child in the way Miss Titheridge and Fraulein oppress Emmie?"

"It is too bad; but I think Miss Titheridge is obtuse; she does not understand Emmie."

"Do you not think she is changed?" whispered Queenie, with a glance at the sleeping child. "She has grown thinner and paler, and her eyes are so hollow. Caleb noticed it last week."

"She is growing, and needs care," was the compassionate answer, as Cathy rose and folded the shawl closer round the sleeper.

"Care! that is just what she does not get. Oh, Cathy, I think poor mamma would have broken her heart if she had known what was in store for us; she was so fond of Emmie."

"Hush, dear," for Queenie had covered her face with her hands, and was weeping bitterly now. "We will not talk any more; you are weary and over-tasked. You are very brave, my Queen, and seldom break down, but you are too tired to cry to-night."

"Yes, it is wrong of me, but yet it has done me good," she whispered, after a short interval.

They were still sitting together, hand in hand. The green candle had burnt out, but the pink one still burnt cheerily; one or two of the roses had withered; the fragments of the feast still reposed on the old red shawl; the moonbeams stole through the uncurtained window, and played fitfully on the uneven floor; a little pale face slept peacefully under the old wrapper.

By and bye, when Cathy had left her, Queenie lay down, and drew the warm, sleeping child to her arms. The moon had come out from behind the clouds now; the stream of pale, silvery light flooded the room; a perfect halo shone round Emmie's fair hair. Queenie shivered, and gave a faint sob as she saw it.

"She is paler and thinner," she said to herself. "Cathy noticed it, and so did Caleb. They are killing her by inches, and yet they will not see; they are straining her mind and body, and neither will bear it. Oh, mamma, mamma, she would be better off with you; but I cannot spare her, I cannot spare Emmie!"

"Are you awake, Queenie? Oh, I have had such a beautiful dream. I was in a strange place, and mamma came to me, looking so kind, just like her old self, only grander; I think she had a crown on her head; and she took me in her arms and kissed me, just as she used to do, and told me to be good and patient, and to do as you told me, and that she loved us both."

Sleep on, little comforter, in the arms that hold you so lovingly. The strain is lessened, the weary oppression gone. The child's dream, so lovingly told, has brought healing to the weary sister. The unseen guardian watched over them both, the message of love had come to her too, and in this fond belief Queenie fell asleep.

CHAPTER V.
CALEB RUNCIMAN.

"Why what a pettish, petty thing I grow,
A mere, mere woman, a mere flaccid nerve,
A kerchief left all night in the rain,
Turned soft so—over-tasked and over-strained
And over-lived in this close London life!
And yet I should be stronger."—Aurora Leigh.

One wet evening, towards the end of November, Caleb Runciman stood at the window of his little parlor, straining his eyes wistfully into the darkness.

"A wild night," he muttered to himself more than once; "it is raining whole buckets-full, and blowing hard. She will never venture out with the child, and so careful as she is too, bless her dear little motherly heart. I may as well tell Molly to make the tea. Dear, dear, how contrary-wise things will happen sometimes," with which oracular remark the old man rubbed his hands ruefully together, and turned to the fire.

It was a wild night certainly. A cold, gusty rain swept the streets of Carlisle; the flickering lamplight shone on glittering pools and dripping water-spouts; the few pedestrians hurried past Caleb's window, casting furtive glances at the warm, inviting gleam from within.

Caleb's fire blazed cheerily; a faggot spluttered and hissed half up the little chimney; the blue china pixies on the old-fashioned tiles fairly danced in the light, as did the Dresden shepherdesses, and the two simpering figures in umbrella courtship on the high wooden mantel-piece.

These tiles were Emmie's delight. She would sit on the stool at Caleb's feet for hours, following the innocent, baby-faced pixy through a hundred fanciful adventures. The little gentleman in the pink china waistcoat and the lady in the blue scarf were veritable works of art to her. The plaster group of the Holy Family, slightly defaced by smoke and time, excited in her the same profound reverence that a Titian or a Raphael excites in an older mind. She never could be made to understand that the black-framed battle of Trafalgar, painted in flaming reds and yellows, was not a master-piece; there was nothing incongruous to her in the spectacle of Nelson's dying agonies portrayed amid the stage effects of a third rate pantomime; to her the ludicrous was merged in the sublime. It is not in early youth that the one trends so often on the other.

The candlesticks on the little round table were still unlighted, but there was plenty of light to show signs of unwonted preparations. Caleb had robbed the plot of ground he called his garden ruthlessly before he filled the large, wide-mouthed jug with violet and white china asters. The display of preserves in all colors too, not to mention an astounding plum-cake with frosted edges, showed some unusual festivity.

Caleb's round rosy face elongated considerably as he sat in his wooden rocking-chair, warming his hands over the blaze.

"Dear, dear, she'll cry her eyes out, poor lamb, and no wonder; and such a beautiful cake too as Molly has made," he continued, disconsolately. "I wonder if the old cat would open the parcel if I sent it wrapt up in brown paper, with Caleb Runciman's kind regards to Miss Emmie. I'll lay a wager the poor little angel would never eat a crumb of it. Hark! surely that was not a knock; I dare say it is only the paper-boy."

Caleb's cogitations soon came to an abrupt end. There was an exclamation of surprised dismay in Molly's loud, cheerful voice, then quick footsteps, and the entrance of two dripping figures.

"My dear Miss Queenie and the precious lamb, who ever would have thought it!" cried Caleb, in a voice quite trembling with joy, but shaking his head all the time. "It will be the death of both of you. Molly! Where is that woman? Molly, it will be the death of these dear creatures if you don't make tea quick, and get off their wet things. Miss Queenie, I am surprised at you. Dear, dear, such a night. I must say I am surprised," continued Caleb, trying to speak severely, but with his blue eyes twinkling with animation.

"Emmie fretted so that I was obliged to bring her," returned Queenie, apologetically. "It was wrong, I know; I have been blaming myself all the way; but what could I do?"

"Now, Caleb, don't be cross, and on my birthday too," interrupted Emmie, throwing her arms round the old man's neck. "I thought of your disappointment, and the cake, and the dear old parlor, and I could not help crying; and then Queenie put on her determined face, and said I should go if she carried me. Cathy was so angry with us both, and no wonder."

"No, indeed; I must say I was extremely surprised," reiterated Caleb, who never liked to lose a leading idea, and was fond of repeating his own words. "Mark my words, Miss Queenie, it will be the death of Emmie."

"Nonsense, Caleb," interrupted the child; "I won't have you scold Queenie; she carried me nearly all the way, she did indeed; she said I was quite light. And she is so tired, and she made me wear her cloak, because it was long, and would cover me, and I am so warm and dry; but I know her poor feet are wet, because her boots are so thin and old, terribly old."

"Oh, hush, Em; how can you?" returned her sister, blushing hotly; "you will make Caleb so unhappy."

"You both of you go near to break my heart," replied the old man huskily, as he knelt down, and took the old shabby boot in his hand. "Miss Queenie, dear, this is not right; you will lay yourself up, and then what will Emmie do? Where is the money I gave you last time you were here, when I begged and prayed you to get a new pair?"

Queenie's whim, Volume 1 (of 3)

QUEENIE'S WHIM

CHAPTER I.TREATS OF ARITHMETIC.

CHAPTER II.GRANITE LODGE.

CHAPTER III.CATHY.

CHAPTER IV.THE FEAST IN THE GARRET.

CHAPTER V.CALEB RUNCIMAN.

CHAPTER I.
TREATS OF ARITHMETIC.

CHAPTER II.
GRANITE LODGE.

CHAPTER III.
CATHY.

CHAPTER IV.
THE FEAST IN THE GARRET.

CHAPTER V.
CALEB RUNCIMAN.