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"O Cary!" cried Cecilia the next morning, "do come here and tell me who
this is."
"Who what is?" said I, for I looked out of the window, and could see
nobody but Ephraim Hebblethwaite.
"Oh, that handsome young man coming up the drive," returned she.
"That?" I said. "Is he handsome? Why, 'tis but Ephraim
Hebblethwaite."
"Whom?" cried Cecilia, with one of her little shrieking laughs. "You
never mean to say that fine young man has such a horrid name as Ephraim
Hebblethwaite!"
Hatty had come to look over my shoulder.
"Well, I am afraid he has," said I.
"Just that exactly, my dear," returned Hatty, in her teasing way. "Poor
creature! He is sweet on Fanny."
"Is he?" asked Cecilia, in an interested tone. "Surely she will not
marry a man with such a name as that?"
"Well, if you wish to have my private opinion about it," said Hatty, in
her coolest, that is to say, her most provoking manner, "I rather--
think--she--will."
"I wouldn't do such a thing!" disdainfully cried Cecilia.
"Nobody asked you, my dear," was Hatty's answer. "I hope you would not,
unless you are prepared to provide another admirer for Fanny. They are
scarce in these parts."
"I cannot think how you can live up here in these uncivilised regions!"
cried Cecilia. "The country people are all just like bears--"
"Do they hug you so very hard?" said Hatty.
"They are so rough and unpolished," continued Cecilia, "so--so--really,
I could not bear to live in Cumberland or any of these northern
counties. It is just horrid!"
"Then hadn't you better go back again?" said Hatty, coolly.
"I am sure I shall be thankful when the time comes," answered Cecilia,
rather sharply. "Except you in this family, I do think--"
"Oh, pray don't except us!" laughed Hatty, turning round the next minute
to speak to Ephraim Hebblethwaite. "Mr Ephraim Hebblethwaite, this is
Miss Cecilia Osborne, a young lady from the South Pole or somewhere on
the way, who does not admire us Cumbrians in the smallest degree, and
will be absolutely delighted to turn her back upon the last of us."
"You know I never said that!" said Cecilia, rather affectedly, as she
rose and courtesied to Ephraim.
Ephraim is the only person I know who can get along with Hatty. He
always seems to see through what she says to what she means; and he
never answers any of her pert speeches, nor tries to explain things, nor
smooth her down, as many others do.
"Miss Osborne must stay and learn to like us a little better," said he,
good-humouredly. "Where is Fanny?"
"Looking in the glass, I imagine," said Hatty, calmly.
"Hatty!" said I. "She is in the garden with Sophy."
"You are the Nymphs of the Winds," laughed Ephraim, "and Hatty is the
North Wind."
"Are you sure she is not the East?" said I, for I was vexed. And as I
turned away, I heard Hatty say, laughing,--
"I do enjoy teasing Cary!"
"For shame, Hatty!" answered Ephraim, who speaks to us all as if we were
his sisters.
"I assure you I do," pursued Hatty, in a voice of great glee,
"particularly when my lady puts on her grand Carlisle air, and sweeps
out of the room as she did just now. It is such fun!"
I had slipped into the next window, where they could not see me, and I
suppose Hatty thought I had gone out of the door beyond. I had not the
least idea of eavesdropping, and what I might hear when they fancied me
gone never came into my head till I heard it.
"You see," Hatty went on, "there is no fun in teasing Sophy, for she
just laughs with you, and gives you as good as you bring; and Fanny
melts into tears as if she were a lump of sugar, and Father wants to
know why she has been crying, and my Aunt Kezia sends you to bed before
dark--so teasing her comes too expensive. But Cary is just the one to
tease; she gets into a tantrum, and that is rich!"
Was it really Cecilia's voice which said, "She is rather vain,
certainly, poor thing!"
"She is just as stuck-up as a peacock!" replied Hatty: "and 'tis all
from living with Grandmamma at Carlisle--she fancies herself ever so
much better than we are, just because she learned French and dancing."
"Well, if I had a sister, I would not say things of that sort about
her," said Ephraim, bluntly. "Hatty, you ought to be ashamed."
"Thank you, Mr Hebblethwaite, I don't feel so at all," answered
laughing Hatty.
"And she really has no true polish--only a little outside varnish," said
Cecilia. "If she were to be introduced at an assembly in Town, she
would be set down directly as a little country girl who did not know
anything. It is a pity she cannot see herself better."
"There are some woods that don't take polish nearly so well as others,"
said Ephraim, in a rather curious tone. I felt hurt; was he turning
against me too?
"So there are," said Cecilia. "I see, Mr Hebblethwaite, you understand
the matter."
"Pardon me, Miss Osborne," was Ephraim's dry answer. "I am one of those
that do not polish well. Compliments are wasted on me--particularly
when the shaft is pointed with poison for my friends. And as to seeing
one's self better--I wish, Madam, we could all do that."
As Ephraim walked away, which he did at once, I am sure he caught sight
of me. His eyes gave a little flash, and the blood mounted in his
cheek, but he kept on his way to the other end of the room, where Fanny
and Amelia sat talking together. I slipped out of the door as soon as I
could.
That wicked, deceitful Cecilia! How many times had she told me that I
was a sweet little creature--that my life at Carlisle had given me such
a polish that I should not disgrace the Princess's drawing-room! [Note
3.] And now--! I went into my garret, and told my book about it, and
if I must confess the truth, I am afraid I cried a little. But my eyes
do not show tears, like Fanny's, for ever so long after, and when I had
bathed them and become a little calmer, I went down again into the
parlour. I found my Aunt Kezia there now, and I was glad, for I knew
that both Cecilia and Hatty would be on their best behaviour in her
presence. Ephraim was talking with Fanny, as he generally does, and
there was that "hawid" creature Mr Parmenter, with his drawl and his
eyeglass and all the rest of it.
"Indeed, it is very trying!" he was saying, as I came in; but he never
sounds an r, so that he said, "vewy twying." I don't know whether it is
that he can't, or that he won't. "Very trying, truly, Madam, to see men
give their lives for a falling cause. Distressing--quite so."
"I don't know that it hurts me to see a man give his life for a falling
cause," saith my Aunt Kezia. "Sometimes, that is one of the grandest
things a man can do. But to see a man give his life up for a false
cause--a young man especially, full of hope and fervency, whose life
might have been made a blessing to his friends and the world--that is
trying, Mr Parmenter, if you like."
"Are we not bound to give our lives for the cause of truth and beauty?"
asked Amelia, in that low voice which sounds like an Aeolian harp.
"Truth--yes," saith my Aunt Kezia. "I do not know what you mean by
beauty, and I am not sure you do. But, my dear, we do give our lives,
always, for some cause. Unfortunately, it is very often a false one."
"What do you mean, Aunt?" said Amelia.
"Why, when you give your life to a cause, is it not the same thing in
the end as giving it for one?" answered my Aunt Kezia. "I do not see
that it matters, really, whether you give it in twenty minutes or
through twenty years. The twenty years are the harder thing to do--that
is all."
"Duncan Keith says--" Flora began, and stopped.
"Let us hear it, my dear, if it be anything good," quoth my Aunt Kezia.
"I cannot tell if you will think it good or not, Aunt," said Flora. "He
says that very few give their lives to or for any cause. They nearly
always give them for a person."
"Mr Keith must be a hero of chivalry," drawled Mr Parmenter, showing
his white teeth in a lazy laugh.
(Why do people always simper when they have fine teeth?)
"Chivalry ought to be another name for Christian courage and charity,"
saith my Aunt Kezia. "Ay, child--Mr Keith is right. It is a pity it
isn't always the right person."
"How are you to know you have found the right person, Aunt?" said Hatty,
in her pert way.
My Aunt Kezia looked round at her in her awful fashion. Then she said,
gravely, "You will find, Hatty, you have always got the wrong one,
unless you aim at the Highest Person of all."
I heard Cecilia whisper to Mr Parmenter, "Oh, dear! is she going to
preach a sermon?" and he hid a laugh under a yawn. Somebody else heard
it too.
"Mrs Kezia's sermons are as short as some parsons' texts," said
Ephraim, quietly, and not in a whisper.
"But you would not say," observed Mr Parmenter, without indicating to
whom he addressed himself, "that this cause, now--ha--of which we were
speaking,--that the lives, I mean--ha--were sacrificed to any particular
person?"
"I never saw one plainer, if you mean me," said my Aunt Kezia, bluntly.
"What do nine-tenths of the men care about monarchy or commonwealth--
absolute kings or limited ones--Stuart or Hanoverian? They just care
for Prince Charles, and his fine person and ringing voice, and his
handsome dress: what else? And the women are worse than the men. Some
men will give their lives for a cause, but you don't often see a woman
do it. Mostly, with women, it is father or brother, lover or husband,
that carries the day: at least, if you have seen women of another sort,
they haven't come my way."
"But, Aunt, that is so ignoble a way of acting!" cried Amelia, as though
she wanted to show that she was one of the other sort. "Love and
devotion to a holy or chivalrous cause should be free from all petty
personal considerations."
"You can get yours free, my dear, if you like--and find you can manage
it," said my Aunt Kezia. "I couldn't. As to ignoble, that hangs much
on the person. When Queen Margaret of Scotland was drowning in yonder
border river, and the good knight rode into the water and held forth his
hand to her, and said, `Grip fast!' was that a petty, ignoble
consideration? It was a purely personal matter."
"Oh, of course, if you--" said Amelia, and did not go on.
"Things look very different, sometimes, according to the side on which
you see them," saith my Aunt Kezia.