A whole week of holidays!--unexpected, unhoped-for holidays! For Mrs
Glencairn was a Scotch lady, and had small respect for days "appointed
by men." All the days in the year were good days to a Godfearing
people, said she; and as a general thing, Easter passed in their school
just like any other time. But this year there was to be a whole week of
holidays, whatever might be the reason. The pupils who stayed wearied
themselves with conjectures as to why it had so happened; but the happy
little girls who could go home to enjoy them, accepted the boon without
a question, content with the fact itself.
Content! That hardly expresses the feelings of the little Vanes as they
went dancing down the street, unconsciously jostling the many
church-goers in their joyful excitement. Perfect happiness was in their
hearts, shone in their faces, and rang out in their voices, and people
as they passed turned again to look at them, so charming was the sight
to see. They were happy in their own holiday, and happy in the thought
that their coming home would make a holiday for their mother and Selina
and their little brothers.
"And I am sure there will be some flowers out in the garden," said
Theresa,--"hyacinths or snowdrops, at least. And all the walks will be
so neat and the borders. That is one good thing about Mrs Ascot, she
does see that the garden is beautifully kept."
"Yes, very. But I only hope mama will be well. It is so lovely to-day;
and we must have a drive. It will make no difference though Dixen be
busy in the garden, because I shall drive myself."
"But will mama like that, do you think?" asked Theresa doubtfully.
"Of course she will like it, and Selina too. They have perfect
confidence in me," said Frederica firmly. "And as for Prickly Polly,"--
she shrugged her shoulders.
"But no, my children! What shall I say to your papa when you shall be
brought home in little morsels, and the carriage, and your dear mama!"
And Theresa clasped her hands, and threw back her head with an air so
ludicrously like Mrs Ascot, that her sister laughed merrily.
"She will go to church to-day. What if we should meet her?"
"Oh! she would be sure to go back with us. Let us go down the other
way!"
Laughing and running, the girls turned into a narrow street. In their
haste they ran against a little old gentleman just stepping out from an
office door. They did not quite overturn him, but they startled him out
of his good manners, and he uttered an angry exclamation in French.
Then, as they turned to apologise, he exclaimed, "The young ladies Vane!
What next, I wonder?"
"Mr St. Cyr! a thousand pardons." They had been speaking English all
the way down the street, but they spoke French to him, and both the
girls dropped their very best curtseys.
"It must be that my little cousins have come to get their wills made, or
their marriage contracts drawn, in all this haste."
Mr St. Cyr was the gentleman to whom their grandfather had committed
the arrangement of his affairs; it was he who still managed the
property; and through his hands their mother's income came still.
"I was going to church this morning, but I shall be happy to defer it
for you. You need not have been in such haste, however."
The girls laughed, and apologised again.
"We were running away from Prickly Polly," said Theresa.
"From Madame Marie Pauline Precoe Ascot," explained Frederica.
"Is she coming after you? You had much better come in here," said Mr
St. Cyr, pretending great fright.
"Oh, no! But she is sure to go to church today, and we thought we might
meet her. And if she knew we were going home, it might shorten her
devotions."
"If she knew we had a holiday, she would want to come home to vex us.
We are not among her favourites--especially Fred."
"Ah! that is it, is it?" said Mr St. Cyr. "She is hard on you, is she?
I hope you do not let her trouble you too much."
"By no means," said Frederica with dignity. "On the contrary, I think I
trouble her far more."
"I can conceive it possible," said Mr St. Cyr with a shrug. "But are
you sure you can find your way home by these streets? See, I will go
with you, and show you past the corner below. And let us hope that
Madame Pauline will confess all her sins to-day; and I fancy that might
ensure her absence till nightfall at least. And my young ladies, the
next time you come to me in your troubles, pray don't begin by knocking
me down."
"Pardon us, Cousin Cyprien. It was very careless," said Frederica,
eagerly. "But really and truly, may I come to you with my troubles? I
mean, of course, when I have any. I have none now," she added,
laughing.
Mr St. Cyr did not laugh. He looked gravely into the bright face
before him, so gravely that the laughing eyes looking up at him grew
grave too.
"I hope it will be a long time before you need my help in trouble,
little cousin. How old are you now? Let us see."
Instead of turning at the corner, as he meant to do, he walked on with
them.
"I shall be fifteen my next birthday. It comes in August," said
Frederica.
"Fifteen!" repeated Mr St. Cyr. "But what a little creature you are!
It is a pity."
"I am as tall as mama," said Frederica with dignity.
"Yes, I suppose so. She was just such another child. Ah! how the years
pass!"
"I shall grow yet, I have no doubt," said Frederica.
"Ah! well! we will hope so. And be quick about it. If you were only as
tall as your sister at home now, we might strain a point, and call your
education finished, and send you home to your mother. You must have
learned quantities of things all these years, eh?"
"Oh! quantities!" said Frederica gravely. "But, Mr St. Cyr, I am not
very big, I know. Still I could be a comfort to mama all the same."
"And she needs comfort you think?"
"It gives her pleasure to have us at home."
"And she has not so many pleasures, these days," said Mr St. Cyr. "But
it would not do, I fear, not yet. Why, you are a mere child! I had no
idea! Not nearly so mature as her mother was at her age," continued he,
not to her, but to himself. "Well, so much the better. The more a
child the better. The longer a child the better. She is so like her
mother, too. The same sweet smiling eyes. Ah! there are so great
mistakes made in this life!"
"Mr St. Cyr," said Frederica in a moment, "I am very little, I know,
but Mrs Glencairn says I have a great deal of good sense, if I would
only use it; and I daresay if you were to tell papa that I have learned
enough of things, and that I ought to stay at home with mama and Selina,
I don't think he would object."
Mr St. Cyr only answered by that wonderful shrug of his shoulders,
which he could make to express anything--surprise, doubt, utter
disbelief; and Frederica went on:
"Indeed, Mrs Glencairn thinks I am very sensible, and so does Miss
Robina. Will you tell papa to let me stay at home, Mr St. Cyr?"
"And you think he would do it for me?" said he with an odd smile. "You
are too young--much too young. If I had my way, you should remain a
happy child for years and years yet--no millinery, no balls, no
admiration, for seven years at least. Ah! when I think of your mother,
and see you looking at me with her happy eyes! But what is the use of
going over all this? I shall, be late for church, and I must bid you
good day. And if I shall see--what is this you call her, little one?--
Prickly Polly!--I shall send her wool-gathering, shall I? And then you
can pass the day without her."
They all laughed.
"Oh! I am not the least afraid of her; though I am not very big," said
Frederica.
"But you may send her to gather wool, all the same," said Theresa.
Then they went quietly on their way. There was no dancing along the
street after that, as Mr St. Cyr saw when he turned at the corner of
the square to look after them.
"She is like her mother," said he to himself, "but more like her
grandmother, that shrewd little Jewess, with her `good sense,' as madame
the schoolmistress says. Ah! if she had lived, that poor foolish child
would not have been suffered to make that great mistake in life. But I
must go to church. How many times have I said that I would not permit
myself to care for her children as I have cared for her, to have my
heart torn by ingratitude, or by indifference, which is as ill to bear.
If, indeed, through them I could wound the self-love and vanity of their
father, and so avenge the wrongs of my friend's child, the poor
Theresa--ah! then I might care for them, and fight for them against him
to the death." And with this Christian sentiment in his heart, the
little man went up the great cathedral steps to pray.
In the meantime the two girls were walking slowly down the street.
"I like Cousin Cyprien very much," said Frederica, gravely.
"Yes, so do I," said her sister. "But then he is not our cousin, you
know."
"Well, he was grandpapa's cousin; and if he is not ours, we have none.
I like him."
"Madame Ascot is our cousin quite as much as he."
"Madame Ascot, indeed! Don't be silly, Tessie;" and she shrugged her
shoulders in Mr St. Cyr's fashion. "I wish I had gone to church with
Mr St. Cyr. I mean I wish I had offered to go. He would have been
pleased."
"But papa would not have been pleased, Fred."
"He would not have cared about my going to church. He would not have
been pleased that I should go to give pleasure to Mr St. Cyr. He does
not like him; I wonder why."
"Oh! you know very well. It is because of grandpapa's will."
"Mama likes him. She says he is a good and just man. He is very
religious."
"So is Madame Ascot," said Tessie. "I don't admire religious people."
"But then there are so many ways of being religious. Miss Baines'
religion made her strong and patient to bear pain. And she was good and
kind always."
"Miss Pardie is very religious--the cross thing," said Theresa, "and so
is Fanny Green. But she listens to the girl's conversation while she
says her prayers. And Mattie Holt tells tales, and is very
disagreeable. I don't admire religious people."
"But then their religion cannot be of the right kind. There must be
some good in the right religion, if we only could be sure what the right
is."
"Oh, I daresay they are all good after a fashion. One kind is good for
one, and another kind for another."
"But, Tessie, that is nonsense. How can things be equally good that are
exactly opposite? And I know that Mrs Ascot thinks papa and the rest
of us all wrong. And you should have seen her scornful look, when I
told her once that Miss Baines was a religious woman. And I know that
Mrs Glencairn and Miss Robina, among themselves, call Mrs Ascot `a
poor benighted creature.' They cannot all be right."
"Oh! well! what does it matter?" said her sister, impatiently. "Why
should you care what Mrs Ascot thinks, or Mrs Glencairn either?"
"Still, one would like to know. Mr St. Cyr is good, but then Mrs
Ascot is not; and they have just the same religion, though I don't
suppose Mr St. Cyr goes so often to church, or to confession, as she
does. And Miss Baines was good, and her religion was quite different.
As for papa and the rest of us, I don't think we have any at all."
"Well, that shows that it doesn't matter about religion. I am sure mama
is much nicer than Madame Ascot, and she has no religion at all you say,
and Madame says the same."
"Mama is a Jewess, at least her mother was," said Frederica; "but she is
certainly not religious in her way. One ought to have a religion of
some kind, only how is one to know when one has that which is right?"
"There is the Bible," said Tessie, hesitating.
"Yes, Miss Baines says it is the book of books, and mama approves of it
too. She has one, you know, only it is in Hebrew. I shall ask some one
about it,--which is the right kind I mean."
"Papa, for instance, or Mr St. Cyr. But one would tell you one thing,
and the other another, and you would be just in the same place. Only I
think papa would just laugh at you."
"I suppose so. But there must be some way of finding out the truth."
"Better go and ask the bishop," said Tessie, laughing. "But then there
are two bishops, and which is the right? Don't be a goose, Fred."
"I am quite serious, I assure you, for the moment," added she. "And
indeed, it is a thing to be quite serious about."
"If we had gone to the convent, as Mr St. Cyr and Madame Ascot wished,
instead of to Mrs Glencairn's, we should have known all about it. But
then it is quite right that we should be of the same religion as papa.
Still I think he did not care himself, only he wished to vex Mr St.
Cyr."