I
"WHAT CAN BE DONE WITH THEM?"
"Oh, Jack! do let her go! I'll make you if you don't!"
"Get away! She's an early Christian, and I'm seeing if she's a real one."
"It's Sunday, and if she screams much louder, they'll hear in the
drawing-room."
"It's a proper Sunday game, and I don't care for anybody in the
drawing-room!"
When Jack was defiant, Jill knew it was a hopeless case.
She sat on the back of a cane chair, her feet beating a tattoo on its
seat; and a twinkle of amusement succeeded the marked disapproval in
her big blue eyes when Jack proceeded to stuff his victim's head into
a pillow-case.
Six-year-old Winnie, or Bumps, as she was called, was always a ready
subject for her brother's ingenious mischief. She worshipped the
ground he trod upon, and would promise to be all that he desired,
until the experience of it proved too much for her endurance. She
was at present gagged and bound with bedroom towels, antimacassars,
and pocket-handkerchiefs combined. She had been rolled over and over
on the floor, with Jack on the top of her, and now he announced in an
offhand tone--
"She's going to be put into a sack and thrown into the river, and that
will be the end of an early Christian."
"Where's the river?" asked Jill with interest.
"The bath-room, of course. Go and fill the bath."
Jill laughed, and started up to obey. The fun of such a prospect before
her overcame her scruples. But in her haste she overbalanced herself,
and came with a crash to the floor. Her screams united with Winnie's
brought two people to the nursery, and the first one to open the door
was a young man.
"Good gracious!" he ejaculated, "what a scene!"
[Illustration: "GOOD GRACIOUS!" HE EJACULATED, "WHAT A SCENE."]
He might well say so. The nursery floor was covered with a medley of
furniture, toys, and miscellaneous articles that clearly had no business
there. In her fall Jill had caught hold of a tablecloth, and swept to the
ground the remains of the nursery tea. Broken plates, a stream of milk,
and bread and butter were mingled with the entangled bodies of the three
children. Bumps had escaped from the pillowcase, but was rolling about
screaming lustily; Jack was trying to extricate Jill out of the meshes
of the broken chair, and a small terrier puppy was dancing to and fro,
and worrying at everything in turn.
"Oh it's you, Captain Willoughby," said Jack, getting upon his feet.
"It's a pretty mess, I'm afraid."
"You young scamp! I bet you are the originator of it! Your sister is
wondering if the ceiling will withstand your onslaughts. Ah, here she
is to speak for herself."
A pretty delicate-looking girl with dark hair and eyes and impulsive
manner stood at the door.
"Oh, you children!" she exclaimed. "Where is nurse? And what are you
doing? Don't you know you ought not to romp like this on Sunday?"
"Nurse is at her tea. She gave us ours too early."
Jill had struggled to her feet by this time, and was rubbing the back
of her head ruefully.
Captain Willoughby was busy releasing Bumps from her bonds.
"It strikes me there has been a bit of bullying going on here," he said,
eyeing Jack severely. "Is this the way you generally treat your small
sister?"
"She likes it," asserted Jack eagerly. "On my honour she does--don't
you, Bumps?"
"Yeth, I does!" sobbed his victim.
"Nurse has no business to leave you," said Mona Baron decisively, as
she gave a sharp pull to the nursery bell. "Now, Jill, pick up some of
these things at once. Why can't you keep Jack quiet? I don't know which
is the worse of you. It is six of one and half-a-dozen of the other!"
She did not speak angrily, for these three pickles always afforded
her considerable amusement. But she felt that a limit must be drawn
somewhere, and when the nurse appeared, considerably ruffled by her
sudden recall from the servants' hall, she was spoken to so sharply by
her young mistress that she gave notice on the spot.
Mona went back to the drawing-room with Captain Willoughby.
"That makes the fifth nurse we have had in ten months," she said. "What
can be done with them? They are too small to go to school."
"Can't you get a governess?"
"I suppose I must try. But I was made so miserable myself as a small
child by one, that I resolved never to give them the chance of such an
experience. I must talk it over with Miss Webb."
The nursery party up-stairs soon calmed down. Nurse restored order, and
set the three delinquents in separate corners of the room. Her tongue
was a powerful one, and she did not spare them.
"I shall be thankful to get out of the house, for never in my life have
I seen such bold, owdacious children, and no respectable woman would
stand it. Your sister ought to look after you herself, and then she'd
know what you were like. She dances out to all her gaieties with that
lazy Miss Webb, who's in a field of clover if any one is, and expects
me to grind on in this four-walled room without a friend to keep me
company. I would as soon be in prison, and I'm not going to stand it.
And as for you, with your monkey tricks and your wicked ways, you want
to be well whipped and placed in a reformatory. That's the place for
the likes of you!"
No one dared speak. She talked on in the same strain for a good quarter
of an hour, then dared them at the peril of their lives to move from
their seats, and walked down to the servants' hall again.
"Sunday is a _dreadful_ day," observed Jill plaintively. "I wonder what
it was made for!"
"I s'pose God thought it would make people good," said Jack; "it may do
grown-up people good, but it makes children dreadfully wicked!"
"Yes," assented Jill; "because there's nothing to do after church, and
we're always shut up in this old nursery. When I grow up I shall live
in a house without any doors, so that I can never be shut up anywhere!"
Jack looked across at his sister meditatively.
"Then what would you do when robbers came?"
"I'd run away, of course, stupid!"
"They'd soon catch you. We'll try it to-morrow. I'll be the robber, and
you can leave all the doors open to give yourself a chance, and I'll
give you five minutes' start."
"Me too!" exclaimed Bumps, removing her thumb from her mouth, which she
had been contentedly sucking.
"Oh, you!" said her brother scornfully. "You can't even be an early
Christian without screaming the house down! But you've done one good
thing! Nurse is going, and a jolly good job too! Nurses are all rot!"
Jill shook her head doubtfully.
"We shall only have another worse than this one! I wish we could do
without them, like the Clarkes. Their mother looks after them."
"That's because they're poor--George told me so."
"What's poor?" asked Bumps.
"It's having no money," explained Jill.
"But we haven't no money," argued Bumps.
"No, you little stupid, but Mona has. I heard nurse say she was an
heiress, and that's an awfully grand thing to be, it's next to being
a princess in a fairy-book."
"Now we've sat still long enough," announced Jack with a yawn. "We'll
have a kind of 'Puss in the Corner.' Our chairs will be the corners. We
can easily get back to them before nurse comes."
"It's Sunday," objected Jill again.
"Here's Miss Webb!" shouted Jack.
A stout, pleasant-faced lady came into the room as he spoke, and saved
the situation, for restless Jack could never stay quiet for long.
The little Barons could remember neither father nor mother. Their mother
had died at Bumps' birth, their father a year after. He had married
twice, and Mona was the daughter of his first wife. Miss Webb, a cousin
of Mr. Baron's, had taken charge of the household after his death;
but when Mona had finished her education she came home, and when she
came of age and inherited a good bit of money, Miss Webb still stayed
on as her chaperon.
The children were fond of Miss Webb, though they did not see much of her,
and their faces brightened at her appearance.
"Your sister asked me to come and see if order had been restored," she
said, smiling. "Why, you are as quiet as mice! Now, why can't you always
sit still like this?"
"We were just going to finish it," said Jill. "We've been here ages. Do
you like Sunday, Miss Webb? We don't."
"I think I used to when I was a little girl," said Miss Webb, taking a
seat by the nursery fire, and placing Bumps upon her lap.
Jack and Jill came to her side at once.
"Do tell us about it. What did you do?"
"My mother used to have me down-stairs in the drawing-room in the
afternoon, and show me lovely pictures out of some books she had, and
talk to me about them. I had no brothers and sisters, and I used to be
allowed to dine with her and my father, and sometimes she sang to me. She
had a beautiful voice, and she would play hymns for me to sing with her."
"Ah," said Jill, with a long-drawn breath and a wistful look in her eyes;
"but then, you see, we haven't got a mother."
"But you have a nice kind sister," said Miss Webb, pity filling her
heart for the children who had never realised a mother's love.
"Yes," said Jack; "Mona is very good, but she's always out, and she
doesn't make Sunday nice to us."
"May we thing hymns in the drawing-room?" asked Bumps eagerly.
"Yes," said Miss Webb on the impulse of the moment, "you shall. Nurse
has made you tidy, so come along, just as you are."
Down two flights of stairs they scampered, delighted at the prospect
of leaving the nursery. They found Mona leaning back in an easy-chair
by the fire. A butler was removing the tea, and Captain Willoughby was
standing, hat in hand, saying good-bye. Mona's other Sunday visitors had
taken their leave. She looked up astonished when she saw the children.
"Now, what are you doing, Miss Webb?" she said, laughing. "Bringing them
in their right minds to express contrition for their Sabbath-breaking?"
"No," said Miss Webb quietly. "They are going to sing some hymns. I
thought you would like to play for them."
Mona elevated her eyebrows.
"Wish I could stay to join you," said Captain Willoughby, "but I've
promised my mother to take her to evening church. Au revoir!"
He departed. Mona got up from her seat and went to the piano. Then she
twirled round on the music-stool and confronted Miss Webb.
"What new freak is this?" she asked, laughing.
Miss Webb looked at her gravely.
"We were wondering why Sundays should be such a trial," she said, "and
Jill solved the problem. She said it was because they have no mother. I
reminded them that they had you, and we finally bethought ourselves of
hymn-singing down here."
Mona's laughing dimples faded away. She turned to the piano, her little
sisters and brother clustered round her, and soon the sweet, childish
voices were uplifted in song.
When bedtime came Bumps said ecstatically, "Thinging hymns in the
drawn-room is nearly as nithe as thinging them in heaven!"
"When did you sing them there?" demanded Jack.