TRAVELING COMPANIONS.
The train moved rapidly on its way, and the girl in one corner of the
railway carriage cried silently behind her crape veil. Her tears were
very subdued, but her heart felt sore, bruised, indignant; she hated the
idea of school-life before her; she hated the expected restraints and the
probable punishments; she fancied herself going from a free life into a
prison, and detested it accordingly.
Three months before, Hester Thornton had been one of the happiest,
brightest and merriest of little girls in ----shire; but the mother who
was her guardian angel, who had kept the frank and spirited child in
check without appearing to do so, who had guided her by the magical power
of love and not in the least by that of fear, had met her death suddenly
by means of a carriage accident, and Hester and baby Nan were left
motherless. Several little brothers and sisters had come between Hester
and Nan, but from various causes they had all died in their infancy, and
only the eldest and youngest of Sir John Thornton's family remained.
Hester's father was stern, uncompromising. He was a very just and upright
man, but he knew nothing of the ways of children, and when Hester in her
usual tom-boyish fashion climbed trees and tore her dresses, and rode
bare-backed on one or two of his most dangerous horses, he not only tried
a little sharp, and therefore useless, correction, but determined to take
immediate steps to have his wild and rather unmanageable little daughter
sent to a first-class school. Hester was on her way there now, and very
sore was her heart and indignant her impulses. Father's "good-bye" seemed
to her to be the crowning touch to her unhappiness, and she made up her
mind not to be good, not to learn her lessons, not to come home at
midsummer crowned with honors and reduced to an every-day and pattern
little girl. No, she would be the same wild Hetty as of yore; and when
father saw that school could do nothing for her, that it could never make
her into a good and ordinary little girl, he would allow her to remain at
home. At home there was at least Nan to love, and there was mother to
remember.
Hetty was a child of the strongest feelings. Since her mother's death she
had scarcely mentioned her name. When her father alluded to his wife,
Hester ran out of the room; when the servants spoke of their late
mistress, Hester turned pale, stamped her feet, and told them to be
quiet.
"You are not worthy to speak of my mother," she electrified them all one
day by exclaiming: "My mother is an angel now, and you--oh, you are not
fit to breathe her name!"
Only to one person would Hetty ever voluntarily say a word about the
beloved dead mother, and that was to little Nan. Nan said her prayers, as
she expressed it, to Hetty now; and Hetty taught her a little phrase to
use instead of the familiar "God bless mother." She taught the child to
say, "Thank God for making mother into a beautiful angel;" and when Nan
asked what an angel was, and how the cozy mother she remembered could be
turned into one, Hester was beguiled into a soft and tearful talk, and
she drew several lovely pictures of white-robed angels, until the little
child was satisfied and said:
"Me like that, Hetty--me'll be an angel too, Hetty, same as mamma."
These talks with Nan, however, did not come very often, and of late they
had almost ceased, for Nan was only two and a half, and the strange, sad
fact remained that in three months she had almost forgotten her mother.
Hester on her way to school this morning cried for some time, then she
sat silent, her crape veil still down, and her eyes watching furtively
her fellow-passengers. They consisted of two rather fidgety old ladies,
who wrapped themselves in rugs, were very particular on the question of
hot bottles, and watched Hester in their turn with considerable curiosity
and interest. Presently one of them offered the little girl a sandwich,
which she was too proud or too shy to accept, although by this time she
was feeling extremely hungry.
"You will, perhaps, prefer a cake, my dear?" said the good-natured little
old lady. "My sister Agnes has got some delicious queen-cakes in her
basket--will you eat one?"
Hester murmured a feeble assent, and the queen-cake did her so much good
that she ventured to raise her crape veil and to look around her.
"Ah, that is much better," said the first little old lady. "Come to this
side of the carriage, my love; we are just going to pass through a lovely
bit of country, and you will like to watch the view. See; if you place
yourself here, my sister Agnes' basket will be just at your feet, and you
can help yourself to a queen-cake whenever you are so disposed."
"Thank you," responded Hester, in a much more cheerful tone, for it was
really quite impossible to keep up reserve with such a bright-looking
little old lady; "your queen-cakes are very nice, and I liked that one,
but one is quite enough, thank you. It is Nan who is so particularly fond
of queen-cakes."
"And who is Nan, my dear?" asked the sister to whom the queen-cakes
specially belonged.
"She is my dear little baby sister," said Hester in a sorrowful tone.
"Ah, and it was about her you were crying just now," said the first lady,
laying her hand on Hester's arm. "Never mind us, dear, we have seen a
great many tears--a great many. They are the way of the world. Women are
born to them. As Kingsley says--'women must weep.' It was quite natural
that you should cry about your sweet little Nan, and I wish we could send
her some of these queen-cakes that you say she is so fond of. Are you
going to be long away from her, love?"
"Oh, yes, for months and months," said Hester. "I did not know," she
added, "that it was such a common thing to cry. I never used to."
"Ah, you have had other trouble, poor child," glancing at her deep
mourning frock.
"Yes, it is since then I have cried so often. Please, I would rather not
speak about it."
"Quite right, my love, quite right," said Miss Agnes in a much brisker
tone than her sister. "We will turn the conversation now to something
inspiriting. Jane is quite right, there are plenty of tears in the world;
but there is also a great deal of sunshine and heaps of laughter, merry
laughter--the laughter of youth, my child. Now, I dare say, though you
have begun your journey so sadly, that you are really bound on quite a
pleasant little expedition. For instance, you are going to visit a kind
aunt, or some one else who will give you a delightful welcome."
"No," said Hester, "I am not. I am going to a dreadful place, and the
thought of that, and parting from little Nan, are the reasons why I
cried. I am going to prison--I am, indeed."
"Oh, my dear love!" exclaimed both the little old ladies in a breath.
Then Miss Agnes continued: "You have really taken Jane's breath
away--quite. Yes, Jane, I see that you are in for an attack of
palpitation. Never mind her, dear, she palpitates very easily; but I
think you must be mistaken, my love, in mentioning such an appalling word
as 'prison.' Yes, now I come to think of it, it is absolutely certain
that you must be mistaken; for if you were going to such a terrible place
of punishment you would be under the charge of a policeman. You are given
to strong language, dear, like other young folk."
"Well, I call it prison," continued Hester, who was rather flattered by
all this bustle and Miss Jane's agitation; "it has a dreadful sound,
hasn't it? I call it prison, but father says I am going to school--you
can't wonder that I am crying, can you? Oh! what is the matter?"
For the two little old ladies jumped up at this juncture, and gave Hetty
a kiss apiece on her soft, young lips.
"My darling," they both exclaimed, "we are so relieved and delighted!
Your strong language startled us, and school is anything but what you
imagine, dear. Ah, Jane! can you ever forget our happy days at school?"
Miss Jane sighed and rolled up her eyes, and then the two commenced a
vigorous catechizing of the little girl. Really Hester could not help
feeling almost sunshiny before that long journey came to an end, for she
and the Misses Bruce made some delightful discoveries. The little old
ladies very quickly found out that they lived close to the school where
Hetty was to spend the next few months. They knew Mrs. Willis well--they
knew the delightful, rambling, old-fashioned house where Hester was to
live--they even knew two or three of the scholars; and they said so often
to the little girl that she was going into a life of clover--positive
clover--that she began to smile, and even partly to believe them.
"I am glad I shall be near you, at least," she said at last, with a frank
sweet smile, for she had greatly taken to her kind fellow-travelers.
"Yes, my dear," exclaimed Miss Jane. "We attend the same church, and I
shall look out for you on Sunday, and," she continued, glancing first at
her sister and then addressing Hester, "perhaps Mrs. Willis will allow
you to visit us occasionally."
"I'll come to-morrow, if you like," said Hester.
"Well, dear, well--that must be as Mrs. Willis thinks best. Ah, here we
are at Sefton at last. We shall look out for you in church on Sunday, my
love."