The day had now arrived when Mrs. Roberts was expected; the young people
were all assembled in the school-room busy with their different tasks;
Selina and Leila were seated silently at their writing-desks,
translating English into French; Alfred quietly in a corner, drawing
birds and animals on a slate, his favourite employment. Matilda alone
was restless and unquiet; she kept constantly running from the table to
the window, holding a book of French dialogues in her hand, and looking
out on the approach, while she rhymed the same phrase over and over
again: “Il faudra faire comme nous pourrons, il faudra faire comme nous
pourrons, il faudra faire comme nous pourrons; now surely this is
knocked into my brains.”
Selina shook her head.
“Well, Selina,” she continued, “you need not shake your head; il faudra
faire comme nous pourrons, and I am sure I am doing the best I can.”
“Are you?” Selina quickly said, and went on with her writing.
“How provoking you are, Selina; there do you two sit as quietly as if
nothing were going to happen, and as if Mrs. Roberts might not arrive
every moment.”
“But will running to the window and shaking the whole room make her come
any sooner?” Selina inquired.
“To be sure it will, that is, I shall see her sooner. Alfred, do run
down and listen if you hear a carriage,” and she snatched the slate from
his hand; “there’s a good boy, run down and do like Fine-ear, you know;
stoop down and put your ear to the ground, there’s a man,” and she
pushed him out at the door.
Alfred returned again almost immediately. “I could not play at fine-ear,
Matilda,” he said, “for I saw the carriage at a little distance the
moment I went out; listen, it is stopping at the door now.”
All the three young girls jumped up and ran instantly to the window. The
steps of the carriage were let down, a ladylike person, rather slender,
and rather above the middle height, stepped out, her bonnet entirely
concealing her face. Mr. Stanley came forward, he seemed to welcome her
kindly; they entered the house together. The next moment they heard the
drawing-room door close. Matilda glided from the room.
Selina looked anxiously after her; in a few minutes she returned.
“I have seen her trunks,” she said; “I don’t like them.”
Selina looked distressed.
“Well, Selina, why do you put on that sorrowful face? I did not say I
did not like her. Come, cheer up, I will do the best I can.”
The drawing-room bell rang; in a few minutes Amy tapped at the
school-room door to say the young ladies were wanted in the
drawing-room. They all went down.
Mrs. Roberts seemed talking earnestly to their mamma when they entered;
but she stopped, and as Mrs. Stanley introduced them, said a few kind
words to each. Her face was not pretty till she smiled; her smile was
very pleasing, and her voice was low and sweet. Leila felt she should
like her; both she and Selina, when addressed, said something in return,
and probably just what they ought to say, though no one heard it;
Matilda said nothing. Almost immediately after Mrs. Stanley told them
they might return to the school-room, that Mrs. Roberts was probably a
little tired with her journey, but if she felt inclined by and by for a
walk, they might join them in the garden.
It was all over in a moment. “Well,” Matilda exclaimed, as they entered
the school-room again, “how do you like her?”
Both answered, “Very much, we like her very much.”
“Very much,” Matilda repeated; “well, I don’t. I don’t like her at all.”
“And why, Matilda? why do you not like her?” Selina anxiously inquired.
“I don’t like her nose.”
“Don’t like her nose!”
“No, I don’t; she has a pinched nose, and don’t you see it droops?”
Selina saw that at this moment it was a hopeless case; she did not even
attempt the vindication of the nose.
Mrs. Stanley was not disappointed in her expectations with regard to
Mrs. Roberts; she proved to be a highly principled, amiable,
accomplished woman, and with a gentle steadiness about her which
peculiarly fitted her for the task she had undertaken. With Selina and
Leila she had comparatively little trouble, and they soon became fond of
her, and anxious to give her satisfaction, but with Matilda she had a
far more difficult task; besides having strong prejudices to combat, she
had to struggle not only with careless inattentive habits, but often
with an obstinate determination not to overcome them, for Matilda’s
goodness as yet only came by fits and starts; there was no very steady
improvement, and the arrival of Mrs. Roberts seemed rather to have
thrown her back. She had fancied that she would not like her, and she
seemed too often to have a wish to act up to the opinion she had formed.
Mrs. Roberts’ patience with her was wonderful; indifferent observers
might have fancied that Matilda was her favourite; she spoke more to her
than to the others, often conversing cheerfully with her on interesting
subjects, and trying to draw out her feelings and sentiments; and
Matilda, though she gave her much trouble, was not quite insensible to
this. There were times when she acknowledged that Mrs. Roberts was
rather a kind person, though her nose did droop.
The removal to Woodlands now took place, and the following morning Mrs.
Roberts granted a holiday to the young people, that every room in the
house might be visited and properly admired, and also that Leila might
have time to settle with Susan as to a convenient arrangement for
several of her pets, while, with the assistance of her cousins, she hung
the cages with the parrots and the smaller birds up in the conservatory.
She had for some time been bringing up a pair of turtle-doves as a gift
to Mina, and teaching a young parrot to speak, which she intended for
Louisa. The turtle-doves were now at a very interesting age, just
beginning to be independent, and to coo to each other in a most
melodious manner, and the parrot gave proof of fine abilities, and could
already say, “I am Louisa’s pretty bird.”
The house was most comfortably though simply furnished; but the
conservatory delighted Leila more than any part of it: the flowers so
fragrant, so bright and beautiful, and the birds so happy, they were
already singing in the branches. Once more she walked about amongst the
birds and flowers, and felt that but for one sad thought she would not
have had a wish ungratified. She quite longed to give her papa an
account of all her arrangements, and went in search of him. She found
Mr. Howard reading in his library, but he answered her little tap at his
door with his usual kind voice.
“Come in, I think I know who is there; what have you got to tell me,
love?” and the book was thrown aside, and she, seated on a low stool at
his knee, kept looking up in his face, and pouring out her little
history, he entering into all her arrangements with all the attention
and satisfaction her heart could desire. “And now, papa,” she continued,
“you know I am of a great age now, I am eleven, and I want to talk to
you a little about my responsibilities.”
“Your responsibilities, my love!--that is a very fine word for you;
where did you pick up that word, Leila?”
“I think it is a very nice word, papa, and I understand it; and you must
know I have responsibilities in my new home, for I heard Aunt Stanley
say to Mrs. Roberts the other day, that Miss Palmer had gone now to keep
her father’s house, and would have many responsibilities; that besides
the regulating the house, and attending in every way to his comfort, she
would also have the school to attend to, and the poor people to visit,
and it was a large parish. I could not find out what a large parish
meant, but I understood all the rest; and don’t you think, papa, I
should have a school, also, and visit the poor people?”
“No, dear Leila; I think you are too young to have a school at present;
but don’t look so disappointed, my love; let us talk this matter over
quietly. Miss Palmer is a great many years older than you are, she is a
grown-up young lady, and it is quite right that she should in every way
imitate her excellent mother’s example, and endeavour to make up as much
as lies in her power for the loss they have sustained in Mrs. Palmer’s
death: but you, my love, are still a child, and requiring too much
instruction yourself to be able to instruct others; yet you, dear
Leila, also have your responsibilities.”
“I am so glad of that papa,”--and her countenance brightened again.
“Yes,” Mr. Howard continued, “you are responsible for the talents God
has entrusted to you, for the employment of your time, for the
cultivation of the abilities He has given you; for the use you make of
the religious instruction you receive in correcting your faults; you are
by nature ardent and impetuous, you must struggle for the mastery over
yourself; for more self-denial, in rejecting the sudden impulses by
which you are governed; you must try to check that excessive sensibility
which, if indulged in, must unfit you for the necessary exertion for the
welfare of others which is so high a duty, and without which you would
soon become a useless, selfish being--turning away from the misery of
others, from the fear of what you yourself must feel in witnessing it.”
“But, papa, if I am not to teach a school or visit the poor, and only to
cultivate abilities, is not that turning away from others, is not that
being selfish?”
“But, my dear Leila, it is by no means my wish that you should turn away
from others; though you are as yet too young to teach a school yourself,
you are not too young to accompany your Aunt Stanley when she goes to
visit the school, in which she takes so much interest. Selina often
accompanies her; I shall ask her to allow you to do so also; and in this
way you will become acquainted with the duties you will, I trust, one
day fulfil yourself. You will, also, accompany me in visiting the poor;
you have now a weekly allowance, which, though not much, will still
enable you, by practising self-denial in some of your own desires, to
save a little each week for the benefit of others: with this you can
sometimes buy materials which may be useful to poor children; and by
employing some part of your time in making them up, you can bestow a
double benefit; for remember, Leila, it is not real charity to give of
your superfluity only.”
“I know it, papa; I know that you are thinking now of the rich man
throwing into the treasury, and the widow’s mite, and I will try to be
the widow’s mite. Am I staying too long, papa?” she continued; “must I
go now? perhaps you wish to have your book again?”
“No, my dear child, I am in no hurry to resume my book; I am quite
pleased to have a little talk with you; besides, if I had not heard your
little tap at the door just then, I meant to have sent for you--I have
got something to show you.”
“To show me, papa?”
“Yes, my love; something which will interest you, but will also bring to
your mind sorrowful recollections.”
Leila looked up anxiously in her papa’s face. “Is it about Dash?” she
said; “has any one answered the advertisement? or Peggy?--but no, about
Peggy, that is impossible; poor Peggy!”
Mr. Howard smiled mournfully as he answered. “No, my child, I have heard
nothing of them.”
Leila continued: “I have tried to bear it, papa, and not to give way;
and I have prayed to God, and He has strengthened me, and often I feel
quite comforted, sometimes I feel quite happy, just as if it had never
been; but often when I am talking and laughing I am not really happy--I
am only pretending, for Selina and Matilda always look so distressed
when I am sorrowful; but night is the worst--I always think of Peggy at
night;--and how kind she was to me; and there is nobody to be made
sorrowful then, and so I often cry very much; but I won’t talk of it any
more, and I am forgetting you had something to show me;” and she hastily
brushed the tears from her eyes.
Her papa carefully unfolded a small paper which he took from his
pocket-book, and showed Leila a very few small seeds.
“Flower-seeds?” she asked, inquiringly; “are they not, papa?”
“Yes, my love, they are the seeds of Clara’s flower.”
She started. “Of Clara’s flowers! Who has been to visit her lonely
grave? Who, papa?”
“No, one, my love; I gathered those seeds the day we left the island;
but I did not mention it to you, because I thought I had lost them, and
that they had dropped from my pocket-book. This morning I found that
this paper had fallen within another, and that the seeds were still
there; there are only seven of them, but I don’t think there ever were
more, for I remember I had difficulty in finding even these.”
Leila gazed at them earnestly. “I also tried to find seeds that day, and
could get none--how interesting they will be to me. I will plant them
instantly, and when they spring up, I will have some of Clara’s flower
to give to her mamma.”
“But, my dear Leila,” Mr. Howard said, “had you not better wait till
spring? I fear this is not a good time to sow flower-seeds;” but seeing
her look of distress, he added,--“at least, it would be more prudent to
sow only part now, and the others in spring, this will give you the best
chance of securing some of the plants.”
“Well, papa, I will do that, and three I think will be prudent;” and
selecting three of the seeds, she folded them into another paper. “You
had better keep these, papa, that I may not be tempted; and I will go
now to the gardener--he is very good-natured--he will give me a
flower-pot and the proper earth, and I will plant them this moment and
put them into the conservatory. In the conservatory it will be the same
for them as in the island, for it is always so warm there; so you see,
papa, I am very prudent about them, for I did not mean to put them out
in the cold. Every day I shall watch for their coming up. You could not
have given me any thing, papa, so very interesting to me--I will come
back and tell you when they are planted;” and she darted off.