The hot July days brought us such good news from Cannes that our hearts
were all light with the hope of soon welcoming our parents back, and
Cecilly was especially happy at being promised several more pupils
after the summer holidays were over. Mrs. Moore, the old lady to whom I
read, had hinted that she might require more of my time in the autumn,
so we had every reason to be light-hearted and to forget the hardness
of our work with so much to be thankful for. Only poor old Jack looked
graver as the days went by, and my heart ached for him with his secret
trouble.
It was nearly the end of July that one morning Cynthia came tapping at
the kitchen door, where I was surrounded with materials for dinner.
“Where is Cecilly?” she asked, and on my telling her Cecilly was out,
giving music lessons, she told me she had tickets for a concert that
afternoon, and she knew how much she would like to go.
I knew so too, and at once said I would leave my cooking till the
afternoon and finish a smart blouse Cecilly had been making for herself.
“Do let me do the cooking while you sew,” Cynthia asked, but I said she
had better not as the dinner was to be what the boys called a triumph
of “mind over matter,” meaning a dinner was to be made out of scraps,
which was always tiring work. But Cynthia insisted on being cook.
I had already sent Beatrice Ethel, the little boot-girl, out for a
quart of skimmed or separated milk which Cecilly made into _Sago Soup_:
Take three or four onions and boil them in the milk till soft enough to
run through a sieve. Boil six large potatoes and rub through sieve. Put
all back into milk with pepper and salt. Add a teacup of sago, tapioca,
rice, or some macaroni. But sago is best. Send up fried bread with this.
Our meat course was to be breakfast pies, and as there were some
scraps over, Cynthia made a mulligatawny pâté, which would come in for
breakfast.
Our pudding was a _German Pudding_: 1 lb. flour, 1 teaspoonful of
carbonate of soda rubbed into the flour, 6 oz. of scraped fat, ½ lb.
treacle melted in milk. To be boiled for three hours. This would have
been sufficient for our dinner, but Cynthia begged to make a few jam
tarts, as she “loved making pastry.” Whey they were finished, she had
a piece of pastry over, which she turned into _Cheese Puffs_. She
rolled out her paste, sprinkled it thickly with cheese and “Paisley
Flour,” repeating the process several times. She brushed them over with
a little egg, and baked them at once. I suggested, as we were well
off for milk, she might make a custard to eat with our pudding, with
“Bird’s Custard Powder,” but only on condition that she asked leave to
come back with Cecilly to help us eat such a grand dinner. Lately I had
noticed that she had been allowed to accept our invitations for the
evening, and although it seemed a mistake for Jack to be in her company
too often, it was such a delight for him to find her with us when he
returned home, I could not resist asking her.
Cecilly had of course accepted Cynthia’s invitation to the concert with
much delight, and I, having locked up the house, had spent a pleasant
afternoon with dear Aunt Jane, who had given me a great bunch of
beautiful white lilies, and a basket of gooseberries for the boys.
I was only just back when I heard Cecilly’s knock, and finding her
alone I asked if Cynthia were not coming to dinner.
“Yes, indeed she is,” answered Cecilly, “and what do you think? Mr.
Marriott has invited himself also!”
“Oh, Cecilly,” I cried. “You must go at once and get some fish and some
fruit,” but Cecilly interrupted me, saying—
“No, he stipulates that we make no change. He is coming to eat
Cynthia’s cooking, and I promised him we would have nothing extra,
except some coffee.”
Of course I brought out our best table linen and china, rubbed up
our silver and glass, and with Aunt Jane’s lilies for decoration our
dinner-table looked as nice as possible. Cecilly ran up the road to
meet Jack to tell him the news as soon as she saw him, and we had to be
quite determined not to be over-ruled, so anxious was he for various
additions to our meal.
“Could you not run to Aunt Jane and ask her to lend us her maid,” he
asked, but I insisted on no change being made.
“Mr. Marriott is coming to see how clever Cynthia is, and not to
quiz us,” I replied, so Jack had to be content. The soup was a great
success. We turned the Mulligatawny pie into an _entrée_, and added the
jam tarts to the pudding course. Cecilly and Bob fetched and carried
the dishes, though I slipped out during the cheese course to make the
coffee for dessert.
We were a very merry party at dinner, and Cynthia had many
congratulations from us all. Jack and Mr. Marriott were a long time
before they joined us in the drawing-room, but when they came the
evening was one of the pleasantest we had spent since dear father’s
illness. Jack was so much more like his old self, and Mr. Marriott so
positive of father’s recovery that every doubt and perplexity of life
fled, and it seemed to me that all the pain of separation and the grave
anxieties of the past were now fled for ever. Cecilly and the boys had
gone up to bed while I waited for Jack to return from walking back with
Cynthia and her father, and when he came in I saw at once he had good
news for me.
“Oh, Kitty,” he cried, in his old boyish manner, “you can never guess
what Mr. Marriott has said to me this evening. He said he always knew
a good son would make a good husband, but that he felt his little girl
would never make a good wife for a poor man. But, Kitty Mavourneen,
he says you and Cecilly have shown her the way, and if, when she is
twenty-one, I like to ask her to be my wife, he won’t send me away.”
I was obliged to run upstairs to call Cecilly to hear these good
tidings, and Cecilly in her dressing-gown, with her hair streaming down
her back, rushed down the stairs at a bound to hug Jack in a way she
had not dared to do since he had grown “so cross and old.”
It was but a few weeks afterwards that we were welcoming father and
mother back once more—father, older-looking certainly than before his
illness, but no longer an invalid, while mother looked stronger and
rosier than any of us could remember her. They were both surprised to
find how well we could manage the housework, though father insisted on
our keeping Beatrice Ethel all day to do the heaviest work.
“As soon as I am in work again,” he said, “we must find a strong
servant once more,” and on our protesting he answered, “My darlings,
you were perfectly right in doing without servants as you have done.
Now there is really no necessity, and it is wiser for Cecilly to spend
her time over her music, to enable her to teach others. You, dear
Kitty, we will gladly spare to Mrs. Moore, knowing you can help her
in her infirmity. This work you are both fitted to undertake, and you
can then conscientiously leave the housework to those other girls,
who, not having had the education God has permitted you to have, can
only labour with their hands and hearts. Your experience will make you
better mistresses, I am convinced. You will be more competent to teach
and more sympathetic over failures and shortcomings, and will never in
all your life regret that all these months you have managed without
servants.”
VARIETIES.
SOME GAELIC PROVERBS.
Most shallow—most noisy.
The eye of a friend is an unerring mirror.
Oft has the wise advice proceeded from the mouth of folly.
As a man’s own life, so is his judgment of the lives of others.
God cometh in the time of distress, and it is no longer distress when
He comes.
The fortunate man awaits and he shall arrive in peace; the unlucky
hastens and evil shall be his fate.
LIFE AND DEATH.
I live, and yet I know not why,
Unless it be I live to die:
I die—and dying live in vain,
Unless I die to live again.
AN ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY.—Amid the mysteries which become the more
mysterious the more they are thought about, there will remain the one
absolute certainty that man is ever in presence of an Infinite and
Eternal Energy from which all things proceed.
PASSING AN EXAMINATION.
Here is how Professor William James of Harvard, in his student days,
passed an examination before the late Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes.
The first question put to him was as to the nerves at the base of the
brain. It so happened that Mr. James was well up in the subject, and he
promptly gave an exhaustive reply.
“Oh, well, if you know that you know everything,” said Dr. Holmes
cheerfully. “Let’s talk about something else. How are all your people
at home?”
SHEILA’S COUSIN EFFIE.
A STORY FOR GIRLS.
BY EVELYN EVERETT-GREEN, Author of “Greyfriars,” “Half-a-dozen
Sisters,” etc.