BOTH SIDES.
“From idle words, that restless throng
And haunt our hearts when we would pray;
From pride’s false chain, and jarring wrong,
Seal Thou my lips, and guard the way.”
KEBLE.
“Now the doctor’s happy! he has got rid of his gratitude! I knew how it
would be!” laughed Mabel, as soon as the girls had walked beyond reach of
hearing.
“What do you mean?” asked Ida.
“Did you not see how uncomfortable the poor man was under the weight of
even such a little obligation? It was steam high pressure with him, till
he opened a safety-valve, and off flew all his debt discharged in the
shape of a bunch of hyacinths!”
“How you talk!” said her sister with a smile; “he intended these poor
little flowers as a mark of attention; they were no return for our
present.”
“O Ida, how little you know! Why, Dr. Bardon does not think that there
are hyacinths in the world that can bear comparison with his. He thinks
them worth any money. He carries a mental glass of very singular
construction, patented by the maker, Pride. Look through the one end,
everything is small; look through the other, everything is big! He turns
the magnifier to what he does himself, the diminisher to what others do
for him; and it is wonderful how he thus manages to economize gratitude,
and keep himself out of debt to his friends. Depend upon it, seen through
his glass, his hyacinths swelled to the size of hollyhocks, and our
curtain diminished to that of a sampler!”
“You are a sad satirical girl!” said Ida.
“Not I, I’ve only practised the ‘vigilance of observation and accuracy
of distinction, which neither books nor precepts can teach,’ which the
famous Mr. Jenkins used to recommend to papa when he was young. I am
merely distinguishing between the kindnesses which a man does to please a
friend, and those which he does to gratify his own pride. Dr. Bardon, in
spite of his poverty, is as proud as the Earl of Dashleigh can be.”
“But he is one who deserves much indulgence.”
“I am not saying anything against him,” interrupted Mabel; “I rather like
a dash of pride in a character; I know I have plenty of it myself.”
“Mabel—”
“Why, darling, I’m proud of you!” exclaimed Mabel, turning her
eyes affectionately on her sister; “and I’m proud of my excellent
father, proud of my glorious uncle, but I am not proud,”—here Mabel
laughed,—“I’m not proud of my step-mother at all.”
“Mabel, dearest—”
“I’m convinced that the world may be divided into two classes—those
made of porcelain, and those of crockery. There seems such a wonderful
difference in the nature of minds, into whatever shape education may
twist them! Now, my father, uncle, and you, are made of real Sevres
porcelain, and Mrs. Aumerle—”
“Really, Mabel, you do wrong to speak thus of her.”
“Well, I won’t if you don’t like it, darling, but she’s so intensely
common-place and matter-of-fact! I don’t believe that she understands
or could enter into our feelings any more than if we had been born in
different planets!”
Ida sighed. “It is our appointed trial,” she replied; and these few
words, though well intended, did more to impress upon her young sister
the hardship of having an uncongenial stepmother, than open complaint
might have done. Mabel regarded her gentle sister as a suffering saint,
and had no idea that there might be two sides even to such a question as
this.
Ida’s conscience warned her that the preceding conversation had been
unprofitable, to say the least of it, and she knew well what Scripture
saith against _every idle word_. She therefore turned the channel
of discourse, and told Mabel of her new plan of having a class for
farm-boys, which she intended herself to conduct.
“You can’t manage more upon Sundays, Ida; you have two classes already,
you know.”
“True; this must be on the Saturday evening, when the lads have left off
work.”
“You can’t have the school-room, then; that’s Mrs. Aumerle’s time for the
mother’s class.”
“I have been thinking about that,” said Ida, gravely; “but there is
really no other hour that will be suitable at all for mine. I must ask
Mrs. Aumerle to have her women a little earlier in the afternoon.”
“I would not ask a favour of her!” said Mabel proudly.
“It is never pleasant to ask favours,” replied Ida; “but it is sometimes
our duty to do so.”
It was growing dark before the sisters reached their home. They found
Mrs. Aumerle busily engaged in cutting out clothes for the poor, wielding
her large, bright scissors with quick hand, and directing its operations
with an experienced eye. She looked up from her occupation as Ida and
Mabel entered the room.
“What has made you so late?” asked the lady.
“Oh! we have had a nice, long chat with Cecily Bardon,” replied Mabel;
“we never thought of the hour.”
“I hope that you will think of it another time,” said Mrs. Aumerle,
resuming her cutting and clipping; “it is not proper for young ladies to
be crossing the fields after sunset without an escort.”
“Not proper!” repeated Mabel half aloud, her cheek suffused with an angry
flush.
“We have been always accustomed,” said Ida more calmly, “to walk whither
and at what hour we pleased, and we have never found the smallest
inconvenience arise from so doing.”
“Your having done so is no reason why you should do so,” said the lady
firmly; “you have been too much left to yourselves, and it is well that
you have now some one of a little experience to judge what is suitable or
unsuitable for two young girls of your age.”
Mabel turned down the corners of her mouth after the fashion of Dr.
Bardon; happily Mrs. Aumerle was too busy with a jacket-sleeve to look
at her step-daughter’s face. Ida seated herself without reply; but Pride
stole up at that moment and whispered in her ear, “You can manage quite
as well for yourself as the meddling dame can manage for you. She might
be content to let well alone, and confine herself to her own affairs.”
Ida now entered upon the subject of the class for farmers’ boys and
labouring lads, and explained the necessity for holding it on the
particular day and hour on which the mothers’ meeting usually took
place. She dwelt with gentle eloquence upon the difficulties and
temptations of the youths who would be benefited by the new arrangement;
but it tried her patience not a little to hear the snip-snip of the
scissors all the time that she was speaking.
“Well, I’ll consider the matter,” said Mrs. Aumerle, stopping at length
in her occupation; “it will cause me a little inconvenience, but I think
that the thing may be managed. But,” she continued, as Ida, having gained
her point, was about to leave the apartment, “but we have not thought of
the most important thing—who is to conduct the class?”
“I had thought of it,” replied Ida; “I am going to conduct it myself.”
“You!” exclaimed Mrs. Aumerle, turning towards Ida a face whose naturally
high colour was heightened by stooping over her cutting; “you! the thing
is not to be dreamed of! Your father’s daughter to be teaching and
preaching to a set of hulking farm lads, as if they were a parcel of
little schoolboys! It would not become a young lady like you.”
“I have yet to learn what can become a lady, be she old or young, better
than teaching the ignorant and helping the poor,” said Ida with forced
calmness, but great constraint and coldness of manner.
“Oh! that’s very fine talking, my dear; the thing may be a very good
thing in itself, but we must choose different instruments for different
kinds of work. One would not mend quills with scissors, or cut out
flannel with a penknife. I can’t hear of your holding such a class.”
Commanding herself sufficiently not to reply, but with an angry and
swelling heart Ida sought her own room, followed by the indignant Mabel.
No sooner had they reached it than Mabel threw her arms around Ida, and
exclaimed, “My own darling, angel sister! how dared she speak so to you!”
“She will grieve one day,” said Ida, struggling to keep down tears, “that
she has put any stumbling-block in the way of such a work. Mabel, we must
pity and pray for her!”
“And never let yourselves be led by her,” suggested Pride.
“That girl wants somebody to guide her;” such were the reflections of
Mrs. Aumerle, as she went on with her work for the poor. “There’s a great
deal of good in her, but she wants ballast,—she wants common-sense. She
is spoilt by being so long without the control of a mother, and needs,
almost as much as saucy Mabel, a good firm hand over her. With all Ida’s
gentleness and meekness, there’s in her a world of obstinacy and pride.
I wish that I had brought one verse to her recollection, which she seems
to leave out when she reads the Bible—_Likewise ye younger, submit
yourselves unto the elder; yea, all of you be subject one to another, and
be clothed with humility; for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace
to the humble._ Ida has a wonderful conceit of her own opinion, as most
inexperienced young people have; and it’s almost impossible to convince
her that she ever can be wrong. She is not wrong, however, about the
duty of having a class for these poor farm lads; I must consult Lawrence
as to how it can be done.” The lady went on with her cogitations upon
the subject. “We could not expect our schoolmaster to undertake such an
addition to his labours. The clerk, Ashby—no, no, he’s not fitted for
it; he’d set the young fellows yawning,—no one would come twice for his
teaching. Perhaps the best plan would be for me to take the lads myself,
and give up my mother’s meeting to Ida. It would be far more suitable for
a pretty young creature like her. But I must keep the cutting out and
shaping of the poor-clothes still, for clever as she is in reading and
talking, that is a business which poor Ida never could manage with all
the goodwill in the world.”
And so the plain, practical stepmother settled the matter in her own
mind; and only Pride could suggest that her plan was inconvenient,
inconsiderate, or unkind. It was ultimately adopted by Ida, but with a
reluctance and coldness which deprived both ladies of the encouragement
and pleasure which they would have derived from cheerful, hearty,
co-operation with each other in labours of love.