just about to disappear, and who, indeed, for that matter, always
looked as if she were just about to disappear herself) opened one of
the cabinets, and brought out a little toy pug in china, very
delicately coloured, and looking just like one of my friends on the
mat. I fell in love with it at once, and it was certainly a handsome
exchange for the strawberry pincushion.
"'You will send the child to see me now and then, Elizabeth?' said
Mrs. Moss as we retired.
"In the end Mrs. Moss and I became great friends. I put aside my dream
among the 'vain fancies' of life, and took very kindly to the manor in
its new aspect. Even the stuffed footman became familiar, and learnt
to welcome me with a smile. The real Mrs. Moss was a more agreeable
person than I have, I fear, represented her. She had failed to grasp
solid happiness in life, because she had chosen with the cowardice of
an inferior mind; but she had borne disappointment with dignity, and
submitted to heavy sorrows with patience; and a greater nature could
not have done more. She was the soul of good humour, and the love of
small chat, which contrasted so oddly with her fierce appearance, was
a fund of entertainment for me, as I fed my imagination and stored my
memory with anecdotes of the good old times in the many quiet evenings
we spent together. I learnt to love her more heartily, I confess, when
she bought a new gown and gave the _feuille-morte_ satin to Mrs.
Metcalfe.
"Mrs. Metcalfe was 'humble companion' to Mrs. Moss. She was in reality
single, but she exacted the married title as a point of respect. At
the beginning of our acquaintance I called her 'Miss Metcalfe,' and
this occasioned the only check our friendship ever received. Now I
would, with the greatest pleasure, have addressed her as 'My Lord
Archbishop,' or in any other style to which she was not entitled, it
being a matter of profound indifference to me. But the question was a
serious one to her, and very serious she made it, till I almost
despaired of our ever coming to an understanding on the subject.
"On every other point she was unassuming almost to non-entity. She was
weak-minded to the verge of mental palsy. She was more benevolent in
deed, and more wandering in conversation, than any one I have met with
since. That is, in ordinary life. In the greenhouse or garden (with
which she and the head-gardener alone had any real acquaintance) her
accurate and profound knowledge would put to shame many professed
garden botanists I have met with since. From her I learnt what little
I know of the science of horticulture, and with her I spent many happy
hours over the fine botanical works in the manor library, which she
alone ever opened.
"And so I became reconciled to things as they were, though to this day
I connect with that shade of _feuille-morte_ satin a disappointment
not to be forgotten."
* * * * *
"It is a dull story, is it not, Ida?" said the little old lady,
pausing here. She had not told it in precisely these words, but this
was the sum and substance of it.
Ida nodded. Not that she had thought the story dull, so far as she had
heard it, and whilst she was awake; but she had fallen asleep, and so
she nodded.
Mrs. Overtheway looked back at the fire, to which, indeed, she had
been talking for some time past.
"A child's story?" she thought. "A tale of the blind, wilful folly of
childhood? Ah, my soul! Alas, my grown-up friends! Does the moral
belong to childhood alone? Have manhood and womanhood no passionate,
foolish longings, for which we blind ourselves to obvious truth, and
of which the vanity does not lessen the disappointment? Do we not
still toil after rosebuds, to find _feuilles-mortes_?"
No voice answered Mrs. Overtheway's fanciful questions. The hyacinth
nodded fragrantly on its stalk, and Ida nodded in her chair. She was
fast asleep--happily asleep--with a smile upon her face.
The shadows nodded gently on the walls, and like a shadow the little
old lady stole quietly away.
When Ida awoke, she found herself lying partly in the arm-chair, and
partly in the arms of Nurse, who was lifting her up. A candle flared
upon the table, by the fire stood an empty chair, and the heavy scent
that filled the room was as sweet as the remembrance of past
happiness. The little old lady had vanished, and, but for the
hyacinth, Ida would almost have doubted whether her visit had not been
a dream.
"Has Mrs. Overtheway been long gone, Nursey?" she asked, keeping her
eyes upon the flowerpot.
"Ever so long!" said Nurse, "and here you've been snoring away, and
the old lady's been downstairs, telling me how comfortably you were
asleep, and she's coming again to-morrow evening, if you're good."
It was precisely twelve minutes since Mrs. Overtheway left the house,
but Nurse was of a slightly exaggerative turn of mind, and few people
speak exactly on the subject of time, especially when there is an
opportunity of triumphing over someone who has been asleep before
bed-time. The condition of Ida's being good was also the work of
Nurse's own instructive fancy, but Ida caught eagerly at the welcome
news of another visit.
"Then she is not angry with me for falling asleep, Nursey? I was so
comfortable, and she has such a nice voice, I couldn't help it; I
think I left off about the pugs. I wish I had a pug with a wrinkled
black snout, don't you, Nursey?"
"I'm sure I don't, Miss Ida. My father kept all sorts of pigs, and we
used to have one with a black snout and black spots, but it was as
ugly as ugly could be; and I never could fancy the bacon would be fit
to eat. You must have been dreaming, I'm sure; the old lady would
never tell you about such rubbish, I know."
"It's pugs, not pigs, Nursey; and they're dogs, you know," said Ida,
laughing. "How funny you are! And indeed she did tell me, I couldn't
have dreamt it; I never dreamt anything so nice in my life."
"And never will, most likely," said Nurse, who was very skilful in
concluding a subject which she did not want to discuss, and who was
apt to do so by a rapid twist in the line of argument, which Ida would
find somewhat bewildering. "But, dear Miss Ida," she continued, "do
leave off clutching at that chair-arm, when I'm lifting you up; and
your eyes 'll drop out of your head, if you go on staring like that."
Ida relaxed the nervous grasp, to which she had been impelled by her
energy on the subject of the pugs, let down her eyebrows, and
submitted to be undressed. The least pleasant part of this ceremony
may be comprised in the word curl-papers. Ida's hair was dark, and
soft, and smooth, but other little girls wore ringlets, and so this
little girl must wear ringlets too. To that end her hair was every
night put into curl-papers, with much tight twisting and sharp
jerking, and Ida slept upon an irregular layer of small paper parcels,
which made pillows a mockery. With all this, however, a damp day, or a
good romp, would sometimes undo the night's work, to the great disgust
of Nurse. In her last place, the young lady's hair had curled with a
damp brush, as Ida well knew, and Nurse made so much of her own
grievance, in having to use the curl-papers, that no place was left
for Ida's grievance in having to sleep upon them. She submitted this
night therefore, as other nights, in patience, and sat swinging her
feet and accommodating her head to the sharp tugs, which always seemed
to come from unexpected quarters. Perhaps, however, her mind may have
been running a little upon grievances, which made her say:
"You know, Nursey, how you are always telling me I ought to be
thankful for having things, and not having things, and--"
"I wish you'd talk sense, and not give way with your head so when I
pull, Miss Ida," retorted Nurse, "having things, and not having
things; I don't know what you mean."
"Well, you know, Nursey, the other day when I said I didn't like
bread-and-treacle treacled so long before, and soaked in, and you said
I ought to be thankful that I had bread-and-treacle at all, and that I
hadn't a wooden leg, and to eat anything I could get, like the old
sailor man at the corner; well, do you know, I've thought of something
I _am_ so thankful for, and that is that I haven't a red screen to my
bed."
"I really do think, Miss Ida," said Nurse, "that you'll go out of your
mind some day, with your outlandish fancies. And where you get them, I
can't think. I'm sure _I_ never put such things into your head."
Ida laughed again.
"Never mind, Nursey, it all belongs to the pug story. Am I done now?
And when you've tucked me up, please, would you mind remembering to
put the flower where I can see it when I wake?"
Nurse did as she was asked, and Ida watched the hyacinth till she fell
asleep; and she slept well.
In the morning she took her old post at the window. The little old
lady had never seemed so long in making her appearance, nor the bells
so slow to begin. Chim! chime! chim! chime! There they were at last,
and there was Mrs. Overtheway. She looked up, waved a bunch of
snowdrops, and went after the bells. Ida kissed her hand, and waved it
over and over again, long after the little old lady was out of sight.
"There's a kiss for you, dear Mrs. Overtheway," she cried, "and kisses
for your flowers, and your house, and everything belonging to you, and
for the bells and the church, and everybody in it this morning, and--"
But, at this point of universal benevolence, Nurse carried her off to
breakfast.
The little old lady came to tea as before. She looked as well as ever,
and Nurse was equally generous in the matter of tea and toast. Mrs.
Overtheway told over again what Ida had missed in the story of Mrs.
Moss, and Ida apologized, with earnest distress, for her uncivil
conduct in falling asleep.
"There I was snoring away, when you were telling me such a delightful
story!" she exclaimed, penitently.
"Not snoring exactly, my dear," smiled the little old lady, "but you
looked very happy."
"I thought Nursey said so," said Ida. "Well, I'm very glad. It would
have been too rude. And you know I don't know how it was, for I _am_
so fond of stories; I like nothing so well."
"Well, shall I try again?" said Mrs. Overtheway. "Perhaps I may find a
more amusing one, and if it does put you to sleep, it won't do any
harm. Indeed, I think the doctor will say I'm very good company for
you."
"You are very good! That _I_ can tell him," said Ida, fervently, "and
please let it be about yourself again, if you can remember anything. I
like true stories."
"Talking of snoring," said Mrs. Overtheway, "reminds me of something
that happened in my youth, and it is true, though, do you know, it is
a ghost story."
Ida danced in her chair.
"That is just what I should like!" she exclaimed. "Nurse has a ghost
story, belonging to a farm-house, which she tells the housemaid, but
she says she can't tell me till I am older, and I should so like to
hear a ghost story, if it isn't too horrid."
"This ghost story isn't too horrid, I think," laughed the little old
lady, "and if you will let me think a few minutes, and then forgive my
prosy way of telling it, you shall have it at once."
There was a pause. The little old lady sat silent, and so sat Ida
also, with her eyes intently fixed on Mrs. Overtheway's face, over
which an occasional smile was passing.
"It's about a ghost who snored," said the little old lady, doubtfully.
"Delicious!" responded Ida. The two friends settled themselves
comfortably, and in some such words as these was told the following
story:--
THE SNORING GHOST.
_Clown._ Madman, thou errest: I say there is no darkness but
Ignorance, in which thou art more puzzled than the Egyptians
in their fog.... What is the opinion of Pythagoras
concerning wild fowl?
_Malvolio._ That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit
a bird.
_Clown._ What thinkest thou of his opinion?
_Malvolio_. I think nobly of the soul, and in no way approve
his opinion.
_Twelfth Night_, iv. 2.
"I remember," said Mrs. Overtheway, "I remember my first visit. That
is, I remember the occasion when I and my sister Fatima did, for the
first time in our lives, go out visiting without our mother, or any
grown-up person to take care of us."
"Do you remember your mother?" asked Ida.
"Quite well, my dear, I am thankful to say. The best and kindest of
mothers!"
"Was your father alive, too?" Ida asked, with a sigh.
The old lady paused, pitying the anxious little face opposite, but
Ida went on eagerly:
"Please tell me what _he_ was like."
"He was a good deal older than my mother, who had married very early.
He was a very learned man. His tastes and accomplishments were many
and various, and he was very young-hearted and enthusiastic in the
pursuit of them all his life. He was apt to take up one subject of
interest after another, and to be for the time completely absorbed in
it. And, I must tell you, that whatever the subject might be, so long
as his head was full of it, the house seemed full of it too. It
influenced the conversation at meals, the habits of the household, the
names of the pet animals, and even of the children. I was called Mary,
in a fever of chivalrous enthusiasm for the fair and luckless Queen of
Scotland, and Fatima received her name when the study of Arabic had
brought about an eastern mania. My father had wished to call her
Shahrazad, after the renowned sultana of the 'Arabian Nights' but when
he called upon the curate to arrange for the baptism, that worthy man
flatly rebelled. A long discussion ended in my father's making a list
of eastern names, from which the curate selected that of Fatima as
being least repugnant to the sobriety of the parish registers. So
Fatima she was called, and as she grew up pale, and moon-faced, and
dark-eyed, the name became her very well."
"Was it this Fatima who went out visiting with you?" asked Ida.
"Yes, my dear; and now as to the visit. The invitation came on my
thirteenth birthday.
"One's birthday is generally a day of some importance. A very notable
day whilst one is young, but less so when one is old, when one is
being carried quickly through the last stages of life, and when it
seems hardly worth while to count time so near the end of the journey.
Even in youth, however some birthdays are more important than others.
I remember looking forward to my tenth birthday as to a high point of
dignity and advancement; and the just pride of the occasion on which I
first wrote my age with more figures than one. With similar feelings,
I longed to be thirteen. The being able to write my age with two
figures had not, after all, shed any special lustre upon life; but
when I was 'in my teens' it must 'feel different somehow.' So I
thought. Moreover, this birthday was really to bring with it solid
advantages. I was now to be allowed to read certain books of a more
grown-up character than I had read hitherto, and to sit up till nine
o'clock. I was to wear sandals to my shoes. My hair was henceforth to
grow as long as I and the Fates would permit, and the skirts of my
frocks were to take an inch in the same direction. 'In four more
years,' I said to Fatima, as we sat on the eve of my birthday,
discussing its manifold advantages, 'in four more years I shall be
grown up. Miss Ansted was introduced at seventeen.' The prospect was
illimitable.
"'Do people always grow much on their birthdays?' asked one of the
little ones. I had boasted in the nursery, that when I was thirteen I
should be 'nearly grown up,' and I myself had hardly outlived the idea
that on one's birthday one was a year older than on the previous day,
and might naturally expect to have made a year's growth during the
night.
"This birthday, however, produced no such striking change. As usual,
the presents were charming; the wreath as lovely as Fatima's deft
fingers could make it, the general holiday and pleasure-making almost
too much of a good thing. Otherwise, there was little to mark it from
other days in the year.
"Towards evening we were all sitting on the grass, the boys with their
heads on the sisters' laps, and there had been an outcry for a story,
to which no one had responded; partly, perhaps, because the exquisite
air of evening seemed a sufficient delight, the stillness too profound
to be lightly disturbed. We had remained for some time without
speaking, and the idea was becoming general among the girls that the
boys were napping, when the summer silence was broken by the distant
footfalls of a horse upon the high road.
"'Trotting!' observed one of the supposed sleepers. We were not, as a
family, given to explanations, and we drew a few more breaths of the
evening air in silence. Then someone said:
"'We might make a story out of _that_, and fancy all sorts of things.
Who is it? Where does he come from, and where is he going to?'
"'It is a messenger from the seat of war,' drawled the boy in my lap,
without moving. Then, lifting his curly head for a moment, he cried,
'To horse! gentlemen, to horse! The enemy will be at Carter's Mill by
midnight!'
"There was a pause; the solitary footfalls came nearer through the
evening mists, and a small brother, of a quaint turn of mind, much
given to the study of the historical portions of the Old Testament,
sat up and said, slowly:
"'It is one of Job's messengers. _The Chaldeans made out three bands,
and fell upon the camels, and have carried them away, yea, and slain
the servants with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped alone
to tell thee._'
"The others boys laughed, but he lay down again, as solemnly as he had
risen.
"'That was a foot-messenger,' said my boy, contemptuously.
"'It doesn't say so,' retorted the small brother.
"'Well, any way, the camels had been carried off--so what did he ride
upon?'
"A squabble was imminent. I covered my boy's face with a handkerchief,
to keep him quiet.
"'Listen!' I said. 'It's the post. The mail from the north was stopped
on the highway, but he has saved the bags, and is riding hard for
London.'
"'It's--'
"But the new suggestion was drowned in a general shout of--
"'It's coming up the lane!'
"The footfalls had diverged from the main road, and were coming up the
sandy lane that skirted our wall. The boys lifted their heads, and we
sat expectant. There was a pause, and a familiar gate-click, and then
the footfalls broke upon the carriage-road, close by us. A man in
livery, upon a well-groomed horse--nothing more, but rather an
uncommon sight with us. Moreover, the man and his livery were strange,
and the horse looked tired.
"This event broke up the sitting, and we were strolling up to the
house, when a maid met us, saying that my mother wished to see me and
Fatima.
"We found my mother sewing, with an opened letter beside her. It was
written on one of the large quarto sheets then in use, and it was
covered and crossed, at every available corner, in a vague, scratchy
hand.
"'I have heard from an old friend of mine, Mary,' said my mother.
'She has come to live about twelve miles from here. There is
something in the letter about you and Fatima, and you may read that
part aloud, if you can. The top of the last page.'
"I found the place, and, with some difficulty, deciphered: 'The dear
Major was all delicacy and consideration--'
"'No, no!' said my mother, 'the next sentence.'
"'Dear Cecilia was all sweetness. The dress was--'
"My mother took the letter, and found the right place herself, and
then I read:
"'If you cannot come yourself, at least let us renew acquaintance in
our children. I think you have two girls about thirteen? My Lucy, a
dear child just fifteen, feels keenly the loss of her only sister, and
some young companions would be a boon, as all our company will be
_elders_. Pray send them. They can come by the coach, and shall be met
at Durnford, at the Elephant and Castle.'
"'Is the other sister dead?' asked Fatima, pityingly, when we had
discussed our personal interest in the subject.
"'Oh, no! only married,' said my mother.
"It was decided that we should go. This decision was not arrived at at
once, or without some ups and downs. My mother could not go herself,
and had some doubts as to our being old enough, as yet, to go out
visiting alone. It will be believed that I made much of being able to
say--'But you know, I am thirteen, now.'
"Next day, in the evening, my father was busy in his study, and my
mother sat at the open window, with Fatima and me at her feet. The
letter of acceptance had been duly sent by the messenger, but she had
yet a good deal of advice to give, and some doubts to express. She was
one of those people who cannot sit with idle fingers, and as she
talked she knitted. We found it easy enough to sit idle upon two
little footstools, listening to the dear kind voice, and watching two
little clouds, fragments of a larger group, which had detached
themselves, and were sailing slowly and alone across the heavens.
"'They are like us two,' Fatima had whispered to me; 'perhaps they are
going to see some other clouds.'
"'I have observed two things which are apt to befall young people who
go out visiting,' said my mother, as she turned a row in her knitting,
'one is, that they neglect little good habits while they are away, and
the other is, that they make themselves very disagreeable when they
come back.'
"The clouds drifted on, and my mother continued her knitting, arming
us with many wise counsels on small matters connected with this great
event; to which Fatima and I gratefully gave half our minds, whilst
with the other half we made rosy pictures of unparalleled excellence
under trying circumstances, by which, hereafter, we should prove these
warnings and counsels to have been, in our case, unnecessary and
superfluous.
"'Most families and most people,' said my mother, 'have little good
habits and customs of their own which they feel bound to keep,
although they are not among the great general duties which bind every
one. So long as young people are at home, these matters are often
simple enough, but when they go away certain difficulties arise. They
go amongst people whose little habits are not the same as those to
which they have been accustomed. Sometimes they come to very
uncharitable conclusions upon their friends' characters in
consequence. And, I must say, that I have never met with any one who
could be more severe than young people of your age are apt to be. I
remember it of myself, and I have seen it in so many other girls. Home
is naturally the standard, and whatever is different seems wrong. As
life goes on, these young critics learn (or should learn) to
distinguish between general and particular duties; and also coming to
know a larger number of people, they find that all good persons are
not cut to the same pattern, and that one's friends' little ways are
not therefore absurd, because one does not happen to be used to them.
On the other hand, if going amongst other people may tempt you to be
critical of their little habits, it is also apt to make you neglect
your own. Perhaps you think this cannot much matter, as they are not
the great duties, and as other people seem to get on quite well
without them. But one learns in the end, that no character of any
value is formed without the discipline of individual rules, and that
rules are of no use that are not held to against circumstances.
"Charitable to others, severe to himself," seems a maxim for grown-up
people in grown-up things; but, I believe, my little daughters, that
the doubts and difficulties of life begin very early, earlier than
they are commonly provided against; I think that innumerable girls
struggle miserably in the practice of duty, from a radical ignorance
of its principles, and that the earlier these are learnt, the smaller
is the burden of regret one heaps together to oppress the future, and
the sooner one finds that peace of mind which is not common even
amongst the young, and should-be light-hearted.'
"In these, or words to this effect, my dear mother prepared us for our
first plunge into society. We discussed the little good habits we were
to maintain, and, amongst others, certain little Sunday customs--for
we were to be away for a week.
"'We can't take all our good habits with us, if you won't come,' I
said. 'What is to become of the Sunday readings?'
"For my mother used to read to us every Sunday evening, and we were
just in the middle of that book of wondrous fascination--'The
Pilgrim's Progress.'
"'If it were not for the others, and if you would trust us with it,'
said Fatima, thoughtfully, 'we might take the book with us, and Mary
might read to me, if she would--I like her reading.'
"My mother consented. There was another copy in the house, and though
this volume was a favourite, she said it was time we learnt to take
care of valuable books. So it was settled. We talked no more that
evening; and the clouds drifted out of sight.