and revealed me to myself as a strapped and bandaged invalid. But--and
this is perhaps the most curious part of my narrative--almost the first
sounds that reached my ears were those of wedding bells; and I knew,
without requiring to be told, that they were ringing for Diana's
marriage with the Colonel. _That_ showed there wasn't much the matter
with me, didn't it? Why, I can hear them everywhere now. I don't think
she ought to have had them rung at Sandown though: it was just a little
ostentatious, so long after the ceremony; don't you think so?'
'Yes--yes,' I said; 'but you never told me what became of the horse.'
'Ah! the horse--yes. I am looking for him. I'm not so angry with him as
I was, and I don't like to ask too many questions at the stables, for
fear they may tell me one day that they had to shoot him while I was so
ill. You knew I was ill, I dare say?' he broke off: 'there were
bulletins about me in the papers. Look here.'
He handed me a cutting on which I read:
'THE RECENT ACCIDENT IN ROTTEN ROW.--There is no change as yet in Mr.
Pulvertoft's condition. The unfortunate gentleman is still lying
unconscious at his rooms in Park Street; and his medical attendants fear
that, even if he recovers his physical strength, the brain will be
permanently injured.'
'But that was all nonsense!' said Mr. Pulvertoft, with a little nervous
laugh, 'it wasn't injured a bit, or how could I remember everything so
clearly as I do, you know?'
And this was an argument that was, of course, unanswerable.
_THE GOOD LITTLE GIRL_
A STORY FOR CHILDREN
Her name was Priscilla Prodgers, and she was a very good little girl
indeed. So good was she, in fact, that she could not help being aware of
it herself, and that is a stage to which very many quite excellent
persons never succeed in attaining. She was only just a child, it is
true, but she had read a great many beautiful story-books, and so she
knew what a powerful reforming influence a childish and innocent remark,
or a youthful example, or a happy combination of both, can exert over
grown-up people. And early in life--she was but eleven at the date of
this history--early in life she had seen clearly that her mission was to
reform her family and relatives generally. This was a heavy task for one
so young, particularly in Priscilla's case, for, besides a father,
mother, brother, and sister, in whom she could not but discern many and
serious failings, she possessed an aunt who was addicted to insincerity,
two female cousins whose selfishness and unamiability were painful to
witness, and a male cousin who talked slang and was so worldly that he
habitually went about in yellow boots! Nevertheless Priscilla did not
flinch, although, for some reason, her earnest and unremitting efforts
had hitherto failed to produce any deep impression. At times she thought
this was owing to the fact that she tried to reform all her family
together, and that her best plan would be to take each one separately,
and devote her whole energies to improving that person alone. But then
she never could make up her mind which member of the family to begin
with. It is small wonder that she often felt a little disheartened, but
even that was a cheering symptom, for in the books it is generally just
when the little heroine becomes most discouraged that the seemingly
impenitent relative exhibits the first sign of softening.
So Priscilla persevered: sometimes with merely a shocked glance of
disapproval, which she had practised before the looking-glass until she
could do it perfectly; sometimes with some tender, tactful little hint.
'Don't you think, dear papa,' she would say softly, on a Sunday morning,
'don't you _think_ you could write your newspaper article on some
_other_ day--is it a work of _real_ necessity?' Or she would ask her
mother, who was certainly fond of wearing pretty things. 'How much bread
for poor starving people would the price of your new bonnet buy, mother?
I should so like to work it out on my little slate!'
Then she would remind her brother Alick that it would be so much better
if, instead of wasting his time in playing with silly little tin
soldiers, he would try to learn as much as he could before he was sent
to school; while she was never tired of quoting to her sister Betty the
line, 'Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever!' which Betty,
quite unjustly, interpreted to mean that Priscilla thought but poorly of
her sister's intellectual capacity. Once when, as a great treat, the
children were allowed to read 'Ivanhoe' aloud, Priscilla declined to
participate until she had conscientiously read up the whole Norman
period in her English history; and on another occasion she cried
bitterly on hearing that her mother had arranged for them to learn
dancing, and even endured bread and water for an entire day rather than
consent to acquire an accomplishment which she feared, from what she had
read, would prove a snare. On the second day--well, there was roast beef
and Yorkshire pudding for dinner, and Priscilla yielded; but she made
the resolution--and kept it too--that, if she went to the dancing class,
she would firmly refuse to take the slightest pains to learn a single
step.
I only mention all these traits to show that Priscilla really was an
unusually good child, which makes it the more sad and strange that her
family should have profited so little by her example. She was neither
loved nor respected as she ought to have been, I am grieved to say. Her
papa, when he was not angry, made the cruellest fun of her mild
reproofs; her mother continued to spend money on dresses and bonnets,
and even allowed the maid to say that her mistress was 'not at home,'
when she was merely unwilling to receive visitors. Alick and Betty, too,
only grew more exasperated when Priscilla urged them to keep their
tempers, and altogether she could not help feeling how wasted and thrown
away she was in such a circle.
But she never quite lost heart; her papa was a literary man and wrote
tales, some of which she feared were not as true as they affected to be,
while he invariably neglected to insert a moral in any of them;
frequently she dropped little remarks before him with apparent
carelessness, in the hope that he might put them in print--but he never
did; she never could recognise herself as a character in any of his
stories, and so at last she gave up reading them at all!
But one morning she came more near to giving up in utter despair than
ever before. Only the previous day she had been so hopeful! her father
had really seemed to be beginning to appreciate his little daughter, and
had presented her with sixpence in the new coinage to put in her
money-box. This had emboldened her to such a degree that, happening on
the following morning to hear him ejaculate 'Confound it!' she had,
pressing one hand to her beating heart and laying the other hand softly
upon his shoulder (which is the proper attitude on these occasions),
reminded him that such an expression was scarcely less reprehensible
than actual bad language. Upon which her hard-hearted papa had told her,
almost sharply, '_not to be a little prig!_'
Priscilla forgave him, of course, and freely, because he was her father
and it was her duty to bear with him; but she felt the injustice deeply,
for all that. Then, when she went up into the nursery, Alick and Betty
made a frantic uproar, merely because she insisted on teaching them the
moves in chess, when they perversely wanted to play Halma! So, feeling
baffled and sick at heart, she had put on her hat and run out all alone
to a quiet lane near her home, where she could soothe her troubled mind
by thinking over the ingratitude and lack of appreciation with which her
efforts were met.
She had not gone very far up the lane when she saw, seated on a bench, a
bent old woman in a poke-bonnet with a crutch-handled stick in her
hands, and this old woman Priscilla (who was very quick of observation)
instantly guessed to be a fairy--in which, as it fell out, she was
perfectly right.
'Good day, my pretty child!' croaked the old dame.
'Good-day to you, ma'am!' answered Priscilla politely (for she knew that
it was not only right but prudent to be civil to fairies, particularly
when they take the form of old women). 'But, if you please, you mustn't
call me pretty--because I am not. At least,' she added, for she prided
herself upon her truthfulness, 'not _exactly_ pretty. And I should hate
to be always thinking about my looks, like poor Milly--she's our
housemaid, you know--and I so often have to tell her that she did not
make her _own_ face.'
'I don't alarm you, I see,' said the old crone; 'but possibly you're not
aware that you're talking to a fairy?'
'Oh, yes, I am--but I'm not a bit afraid, because, you see, fairies can
only hurt _bad_ children.'
'Ah, and you're a good little child--that's not difficult to see!'
'They don't see it at home!' said Priscilla, with a sad little sigh, 'or
they would listen more when I tell them of things they oughtn't to do.'
'And what things do they do that they oughtn't to, my child--if you
don't mind telling me?'
'Oh, I don't mind in the _least_!' Priscilla hastened to assure her; and
then she told the old woman all her family's faults, and the trial it
was to bear with them and go on trying to induce them to mend their
ways. 'And papa is getting worse than ever,' she concluded dolefully;
'only fancy, this very morning he called me a little prig!'
'Tut, tut!' said the fairy sympathetically, 'deary, deary me! So he
called you _that_, did he?--"a little prig"! And _you_, too! Ah, the
world's coming to a pretty pass! I suppose, now, your papa and the rest
of them have got it into their heads that you are too young and too
inexperienced to set up as their adviser--is that it?'
'I'm afraid so,' admitted Priscilla; 'but we mustn't blame them,' she
added gently, 'we must remember that they don't know any better--mustn't
we, ma'am?'
'You sweet child!' said the old lady with enthusiasm; 'I must see if I
can't do something to help you, though I'm not the fairy I used to
be--still, there are tricks I can manage still, if I'm put to it. What
you want is something that will prove to them that they ought to pay
more attention to you, eh?--something there can be no possible mistake
about?'
'Yes!' cried Priscilla eagerly, 'and--and--how would it be if you
changed them into something else, just to _show_ them, and then I could
ask for them to be transformed back again, you know?'
'What an ingenious little thing you are!' exclaimed the fairy; 'but, let
us see--if you came home and found your cruel papa doing duty as the
family hatstand, or strutting about as a Cochin China fowl----'
'Oh, _yes_; and I'd feed him every day, till he was sorry!' interrupted
the warmhearted little girl impulsively.
'Ah, but you're so hasty, my dear. Who would write all the clever
articles and tales to earn bread and meat for you all?--fowls can't use
a pen. No, we must find a prettier trick than that--there _was_ one I
seem to remember, long, long ago, performing for a good little ill-used
girl, just like you, my dearie, just like you! Now what was it? some
gift I gave her whenever she opened her lips----'
'Why, _I_ remember--how funny that you should have forgotten! Whenever
she opened her lips, roses, and diamonds, and rubies fell out. That
would be the very thing! Then they'd _have_ to attend to me! Oh, do be a
kind old fairy and give me a gift like that--do, _do_!'
'Now, don't be so impetuous! You forget that this is not the time of
year for roses, and, as for jewels, well, I don't think I can be very
far wrong in supposing that you open your lips pretty frequently in the
course of the day?'
'Alick does call me a "mag,"' said Priscilla; 'but that's wrong, because
I never speak without having something to say. I don't think people
ought to--it may do so _much_ harm; mayn't it?'
'Undoubtedly. But, anyhow, if we made it _every_ time you opened your
lips, you would soon ruin me in precious stones, that's plain! No, I
think we had better say that the jewels shall only drop when you are
saying something you wish to be particularly improving--how will that
do?'
'Very nicely indeed, ma'am, thank you,' said Priscilla, 'because, you
see, it comes to just the same thing.'
'Ah, well, try to be as economical of your good things as you
can--remember that in these hard times a poor old fairy's riches are
not as inexhaustible as they used to be.'
'And jewels really will drop out?'
'Whenever they are wanted to "point a moral and adorn a tale,"' said the
old woman (who, for a fairy, was particularly well-read). 'There, run
along home, do, and scatter your pearls before your relations.'
It need scarcely be said that Priscilla was only too willing to obey;
she ran all the way home with a light heart, eager to exhibit her
wonderful gift. 'How surprised they will be!' she was thinking. 'If it
had been Betty, instead of me, I suppose she would have come back
talking toads! It would have been a good lesson for her--but still,
toads are nasty things, and it would have been rather unpleasant for the
rest of us. I think I won't tell Betty _where_ I met the fairy.'
She came in and took her place demurely at the family luncheon, which
was the children's dinner; they were all seated already, including her
father, who had got through most of his writing in the course of the
morning.
'Now make haste and eat your dinner, Priscilla,' said her mother, 'or it
will be quite cold.'
'I always let it get a little cold, mother,' replied the good little
girl, 'so that I mayn't come to think too much about eating, you know.'
As she uttered this remark, she felt a jewel producing itself in some
mysterious way from the tip of her tongue, and saw it fall with a
clatter into her plate. 'I'll pretend not to notice anything,' she
thought.
'Hullo!' exclaimed Alick, pausing in the act of mastication, 'I
say--_Prissie_!'
'If you ask mother, I'm sure she will tell you that it is most
ill-mannered to speak with your mouth full,' said Priscilla, her speech
greatly impeded by an immense emerald.
'I like that!' exclaimed her rude brother; 'who's speaking with their
mouth full _now_?'
'"_Their_" is not grammar, dear,' was Priscilla's only reply to this
taunt, as she delicately ejected a pearl, 'you should say _her_ mouth
full.' For Priscilla's grammar was as good as her principles.
'But really, Priscilla, dear,' said her mother, who felt some
embarrassment at so novel an experience as being obliged to find fault
with her little daughter, 'you should not eat sweets just before dinner,
and--and couldn't you get rid of them in some other manner?'
'Sweets!' cried Priscilla, considerably annoyed at being so
misunderstood, 'they are not _sweets,_ mother. Look!' And she offered to
submit one for inspection.
'If I may venture to express an opinion,' observed her father, 'I would
rather that a child of mine should suck sweets than coloured beads, and
in either case I object to having them prominently forced upon my
notice at meal-times. But I daresay I'm wrong. I generally am.'
'Papa is quite right, dear,' said her mother, 'it _is_ such a dangerous
habit--suppose you were to swallow one, you know! Put them in the fire,
like a good girl, and go on with your dinner.'
Priscilla rose without a word, her cheeks crimsoning, and dropped the
pearl, ruby, and emerald, with great accuracy, into the very centre of
the fire. This done, she returned to her seat, and went on with her
dinner in silence, though her feelings prevented her from eating very
much.
'If they choose to think my pearls are only beads, or jujubes, or
acidulated drops,' she said to herself, bitterly, 'I won't waste any
more on them, that's all! I won't open my lips again, except to say
quite ordinary things--so _there_!'
If Priscilla had not been such a very good little girl, you might almost
have thought she was in a temper; but she was not; her feelings were
wounded, that was all, which is quite a different thing.
That afternoon, her aunt Margarine, Mrs. Hoyle, came to call. She was
the aunt whom we have already mentioned as being given to insincerity;
she was not well off, and had a tendency to flatter people; but
Priscilla was fond of her notwithstanding, and she had never detected
her in any insincerity towards herself. She was sent into the
drawing-room to entertain her aunt until her mother was ready to come
down, and her aunt, as usual, overwhelmed her with affectionate
admiration. 'How pretty and well you are looking, my pet!' she began,
'and oh, what a beautiful frock you have on!'
'The little silkworms wore it before I did, aunt,' said Priscilla,
modestly.
'How sweet of you to say so! But they never looked half so well in it,
I'll be bou---- Why, my child, you've dropped a stone out of a brooch or
something. Look--on the carpet there!'
'Oh,' said Priscilla, carelessly, 'it was out of my mouth--not out of a
brooch, I never wear jewellery. I think jewellery makes people grow so
conceited; don't you, Aunt Margarine?'
'Yes, indeed, dearest--indeed you are _so_ right!' said her aunt (who
wore a cameo-brooch as large as a tart upon her cloak), 'and--and surely
that can't be a _diamond_ in your lap?'
'Oh, yes, it is. I met a fairy this morning in the lane, and so----' and
here Priscilla proceeded to narrate her wonderful experience. 'I thought
it might perhaps make papa and mamma value me a little more than they
do,' she said wistfully, as she finished her story, 'but they don't take
the least notice; they made me put the jewels on the fire--they did,
really!'
'What blindness!' cried her aunt; 'how _can_ people shut their eyes to
such a treasure? And--and may I just have _one_ look? What, you really
don't want them?--I may keep them for my very own? You precious love!
Ah, I know a humble home where you would be appreciated at your proper
worth. What would I not give for my poor naughty Belle and Cathie to
have the advantage of seeing more of such a cousin!'
'I don't know whether I could do them much good,' said Priscilla, 'but I
would try my best.'
'I am sure you would!' said Aunt Margarine, 'and now, dearest sweet, I
am going to ask your dear mamma to spare you to us for just a little
while; we must both beg very hard.'
'I'll go and tell nurse to pack my things now, and then I can go away
with you,' said the little girl.
When her mother heard of the invitation, she consented quite willingly.
'To tell you the truth, Margarine,' she said, 'I shall be very glad for
the child to have a change. She seems a little unhappy at home with us,
and she behaved most unlike her usual self at lunch; it _can't_ be
natural for a child of her age to chew large glass beads. Did your
Cathie and Belle ever do such a thing?'
'Never,' said Aunt Margarine, coughing. 'It is a habit that certainly
ought to be checked, and I promise you, my dear Lucy, that if you will
only trust Priscilla to me, I will take away anything of that kind the
very moment I find it. And I do think, poor as we are, we shall manage
to make her feel at home. We are all so fond of your sweet Priscilla!'
So the end of it was that Priscilla went to stay with her aunt that
very afternoon, and her family bore the parting with the greatest
composure.
'I can't give you nice food, or a pretty bedroom to sleep in such as you
have at home,' said her kind aunt. 'We are very plain people, my pet;
but at least we can promise you a warm welcome.'
'Oh, auntie,' protested Priscilla, 'you mustn't think I mind a little
hardship! Why, if beds weren't hard and food not nicely cooked now and
then, we should soon grow too luxurious to do our duty, and that would
be so very bad for us!'
'Oh, what _beauties_!' cried her aunt, involuntarily, as she stooped to
recover several sparkling gems from the floor of the cab. 'I mean--it's
better to pick them up, dear, don't you think? they might get in
people's _way_, you know. What a blessing you will be in our simple
home! I want you to do all you can to instruct your cousins; don't be
afraid of telling them of any faults you may happen to see. Poor Cathie
and Belle, I fear they are very far from being all they should be!' and
Aunt Margarine heaved a sigh.
'Never mind, auntie; they will be better in time, I am sure. _I_ wasn't
_always_ a good girl.'
Priscilla thoroughly enjoyed the first few days of her visit; even her
aunt was only too grateful for instruction, and begged that Priscilla
would tell her, quite candidly, of any shortcomings she might notice.
And Priscilla, very kindly and considerately, always _did_ tell her.
Belle and Catherine were less docile, and she saw that it would take her
some time to win their esteem and affection; but this was just what
Priscilla liked: it was the usual experience of the heroines in the
books, and much more interesting, too, than conquering her cousins'
hearts at once.
Still, both Catherine and Belle persistently hardened their hearts
against their gentle little cousin in the unkindest way; they would
scarcely speak to her, and chose to make a grievance out of the fact
that one or other of them was obliged, by their mother's strict orders,
to be constantly in attendance upon her, in order to pick up and bring
Mrs. Hoyle all the jewels that Priscilla scattered in profusion wherever
she went.
'If you would only carry a plate about with you, Priscilla,' complained
Belle one day, 'you could catch the jewels in that.'
'But I don't _want_ to catch the jewels, dear Belle,' said Priscilla,
with a playful but very sweet smile; 'if other people prize such things,
that is not my fault, is it? _Jewels_ do not make people any happier,
Belle!'
'I should think not!' exclaimed Belle. 'I'm sure my back perfectly aches
with stooping, and so does Cathie's. There! that big topaz has just gone
and rolled under the sideboard, and mother will be so angry if I don't
get it out! It is too bad of you, Priscilla! _I_ believe you do it on
purpose!'
'Ah, you will know me better some day, dear, was the gentle response.
'Well, at all events, I think you might be naughty just now and then,
Prissie, and give Cathie and me a half-holiday.'
'I would do anything else to please you, dear, but not that; you must
not ask me to do what is impossible.'
Alas! not even this angelic behaviour, not even the loving admonitions,
the tender rebukes, the shocked reproaches that fell, accompanied by
perfect cascades of jewels, from the lips of our pattern little
Priscilla, succeeded in removing the utterly unfounded prejudices of her
cousins, though it was some consolation to feel that she was gradually
acquiring a most beneficial influence over her aunt, who called
Priscilla 'her little conscience.' For, you see, Priscilla's conscience
had so little to do on her own account that it was always at the service
of other people, and indeed quite enjoyed being useful, as was only
natural to a conscientious conscience which felt that it could never
have been created to be idle.
Very soon another responsibility was added to little Priscilla's
burdens. Her cousin Dick, the worldly one with the yellow boots, came
home after his annual holiday, which, as he was the junior clerk in a
large bank, he was obliged to take rather late in the year. She had
looked forward to his return with some excitement. Dick, she knew, was
frivolous and reckless in his habits--he went to the theatre
occasionally and frequently spent an evening in playing billiards and
smoking cigars at a friend's house. There would be real credit in
reforming poor cousin Dick.
He was not long, of course, in hearing of Priscilla's marvellous
endowment, and upon the first occasion they were alone together treated
her with a respect and admiration which he had very certainly never
shown her before.
'You're wonderful, Prissie!' he said; 'I'd no idea you had it in you!'
'Nor had I, Dick; but it shows that even a little girl can do
something.'
'I should rather think so! and--and the way you look--as grave as a
judge all the time! Prissie, I wish you'd tell me how you manage it, I
wouldn't tell a soul.'
'But I don't know, Dick. I only talk and the jewels come--that is all.'
'You artful little girl! you can keep a secret, I see, but so can I. And
you might tell me how you do the trick. What put you up to the dodge?
I'm to be trusted, I assure you.'