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A Fourth Form Friendship
By ANGELA BRAZIL
"Angela Brazil has proved her undoubted talent for writing a
story of schoolgirls for other schoolgirls to read."--=Bookman.=
=The Madcap of the School.=
"A capital school story, full of incident and fun, and
ending with a mystery."--=Spectator.=
=The Luckiest Girl in the School.=
"A thoroughly good girls' school story."--=Truth.=
=The Jolliest Term on Record.=
"A capital story for girls."--=Record.=
=The Girls of St. Cyprian's=: A Tale of School Life.
"St. Cyprian's is a remarkably real school, and Mildred
Lancaster is a delightful girl."--=Saturday Review.=
=The Youngest Girl in the Fifth=: A School Story.
"A very brightly-written story of schoolgirl
character."--=Daily Mail.=
=The New Girl at St. Chad's=: A Story of School Life.
"The story is one to attract every lassie of good
taste."--=Globe.=
=For the Sake of the School.=
"Schoolgirls will do well to try to secure a copy of
this delightful story, with which they will be
charmed."--=Schoolmaster.=
=The School by the Sea.=
"One always looks for works of merit from the pen of
Miss Angela Brazil. This book is no exception."--=School
Guardian.=
=The Leader of the Lower School=: A Tale of School
Life.
"Juniors will sympathize with the Lower School at
Briarcroft, and rejoice when the new-comer wages her
successful battle."--=Times.=
=A Pair of Schoolgirls=: A Story of School-days.
"The story is so realistic that it should appeal to all
girls."--=Outlook.=
=A Fourth Form Friendship=: A School Story.
"No girl could fail to be interested in this
book."--=Educational News.=
=The Manor House School.=
"One of the best stories for girls we have seen for a
long time."--=Literary World.=
=The Nicest Girl in the School.=
=The Third Class at Miss Kaye's=: A School Story.
=The Fortunes of Philippa=: A School Story.
LONDON: BLACKIE & SON, LTD., 50 OLD BAILEY, E.C.
[Illustration: AN ALARMING DISCOVERY]
A Fourth Form
Friendship
A School Story
BY
ANGELA BRAZIL
Author of "The New Girl at St. Chad's" "The Manor House School"
"The Nicest Girl in the School" &c.
_ILLUSTRATED BY FRANK E. WILES_
BLACKIE AND SON LIMITED
LONDON GLASGOW AND BOMBAY
Contents
Chap. Page
I. ALDRED'S SKETCH 9
II. MABEL FARRINGTON 27
III. THE MODEL COTTAGE 43
IV. DOMESTIC ECONOMY 60
V. OUT OF BOUNDS 75
VI. AN AWKWARD PREDICAMENT 88
VII. FALSE COLOURS 102
VIII. AMATEUR THEATRICALS 116
IX. CHINESE LANTERNS 127
X. A FROSTY JANUARY 139
XI. VENUS IN THE SNOW 152
XII. THE NEW TEACHER 166
XIII. ALDRED PAYS A VISIT 186
XIV. AN ALARM 200
XV. ON THE RIVER 214
VI. AN OPPORTUNITY 227
XVII. LOSS AND GAIN 245
Illustrations
Page
AN ALARMING DISCOVERY _Frontispiece_ 134
ALDRED OVERHEARS A SURPRISING STORY 38
"WITH A SHRIEK SHE DREW SWIFTLY BACK" 65
FOUR UNHAPPY TRUANTS 97
"'I THINK I UNDERSTAND,' SAID ALDRED" 183
A FOURTH FORM FRIENDSHIP
CHAPTER I
Aldred's Sketch
"Two pencils, an india-rubber, a penknife, camp stool, easel, paint-box,
a tube of Chinese white, a piece of sponge, paint rag, and water tin,"
said Aldred Laurence, checking each item off on her fingers. "Let me
see! Can I possibly want anything else? It's so extremely aggravating to
get to a place and find you've left at home what you most particularly
need. My block, of course! How could I be so stupid as to forget it?
It's no good taking pencils and paints if I've nothing to draw upon!"
"Hello, Aldred! What a spread!" exclaimed Keith, rousing himself from
the luxuries of a comfortable chair and an absorbing book to notice that
his sister had put on her hat, that her gloves lay on a chair, and that
she was already beginning to pack some of the articles in question
inside a home-made portfolio of dark-green American cloth. "The table
looks like an art repository!" he continued. "Have you suddenly turned
into a Rubens, or a Raphael? Where are you going with all those traps?"
Aldred paused to count her paint brushes, fitted the spare tube of
Chinese white into a vacant corner of her paint-box, and slipped the
penknife into her pocket.
"I want to make a sketch of old Mrs. Barker's cottage," she replied.
"The clematis is out over the porch, and it looks lovely. I heard Mr.
Bowden say yesterday that it was a splendid subject. Don't you remember,
he made a picture of it last year?"
"So he did, and a jolly good one too. Yours won't be anything like up to
that, Sis!"
"I dare say not, but you needn't discourage me from trying, at any
rate."
"Oh, I'm not discouraging you. Go by all means, and good luck to your
efforts! You can show me the masterpiece when you come back;" and the
boy, flinging his legs over one arm of the chair, settled himself in an
even more inelegant and reposeful attitude than before, and plunged
again into the fascinating adventures of Captain Kettle.
That, however, did not at all content his sister.
"I thought you were coming with me," she said reproachfully. "I was
counting upon you to hold my water tin while I painted."
Keith detached his mind from tropical Africa with an effort.
"Then you counted without your host, my dear girl!" he responded. "I'm
extremely comfortable here, and I assure you I haven't the smallest
intention of pounding half a mile down the dusty road, on a baking
afternoon, to look at a picturesque cottage and act water-carrier when I
get there!"
"The tin upsets when I hold it on my paint-box," said Aldred, in a
rather aggrieved voice, "and if I put it on the ground I have to stoop
every time I want to dip my brush."
"Then make a hole in each side, tie a piece of string across, and hang
it on the peg of your easel. I'll fix it up for you in half a second, if
you'll find me the hammer and a nail. Girls have no invention! The
thing's as simple as possible. I wonder you couldn't think of it for
yourself. Where's a piece of string? Now, isn't this A1? Put it inside
your case. There! Off you go!"
Aldred could not but acknowledge the improvement in her painting tin,
but she seemed, nevertheless, in no hurry to start. She re-arranged her
paints, took off her hat and put it on again, and loitered about in so
marked a manner that her brother could not fail to notice her
hesitation.
"What's the matter now?" he enquired.
"You might come with me, Keith!"
"Oh, bother!"
"You know quite well I can't go alone."
"Why not?"
"Because Father said I mustn't sit sketching by myself."
"That's a horse of another colour. In that case, why did Aunt Bertha let
you get ready?"
"She didn't. She's out, so I couldn't ask her."
"Taking French leave?" chuckled Keith.
"I thought it would be all right if you went too."
Keith groaned in reply.
"We need only walk for five minutes along the road, and then turn into
the path through the wood," suggested Aldred. "There's a field of cut
corn in front of the cottage; you could sit on the corn and read if you
like."
"Not half so cool as here."
"Oh, Keith, you might be nice when it's holidays!" pleaded Aldred. "It's
the only time I ever have anybody to go about with. I'm sure I do heaps
of things for you; I was playing cricket with you all morning, wasn't
I?"
"Yes, and a precious butterfingers you were, too. There, then, you
needn't look so blue! I'll go, but on the one condition that you let me
read in peace and quiet, and don't bother."
"I won't say a single word, if you don't want to talk. I'll be
absolutely dumb and mum!"
"Well, I hardly believe you'll be able to hold your tongue to that
extent. I'll allow you an occasional remark, but you mustn't keep up a
continual flow of conversation. Where's my straw hat?--it's too hot for
a cap. I think I'm an absolute saint to turn out on such a blazing
afternoon!"
Having gained her point, Aldred ran readily enough to fetch her
brother's hat, and set off with him down the drive in a state of beaming
satisfaction.
Dingfield, the place where they lived, though only an hour's distance
from London, was sufficiently in the country to afford a pleasant
prospect of trees, meadows, and winding reaches of river. The hedgerows
were thick with twining bryony and feathery traveller's joy; here and
there the hips were reddening, and a ripe blackberry or two tempted them
to linger upon the way. It was cooler than Keith had anticipated, for a
fresh breeze was blowing from the Surrey Hills, sending white clouds in
long streamers across the blue of the sky, and shaking down a few
windfalls from the apple trees that overhung Farmer Walton's gate.
The two soon left the high road, and, after strolling leisurely through
the welcome shade of the wood, climbed over a stile into a pasture, and
after another five minutes' walking found themselves in a stubble field,
within sight of the river. Here was the subject upon which Aldred had
determined to try her brush. It was a picturesque old cottage, with
red-tiled roof, lattice windows, a porch wreathed in purple clematis,
and a garden gay with dahlias, looking attractive enough in the
September sunshine to make even an amateur wish to commit its beauties
to paper.
Aldred chose her point of view with great deliberation, and considerable
taste for a girl of only fourteen. She fixed her easel where a couple of
elders would make a background for the red roof, and where she could
catch a pleasant angle of the gable window and a peep of the distance
beyond. Having unpacked her portfolio, she settled herself on her camp
stool and began to put in her sketch with rapid lines, working, indeed,
more quickly than correctly, but nevertheless obtaining rather a good
effect. Keith, finding a pile of corn stooks conveniently near, flung
himself down in the shade, and, with a fern leaf to flip away flies, lay
with half-closed eyes watching his sister's energetic pencil.
"How you go at it!" he remarked. "It makes me hot just to look at you!"
"Then don't look! I thought you wanted to read? You made me promise not
to open my lips, and I haven't spoken a word since we came."
"Most heroic self-denial on your part, I'm sure! I believe I'm too lazy
even to read. I like to lounge in the holidays, especially when it's
getting so near the end."
"Only a week now to the fourteenth," said Aldred.
"Yes, worse luck! I wish it were a month!"
"And I am counting the days. I want the time to come so much!"
"It's a case of 'where ignorance is bliss', my dear girl. You've never
been to school before; I have! You won't find yourself in such an
anxious hurry to start off by next September, if I'm anything of a true
prophet."
"I expect I shall. All the stories I've read about school sound
delightful--the girls have such fun. I'm looking forward to going most
immensely. It will be far nicer than having a governess at home. It's so
fearfully slow while you're away at Stavebury. Aunt Bertha grows more
prim and particular every day, and I never seem able to do a single
thing right; it's scold and lecture, lecture and scold, from morning
till night! As for Miss Perkins, I was sick of the very sight of her!
You can't imagine how glad I was when she took her final departure. I
said good-bye as nicely as I could, for decency's sake, and then rushed
into the empty schoolroom and danced a jig and clapped my hands for joy,
to think I need never do lessons with her there again."
Keith laughed. "I don't suppose she's crying her eyes out over you
either," he observed.
"I'm sure she isn't. I've no doubt she's almost as delighted as I am.
She's going to The Thorns, to teach Blanche and Minna Lawson. They're
absolutely pattern girls, warranted never to do anything they shouldn't,
so I hope she'll be happy at last. I find them insufferably dull."
"You may get a far worse mistress at school than Miss Perkins."
"I don't think so. You know, Mary Kennedy has been at The Grange, and
she says Miss Drummond is a perfect dear. They have all kinds of games
there too. It will be lovely to learn hockey and lacrosse; I've never
played either before."
"School isn't all games, I can tell you," said Keith, pulling a straw
from the stook and chewing it meditatively. "There's a jolly lot of
grind to be gone through. You'll find you'll have to set that young head
of yours to work in good earnest."
"I can easily do that," declared Aldred, tossing back her dark curls,
"I've no fear at all of not managing my lessons. Why, when I cared to
take the trouble, I could simply astonish Miss Perkins. I could work
sums far quicker than she did, and I used to reel off French verbs so
fast that sometimes she could hardly follow me, even with the book in
her hand."
"All very well with a private governess, Madam Conceit! You've had no
competition. Wait till you work with a class. At The Grange you'll
probably find several other girls who can reel things off a little
quicker."
"Then I shall go quicker still. I tell you, I mean to be top of my
class, and head of the examinations too."
"Don't boast too much beforehand, or pride may bring a fall!" said
Keith, speaking with the superior authority of his sixteen years.
"You'll have to find your own level, Sis. The other girls may have
ambitions as well as you, and will be ready to dispute for the head
place."
"Then they won't get it! It's booked already for Aldred Laurence, and
so is the tennis championship, and anything that's first and foremost in
the way of hockey and lacrosse."
"Great Scott! What more?" exclaimed Keith, looking at his sister with
quizzical amusement. "Are there no bounds to your ambition?"
"Well, I've often heard you say yourself that if one is to get on at
school one must do well at games."
"No one tolerates slackers, certainly I'll allow that."
"I mean to be a general favourite," continued Aldred. "I want the girls
to be tremendously fond of me, and ready to do anything for me."
"They won't jump into your arms all at once, I assure you."
"I'll make them like me! Just you wait and see! I can always make people
care about me when I try hard enough."
"How about Miss Perkins?" suggested Keith dryly.
"Miss Perkins? Oh, well, I didn't even try! I disliked her so much, I
wanted to get rid of her. But it will be a very different matter indeed
when I go to The Grange. I don't mind undertaking that by the time I've
been there a year I shall be the most popular girl, not only in my
class, but in the whole school."
"Whew! That's a large order! Popularity isn't so easy to come by, Sis.
It depends on a dozen things--sometimes, indeed, it seems almost an
accident. If you work too hard for it, you may overstep the line, and
find yourself sent to Coventry instead. I've known two or three fellows
served that way."
"You always want to discourage me," declared Aldred, with a flush on her
cheeks.
"No, I don't. But I think you've far too good an opinion of yourself.
You need taking down considerably, and fortunately school will soon do
that for you. You'll talk very differently from this at the end of your
first term, or I'm much mistaken."
Aldred shrugged her shoulders. She was confident of her own success, and
regarded Keith's warnings simply in the light of brotherly teasing. She
said no more for the present, but gave her whole attention to her
sketch, which had now arrived at the painting stage. She dabbed on the
colours with the greatest assurance; there was no hesitation in the
bold, rather clever strokes, and the picture, though somewhat
"slap-dash" in style, was already beginning to bear a very fair
resemblance to the scene before her.
"You're not the only one out working to-day," remarked Keith, after an
interval of silence. "Here's Mr. Bowden himself sauntering down the
field in search of a subject."
Aldred looked round and waved her hand to a tall, grey-haired gentleman,
who, armed with a sketchbook, appeared to be jotting down the outlines
of some of the corn stooks. On seeing her smiling face he came at once
in her direction, and stopped critically behind her easel.
Mr. Bowden was an artist of considerable repute; he was a friend of
their father's, and always had a pleasant word for Aldred when he
visited at the house. Therefore she awaited his verdict with some
anxiety.
"Very good, Aldred! I had heard you were fond of drawing, though I did
not know you could do so well as this. But, my dear child, it's full of
faults, all the same. The perspective of the front of the house is
completely wrong."
"I'm afraid I don't know anything about perspective," pleaded Aldred. "I
just drew it as I thought it looked. The cottage is so pretty, I felt I
simply must paint it."
"That is the right spirit. Go on and try, even if you don't always
succeed. I am glad to see you make an effort to sketch out-of-doors.
There is no teacher like Mother Nature, and the attempt to reproduce a
living tree, or a house, on paper will do you more good than a hundred
copies. Why did you make the lines of your windows run up, when they so
clearly ought to run down?"
"I don't quite understand," said Aldred, looking puzzled.
"Give me your pencil a moment, and I will show you."
"Oh, thank you!" cried Aldred, jumping up with alacrity. "Please take my
camp stool, and then you will have exactly the same view as I have. It
looks so different when one is sitting down."
Mr. Bowden good-naturedly installed himself in Aldred's place, and,
taking her paint-box and brushes, began to give her a practical lesson
in sketching from nature.
"The composition is not bad," he remarked, "but if you had brought in
that far tree, which is considerably taller than the cottage, it would
have raised the subject on the left-hand side of the picture, and given
a pleasanter result. Shall I put in a touch to show you what I mean?"
"Oh, please!--as many as you like. It would be such a help to watch
you!" replied Aldred.
"Very well, then. In the first place, I make the lines of your
perspective slope down to their right vanishing point. Is not that
better? Now, a dab of brighter blue in the sky, with a raw edge to give
the effect of that white cloud. The trees need massing together, with a
greater depth of shade to give roundness to them, and a branch just
indicated here and there among the foliage. The stubble field needs a
tone of richer and warmer yellow, while a few stooks here in the
foreground would be the utmost improvement. Look how I am blocking them
in, with strong light and shadow, and two or three ears marked
definitely at the top, to show against the dark of the hedge beyond.
There! Go on working yourself at the field and the distance. Paint
moistly, and don't spare your cobalt blue."
"It's like magic!" said Aldred, reviewing the improvement in her sketch
with immense satisfaction. "I hardly know how to thank you. I'm afraid
I've been wasting your time dreadfully."
"No matter, if it has helped you," said Mr. Bowden, picking up his
sketch-book. "I must go now, though, for I want to catch the effect of
the late afternoon light on those marshy pools beyond the cottage. Don't
forget the hints I have given you," and with a friendly nod to Keith he
walked rapidly away, and was soon out of sight.
For some little time after Mr. Bowden had left, Aldred painted away
industriously at her foreground. Keith, in the shelter of the stooks
close by, was deep in his book; and there was no sound except the
chirping of birds, or the lowing of cattle, to disturb her. How
pleasant it was! She keenly enjoyed each touch of her brush, and tried
hard to follow the directions which her kind old friend had given.
Fully half an hour had passed away, and her stubble field had made
considerable progress, when voices in the pathway behind her caused her
to look round.
It was Mr. and Mrs. Silvester, the vicar and his wife, who, bearing a
basket, were walking in the direction of the cottage, no doubt with the
intention of paying a visit to old Mrs. Barker.
Recognizing the little figure at the easel, they came at once to see
what she was working at so briskly.
"Aldred, my dear! have you turned artist? This is an extremely good
sketch. How long has it taken you?" asked Mrs. Silvester.
"I only began it this afternoon," answered Aldred. "We came here about
three o'clock--didn't we, Keith?"
"It is really excellent!" exclaimed the Vicar. "I myself have had a
little experience in painting, so I am able to judge. The composition of
the picture is most artistic; I admire the way the tree has been
arranged to just overtop the chimney, and the large corn stook to bring
the eye down to the foreground. The perspective is correct, the light
and shade have been handled in quite a masterly fashion, and the sky
with the patch of cloud is particularly happy. I hope you are going to
have drawing lessons at school. I am sure you have unusual talent, which
ought certainly to be cultivated."
Keith, who had risen from his seat among the corn to greet the visitors,
gave a peculiar, rather suggestive cough, but did not volunteer any
remark. Aldred's eyes were very bright, and her cheeks pink, as she
replied:
"I'm certainly fond of painting. I don't think I can do any more to the
distance. I was just finishing the foreground when you came."
"Don't put another touch to it," said the vicar. "It is excellent just
as it is. I beg that you will shut your paint-box, and leave it; it
would be a mistake to work at it any more."
"I am most interested to have seen it," declared Mrs. Silvester; "it is
delightful to find anyone with such a decided gift for art. You must
make it your special study, and we shall look for great things from you
when you have finished school."
She passed on with her husband, and as they walked towards the cottage
the words "marvellous talent" and "astonishing cleverness" were wafted
back by the summer breeze.
Aldred closed her paint-box as the Vicar had suggested. Somehow she did
not feel inclined to continue her work; all the pleasure had suddenly
faded away from it.
Keith had subsided once more into his former lazy attitude, and sat idly
picking ears of corn, preserving an ominous silence. He waited until Mr.
and Mrs. Silvester were safely inside old Mrs. Barker's garden, then
burst forth.
"Well, of all the sneaks you're the biggest! Call that your work? Why,
it's Mr. Bowden's!--all the best parts, at any rate, that they were
praising so much. And you calmly took the credit for the whole! I wasn't
going to speak and give you away, but I'll let you know what I think of
you now."
"Oh, Keith! What could I do?" stammered Aldred, the tears welling up in
her eyes and splashing down upon the paint-box. "Don't scold me so! I
can't bear you to be cross with me."
"But you deserve it! Why didn't you say it wasn't really your own
painting?"
"They never asked me if I had been helped," answered Aldred; "and, after
all, it's my sketch, not Mr. Bowden's."
"Yes, your sketch, but improved absolutely beyond recognition. Look
here! if you play these tricks at school you'll pretty soon find
yourself the reverse of popular. Boys wouldn't stand it, and I don't
suppose girls will either."
"It didn't strike me to say anything," sobbed Aldred. "Oh, Keith, don't
look at me like that! Shall I run after them and tell them? I will, if
you want. I'll go at once, if you'll only be friends with me again."
"No, they're inside the cottage, condoling with Mrs. Barker over her
rheumatism. You'd only make yourself ridiculous if you followed them,
and came out with a dramatic confession in the middle of the kitchen. I
hate scenes. Do turn off the water-works, there's a good girl! Be a
little straighter in future if you want to keep chums with me, though.
Here, I'll help you to pack up your traps, and we'll go home to tea.
Your sketch is still wet; if you carry that I'll bring on the rest."
Very crestfallen and miserable, Aldred took up her unfortunate painting,
and began to walk away down the path towards the wood, leaving her
brother to follow. In her brown holland dress and red poppy hat she made
such a sweet picture against the yellow of the corn stooks that, in
spite of his disapproval, Keith could not help looking after her with a
certain amount of admiration. No one who met Aldred Laurence could have
failed to be struck by her personality. She was very neatly and trimly
made, and had a way of holding herself erect and looking alert that gave
her a distinguished appearance, and seemed to raise her above the level
of the average girl. Her lovely dark eyes, long, curling brown hair, and
warm, rich colouring had a gipsy effect that was particularly
picturesque. Her eyes were so bright and soft and expressive, her cheeks
had two such bewitching dimples, and she smiled so readily and winningly
in response to the smallest advance, that she generally made friends
easily, and had won notice from strangers since the days of her
babyhood.
To sober, downright, matter-of-fact Keith his sister was often a sore
puzzle. Her eager, impetuous, excitable disposition, and many impulsive
acts, were as foreign to him as an unknown language.
"Why need you work yourself up so tremendously over every trifle? What's
the use of taking life so stormily?" he once remonstrated.
"I don't know," replied Aldred. "I seem to care so much more about
everything than you do. I can't help it; I suppose it was born in me."
"Then it's high time you got it out of you!" remarked Keith, whose ideal
was a state of unruffled calm on all occasions.
In spite of the difference in their temperaments the two were really
attached to each other, and though Keith might not be demonstrative, he
tolerated Aldred's devotion when they were strictly alone, though he
would not allow her, as he expressed it, to "make an exhibition of him
before other fellows".
Poor Aldred! She had a very warm and loving heart, and a perpetual
hunger for affection that, so far, had failed to be entirely satisfied.
Since the day, seven years before, when her mother had started on that
long journey from which none return, nobody had seemed to understand her
quite, or to know how to manage her aright. Her father, a clever
barrister who went daily from Dingfield into London, was too absorbed in
his profession to give much time or sympathy to his children. Having
sent his son to school, and provided a daily governess for his daughter,
he felt that he had done all that was required of him. The masters at
Stavebury were responsible for Keith, and as for Aldred, if anything
more was needful for her upbringing than Miss Perkins could give, surely
his sister, who managed his house so admirably, could look after his
motherless girl?
Unfortunately, though Aunt Bertha had great experience and excellent
skill in the making of jams and the care of linen, she had no aptitude
for the handling of human souls. She was a stout, bustling,
unimaginative, prosaic person, without an atom of romance or sentiment
in her composition. A nature such as Aldred's was beyond her
comprehension. She tried to do her best for the child, but it was such
an unsympathetic best that it had the unhappy effect of setting a
barrier between herself and her niece which neither seemed able to pass.
Long and lucidly would Aunt Bertha reason and expound, and enjoin habits
of neatness, order, and punctuality. All to no purpose! Arguments never
appealed to Aldred. She would listen with an air of don't-care
indifference, and do just the same next time. Yet if her aunt could have
given her one warm kiss, the battle would have been won. It was a sad
pity, for the girl had in reality a very sweet disposition, though at
present it was like a neglected garden, where a few choice blossoms
might be found, struggling with ugly weeds that threatened sometimes
almost to strangle the flowers.
The precise governess carefully chosen by Aunt Bertha had not helped
matters. She found her pupil bright indeed, but only ready to work by
fits and starts, and quite unmoved by fear of punishment, or promise of
reward. So strong at last had the friction grown that Miss Perkins had
herself resigned her post, and recommended that Aldred should be packed
off to school.
"I have done my utmost," she said to Miss Laurence, "but I feel that I
am a complete failure. I have no influence over Aldred, and she is not
making the slightest progress. In the circumstances I cannot honestly
continue to teach her. In my opinion a little strict discipline is what
she requires, and the sooner she experiences it the better."
The decision to send her away (long held over her head as a threat),
instead of daunting Aldred, had delighted her. Aunt Bertha was much
relieved. She had dreaded a storm when the question was raised, and
though she considered it a bad characteristic in a girl to be glad to
leave home, she felt it removed a difficulty when her niece accepted the
situation so readily.
To Aldred the idea of forming herself on the prim pattern of her aunt
was intolerable. She was ready to copy anybody whom she loved and
admired, but to be obliged to repress her enthusiasms, and reduce her
ideals to the level of the commonplace, seemed like being forced into a
box too small to contain her.
"Aunt Bertha never understands," she thought. "She says I must try to
grow up now, and be sensible. If growing up means getting cold and calm
and stupid, and taking everything as a matter of course, I'd rather not.
I'll just stop a child always, however hard they may try to make me
different!"
Such was Aldred at the time our story begins,--a mass of contradictions,
so wayward and yet so winning, a mixture of good impulses and weak
points, equally ready to join a crusade or to follow the multitude to do
evil; waiting, like a gaily painted but rudderless vessel, to be
launched on to the stormy ocean of school life.