During the next two years, Beth continued to look on at life, with
eyes wide open, deeply interested. Her mind at this time, acting
without conscious effort, was a mere photographic apparatus for the
registration of impressions on the brain. Every incident stored and
docketed itself somewhere in her consciousness for future use, and it
was upon this hoard that she drew eventually with such astonishing
effect.
Rousseau in "Emile" chose a common capacity to educate, because, he
said, genius will educate itself; but even genius would find its
labours lightened by having been taught the use of some few tools,
such as are supplied by the rudiments of a conventional education.
Beth was never taught anything thoroughly; very few girls were in her
day. A woman was expected at that time to earn her livelihood by
marrying a man and bringing up a family; and, so long as her face was
attractive, the fact that she was ignorant, foolish, and trivial did
not, in the estimation of the average man, at all disqualify her for
the task. Beth's education, at this most impressionable period of her
life, consisted in the acquisition of a few facts which were not made
to interest her, and neither influenced her conduct nor helped to form
her character. She might learn in the morning, for instance, that
William the Conqueror arrived 1066, but the information did not
prevent her being as naughty as possible in the afternoon. One cannot
help speculating on how much she lost or gained by the haphazard of
her early training; but one thing is certain, had the development of
her genius depended upon a careful acquisition of such knowledge as is
to be had at school, it must have remained latent for ever.
As it was, however, being forced out into the life-school of the
world, she there matriculated on her own account, and so, perhaps,
saved her further faculty from destruction. For theoretical knowledge
would have dulled the keenness of her insight probably, confused her
point of view, and brought in accepted commonplaces to spoil the
originality of her conclusions. It was from practical experience of
life rather than from books that she learnt her work; she saw for
herself before she came under the influence of other people's
observations; and this was doubtless the secret of her success; but it
involved the cruel necessity of a hard and strange apprenticeship.
From the time of their arrival in Rainharbour she lived three lives a
day--the life of lessons and coercion which was forced upon her, an
altogether artificial and unsatisfactory life; the life she took up
the moment she was free to act for herself; and a life of endless
dreams, which mingled with the other two unwholesomely. For the rich
soil of her mind, left uncultivated, was bound to bring forth
something, and because there was so little seed sown in it, the crop
was mostly weeds.
When we review the march of events which come crowding into a life,
seeing how few it is possible to describe, no one can wonder that
there is talk of the difficulty of selection. Who, for instance, could
have supposed that a good striped jacket Jim had outgrown, and Mrs.
Caldwell's love of grey, would have had much effect upon Beth's
career? And yet these trifles were epoch-making. Mrs. Caldwell thought
grey a ladylike colour, and therefore bought Beth a carmelite dress of
a delicate shade for the summer. For the first few weeks the dress was
a joy to Beth, but after that it began to be stained by one thing and
another, and every spot upon it was a source of misery, not only
because she was punished for messing the dress, but also because she
had messed it; for she was beginning to be fastidious about her
clothes; and every time she went out she was conscious of those
unsightly stains, and fancied everybody was looking at them. She had
to wear the frock, however, for want of another; and in the autumn,
when the days began to be chilly, a cast-off jacket of Jim's was
added to the affliction. Mrs. Caldwell caught her trying it on one
day, and after shaking her for doing so, she noticed that the jacket
fitted her, and the bright idea of making Beth wear it out, so that it
might not be wasted, occurred to her. To do her justice, Mrs. Caldwell
had no idea of the torture she was inflicting upon Beth by forcing her
to appear in her soiled frock and a boy's jacket. The poor lady was in
great straits at the time, and had nothing to spend on her daughters,
because her sons were growing up, and beginning to clamour for
pocket-money. Their mother considered it right that they should have
it too; and so the tender, delicate, sensitive little girl had to go
dirty and ashamed in order that her brothers might have the
wherewithal to swing a cane, smoke, drink beer, play billiards, and do
all else that makes boys men in their own estimation at an early age.
Rainharbour was little more than a fishing village in those days,
though it became a fashionable watering-place in a very few years.
When Mrs. Caldwell first settled there, a whole codfish was sold for
sixpence, fowls were one-and-ninepence a pair, eggs were almost given
away, and the manners of the people were in keeping with the low
prices. The natives had no idea of concealing their feelings, and were
in the habit of expressing their opinions of each other and things in
general at the top of their voices in the open street. They were as
conservative as the Chinese too, and thought anything new and strange
ridiculous. Consequently, when a little girl appeared amongst them in
a boy's jacket, they let her know that they resented the innovation.
"She's getten a lad's jacket on! oh! oh! she's getten a lad's jacket
on!" the children called aloud after her in the street, while their
mothers came to the cottage-doors, wiping soap-suds from their arms,
and stood staring as at a show; and even the big bland sailors
lounging on the quay expanded into broad grins or solemnly winked at
one another. Beth flushed with shame, but her courageous little heart
was instantly full of fight. "What ignorant people these are!" she
exclaimed haughtily, turning to Bernadine, who had dropped behind out
of the obloquy. "What ignorant people these are! they know nothing of
the fashions." The insinuation stung her persecutors, but that only
made them the more offensive, and wherever she went she was jeered
at--openly if there were no grown-up person with her, covertly if
there were, but always so that she understood. After that first
explosion she used to march along with an air of calm indifference as
if she heard nothing, but she had to put great constraint upon herself
in order to seem superior while feeling deeply humiliated; and all the
time she suffered so acutely that at last she could hardly be induced
to go out at all.
Mrs. Caldwell, who never noticed the "common people" enough to be
aware of their criticism, would not listen to anything Beth had to say
on the subject, and considered that her objection to go out in the
jacket was merely another instance of her tiresome obstinacy.
Punishments ensued, and Beth had the daily choice whether she should
be scolded and beaten for refusing to go out, or be publicly jeered at
for wearing a "lad's jacket."
Sometimes she preferred the chance of public derision to the certainty
of private chastisement; but oftener she took the chastisement. This
state of things could not last much longer, however. Hitherto her
mother had ruled her by physical force, but now their wills were
coming into collision, and it was inevitable that the more determined
should carry her point.
"Go and put your things on directly, you naughty, obstinate child,"
her mother screamed at her one day. Beth did not move.
"Do you hear me?" Mrs. Caldwell exclaimed.
Beth made no sign. And suddenly Mrs. Caldwell realised that if Beth
would not go out, she could not make her. She never thought of trying
to persuade her. All that occurred to her was that Beth was too big to
be carried or pulled or pushed; that she might be hurt, but could not
be frightened; and that there was nothing for it, therefore, but to
let her have her own way.
"Very well, then," said Mrs. Caldwell, "I shall go without you. But
you'll be punished for your wickedness some day, you'll see, and then
you'll be sorry."
Mildred had gone to be educated by a rich sister of her father's by
this time, Aunt Victoria and Bernadine usually went out with Mrs.
Caldwell, so it came to pass that Beth began to be left pretty much to
her own resources, of which Harriet Elvidge in the kitchen was one,
and a considerable one.
Harriet was a woman of well-marked individuality and brilliant
imagination. She could never separate fact from fiction in any form of
narrative, and narrative was her speciality. She was always recounting
something. Beth used to follow her from room to room, as she went
about her work, listening with absolute faith and the deepest interest
to the stream of narrative which flowed on without interruption, no
matter what Harriet was doing. Sometimes, when she was dusting the
drawing-room mantelpiece, she would pause with a china cup in one hand
and her duster in the other, to emphasise a thrilling incident, or
make a speech impressive with suitable gesticulation; and sometimes,
for the same purpose, she would stop with her hand on the yellowstone
with which she was rubbing the kitchen-hearth, and her head in the
grate almost. Often, too, Beth in her eager sympathy would say, "Let
me do that!" and Harriet would sit in an arm-chair if they were in the
drawing-room, and resign the duster--or the dishcloth, if they were in
the kitchen--and continue the recital, while Beth showed her
appreciation, and encouraged her to proceed, by doing the greater part
of her work for her. Mrs. Caldwell never could make out why Beth's
hands were in such a state. "They are all cracked and begrimed," she
would exclaim, "as if the child had to do dirty work like a servant!"
And it was a good thing for Beth that she did it, for otherwise she
would have had no physical training at all, and would have suffered as
her sister Mildred did for want of it. Mildred, unlike Beth, held her
head high, and never forgot that she was a young lady by right of
descent, with an hereditary aptitude for keeping her inferiors in
their proper place. She only went into the kitchen of necessity, and
would never have dreamed of dusting, sweeping, bed-making, or laying
the table, to help the servant, however much she might have been
over-tasked; neither would Harriet have dared to approach her with the
familiar pleading: "I say, miss, 'elp uz, I'm that done," to which
Beth so readily responded. Mildred was studious; she had profited by
the good teaching she had had while her father was alive, and was able
to "make things out" for herself; but she cultivated her mind at the
expense of her body. She was one of those delicate, nervous, sensitive
girls, whose busy brains require the rest of regular manual exercise;
and for want of it, she lived upon books, and very literally died of
them eventually. She was naturally, so to speak, an artificial product
of conventional ideas; Beth, on the contrary, was altogether a little
human being, but one of those who answer to expectation with fatal
versatility. She liked blacking grates, and did them well, because
Harriet told her she could; she hated writing copies, and did them
disgracefully, because her mother beat her for a blot, and said she
would never improve. For the same reason, long before she could read
aloud to her mother intelligibly, she had learnt all that Harriet
could teach her, not only of the house-work, but of the cooking, from
cleaning a fish and trussing a fowl to making barley-broth and
puff-pastry. Harriet was a good cook if she had the things, as she
said herself, having picked up a great deal when she was kitchen-maid
in Uncle James's household.
Harriet was the daughter of a labourer. Her people lived at a village
some miles away, and every Saturday morning a carrier with a covered
cart brought her a letter from home, and a little parcel containing a
cheesecake or some other dainty. Beth took a lively interest both in
the cheesecake and the letter. "What's the news from home to-day?" she
would ask. "How's Annie, and what has mother sent?" Whereupon Harriet
would share the cheesecake with her, and read the letter aloud, work
being suspended as long as possible for the purpose.
Harriet was about twenty-five at this time. She had very black silky
hair, straight and heavy, parted in the middle, drawn down over her
ears, and gathered up in a knot behind. Her face was oval, forehead
high, eyebrows arched and delicate, nose straight, and she had large
expressive dark grey eyes, rather deeply set, with long black lashes,
and a mouth that would have been handsome of the sensual full-lipped
kind, had it not been distorted by a burn, which had disfigured her
throat and chin as well. She had set her pinafore on fire when she was
a child, and it had blazed up under her chin, causing irreparable
injury before the flames could be extinguished. But for that accident
she would have been a singularly good-looking woman of a type which
was common in books of beauty at the beginning of this reign.
She could read and write after a fashion, and was intelligent, but
ignorant, deceitful, superstitious, and hysterical. Mrs. Caldwell
continually lectured Beth about going into the kitchen so much; but
she only lectured on principle really. Young ladies could not be
allowed to associate with servants as a rule, but an exception might
be made in the case of a good, steady, sober sort of person, such as
Mrs. Caldwell believed Harriet to be, who would keep the troublesome
child out of mischief, and do her no harm. Harriet, as it happened,
delighted in mischief, and was often the instigator; but Mrs. Caldwell
might be excused for not suspecting this, as she only saw her on her
best behaviour. When the children were safe in bed, and Miss Victoria
Bench, who was an early person, had also retired, Harriet would put on
a clean apron, and appear before Mrs. Caldwell in the character of a
respectable, vigilant domestic, more anxious about her mistress's
interests than her own; and she would then make a report in which Beth
figured as a fiend of a child who could not be trusted alone for a
moment, and Harriet herself as a conscientious custodian, but for whom
nobody knows what might have happened.
When Harriet had no particular incident to report at these secret
conferences, she would tell Mrs. Caldwell her dreams, and describe
signs and portents of coming events which she had observed during the
day; and Mrs. Caldwell would listen with interest. Superstition is a
subject on which the most class-proud will consult with the lowest and
the wickedest; it is a mighty leveller downwards. But the poor lady
had a lonely life. It was not Mrs. Caldwell's fault, but the fault of
her day, that she was not a noble woman. She belonged to early
Victorian times, when every effort was made to mould the characters of
women as the homes of the period were built, on lines of ghastly
uniformity. The education of a girl in those days was eminently
calculated to cloud her intelligence and strengthen every failing
developed in her sex by ages of suppression. Mrs. Caldwell was a
plastic person, and her mind had been successfully compressed into the
accustomed groove until her husband came and helped it to escape a
little in one or two directions--with the effect, however, of spoiling
its conventional symmetry without restoring its natural beauty. If the
mind be tight-laced long enough, it is ruined as a model, just as the
body is; and throwing off the stays which restrained it, merely
exposes its deformities without remedying them; so that there is
nothing for the old generation but to remain in stays. Mrs. Caldwell,
with all her deformities, was just as heroic as she knew how to be.
She lived for her children to the extent of denying herself the bare
necessaries of life for them; and bore poverty and obscurity of a
galling kind without a murmur. She scarcely ever saw a soul to speak
to. Uncle James Patten and the Benyon family did not associate much
with the townspeople, and were not popular in the county; so that Mrs.
Caldwell had very few visitors. Of course it was an advantage to be
known as a relation of the great people of the place, although the
great people had a bad name; but then she was evidently a poor
relation, which made it almost a virtue to neglect her in a community
of Christians who only professed to love the Lord Himself for what
they could get. "You must worship God because He can give you
everything," was what they taught their children. Even the vicar of
the parish would not call on anybody with less than five hundred a
year. He kept a school for boys, which paid him more than cent. per
cent., but did nothing for his parishioners except preach sermons an
hour long on Sundays. Self-denial and morality were his favourite
subjects. He had had three wives himself, and was getting through a
fourth as fast as one baby a year would do it.
Mrs. Caldwell, left to herself, found her evenings especially long and
dreary. It was her habit to write her letters then, and read,
particularly in French and Italian, which, she had some vague notion,
helped to improve her mind. But she often wearied for a word, and
began to hear voices herself in the howling winter winds, and to brood
upon the possible meaning of her own dreams, and to wonder why a
solitary rook flew over her house in particular, and cawed twice as it
passed. Little things naturally become of great importance in such a
life, and Harriet kept up the supply; she being the connecting link
between Mrs. Caldwell and the outer world. She knew all that was
happening in the place, and she claimed to know all that was going to
happen; and by degrees the mistress as well as the maid fell into the
way of comparing events with the forebodings which had preceded them,
and often established a satisfactory connection between the two.
Mrs. Caldwell always made coffee in the kitchen for breakfast in the
morning, and while she was so engaged, Harriet, busy making toast,
would begin--"Did you 'ear a noise last night, m'em?"
"No, Harriet--at least--was it about ten o'clock?"
"Yes, m'em, just about--a sort of scraping rattling noise, like a lot
of people walking over gravel."
"I did hear something of the kind. I wonder what it was," Mrs.
Caldwell would rejoin.
"Well, m'em, I think it means there are people coming to the 'ouse,
for I remember it 'appened the night before your brother come, m'em,
unexpected, and the lawyer."
If nobody came during the day, the token would be supposed to refer to
some future period; and so, by degrees, signs and portents took the
place of more substantial interests in Mrs. Caldwell's dreary life.
Such things were in the air, for the little seaside place was quite
out of the world at the time, and the people still had more faith in
an incantation than a doctor's dose. If an accident happened, or a
storm decimated the fishing-fleet, signs innumerable were always
remembered which had preceded the event. If you asked why nobody had
profited by the warning, people would shake their heads and tell you
it was to be; and if you asked what was the use of the warning then,
they would say to break the blow--in which idea there seemed to be
some sense.
"When they told Tom's wife 'e was drownded, she'd 'a' dropped down
dead 'erself and left the children, if she 'adn't 'a' knowed it all
along," Harriet explained to Beth. "Eh! lass, you mark my words,
warnin's comes for one thing, and warnin's comes for another, but they
always comes for good, an' you're forced to take notice an' act on 'em
or you're forced to leave 'em alone, just as is right, an' ye can't
'elp it yerself, choose 'ow. There's Mrs. Pettinger, she dreamed one
night 'er husband's boat was lost, an' next mornin' 'e was to go out
fishin', but she wouldn't let 'im. 'No, 'Enery John,' she ses, 'you'll
not go, not if ah 'as to 'old you,' ses she, an' 'e was that mad 'e
struck 'er an' knocked 'er down an' broke 'er arm, an' then, needs
must, 'e 'ad to fetch the doctor to set it, an' by the time that was
done, the boat 'ad gone wi'out 'im. The other men thought 'e was
drunk--'e often was--an' they wouldn't wait. Well, that boat never
came back."
"And did he beat his wife again?" Beth asked.
"Oh, as to that, 'ow could it make any difference?" Harriet answered.
Beth was fascinated by the folk-lore of the place, and soon surpassed
Harriet herself in the interpretation of dreams and the reading of
signs and tokens. She began to invent methods of divination for
herself too, such as, "If the boards don't creak when I walk across
the room I shall get through my lessons without trouble this morning,"
a trick which soon became a confirmed habit into which she was apt to
lapse at any time; and so persistent are these early impressions that
to the end of her days she would always rather have seen two rooks
together than one alone, rooks being the birds of omen in a land where
magpies were scarce. Mrs. Caldwell knew nothing of Beth's proficiency
in the black arts. She would never have discussed such a subject
before the children, and took it for granted that Harriet was equally
discreet; while Beth on her part, with her curious quick sense of what
was right and proper, believed her mother to be above such things.
Harriet was a person of varied interests, all of which she discussed
with Beth impartially. She had many lovers, according to her own
account, and was stern and unyielding with them all, and so particular
that she would dismiss them at any moment for nothing almost. If she
went out at night she had always much to tell the next morning, and
Beth would hurry over her lessons, watch her mother out of the way,
and slip into the kitchen or upstairs after Harriet, and question her
about what she had said, and he had said, and if she had let him kiss
her even once.
"Well, last night," Harriet said on one occasion, in a tone of apology
for her own weakness and good-nature. "Last night I couldn't 'elp it.
'E just put 'is arm round me, and, well, there! I was sorry for 'im."
"Why don't you say _he_ and _him_ and _his_, Harriet?"
"I do."
"No, you don't. You say 'e and 'im and 'is."
"Well, that's what you say."
Beth shouted the aspirates at her for answer, but in vain; with all
the will in the world to "talk fine," as she called it, Harriet could
never acquire the art, for want of an ear to hear. She could not
perceive the slightest difference between him and 'im.
Even at this age Beth had her own point of view in social matters, and
frequently disconcerted Harriet by a word or look or inflection of the
voice which expressed disapproval of her conduct. Harriet had been at
home on one occasion for a week's holiday, a charwoman having done her
work in her absence, and on her return she had much to relate of
Charles Russell, the groom at Fairholm, who continued to be an ardent
admirer of hers, but not an honourable one, because he did not realise
what a very superior person Harriet was. He thought she was no better
than other girls, and when they were sitting up one night together in
her mother's cottage, the rest of the family having gone to bed, he
made her a proposal which Harriet indignantly rejected.
"And ah _ses_ to 'im, 'Charles _Russell_,' ah ses to 'im, 'not was it
ever so,' ah ses to 'im"--she was proceeding emphatically when Beth
interrupted her.
"Did you say you sat up with him alone all night?" she asked.
"Yes, there's no 'arm, you know," Harriet answered on the defensive,
without precisely knowing why.
"Well, what did he say?" Beth rejoined without comment.
But Harriet, put out of countenance, omitted the details, and brought
the story to an abrupt conclusion.
Another of Harriet's interests in life was the _Family Herald_, which
she took regularly, and as regularly read aloud to Beth, to the best
of her ability--from the verses to "Violet," or "My own Love," on the
first page, to the "Random Readings" on the last. They laughed at the
jokes, tried to guess the riddles, were impressed with the historical
anecdotes and words of wisdom, and became so hungry over the recipes
for good dishes that they frequently fried eggs and potatoes, or a
slice stolen from the joint roasting at the fire, and feasted
surreptitiously.
Beth tried in after years to remember what the stories in the _Family
Herald_ had been about, but all she could recall was a vague incident
of a falling scaffold, of a heroine called Margaret taking refuge in
the dark behind a hoarding, and of a fascinating hero whom Harriet
called Ug Miller. Long afterwards it dawned upon Beth that his name
was Hugh.
When Mildred went to her aunt, Beth and Bernadine became of necessity
constant companions, and it was a curious kind of companionship, for
their natures were antagonistic. Like rival chieftains whose
territories adjoin, they professed no love for each other, and were
often at war, but were intimate nevertheless, and would have missed
each other, because there was no one else with whom they could so
conveniently quarrel. Harriet took the liveliest interest in their
squabbles, which, under her able direction, rapidly developed from the
usual little girls' scrimmages into regular stand-up fights.
One day Beth pulled Bernadine's hair passionately, and Bernadine
retaliated by clawing Beth's face, and then howled as a further relief
to her feelings. Mrs. Caldwell rushed to see what accident had
happened to the dear child, and Harriet came to see the sport.
"Mamma, Beth pulled my hair," Bernadine whined.
Mrs. Caldwell immediately thumped Beth, who seldom said a word in her
own defence. Harriet was neutral till her mistress had disappeared,
and then she supported Beth.
"Just you wait till after dinner," she said. "Come into the kitchen
when your ma's asleep, and fight it out. Don't you be put upon by
tell-pie-tits."
"What's the use of my going into the kitchen?" Beth rejoined;
"Bernadine doesn't fight fair. She's a horrid, low little coward."
"Am I!" Bernadine howled. "Just you wait till after dinner! I'm as
brave as you are, and as strong, though you _are_ the biggest." Which
was true. Bernadine was sallow, thin, wiry, and muscular; Beth was
soft, and round, and white. She had height, age, and weight on her
side; Bernadine had strength, agility, and cunning.
"Phew--w--w!" Beth jeered, mimicking her whine. "You'd 'tell mamma' if
you got a scratch."
"I won't, Beth, if you'll fight," Bernadine protested.
"We'll see after dinner," Harriet put in significantly, and then
returned to her work.
After the four o'clock dinner, during the dark winter months, Mrs.
Caldwell dozed for half-an-hour in her chair by the fire. This was the
children's opportunity. They were supposed to sit still and amuse
themselves quietly while their mother slept; and, until she slept,
they would sit motionless, watching her, the greater their anxiety to
get away the more absolute their silence. Mrs. Caldwell looked as if
she were being mesmerised to sleep by the two pairs of bright eyes so
resolutely and patiently fixed upon her. The moment her breathing
showed she was sound asleep, the children stole to the kitchen,
shutting the doors after them softly, and instantly set to work.
It was a gruesome sight, those two children, with teeth set and
clenched fists, battering each other in deadly earnest, but with no
noise save the fizzle of feet on the brick floor, an occasional thump
up against a piece of furniture, or the thud when they fell. They were
afraid to utter a sound lest Aunt Victoria, up in her room, should
hear them, and come down interfering; or their mother should wake, and
come out and catch them. They bruised and blackened and scratched each
other, and were seldom without what they considered the honourable
scars of these battles. Sometimes, when Bernadine was badly mauled,
she lost her temper, and threatened to tell mamma. But Beth could
always punish her, and did so, by refusing to fight next time,
although, without that recreation, life were a blank.
Harriet always cleared away obstacles to give them room, and then sat
down to eat her dinner, and watch the fight. She had the tastes, and
some of the habits, of a Roman empress, and encouraged them with the
keenest interest for a long time, but when she had finished her dinner
she usually wearied of the entertainment, and would then stop it.
"I say, yer _ma's_ comin'! I can 'ear 'er!" she would exclaim. "'Elp
us to wash up, or I shan't be done for the reading."
When Harriet wanted help, Bernadine usually slipped away, helping
anybody not being much in her line; but Beth set to work with a will.
Beth, always sociable, had persuaded her mother to let Harriet come to
the reading; and Harriet accordingly, in a clean cap and apron, with a
piece of sewing, was added to the party.
So long as she sat on a high chair, at a respectful distance, and
remembered that she was a servant, her being there rather gratified
Mrs. Caldwell than otherwise, once she had yielded to Beth's
persuasion, and saw the practical working of the experiment; it made
her feel as if she were doing something to improve the lower classes.
It was a pity she did not try to improve Beth and Bernadine by finding
some sewing for their idle hands to do. During the reading, dear
little Bernadine, "so good and affectionate always," would sit on the
floor beside her mother, whose pocket she often picked of a penny or
sixpence to vary the monotony when she did not understand the book.
Beth also sat idle, listening intently, and watching her sister. If
the reading had been harrowing or exciting, she would fight Bernadine
for the sixpence when they went to bed. There were lively scenes
during the readings. They all wept at the pathetic parts, laughed
loudly when amused, and disputed about passages and incidents at the
top of their voices. Mrs. Caldwell forgot that Harriet was a servant,
Harriet forgot herself, and the children, unaccustomed to wordy
warfare, forgot their fear of their mother, and flew at each other's
throats.
When the story was very interesting, Mrs. Caldwell read until she was
hoarse, and then went on to herself--"dipping," the children called
it. It was a point of honour with them not to dip, and they would
remonstrate with their mother loudly when they caught her at it. Their
feeling on the subject was so strong that she was ashamed to be seen
dipping at last. She used to put the book away until they were safe in
bed, and then gratify her curiosity; but they suspected her, because
once or twice they noticed that she was unaffected by an exciting
part; so one night they came down in their night-dresses and caught
her, and after that the poor lady had to be careful. She might thump
the children for coming downstairs, but she could not alter the low
opinion they had of a person who dipped.