TRIALS.
It was late when Mrs. Dainty came home. Her husband had already
arrived, and was waiting for his dinner. George and Madeline, pleased
as children usually are when the visiting mother returns from her
recreations, crowded around her with their questions and complaints,
and annoyed and hindered her to a degree that broke down her small
stock of patience.
“Miss Harper!” she called, in a fretful voice, going to her
chamber-door.
The governess heard, and answered from her room, leaving it at the same
time, and coming down toward the chamber of Mrs. Dainty.
“Call those children away!” said the mother, sharply. “And see here!
When I come home next time, don’t let them beset me like so many hungry
wolves. I’ve hired you to take the care of them, and I want the care
taken. That’s your business.”
Mrs. Dainty was annoyed and angry; and she looked her real character
for the time. She was a superior, commanding an inferior, with a
complete consciousness of the gulf that stretched between them. Her
manner, even more than her words, was offensive to the young governess,
whose native independence and self-respect impelled her at once to
resign her position and leave the house.
“George; Madeline.” She spoke quietly,—almost indifferently.
“Why don’t you call them as if you had some life in you?” exclaimed
Mrs. Dainty, losing all patience.
Miss Harper turned away without a word, and went up-stairs, intending
to put on her bonnet and leave the house. Near her room-door she met
Uncle John, who had overheard the offensive language of his niece. He
saw that the young girl’s face wore an indignant flush, and that both
lips and eyes indicated a settled purpose.
“What are you going to do?” he asked, letting her see by look and tone
that he understood her feelings.
“I am going away from here,” she replied, firmly.
“You must not do it,” said Uncle John.
“Self-respect will not permit me to remain,” answered Florence.
“Feeling must yield to duty, my dear young lady,” said Uncle John,
with an earnestness that showed how much he was interested.
“My duty is not here,” was the slowly-spoken answer.
“Our duty is where we can do the most good. I know something of
your morning’s trials and wise discipline. You have done nobly,
Florence,—nobly. There is good in these children, and you must bring it
forth to the light.”
“I am but human,” said Florence, with a quivering lip.
“You are gold in the crucible,” replied Uncle John. “The fire may be
very hot, my dear young friend; but it will leave no mark upon your
real character. It is not every spirit that has a quality pure enough
to meet life’s higher ordeals. No, no: shrink not from the trials in
your way. The lions are chained, and can only growl and shake at you
their terrible manes. Go back for the children. For their sakes, draw
them to yourself with the singular power you possess. Be to them all
their mother fails to be. And always regard me as your friend and
advocate.”
Uncle John left her and went back to his own room. A few moments
Florence stood irresolute. Then, stepping to the head of the stairs,
she called to George, who was pounding at his mother’s door. Mrs.
Dainty had re-entered her chamber and locked it against the children.
The child did not heed her in the least. Going down to him, and taking
his hand, which the stubborn little fellow tried to prevent her from
doing, she said, in a voice that was very kind, and in a tone full of
interest,—
“George, dear, did I ever show you my book of pictures?”
Instantly the firm, resisting hand lay passively in hers; though he
neither looked up nor answered.
“It is full of the sweetest pictures you ever saw,—birds, and sheep,
and horses; children playing in the woods; and ducks and geese swimming
in the water.”
“Won’t you show them to me?” said the child, turning to his young
teacher, and half forgetting, already, in the pleasing images she had
created in his thoughts, his angry disappointment in being thrust from
his mother’s room.
“Yes; and you shall look at them just as long as you please,” answered
Florence.
Madeline had thrown herself upon the passage-floor in a stubborn
fit. Her mother’s discipline in the case, if the child had remained
there until she came from her chamber, would have been to jerk her
up passionately, and, while passion remained in the rapidly-acquired
ascendant, inflict upon her from two to half a dozen blows with her
hand. Wild, angry screams would have followed; and then the repentant
mother would have soothed her child with promised favors.
“Madeline must see them also,” said Miss Harper, pausing and stooping
over the unhappy little girl. “Don’t you want to see my picture
scrap-book?” She spoke very cheerfully.
“Oh, yes, Madeline! Do come! Miss Harper is going to show us a book
full of such beautiful pictures.”
The voice of George went home. Madeline arose to her feet. Taking,
each, a hand of their governess, the two children went with light feet
up to her room, and in her book of pictures soon lost all marks of
their recent unhappy disturbance.
Mrs. Dainty appeared at the dinner-table in a bad humor, and commenced
scolding about the new governess.
“She’ll have to do better than this, before I am suited with her,” she
said, captiously.
“What’s the matter now?” asked Mr. Dainty, in a manner that exhibited
some annoyance.
“Matter!” replied his wife. “I guess you’d think it was some matter,
if, when you came in late, tired and hungry, the whole body of children
were to hover around you with their thousand wants and complaints.
It’s Miss Harper’s business to keep them out of the way. She’s paid for
doing it. I had to call her down from her room, and when I spoke to
her sharply she turned herself from me with an air of offended dignity
that was perfectly ridiculous. The upstart! I shall have it out with
her this afternoon. No domestic shall treat me with even a shadow of
disrespect. I scarcely think she comprehends her true position in the
family; but I will enlighten her fully.”
The children listened with wide open ears, from Agnes down to George.
Mr. Dainty made no response, and Uncle John merely remarked, “I hope
you will think twice before you act once in this business of defining
Miss Harper’s position and making yourself clearly understood. My
advice is, to be very sure that you understand yourself first.”
There was nothing to offend in the manner of Uncle John. He spoke in
sober earnest.
“Mother,” said Agnes, breaking in through the pause that followed Uncle
John’s remark, “did you say that I should take my French lesson first?”
“No: who said that I did?” Mrs. Dainty answered, without a moment’s
reflection.
“Why, Miss Harper said so, and made me give my French recitation before
I was ready for it.”
“I said no such thing.” Mrs. Dainty spoke with some indignation, born
of a vague notion, from what Agnes had said, that the young governess
was assuming arbitrary rule over the children, and falsely quoting her
as authority. “I said no such thing! What does she mean by it?”
“Well, she said you did, and made me say a lesson before I had half
learned it. That’s not the way to do!”
“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Mrs. Dainty. “Here comes the trouble I feared!
Give these vulgar people a position a little in advance of what they
have been used to, and forthwith they take on airs. I saw it in the
girl at the first interview. I knew then that she wouldn’t suit, and if
my judgment hadn’t been overruled she never would have come into the
house.”
Mrs. Dainty glanced toward meddlesome Uncle John as she said this. But
Uncle John did not seem to be in the least disturbed.
“Agnes,” said he, looking across the table at the injured and
complaining girl, “what lesson did you propose to recite in place of
your French?”
Agnes flushed a little as she answered,—
“My music-lesson.”
“Ah! That was the substitute. What about it?” And Uncle John turned his
quiet eyes upon the countenance of his niece. “If I am not mistaken, I
heard you tell Miss Harper that you thought the hour from twelve to one
the best for music.”
“Maybe I did,” answered Mrs. Dainty, pettishly; “but I didn’t fix it
as a law more binding than the statutes of the Medes and Persians.
Something was left to the girl’s own discretion.”
“And I think it will be found on examination,” said Uncle John, “that
she used the discretion wisely.”
“Oh, but she said”—Agnes had taken her cue from her mother—“that the
hours for study had positively been fixed by mother, and that she had
no authority to vary them in the least.”
“Preposterous!” ejaculated Mrs. Dainty.
“What’s the news to-day?” said Uncle John, turning to Mr. Dainty. “Any
thing of importance stirring in the city?”
He wished to change a subject the discussion of which could do nothing
but harm among the children.
The answer of Mr. Dainty led the conversation into an entirely new
channel. Once or twice, during the dinner-hour, Mrs. Dainty tried to
renew her complaints against the governess; but Uncle John managed to
throw her off, and so the matter was dropped for the time.