“To help them out of their misery,” said Susan. “In the place where I lived before I came here, I saw my mistress, and the young ladies besides, take delight in visiting the poor. They thought that it no more demeaned them to enter a cottage than to enter a church; the rich and the poor meet together in both.”
“Miss Emmie is too good to be proud,” observed John; “but, take my word for it, she’ll never muster up courage to go within ten yards of a cottage. Kind things she’ll say, ay, and do; for she has the kindest heart in the world. But she’ll send you, Susan, with her baskets of groceries and bundles of cast-off clothes; she’ll not hunt up cases herself. Miss would shrink from bad smells; she’d faint at the sight of a sore. She’ll not dirty her fine muslin dresses, or run the risk of catching fevers, or may be the plague, by visiting the poor.”
“Time will show,” observed Susan. But from her knowledge of the disposition of her young lady, the faithful attendant was not without her misgivings upon the subject.
CHAPTER IV.
PREPARING TO START.
The question of a move was finally settled; Myst Court was to be the future residence of its new owner, who lost no time in making arrangements for effecting in it such repairs as were absolutely necessary to make it a tolerably comfortable dwelling. More than this Mr. Trevor did not at present attempt; his expenses, he knew, would be heavy. His newly-inherited property would yield no immediate supply; improvements must be gradually made. The life of a landed proprietor was one altogether new to Mr. Trevor, who had passed thirty years of his life in a government office, never being more than a few weeks at a time absent from London. Being a sensible man, he was aware that experience on a hitherto untried path is often dearly bought. He expected to make some mistakes, but resolved to act with such prudence that even mistakes should not involve him in serious difficulties.
The six weeks which elapsed before the departure of the family from Summer Villa were full of business and arrangements. Mr. Trevor, having to wind up his office-work, and settle the affairs of his late aunt, was, except in the evenings, very little at home. Emmie, who acted as her father’s housekeeper, found a hundred small matters to arrange before making a move which must bring so complete a change. Her brothers attended a private tutor in London, and usually went and returned by the same trains as their father; so that, but for the company of her uncle, Emmie would have spent much of her time alone. But the captain was a cheerful companion and a most efficient helper to his young niece. He made up her accounts, he paid her bills, he helped her to decide which articles of furniture must be taken to the new home, which left to be sold or given away. The slow-paced John was astonished at the energy with which the naval officer would mount a ladder, and with his own hands take down family pictures and swathe them in the matting which was to secure their safe transit to Wiltshire.
“Sure the captain does the work of three. One would think he’d been ’prenticed to a carpenter by the way he handles the tools; and he runs up a ladder like a cat,” observed John to another member of the household.