Before Susan could answer, Mrs Winslow came in. She was a fair lady with a very straight nose, and she welcomed them kindly, and asked after Sophia Jane.
“My little people,” she continued, scarcely waiting, Susan noticed, for Margaretta’s answer, “are just returning from their walk. Air and light are as necessary to the young as to flowers, are they not? How can we expect their minds to expand unless the body is healthy?”
“No, indeed,” said Margaretta.
Mrs Winslow then proposed that they should go and take off their hats, which being done she led the way down-stairs into the dining-room, where the “little people” were already assembled with their governess for their early dinner. During this Susan had plenty of time for observation, and she soon decided that she should have to tell Sophia Jane that they were not nicer in-doors than out. They were wonderfully alike: all had little straight noses, fair complexions, and pale blue eyes, and when they spoke they said all their words very distinctly, and never cut any of them short. They were very polite to Susan.
“I encourage conversation with my children during meal-time, on principle,” said Mrs Winslow. “How can you expect them to acquire right habits of speaking if silence is imposed?”
“No, indeed,” said Margaretta again.
“The force of habit,” continued Mrs Winslow, putting down her knife and fork, and looking from Margaretta to Miss Pink, the governess, “has never, it seems to me, been sufficiently considered in education. It in a giant power. It rests with us to turn it this way or that, to give it a right or a wrong direction, to use it for good or for evil. I say to my children, for instance, ‘always think before you act, in the smallest as well as the greatest things.’ By degrees I thus form in them habits of steadiness, thoughtfulness, calmness, which will not desert them when called upon to act in moments of danger and difficulty. ‘Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it’—nay more, he cannot depart from it.”
It was quite by chance as Mrs Winslow said these last words that her eyes rested on Susan, who had been staring at her all the while she had been speaking, and who now felt that an answer of some kind was expected. She had none to give, however, for she had not been listening at all to what had been said, her mind being filled with wonder and awe at Mrs Winslow, who talked as though she were reading aloud. She only blushed, therefore, and immediately became aware that three pairs of pale blue eyes were fastened upon her from the other side of the table. The little Winslows never blushed, Margaretta had said, and of course they thought her very silly. She longed for the meal to be over, and the visit also. Why, she wondered, were Margaretta and Nanna so fond of coming here? Margaretta did not look as if she were enjoying herself much. She was sitting in a stiff position, with her head a little on one side, watching every glance of Mrs Winslow’s, so that she might say, “yes, indeed,” or “quite so,” or “exactly,” in the right place. Her voice did not sound like the voice she had at Aunt Hannah’s, but smaller, and she said her words mincingly. Susan felt sure she was not enjoying herself. Why did she come?
Presently the conversation became more interesting, and Susan now listened to it with some anxiety, for Mrs Winslow was making arrangements for the afternoon, and she hoped to hear of an early return to Belmont Cottage. She did not want to see any more of the little Winslows, and quite longed to get back to Sophia Jane and tell her all about them. It was disappointing, therefore, to hear it decided that Margaretta should drive out with Mrs Winslow, who would leave her at Aunt Hannah’s, and that Susan should walk back later with Miss Pink and the little people. Margaretta was almost to be envied. Perhaps it was because she liked driving in a carriage with a pair of swift horses that she liked coming here. And yet Mrs Winslow’s presence would spoil anything, Susan thought. If she went on talking like that, and Margaretta had to sit up and listen to her and make little remarks, the drive would not be worth having; it could not be much worse to walk home with the little Winslows.
After dinner the little girls took their visitor into the schoolroom, where they were to amuse themselves until it was time to start for their walk. It was a large bright room like all the others in the house; but this cheerfulness did not seem to have affected the Winslows themselves. They were quiet children, always good and obedient, but rather dull. They did not seem to understand games, and seldom laughed. How very different they were to Sophia Jane! Certainly she was not nearly so well behaved, but then she was a far more amusing companion. The afternoon seemed endless.