Mr. Howard understood her: “We will manage all for you very nicely,” he said; “so, my dear Leila, do not be afraid; and this room will not look so large when it is furnished, and we have sofas, and chairs, and large tables, and little tables, and all sorts of pretty things in it; and it certainly will not be too large if we succeed in having all the kind friends around us at Christmas whom I hope we shall have. Your aunt, uncle, and cousins, Mr. and Mrs. Herbert, and Maria, and perhaps the Selbys, with Louisa, who knows?”
Leila, from the moment of entering the house, had been working herself up, and struggling against comfort; but comfort, in the shape of such a Christmas party as this, who could resist? She quickly gave herself up to all its happy influences, and when her papa led her into the adjoining breakfast-room, which was small, and leading into a spacious conservatory, she was in ecstasies.
“My birds, my birds,” she exclaimed, “my turtle-doves, my parrots, how they will enjoy it. They will think this more beautiful than their green parlour.”
All was sunshine to her again; it was a moment of exquisite happiness, such happiness as is only to be felt in very early life, before the sad memories of the past, “and the shadows of coming evils, have dimmed its brightness.”
The young people returned home in high spirits; Leila forgetting every care in the remembrance of the beautiful conservatory, and in the anticipation of the enjoyment of her birds in taking possession of it; and Matilda far too much excited to allow any of them to rest, even for a moment.
“Come,” she said, “we will act a play now;” and flying into the passage, she seized her papa’s hat, placed it on one side on her head, tied over her dress a green linen pinafore of Alfred’s to imitate a blouse, and returning into the room, “Now,” she said, “I will be Bill; you, Cousin Leila, are to be talking very gravely with Selina, consulting her how you are to order the dinner at Woodlands when I come up to you; and you, Alfred, are to be the pit, and stamp with your feet, and call out very loud.”
“But why,” Leila exclaimed, “should poor Alfred be in the pit? I don’t like that, it puts me in mind of such melancholy things,—Joseph and his wicked brothers, you know,—and he called out and they would not listen; and the cruel thing we did ourselves; we put the poor goats into the pit; but papa said that was a necessary evil.”
Matilda laughed: “You are so odd,” she said; “it is not that sort of a pit at all. I never saw it myself, but Lydia told me about it,—it is a place where all the gentlemen sit in rows to see the play, and they stamp very loud with their feet, and call out encore; encore means—say it again; don’t forget that, Alfred.”
Leila was quite relieved and satisfied, and the play proceeded; and so admirably did Matilda imitate Bill’s voice and manner, and so complete was the picture when she drew off the hat, and stood with a face of mute dismay before them, that Selina and Leila were convulsed with laughter; as to little Alfred, he stamped so loud, and called encore so often, that even Matilda, with all her love of amusement, was fairly exhausted.
“Now,” she said, “we have had enough of this; let us play at Nurse’s play now, let us play at being rational beings, and sit down quietly to our work; now there’s a proposal for you, Selina, what do you say to that? I am going to turn over an entirely new leaf, and I will begin with putting back this hat into its right place, and folding up this crumpled pinafore so very nicely that Nurse will say it is fresh out of the fold. Now it is all done, and I declare you have got out your work already; well, here is mine, and we can sit down comfortably and converse about our future lives.”