When I entered, little Arthur and Alice were the only occupants of the drawing-room, playing, in a corner of it, at “Doctor and Patient.” What imitators children are!—“Well, mum, what is the matter with you, to-day?”—“Oh,” says little, lisping Alice, coughing affectedly, “I have the guitar! (catarrh!)” After shyly exchanging a few words with me, they ran off, just as their mother entered.
She is an excellent little woman; there was no display of grief, but deep affliction beneath the surface; and now and then a tear strayed down her cheek, while yet she thankfully spoke of “many alleviations—many mercies.” “But,” as she truly said—“her loss was irreparable.”
All the while, there was Mr. Prout’s good-tempered countenance looking down on us from the picture-frame, as if he approved of all she said. It almost startled me when I first went in; and I sedulously avoided looking at it, or even towards it, when his widow was in the room; yet she evidently had gazed on it so continually, that she could now do so without shrinking; and I often observed her eyes turning in that direction, as if the portrait afforded her a sad consolation.
She told me, it was quite arranged that Emily should spend the holidays with the Pevenseys; and asked me somewhat anxiously, whether I thought there could be any hopes of its leading to a permanent engagement. As I was not authorized to communicate what Mrs. Pevensey had mentioned in confidence, I only spoke hopefully, and said, I could see no reason why it should not.
“Emily is rather afraid of undertaking Miss Pevensey,” said Mrs. Prout. “She thinks she looks too womanly, and probably knows already more than she does herself. But I, who know what is in Emily, have no fears on that score; only, to be sure, she does look—and is—very young.”
“I don’t think looks much signify,” said I, “if there be self-possession, and a temperate manner.”
“And Emily has both,” said Mrs. Prout.
While she was speaking, little Arthur came in, and laid a bunch of radishes, wet with recent washing, and placed in a toy basket, in her lap. I had heard a boy calling radishes along the row. Mrs. Prout smiled, kissed him, and said, “Good boy; we will have them by and by for tea;” and he ran off with them, quite elated.
“He has spent the last half-penny of his allowance on them, I know,” said she, with a motherly smile; “and all for me. That is the way with the generous little fellow—he continually spends his pocket-money on me; whether on a few violets, or radishes, or perhaps a little measure of shrimps—something he trusts in my liking, because he likes it himself.”