Mrs. Merivale shrinkingly turns her head away from her anxious young daughter's appealing gaze, and closing her eyes says, "My dear Doris, you might have a little more consideration for my nerves, I think. Here I am, completely prostrated, and you rush into the room like an earthquake, thinking of nothing but yourself. Do pray leave me alone, and, oh yes! you can have both the carriages if you like, only leave me in peace; and Honor, give me the Cologne, and then find Lane and send her to me. And do, all of you, try to walk a little less like elephants than you generally do. Oh! pray shut the door quietly."
The girls are quenched, and leave the room much more quietly than they entered it.
"I hope to goodness I shall never have any nerves," says Doris pouting, as she links her arm in Honor's. "Mother is fussy and cross this morning. I believe she would like us all to sit perfectly mute through the livelong day whenever she has one of her headaches. Now don't look shocked, Honor, my girl! You know in your own heart of hearts you think so too, only you are too good to say it, even to yourself. I often wonder what mother would do if father were a poor man, and she had to make her own dresses, and do her own hair, and we had the washing done at home. Ah! that would just suit mother, wouldn't it? Fancy how delicious—a perpetual smell of washing!"
"Hush, dear!" says Honor gently, "you must not talk like that about mother; she is delicate, of course, and you know what Miss Denison says about the back being fitted to the burden."
"O, that's all very well! but you know there are burdens clapped on people's backs when they least expect it sometimes, at least so I've read in books, so I don't altogether believe in that statement."
In half an hour's time the two girls, radiant and comfortable, with rugs, foot-warmers, and muffs, are being whisked through the now slushy streets by a pair of fresh young horses. A very delightful morning of shopping follows, until Honor, looking at her watch, is startled to find that they have only just time to get to the station to meet the train by which their governess is travelling.
"Be quick, dear," she says to Doris, who is divided between the conflicting beauties of two delicate chintzes, one of which is destined to adorn the person of "Mary," of the perverse character, "or we shall not be there before the train comes in, and then poor Miss Denny will think there's no one there to meet her."
Honor's fears of being late are not without some foundation, they find, for as they step on to the platform the train is already gliding into the station. A hand is seen waving a recognition from one of the carriage windows, and as Doris and Honor rush up to the door, a tall pleasant-looking woman steps down, and is quickly being nearly stifled and smothered in the embraces of her impetuous pupils.
"And now, girls," straightening her bonnet and then giving a hand to each, "how are all at home?"
"O, all right!" replies Doris, promptly dismissing the subject; "and we have no end to talk to you about. The theatricals will be a tre-men-dous success. Honor and I have been shopping this morning; that's how it is we have got the carriage. Mother had one of her headaches, you know, so she couldn't come and meet you herself; and oh, isn't it splendid?—Colonel Danvers is really going to be the old woman!"