Mr. Hogarth's Will

by Catherine Helen Spence

"Emily only practises an hour and Harriett half an hour a day now, and though their master wished them to practise twice as long, they seem to get on much better since you said they should not be so long at the piano."

"Because it is practising, not amusing themselves or dawdling, and because it is an hour and half an hour, neither more nor less, and not an uncertain time, which is left to the performer's pleasure. To make any progress with music after you are grown up, you must give three or four hours a day to its acquirement, and that you would find it difficult—almost impossible—to keep up. But, as I said before, music is a thing I am so ignorant of that I can give you no assistance and no advice on the subject."

"I would like your assistance," said Mrs. Phillips, "for the children do get on with you, and they say that you make their lessons an amusement."

"Should you not like to be with us while we are at study, and see if you think you could derive any benefit from my method? Come into the schoolroom to-morrow with us?"

Mrs. Phillips agreed to this, and thought the lessons were very pleasant. Sometimes Jane made the little girls repeat their lessons to their mamma, still exercising the supervision which made them feel they must be as careful as heretofore. The oral instruction which accompanied the lessons studied from the book, seemed to Mrs. Phillips as well as to the children, the most interesting part of it, and as the language was simplified for the comprehension of the little pupils, it was not at all too abstract for their mother. She declared herself delighted with the morning at school, and tried to persuade herself that she was only going there to see how her governess did her duty by her children. In this way, by sitting two hours every forenoon with Miss Melville, she contrived to pick up something, and though both her husband and Jane would have been glad if the studies had been prosecuted a little further, they were very much pleased with so much improvement.

The idea of learning music still haunted Mrs. Phillips, and she obtained her husband's consent to her having lessons from Emily's master; but her progress was so slow that she tired of it in a month, and blamed her teacher for his stupid dry way of setting her to work. If Miss Melville had only understood music, she knew she would have got on ever so much better, for she had such a knack of teaching people. On the whole, Jane was satisfied with her situation, and with the manner in which she filled it, and when Mr. Phillips paid her her first quarter's salary, he expressed himself in the highest degree satisfied with everything she had done. If she could only have felt that Elsie was well and happy, she would have been perfectly happy herself, but the letters from Edinburgh were not at all cheerful. Elsie's account of herself, and Francis's accounts of her, were unsatisfactory, and even Peggy had written a few lines recently to say that she was uneasy about her, and did not think the situation at Mrs. Dunn's agreed with Miss Elsie at all.

It was still months before she could hope to go to Edinburgh to see her sister; but she wrote, urging her to give up her employment, and to take as much open-air exercise as possible, and also to take medical advice on the subject; but Elsie did not agree to this. The family plans were all laid for a visit to Derbyshire, and Mr. Brandon, who seemed always to be on the move, when his old neighbours were leaving London, seeing Jane's distress about her sister, ventured on a good-natured suggestion in her behalf.

"I think you might go up now and see Peggy before you go to Derbyshire; you know she is anxious to see Emily and the other children. I could go with you. I wish so much to see the meeting between them."

"We cannot go to Scotland so early in the season. Autumn is the time when it is pleasant to travel in the north."

"But then I cannot be a witness to Peggy's delight, for if you delay so long I will have to be off to Melbourne before that time. I thought if you went now you might leave Miss Melville with her sister while you pay your visit. You do not mean to take her there, and the servants here will, I suppose, be put on board wages during your absence, so that she need not remain in London."