“The mutiny was an infectious frenzy; so that you establish nothing against that cast of countenance.”
Never, indeed, was there more occasion for perseverance in Rachel’s championship. Hitherto Mrs. Kelland had been nailed to her pillow by the exigencies of Lady Keith’s outfit, and she and her minions had toiled unremittingly, without a thought beyond their bobbins, but as soon as the postponed orders were in train, and the cash for the wedding veil and flounces had been transmitted, the good woman treated herself and her daughters to a holiday at St. Norbert’s, without intimating her intention to her patronesses; and the consequence was a formal complaint of her ungrateful and violent language to Mrs. Rawlins on being refused admission to the asylum without authority from Mr. Mauleverer or Miss Curtis.
Rachel, much displeased, went down charged with reproof and representation, but failed to produce the desired effect upon the aunt.
“It was not right,” Mrs. Kelland reiterated, “that the poor lone orphan should not see her that was as good as a mother, when she had no one else to look to. They that kept her from her didn’t do it for no good end.”
“But, Mrs. Kelland, rules are rules.”
“Don’t tell me of no rules, Miss Rachel, as would cut a poor child off from her friends as her mother gave her to on her death-bed. ‘Sally,’ says she, ‘I know you will do a mother’s part by that poor little maid;’ and so I did till I was over persuaded to let her go to that there place.”
“Indeed you have nothing to regret there, Mrs. Kelland; you know, that with the kindest intentions, you could not make the child happy.”
“And why was that, ma’am, but because her mother was a poor creature from town, that had never broke her to her work. I never had the trouble with a girl of my own I had with her. ‘It’s all for your good, Lovedy,’ I says to her, and poor child, maybe she wishes herself back again.”
“I assure you, I always find the children well and happy, and it is very unfair on the matron to be angry with her for being bound by rules, to which she must submit, or she would transgress the regulations under which we have laid her! It is not her choice to exclude you, but her duty.”
“Please, ma’am, was it her duty to be coming out of the house in a ‘genta coloured silk dress, and a drab bonnet with a pink feather in it?” said Mrs. Kelland, with a certain, air of simplicity, that provoked Rachel to answer sharply—