Margaret had become subject to languor and palpitations, and the head of the household had fallen entirely upon Flora, who, on the other hand, was a person of multifarious occupations, and always had a great number of letters to write, or songs to copy and practise, which, together with her frequent visits to Mrs. Hoxton, made her glad to devolve, as much as she could, upon her younger sister; and, “Oh, Ethel, you will not mind just doing this for me,” was said often enough to be a tax upon her time.
Moreover, Ethel perceived that Aubrey’s lessons were in an unsatisfactory state. Margaret could not always attend to them, and suffered from them when she did; and he was bandied about between his sisters and Miss Bracy in a manner that made him neither attentive nor obedient.
On her own principle, that to embrace a task heartily renders it no longer irksome, she called on herself to sacrifice her studies and her regularity, as far as was needful, to make her available for home requirements. She made herself responsible for Aubrey, and, after a few battles with his desultory habits, made him a very promising pupil, inspiring so much of herself into him, that he was, if anything, overfull of her classical tastes. In fact, he had such an appetite for books, and dealt so much in precocious wisdom, that his father was heard to say, “Six years old! It is a comfort that he will soon forget the whole.”
Gertrude was also Ethel’s pupil, but learning was not at all in her line; and the sight of “Cobwebs to catch Flies,” or of the venerated “Little Charles,” were the most serious clouds, that made the Daisy pucker up her face, and infuse a whine into her voice.
However, to-day, as usual, she was half dragged, half coaxed, through her day’s portion of the discipline of life, and then sent up for her sleep, while Aubrey’s two hours were spent in more agreeable work, such as Margaret could not but enjoy hearing—so spirited was Ethel’s mode of teaching—so eager was her scholar.
His play afterwards consisted in fighting o’er again the siege of Troy on the floor, with wooden bricks, shells, and the survivors of a Noah’s ark, while Ethel read to Margaret until Gertrude’s descent from the nursery, when the only means of preventing a dire confusion in Aubrey’s camp was for her elder sisters to become her playfellows, and so spare Aubrey’s temper. Ethel good-humouredly gave her own time, till their little tyrant trotted out to make Norman carry her round the garden on his back.
So sped the morning till Flora came home, full of the intended bazaar, and Ethel would fain have taken refuge in puzzling out her Spanish, had she not remembered her recent promise to be gracious.
The matter had been much as she had described it. Flora had a way of hinting at anything she thought creditable, and thus the Stoneborough public had become aware of the exertions of the May family on behalf of Cocksmoor.
The plan of a fancy fair was started. Mrs. Hoxton became more interested than was her wont, and Flora was enchanted at the opening it gave for promoting the welfare of the forlorn district. She held a position which made her hope to direct the whole. As she had once declared, with truth, it only had depended on themselves, whether she and her sisters should sink to the level of the Andersons and their set, or belong to the county society; and her tact had resulted in her being decidedly—as the little dressmaker’s apprentice amused Ethel by saying—“One of our most distinguished patronesses”—a name that had stuck by her ever since.
Margaret looked on passively, inclined to admire Flora in everything, yet now and then puzzled; and her father, in his simple-hearted way, felt only gratitude and exultation in the kindness that his daughter met with. As to the bazaar, if it had been started in his own family, he might have weighed the objections, but, as it was not his daughter’s own concern, he did not trouble himself about it, only regarding it as one of the many vagaries of the ladies of Stoneborough.