'It does seem a chance of making an impression, if you would try,' said Wilmet. 'Sibby says she was crying half the night, (you know she has to sleep in the nursery,) and you might get at her now. I don't know what to do with her.'
He looked up, astonished at this avowal, from her who had hitherto queened it so easily.
'Look at this letter,' she proceeded. 'I have been keeping it till you had time to think about it.'
He sighed, feeling, like many another head of the house, that time was swept away from home responsibilities, and indeed, that great girls needed a more experienced guide. The letter was the school character, speaking most highly of Robina, who had quite reconquered esteem. If she had not so much of any one talent as some of the others, she had excellent capacity, and studied in a business-like way, as one learning a profession; so that she had won her promotion into the first ranks, among elder girls.
But Angela was one of those who will not or cannot do anything tolerably except what they like; and she had only two tastes—for music and fun—except perhaps for churches. She was a puzzle to every one, by her eagerness for devout observances, and the very little good they seemed to do her, even by outrageous irreverence when the spirit of mischief was roused. Teachers detested her, but she was the idol of half the school. All unclaimed misdeeds were laid to her share; and in recklessness or generosity, she never troubled herself to disavow them, even when not her own. She was popularly believed to learn nothing but music, and even in that to use talent to save pains; and she had a lead-like affinity to the bottom of her class, yet in the final examination she had surpassed far more diligent girls.
Felix read, and puzzled himself, and did not refuse obedience when Wilmet insisted that he should 'talk to Angela;' though he was only too well aware that reproof was that paternal duty to which he was least adequate. First, however, he had time to despatch Robina and Clement on their mission to his partner, whose winter rheumatics had set in—to receive young Lamb, laden with a pile of letters and papers, and lastly, to be cooed over and stroked by Theodore, who curled himself up at his feet in that perfect serenity that his presence always infused.
At last Angela came in on tip-toe, looking immensely tall and lank, with Clement's propensity for longitudinal growth, and the same infantine smallness of feature, and much less brilliant colouring than the others; but while his hair was as closely cropped as if he were just out of a cell, hers was as long and as unmanageable as herself; and she had moreover the beautiful large-pupilled, darkly-lashed, mischievous blue eyes that belonged to Edgar, only now their lids were swollen, and all the colour in her face centred in two great red patches beneath them—a scarlet garibaldi over a very old brown skirt, half-way up a long pair of grey legs, seeming to make the whole object more deplorable.
'You poor Angel!' exclaimed Felix, his heart more than ever melted; 'you look as if you had been crying all night. Why don't you come and give me a kiss?'
'I'll—I'll do anything you please, Felix, but I had rather not.'
'But I do please! I want you,' said he, holding out his hand; so that she was forced to come, touch his cheek with her lips, and submit to a far heartier kiss. 'You are as cold as ice,' he added, trying to capture the blue, chilly, long, sausage-like fingers, and warm them in his grasp.