“Oh, don’t, Betty!” cried Susan. “Stop while you can. You won’t like going up with red eyes. There, I’ll pay your fine; and there’s another for my speaking.”
“No, Susie; that was not foolish speaking, but kind words,” said Miss Fosbrook; “but no more now; go on, Annie.”
But Annie, who was reading a little history of St. Paul, would call Cilicia, Cicilia, and when told to spell it she began to cry too decidedly for Susan’s good-nature to check her tears. And not only did Elizabeth’s copy look as if she had written it with claws instead of fingers, but she was grieving over her spotted cotton instead of really seeking for places in her map. Thus the Moselle obstinately hid itself; and she absolutely shed tears because Miss Fosbrook declared that Frankfort was on the Maine. For the first time she had her grammar turned back upon her hands. How many mistakes Annie made would be really past telling; for these two little girls had their whole minds quite upset by the thought of a day’s pleasure; and as they never tried to restrain themselves, and to “be sober, be vigilant,” they gave way before all the little trials in their paths—were first careless, and then fractious. Perhaps when they were older they would find out that this uplifted sense of excited expectation is the very warning to be heedful.
If Miss Fosbrook had been a strict governess, she would have told them they did not deserve to go at all; or at any rate, that Bessie must repeat her grammar better, and re-write her copy, and that Annie’s unlucky addition sum must be made to prove; but she had seen her little sisters nearly as bad in prospect of a pantomime, so she was merciful, and sent them in good time to brush their hair, put on their spotted cottons, and wash off as much as possible of the red mottling left by those foolish tears.
Their spirits rose again as fast as they had sunk; and it was a lively walk through the park to the great house, with a good deal of skipping and jumping at first, and then, near the door, a little awe and gravity.
They were taken through a side-door of the hall to the school-room, where Ida and her governess received them. It was the first time that Christabel had seen her out of her beplumed hat, and she thought her a pleasant, bright-looking little girl, not at all set up or conceited. Her mauve muslin, flounced though it was up to her waist, showed that it had been wise to withstand Bessie’s desire for the white muslins; but Miss Fosbrook had enough to do on her own account with the endeavour to understand the German governess’s foreign accent, without attending to the children more than was necessary.
It was not a very remarkable day, and the pleasures of it seemed hardly enough to justify the little girls’ great excitement. There was first the dinner at the luncheon of the parents, where the children sat up rather formal and subdued, and not quite certain what all the dishes might contain, a little afraid of getting what they could not eat, though desirous of making experiments in this land of wonders. None of them had forgotten, and they thought no one else had, how Bessie had once come to disgrace by bursting out crying over the impossibility of finishing some terrible rice-bordered greenish yellow stuff that burnt her mouth beyond bearing, and which Ida called curry, and said people in the East Indies liked. However, that was when Bessie had been a very little girl; and she still continued adventurous, saying, “Yes, if you please,” to cutlets set round in a wreath, with all their bones sticking up, and covered with a reddish incrustation that Susan and Annie thought so unnatural, that they preferred the boiled chicken that at least they could understand, though it had funny-hooking accompaniments in the sauce. And Hal’s report of some savoury jelly which he had once encountered would have deterred them from the pink transparency in the shape of a shell, if they had not seen Bessie getting on very well with it, Miss Fosbrook happily perceiving and cutting short Annie’s intended inquiry whether it were nice. To her great relief, this was the only want of manners betrayed by her little savages, and she was able to keep her attention tolerably free from them, so as to look at the pictures on the walls, observe the two boys, Hal’s friends, and talk to Mrs. Greville, who made conversation with her very pleasantly.
She was much grieved to perceive, from what that lady said, that Mrs. Merrifield was thought to be much more ill, and in a far more alarming state, than she had at all understood. The girls were too young to enter into the tone of sad sympathy with which Mrs. Greville spoke, and the manner in which a doubt was expressed whether the Captain would be able to sail with Admiral Penrose if he should have the offer; and as soon as she saw that they and their governess were in ignorance, she turned it off; but she had said enough to fill Christabel with anxiety and desire to know more; and as soon as the dinner was over, and the little girls had run off together to visit Ida’s beautiful cockatoo in the conservatory, she turned to Fräulein Munsterthal, and begged to hear whether she knew more than had been said.
Fräulein Munsterthal did not quite know that such a person as Mrs. Merrifield was in existence; but she was very amiable and warm-hearted, and said how sad it was to think of the trouble that hung over “these so careless children,” and was doubly kind to the girls when they came back from their conversation with pretty “Cocky,” who set up his lemon-coloured crest, coughed, sneezed, and said “Cocky want a biscuit!” to admiration, till the boys were seen approaching; when Ida, knowing that some torment would follow, took herself and her visitors back to the protection of the governesses in time to prevent the cockatoo from being made to fly at the girls, and powder them with the white dust under his feathers.
The afternoon was spent in the garden, the little girls betaking themselves to a pretty moss-covered arbour, where there was a grand doll’s feast. Ida had no less than twenty-three dolls, ranging from the magnificent Rosalind, who had real hair that could be brushed, and was as large as little Sally at home, down to poor little china Mildred, whose proper dwelling-place was a bath, and who had with great difficulty been put into petticoats enough to make her fit to be seen out of it. Now nobody at home could have saved the life of a doll for a single day, and Susan and Elizabeth were both thought far above them; but these beautifully arrayed young ladies had always been the admiration of the heart of Bessie as well as of Annie, and they were not too old for extreme satisfaction in handling their elegant ladyships, and still more their beautiful dinner and tea-service of pink and white ware.