Why did we give this dinner, which cost so much time, trouble, and money, and was so very dull? At least I thought so. Why should we always be obliged to have a dinner-party when Francis is here? As if he could not exist a week at Rockmount without other people's company than ours! It used not to be so. When I was a child, I remember he never wanted to go anywhere, or have anybody coming here. After study was over (and papa did not keep him very close either), he cared for nothing except to saunter about with Penelope. What a nuisance those two used to be to us younger ones: always sending us out of the room on some pretence, or taking us long walks and losing us, and then—cruellest of all,—keeping us waiting indefinitely for dinner. Always making so much of one another, and taking no notice of us; having little squabbles with one another, and then snubbing us. The great bore of our lives was that love-affair of Francis and Penelope; and the only consolation we had, Lisabel and I, was to plan the wedding, she to settle the bridesmaids' dresses, and I thinking how grand it would be when all is over, and I took the head of the table, the warm place in the room, permanently, as Miss Johnston.
Poor Penelope! She is Miss Johnston still, and likely to be, for all that I can see. I should not wonder if, after all, it happened in ours as in many families, that the youngest is married first.
Lisabel vexed me much to-day; more than usual. People will surely begin to talk about her, not that I care a pin for any gossip, but it's wrong—wrong! A girl can't like two gentlemen so equally that she treats them exactly in the same manner—unless it chances to be the manner of benevolent indifference. But Lisabel's is not that. Every day I watch her, and say to myself, “She's surely fond of that young man.” Which always happens to be the young man nearest to her, whether Captain Treherne, or “my Colin,” as his mother calls him. What a lot of “beaux” our Lisa has had ever since she was fourteen, yet not one “lover”—that I ever heard of; as, of course, I should, together with her half-dozen very particular friends. No one can accuse Lis of being of a secretive disposition.
What, am I growing ill-natured, and to my own sister? a good tempered, harmless girl, who makes herself agreeable to everybody, and whom everybody likes a vast deal better than they do me.
Sometimes, sitting over this fire, with the fir-twigs crackling and the turpentine blazing—it may be an odd taste, but I have a real pleasure in the smell of turpentine—I take myself into serious, sad consideration.
Theodora Johnston, aged twenty-five; medium looks, medium talents, medium temper; in every way the essence of mediocrity. This is what I have gradually discovered myself to be; I did not think so always.
Theodora Johnston, aged fifteen. What a different creature that was. I can bring it back now, with its long curls and its short frocks—by Penelope's orders, preserved as late as possible;—running wild over the moors, or hiding itself in the garden with a book,—or curling up in a corner of this attic, then unfurnished, with a pencil and the back of a letter, writing its silly poetry. Thinking, planning, dreaming, looking forward to such a wonderful, impossible life: quite satisfied with itself and all it was to do therein, since
“The world was all before it where to choose:
Reason its guard, and Providence its guide.”
And what has it done? Nothing. What is it now? The aforesaid Theodora Johnston, aged twenty-five.