“Thou canst chatter as well as sew,” the nurse said, “as well I know to my cost. Would that thy needle flew so fast as thy tongue! Sit thee down, and if the little tree be done by dinner-time thou shalt have leave to see thy Cousin Richard.”
“I suppose,” thought Elfrida, taking up the needle, “that I am fond of my Cousin Richard.”
The sewing was difficult, and hurt her eyes, but she persevered. Presently some one called the nurse, and Elfrida was left alone. Then she stopped persevering. “Whatever is the good,” she asked herself, “of working at a sampler that you haven’t time to finish, and that would be worn out, anyhow, years and years before you were born? The Elfrida who’s doing that sampler is the same age as me, and born the same day,” she reflected. And then she wondered what the date was, and what was the year. She was still wondering, and sticking the needle idly in and out of one hole, without letting it take the silk with it, when there was a sort of clatter on the stairs, the door burst open, and in came a jolly boy of about her own age.
“Thy task done?” he cried. “Mine too. Old Parrot-nose kept me hard at it, but I thought of thee, and for once I did all his biddings. So now we are free. Come, play ball in the garden.” This, Elfrida concluded, must be Cousin Dick, and she decided at once that she was fond of him.
There was a big and beautiful garden behind the house. The children played ball there, and they ran in the box alleys, and played hide-and-seek among the cut trees and stone seats, and statues and fountains.
Old Parrot-nose, who was Cousin Richard’s tutor, and was dressed in black, and looked as though he had been eating lemons and vinegar, sat on a seat and watched them, or walked up and down the flagged terrace with his thumb in a dull-looking book.
When they stopped their game to rest on a stone step, leaning against a stone seat, old Parrot-nose walked very softly up behind the seat, and stood there where they could not see him and listened. Listening is very dishonourable, as we all know, but in those days tutors did not always think it necessary to behave honourably to their pupils.
I always have thought, and I always shall think, that it was the eavesdropping of that tiresome old tutor, Mr. Parados—or Parrot-nose—which caused all the mischief. But Elfrida has always believed, and always will believe, that the disaster was caused by her knowing too much history. That is why she is so careful to make sure that no misfortune shall ever happen on that account, any way. That is one of the reasons why she never takes a history prize at school. “You never know,” she says. And, in fact, when it comes to a question in an historical examination, she never does know.
This was how it happened. Elfrida, now that she was no longer running about in the garden, remembered the question that she had been asking herself over the embroidery frame, and it now seemed sensible to ask the question of some one who could answer it. So she said—
“I say, Cousin Richard, what day is it?”