Frances retired in haste to the kitchen, packed Jim off to the sitting-room, and served up her three courses in fine style. Mrs. Morland, intent on observations, dined almost in silence; and Jim, amazed to find neither his mind nor his manners undergoing improvement, wondered nervously of what heinous offence he had been guilty unawares. Austin brought in the dishes, and waited at table with the utmost confidence and resource. It was his little joke to call himself Adolphus the page-boy, in which character he indulged in various small witticisms, chiefly, it must be owned, for the benefit of Frances. When he had placed a scanty dessert before his mother, he went off, to reappear immediately in Frances’s wake in his own character of Master Austin Morland.
He wore an evening suit of black velvet, which, having been made eighteen months before, was an exceedingly tight fit for its owner. Mrs. Morland now became aware of the fact, and felt a sudden qualm as she anticipated the time when the children’s stock of good, well-made clothing would be finally worn out or outgrown. She determined to put off, for that evening at least, her intended demand for the immediate re-engagement of Elizabeth, and the release of Frances from “household drudgery”. She would hardly have acknowledged that a part of that forbearing resolution was due to the awakened eyes with which she now regarded the third of her “trio”. Jim’s face was pale and tired beyond all possibility of concealment.
The meal was ended. Mrs. Morland returned to her Tennyson, and the trio returned to their various tasks. For more than an hour the solitary woman sat on by her fireside deep in thought. Glancing up, at length, she saw that her clock pointed to a quarter-past ten, and it occurred to her that the children had not yet come to bid her good-night. Rising with a little shiver, for the room was growing chilly, she crossed the passage to the study, and, opening the door gently, peered in. The three students were gathered together, to share the light of the single small lamp. Frances was correcting an exercise for Jim, who listened intently while she lucidly explained his mistakes. Austin struggled with Greek verbs, repeating them under his breath, while he held his hands to his ears, and rocked his body to and fro, after the familiar fashion of industrious schoolboys.
Consternation took the place of contentment when Mrs. Morland made the young folks aware of her presence by inquiring whether they knew the hour.
“It is a quarter-past ten,” she remarked, her voice falling on a guilty silence. “You know, Frances and Austin, I do not like you to be up later than ten.”
“We have nearly finished, Mamma. We go to Woodbank to-morrow, and we shall not have our lessons ready unless we do them to-night.”
“Why not, pray? Are there no morning hours before you? And what is this I hear from Miss Carlyon, Frances? Have you really taken it upon yourself to tell her, without first consulting me, that you are prepared to dispense with her kind help?”
“Oh, Mamma,” exclaimed Frances, “Miss Carlyon could not have thought—. Indeed, I didn’t say it that way!”
“Perhaps not,” said Mrs. Morland, half-ashamed of her injustice; “but you said it in some way, and I am very much annoyed. A child like you has no business to decide for herself whether she will or will not accept so great a favour.”
“I only didn’t want to worry you, Mamma; and I didn’t think—I didn’t guess you would mind about my lessons.”