It was a difficult task as well as an onerous one, this care of girls from the ages of ten or twelve up to even twenty and one-and-twenty, especially when it is taken into consideration that, whatever the emergency, the parents would be in India, China, or the Eastern islands—one or two months’ distance by letter, sometimes more.
It was not often that there were troubles, though, at the Firlawns, for the Misses Twettenham’s was a kindly as well as rigid rule. Sickness of course there was from time to time. Sadder still, they had had deaths; but there were times when some young lady of more than ordinary volatility would try to assert herself and resent the bonds that the elderly sisters insisted upon tying round her and keeping her back.
There were occasionally handsome curates at Mayleyfield. There was a particularly good-looking young doctor’s assistant once in the town; and at times Squire Morden’s soldier and sailor sons would return home for a short stay, when a misguided pupil would form a most hopeless attachment, and even go so far as to receive a smuggled note.
Woe be to her if she did! It was sure to be discovered; and if such a course was persisted in the doom was certain. Transportation was the sentence. Word was sent to mamma and papa in India, China, or wherever they might be, and Miss Rebellious had to leave the school.
These were very, very rare cases, for there was scarcely a girl who did not look upon the elderly sisters as their best of friends; but such accidents had occurred, and there was trouble at the Firlawns now.
“Never,” said Miss Twettenham to her sisters twain—“never, my dear Julia—never, my dear Maria, in the whole course of my experience, have I met with so determined, so obstinate a girl!”
“She is very beautiful,” said Miss Julia.
“And it promises to be a fatal gift,” said Miss Maria.
“Yes,” said the eldest Miss Twettenham; “and if it were not for the letter we have received saying that Dr Bolter was coming to fetch her away, I should certainly have been compelled to insist upon her being recalled.”
“I don’t think she means harm, dear Hannah,” said Miss Maria.