I
The schoolroom in the Parsonage at Heythram was not a large apartment, but on a bleak January day, in a household where the consumption of coals was a consideration, this was not felt by its occupants to be a disadvantage. Quite a modest fire in the high, barred grate made it unnecessary for all but one of the four young ladies present to huddle shawls round their shoulders. But Elizabeth, the youngest of the Reverend Henry Tallant’s handsome daughters, was suffering from the ear-ache, and, besides stuffing a roasted onion into the afflicted orifice, had swathed her head and neck in an old Cashmere shawl. She lay curled up on an aged sofa, with her head on a worn red cushion, and from time to time uttered a long-suffering sigh, to which none of her sisters paid any heed. Betsy was known to be sickly. It was thought that the climate of Yorkshire did not agree with her constitution, and since she spent the greater part of the winter suffering from a variety of minor ills her delicacy was regarded by all but her Mama as a commonplace.
There were abundant signs, littered over the table in the centre of the room, that the young ladies had retired to this cosy, shabby apartment to hem shirts, but only one of them, the eldest, was thus engaged. In a chair on one side of the fireplace, Miss Margaret Tallant, a buxom fifteen-year old, was devouring the serial story in a bound volume of The Ladies’ Monthly Museum, with her fingers stuffed in her ears, and seated opposite to Miss Arabella, her stitchery lying neglected on the table before, sat Miss Sophia, reading aloud from another volume of this instructive periodical.
“I must say, Bella,” she remarked, momentarily lowering the book, “I find this most perplexing! Only listen to what it says here! We have presented our subscribers with fashions of the newest pattern, not such as shall violate the law of propriety and decorum, but such as shall assist the smile of good humour, and give an additional charm to the carriage of benevolence. Economy ought to be the order of the day— And then, if you please, there is a picture of the most ravishing evening-gown—Do but look at it, Bella!—and it says that the Russian bodice is of blue satin, fastened in front with diamonds! Well! ”
Her sister obediently raised her eyes from the wristband she was hemming, and critically scanned the willowy giantess depicted amongst the Fashion Notes. Then she sighed, and once more bent her dark head over her work. “Well, if that is their notion of economy, I am sure I couldn’t go to London, even if my godmother invited me. And I know she won’t,” she said fatalistically.
“You must and you shall go!” declared Sophy, in accents of strong resolution. “Only think what it may mean to all of us if you do!”
“Yes, but I won’t go looking like a dowd,” objected Arabella, “and if I am obliged to have diamond fastenings to my bodice, you know very well—”
“Oh, stuff! I daresay that is the extreme of fashion, or perhaps they are made of paste! And in any event this is one of the older numbers. I know I saw in one of them that jewelry is no longer worn in the mornings, so very likely—Where is that volume? Margaret, you have it! Do, pray, give it to me! You are by far too young to be interested in such things!”
Margaret uncorked her ears to snatch the book out of her sister’s reach. “No! I’m reading the serial story!”
“Well, you should not. You know Papa does not like us to read romances.”