"If your great desire to go to this ball is to be with Caroline the first night of her entrée, I should think Mrs. Hamilton was the best chaperon you could have."
"I tell you, mother, I will not go with her. She has not bewitched me as she has you and papa. If you would only be quiet for a few hours, I am sure your head would be sufficiently well for you to go with me; and you know I never do enjoy an evening so much as when you accompany me, dear mamma," she continued, softening the violence with which she had at first spoken into one of the most persuasive eloquence; and humbling her pride and controlling the contempt with which she ever looked on her weak but far more principled mother, she knelt on a low stool by her side, and caressingly kissed Lady Helen's hand.
"Dear mamma, you would oblige me, I am sure you would, if you knew how much your presence contributes to my enjoyment. A ball is quite a different thing when I feel I am under your wing, and you know papa prefers my going out with you to any one else."
Annie spoke truth, though her words appeared but flattery. The extreme indolence of Lady Helen's natural disposition, which was now heightened by the lassitude attendant on really failing health, rendered her merely a chaperon in name. Annie felt very much more at liberty when with her than with any other; she could act as she pleased, select her own companions, coquette, talk, dance, without ever thinking of her mother or being sought for by her, till the end of the evening. It was enough she was with Lady Helen, to silence all gossiping tongues and to satisfy her father, who, one of the most devoted members of the Lower House, scarcely ever visited such places of amusement, and therefore knew not the conduct of either his wife or daughter. He long since discovered his authority was as nothing to his children; he felt most painfully his sternness had alienated their affections, and he now rather shrunk from their society; therefore, even at home he was a solitary man, and yet Grahame was formed for all the best emotions, the warmest affections of our nature. He was ignorant that his wife now very frequently suffered from ill-health, for he had never seen her conduct different even when in youth and perfectly well. Had he known this, and also the fact that, though trembling at his sternness, she yet longed to receive some token of his affection—that she really loved him, spite of the many faults and the extreme weakness of her character, he might have been happy.
Deceived by her daughter's manner, Lady Helen began to waver in the positive refusal she had given to accompanying her, and Annie was not slow in discovering her advantage; she continued the persuasions she knew so well how to use, concealing the inward struggle it was to veil her discontent at this unwonted humiliation, and suppressing the violence that was ready to break forth, at length succeeded. Though really feeling too languid for the exertion, the wavering mother could not resist the unusually gentle manner of the persevering daughter, and Miss Grahame flew to her confidant to impart the joyful tidings.
Miss Malison was employed in endeavouring, by commands, exhortations, and threats, to compel her pupil to practise a difficult sonata, which her music-master had desired might be prepared by the time of his next visit. Now it happened that Lilla Grahame had not the slightest taste for music, and that Miss Malison did not possess the patient perseverance requisite to smooth the difficulty of the task, nor the gentleness necessary to render it more pleasing to her pupil; therefore, in these practising lessons discord ever prevailed over harmony, and the teacher was ever ready to seize the most trifling excuse to neglect her office, and leave Lilla to practise or not as she pleased.
"Malison, chère Malison," exclaimed Annie, in a tone of glee, as she entered, "do leave that stupid girl and come with me; I have some charming intelligence to communicate. And it really is no use boring yourself with Lilla; she will never play, try as hard as she can."
"According to you, I shall do nothing," burst angrily from her sister's lips, for her temper, naturally good, though somewhat hasty, had been completely ruined by careless and mistaken treatment. "If I had been properly taught, I should have done as others do: if Miss Malison had chosen to take the same pains with me as Miss Harcourt does with Emmeline and Ellen, I should have been a very different girl."
"Insolent, ungrateful girl! do you dare to say I have neglected my duty?" exclaimed the gouvernante, enraged beyond bounds at this display of insubordination in one whose spirit she had left no means untried to bend to her will, and forgetting herself in the passion of the moment, enforced her words by what is termed a sound box on the ear.
"Now go and tell mamma, pretty dear; or papa, if you like it better,"
Miss Grahame said, in a whining tone.