There was a desk rather larger than the rest, the lid of which now happened to be standing open. Matilda slyly pointed to it. While the ladies were engaged with the other children, Mr Enderby cast a glance into this desk, saw a book which he knew to be Margaret’s, laid something upon it from his pocket, and softly closed the lid; the whole passing, if it was observed at all, as a survey of the children’s desks. He then pretended to look round for the rod.
“No rod!” said he to the laughing children. “Oh, I should like to learn here very much, if there is no rod. Miss Margaret, do you not find it very pleasant learning here?”
The children were shouting, “Miss Young, Miss Young, do let uncle Philip come and learn with us. He says he will be a very good boy,—won’t you, uncle Philip? Miss Young, when may uncle Philip come and learn his lessons?”
Margaret saw that there was constraint in the smile with which Maria answered the children. Little as she knew, it struck her that in his fun with the children, Mr Enderby was relying quite sufficiently on the philosophy he had professed to admire in Miss Young. Mr Enderby drew a chair to the window round which the ladies were sitting, and took up the volume Margaret had just laid down.
“Go, go, children!” said he; “run away to your gardens! I cannot spare you any more play to-day.”
“Oh, but uncle, we want to ask you a question.”
“Well, ask it.”
“But it is a secret. You must come into the corner with Fanny, and Mary, and me.”
For peace and quiet he went into the corner with them, and they whispered into each ear a question, how many burnt almonds and gingerbread-buttons, and how much barley-sugar, two shillings and threepence halfpenny would buy? The cowslips were now ready to make tea of, and the feast on the dolls’ dishes might be served any day. Mr Enderby promised to inquire at the confectioner’s, and not to tell anybody else; and at last the children were got rid of.
“Now that we have done with mysteries,” said he, as he resumed his seat by the window, “that is, with children’s mysteries that we can see to the bottom of, let us look a little into the poet’s mysteries. What were you reading? Show me, and I will be your reader. Who or what is this Heavenly Beauty? We have not done with mysteries yet, I see.”