The three children, Ermyntrude, Cosmo, and Gwynnys, were trained in those excellent traditions which the family had inherited for now three generations of decent affluence; but Mr Burden and his wife justly considered that the steady increase of their fortunes (which they naturally ascribed to their considerable capacity, but which were perhaps, more due to the evolution of modern industry) permitted them to entertain some legitimate ambitions for the future of their offspring.
Certain developments in the structure of our English society made it increasingly difficult to continue the custom of taking high tea at half-past six. This meal had already been supplanted by a set dinner at the more fashionable hour of seven, when Mrs Burden introduced the change whereby her two daughters, aged respectively fourteen and twelve years, were withdrawn from Mrs Cathcart’s seminary at Dulwich, and put under the care of a private governess, a Miss M’Kee, of whom Mrs Burden had heard from a friend who was intimate with the niece of Lady Bagshawe.
Thanks to the able guidance of this lady, Ermyntrude and Gwynnys very rapidly acquired an acquaintance with all that best suited the part they would be called upon to play in their social rank. A thorough knowledge of German, some elements of French, and a good grounding in psychology and practical nursing, left them at the ages of eighteen and twenty all that charming, simple English girls should be.
They came out together (for Ermyntrude looked, if anything, younger than her sister) at the Jubilee Ball given in the Town Hall of Sydenham in 1897.
Mr Burden had never disguised his intention of portioning his daughters. The elder was soon married to a young doctor of considerable ability, who emigrated with his wife to Winnipeg, in which distant capital he still pursues a prosperous career. Long a president of the Orange Lodge[2] in that city, he was recently returned to the Dominion Parliament on the Manitoba Catholic schools question; his career will doubtless be familiar to many who may read these lines.
SPIRITUAL ANXIETY OF MR LEGROS AN IMPRESSION FROM THE PENCIL OF A FRIEND AND PASTOR, WHOSE HOUSE HE WOULD FREQUENT FOR THE SOLUTION OF DOCTRINAL DOUBTS
Gwynnys, on the contrary, during a visit to her sister in Canada, married, somewhat abruptly, Karl P. Legros, a dark young officer in the local army. The captain (for such was his rank) was unfortunate in his business of butter-brokering. He became involved, through no fault of his own, in the collapse and subsequent trial of the Milwaukee Butter-King. Driven by the mysterious instinct resident in all scions of our race beyond the seas, Karl P. Legros sought England in the hour of his need; nor did England fail him. After a short period of hesitation, and, it must be confessed, of some spiritual anxiety, he took Holy Orders, and was soon installed, by the efforts of his father-in-law, as rector of the small living of Benthanger, in Kent. He has continued, for many years, to fulfil the duties of his sacred calling in this place, and has been supported unwaveringly throughout a life of arduous and unremitting labour by his noble and devoted wife; a true Christian matron, to whom her father made, till his death, a small yearly allowance.
Mrs Burden was laid to rest less than a year after Gwynnys Legros’ return to England. She had the satisfaction, before dying, of hearing that Ermyntrude’s husband had been elected to the Parliament of his colony, while her visit to the vicarage of Benthanger had at once consoled her with the vision of her daughter’s content, and permitted her to breathe the atmosphere of her early years: the sober comfort of a country parsonage to which, for all her wealth, she had so long been a stranger.
This excellent woman sleeps in the Cemetery Park of Norwood, in a dry, roomy, and well-built vault which, with the exception of a yearly rental of five guineas, is the unencumbered property of her husband’s family.