“How would it be,” suggested Alfred, “to have the shape of the plate reproduced for our address—a kind of scroll the shape of that with ‘Ye Dene’ in the middle?”
“Yes, that’s a good idea,” said Regina. “But you will have to put Northampton Park within the shield, or else it will look very odd.”
“Well, look here,” said he, “I’ll take the pattern of it and see what Cuthberts can suggest.”
The result of this conversation was that Cuthberts, the celebrated notepaper dealers, made a very pretty suggestion embodying the shield, the name of Ye Dene and the further postal address, and the Whittakers finally decided that they would not trouble to alter the name of their new residence.
It was at the Park—for I may as well follow the customs of its inhabitants and speak of it as they do—that Mrs. Whittaker began to seriously think of the education of her children.
They made friends slowly. In due course the vicar called upon them, and was followed a little later by his wife. Then the wife of a doctor just across the road made it her business to welcome the newcomers, and the neighbors on either side of Ye Dene called; but, all the same, they made friends slowly.
Mrs. Whittaker made many and searching inquiries into the possibilities of education, and she finally concluded that she would send them to the High School, at which all the youth of the Park received their learning. So, morning after morning, the two quaint little figures set out from Ye Dene at a little after nine o’clock, returning punctually at half-past twelve and sallying forth again about a quarter-past two for the afternoon school, which lasted until four.
What queer, quaint little maids they were! Regina’s own curious taste in dress she did not reproduce in her children. She held lofty theories that little girls should not be made vain by curled hair and flounced frocks. Their hair was therefore cut close to their heads, as if they had been two boys, and they wore curious little Quaker-brown jackets and hoods, which gave them an air of having come out of the ark.
“I regard it as terrible that children, who should be wholly irresponsible and whose troubles will come soon enough, should ever have to think of the care of their clothes,” she said one day to the doctor’s wife across the road.
“For my part,” the lady replied, “I don’t think that you can too early inculcate a proper care of the person into little girls. My own child, who was ten last week, is as particular about the fit and style of her clothes as I am about mine. If you bring girls up, dear lady, to run quite wild, do you not think that you do away with their domesticity, that most precious quality of all women?”