Good Miss Wagget being in a fuss with the schoolmistress of the Saxton Ragged School (why will benevolent people go on leavening the bread of knowledge which they offer with the bitterness of that insulting epithet?)—counting out copy-books, and primers, and slate-pencils, and rustling to and fro from the press to the hall-table, where they were getting those treasures into order—was little in the way of their conversation, except for an interjectional word now and then, or a smile or a nod, as she bustled in and out of the room, talking still to the matron in the hall.
Violet had a great deal to ask about old Winnie Dobbs, and the servants, and even little Psyche, and the bird, which latter inmate William did not somehow love, and regarded him in the light of an intruder who had established himself under false pretences, and was there with a design.
“I think papa means to take me with him to London,” said Violet, in reply to William’s question. “Mr. and Mrs. Wagget—they are so kind—I think they would make me stay here a long time, if he would let me; but he says he will have a day in about three weeks, and will run down and see us, and I think he intends taking me away.”
“What can the meaning of that be?” thought William. “More likely he comes to see Trevor, and bring matters to a decisive issue of some sort,” and his heart sank at the thought; but why should William suffer these foolish agitations—had he not bid her farewell in his silent soul long ago?
What of this business of Trevor of Revington! Was it not the same to him in a day, or three weeks, or a year, since be it must! And thus stoically armed, he looked up and saw Violet Darkwell’s large eyes and oval face, and felt the pang again.
“In three weeks? Oh! I’m sorry if he’s to take you away—but I was thinking of going up to town to see him—about the bar—he has been so kind—and there are two or three things I want advice about—I’m going to the bar, you know.”
“Papa seems always doubtful whether it is a good profession,” said Miss Violet, wisely, “though he has succeeded very well; but it’s sad, don’t you think, being so shut away from one’s friends as he is?”
“Well, for him I’m sure it is—in his case, I mean. I miss him I know, and so do you, I’m sure. But my case would be very different. I’ve hardly a friend on earth to be cut off from. There’s he, and Doctor Sprague, and Doctor Wagget here, and there’s poor Winnie, and Tom—I can count them up you see, on the fingers of one hand—and I really don’t think I’ve another friend on earth; and some of these I could see still, and none I think would miss me, very much; and the best friends I believe, as Doctor Wagget says, are books, they never die, or what’s worse change; they are always the same, and won’t go away, and they speak to you as they used to do, and always show you the same faces as long as you have sight to look at them.”
“How sensible and amiable of Doctor Wagget to like his Johnson’s Dictionary so much better than his sister,” exclaimed Miss Vi, with a momentary flash of her old mood. “There’s certainly one thing about books, as you say, they NEVER grow disagreeable; and if there—” she was growing to be sarcastic, but she reined in her fancy, and said sadly, instead, “About books I know very little—nothing; and about friends—you and I have lost the best friend we’ll ever know.”
And as she spoke tears glimmered under her lashes, and she looked out of the window over the wooded slope towards Gilroyd, and after a little pause said in a gentle cheerful voice, with perhaps a little effort—