“You’re very kind,” said Mrs. Buller.
“There was a most extraordinary correspondence, too, after that shoemaker’s daughter in Lambeth was tried for poisoning her little brother,” continued Mrs. St. John. “The Saturday Review had an article on it, I believe, only Mr. St. John can’t bring papers home from the mess, so I didn’t see it. The letters were all about all the dreadful things done by girls in their teens. There were letters from twelve ‘Materfamiliases,’ I know, because the editor had to put numbers to them, and four ‘Paterfamiliases,’ and ‘An Anxious Widower,’ and ‘A Minister,’ and three ‘M.D.’s.’ But the most awful letter was from ‘A Student of Human Nature,’ and it ended up that every girl of fifteen was a murderess at heart. If I can only lay my hand on that number—— but I’ve lent it to so many people, and there was a capital paper pattern in it too, of the jupon à l’Impératrice, ready pricked.”
At this point Uncle Buller literally exploded from the room. Aunt Theresa said something about draughts, but I think even Mrs. St. John must have been aware that it was the Major who banged the door.
I was sitting on the footstool by the fire-place making a night-dress for my doll. My work had been suspended by horror at Mrs. St. John’s revelations, and Major Buller’s exit gave an additional shock in which I lost my favourite needle, a dear little stumpy one, with a very fine point and a very big eye, easy to thread, and delightful to use.
When Mrs. St. John went away Major Buller came back.
“I am sorry I banged the door, my dear,” said he kindly, “but whatever the tempers of girls may be made of at fifteen, mine is by no means perfect, I regret to say, at fifty; and I cannot stand that woman. My dear Theresa, let me implore you to put all this trash out of your head and get proper medical advice for the child at once. And—I don’t like to seem unreasonable, my dear, but—if you must read those delectable articles to which Mrs. St. John refers, I wish you’d read them at her house, and not bring them into ours. I’d rather the coarsest novel that ever was written were picked up by the children, if the broad lines of good and evil were clearly marked in it, than this morbid muddle of disease and crime, and unprincipled parents and practitioners.”
Uncle Buller seldom interfered so warmly; indeed, he seldom interfered at all. I think Aunt Theresa would have been glad if he would have advised her oftener.
“Indeed, Edward,” said she, “I’ll do anything you think right. And I’m sure I wouldn’t read anything improper myself, much less let the children. And as to the Milliner and Mantuamaker you need not be afraid of that coming into the house unless I send for it. Mrs. St. John is always promising to lend me the fashion-book, but she never remembers it.”
“And you’ll have proper advice for Matilda at once?”
“Certainly, my dear.”