"What! do you wish to be idle?"
"I will work in your house, if you like; but I can pay my own fare in the cars, and I won't be a servant."
There was so much sullen determination in her manner that Mrs. Rexford did not attempt to argue the point.
"Take her, mamma," whispered Winifred. "How ill she seems! And she must be awfully lonely in this great country all alone."
Mrs. Rexford, having turned into the room, was rapidly commenting to Sophia. "Says she will come, but won't be called a servant, and can pay her own fare. Very peculiar—but we read, you know, in that New England book, that that was just the independent way they felt about it. They can only induce slaves to be servants there, I believe." She gave this cursory view of the condition of affairs in the neighbouring States in an abstracted voice, and summed up her remarks by speaking out her decision in a more lively tone. "Well, we must have some one to help with the work. This girl looks strong, and her spirit in the matter signifies less." Then, turning to the girl without the door: "I think you will suit me, Eliza. You can stay with us, at any rate, till you hear from your uncle. You look strong and clean, and I'm sure you'll do your best to please me"—this with warning emphasis. "Come in now to the warmth beside us. We can make room in here."
The place was so small and the family so large that the last assurance was not wholly unnecessary. Mrs. Rexford brought Eliza in and set her near the stove. The girls and children gathered round her somewhat curiously, but she sat erect without seeming to notice them much, an expression of impassive, almost hardened, trouble on her pale face. She was a very tall, strong girl, and when she dropped the shawl back a little from her head they saw that she had red hair.
CHAPTER XI.
The village of Chellaston was, in itself, insignificant. Its chief income was derived from summer visitors; its largest building was an hotel, greatly frequented in summer; and its best houses were owned by townspeople, who used them only at that season. That which gave Chellaston a position and name above other places of the same size in the country was an institution called "The New College," in which boys up to the age of eighteen were given a higher education than could be obtained at ordinary schools. The college was a square brick building, not handsome, but commodious; and in the same enclosure with it were the head-master's house, and a boarding-house in which the assistant-masters lived with the pupils. With that love of grand terms which a new country is apt to evince, the head-master was called "The Principal," and his assistants "Professors." The New College was understood to have the future of a university, but its present function was merely that of a public school.
Chellaston was prettily situated by a well-wooded hill and a fair flowing river. The college, with some fields that were cultivated for its use, was a little apart from most of the houses, placed, both as to physical and social position, between the commonplace village and the farms of the undulating land around it; for, by a curious drift of circumstances, the farms of this district were chiefly worked by English gentlemen, whose families, in lieu of all other worldly advantage, held the more stoutly by their family traditions. In doing so they were but treasuring their only heirloom. And they did not expect to gain from the near future any new source of pride; for it is not those who, as convention terms it, are the best born who most easily gather again the moss of prosperity when that which has been about them for generations has once been removed. They were, indeed, a set of people who exhibited more sweetness of nature than thrift. Elegance, even of the simplest sort, was almost unknown in their homes, and fashion was a word that had only its remotest echoes there; yet they prided themselves upon adhering strictly to rules of behaviour which in their mother-country had already fallen into the grave of outgrown ideas. Their little society was, indeed, a curious thing, in which the mincing propriety of the Old World had wed itself right loyally to the stern necessity of the New. How stern such necessity might be, the Rexford family, who came rolling into this state of things in their own family carriage, had yet to learn.
It was to the Principalship of the New College that Robert Trenholme, by virtue of scholastic honours from Oxford, had attained. Although a young man for the post, it was admitted by all that he filled it admirably. The school had increased considerably in the three years of his management. And if Trenholme adapted himself to the place, the place was also adapted to him, for by it he held an assured standing in the country; he could, as the saying is, mix with the best; and he valued his position. Why should he not value it? He had won it honourably, and he cherished it merely as the greatest of his earthly goods, which he believed he held in due subordination to more heavenly benefits. Those lives are no doubt the most peaceful in which self-interest and duty coalesce, and Trenholme's life at this period was like a fine cord, composed of these two strands twisted together with exquisite equality. His devotion to duty was such as is frequently seen when a man of sanguine, energetic temperament throws the force of his being into battle for the right. He had added to his school duties voluntary service in the small English church of Chellaston, partly because the congregation found it hard to support a clergyman; partly because he preferred keeping his schoolboys under the influence of his own sermons, which were certainly superior to those of such clergymen as were likely to come there; and partly, if not chiefly, because the activity of his nature made such serving a delight to him. The small church, like the school, had been greatly improved since it had come under his hand, and the disinterestedness of his unpaid ministrations was greatly lauded. He was a very busy, and a successful, man, much esteemed by all who knew him. The New College was expected to become a university; Robert Trenholme hoped for this and expected to remain at its head, but this hope of his was by the way; he did not think of it often, for he loved work for its own sake. Even the value he set on his present success was not often, more actively in his mind than the value he set on the fresh air he breathed. It was very occasionally that the pride of him came to the surface, and then chiefly when animated by the memory of the time when he had been at a disadvantage in worldly things. Such memories came to him when he prepared to go to the railway station to meet the Rexfords. He concealed it perfectly, but it gave him certain swellings of heart to think that Miss Rexford would now gradually see all to which he had attained.