“Why,” asked Patty, with a surprised look, “doesn’t father pay for the things?”
“Mr. Dale!” cried nurse in a tone of wrath, “I’d like to see him. It’s not that he wouldn’t, and for all I can tell he may have the money; but, bless you, darling! he’d forget it. He’d forget that there was such a thing as dress wanted in all the world; and servants and food, and the different things that all well-managed houses must have, couldn’t lie on his memory while you were counting twenty. Do you suppose if that dear, blessed lady didn’t put her hand into her pocket in the way she does that you’d be having the right good time you are now having, and the nice clothes, and the good education, and the pretty ponies coming next week? And Miss Pauline, just because she’s a bit pale, taken to the seaside? Not a bit of it, my dear Miss Patty. It’s thankful you ought to be to the Providence that put it into your aunt’s head to act as she has done. Ah! if my dear mistress was living she would bless her dear sister.”
“Did you know mother before she was married?” asked Patty, taking up a skirt and the pair of sharp scissors which nurse provided her with, and sitting down happily to her task.
“Didn’t I live with her when she was Miss Tredgold?” asked nurse. “And didn’t I over and over again help Miss Sophia out of scrapes? Oh, she was a wild young lady!”
“You don’t mean to tell me that Aunt Sophy ever did anything wrong?”
“Nothing mean or shameful; but for temper and for spirit and for dash and for go there wasn’t her like. Not a horse in the land was wild enough to please her. She’d ride bareback on any creature you gave her to mount, and never come to grief, neither. She broke horses that trainers couldn’t touch. She had a way with her that they couldn’t resist. Just a pat of her hand on their necks and they’d be quiet and shiver all over as though they were too delighted for anything. Oh, she did follow the hounds! My word! and she was admired, too. She was a young lady in a thousand. And as for wanting to have her own way, she was for all the world like our Miss Pauline. It strikes me those two have very much in common, and that is why Miss Tredgold has taken such a fancy to your sister.”
“Do you think she has?” asked Patty.
“Do I think it?” cried nurse. “For goodness’ sake, Miss Patty, don’t cut the material. Do look where you are putting the scissors. Do I think it, miss? I know it. Miss Marjorie, sweet pet, you shall thread these daisies. You shall make a pretty chain of them to put around your neck. There’s my little precious.”
Fat, lovely, little Marjorie shrieked with delight when nurse put a coarse needle, to which was attached an equally coarse piece of cotton, and a basket of daisies before her. Marjorie tried to thread daisies, and uttered little cries of happiness, while Patty and nurse talked together.
“Miss Tredgold was a wonderful young lady, so handsome and high-spirited. But if she didn’t always obey, she never did anything mean or underhand. Everybody loved her; and your poor mother was that took up with her that when my master proposed that they should marry, it was a good while before she’d consent—and all because she didn’t want to part with Miss Sophy. She said that if Miss Sophy would consent to live with them she’d marry Mr. Dale at once, for she was very much attached to him. But Miss Sophy put down her foot. ‘Live with a married couple!’ she cried. ‘Why, I’d rather die.’ Well, my dear, there were words and tears and groans; but at last Miss Sophy took the bit between her teeth, and went off to an old relative, a certain Miss Barberry, in Scotland, and arranged to live with her and look after her. And your mother married; and when Miss Barberry died she left Miss Sophy every penny she possessed, and Miss Sophy is very rich now; and well she deserves it. Dear, dear! I seem to see Miss Sophia over again in our Miss Pauline. She was very comical, and so high-spirited and wild, although she’d never do an underhand thing.”