“It is now four o’clock,” said Miss Tredgold. “At five tea is served. As the evening is so fine, I have ordered it to be laid under the cedar-tree on the lawn. For the next hour I expect close attention to lessons. I shall not stay in the room, but you, Verena, are monitress during my absence. Please understand that I expect honor. Honor requires that you should study, and that you should be silent. Here are your books. Prepare the lessons I shall require you to know to-morrow morning. Those girls who have not made due preparation will enter into Punishment Land.”
“What in the world is that?” burst from the lips of the irrepressible Briar.
“Don’t ask me,” answered Miss Tredgold. “I hope you may never have a personal acquaintance with that gloomy country. Now farewell. For an hour fix your attention on your tasks; and adieu.”
Never before had the Dale girls found themselves in such a quandary. For a whole long hour they were prohibited by a code of honor from speaking. They were all just bursting with desire to launch forth in a fiery torrent, but they must none of them utter a single word. Verena, as monitress, could not encourage rebellion. There are some things that even untrained girls, provided they are ladies, understand by intuition. The Dales were ladies by birth. Their home had belonged to their father’s family for generations. There was a time in the past when to be a Dale of The Dales meant to be rich, honored, and respected. But, alas! the Dales, like many other old families, had gone under. Money had failed; purses had become empty; lands had been sold; the house had dwindled down to its present shabby dimensions; and if Miss Tredgold had not appeared on the scene, there would have been little chance of Mr. Dale’s ten daughters ever taking the position to which their birth entitled them. But there are some things which an ancient race confers. Noblesse oblige, for one thing. These girls were naughty, rebellious, and angry; their hearts were very sore; their silken chains seemed at this moment to assume the strength of iron fetters; but during the hour that was before them they would not disobey Miss Tredgold. Accordingly their dreary books were opened. Oh, how ugly and dull they looked!
“What does it matter whether a girl knows how to spell, and what happened long, long ago in the history-books?” thought Briar.
“Aunt Sophia was downright horrid about poor Nancy,” was Pauline’s angry thought. “Oh! must I really work out these odious sums, when I am thinking all the time of poor Nancy?”
“I shall never keep my head if this sort of thing goes on for long,” thought Verena as she bent over her page of English history. “Oh, dear! that midnight picnic, and Nancy’s face, and the dancing in the glades of the Forest. It would have been fun. If there is one thing more than another that I love, it is dancing. I think I could dance for ever.”
Verena could not keep her pretty little feet still. They moved restlessly under her chair. Pauline saw the movement, and a wave of sympathy flashed between the sisters. Pauline’s eyes spoke volumes as they encountered the soft brown ones of pretty Verena.
But an hour—even the longest—is quickly over. Five o’clock struck, and quick to the minute each girl sprang to her feet. Books were put away, and they all streamed out into the open air. Now they could talk as much as they liked. How their tongues wagged! They flew at each other in their delight and embraced violently. Never before, too, had they been so hungry for tea; and certainly never before had they seen such a delightful and tempting meal as that which was now laid for them on the lawn. The new parlor-maid had brought it out and placed it on various little tables. A silver teapot reposed on a silver tray; the cups and saucers were of fine china; the teaspoons were old, thin, and bright as a looking-glass. The table-linen was also snowy white; but what the girls far more appreciated were the piles of fruit, the quantities of cakes, the stacks of sandwiches, and the great plates of bread-and-butter that waited for them on the festive board.
“Well!” said Briar. “Did you ever? It looks just like a party, or a birthday treat, or something of that sort. I will say there are some nice things about Aunt Sophia. This is certainly better than squatting on the ground with a basket of gooseberries and a hunch of bread.”