“Mr Durrant is one of the nicest men in all the world, and he has asked us here for love of Ralph, and has given us the most glorious time, and has done all that man could for our pleasure; and is this the return we will make him—to allow him to choose a girl like Harriet to be school-mother to Ralph? for of course we know—and he has said so—that the choice lies between you,—Robina, and Harriet; and now you, just before the moment of decision, back out of the whole thing and say you won’t be Ralph’s school-mother, and that you are going home. The rest of us think that a very cowardly and wrong thing to do: therefore we demand from you, as being ourselves Ralph’s school-mothers, an answer to our question.”
“Yes, yes!” here interrupted the others. “You have put the case very well, Patience; and the question you are about to ask ought to be answered.”
“Our question is this,” said Patience, raising her voice a little. “Are you, or are you not, prepared to say that Harriet, as far as you know, will be a kind and truthful and honourable school-mother to Ralph? Are you happy in giving Ralph up yourself to Harriet’s care? or do you know anything against her?”
“I can’t say, and I won’t say,” replied Robina, turning very red. “There are things that even a girl placed in my position cannot do.”
“Very well,” said Patience, “you have answered. You can go now, Robina, and tell Harriet your decision. But between now and to-morrow morning, when the great decision is publicly made, we, the rest of the school-mothers, will have something to say with regard to the matter.”
Robina immediately left her companions. Her head was aching; her heart was throbbing hard. Nevertheless, her mind was fully made up. She found Jane and Harriet walking side by side in the neighbourhood of the round pond. She approached quite close to them before they heard her. She did not want to listen to their conversation.
“I eavesdropped once,” she thought, “unintentionally of course; nevertheless, I did such a horrid, such a mean, such a despicable thing, and oh! how I have suffered in consequence! But I won’t eavesdrop again—not if I know it.”
Nevertheless, as she came close to the other girls, she had time to look at the pond, and to notice the exact position of that willow bough along whose slender branch little Ralph had crept in order to gather the water-lilies. The water-lilies were there still in great abundance with all their delicate wax-like cups closed, for it was the time of their slumber. The pond, too, looked still and glassy on its surface, except when the duck-weed, and many parasites of the pond threw an unwholesome glamour over its depths. Robina seemed to realise the whole scene that had taken place there—the child who had dropped into the water, the immediate power of the clinging weeds, the impossibility for the little fellow to swim in his clothes. She saw again Harriet rushing to the rescue, and she well guessed the storm of devotion which she had aroused in the heart of the brave little child. But since that scene, which, without its explanation, sounded innocent enough, another had taken place—one that Robina herself had witnessed. Could she ever forget the agony of that moment when, almost out of her depth, she had longed in vain for the power to swim out to save Ralph! Would she at such a moment have thought of any possible reward except that most divine reward of all—that of giving up her very life for his?
Robina shook herself as though from a day-dream, and it was at this instant that Harriet and Jane, turning, saw her standing in the path.
Jane’s round face was quite pale, and there were tears in her black eyes. She had been letting off some of the soreness of her heart to Harriet, and Harriet had been the reverse of sympathising. Harriet had said once or twice: