Violet looked a little anxiously from Aunt Livy to Mr Oswald, and saw nothing to make her doubt the children’s welcome. Mr Oswald smiled; Miss Livy nodded.
“They seem very well-behaved children,” said she. “Not at all spoiled.”
“We haven’t been here long,” said Jessie, gravely. “But we are going to be good, Letty. We promised mamma.”
And they were very good, considering all things. Still, it was a fatiguing day to Violet. She followed them out and she followed them in; and when they grew tired, and their little legs and their tempers failed, she beguiled them into the wide gallery, shaded by vines, and told them stories, and comforted them with toys and picture-books and something nice to eat. It would have been a better day, as far as the visitors were concerned, if there had been less to see and to admire. But the great house and garden were beautiful and wonderful to their unaccustomed eyes, and they had tired themselves so utterly that they grew fretful and out of sorts, and were glad when it came night and time to go home; and so was Violet.
The next day they came they were stronger and better, but they needed constant attention, lest mischief should happen among them; and, on the third morning, Violet was not sorry to hear the rain pattering on the window. Not that she would have minded ten times the trouble for herself, so that the children were the better for it, but it was as well not to try Miss Livy’s forbearance too far. Miss Livy had had very little to do with children since she was a child herself, and that little led her decidedly to agree with the generally-received opinion that the children of the present day are not so well brought up as children used to be. This opinion did not make her more patient with them, but rather less so; and so Violet was not sorry for the rain that kept her little sisters at home.
At breakfast, the subject of sending the little girls, Charlotte and Sarah, to the country for awhile was again brought up by their aunt, and, in the afternoon, Violet, at Mr Oswald’s request, went home to speak to her mother about it; but she had fully determined beforehand how the matter was to be decided, as far as she was concerned.
However, everything was put out of her mind by the surprise that awaited her; for, at the bridge house, they were entertaining an angel unawares, in the person of Miss Bethia Barnes. And was not Violet glad to see her? So glad that she put her arms round her neck and kissed her, and then laughed and then cried a little, not quite knowing what she did.
“It is good to see you, Aunt Bethia,” said she.
“You are the only one of the family who looks better for Singleton,” said Miss Bethia, regarding her with pleased wonder.
Miss Bethia had considered Violet a little girl when she left Singleton; but she was a little girl no longer, but a young woman, and a very pretty young woman, too, Miss Bethia acknowledged. If Violet had not been so glad to see her, and shown it so plainly as to disarm her, she must, even at the first moment, have uttered some word of counsel or warning, for to be pretty, and not aware of it, or vain of it, was a state of things that she could not believe in. However, she reserved her advice for a future occasion, and, in the meantime, drew her own conclusions from the brightening of the mother’s face at the coming of her eldest daughter, and from the eager way in which little Mary clung to her, and the others claimed her attention.