At first Leonora had taken Philip's three children, although a childless, wealthy couple had offered to adopt the eldest, a boy of nine years. He was handsomer and finer looking than his two little sisters, who were both quiet and pretty. Leonora thought she should have something to be proud of in the boy, who was a St. Leger thoroughly, and might readily enough be mistaken as her own son.
She was not long, however, in discovering that she had taken more upon herself than she could bear. This handsome nephew was the exact counterpart of what his father had been at similar early age. Leonora remembered well that Philip had been an imp of mischief, and that she had suffered torments on his account. This young Marius—named for Mary Selby in full—like his father before him, seemed to think his young sisters made for no earthly purpose but for his amusement. If they were out of his presence he was wretched; when with them he left them no peace; he would fling at them paper darts, almost strangle them with an impromptu lasso, demolish their playhouse, decapitate their dolls, and do all the mischief his really inventive genius could suggest.
Leonora knew how worse than vain would be all reasoning with such a subject. The example of her brother was all she needed. She took him in her carriage, and set him down, with his baggage, at the door of the wealthy couple who had been so anxious to gain possession of him. She was not surprised, two weeks later, to learn that he had been transferred to the family of the Presbyterian clergyman, nor shortly after to be informed that a collection had been taken up among the wealthy members of the church for his education at a country school; to this she was invited to contribute, which she did liberally.
Captain St. Leger had given all his city property to his daughters, leaving his only son unprovided for.
As to Estelle, Mrs. Lang, she rejoices in five daughters, which, added to her four sons, makes her family equal in number, if not in degree, to that of Queen Victoria's. She has had a wing added to her already extensive mansion, wherein she has had her children installed, with their nurses at command, one being an aged lady, trusty and faithful. Unlike Juliet, Estelle became wise enough to give over fretting and borrowing trouble. She goes much into society, though less devoted to it than her elder sister, but looks considerably to her household affairs, and on the whole makes a tolerable wife and mother. She would be religious perhaps if she knew how to be. But this she has never learned at St. Mark's Church, and she knows not where else to go.
CHAPTER XVIII.
ST. MARK'S OR ST. PATRICK'S?
A few months later, and Juliet Temple, with her niece and children, returned from St. Mark's, whither they had been for morning service.