Beside her walked the very bird whose call had attracted the artist's attention. Jacky was a Cornish chough, coal-black in plumage, with brilliant orange-tinted beak. He strutted along sideways and with great dignity, casting looks of exultant triumph at the imprisoned cockatoo, who was his sworn foe. Puck, the stout and overfed terrier, solemnly accompanied them, as was his invariable habit, walking very close to the neat box-border, and now and then sniffing at the glowing geraniums.
"Dear me!" said Miss Fanny, "how warm it is—quite oppressive."
She would not for worlds have said that it was hot, but her dear little face was pink with her exertions, and her small plump hands so moist that to pull off the gloves was quite a business.
The sound of a piano was loudly audible—a jingly piano, very much out of tune, up and down which scales were being rattled lightly and evenly.
"I really think I shall tell the child not to practise any more," said Miss Fanny. "Charlotte is certainly a trifle exacting this warm weather."
So saying, she opened a door to her right, and entered a room which was evidently sacred to the purposes of education—the education of a former day. A reclining-board and two large globes were its principal features. The book-shelves were stocked with such works as "Mangnall's Questions," "Child's Guide," "Mrs. Markham's England," and the like. On the square table in the window was a slate full of sums, and what used to be known as a "copy slip"—bearing a statement of doubtful veracity:
"Truth is better than flattery."
This sentence comprised exactly the system on which Elaine Brabourne's aunts had brought her up.
They loved her very dearly, but they would have thought it a criminal weakness to tell her so. They acted always on that strange system which was in vogue when they were young—namely, that you always would be naughty if you could, and that the only thing to keep you under was a constant atmosphere of repression. If you learned your lesson, you were given to understand that the fact was due to the excellence of the manner in which you were taught—not to any effort of your own. If you did not learn it, you were conscious that this deficiency on your part was only to be expected from one who habitually made so small a use of such exceptional advantages. You were never encouraged to form an opinion of your own. It was an understood thing that you accepted that of your elders. For example: "A plate basket," said Miss Charlotte, "should always be kept in the parlor closet;" and her niece Elaine would have regarded the woman who ventured to keep hers elsewhere as out of the pale of civilization.
This plan of education had answered very well for the Misses Willoughby, whose lives had been peaceful and secluded as modern lives rarely are, and who passed their days always in the same place, and in nobody's society but their own. Their delightful unanimity of opinion was the great bond of peace between them; but they had never reflected that Elaine Brabourne could not pass her life in Avilion as they had done, nor paused to consider what would be the result when this girl, who had never been allowed to think for herself, even in such a matter as the color of her gowns, should be suddenly precipitated into London life as the eldest daughter of a rich man.