“These teachers are really very good ones, and I don’t dislike reading English with Ermine, either. If she were a teacher and not my sister, I could really get very good friends with her. But all the same—what a different life it is from what I expected. If auntie could see me in this horrid rough frock that makes me look as if I had no waist at all,” and Ella impatiently tugged at the jacket of the very substantial sailor serge which Madelene had ordered for the cold weather, “and in this poky room.”
For Ella was still “in the nursery.” She was not to inhabit her permanent room till the winter was over, for the chimney had been found to smoke, and there was a leakage from the roof which had left the wall damp. And Ella had caught a slight cold, thanks to her thin boots, which had alarmed her father quite unreasonably. So the decree had gone forth that in her present cosy quarters she was to remain till the milder weather returned, which gave her the delight of another grievance.
As she stood gazing out at the wintry landscape which to less prejudiced eyes would have been full of its own beauty, the prayers bell rang. Ella started—her unpunctuality had been a frequent cause of annoyance for several weeks after her arrival at Coombesthorpe, but, perverse as she was, the girl was neither so stupid nor so small-minded as to persist in opposition when she distinctly saw that she was in the wrong. So this short-coming had to a great extent been mastered.
She tugged at her belt, gave a parting pat to her hair, saying to herself as she caught sight of her reflection in the glass, “It certainly takes much less time to dress as I do now than in the old days,” and flew along the passages and down stairs just in time to avoid a collision with Mr Barnes, as, heading his underlings, he politely followed the long file of women-servants into the library, where Colonel St Quentin always read prayers.
Ella took her place by the window; outside, a cheery red-breasted robin was hopping about on the gravel, and the sunshine, which was gathering strength, fell in a bright ray just where the little fellow stood. It is to be feared that much more of her attention was given to the bird than to her father’s voice.
“What a little duck he is,” she exclaimed, as soon as prayers were over. “See, Madelene—” and as her elder sister came forward with ready response, Ella’s face lighted up with pleasure. The whole world seemed brighter to her; so impressionable and variable was she.
“Yes,” said Miss St Quentin, “he is a dear. We can hardly help fancying it is always the same robin. For ever since Ermine and I were quite little there is one to be seen every winter on this terrace. It is here we have the birds’ Christmas tree, Ella—one of those over there. It is so pretty to see them. There are so many nice things in the country in winter—I really do not know sometimes which I like the best—summer or winter.”
Ella felt a little pang of self-reproach—she remembered how five minutes before she had been grumbling up in her own room.
“Madelene must be much nicer and better than I am in some ways,” she thought to herself; “perhaps I would have been like her if they had kept me with them, or had me back some years ago,” and the reflection hardened her again, just as the softer thought was about to blossom.
At that moment Colonel St Quentin’s voice was heard from the adjoining dining-room.