“I know no such thing!” said Mr Oswald, imperiously. “You fancy I will forget by and by, and that you may renew this subject again; but I protest to you, Jane, that neither your son nor you shall ever move me on this point—that—”
“George,” interrupted his wife, “I hear Hope coming down-stairs; pray do not let her be a party to this discussion. I am reluctant that she should even know how you regard the Buchanans, for Hope is inclined to have an opinion of her own, and to express it more freely perhaps than she should at her years. Let us drop this subject, I beg; I promise you I will not renew it.”
The cloud passed from the banker’s face—his stern mouth relaxed. It was the young voice without, singing so gaily as its owner came bounding down-stairs, “Hame, hame, hame! oh, it’s hame fain wad I be—” that chased the mist from his face and from his mind. He was kind enough in all his relationships, if somewhat exacting and rigid; but he was indulgent to an extent, which only the stern and vehement nature can reach, of all the whims and caprices of his favourite child.
Hope Oswald was fourteen, and had been for two or three years at a famous educational establishment in Edinburgh. Her father looked with natural satisfaction on the houses and lands which his industry had acquired, read with satisfaction his own name high in the list of bank shareholders in his own private office; was pleased when he saw “George Oswald, Esq., of Fendie,” figuring in his local newspaper as connected with some county or borough reform, or public good-work; but the banker’s eye looked never so proud as when a metropolitan broad-sheet informed him how, at the examination of the famed establishment in Edinburgh, “Miss Hope Oswald, Fendie,” had carried off prize on prize. The stern man read the half-yearly list of school-girl honours with secret exultation. It was a matter of genuine happy pride to him; and Mrs Oswald smiled within herself, as year after year her husband expressed in joyous terms his wonder, that the name of Miss Adelaide Fendie of Mount Fendie, the daughter of their aristocratic neighbour “up the water” did never by any chance make its appearance among this honoured number, while “our Hope” had won almost as many distinctions as there were distinctions to win.
But Hope was weary of gaining prizes, and longed exceedingly to return home; so she was granted an interregnum. Six blithe holiday months were to pass before she returned to Edinburgh, and on this same day she had arrived in Fendie.
The age of awkwardness had scarcely commenced with Hope. She had not begun to be self-conscious, and in consequence escaped the inevitable physical attendant of that unpleasant mental state. She did not yet think of people seeing her when she danced about through the rooms and passages, and ran races in the garden, and waded secretly in the water; nor of people hearing her, as she went about everywhere, singing aloud in the exuberance of her joy. She was only a girl yet: she scarcely felt the budding woman begin to stir within her healthful breast.
So the dining-room door swung open, wider than it needed to do, and Hope came in with a bound. She had hazel eyes and auburn hair, and an animated blithe face, whose claims to beauty, if it had any, no one ever thought of deciding. She was tolerably tall and tolerably stout, and exceedingly firm, and active, and vigorous. The “Misses” in Edinburgh whispered among themselves, that Hope had a predilection for masculine games, and was as strong as a boy; but Hope denied the slander stoutly, affirming that its solitary foundation was one unlucky slide, and two or three snowballs, in both of which the stupid and docile Adelaide Fendie, whom no one thought of blaming, was as much implicated as she.
Hope was rather talkative; she had a great deal to say about her Edinburgh experiences, and both the father and the mother were good listeners; the sterner parent however being by far the most indulgent now.
“And what did your friends say when you came away, Hope?” asked Mr Oswald; “was there much lamentation?”
“They were all very sorry,” said Hope, “and they all wished they were coming too; only big Miss Mansfield that’s going to India, she did not care, for she thinks we are only girls and she’s a woman, and she’s always speaking about Calcutta—as if anybody was caring for Calcutta!—and little Mary Wood would hardly let me go, mamma—she wanted to come too. Will you let her come at the vacation, mother?—for when all the rest go away, Mary has to stay with Miss Swinton, because she has no friends.”