‘They have gone already, mamma. They said they would not wait for me. They said I was always so long of getting my things on.’
‘But why are you so long of getting your things on? Run away and see what nurse is about; or if Fräulein Stimme would like——’
‘Fräulein isn’t here to-day. How funny you are, mamma, not to remember that it’s Saturday.’
‘Go this moment!’ I cried wildly, ‘and tell nurse that you must go out for a walk. Do you think I will permit you to lose your walk, because the others think you are long of putting your things on? Nothing of the sort. Go at once, Chatty,’ I cried, clapping my hands, as I have a way of doing, to rouse them when they are not paying attention, ‘without a word!’
To see the child’s astonished face! She seemed to stumble over herself in her haste to get out of the room. After the unusual force of this adjuration I had myself become quite excited. I waved my hand to Ellen, who had stood by listening, half frightened by my vehemence, pointing her to a chair close to me. ‘Now, tell me all about it,’ I said.
‘Is it really for me that you have sent Chatty away in such a hurry? How good of you!’ said Ellen. And then she made a pause, as if to bring herself into an appropriate frame of mind before making her announcement. ‘I could not rest till I had told you. You have always taken such an interest. John has got a rise of fifty pounds a year.’
‘I am very glad, very glad, Ellen.’
‘I knew you would be pleased. He has been expecting it for some time back; but he would not say anything to me, in case I should be disappointed if it did not come. So I should, most likely, for I think he deserves a great deal more than that. But the best people never get so much as they deserve. Fifty pounds a year is a great rise all at once, don’t you think? and he got a hint that perhaps about Midsummer there might be a better post offered to him. Isn’t it flattering? Of course I know he deserves it; but sometimes those who deserve the most don’t get what they ought. That makes two hundred and twenty; an excellent income, don’t you think? He will have to pay income-tax,’ Ellen said, with a flush of mingled pride and gratification and grievance which it was amusing to see.
‘I don’t know that I think much of the income-tax; but it is very pleasant that he is so well thought of,’ I said.
‘And another rise at Midsummer! It seems more than one had any right to expect,’ said Ellen. Her hands were clasped in her lap, her fingers twisting and untwisting unconsciously, her head raised, and her eyes fixed, without seeing anything, upon the blue sky outside. She was rapt in a pleasant dream of virtue rewarded and goodness triumphant. A smile went and came upon her face like sunshine. ‘And yet,’ she cried, ‘to hear people speak, you would think that it was never the right men that got on. Even in sermons in church you always hear that it is rather a disadvantage to you if you are nice and good. I wonder how people can talk such nonsense; why, look at John!’