“The parents do not trouble me much,” Mrs. Stone said, raising her head; “when I think a thing is right, I laugh at parents. They are perfectly free to take the girls away, if they object; I judge for myself.”
“But you must not laugh at parents,” said the timid sister. “Maria! you make me shiver. I don’t like you to say it even on the common, where there is nobody to hear. There is that child with his big eyes; he might come out with it in any society. Laugh at—parents! You might as well say you don’t believe in the— British Constitution, or the— Reformation, or—even the House of Commons or the Peerage,” Miss Southwood said hurriedly, by way of epitomizing everything that is sacred.
“The Reformation is quite out of fashion, it is vulgar to profess any relief in that; and at all times,” said Mrs. Stone, “popular institutions are to be treated with incredulity, and popular fallacies with contempt. Frank is not a ravening lion, he wants to devour nobody but— Jock. Yes, when you do bad exercises he would like to swallow you at one gulp.”
“Is he going away?” said Jock, whom this reference to himself had roused to attention. Then he said with authority, “He had better come and live with us, there’s a spare room; Lucy wants him as much as me. I know there is something she wants, for she looks at him when nobody is noticing, like this—” And Jock gave such an imitation of Lucy’s look as was possible to him.
This strange speech made an extraordinary commotion in the quiet group. The two sisters and St. Clair sent each other rapid telegraphic messages by some kind of electricity, which went through them all. It was one look of wonder, satisfaction, consternation, delight that flashed from one pair of eyes to the other, and brought a sudden suffusion to all their faces. As for Lucy, she took it a great deal more quietly. They had the look of having made a discovery, but she did not betray the consciousness of one who has been found out.
“Indeed, I hope Mr. St. Clair will stay, I don’t think it would make any difference to the girls,” she said; and then she added, with a little excitement, “How strange it will be to see them all back again, and me so different!”
Grammar had never been Lucy’s strong point.
“Shouldn’t you like to come back?”
Lucy laughed and shook her head.
“I can’t tell,” she said. “I should—and yet how could I? I am so different. And by and by I should have to go away again. How strange it is that in such a little time, that has been nothing to them, so much should have happened to me.”