She was always like this, such a sweet little love; so afraid of hurting anybody's feelings, and so ready to think everybody good. When I sat down near her, on a bank of bed-rushes, with the doll sitting carefully between us, I could not help feeling ungrateful in my heart, for the prospect of Miss Polly Windsor to-morrow. And I could not quite fancy that Maiden Lane—though alive with delights of its proper class—could supply such contentment to sight, and thought (not that I put it so grandly then) as the place I sate in, and the things I saw. For the tide was coming in, with pleasant feeling of the air, and ready briskness of the things, that had been waiting for it. At every short step that it made in advance—for the waves toddled in, like babies—there was some pretty thing, starting up in front, to run, and to glisten before it. But the prettiest thing of all sate there by me.
"You are always at work," she said, "always doing something. Why do people want us to be educated so? Those funny letters are all Greek, I know; because Roly has got some that he learns at Harrow. But he doesn't seem to like it, more than I like French; and he puts it in a cupboard, for the holidays. Ariel, why should you work more than Roly does? He never does a thing, unless he likes it."
I had thought this out, and my reply was ready. "Roly will be a rich man, and I shall not. He belongs to great people, and I belong to small ones. He will get on all the same, whether he works, or not."
"Then I call that as unfair as anything can be. And I could not have believed it, though I know you tell the truth, unless I had heard of such things before. We all ought to work, to do good, of course; but not in the middle of the holidays."
"I have got to go back to old Rum, on Monday;" I answered, with a wistful gaze at her; "and unless I can say a hundred lines of Homer, beginning at the place where we left off, cracks will be the word, and no mistake. And he's come to be so sharp, from being done so often, that there's not a fellow now with the pluck to run a tib, or a crib, or a leary round the corner. Ton d' apameibomenos is the only cock that fights."
"What a lucky thing it is to be a girl!" She cast her eyes down, after looking at me, to learn my opinion of this sentiment; for that opinion showed itself as opposite as could be, to hers. "I only mean because we don't get cracks, and we don't jump on one another, as they do to you sometimes; oh, Ariel, how can you put up with that? And then they tie a string to your toe at night. What courage it must take, to be a boy!"
"Before Bill Chumps went to Oxford," I replied, while looking at the tiny foot, she put forth on the sand; "he shut up all bullying, in our school. There used to be a lot of it; and after getting taw, or togy, in the playground, and rats in school, a fellow couldn't sleep, for fear of cramp. But Bill set up a different fashion altogether; and the little fellows now begin to cock over us, who are their seniors. I am getting bigger than I used to be, and so well up in the school, that I am very useful, in doing the big fellows' exercises. And they never jump on me, as they used to do, when I couldn't try to fly for them. Grip would have something to say to them, next morning, if they tried it."
"Oh, I do love Grip, because he is so ugly; and I love you, Ariel, because you are so pretty, and so kind, and gentle; and you never do mischief, unless Roly sets you the example. I shall cry, when you go away; I'm sure I shall; and I shall put Dorothea into mourning for you. I don't believe a bit that your papa makes candles; and if he does—how could we go to bed, without them? I should just like to ask people that. And what could they say, I should be glad to know?"
To me this appeared an extremely sensible, and large-minded view of the case, and I did not hesitate to promote it.
"And what would you do without soap, Lady Laura? My father makes soap of the finest quality. A great deal better, as everybody says, than any turned out by Mr. Windsor, though he put his name on every cake—'Windsor's best brown Windsor.' And no better than curds, every square of it."