They were all between fifteen and seventeen years old, all except Muriel. Muriel was eleven, and all the promise of her babyhood, which had dropped so unexpectedly into the ladies' arms, had been more than fulfilled. The roses and the butterflies were pale dim things beside her, as she skipped among the rest, her long hair shining like threads of gold where it caught the light, and melting into a warm shadow beneath the leaf of her spreading garden-hat, from beneath whose brim there shone a pair of eyes luminous in their glee and innocency, penetrating without sharpness and soft without being dull; lips short, red, and parted, displaying teeth small, regular, well apart, like a string of evenly-assorted pearls.
The fête was hers--her birthday it was called--and in reality it was the anniversary of her appearance in her present life, on the night after the thunderstorm, when the ladies had found her on their doorsteps. Penelope, prudent and timid, would rather have left the day unmarked, in case talk should arise; but Matilda, emboldened by success in her plan of adoption, insisted that fears were now idle, "that their darling must keep her birthday like other children, and that it would be unthankful to the good Providence who had sent the little one to brighten their humdrum lives, if they kept the feast on any other day." Besides, what was there to fear? Every servant in the house had been changed over and over in the ten years which had intervened since then; even Smithers the nurse, who had stayed the longest, was gone these three years, and she had not only been paid to hold her tongue, but was too fond of the child to let slip a word which could injure her. Only Bruneau and his family remained about the place, and they were such quiet and respectful habitants they would not babble; and even if they would, who could understand them? The servants did not understand French, and Jean's and his wife's English was so awkward and hard to come, they never spoke to any of them if it could be avoided. There was the boy Pierre, to be sure, "But remember, sister, how respectful he has always been, even when, years ago, we used to send for him to come and play with Muriel; and now that he has grown big and able to work, he seems to pay far more attention to the orders she gives him than to any of ours." So Penelope shrugged her shoulders with a sigh, as she always did in the end when Matilda was "positive," and yielded the point.
"What a pretty, graceful child Muriel is," said Mrs. Martindale, Tilly's mother, a widow. They had come from Montreal for the fête.
"Yes, indeed," said Mrs. Jordan, "she will make a sensation in Montreal when you bring her out, Matilda; but that is some years in the future yet. The other girls had better make haste and arrange themselves before she appears," and she glanced at Mrs. Martindale, which was gratuitously unkind, seeing that Tilly, being only fifteen, would not appear in the world for two winters to come, and she promised to be a remarkably fine girl, and in quite a different style. But then her boy Randolph had been essaying to pipe his first small note for ladies' ears in those of the damsel, and she, though not yet out, was grown woman enough to desiderate whiskers or a moustache in an admirer, and to scorn with youth's uncompromising freedom the advances of a callow swain of her own tender years. Ten years later, how different her views will be! But so, in ten years' time, will his be too--and the gentleman will have the pull then, as much as the lady has it now. Wherefore, my dear Mrs. Amelia, you might very well have forborne to resent the seeming slight upon your boy! But women are such partisans, especially the good ones; and she who is not, even if she be half a philosopher, is but half a woman--and not the best half either.
And now the creaking of the entrance gate was heard, and the crunching of wheels on the gravel; and presently from among the clumps of shrubbery which screened them from the road there issued a calèche, the French Canadian substitute for an American buggy, high set and hung on leather straps instead of springs; and in it swung the rector and his spouse, trundling along to the front of the house.
Mrs. Jordan lifted her pince-nez to her eyes. "Ha! a calash! Mr. Bunce, of course. Nobody else would get into such a thing."
"Do you know, I like them, and they are very much used down at Quebec," observed Mrs. Martindale, rendered generally contradictious by the tone of the other's recent remarks.
"They make me seasick. I feel as if I were in a cradle."
"Was that the effect your cradle had, Amelia dear? You have certainly an uncommon memory to recollect so well; for surely you were in the advanced class at Mrs. Jones' when I was learning my letters."
"Quite true, Louisa," said the other, biting her lip; "but you know you were a backward child. Great talent is often slow in showing itself, you know. What a droll pair those two make, swinging up there in company--as contented as Darby and Joan carrying their eggs to market. Ah, now they are out of sight--gone round to the front door. I am told that on their wedding tour they were mistaken for mother and son--and, strange to say, the error did not put them out in the least."