“Yes, Florence is a sweet girl,” assented her mother. “Mrs. Atherton is a sad invalid, and they are such devoted daughters. Edna, it is your day for writing to Neville, is it not? I want to send a message to Mrs. Sinclair; don’t you think it would be a pretty attention if you were to write to her as well? She seems very poorly again.”
“I am not inclined to pay pretty attentions to any one this morning,” returned Edna, with a little laugh. “Bessie, can you amuse yourself while I do my duty to my fiancé? There are plenty of books in the morning-room, and a deliciously shady seat under that big tree.”
“Oh, that will be delightful,” replied Bessie, to whom a book was a powerful attraction. She was some time making her selection from the well-filled bookcase, but at last fixed on some poems by Jean Ingelow, and “The Village on the Cliff,” by Miss Thackeray. Bessie had read few novels in her life; Dr. Lambert disliked circulating libraries for young people, and the only novels in the house were Sir Walter Scott’s and Miss Austin’s, while the girls’ private book shelves boasted most of Miss Yonge’s, and two or three of Miss Mulock’s works. Bessie had read “Elizabeth,” by Miss Thackeray, at her Aunt Charlotte’s house, and the charming style, the pure diction, the picturesque descriptions, and the beauty and pathos of the story made her long to read another by the same author. As Bessie retraced her steps through the hall Mac raised himself up slowly, and followed her out, and in another moment Spot and Tim flew through a side door and joined her.
Bessie never passed a pleasanter morning; her tale enthralled her, but she laid down her book occasionally to notice her dumb companions. A white Persian kitten had joined the group; she was evidently accustomed to the dogs, for she let Tim roll her over in his rough play, and only boxed his ears in return, now and then. When he got too excited, she scrambled up a may-tree, and sat licking herself in placid triumph, while the terriers barked below. Bessie was almost sorry when the quiet was invaded by Edna. Edna, who never opened a book, by her own confession, unless it were an exciting novel, looked a little disdainfully at the book Bessie had chosen.
“Oh, that old thing!” she said contemptuously; “that is not much of a story; it is about a Breton peasant, is it not? Reine, I think she was called. Oh, it was amusing enough, but I prefer something more thrilling.”
“I think it lovely,” returned Bessie. “It is all so sweet and sunshiny; one can smell the flowers in that studio, and the two Catherines, one so happy and charming, and the other so pathetic. All the people are so nice and good, they seem alive somehow. In other books there are wicked people, and that troubles me.”
“You would not like the sort of books I read;” returned Edna, shrugging her shoulders. “There was a murder in the last; I could hardly sleep after it—some one thrown out of a train. Oh, it was deliciously horrible! I have not sent it back to Mudie; you can read it if you like.”
“No, thank you,” returned Bessie quietly; “it would not suit me at all. Father is very particular about what we read, and mother, too; he will not let us touch what he calls ‘the sensational literature of the day’—oh, you may laugh,” as Edna looked amused; “but I think father is right. He says it makes him quite unhappy to see books of this description in the hands of mere children. He is a doctor, you know, and he declares that a great deal of harm is done by overstimulating the imagination by highly wrought fiction. ‘A meal of horrors can nourish no one,’ he would say.”
Edna chose to dispute this point, and a long and lively argument ensued between the girls until the luncheon bell silenced them.
Richard did not appear at this meal; he was taking his bread and cheese under the hedge with the haymakers, Edna explained, or in other words, he had desired his luncheon to be sent to him.