Thomasine shrugged her shoulders. “I wanted to see life, and have some fun, and know what London was like. I don’t want to slave here as I slaved in a farm.”
“You came to town restless and discontented, so did I; and now I would give everything I have to be set back where I was. You came in the same spirit, and I have stopped you on the threshold of a grave disaster, and perhaps saved you from unutterable misery. Thomasine, dear Thomasine, tell me the truth. Were you going to that hotel where some one flattered your vanity and held out to you prospects of idleness? You were leaving hard work and the duties that fell to your lot where God placed you, because impatient of restraint. You had learned the one lesson that is taught in all schools to boys and girls alike—hatred of honest work. Tamsine, you must return with me.”
The girl pouted. Arminell, looking round, saw the curl in her lip.
“I don’t care to be under the Welshes,” said the girl; “nor Marianne Saltren, neither. They ain’t better than me, and why shouldn’t I be as stylish as they?”
“If you resent being with them, be with me. Be my maid. I am not going to remain in Shepherd’s Bush. I intend to take a house somewhere in the country—somewhere where I can be useful, and, Tamsine, find work, hard work that I can do for others. That is what I seek now for myself. Will you come with me? Then we two Orleigh girls will be together, that will be charming.”
Thomasine turned and looked wonderingly at Miss Inglett. We two Orleigh girls! We—the baron’s daughter and the wise woman’s bastard.
“I’d like my frolic first,” said Thomasine.
“After that—I could not receive you,” answered Arminell gravely.
“I don’t see,” said Thomasine, still pouting, but uneasy and undecided, with the colour flying in flakes over her face and showing through the transparent complexion. “I don’t see why we are to be always kept at work, and not be allowed to amuse ourselves. We aren’t young for long.”
“Tamsine,” said Arminell, “poor Arkie Tubb sat by you when your mother’s cottage was being pulled down, and when you thought that she was in danger, and you could not run to her aid yourself, because you had turned your ankle, you sent him. You sent him to his death. The chimney fell and buried him. If he had considered himself he would not have risked his life for your mother. We all honour him for what he did. He never was clever and sharp in life, he failed in everything he undertook, he even failed then, for he did not bring your mother out of the ruin, he was buried in it himself. But he was a hero in his death because he sacrificed himself for others—for you, because he loved you, and for your mother.”