“Oh! Miss Arbuthnot, he wants me to go—at least, he says that it seems a most excellent offer, and he is coming up to town early to-morrow morning to see about it and to talk to you.”
“Well, my dear, it only confirms the high opinion I have always held of your father’s judgment. I expected he would say just this.”
“It only shows how dreadfully I must have failed at home if papa is so anxious to send me away,” said Cecil, on the verge of tears.
“My dear child, if you will only look at things in a sensible light instead of determining to make yourself out a martyr, you will remember that Mr Anstruther is probably thinking only how much you could help with the boys’ education.”
But Cecil refused to be consoled, and her only comfort lay in the hope that Mr Anstruther would find the post unsatisfactory when he came to look into its conditions a little more. But she was out when he arrived, and he was ushered immediately into the presence of Miss Arbuthnot and Lady Haigh, who both assured him that Cecil was an extremely fortunate girl to have such a chance.
“You see,” said Miss Arbuthnot, “Cecil has done so very well that an ordinary situation as governess or High School mistress is not to be thought of for her. But here is an almost unique post waiting for her acceptance in which she may do work which might well be called making history. It is true that she must bind herself for five years or so, but this is less of a drawback in her case than in others. I do not myself think that she is likely to marry—at any rate, not early—for she is a little fastidious in her tastes,—not that this is to be regretted, but rather admired.”
Mr Anstruther almost blushed when he heard his daughter’s future thus candidly discussed. It had not occurred to him to regard marriage in the light in which it appeared to Miss Arbuthnot—as a kind of devouring gulf which swallowed up the finest products of the female education movement—and it seemed to him indelicate to estimate probabilities so openly. But both ladies were so evidently unconscious of Miss Arbuthnot’s having said anything improper that he quickly recovered his composure and listened undisturbed to Lady Haigh’s exposé of the advantages of the scheme. The consequence was that when Cecil came in her father’s last doubts had been removed, and he was ready to bid her God-speed in her enterprise.
“Oh! Miss Arbuthnot, must I go?” she asked despairingly, when Mr Anstruther had hurried off to catch his train for Whitcliffe, and Cecil and the principal were at tea in the latter’s sanctum.
“That is for you to decide,” answered Miss Arbuthnot.
“That is just what papa said,” wailed Cecil; “but I don’t want to decide.”