“Hush, hush, my dear!” said Mrs. Eldon, gravely, “I am sorry to hear it.”
“That is more than I am,” said Fanny, in a low voice. “It is the best news I have heard this many a day. Aunt Sarah made such a fuss when Lewis got into that scrape, and it was not much after all.”
“What has been the matter, my son?” inquired Mrs. Eldon.
“Nothing of much consequence—only Tom has lagged behind the class almost ever since he has been in it, so now the Puts have suspended him, and he must take a tutor, and try and pull up.”
“To think of one of those pattern children being suspended!” said Frank, laughing. “It is the best joke I ever heard.”
And in spite of all their mother’s proper admonitions and grave looks, the news was matter of perfect jubilee with the young Eldons. Not that they had positively unkind feelings toward their young cousins, but they disliked their aunt heartily, and, in short, pattern children always incur a certain share of unpopularity among juveniles of their own standing. Free and spirited natures will not brook the superiority which is often accorded by their elders to the tame and correct inferiority of such children. Then, too, the sins of the parents are often visited heavily on their offspring under similar circumstances; and “Aunt Sarah’s lectures,” and “the fuss Aunt Sarah made on such and such an occasion,” “and now Aunt Sarah need not make big eyes at Charley any more,” and “let Aunt Allen shut up about Lewis now,” and many more such reminiscences and ejaculations of the kind, broke forth on all sides. In fact, if the whole truth were known, Mrs. Eldon herself, in spite of her efforts to maintain the proprieties, did not feel, at the bottom of her heart, the sorrow for her sister’s mortification she assumed. “It will do her good,” she said to herself. “Sarah is too hard upon other people’s children. The thing is not a matter of importance in itself, but it is enough to show her that her boys are like other boys.”
“I thought your sister was wrong when she insisted upon that boy’s taking a collegiate education,” remarked Mr. Eldon. “He resembles his father in mind: that is to say, he has none, and besides, is naturally indolent. He showed a disposition to enter the counting-house, and he would have done better there.”
“Sarah thinks it great weakness in parents to yield to what she calls the whims of young people.”
“Undoubtedly; but, at the same time, not to study and make allowances for their natural capacities and dispositions, is equally unwise. Nature is to be guided, but not controlled.”
“You would find it difficult to persuade Sarah that she could not control all events falling within the sphere of her domestic circle,” replied Mrs. Eldon.