That Stick ...

‘Yes.  The tourists have not molested it yet, and only natives bathe there, so she goes every year to renovate herself and sketch, and comes back furbished up like an old snake, with lots of drawings of impossible peaks, like Titian’s backgrounds.  We’ll write and tell her to make ready for the head of her house!’

‘Oh, but—’ began Frank, looking to his wife.

‘Would it not be intruding?’ said Mary.

‘She will be enchanted!  She always likes to have anything to do for anybody, and she says the scenery is just a marvel.  You care for that!  You are so deliciously fresh, beauties aren’t a bore to you.’

p. 116‘We are glad of the excuse,’ said Frank gravely.

‘You look ill enough to be an excuse for anything, and Mary too!  How about a maid?  Is Harte going?’

‘No,’ said Mary; ‘she says that foreign food made her so ill once before that she cannot attempt going again.  I meant to do without.’

‘That would never do!’ cried Bertha.  ‘You have quite enough on your hands with Northmoor, and the luggage and the languages.’

‘Is not an English maid apt to be another trouble?’ said Mary.  ‘I do not suppose my French is good, but I have had to talk it constantly; and I know some German, if that will serve in the Tyrol.’

‘I’ll reconcile it to your consciences,’ said Bertha triumphantly.  ‘It will be a real charity.  There’s a bonny little Swiss girl whom some reckless people brought home and then turned adrift.  It will be a real kindness to help her home, and you shall pick her up when you come up to me on your way, and see my child!  Oh, didn’t I tell you?  We had a housemaid once who was demented enough to marry a scamp of a stoker on one of the Thames steamers.  He deserted her, and I found her living, or rather dying, in an awful place at Rotherhithe, surrounded by tipsy women, raging in opposite corners.  I got her into a decent room, but too late to save her life—and a good thing too; so I solaced her last moments with a promise to look after her child, such a jolly little mortal, in spite of her name—Boadicea Ethelind Davidina Jones.  She is two years old, and quite delicious—the darling of all the house!’

p. 117‘I hope you will have no trouble with the father,’ said Frank.

‘I trust he has gone to his own locker, or, if not, he is only too glad to be rid of her.  I can tackle him,’ said Bertha confidently.  ‘The child is really a little duck!’

She spoke as if the little one filled an empty space in her heart; and, even though there might be trouble in store, it was impossible not to be glad of her present gladness, and her invitation was willingly accepted.  Moreover, her recommendations were generally trustworthy, and Mary only hesitated because, she said—

‘I thought, if I could do without a maid, we might take Constance.  She is doing so very well, and likely to pass so well in her examinations, that it would be very nice to give her this pleasure.’

‘Good little girl!  So it would.  I should like nothing better; but I am afraid that if you took her without a maid, Emma would misunderstand it, and say you wanted to save the expense.’

‘Would it make much difference?’

‘Not more than we could bear now that we are in for it, but I fear it would excite jealousies.’

‘Is that worse than leaving the poor child to Westhaven society all the holidays?’

‘Perhaps not; and Conny is old enough now to be more injured by it than when she was younger.’

‘You know I have always hoped to make her like a child of our own when her school education is finished.’

Frank smiled, for he was likewise very fond of little Constance.

p. 118There was a public distribution of prizes, at which all the grandees of the neighbourhood were expected to assist, and it was some consolation to the Northmoors, for the dowager duchess being absent, that the pleasure of taking the prize from her uncle would be all the greater—if—

The whole party went—Lady Adela, Miss Morton, and all—and were installed in chairs of state on the platform, with the bright array of books before them—the head-mistress telling Lady Northmoor beforehand that her niece would have her full share of honours.  No one could be a better or more diligent girl.

It quite nerved Lord Northmoor when he looked forth upon the sea of waving tresses of all shades of brown, while his wife watched in nervousness, both as to how he would acquit himself and how the exertion would affect him; and Bertha, as usual, was anxious for the credit of the name.

He did what was needed.  Nobody wanted anything but the sensible commonplace, kindly spoken, about the advantages of good opportunities, the conscientiousness of doing one’s best.  And after all, the inferiority of mere attainments in themselves to the discipline and dutifulness of responding to training,—it was slowly but not stammeringly spoken, and Bertha did not feel critical or ashamed, but squeezed Mary’s hand, and said, ‘Just the right thing.’