is waking up, perhaps,” said the father, “and that is a painful process sometimes. Though she is so clever, she is wonderfully young for her age too. Life has been smooth for her, even though we are so poor – not rich,” he corrected with a smile.
“But is there anything special on her mind? What made you talk in that way?”
“She will be telling you herself of some report – oh, I dare say it is true enough – that Lady Mildred Osbert is arranging to send this niece of hers, this girl whom, as I told you, she is said to have adopted, to Miss Lloyd’s. And of course they are all gossiping about it, chattering about the girl’s beauty and magnificence, and all the rest of it. After all, Amy, I sometimes wish we had not sent Charlotte to school at all; there seems always to be silly chatter.”
“But what could we do? We could not possibly have afforded a governess – for one girl alone; and I, even if I had the time, I am not highly educated enough myself to carry on so very clever a girl as Charlotte.”
“No; I sometimes wish she were less clever. She might have been more easily satisfied.”
“But she is not dissatisfied,” said Mrs Waldron. “On the contrary, she has seemed more than content, she is full of interest and energy. I have been so glad she was clever; it is so much easier for a girl with decidedly intellectual tastes to be happy in a circumscribed life like ours.”
“Yes, in one sense. But Charlotte has other tastes too. She would enjoy the beauty, the completeness of life possible when people are richer, intensely. And at school she has been made a sort of pet and show pupil of. It will be trying to a girl of fifteen to see a new queen in her little world.”
“But – she need not interfere with Charlotte. It is not probable that she will be as talented.”
“That was one of Jerry’s consolations,” said Mr Waldron with a smile. “It was rather a pity I happened to take Charlotte to Silverthorns to-night. It seems to have deepened the impression.”
“She only waited outside. My dear, we cannot keep the children in cotton-wool.”
“No, of course not. It is perhaps because going to Silverthorns always irritates me myself, though I am ashamed to own it, even to you. But to remember my happy boyhood there – when I was treated like a child of the house. It was false kindness of my grandmother and my grand-uncle. But they meant it well, and I never let her know I felt it to have been so.”
“Of course your uncle would have done something more securely for you had he foreseen all your grandmother’s losses. One must remember that.”
“Yes; but it isn’t only the money, Amy. It is Lady Mildred’s determined avoidance of acknowledging us in any way. The cool way she treats me entirely as the local lawyer. She has no idea I feel it. I take good care of that. And then, to be sure, she never saw me there long ago! Grandmother never entered the doors after her brother’s death.”
“No, so you have told me. I suppose Lady Mildred, if she ever gives a thought to us at all, just thinks we are some distant poor relations of a bygone generation of Osberts,” said Mrs Waldron. “And after all it is pretty much the state of the case, except for your having been so associated with the place as a child. I am always glad that the children have never heard of the connection. It would only have been a source of mortification to them.”
“Yes; and my long absence from the neighbourhood made it easy to say nothing about it. You will know how to speak to Charlotte when she tells you, as no doubt she will, about this new class-fellow. I wish it had not happened, for even if the girl is a very nice girl, I should not wish them to make friends,” said Mr Waldron. “It would probably only lead to complications more or less disagreeable. As Lady Mildred has chosen absolutely to ignore us as relations, I would not allow the children to receive anything at all, even the commonest hospitality, from her.”
“I wonder if the girl is nice,” said Mrs Waldron. “She must be spoilt. I should be afraid, if Lady Mildred makes such a pet of her. Do you know her name?” Mr Waldron shook his head.
“She is a niece of Lady Mildred’s, I believe – perhaps a grand-niece. She may be a Miss Meredon – that was Lady Mildred’s maiden name, but I really don’t know. I did not catch her name when her aunt spoke to her.”
“Oh, you saw her then?” exclaimed Mrs Waldron with some surprise. “What is she like?”
Mr Waldron smiled.
“Amy, you’re nearly as great a baby as Charlotte,” he said. “She was quite excited when I said I had seen this wonderful young person. What is she like? Well, I must own that for once gossip has spoken the truth in saying that she is very pretty. I only saw her for half a second, but she struck me as both very pretty and very sweet-looking.”
“Not prettier than Charlotte?” asked Charlotte’s mother, half laughing at herself as she put the question.
“Well, yes, I’m afraid poor Gipsy wouldn’t stand comparison with this child. She is really remarkably lovely.”
“Ah, well,” said Mrs Waldron, “Charlotte is above being jealous, or even envious of mere beauty. Still – altogether – yes, I think I agree with you that I am sorry Lady Mildred is going to send the girl to Miss Lloyd’s; for we cannot wish that Charlotte and she should make friends under the circumstances. It would only be putting our child in the way of annoyances, and possibly mortification. And I should be sorry to have to explain things to her or to the boys. I do so long to keep them unworldly and – unsuspicious, unsoured – poor though they may have to be,” and the mother sighed a little.
“Yes,” agreed Mr Waldron earnestly. “I am afraid the worldly spirit is just as insidious when one is poor as when one is rich. And do what we will, Amy, we cannot shelter them from all evil and trouble.”
“I shall be glad if this Miss Meredon, if that is her name, is not in Charlotte’s class,” said Mrs Waldron after a little pause. “I should think it unlikely that she is as far on as Charlotte. Miss Lloyd was telling me the other day how really delighted she and all the teachers are with her.”
“I hope they have not spoilt her,” said Mr Waldron. “She is not the sort of girl to be easily spoilt in that way,” said Charlotte’s mother. “She is too much in earnest – too anxious to learn.”
“I wish Ted had some of her energy,” said the father. “He is really such a dunce – and yet he is practical enough in some ways. We’ll have to ship two or three of those lads off to the backwoods I expect, Amy.”
“I sometimes wish we could all go together,” said Mrs Waldron. “Life is so difficult now and then.”
“You are tired, dear. Things look so differently at different times. For after all, what would not Lady Mildred, poor woman, give for one of our boys – even poor Jerry!”
“Even Jerry!” said Mrs Waldron. “I don’t know one of them I could less afford to part with than him. Arthur is a good boy, a very good boy as an eldest; but Jerry has a sort of instinctive understandingness about him that makes him the greatest possible comfort. Yes, cold and selfish though she may be, I can pity Lady Mildred when I think of her loneliness.”
“And I don’t know that she is cold and selfish,” said Mr Waldrop. “It is more that she has lived in a very narrow world, and it has never occurred to her to look out beyond it. Self-absorption is, after all, not exactly selfishness. But it is getting late, Amy, and Sunday is not much of a day of rest for you, I am sorry to say.”
“I don’t know about that,” she replied, smiling brightly again. “Now that the boys are old enough not to require looking after, and Charlotte is very good with the little ones – no, I don’t think I have any reason to grumble. My hard-working Sundays are becoming things of the past. Sometimes I could almost find it in my heart to regret them! It was very sweet, after all, when they were all tiny mites, with no world outside our own little home, and perfect faith in it and in us – and indeed in everything. I do love very little children.”
“You will be more than half a child yourself,