breakfast was over the next morning, the three younger ones all rushed off to the enjoyment, and, at ten minutes past the appointed hour for the early reading and study, Agatha felt obliged to go out and tell them that the M.A. was sitting like Patience on a monument, waiting for them; on which three tongues said “Bother,” and “She ought to let us off till the proper end of the holidays.”
“Then you should have propitiated her by asking leave after the Scripture was done,” said Agatha; “you might have known she would not let you off that.”
“Bother,” said Vera again; “just like an M.A.”
“I did forget,” said Paula; “and you know it was only just going through a lesson for form’s sake, like the old superlative.”
They had, in fact, read the day before; when Thekla had made such frightful work of every unaccustomed word, and the elders by one or two observations had betrayed so much ignorance alike of Samuel’s history and of the Gospel of St. Luke, that she had resolved to endeavour at a thorough teaching of the Old and New Testaments for the first hour on alternate days, giving one day in the week to Catechism and Prayer Book.
She asked what they had done before.
“Mrs. Best always read something at prayers.”
“Something?”
“Something out of the Bible.”
“No, the Testament.”
“I am sure it was the Bible, it was so fat.”
“And Saul was in it, and we had him yesterday.”
“That was St. Paul before he was converted,” said Paula.
There their knowledge seemed to end, and it further appeared that Mrs. Best heard the Catechism and Collect on Sundays from the unconfirmed, and had tried to get the Gospel repeated by heart, but had not succeeded.
“We did not think it fair,” said Vera. “None of the other houses did.”
“Yes,” said Agatha, “Miss Ferris’s did.”
“Oh, she is a regular old Prot,” said Paula, “almost a Dissenter, and it is not the Gospel either, only texts out of her own head.”
“Polly!” said Agatha. “Texts out of her own head!”
“It is Bible, of course, only what she fancies; and they have to work out the sermon, and if they can’t do the sermon, a text. They might as well be Dissenters at once!” said Paula.
“Janet M’Leod is,” said Vera. “It was really Dissentish.”
Magdalen could not help saying, “So you would not learn the Gospel because Dissenters learnt pieces of Scripture! You seem to me like the Roman Catholic child, who said there were five sacraments, there ought to be seven, but the Protestants had got two of them.”
She was sorry she had said it, for though Agatha laughed, the other two drew into themselves, as if their feelings were hurt. “These are the boarding-house habits,” she said. “What is done at the High School itself?”
“The Vicar comes when he has time, and gives a lecture on an Epistle,” said Agatha, “or a curate, if he doesn’t; but I was working for the exam., and didn’t go this last term. What was it, Polly?”
“On the—on the Apollonians,” answered Paulina, hesitating.
“My dear, where did he find it?”
“I know it was something about Apollo,” said Vera.
“It was Corinthians,” said Paula. “I ought to have recollected, but the lectures are very dull and disjointed; you said so yourself, Nag, and the Rector is very low church.”
“So you could not learn from him!”
“Really, sister,” said Agatha, “the lectures are not well managed, they are in too many hands, and too uncertain, and it is not easy to learn much from them.”
“Well, that being the case, I think we had better begin at the beginning. Suppose I ask you to say the first answer in the Catechism.”
On which Vera said they had all been confirmed except Thekla, and passed it on to her.
However, the endeavours of that half-hour need not be recounted, and the moment half-past ten chimed out the young ladies jumped up, and would have been off to the bicycles, if Magdalen had not felt that the time was come for asserting authority, and said, “Not yet, if you please. We cannot waste whole days. You know Herr Gnadiger is coming to-morrow, and it would be well to practise that sonata beforehand; you ought each to practise it; Paula, you had better begin, and Vera, you prepare this first scene of Marie Stuart to read with me when Thekla’s lessons are over. Change over when Paula has done.”
“It is of no use my doing anything while anyone is playing,” said Vera.
“Nonsense,” Agatha muttered; but Magdalen said, “You can sit in the drawing-room or your own room. Come, Tick-tick, where’s your slate? Come along.”
“Don’t sulk, Flapsy,” said the elder sister, “it is of no use. The M.A. means to be minded, and will be, and you know it is all for your good.”
“I hate my good,” said naughty Vera.
“So does every one when it is against the grain,” said Agatha; “but remember it is a preparation for a free life of our own.”
“It is our cross,” said Paula, as she placed herself on the music stool with a look of resignation almost comical.
Nor did her performance interfere with the equations which Agatha was diligently working out; but Vera, though refusing to take refuge from the piano, to which, in fact, she was perfectly inured, worried her elder as much as she durst, by inquiries after the meaning of words, or what horrid verb to look out in the dictionary; and it was a pleasing change when Paula proceeded to work the same scene out for herself without having recourse to explanations, so that Agatha was undisturbed except by the careless notes, which almost equally worried Magdalen in the more distant dining-room.
This was really the crisis of the battle of study. As the girls were accustomed to it, and knew that they were of an age to be ground down, they followed Agatha’s advice, and submitted without further open struggle, though there was a good deal of low murmur, and the foreman’s work was not essentially disagreeable, even while Vera maintained, what she believed to be an axiom, that governesses were detestable, and that the M.A. must incur the penalty of acting as such.
Very soon after luncheon appeared three figures on bicycles. Wilfred Merrifield, with Mysie and Valetta, come to give another lesson on the “flying circle’s speed.”
Magdalen came out with her young people to enjoy their amusement, as well as to watch over her own precious machine, as Vera said. It was admired, as became connoisseurs in the article; and she soon saw that Wilfred was to be trusted with the care of it, so she consented to its being ridden in the practice, provided it was not taken out into the lanes.
Mysie turned off from the practising, where she was not wanted, and joined Miss Prescott in walking through the garden terraces, and planning what would best adorn them, talking over favourite books, and enjoying themselves very much; then going on to the quarry, where Mysie looked about with a critical eye to see if it displayed any fresh geological treasures to send Fergus in quest of. She began eagerly to pour forth the sister’s never-ending tale of her brother’s cleverness, and thus they came down the outside lane to the lower gate, seeing beforehand the sparkle of bicycles in its immediate proximity.
It was not open, but Vera might be seen standing with one hand on the latch, the other on Magdalen’s bicycle, her face lifted with imploring, enticing smiles to Wilfred, who had fallen a little back, while Paula had decidedly drawn away.
None of them had seen Magdalen and Mysie till they were round the low stone wall and close upon them. There was a general start, and Vera exclaimed, “We haven’t been outside! No, we haven’t! And it is not the Rockquay Road either, sister! I only wanted a run down