Citation
The carved lions

Material Information

Title:
The carved lions
Creator:
Molesworth, 1839-1921
Brooke, L. Leslie (Leonard Leslie), 1862-1940 ( illustrator )
Macmillan & Co ( Publisher )
R. & R. Clark (Firm) ( Printer )
Place of Publication:
London
Publisher:
Macmillan & Co.
Manufacturer:
R. & R. Clark
Publication Date:
Language:
English
Physical Description:
viii, 194, [2] p., [7] leaves of plates : ill. ; 20 cm.

Subjects

Subjects / Keywords:
Children -- Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction ( lcsh )
Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction ( lcsh )
Brothers and sisters -- Juvenile fiction ( lcsh )
Parent and child -- Juvenile fiction ( lcsh )
Friendship -- Juvenile fiction ( lcsh )
Students -- Juvenile fiction ( lcsh )
Loneliness -- Juvenile fiction ( lcsh )
Teacher-student relationships -- Juvenile fiction ( lcsh )
Dreams -- Juvenile fiction ( lcsh )
Fantasy literature -- 1895 ( rbgenr )
Publishers' advertisements -- 1895 ( rbgenr )
Hand-colored illustrations -- 1895 ( local )
Bldn -- 1895
Genre:
Fantasy literature ( rbgenr )
Publishers' advertisements ( rbgenr )
Hand-colored illustrations ( local )
novel ( marcgt )
Spatial Coverage:
England -- London
Scotland -- Edinburgh
Target Audience:
juvenile ( marctarget )

Notes

General Note:
Publisher's advertisements follow text.
General Note:
Baldwin Library copy: some illustrations are hand-colored: probably by young owner.
Statement of Responsibility:
by Mrs. Molesworth ; illustrated by L. Leslie Brooke.

Record Information

Source Institution:
University of Florida
Holding Location:
University of Florida
Rights Management:
This item is presumed to be in the public domain. The University of Florida George A. Smathers Libraries respect the intellectual property rights of others and do not claim any copyright interest in this item. Users of this work have responsibility for determining copyright status prior to reusing, publishing or reproducing this item for purposes other than what is allowed by fair use or other copyright exemptions. Any reuse of this item in excess of fair use or other copyright exemptions may require permission of the copyright holder. The Smathers Libraries would like to learn more about this item and invite individuals or organizations to contact The Department of Special and Area Studies Collections (special@uflib.ufl.edu) with any additional information they can provide.
Resource Identifier:
026879968 ( ALEPH )
ALH4903 ( NOTIS )
01727871 ( OCLC )

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Full Text
















THE CARVED LIONS






Wie

S29

a



SS



‘Our consultation took a good while,’—p. 44. oe
frontispiece.



THE CARVED
LI ONS

MRS‘MOLESWORTH
ILL-VSTRATED BY'L: LESLIE BROOKE



I895
LONDON :- MACMIL-AN -& CO






CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

Otp Days .

CHAPTER II

A Harry Evenine

CHAPTER III

Coming Events

CHAPTER IV

ALL SEeTriEep

CHAPTER V

An UNPROMISING BEGINNING

CHAPTER VI
A New Wor.ip

CHAPTER VII

GarHERine CLoups

PAGE

17

33

48

63

81

97





viii CONTENTS



CHAPTER VIII

‘NoBopy—Nozopy’

CHAPTER IX

Out In tHE Rar .

CHAPTER X

Takine RerugE

CHAPTER XI

Kiyp Frienps

CHAPTER XII

Goop Nrws

PAGE

112

130

147

162

181



ILLUSTRATIONS

‘Our consultation took a good while’ : . Frontispiece
: PAGE
‘Good-bye’. : : : ; : : ei

‘Little girls must not contradict, and must not be rude’ 82
‘My poor little girl, what is the matter?’ . : > LOY

‘T crept downstairs, past one schoolroom with its closed

door’ ‘ : : : , : , . 140
‘The brother lions rose into the air’ ; : Pals

‘Myra came forward gently, her sweet face looking

rather grave’ . : ; : : . elite,






THE CARVED LIONS

CHAPTER I
OLD DAYS

Ir is already a long time since I was a little girl.
Sometimes, when I look out upon the world and see
how many changes have come about, how different
many things are from what I can remember them,
I could believe that a still longer time had passed
since my childhood than is really the case. Some-
times, on the contrary, the remembrance of things
that then happened comes over me so very vividly,
so very real-ly, that I can scarcely believe myself
to be as old as I am.

I can remember things in my little girlhood
more clearly than many in later years, This makes
me hope that the story of some part of it may
interest children of to-day, for I know I have not

& B

SC





2 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



forgotten the feelings I had as a child. And after
all, I believe that in a great many ways children are
very like each other in their hearts and minds, even
though their lives may seem very different and very
far apart.

The first years of my childhood were very happy,
though there were some things in my life which
many children would not like at all. My parents
were not rich, and the place where we lived was not
pretty or pleasant. It was a rather large town in
an ugly part of the country, where great tall chimneys
giving out black smoke, and streams—once clear
sparkling brooks, no doubt—whose water was nearly
as black as the smoke, made it often difficult to
believe in bright blue sky or green grass, or any of
the sweet pure country scenes that children love,
though perhaps children that have them do not love
them as much as those who have not got them do.

I think that was the way with me. The country
was almost the same as fairyland to me—the peeps
I had of it now and then were a delight I could not
find words to express.

But what matters most to children is not where
their home is, but what it is. And our home was a
very sweet and loving one, though it was only a





I OLD DAYS 3



rather small and dull house in a dull street. Our
father and mother did everything they possibly
could to make us happy, and the trial of living at
Great Mexington must have been far worse for them
than for us. For they had both been accustomed
to rich homes when they were young, and father had
never expected that he would have to work so hard
or in the sort of way he had to do, after he lost
nearly all his money.

When I say ‘us, I mean my brother Haddie and
I. Haddie—whose real name was Haddon—was
two years older than I, and we two were the whole
family. My name—vwas I was going to say, for
now there are so few people to call me by my
Christian name that it seems hardly mine-——my
name is Geraldine. Somehow I never had a ‘short
for it, though it is a long name, and Haddie was
always Haddie, and ‘ Haddon’ scarcely needs shorten-
ing. I think it was because he nearly always called
me Sister or ‘Sis.’

Haddie was between ten and eleven years old
and I was nine when the great change that I am
going to tell you about came over our lives. But
I must go back a little farther than that, otherwise
you would not understand all about us, nor the





4 ' THE CARVED LIONS CHAP,



meaning of the odd title I have chosen for my
story.

I had no governess and I did not go to school.
My mother taught me herself, partly, I think, to
save expense, and partly because she did not like the
idea of sending me to even a day-school at Great
Mexington. For though many of the families there
were very rich, and had large houses and carriages
and horses and beautiful gardens, they were not
always very refined. There were good and kind and
unselfish people there as there are everywhere, but
there were some who thought more of being rich
than of anything else—the sort of people that are
called ‘purse proud.” And as children very often
take after their parents, my father and mother did
not like the idea of my having such children as my
companions—children who would look down upon
me for being poor, and perhaps treat me unkindly
on that account.

‘When Geraldine is older she must go to school,
my father used to say, ‘unless by that time our
ship comes in and we can afford a governess. But
when she is older it will not matter so much, as
she will have learnt to value things at their just
worth,’





I OLD DAYS

co



I did not then understand what he meant, but I
have never forgotten the words.

I was a very simple child. It never entered my
head that there was anything to be ashamed of in
living in a small house and having only two servants.
I thought it would be nice to have more money, so
that mamma would not need to be so busy and could
have more pretty dresses, and above all that we
could then live in the country, but I never minded
being poor in any sore or ashamed way. And I
often envied Haddie who did go to school. I thought
it would be nice to have lots of other little girls to
play with. I remember once saying so to mamma,
but she shook her head.

‘I don’t think you would like it as much as you
fancy you would, she said. ‘Not at present at least.
When you are a few years older I hope to send you
for some classes to Miss Ledbury’s school, and by
that time you will enjoy the good teaching. But
except for the lessons, I am quite sure it is better
and happier for you to be at home, even though you
find it rather lonely sometimes,

And in his way Haddie said much the same.
School was all very well for boys, he told me. If a
fellow tried to bully you, you could bully him back.





6 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



But girls weren't like that—they couldn’t fight it out.
And when I said to him I didn’t want to fight, he
still shook his head, and repeated that I wouldn’t
like school at all—some of his friends’ sisters were
at school and they hated it.

Still, though I did not often speak of it, the wish to
go to school, and the belief that I should find school-
life very happy and interesting, remained in my
mind. I often made up fancies about it, and pictured
myself doing lessons with other little girls and read-
ing the same story-books and playing duets together.
I could not believe that I should not like it. The
truth was, I suppose, that I was longing for com-
panions of my own age.

It was since Haddie went to school that I had
felt lonely. I was a great deal with mamma, but of
course there were hours in the day when she was
taken up with other things and could not attend to
me. I used to long then for the holidays to come
so that I should have Haddie again to play with.

My happiest days were Wednesdays and Saturdays,
for then he did not go to school in the afternoon.
And mamma very often planned some little treat
for us on those days, such as staying up to have
late tea with her and papa when he came in from





el OLD DAYS 7



his office, or reading aloud some new story-book,
or going a walk with her in the afternoon and
buying whatever we liked for our own tea at the
confectioner’s.

Very simple treats—but then we were very
simple children, as I have said already.

Our house, though in a street quite filled with
houses, was some little way from the centre of the
town, where the best shops were—some years before,
our street had, I suppose, been considered quite in
the country. We were very fond of going to the
shops with mamma. We thought them very grand
and beautiful, though they were not nearly as pretty
as shops are nowadays, for they were much smaller
and darker, so that the things could not be spread
out in the attractive way they are now, nor were the
things themselves nearly as varied and tempting.

There was one shop which interested us very
much. It belonged to the principal furniture-maker
of Mexington. It scarcely looked like a shop, but
was more like a rather gloomy private house very full
of heavy dark cabinets and tables and wardrobes and
chairs, mostly of mahogany, and all extremely good
and well made. Yes, furniture, though ugly, really

was very good in those days—TI have one or two







8 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



relics of my old home still, in the shape of a leather-
covered armchair and a beautifully-made chest of
drawers. For mamma’s godmother had helped to
furnish our house when we came to Mexington, and
she was the sort of old lady who when she did give
a present gave it really good of its kind. She had
had furniture herself made by Cranston—that was
the cabinetmaker’s name—for her home was in the
country only about three hours’ journey from Mex-
ington—and it had heen first-rate, so she ordered
what she gave mamma from him also.

But it was not because the furniture was so good
that we liked going to Cranston’s. It was for quite
another reason. A little way in from the front
entrance to the shop, where there were glass doors
to swing open, stood a pair of huge lions carved in
very dark, almost black, wood. They were nearly, if
not quite, as large as life, and the first time I saw
them, when I was only four or five, I was really
frightened of them. They guarded the entrance to
the inner part of the shop, which was dark and
gloomy and mysterious-looking, and I remember
clutching fast hold of mamma’s hand as we passed
them, not feeling at all sure that they would not
suddenly spring forward and catch us. But when





I OLD DAYS 9



mamma saw that I was frightened, she stopped and
made me feel the lions and stroke them to show me
that they were only wooden and could not possibly
hurt me. And after that I grew very fond of them,
and was always asking her to take me to the ‘lion
shop.’

Haddie liked them too—his great wish was to
climb on one of their backs and play at going a ride.

I don’t think I thought of that. What I liked
was to stroke their heavy manes and fancy to myself
what I would do if, all of a sudden, one of them
‘came alive, as I called it, and turned his head
round and looked at me, And as I grew older,
almost without knowing it, I made up all sorts of
fairy fancies about the lions—I sometimes thought
they were enchanted princes, sometimes that they
were real lions who were only carved wood in the
day-time, and at night walked about wherever they
liked.

So, for one reason or another, both Haddie and I
were always very pleased when mamma had to look
in at Cranston’s.

This happened oftener than might have been
expected, considering that our house was small, and
that my father and mother were not rich enough





10 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



often to buy new furniture. For mamma’s god-
mother seemed to be always ordering something
or other at the cabinetmaker’s, and as she knew
mamma was very sensible and careful, she used to
write to her to explain to Cranston about the things
she wanted, or to look at them before he sent them
home, to see that they were allright. And Cranston
was always very polite indeed to mamma.

He himself was a stout, red-faced, little, elderly
man, with gray whiskers, which he brushed up in a
fierce kind of way that made him look like a rather
angry cat, though he really was a very gentle and
kind old man. I thought him much nicer than his
partner, whose name was Berridge, a tall, thin man,
who talked very fast, and made a great show of
scolding any of the clerks or workmen who happened
to be about.

Mr. Cranston was very proud of the lions. They
had belonged to his grandfather and then to his
father, who had both been in the same sort of
business as he was, and he told mamma they had
been carved in ‘the East” I didn’t know what he
meant by the East, and I don’t now know what
country he was alluding to—India or China or
Japan. And I am not sure that he knew himself.





I OLD DAYS 11



But ‘the East’ sounded far away and mysterious—it
might do for fairyland or brownieland, and I was
quite satisfied. No doubt, wherever they came from,
the lions were very beautifully carved.

Now I will go on to tell about the changes that
came into our lives, closing the doors of these first
happy childish years, when there scarcely seemed to
be ever a cloud on our sky.

One day, when I was a month or two past nine
years old, mamma said to me just as I was finishing
my practising—I used to practise half an hour every
other day, and have a music lesson from mamma the
between days—that she was going out to do some
shopping that afternoon, and that, if I liked, I might
go with her.

‘I hope it will not rain, she added, ‘though it
does look rather threatening. But perhaps it will
hold off till evening’

‘And I can take my umbrella in case it rains, [
said. I was very proud of my umbrella. It had
been one of my last birthday presents. ‘Yes, mamma,
I should like to come very much. Will Haddie
come too ?’

For it was Wednesday—one of his half-holidays.

‘To tell the truth, said mamma, ‘I forgot to ask







12 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



him this morning if he would like to come, but he
will be home soon—it is nearly luncheon time, I
daresay he will like to come, especially as I have to
go to Cranston’s.’

She smiled a little as she said this. Our love for
the carved lions amused her.

‘Oh yes, I am sure he will like to come, I said.
‘And may we buy something for tea at Miss Fryer’s
on our way home?’

Mamma smiled again.

‘That will be two treats instead of one, she said,
‘but I daresay I can afford two or three pence.’

Miss Fryer’s was our own pet. confectioner, or
pastry-cook, as we used to say more frequently then.
She was a Quakeress, and her shop was very near
our house, so near that mamma let me go there
alone with Haddie. Miss Fryer was very grave and
quiet, but we were not at all afraid of her, for
we knew that she was really very kind. She was
always dressed in pale gray or fawn colour, with a
white muslin shawl crossed over her shoulders, and a
white net cap beautifully quilled and fitting tightly
round her face, so that only a very little of her soft
gray hair showed. She always spoke to us as ‘thou’
and ‘thee,’ and she was very particular to give us





I OLD DAYS 13



exactly what we asked for, and also to take the
exact money in payment. But now and then, after
the business part had been all correctly settled, she
would choose out a nice bun, or sponge-cake, or two
or three biscuits, and would say ‘I give thee this as
a present.’ And she did not like us to say ‘Thank
you, Miss Fryer, but ‘Thank you, friend Susan.’ I
daresay she would have liked us to say ‘Thank hee,’
but neither Haddie nor I had courage for that!

I ran upstairs in high spirits, and five minutes
after when Haddie came in from school he was
nearly as pleased as I to hear our plans.

‘If only it does not rain, said mamma at
luncheon.

Luncheon was, of course, our dinner, and it was
often mamma's dinner really too. Our father was
sometimes so late of getting home that he liked
better to have tea than a regular dinner, Butmamma
always called it luncheon because it seemed natural
to her.

‘I don’t mind if it does rain, said Haddie,
‘because of my new mackintosh.’

Haddie was very proud of his mackintosh, which
father had got him for going to and coming from
school in rainy weather. Mackintoshes were then a





14 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



new invention, and very expensive compared with
what they are now. But Haddie was rather given
to catching cold, and at Great Mexington it did
rain very often—much oftener than anywhere else, I
am quite sure.

‘And Geraldine doesn’t mind because of her new
umbrella, said mamma. ‘So we are proof against
the weather, whatever happens.’

It may seem strange that I can remember so
much of a time now so very long ago. But I. really
do—of that day and of those that followed it
especially, because, as I have already said, they were
almost the close of the first part of our childish life.

That afternoon was such a happy one. We set
off with mamma, one on each side of her, hanging
on her arms, Haddie trying to keep step with
her, and I skipping along on my tiptoes. When
we got to the more crowded streets we had to
separate—that is to say, Haddie had to let go of
mamma’s arm, so that he could fall behind when we
met more than one person. For the pavements at
Mexington were in some parts narrow and old-
fashioned.

Mamma had several messages to do, and at some
of the shops Haddie and I waited outside because we







I OLD DAYS 15



did not think they were very interesting. But at
some we were only too ready to go in. One I
remember very well. It was a large grocer’s. We
thought it a most beautiful shop, though nowadays
it would be considered quite dull and gloomy,
compared with the brilliant places of the kind you
see filled with biscuits and dried fruits and all kinds
of groceries tied up with ribbons, or displayed in
boxes of every colour of the rainbow. I must say I
think the groceries themselves were quite as good as
they are now, and in some cases better, but that may
be partly my fancy, as I daresay I have a partiality
for old-fashioned things.

Mamma did not buy all our groceries at this
grand shop, for it was considered dear. But certain
things, such as tea—which cost five shillings a pound
then—she always ordered there. And the grocer,
like Cranston, was a very polite man. I think he
understood that though she was not rich, and never
bought a great deal, mamma was different in herself
from the grandly-dressed Mexington ladies who drove
up to his shop in their carriages, with a long list
of all the things they wanted. And when mamma
had finished giving her order, he used always to offer
Haddie and me a gingerbread biscuit of a very





16 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP. I



particular and delicious kind. They were large
round biscuits, of a nice bright brown colour, and
underneath they had thin white wafer, which we
called ‘eating paper.’ They were crisp without being
hard. I never see gingerbreads like them now.

‘This is a lucky day, mamma, I said, when we
came out of the grocer’s. ‘Mr. Simeon never forgets
to give us gingerbreads when he is there himself’

‘No, said mamma, ‘he is a very kind man.
Perhaps he has got Haddies and Geraldines of his
own, and knows what they like.’

‘And now are we going to Cranston’s?’ asked my
brother.

Mamma looked at the paper in her hand. She
was very careful and methodical in all her ways, and
always wrote down what she had to do before she
came out.

‘Yes, she said, ‘I think I have done everything
else. But I shall be some little time at Cranston’s.
Mrs. Selwood has asked me to settle ever so many
things with him—she is going abroad for the winter,
and wants him to do a good deal of work at Fernley
while she is away.’



CHAPTER II

'

A HAPPY EVENING

Happrg and I were not at all sorry to hear that
mamma’s call at Cranston’s was not to be a hurried
one.

‘We don’t mind if you are ever so long, I said;
“do we, Haddie ?’

‘No, of course we don’t, Haddie agreed. ‘I
should like to spend a whole day in those big show-
rooms of his. Couldn’t we have jolly games of
hide-and-seek, Sis? And then riding the lions! I
wish you were rich enough to buy one of the lions,
mamma, and have it for an ornament in the hall, or
in the drawing-room,’

‘We should need to build a hall or a drawing-
room to hold it,’ said mamma, laughing. ‘I’m afraid
your lion would turn into a white elephant, Haddie,
if it became ours.’

I remember wondering what she meant. How

Cc





18 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP,



could a lion turn into an elephant? But I was rather
a slow child in some ways. Very often I thought
a thing over a long time in my mind if I did not
understand it before asking any one to explain it,
And so before I said anything it went out of my
head, for here we were at Cranston’s door.

There was only a young shopman to be seen, but
when mamma told him she particularly wanted to
see Mr. Cranston himself, he asked us to step in and
take a seat while he went to fetch him.

We passed between the lions. It seemed quite
a long time since we had seen them, and I thought
they looked at us very kindly. I was just nudging
Haddie to whisper this to him when mamma stopped
to say to us that we might stay in the outer room if
we liked ; she knew it was our favourite place, and
ina few minutes we heard her talking to old Mr.
Cranston, who had come to her in the inner show-
room through another door.

Haddie’s head was full of climbing up on to one
of the lions to goaride. But luckily he could not
find anything to climb up with, which was a very
good thing, as he would have been pretty sure to
topple over, and Mr. Cranston would not have been
at all pleased if he had scratched the lion.





IL A HAPPY EVENING 19



To keep him quiet I began talking to him about
my fancies. I made him look close into the lions’
faces—it was getting late in the afternoon, and we
had noticed before we came in that the sun was
setting stormily. A ray of bright orange-coloured
light found its way in through one of the high-up
windows which were at the back of the show-room,
and fell right across the mane of one of the lions
and almost into the eyes of the other. The effect
on the dark, almost black, wood of which they were
made was very curious.

‘Look, Haddie,’ I said suddenly, catching his arm,
‘doesn’t it really look as if they were smiling at us
—the one with the light on its face especially? I
really do think there’s something funny about eo
—I wonder if they are enchanted.’

Haddie did not laugh at me. I think in his
heart he was fond of fancies too, though he might
not have liked the boys at school to know it. He
sat staring at our queer friends nearly as earnestly
as I did myself. And as the ray of light slowly
faded, he turned to me.

‘Yes, he said, ‘their faces do seem to change.
But I think they always look kind.’

‘They do to ws,’ I said confidently, ‘but sometimes





20 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



they are quite fierce. I don’t think they looked at
us the way they do now the first time they saw us.
And one day one of the men in the shop shoved
something against one of them and his face frowned
—I’m sure it did’

‘I wonder if he’d frown if I got up on his back,’
said Haddlie.

‘Oh do leave off about climbing on their backs,
Tsaid. ‘It wouldn’t be at all comfortable—they’re
so broad, you couldn’t sit cross-legs, and they’d be
as slippery as anything. It’s much nicer to make
up stories about them coming alive in the night,
or turning into black princes and saying magic
words to make the doors open like in the Arabian
Nights,’

‘Well, tell me stories of all they do then,’ said
Haddie condescendingly.

‘I will if yowll let me think for a minute? I
said. ‘I wish Aunty Etta was here—she does know
such lovely stories.’ .

‘I like yours quite as well, said Haddie encourag-
ingly, ‘I don’t remember Aunty Etta’s; it’s such a
long time since I saw her. You saw her last year,
you know, but I didn’t’ j

‘She told me one about a china parrot, a most





re A HAPPY EVENING 21



beautiful green and gold parrot, that was really a
fairy, I said. ‘I think I could turn it into a lion
story, if I thought about it.’

‘No,’ said Haddie, ‘you can tell the parrot one
another time. Id rather hear one of your own
stories, new, about the lions. I know you've got
some in your head. Begin, do—I’ll help you if you
can’t get on.’

But my story that afternoon was not to be heard.
Just as I was beginning with, ‘Well, then, there was
once an old witch who lived in a very lonely hut
in the middle of a great forest,’ there came voices
behind us, and in another moment we heard mamma
saying,

‘Haddie, my boy, Geraldine, I am quite ready.’

I was not very sorry. I liked to have more time
to make up my stories, and Haddie sometimes
hurried me so. It was Aunty Etta, I think, who
had first put it into my head to make them. She
was so clever about it herself, both in making stories
and in remembering those she had read. And she
had read a lot. But she was away in India at the
time I am now writing about; her going so far off
was a great sorrow to mamma.

Haddie and I started up at once. We had to





22 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



be very obedient, what father called ‘quickly
obedient, and though he was so kind he was very
strict too.

‘My children are great admirers of your lions,
Mr. Cranston, mamma said; and the old man
smiled.

‘ They are not singular in their taste, madam,’ he
said. ‘I own that I am very proud of them myself,
and when my poor daughter was a child there was
nothing pleased her so much as when her mother or
I lifted her on to one of them, and made believe she
was going a ride.

Haddie looked triumphant.

‘There now you see, Sis, he whispered, nudging
me.

But I did not answer him, for I was listening to
what mamma was saying.

‘Oh, by the bye, Mr. Cranston,’ she went on, ‘I
was forgetting to ask how your little grandchild is.
Have you seen her lately ?’

Old Cranston’s face brightened.

‘She is very well, madam, I thank you,’ he re-
plied. ‘And I am pleased to say that she is coming
to stay with us shortly. We hope to keep her
through the winter. Her stepmother is very kind,





I A HAPPY EVENING 23



but with little children of her own, it is not always
easy for her to give as much attention as she would
like to Myra, and she and Mr. Raby have responded
cordially to our invitation.’

‘I am very glad to hear it—very glad indeed,
said mamma. ‘I know what a pleasure it will be
to you and Mrs. Cranston. Let me see—how old is
the little girl now—seven, eight ?’

‘ Nine, madam, getting on for ten Indeed,’ said Mr.
Cranston with pride.

‘Dear me,’ said mamma, ‘how time passes! I
remember seeing her when she was a baby— before
we came to live here, of course, once when I was
staying at Fernley, just after——

Mamma stopped and hesitated.

‘Just after her poor mother died—yes, madam,’
said the old man quietly.

And then we left, Mr. Cranston respectfully
holding the door open.

It was growing quite dark; the street lamps were
lighted and their gleam was reflected on the pave-
ment, for it had been raining and was still quite wet
underfoot. Mamma looked round her.

‘You had better put on your mackintosh, Haddie,’
she said. ‘It may rain again. No, Geraldine dear,





24 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



there is no use opening your umbrella till it does
rain.’

My feelings were divided between pride in my
umbrella and some reluctance to have it wet! I
took hold of mamma’s arm again, while Haddie
walked at her other side. It was not a very cheerful
prospect before us—the gloomy dirty streets of
Mexington were now muddy and sloppy as well—
though on the whole I don’t know but that they
looked rather more cheerful by gaslight than in the
day. It was chilly too, for the season was now very
late autumn, if not winter. But little did we care—
I don’t think there could have been found anywhere
two happier children than my brother and I that
dull rainy evening as we trotted along beside our
mother. There was the feeling of her to take care of
us, of our cheerful home waiting for us, with a bright
fire and the tea-table all spread. If I had not been
a little tired—for we had walked a good way—in my
heart I was just as ready to skip along on the tips
of my toes as when we first came out.

‘We may stop at Miss Fryer’s, mayn’t we,
mamma?’ said Haddie.

‘Well, yes, I suppose I promised you something
for tea,” mamma replied.





IL A HAPPY EVENING 25



‘How much may we spend?’ he asked. ‘Six-
pence—-do say sixpence, and then we can get enough
for you to have tea with us too.’

‘Haddie, I said reproachfully, ‘as if we wouldn’t
give mamma something however little we had!’

‘We'd offer it her of course, but you know she
wouldn’t take it, he replied. ‘So it’s much better to
have really enough for all’

His way of speaking made mamma laugh again.

‘Then I suppose it must be sixpence, she said,
‘and here we are at Miss Fryer’s. Shall we walk on,
my little girl, I think you must be tired, and let
Haddie invest in cakes and run after us?’

‘Oh no, please mamma, dear, I said, ‘I like so
to choose too.’

Half the pleasure of the sixpence would have
been gone if Haddie and I had not spent it together.

‘Then I will go on, said mamma, ‘and you two
can come after me together,’

She took out her purse and gave my brother the
promised money, and then with a smile on her dear
face—I can see her now as she stood in the light of
the street-lamp just at the old Quakeress’s door—
she nodded to us and turned to go.

I remember exactly what we bought, partly,





26 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



perhaps, because it was our usual choice. We used
to think it over a good deal first and each would
suggest something different, but in the end we nearly
always came back to the old plan for the outlay of
our sixpence, namely, half-penny crumpets for three-
pence—that meant seven, not six; it was the received
custom to give seven for threepence—and half-penny
Bath buns for the other threepence—seven of them
too, of course. And Bath buns, not plain ones. You
cannot get these now—not at least in any place
where I have lived of late years. And I am not
sure but that even at Mexington they were a spéci-
alité of dear old Miss Fryer’s. They were so good ;
indeed, everything she sold was thoroughly good of
its kind. She was so honest, using the best materials
for all she made.

That evening she stood with her usual gentle
gravity while we discussed what we should have,
and when after discarding sponge-cakes and finger-
biscuits, which we had thought of ‘for a change,’ and
partly because finger-biscuits weighed light and made
a good show, we came round at last to the seven
crumpets and seven buns, she listened as seriously
and put them up in their little paper bags with as
much interest as though the ceremony had never





il A HAPPY EVENING 27



been gone through before. And then just as we were
turning to leave, she lifted up a glass shade and
drew out two cheese-cakes, which she proceeded to
put into another paper bag.

Haddie and I looked at each other. This was a
lovely present. What a tea we should have!

‘J think thee will find these good,’ she said with
a smile, ‘and I hope thy dear mother will not think
them too rich for thee and thy brother.’

She put them into my hand, and of course we
thanked her heartily. I have often wondered why
she never said ‘thou wilt, but always ‘thee will, for
she was not an uneducated woman by any means.

Laden with our treasures Haddie and I hurried
home. There was mamma watching for us with the
door open. How sweet it was to have her always to
welcome us !

‘Tea is quite ready, dears, she said. ‘Run up-
stairs quickly, Geraldine, and take off your things,
they must be rather damp. Iam going to have my
real tea with you, for I have just had a note from
your father to say he won’t be in till late and I am
not to wait for him.’

Mamma sighed a little as she spoke. I felt sorry
for her disappointment, but, selfishly speaking, we





28 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



sometimes rather enjoyed the evenings father was
late, for then mamma gave us her whole attention,
as she was not able to do when he was at home.
And though we were very fond of our father, we were
—I especially, I think—much more afraid of him
than of our mother,

_ And that was such a happy evening! I have
never forgotten it. Mamma was so good and thought-
ful for us, she did not let us find out in the least
that she was feeling anxious on account of something
father had said in his note to her. She was just
perfectly sweet.

We were very proud of our spoils from Miss
Fryer’s. We wanted mamma to have one cheese-
cake and Haddie and I to divide the other between
us. But mamma would not agree to that. She
would only take a half, so that we had three-quarters
each.

‘“Wasn’t it kind of Miss Fryer, mamma?’ I said.

‘Very kind, said mamma. ‘I think she is really
fond of children though she is so grave. She has
not forgotten what it was to be a child herself’

Somehow her words brought back to my mind
what old Mr. Cranston had said about his little
grand-daughter.





Il A HAPPY EVENING 29



‘I suppose children are all rather like each other,
Isaid. ‘Like about Haddie and that little gul
riding on the lions,’

Haddie was not very pleased at my speaking of
it; he was beginning to be afraid of seeming babyish.

‘That was quite different, he said. ‘She was a
baby and had to be held on. It was the fun of
climbing up J cared for.’

‘She wasn’t a baby, I said. ‘She’s nine years
old, he said she was—didn’t he, mamma ?’

‘You are mixing two things together, said mamma.
‘Mr. Cranston was speaking first of his daughter
long ago when she was a child, and then he was
speaking of her daughter, little Myra Raby, who is
now nine years old.’

‘Why did he say my “poor” daughter?’ I asked.

‘Did you not hear the allusion to her death ?
Mrs. Raby died soon after little Myra was born.
Mr. Raby married again—he is a clergyman not very
far from Fernley——’

‘A clergyman, exclaimed Haddie. He was more
worldly-wise than I, thanks to being at school. ‘A
clergyman, and he married a shopkeeper’s daughter.’

‘There are very different kinds of shopkeepers,
Haddie, said mamma. ‘Mr. Cranston is very rich,





30 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



and his daughter was very well educated and very
nice. Still, no doubt Mr. Raby was in a higher
position than she, and both Mr. Cranston and his
wife are very right-minded people, and never pretend
to be more than they are. That is why I was so
glad to hear that little Myra is coming to stay with
them. I was afraid the second Mrs. Raby might
have looked down upon them perhaps.’

Haddie said no more about it. And though I
listened to what mamma said, I don’t think I quite
took in the sense of it till a good while afterwards,
It has often been like that with me in life. I have a
curiously ‘retentive’ memory, as it is called. Words
and speeches remain in my mind like unread letters,
till some day, quite unexpectedly, something reminds
me of them, and I take them out, as it were, and find
what they really meant.

But just now my only interest in little Myra
Raby’s history was a present one.

‘Mamma,’ I said suddenly, ‘if she is a nice little
girl like what her mamma was, mightn’t I have her
to come and see me and play with me? I have
never had any little girl to play with, and it is so
dull sometimes—the days that Haddie is late at
school, and when you are busy. Do say I may





II A HAPPY EVENING 31



have her—I’m sure old Mr. Cranston would let her
come, and then I might go and play with her some-
times perhaps. Do you think she will play among
the furniture—where the lions are?’

Mamma shook her head.

‘No, dear’ she answered. ‘I am quite sure her
grandmother would not like that. For, you see, any-
body might come in to the shop or show-rooms, and
it would not seem nice for a little girl to be playing
there—not nice for a carefully brought-up little girl,
I mean,’

‘Then I don’t think I should care to go to her
house,’ I said, ‘but I would like her to come here.
Please let her, mamma dear,’

But mamma only said,

‘We shall see.’

After tea she told us stories—some of them we
had heard often before, but we never tired of hearing
them again—about when she and Aunty Etta were
little girls. They were lovely stories—real ones of
course. Mamma was not as clever as Aunty Etta
about making up fairy ones,

We were quite sorry when it was time to go to
bed.

After I had been asleep for a little that night I





32 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP. 11



woke up again—I had not been very sound asleep.
Just then I saw a light, and mamma came into the
room with a candle.

‘I’m not asleep, dear mamma,’ I said. ‘Do kiss
me again.’

‘That is what I have come for,’ she answered.

- And she came up to the bedside and kissed me,
oh so sweetly--more than once. She seemed as if
she did not want to let go of me.

‘Dear mamma, I whispered sleepily, happy—I’m always happy, but to-night I feel so
extra happy somehow.’

‘Darling, said mamma.

And she kissed me again.



CHAPTER III
COMING EVENTS

Tue shadow of coming changes began to fall over us
very soon after that.

Indeed, the very next morning at breakfast I
noticed that mamma looked pale and almost as if
she had been crying, and father was, so to say, ‘ extra’
kind to her and to me. He talked and laughed
more than usual, partly perhaps to prevent our
noticing how silent dear mamma was, but mostly I
think because that is the way men do when they
are really anxious or troubled.

I don’t fancy Haddie thought there was anything
wrong—he was in a hurry to get off to school.

After breakfast mamma told me to go and practise
for half an hour, and if she did not come to me then,
I had better go on doing some of my lessons alone.
She would look them over afterwards. And as I
was going out of the room she called me back and

D





34 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



kissed me again—almost as she had done the night
before.

That gave me courage to say something. For
children were not, in my childish days, on such free
and easy terms with their elders as they are now.
And kind and gentle as mamma was, we knew very
distinctly the sort of things she would think forward
or presuming on our part.

‘Mamma,’ I said, still hesitating a little.

‘Well, dear,’ she replied. She was buttoning, or
pretending to button, the band of the little brown
holland apron I wore, so that I could not see her
face, but something in the tone of her voice told me
that my instinct was not mistaken.

‘Mamma, I repeated, ‘may I say something? I
have a feeling that—that you are—that there is
something the matter’

Mamma did not answer at once. Then she said
very gently, but quite kindly,

‘Geraldine, my dear, you know that I tell you
as much as I think it right to tell any one as young
as you—I tell you more, of our plans and private
matters and such things, than most mothers tell
their little daughters. This has come about partly
through your being so much alone with me. But





TL COMING EVENTS 35



when I don’t tell you anything, even though you ,
may suspect there is something to tell, you should
trust me that there is good reason for my not
doing so.’

‘Yes, I said, but I could not stifle a little sigh.
‘Would you just tell me one thing, mamma, I went
on; ‘it isn’t anything that you're really unhappy
about, is it?’

Again mamma hesitated.

‘Dear child, she said, ‘try to put it out of your
mind. I can only say this much to you, 1 am
anwious more than troubled. There is nothing the
matter that should really be called a trouble. But
your father and I have a question of great importance
to decide just now, and we are very—I may say really
terribly—anxious to decide for the best. That is all
I can tell you. Kiss me, my darling, and try to be
your own bright little self. That will bea comfort
and help to me.’

I kissed her and I promised I would try to do
as she wished. But it was with rather a heavy
heart that I went to my practising. What could it
be? I did try not to think of it, but it would keep
coming back into my mind. And I was only a child.
I had no experience of trouble or anxiety. After a





36 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



time my spirits began to rise again—there was a
sort of excitement in the wondering what this great
matter could be. I am afraid I did not succeed in
putting it out of my mind as mamma wished me
to do.

‘But the days went on without anything particular
happening. I did not speak of what mamma had
said to me to my brother. I knew she did not
wish me to do so. And by degrees other things
began to make me forget about it a little. It was
just at that time, I remember, that some friend—an
aunt on father’s side, I think—sent mea present of
The Wide, Wide World, and while I was reading it
I seemed actually to live in the story. It was curious
that I should have got it just then. If mamma had
read it herself I am not sure that she would have
given it tome. But after all, perhaps it served the
purpose of preparing me a /idtle—a very little—for
what was before me in my own life.

It was nearly three weeks after the time I have
described rather minutely that the blow fell, that
Haddie and I were told the whole. I think, however,
I will not go on telling how we were told, for I am
afraid of making my story too long.

And of course, however good my memory is, I





LI COMING EVENTS 37



cannot pretend that the conversations I relate took
place exactly as I give them. I think T vive the
spirit of them correctly, but now that I have come
to the telling of distinct facts, perhaps it will be
better simply to narrate them.

You will remember my saying that my father had
lost money very unexpectedly, and that this was
what had obliged him to come to live at Mexington
and work so hard. He had got the post he held
there —it was in a bank—ereatly through the
influence of Mrs. Selwood, mamma’s godmother,
who lived in the country at some hours’ distance
from the town, and whose name was well known
there, as she owned a great many houses and other
property in the immediate neighbourhood.

Father was very glad to get this post, and very
grateful to Mrs. Selwood. She took great interest in
us all—that is to say, she was interested in Haddie
and me because we were mamma’s children, though
she did not care for or understand children as a rule.
But she was a faithful friend, and anxious to help
father still more.

Just about the time I have got to in my story,
the manager of a bank in South America, in some
way connected with the one at Great Mexington,





38 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.

became ill, and was told by the doctors that he must
return to England and have a complete rest for two
years. Mrs. Selwood had money connection with
this bank too, and got to hear of what had happened.
Knowing that father could speak both French and
Spanish well, for he had been in the diplomatic
service as a younger man, she at once applied for the
appointment for him, and after some little delay she
was told that he should have the offer of it for the
two years.

Two years are not a very long time, even though
the pay was high, but the great advantage of the
offer was that the heads of the bank at Mexington
promised, if all went well for that time, that some
permanent post should be given to father in England
on his return, This was what made him more
anxious to accept the proposal than even the high
pay. For Mrs. Selwood found out that he would
not be able to save much of his salary, as he would
have a large house to keep up, and would be expected
to receive many visitors. On this account the post
was never given to an unmarried man.

‘If he accepts it, Mrs. Selwood wrote to mamma,
‘you, my dear Blanche, must go with him, and some
arrangement would have to be made about the





tr COMING EVENTS 39



children for the time. I would advise your sending
them to school.’

Now I think my readers will not be at a loss
to understand why our dear mother had looked so
troubled, even though on one side this event promised
to be for our good in the end.

Father was allowed two or three weeks in which
to make up his mind. The heads of the Mexington
bank liked and respected him very much, and they
quite saw that there were two sides to the question
of his accepting the offer. The climate of the place
was not very good—at least it was injurious to
English people if they stayed there for long—and it
was perfectly certain that it would be madness to
take growing children like Haddie and me there.

This was the dark spot in it all to mamma, and
indeed to father too. They were not afraid for them-
selves, They were both strong and still young, but
they could not for a moment entertain the idea of
taking ws, And the thought of the separation was
terrible.

You see, being a small family, and living in a place
like Great Mexington, where my parents had not
many congenial friends, and being poor were obliged
to live carefully, home was everything to usall. We





40 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.

four were the whole world to each other, and knew
no happiness apart.

I do not mean to say that I felt or saw all this at
once, but looking back upon it from the outside, as it
were, I see all that made it a peculiarly hard case,
especially—at the beginning, that is to say—for
mamma.

It seems strange that I did not take it all in—all
the misery of it, I mean—at first, nor indeed for
some time, not till I had actual experience of it.
liven Haddie realised it more in anticipation than I
did. He was two years older, and though he had
never been at a boarding-school, still he knew some-
thing of school life. There were boarders at his
school, and he had often seen and heard how, till they
got accustomed to it at any rate, they suffered from
home-sickness, and counted the days to the holidays.

And for us there were not to be any holidays!
No certain prospect of them at best, though Mrs.
Selwood said something vaguely about perhaps
having us at Fernley for a visit in the summer. But
it was very vague. And we had no near relations
on mamma's side except Aunty Etta, who was in
India, and on father’s no one who could possibly
have us regularly for our holidays.





iL COMING EVENTS 41



All this mamma grasped at once, and her grief
was sometimes so extreme that, but for Mrs. Selwood,
I doubt if father would have had the resolution to
accept. But Mrs. Selwood was what is called ‘very
sensible,” perhaps just a little hard, and certainly uot
sensitive. And she put things before our parents in
such a way that mamma felt it her duty to urge
father to accept the offer, and father felt it his duty
to put feelings aside and do so.

They went to stay at Fernley from a Saturday
to a Monday to talk it well over, and it was
when they came back on the Monday that we
were told.

Before then I think we had both come to
have a strong feeling that something was going to
happen. I, of course, had some reason for this
in what mamma had said to me, though J had
forgotten about it a good deal, till this visit to
Fernley brought back the idea of something un-
usual. For it was very seldom that we were left
by ourselves.

We did not mind it much. After all, it was only
two nights and one whole day, and that a Sunday,
when my brother was at home, so we stood at the
door cheerfully enough, looking at our father and





42 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



mother driving off in the clumsy, dingy old four-
wheeler—though that is a modern word—which was
the best kind of cab known at Mexington.

But when they were fairly off Haddie turned to
me, and I saw that he was very grave. I was rather
surprised.

‘Why, Haddie,’ I said, ‘do you mind so much?
They’ll be back on Monday.’

‘No, of course I don’t mind that, he said. ‘But
I wonder why mamma looks so—so awfully trying-
not-to-ery, you know.’

‘Oh,’ I said, ‘I don’t think she’s quite well. And
she hates leaving us.’

‘No,’ said my brother, ‘there’s something more.’

And when he said that, I remembered the feeling
I had had myself. I felt rather cross with Haddie;
I wanted to forget it quite.

“You needn’t try to frighten me like that, I said.
‘I meant to be quite happy while they were away—
to please mamma, you know, by telling her so when
she comes back,’

Then Haddie, who really was a very good-natured,
kind boy, looked sorry.

‘I didn’t mean to frighten you,’ he said; ‘ perhaps
it was my fancy. I don’t want to be unhappy while





IIL COMING EVENTS 43



they're away, I’m sure. I’m only too glad that
to-day’s Saturday and to-morrow Sunday.’

And he did his very best to amuse me. We went
out a walk that afternoon with the housemaid—
quite a long walk, though it was winter. We went
as far out of the town as we could get, to where
there were fields, which in spring and summer still
looked green, and through the remains of a little
wood, pleasant even in the dullest season. It was
our favourite walk, and the only pretty one near the
town. There was a brook at the edge of the wood,
which still did its best to sing merrily, and to forget
how dingy and grimy its clear waters became a
mile or two farther on; there were still a few
treasures in the shape of ivy sprays and autumn-
tinted leaves to gather and take home with us to
deck our nursery. :

I remember the look of it all so well. It was the
favourite walk of many besides ourselves, especially
on a Saturday, when the hard-worked Mexington
folk were for once free to ramble about—boys and
girls not much older than ourselves among them, for
in those days children were allowed to work in
factories much younger than they do now. We did
not mind meeting some of our townsfellows. On





44 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



the contrary, we felt a good deal of interest in them
and liked to hear their queer way of talking, though
we could scarcely understand anything they said.
And we were very much interested indeed in some
of the stories Lydia, who belonged to this part of the
country, told us of her own life, in a village a few
miles away, where there were two or three great
factories, at which all the people about worked—
men, women, and children too, so that sometimes;
except for babies and very old people, the houses
seemed quite deserted.

‘And long ago before that, said Lydia, ‘when
mother was a little lass, it was such a pretty village
—cottages all over with creepers and honeysuckle—
not ugly rows of houses as like each other as peas.
The people worked at home on their own hand-looms
then.’

Lydia had a sense of the beautiful !

On our way home, of course, we called at Miss
Fryer’s—this time we had a whole shilling to spend,
for there was Sunday’s tea to think of as well as
to-day’s. We had never had so much at a time,
and our consultation took a good while. We decided
at last on seven crumpets and seven Bath buns as
usual, and in addition to these, three large currant





IIL COMING HVENTS 45



— tea-cakes, which our friend Susan told us would be
all the better for toasting if not too fresh. And the
remaining threepence we invested in a slice of sweet
sandwich, which she told us would be perfectly good
if kept in a tin tightly closed. The old Quakeress
for once, I have always suspected, departed on this
occasion from her rule of exact payment for all
purchases, for it certainly seemed a very large slice
of sweet sandwich for threepence.

We were rather tired with our walk that evening
and went to bed early. Nothing more was said by
Haddie about his misgivings. I think he hoped I
had forgotten what had passed, but I had not. It
had all come back again, the strange fecling of change
and trouble in the air which had made me question
mamma that morning two or three weeks ago.

But I did not as yet really believe it. I had never
known what sorrow and trouble actually are. It is
not many children who reach even the age I was
then with so sunny and peaceful an experience of
life. That anything could happen to us—to me—
like what happened to ‘Ellen’ in The Wide, Wide
World, 1 simply could not believe ; even though if
any one had talked to me about it and said that
troubles must come and do come to all, and to some





46 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



much more than to others, and that they might be
coming to us, I should have agreed at once and said
yes, of course I knew that was true.

The next day, Sunday, was very rainy. It made
us feel dull, I think, though we did not really mind
a wet Sunday as much as another day, for we never
went a walk on Sunday. It was not thought right,
and as we had no garden the day would have been a
very dreary one to us, except for mamma.

She managed to make it pleasant. We went to
church in the morning, and in the evening too
sometimes. I think all children like going to church
in the evening ; there is something grown-up about
it. And the rest of the day mamma managed to
find interesting things for us to do. She generally
had some book which she kept for reading aloud on
Sunday—Dr. Adams’s Allegories, ‘The Dark River’
and others, were great favourites, and so were Bishop
Wilberforce’s Agathos. Some of them frightened
me a little, but it was rather a pleasant sort of fright,
there was something grand and solemn about it.

Then we sang hymns sometimes, and we always
had a very nice tea, and mamma, and father too now
and then, told us stories about when they were
children and what they did on Sundays. It was





III COMING EVENTS 47



much stricter for them than for us, though even for
us many things were forbidden on Sundays which
are now thought not only harmless but right.

Still, I never look back to the quiet Sundays in
the dingy Mexington street with anything but a
feeling of peace and gentle pleasure.



CHAPTER IV
ALL SETTLED

Tuat Sunday —that last Sunday I somehow feel
inclined to call it—stands out in my memory quite
differently from its fellows. Both Haddie and I felt
dull and depressed, partly owing no doubt to the
weather, but still more, I think, from that vague
fear of something being wrong which we were both
suffering from, though we would: not speak of it
to each other.

It cleared up a little in the evening, and though
it was cold and chilly we went to church. Mamma
had said to us we might if we liked, and Lydia
was going.

When we came in, cook sent us a little supper
which we were very glad of; it cheered us up.

‘Aren’t you thankful they’re coming home to-
morrow?’ I said to Haddie. ‘I’ve never minded
their being away so much before.’





CHAP. IV ALL SETTLED 49



They had’ been away two or three times that we
could remember. though never for longer than a day
or two.

‘Yes,’ said Haddie, ‘lm very clad’

But that was all he said.

They did come back the next day, pretty early in
the morning, as father had to be at the bank. He
went straight there from the railway station, and
mamma, drove home with the luggage. She was very
particular when she went to stay with her godmother
to take nice dresses, for Mrs. Selwood would not
have been pleased to see her looking shabby, and it
would not have made her any more sympathising or
anxious to help, but rather the other way. Long
afterwards —at least some years afterwards, when
I was old enough to understand—I remember
Mrs. Selwood saying to me that it was mamnia’s
courage and good management which made every-
body respect her.

I was watching at the dining-room window, which
looked out to the street, when the cab drove up.
After the heavy rain the day before, it was for once
a fine day, with some sunshine. And sunshine
was rare at Great Mexington, especially in late
November.

E





50 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



Mamma was looking out to catch the first glimpse
of me—of course she knew that my brother would be
at school. There was a sort of sunshine on her face,
at least I thought so at first, for she was smiling.
But when I looked more closely there was something
in.the smile which gave me a queer feeling, startling
me almost more than if I had seen that she was
erying.

J think for my age I had a good deal of self-
control of a certain kind, I waited till she had
come in and kissed me and sent away the cab and
we were alone. Then I shut the door and drew her
to father’s special arm-chair beside the fire.

‘Mamuna, dear, I half said, half whispered, ‘ what
is it?’

Mamma gave a sort of gasp or choke before she
answered. Then she said,

‘Why, dear, why should you think—oh, I don’t
know what I am saying, and she tried to laugh.

But I wouldn’t let her.

‘Tt’s something in your face, mamma,’ I persisted.

She was silent for a moment.

‘We had meant to tell you and Haddie this
evening,’ she said, ‘father and I together; but perhaps
it is better. Yes, my Geraldine, there is something.





Iv ALL SETTLED 51

Till now it was not quite certain, though it has
been hanging over us for some weeks, ever since

,

‘Since that day I asked you—the morning after
father came home so late and you had been crying ?’

‘Yes, since then,’ said mamma.

She put her arm round me, and then she told me
all that I have told already, or at least as much of
it as she thought I could understand. She told it
quietly, but she did not try not to cry—the tears just
came trickling down her face, and she wiped them
away now and then. I think the letting them come
made her able to speak more calmly.

And I listened. I was very sorry for her, very
I have



very sorry. But you may think it strange
often looked back upon it with wonder myself,
though I now feel as if I understood the causes of it
better—when I tell you that I was not fearfully upset
or distressed myself. I did not feel inclined to cry,
except out of pity for mamma. And I listened with
the most Intense interest, and even curiosity. I was
all wound up by excitement, for this was the first
great event I had ever known, the first change in my
quiet child-life.

And my excitement grew even greater when





52 . THE CARVED LIONS CHAP,



mamma came to the subject of what was decided
about us children.

‘Haddie of course must go to school, she said;
‘to a larger and better school—Mrs. Selwood speaks
of Rugby, if it can be managed. He will be happy
there, every one says. But about you, my Geraldine.’

‘Oh, mamma,’ I interrupted, ‘do let me go to
school too. I have always wanted to go, you know,
and except for being away from you, I would far
rather be a boarder. It’s really being at school then.
I know they rather look down upon day-scholars—
Haddie says so.’

Mamma looked at me gravely. Perhaps she was
just a little disappointed, even though on the other
hand she may have felt relieved too, at my taking
the idea of this separation, which to her over-rode
everything, which made the next two years a black
cloud to her, so very philosophically. But she sighed.
I fancy a suspicion of the truth came to her almost
at once and added to her anxiety—the truth that I
did not the least realise what was before me.

‘We are thinking of sending you to school, my
child,’ she said quietly, ‘and of course it must be as
a boarder. Mrs. Selwood advises Miss. Ledbury’s
school here. She has known the old lady long and





IV ALL SETTLED 53



has a very high opinion of her, and it is not very far
from Fernley in case Miss Ledbury wished to consult
Mrs. Selwood about you in any way, or in case you
were ill,’

‘I am very glad, I said. ‘I should like to go to
Miss Ledbury’s.’

My fancy had been tickled by seeing the girls
at her school walking out two and two in orthodox
fashion. I thought it must be delightful to march
along in a row like that, and to have a partner of
your own size to talk to as much as you liked.

Mamma said no more just then. J think she
felt at a loss what to say. She was afraid of making
me unnecessarily unhappy, and on the other hand
she dreaded my finding the reality all the worse
when I came to contrast it with my rose-coloured
visions.

She consulted father, and he decided that it was
best to leave me to myself and my own thoughts.

‘She is a very young child still” he said to
mamma. (All this of course I was told afterwards.)
‘It is quite possible that she will not suffer from
the separation as we have feared. It may be much
easier for her than if she had been two or three
years older,’





54 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



Haddie had no illusions, From the very first he
took it all in, and that very bitterly. But he was,
as I have said, a very good boy, and a boy with a
ereat deal of resolution and firmness. He said
nothing to discourage me. Mamma told him how
surprised she was at my way of taking it, and he
agreed with father that perhaps I would not be
really unhappy.

And I do think that my chief unhappiness during
the next few weeks came from the sight of dear
mamma’s pale, worn face, which she could not hide,
try as she might to be bright and cheerful.

’ There was of course a great deal of bustle and
preparation, and all children enjoy that, I fancy.
Even Haddie was interested about his school
outfit. He was to go to a preparatory school at
Rugby till he could get into the big school. And
as far as school went, he told me he was sure he
would like it very well, it was only the—but there
he stopped.

‘The what?’ I asked.

‘Oh, the being all separated,’ he said gruffly.

‘But youd have had to go away toa big school
some day, I reminded him. ‘You didn’t want
always to go to a day-school.’



IV ALL SETTLED

or
cr



‘No, he allowed, ‘but it’s the holidays.’

The holidays! I had not thought about that
part of it.

‘Oh, I daresay something nice will be settled for
the holidays,’ I said lightly.

In one way Haddie was very lucky. Mrs. Selwood
had undertaken the whole charge of his education
for the two years our parents were to be away.
And after that ‘we shall see, she said.

She had great ideas about the necessity of giving
a boy the very best schooling possible, but she had
not at all the same opinion about girls’ education.
She was a clever woman in some ways, but very
old-fashioned. Her own upbringing had been at a
time when very little learning was considered needful
or even advisable for our sex. And as she had good
practical capacities, and had managed her own affairs
sensibly, she always held herself up both in her own
mind and to others as a specimen of an walearned
lady who had got on far better than if she had had
all the ‘’ologies,’ as she called them, at her fingers’
ends,

This, I think, was one reason why she approved
of Miss Ledbury’s school, which, as you will hear,
was certainly not conducted in accordance with the





56 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



modern ideas which even then were beginning to
make wise parents ask themselves if it was right to
spend ten times as much on their sons’ education as
on their daughters’.

‘Teach a girl to write a good hand, to read aloud
so that you can understand what she says, to make
a shirt and make a pudding and to add up the
butcher’s book correctly, and she’ll do, Mrs. Selwood
used to say.

‘And what about accomplishments?’ some one
might ask.

‘She should be able to play a tune on the piano,
and to sing a nice Enelish song or two if she has a
voice, and maybe to paint a wreath of flowers if her
taste lies that way. That sort of thing would do no
harm if she doesn’t waste time over it, the old lady
would allow, with great liberality, thinking over her
own youthful acquirements no doubt.

I daresay there was a foundation of solid sense in
the first part of her advice. J don’t see but that
guls nowadays might profit by some of it. And
in many cases they do. It is quite in accordance
with moderh thought to be able to make a good
many ‘puddings, though home-made shirts are not
called for. But as far as the ‘accomplishments’ go,





IV ALL SETTLED

ao
~T



I should prefer none to such a smattering of them
as our old friend considered more than enough.

So far less thought on Mrs. Selwood’s part was
bestowed on Geraldine—that is myself, of course—
than on Haddon, as regarded the school question.
And mamma had to be guided by Mrs. Selwood’s
advice to a great extent just then. She had so much
to do and so little time to do it in, that it would
have been impossible for her to go hunting about for
a school for me more in accordance with her own
ideas. And she knew that personally Miss Ledbury
was well worthy of all respect.

She went to see her once or twice to talk about
me, and make the best arrangements possible. The
first of these visits left a pleasanter impression on
her mind than the second. For the first time she
saw Miss Ledbury alone, and found her gentle and
sympathising, and full of conscientious interest in her
pupils, so that it seemed childish to take objection
to some of the rules mentioned by the schoolmistress
which in her heart mamma did not approve of.

One of these was that all the pupils’ letters were
to be read by one of the teachers, and as to this
Miss Ledbury said she could make no exception.
Then, again, no story-books were permitted, except





58 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



such as were read aloud on the sewing afternoons.
But if I spent my holidays there, as was only too
probable, this rule should be relaxed.

The plan for Sundays, too, struck my mother
disagreeably.

‘My poor Geraldine, she said to father, when she
was telling him all about it, ‘I don’t know how she
will stand such a dreary day,’

Father suggested that I should be allowed to
write my weekly letter to them on Sunday, and
mama said she would see if that could be.

And then father begged her not to look at the
dark side of things.

‘After all” he said, ‘Geraldine is very young, and
will accommodate herself better than you think to
her new circumstances. She will enjoy companions
of her own age too. And we know that Miss
Ledbury is a good and kind woman—the dis-
advantages seem trifling, though I should not like
to think the child was to be there for longer than
these two years.’

Mamma gave in to this. Indeed, there seemed
nothing else to do. But the second time she went
to see Miss Ledbury, the schoolmistress introduced
her niece—her ‘right hand, as she called her—a





lv ALL SETTLED 59



woman of about forty, named Miss Aspinall, who,
though only supposed to be second in command, was
really the principal authority in the establishment,
much more than poor old Miss Ledbury, whose health
was failing, realised herself.

Mamma did not take to Miss Aspinall. But it
was now far too late to make any change, and she
tried to persuade herself that she was nervously
fanciful. 4

And here, perhaps, I had better say distinctly,
that Miss Aspinall was not a bad or cruel woman.
She was, on the contrary, truly conscientious and
perfectly sincere. But she was wanting in all finer
feelings and instincts. She had had a hard and
unloving childhood, and had almost lost the power
of caring much for any one. She loved her aunt
after a fashion, but she thought her weak. She was
just, or wished to be so, and with some of the older
pupils she got on fairly well. But she did not
understand children, and took small interest in the
younger scholars, beyond seeing that they kept the
rules and were not complained of by the under
teachers who took charge of them. And as the
younger pupils were very seldom boarders it did not
very much matter, as they had their own homes and





60 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



mothers to make them happy once school hours
were over.

Mamma did not know that there were scarcely
any boarders as young as I, for when she first asked
about the other pupils, Miss Ledbury, thinking prin-
cipally of lessons, said, ‘oh yes, there was a nice
little class just about my age where I should feel
quite at home.

A few days before the day—the day of separation
for us all—mamma took me to see Miss Ledbury.
She thought I would feel rather less strange if I
had been there once, and had seen the lady who
was to be my schoolmistress.

I knew the house—Green Bank, it was called—
by sight. It was a little farther out of the town
than ours, and had a melancholy bit of garden in
front, and a sort of playground at the back. It was
not a large house—indeed, it was not really large
enough for the number of people living in it—twenty
to thirty boarders, and a number of day-scholars,
who of course helped to fill the schoolrooms and to
make them hot and airless, four resident teachers,
and four or five servants. But in those days people
did not think nearly as much as now about ventila-
tion and lots of fresh air, and perfectly pure water,





IV ALL SETTLED 61



and all such things, which we now know to be quite
as important to our health as food and clothes.

Mamma rang the bell. Everything about Green
Bank was neat and orderly, prim, if not grim. So
was the maid-servant who opened the door, and in
answer to mamma’s inquiry for Miss Ledbury,
showed us into the drawing-room, a square moderate-
sized room, at the right hand of the passage.

I can remember the look of that room even now,
perfectly. It was painfully neat, not exactly ugly,
for most of the furniture was of the spindle-legeed
quaint kind, to which everybody now gives the general
name of ‘Queen Anne. There were a few books set
out on the round table, there was a cottage piano at
one side, there were some faint water-colours on the
wall, and a rather nice clock on the white marble
mantelpiece, the effect of which was spoilt by a pair
of huge ‘lustres, as they were called, at each side of
it. The carpet was very ugly, large and sprawly in
pattern, and so was the hearth-rug. They were the
newest things in the room, and greatly admired by
Miss Ledbury and her niece, who were full of the bad
taste of the day in furniture, and would gladly have
turned out all the delicate spidery-looking tables and
chairs to make way for heavy and cumbersome sofas





62 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP. IV-



and ottomans, but for the question of expense, and
perhaps for the sake of old association on the elder
lady’s part.

There was no fire, though it was November, and
mamma shivered a little as she sat down, possibly,
however, not altogether from cold. It was between
twelve and one in the morning—that was the hour
at which Miss Ledbury asked parents to call.

Afterwards, when I got to know the rules of the
house, I found that the drawing-room fire was never
lighted except on Wednesday and Saturday after-
noons, or on some very special occasion.

I stood beside mamma. Somehow I did not feel
inclined to sit down. TI was full of a strange kind of
excitement, half pleasant, half frightening. I think
the.second half prevailed as the moments went on.
Mamma did not speak, but I felt her hand celasping
my shoulder.

Then at last the door opened.



CHAPTER V
AN UNPROMISING BEGINNING

My first sight of Miss Ledbury was a sort of agreeable
disappointment. She was not the least like what I
had imagined, though till I did see her I do not
think I knew that I bad imagined anything! She
had been much less in my thoughts than her pupils ;
it was the idea of companions, the charm of being
one of a party of other girls, with a place of my own
among them, that my fancy had been full of. I
don’t think I cared very much what the teachers
were like.

What I did see was a very small, fragile-looking
old lady, with quite white hair, a black or purple—
I am not sure which, anyway it was dark—silk dress,
and a soft fawn-coloured cashmere shawl. She had
a white lace cap, tied with ribbons under her chin,
and black Jace mittens. Looking back now, I cannot
picture her in any other dress. I cannot remember





64 : THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



ever seeing her with a bonnet on, and yet she must
have worn one, as she went to church regularly.
Her face was small and still pretty, and the eyes
were naturally sweet, sometimes they had a twinkle
of humour in them, sometimes they looked almost
hard. The truth was: that she was a gentle, kind-
hearted person by nature, but a narrow life and
education had stunted her power of sympathy, and
she thought it wrong to give way to feeling. She
was conscious of what she believed to be weakness
in herself, and was always trying to be firm and
determined. And since her niece had come to live
with her, this put-on sternness had increased.

Yet I was never really afraid of Miss Ledbury,
though I never—well perhaps that is rather too
strong—almost never, I should say, felt at ease with
her. :

I was, I suppose, a very shy child, but till now
the circumstances of my life had not brought this
out.

_ This first time of seeing my future schoolmistress
I liked her very much. There was indeed something
very attractive about her—something almost ‘fairy-
godmother-like’ which took my fancy. .

We did not stay long. Miss Ledbury was not



Vv AN UNPROMISING BEGINNING 65



without tact, and she saw that the mention of the
approaching parting, the settling the day and hour
at which I was to come to Green Bank to stay, were
very, very trying to mamma. And I almost think
her misunderstanding of me began from that first
interview. In her heart I fancy she was shocked at
my coolness, for she did not know, or if she ever had
known, she had forgotten, much about children—
their queer contradictory ways of taking things, how
completely they are sometimes the victims of their
imagination, how little they realise anything they
have had no experience of.

All that the old lady did not understand in me,
she put down to my being spoilt and selfish, She
even, I believe, thought me forward.

Still, she spoke kindly—said she hoped I should
soon feel at home at Green Bank, and try to get on
well with my lessons, so that when my dear mamma
returned she would be astonished at the progress I
had. made.

I did not quite understand what she said—the
word ‘progress’ puzzled me. I wondered if it had
anything to do with the pilgrim’s progress, and I was
half inclined to ask if it had, and to tell her that I
had read the history of Christian and his family quite

r





66 THE CARVED LIONS cHaP.



through, two or three times. But mamma had
already got up to go, so I only said ‘Yes’ rather
vaguely, and Miss Ledbury kissed me somewhat
coldly.

As soon as we found ourselves outside in the
street again, mamma made some little remark. She
wanted to find out what kind of impression had been
left on me, though she would not have considered it
right to ask me straight out what I thought of the
lady who was going to be my superior—in a sense to
fill a parent’s place to me.

And I remember replying that I thought Miss
Ledbury must be very, very old—nearly a hundred,
I should think.

‘Oh dear no, not nearly as old as that,” mamma
said quickly. ‘You must not say anything like that,
Geraldine. It would offend her. She cannot be
more than sixty.’

I opened my eyes. I thought it would be very.
nice to be a hundred.

But before I had time to say more, my attention
was distracted.. For just at that moment, turning a
corner, we almost ran into the procession I was so
eager to join—Miss Ledbury’s girls, returning two
and two from their morning constitutional.





v AN UNPROMISING BEGINNING 67



I felt my cheeks grow red with excitement. I
stared at them, and some of them, I think, looked at
me. Mamma looked at them too, but instead of
getting red, her face grew pale.

They passed so quickly, that I was only able to
glance at two or three of the twenty or thirty faces.
I looked at the smallest of the train with the most
interest, though one older face at the very end
caught my attention almost without my knowing it.

When they had passed I turned to mamma.

‘Did you see that little girl with the rosy cheeks,
mamma? The one with a red feather in her hat.
Doesn’t she look nice ?’

‘She looked a good-humoured little person,’ said
mamma. In her heart she thought the rosy-faced
child rather common-looking and far too showily
dressed, but that was not unusual among the rich
Mexington people, and she would not have said
anything like that to me. ‘I did notice one very
sweet face, she went on, ‘I mean the young lady at
the end—one of the governesses no doubt.’

I had, as I ‘said, noticed her too, and mamma’s
words impressed it upon me. Mamma seemed quite
cheered by this passing glimpse, and she went on
speaking.





68 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



‘She must be one of the younger teachers, I
should think. I hope you may bein her class. You
must tell me if you are when you write to me, and
tell me her name.’

‘I promised I would.

The next two or three days I have no clear
remembrance of at all. They seemed all bustle and
confusion—though through everything I recollect
mamma’s pale drawn face, and the set look of Haddie’s
mouth. He was so determined not to break down.
Of father we saw very little—he was terribly busy.
But when he was at home, he seemed to be always
whistling, or humming a tune, or making jokes.

‘Tlow pleased father seems to be about going so
far away, I said once to Haddie. But he did not
answer.

He—Haddie—was to-go a part of the way in the
same train as father and mamma. They were to
start on the Thursday, and I was taken to Green
Bank on Wednesday morning. Father took me—
and Lydia. I was such a little girl that mamma
thought Lydia should go with me to unpack and
arrange my things, and she never thought that any
one could object to this. For she had never been at
school herself, and did not know much about school





Vv AN UNPROMISING BEGINNING 69



ways. I think the first beginning of my troubles
and disappointments was about Lydia.

Father and I were shown into the drawing-room,
But when the door opened this time, it was not to
admit gentle old Miss Ledbury. Instead of her in
came a tall thin woman, dressed in gray—she had
black hair done rather tightly, and a black lace bow
on the top of her head.

Father was standing looking out of the window,
and I beside him holding his hand. I was not
crying. I had had one sudden convulsive fit of
sobs early that moming when mamma came for a
moment into my room, and for the first time it really
came over me that I was leaving her. But she
almost prayed me to try not to cry, and the feeling
that I was helping her, joined to the excitement I
was in, made it not so very difficult to keep quiet. I
do not even think my eyes were red.

Father turned at the sound of the door opening.

‘Miss Ledbury,’ he began.

‘Not Miss Ledbury. J am Miss Aspinall, her
niece, said the lady; she was not pleased at the
mistake,

‘Oh, I beg your pardon, said poor father. ‘J
understood—— ’





70 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP,



‘Miss Ledbury is not very well this morning,
said Miss Aspinall. ‘She deputed me to express
her regrets.’

‘Oh certainly, said father. ‘This is my little
daughter—you have seen her before, I suppose?’

- No, said the lady, holding out her hand. ‘How
do you do, my dear 2’

I did not speak. I stared up at her, I felt so
confused and strange. I scarcely heard what father
went on to say—some simple messages from mamma
about my writing to them, and so on, and the dates
of the mails, the exact address, etc., etc., to all of
which Miss Aspinall listened with a slight bend of
her head or a stiff ‘indeed, or ‘just so.’

This was not encouraging, I am afraid even
father’s buoyant. spirits went down: I think he had
had some idea that if he came himself he would be able
to make friends. with my schoolmistress and be able
to ensure her special friendliness. But it was clear
that nothing of this kind was to be done with the niece.

So he said at last,

‘Well, I think that is all. Good-bye, my little
woman, then. Good-bye, my darling. She will be a
good girl, Tam sure, Miss Aspinall; she has been a
dear good child at home.’









































































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Vv AN UNPROMISING BEGINNING 71



His voice was on the point of breaking, but the
governess stood there stonily. His praise of me was
not the way to win her favour. I do believe she
would have liked me better if he had said I had been
so naughty and troublesome at home that he trusted
the discipline of school would do me good. And
when I glanced up at Miss Aspinall’s face, something
seemed to choke down the sob which was beginning
again to rise in my throat.

‘Good-bye, my own. little girl” said father. One
more kiss and he was gone.

My luggage was in the hall—which was really a
passage scarcely deserving the more important name
—and beside it stood Lydia. Miss Aspinall looked
at her coldly.

‘Who ’ she began, when I interrupted her.

‘It’s Lydia,” I said. ‘She’s come to unpack my
things. Mamma sent her,’



‘Come to unpack your things,’ repeated the
governess, ‘There must be some mistake—that is
quite unnecessary. There is no occasion for you to
wait,’ she said to poor Lydia, with a slight gesture
towards the door.

Lydia grew very red.

‘Miss Geraldine won’t know about them all, Pm





72 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP,



afraid, she began. ‘She has not been used to taking
the charge of her things yet.’

“Then the sooner she learns the better,’ said Miss
Aspinall, and Lydia dared not persist. She turned
to me, looking ready to burst out crying again,
though, as she had been doing little else for three
days, one might have thought her tears were
exhausted.

‘Good-bye, dear Miss Geraldine,’ she said, half
holding out her arms. I flew into them. I was
beginning to feel very strange.

‘Good-bye, dear Lydia, I said.

“You will write to me, Miss Geraldine?’

‘Of course I will; I know your address, I said.
Lydia was going to her own home to work with a
dressmaker sister in hopes of coming back to us at
the end of the two years.

‘Miss Le Marchant’ (I think I have never said
that our family name was Le Marchant), said a cold
voice, ‘I really cannot wait any longer; you must
come upstairs at once to take off your things.’

Lydia glanced at me.

‘IT beg pardon, she said; and then she too was
gone,

Long afterwards the poor girl told me that her





Vv AN UNPROMISING BEGINNING 73



heart was nearly bursting when she left me, but
she had the good sense to say nothing to add to
mamma's distress, as she knew that my living at
Green Bank was all settled about. She could only
hope the other governesses might be kinder than the
one she had seen. ;

Miss Aspinall walked upstairs, telling me to
follow her. It was not a very large house, but it
was a high one and the stairs were steep. It seemed
to me that I had climbed up a long way when at last
she opened a door half-way down a dark passage.

‘This is your room,’ she said, as she went in.

I followed her eagerly. I don’t quite know what
LT expected. I had not been told if I was to have a
room to myself or not. But at first I think I was
rather startled to see three beds in a room not much
larger than my own one at home—three beds and
two wash-hand stands, a large and a small, two
chests of drawers, a large and a small also, which
were evidently considered to be toilet-tables as well,
as each had a looking-glass, and three chairs.

My eyes wandered round. It was all quite neat,
though dull. For the one window looked on to the
side-wall of the next-door house, and much light
could not have got in at the best of times, added to





74 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP,



which, the day was a very gray one. But the impres-
sion it made upon me was more that of a tidy and
clean servants’ room than of one for ladies, even
though only little girls.

T stood still and silent.

‘This is your bed,’ said Miss Aspinall next, touch-
ing a small white counterpaned iron bedstead in one
corner—I was glad it was ina corner. ‘The Miss
Smiths are your companions. They share the large
chest of drawers, and your things will go into the
smaller one.’

‘There won’t ‘be nearly room enough, I said
quickly. I had yet to learn the habit of not saying
out. whatever came into my head.

‘Nonsense, child,” said the governess. ‘There
must be room enough for you if there is room enough
for much older and—-—’ she stopped. ‘At your age
many clothes are not requisite. I think, on the
whole, it will be better for you not to unpack or
arrange your own things. One of the governesses
shall do so, and all that you do not actually require
must stay in your trunk and be put in the box-room.’

I did not pay very much attention to what she
said. I don’t think I clearly understood it, for, as I
have said, in some ways I was rather a slow child.





wT

v AN UNPROMISING BEGINNING



And my thoughts were running more on the Miss
Smiths and the rest of my future companions than on
my wardrobe. If I had taken in that it was not only
my clothes that were in question, but that my little
houseliold gods, my special pet possessions, were
not to be left in my own Reaping; I would have
minded much more.

‘Now take off your things at once, said Miss
Aspinall, ‘You must keep on your boots till your
shoes are got out, but take care not to stump along
the passages. Do your hands want washing? No,
you have your gloves on. As soon as you are ready,
go down: two flights of stairs till you come to the
passage under this on the next floor. The door at
the end is the second class schoolroom, where you
will be shown your place.’

' Then she went away, leaving me to my own
reflections. Not a. word of sympathy or encourage-
ment, not a pat on my shoulder as she passed me,
nor a kindly glance out of her hard eyes. But at
the time I scarcely noticed this. My mind was still
fall of not unpleasant excitement, though I was
beginning to feel tired and certainly very confused
and bewildered.

I sat down for a moment on the edge of my little





76 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP,



bed when Miss Aspinall left me, without hastening
to take off my coat and bonnet. We wore bonnets
mostly in those days, though hats were beginning to
come into fashion for young girls.

‘I wish there were only two beds, not three, I
said to myself. ‘And I would like the little girl
with the rosy face to sleep in my room. I wonder
if she’s Miss Smith perhaps. I wonder if there’s
several little girls as little as me. I’d like to know
all their names, so as to write and tell them to
mamma and Haddie.’

The inclination to ery had left me—fortunately
in some ways, though perhaps if I had made my
début in the schoolroom looking very woe-begone
and tearful I should have made a better impression.
My future companions would have felt sorry for me.
As it was, when I had taken off my things I made
my way downstairs as I had been directed, and
opening the schoolroom door—I remember wonder-
ing to myself what second class schoolroom could
mean: would it have long seats all round, something
like a second-class railway carriage?—walked in
coolly enough.

The room felt airless and close, though it was a
cold day. And at the first glance it seemed to me





v AN UNPROMISING BEGINNING 77



perfectly full of people—girls—women indeed in my
eyes many of them were, they were so much bigger
and older than I—in every direction, more than I
could count. And the hum of voices was very
confusing, the hwms I should say, for there were two
or three different sets of reading aloud, or lessons
repeating, going on at once.

I stood just inside the door. Two or three heads
were turned in my direction at the sound I made in
opening it, but quickly bent over their books again,
and for some moments no one paid any attention to
me. Then suddenly a governess happened to catch
sight of me. It was the same sweet-faced girl whom
mamma had noticed at the end of the long file in
the street.

She looked at me once, then seemed at a loss,
then she looked at me again, and at last said some-
thing to the girl beside her, and getting up from her
seat went to the end of the room, and spoke to a
small elderly woman in a brown stuff dress, who
was evidently another governess.

This person--I suppose I should say lady—turned
round and stared at me. Then she said something
to the younger governess, nothing very pleasant, I
fancy, for the sweet-looking one—I had better call





78 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



her by her name, which was Miss Fenmore—went
back to her place with a heightened colour.

You may ask how I can remember all these little
particulars so exactly. Perhaps I do not quite do
so, but still, all that happened just then made a very
strong impression on me, and I have thought it over
so much and so often, especially since I have had
children of my own, that it is difficult to tell quite
precisely how much is real memory, how much the
after knowledge of how things must have been, to
influence myself and others as they did. And later,
too, I talked them over with those who were older
than I at the time, and could understand more.

So there I stood, a very perplexed little person,
though still more perplexed than distressed or
disappointed, by the door. Now and then some
head was turned to look at me with a sort of stealthy
curiosity, but there was no kindness in any of the
glances, and the young governess kept her eyes
turned away. I was not a pretty child. My hair
was straight and not noticeable in any way, and it
was tightly plaited, as was the fashion, wnless a
child’s hair was thick enough to make pretty ringlets.
My face was rather thin and pale, and there was
nothing of dimpling childish loveliness about me. I





v AN UNPROMISING BEGINNING 79



was rather near-sighted too, and I daresay that often
gave me a worried, perhaps a fretful expression.

After all, I did not have to wait very long. The
elderly governess finished the page she was reading
aloud—she may have been dictating to her pupils,
I cannot say—and came towards me.

‘Did Miss Aspinall send you here?’ she said
abruptly.

IT looked up at her. She seemed to me no better
than our cook, and not half so good-natured:

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Yes, she repeated, as if she was very shocked.
“Yes who, if you please? Yes, Miss ——?’

‘Yes, Miss, I said in a matter-of-fact way.

‘What manners! Fie!’ said Miss
wards I found her name was Broom. ‘I think in-



; after-

deed it was quite time for you to come to school
If you cannot say my name, you can at least say
ma’am.’

T stared up at her. I think my trick of staring
must have been rather provoking, and perhaps even
must have seemed rude, though it arose entirely
from my not understanding.

‘T don’t know your name, Miss—ma’am, I said.

I spoke clearly. I was not frightened. And a





80 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP. V



titter went round the forms. Miss Broom was angry
at being put in the wrong.

‘Miss Aspinall sent you to my class, Miss Broom’s
class,’ she said.

‘No, ma’am——Miss Broom—she didn’t.’

_ The governess thought I meant to be impertinent
—impertinent, poor me!

And with no very gentle hand, she half led, half
pushed me towards her end of the room, where there
was a vacant place on one of the forms.

‘Silence, young ladies, she said, for some whisper-
ing was taking place. ‘Go on with your copying
out.”

And then she turned to me with a book.

‘Let me hear how you can read,’ she said.



CHAPTER VI
A NEW WORLD

I coutp read aloud well, unusually well, I think, for
mamma had taken great pains with my pronunciation.
She was especially anxious that both Haddie and I
should speak well, and not catch the Great Mexington
accent, which was both peculiar and ugly.

But the book which Miss Broom had put before
me was hardly a fair test. I don’t remember what
it was—some very dry history, I think, bristling
with long words, and in very small print. I did not
take in the sense of what I was reading in the very
least, and so, of course, I read badly, tumbling over
the long words, and putting no intelligence into my
tone. I think, too, my teacher was annoyed at the
purity of my accent, for no one could possibly have
mistaken her for anything but what she was—a
native of Middleshire. She corrected me once or
twice, then shut the book impatiently.

G





82 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



‘Very bad, she said, ‘very bad indeed for eleven
years old’

‘IT am not eleven, Miss Broom,’ I said. ‘I am
only nine past.’

‘Little girls must not contradict, and must not be
rude, was the reply.

What had I said that could be called rude? IT
tried to think, thereby bringing on myself a repri-
mand for inattention, which did not have the effect
of brightening my wits, I fear.

I think I was put through a sort of examination
as to all my acquirements. I know I came out of
it very badly, for Miss Broom pronounced me so
backward that there was no class, not even the
youngest, in the school, which I was really fit for.
There was nothing for it, however, but to put me
into this lowest class, and she said I must do extra
work in play hours to make up to my companions.

Even my French, which I now know must have
been good, was found fault with by Miss Broom,
who said my accent was extraordinary. And
certainly, if hers was Parisian, mine must have been
worse than that of Stratford-le-Bow !

Still, I was not unhappy. I thought it must be
always like that at school, and I said to myself I

































































































‘Little girls must not contradict, and must not be rude.’—Pp, 82.





VI A NEW IVORLD 83



really would work hard to make up to the others,
who were so much, much cleverer than J. And I
sat contentedly enough in my place, doing my best
to learn a page of English grammar by heart, from
time to time peeping round the table, till, to my
great satisfaction and delight, I caught sight of the
rosy-cheeked damsel at the farther end of the table.

I was so pleased that I wonder I did not jump
up from my place and run round to speak to her,
forgetful that though I had thought so much of her,
she had probably never noticed me at all the only
other time of our meeting, or rather passing each
other.

But I felt Miss Broom’s eye upon me, and sat
still. I acquitted myself pretty fairly of my page
of grammar, leading to the dry remark from the
governess that it was plain I ‘could learn if I chose.’
As this was the first thing I had been given to learn,
the implied reproach was not exactly called for.
But none of Miss Broom’s speeches were remarkable
for being appropriate. They depended much more on
the mood she happened to be in herself than upon
anything else.

I can clearly remember most of that day. I have
a vision of a long dining-table, long at least it seemed





84 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



to me, and a plateful of roast mutton and potatoes
which I could not manage to finish, followed by rice
pudding with which I succeeded better, though I
was not the least hungry. Miss Aspinall was at-one
end of the table, Miss Broom at the other, and Miss
Fenmore, who seemed always to be jumping up to
ring the bell or hand the governesses something or
other that’ had been forgotten by the servant, sat
somewhere in the middle.

No one spoke unless spoken to by one of the
teachers. Miss Aspinall shot out little remarks from
time to time about the weather, and replied graciously
enough to one or two of the older girls who ventured
to ask if Miss Ledbury’s cold, or headache, was better.

Then came the grace, followed by a shoving back
of forms, and a march in’ order of age, or place in
class rather, to the door, and thence down the passage
to what was called the big schoolroom—a room:on
the ground floor, placed where by rights the kitchen
should have been, I fancy. It was the only large
room in the house, and I think it must have been
built out beyond the original walls on purpose.

And then—there re-echo on my ears even now
the sudden bursting out of noise, the loosening of
a score and a half of tongues, girls’ tongues too,





VI A NEW WORLD 85



forcibly restrained ‘since the morning. For this was
the recreation hour, and on a wet day, to make up
for not going a walk, the ‘young ladies’ were allowed
from two to three to chatter as much as they liked—
in English instead of in the fearful and wonderful
jargon yclept ‘French.’

I stood in a corner by myself, staring, no doubt.
I felt profoundly interested. This was a little more
like what I had pictured to myself, though I had not
imagined it would be quite so noisy and bewildering.
But some of the girls seemed very merry, and their
laughter and chatter fascinated me—if only I were
one of them, able to laugh and chatter too! Should
I ever be admitted to share their fun ?

The elder girls did not interest me. They seemed
to me quite grown-up. Yet it was from their ranks
that came the first token of interest in me—of notice
that I was there at all.

‘What's your name?’ said a tall thin girl with
fair curls, which one could see she was very proud
of. She was considered a beauty in the school. She
was silly, but very good-natured. She spoke with a
sort of lisp, and very slowly, so her question did not
strike me as rude. Nor was it meant to be so. It
was a mixture of curiosity and amiability.





— 86 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



‘My name, I repeated, rather stupidly. I was
startled by being spoken to.

‘Yes, your name. Didn't Miss Lardner say
what’s your name? Dear me—don’t stand gaping
there like a monkey on a barrel-organ,’ said another
girl,

By this time a little group had gathered round
me. The girls composing it all laughed, and though
it does not sound very witty—to begin with, I never
heard of a monkey ‘gaping’—I have often thought
since that there was some excuse for the laughter.
I was small and thin, and I had a trick of screwing
up my eyes which madé them look smaller than
they really were. And my frock was crimson
merino with several rows of black velvet above the
hem of the skirt.

I was not offended. But I did not laugh. The
girl who had spoken last was something of a tomboy,
and looked upon also as a wit. Her name was
Josephine Mellor, and her intimate friends called
her Joe. She had very fuzzy red hair, and rather
good brown eyes.

‘I say, she went on again, ‘what is your name?
And are you going to stay to dinner every day, or
only when it rains, like Lizzie Burt?’



Full Text







THE CARVED LIONS
Wie

S29

a



SS



‘Our consultation took a good while,’—p. 44. oe
frontispiece.
THE CARVED
LI ONS

MRS‘MOLESWORTH
ILL-VSTRATED BY'L: LESLIE BROOKE



I895
LONDON :- MACMIL-AN -& CO
CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

Otp Days .

CHAPTER II

A Harry Evenine

CHAPTER III

Coming Events

CHAPTER IV

ALL SEeTriEep

CHAPTER V

An UNPROMISING BEGINNING

CHAPTER VI
A New Wor.ip

CHAPTER VII

GarHERine CLoups

PAGE

17

33

48

63

81

97


viii CONTENTS



CHAPTER VIII

‘NoBopy—Nozopy’

CHAPTER IX

Out In tHE Rar .

CHAPTER X

Takine RerugE

CHAPTER XI

Kiyp Frienps

CHAPTER XII

Goop Nrws

PAGE

112

130

147

162

181
ILLUSTRATIONS

‘Our consultation took a good while’ : . Frontispiece
: PAGE
‘Good-bye’. : : : ; : : ei

‘Little girls must not contradict, and must not be rude’ 82
‘My poor little girl, what is the matter?’ . : > LOY

‘T crept downstairs, past one schoolroom with its closed

door’ ‘ : : : , : , . 140
‘The brother lions rose into the air’ ; : Pals

‘Myra came forward gently, her sweet face looking

rather grave’ . : ; : : . elite,
THE CARVED LIONS

CHAPTER I
OLD DAYS

Ir is already a long time since I was a little girl.
Sometimes, when I look out upon the world and see
how many changes have come about, how different
many things are from what I can remember them,
I could believe that a still longer time had passed
since my childhood than is really the case. Some-
times, on the contrary, the remembrance of things
that then happened comes over me so very vividly,
so very real-ly, that I can scarcely believe myself
to be as old as I am.

I can remember things in my little girlhood
more clearly than many in later years, This makes
me hope that the story of some part of it may
interest children of to-day, for I know I have not

& B

SC


2 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



forgotten the feelings I had as a child. And after
all, I believe that in a great many ways children are
very like each other in their hearts and minds, even
though their lives may seem very different and very
far apart.

The first years of my childhood were very happy,
though there were some things in my life which
many children would not like at all. My parents
were not rich, and the place where we lived was not
pretty or pleasant. It was a rather large town in
an ugly part of the country, where great tall chimneys
giving out black smoke, and streams—once clear
sparkling brooks, no doubt—whose water was nearly
as black as the smoke, made it often difficult to
believe in bright blue sky or green grass, or any of
the sweet pure country scenes that children love,
though perhaps children that have them do not love
them as much as those who have not got them do.

I think that was the way with me. The country
was almost the same as fairyland to me—the peeps
I had of it now and then were a delight I could not
find words to express.

But what matters most to children is not where
their home is, but what it is. And our home was a
very sweet and loving one, though it was only a


I OLD DAYS 3



rather small and dull house in a dull street. Our
father and mother did everything they possibly
could to make us happy, and the trial of living at
Great Mexington must have been far worse for them
than for us. For they had both been accustomed
to rich homes when they were young, and father had
never expected that he would have to work so hard
or in the sort of way he had to do, after he lost
nearly all his money.

When I say ‘us, I mean my brother Haddie and
I. Haddie—whose real name was Haddon—was
two years older than I, and we two were the whole
family. My name—vwas I was going to say, for
now there are so few people to call me by my
Christian name that it seems hardly mine-——my
name is Geraldine. Somehow I never had a ‘short
for it, though it is a long name, and Haddie was
always Haddie, and ‘ Haddon’ scarcely needs shorten-
ing. I think it was because he nearly always called
me Sister or ‘Sis.’

Haddie was between ten and eleven years old
and I was nine when the great change that I am
going to tell you about came over our lives. But
I must go back a little farther than that, otherwise
you would not understand all about us, nor the


4 ' THE CARVED LIONS CHAP,



meaning of the odd title I have chosen for my
story.

I had no governess and I did not go to school.
My mother taught me herself, partly, I think, to
save expense, and partly because she did not like the
idea of sending me to even a day-school at Great
Mexington. For though many of the families there
were very rich, and had large houses and carriages
and horses and beautiful gardens, they were not
always very refined. There were good and kind and
unselfish people there as there are everywhere, but
there were some who thought more of being rich
than of anything else—the sort of people that are
called ‘purse proud.” And as children very often
take after their parents, my father and mother did
not like the idea of my having such children as my
companions—children who would look down upon
me for being poor, and perhaps treat me unkindly
on that account.

‘When Geraldine is older she must go to school,
my father used to say, ‘unless by that time our
ship comes in and we can afford a governess. But
when she is older it will not matter so much, as
she will have learnt to value things at their just
worth,’


I OLD DAYS

co



I did not then understand what he meant, but I
have never forgotten the words.

I was a very simple child. It never entered my
head that there was anything to be ashamed of in
living in a small house and having only two servants.
I thought it would be nice to have more money, so
that mamma would not need to be so busy and could
have more pretty dresses, and above all that we
could then live in the country, but I never minded
being poor in any sore or ashamed way. And I
often envied Haddie who did go to school. I thought
it would be nice to have lots of other little girls to
play with. I remember once saying so to mamma,
but she shook her head.

‘I don’t think you would like it as much as you
fancy you would, she said. ‘Not at present at least.
When you are a few years older I hope to send you
for some classes to Miss Ledbury’s school, and by
that time you will enjoy the good teaching. But
except for the lessons, I am quite sure it is better
and happier for you to be at home, even though you
find it rather lonely sometimes,

And in his way Haddie said much the same.
School was all very well for boys, he told me. If a
fellow tried to bully you, you could bully him back.


6 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



But girls weren't like that—they couldn’t fight it out.
And when I said to him I didn’t want to fight, he
still shook his head, and repeated that I wouldn’t
like school at all—some of his friends’ sisters were
at school and they hated it.

Still, though I did not often speak of it, the wish to
go to school, and the belief that I should find school-
life very happy and interesting, remained in my
mind. I often made up fancies about it, and pictured
myself doing lessons with other little girls and read-
ing the same story-books and playing duets together.
I could not believe that I should not like it. The
truth was, I suppose, that I was longing for com-
panions of my own age.

It was since Haddie went to school that I had
felt lonely. I was a great deal with mamma, but of
course there were hours in the day when she was
taken up with other things and could not attend to
me. I used to long then for the holidays to come
so that I should have Haddie again to play with.

My happiest days were Wednesdays and Saturdays,
for then he did not go to school in the afternoon.
And mamma very often planned some little treat
for us on those days, such as staying up to have
late tea with her and papa when he came in from


el OLD DAYS 7



his office, or reading aloud some new story-book,
or going a walk with her in the afternoon and
buying whatever we liked for our own tea at the
confectioner’s.

Very simple treats—but then we were very
simple children, as I have said already.

Our house, though in a street quite filled with
houses, was some little way from the centre of the
town, where the best shops were—some years before,
our street had, I suppose, been considered quite in
the country. We were very fond of going to the
shops with mamma. We thought them very grand
and beautiful, though they were not nearly as pretty
as shops are nowadays, for they were much smaller
and darker, so that the things could not be spread
out in the attractive way they are now, nor were the
things themselves nearly as varied and tempting.

There was one shop which interested us very
much. It belonged to the principal furniture-maker
of Mexington. It scarcely looked like a shop, but
was more like a rather gloomy private house very full
of heavy dark cabinets and tables and wardrobes and
chairs, mostly of mahogany, and all extremely good
and well made. Yes, furniture, though ugly, really

was very good in those days—TI have one or two




8 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



relics of my old home still, in the shape of a leather-
covered armchair and a beautifully-made chest of
drawers. For mamma’s godmother had helped to
furnish our house when we came to Mexington, and
she was the sort of old lady who when she did give
a present gave it really good of its kind. She had
had furniture herself made by Cranston—that was
the cabinetmaker’s name—for her home was in the
country only about three hours’ journey from Mex-
ington—and it had heen first-rate, so she ordered
what she gave mamma from him also.

But it was not because the furniture was so good
that we liked going to Cranston’s. It was for quite
another reason. A little way in from the front
entrance to the shop, where there were glass doors
to swing open, stood a pair of huge lions carved in
very dark, almost black, wood. They were nearly, if
not quite, as large as life, and the first time I saw
them, when I was only four or five, I was really
frightened of them. They guarded the entrance to
the inner part of the shop, which was dark and
gloomy and mysterious-looking, and I remember
clutching fast hold of mamma’s hand as we passed
them, not feeling at all sure that they would not
suddenly spring forward and catch us. But when


I OLD DAYS 9



mamma saw that I was frightened, she stopped and
made me feel the lions and stroke them to show me
that they were only wooden and could not possibly
hurt me. And after that I grew very fond of them,
and was always asking her to take me to the ‘lion
shop.’

Haddie liked them too—his great wish was to
climb on one of their backs and play at going a ride.

I don’t think I thought of that. What I liked
was to stroke their heavy manes and fancy to myself
what I would do if, all of a sudden, one of them
‘came alive, as I called it, and turned his head
round and looked at me, And as I grew older,
almost without knowing it, I made up all sorts of
fairy fancies about the lions—I sometimes thought
they were enchanted princes, sometimes that they
were real lions who were only carved wood in the
day-time, and at night walked about wherever they
liked.

So, for one reason or another, both Haddie and I
were always very pleased when mamma had to look
in at Cranston’s.

This happened oftener than might have been
expected, considering that our house was small, and
that my father and mother were not rich enough


10 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



often to buy new furniture. For mamma’s god-
mother seemed to be always ordering something
or other at the cabinetmaker’s, and as she knew
mamma was very sensible and careful, she used to
write to her to explain to Cranston about the things
she wanted, or to look at them before he sent them
home, to see that they were allright. And Cranston
was always very polite indeed to mamma.

He himself was a stout, red-faced, little, elderly
man, with gray whiskers, which he brushed up in a
fierce kind of way that made him look like a rather
angry cat, though he really was a very gentle and
kind old man. I thought him much nicer than his
partner, whose name was Berridge, a tall, thin man,
who talked very fast, and made a great show of
scolding any of the clerks or workmen who happened
to be about.

Mr. Cranston was very proud of the lions. They
had belonged to his grandfather and then to his
father, who had both been in the same sort of
business as he was, and he told mamma they had
been carved in ‘the East” I didn’t know what he
meant by the East, and I don’t now know what
country he was alluding to—India or China or
Japan. And I am not sure that he knew himself.


I OLD DAYS 11



But ‘the East’ sounded far away and mysterious—it
might do for fairyland or brownieland, and I was
quite satisfied. No doubt, wherever they came from,
the lions were very beautifully carved.

Now I will go on to tell about the changes that
came into our lives, closing the doors of these first
happy childish years, when there scarcely seemed to
be ever a cloud on our sky.

One day, when I was a month or two past nine
years old, mamma said to me just as I was finishing
my practising—I used to practise half an hour every
other day, and have a music lesson from mamma the
between days—that she was going out to do some
shopping that afternoon, and that, if I liked, I might
go with her.

‘I hope it will not rain, she added, ‘though it
does look rather threatening. But perhaps it will
hold off till evening’

‘And I can take my umbrella in case it rains, [
said. I was very proud of my umbrella. It had
been one of my last birthday presents. ‘Yes, mamma,
I should like to come very much. Will Haddie
come too ?’

For it was Wednesday—one of his half-holidays.

‘To tell the truth, said mamma, ‘I forgot to ask




12 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



him this morning if he would like to come, but he
will be home soon—it is nearly luncheon time, I
daresay he will like to come, especially as I have to
go to Cranston’s.’

She smiled a little as she said this. Our love for
the carved lions amused her.

‘Oh yes, I am sure he will like to come, I said.
‘And may we buy something for tea at Miss Fryer’s
on our way home?’

Mamma smiled again.

‘That will be two treats instead of one, she said,
‘but I daresay I can afford two or three pence.’

Miss Fryer’s was our own pet. confectioner, or
pastry-cook, as we used to say more frequently then.
She was a Quakeress, and her shop was very near
our house, so near that mamma let me go there
alone with Haddie. Miss Fryer was very grave and
quiet, but we were not at all afraid of her, for
we knew that she was really very kind. She was
always dressed in pale gray or fawn colour, with a
white muslin shawl crossed over her shoulders, and a
white net cap beautifully quilled and fitting tightly
round her face, so that only a very little of her soft
gray hair showed. She always spoke to us as ‘thou’
and ‘thee,’ and she was very particular to give us


I OLD DAYS 13



exactly what we asked for, and also to take the
exact money in payment. But now and then, after
the business part had been all correctly settled, she
would choose out a nice bun, or sponge-cake, or two
or three biscuits, and would say ‘I give thee this as
a present.’ And she did not like us to say ‘Thank
you, Miss Fryer, but ‘Thank you, friend Susan.’ I
daresay she would have liked us to say ‘Thank hee,’
but neither Haddie nor I had courage for that!

I ran upstairs in high spirits, and five minutes
after when Haddie came in from school he was
nearly as pleased as I to hear our plans.

‘If only it does not rain, said mamma at
luncheon.

Luncheon was, of course, our dinner, and it was
often mamma's dinner really too. Our father was
sometimes so late of getting home that he liked
better to have tea than a regular dinner, Butmamma
always called it luncheon because it seemed natural
to her.

‘I don’t mind if it does rain, said Haddie,
‘because of my new mackintosh.’

Haddie was very proud of his mackintosh, which
father had got him for going to and coming from
school in rainy weather. Mackintoshes were then a


14 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



new invention, and very expensive compared with
what they are now. But Haddie was rather given
to catching cold, and at Great Mexington it did
rain very often—much oftener than anywhere else, I
am quite sure.

‘And Geraldine doesn’t mind because of her new
umbrella, said mamma. ‘So we are proof against
the weather, whatever happens.’

It may seem strange that I can remember so
much of a time now so very long ago. But I. really
do—of that day and of those that followed it
especially, because, as I have already said, they were
almost the close of the first part of our childish life.

That afternoon was such a happy one. We set
off with mamma, one on each side of her, hanging
on her arms, Haddie trying to keep step with
her, and I skipping along on my tiptoes. When
we got to the more crowded streets we had to
separate—that is to say, Haddie had to let go of
mamma’s arm, so that he could fall behind when we
met more than one person. For the pavements at
Mexington were in some parts narrow and old-
fashioned.

Mamma had several messages to do, and at some
of the shops Haddie and I waited outside because we




I OLD DAYS 15



did not think they were very interesting. But at
some we were only too ready to go in. One I
remember very well. It was a large grocer’s. We
thought it a most beautiful shop, though nowadays
it would be considered quite dull and gloomy,
compared with the brilliant places of the kind you
see filled with biscuits and dried fruits and all kinds
of groceries tied up with ribbons, or displayed in
boxes of every colour of the rainbow. I must say I
think the groceries themselves were quite as good as
they are now, and in some cases better, but that may
be partly my fancy, as I daresay I have a partiality
for old-fashioned things.

Mamma did not buy all our groceries at this
grand shop, for it was considered dear. But certain
things, such as tea—which cost five shillings a pound
then—she always ordered there. And the grocer,
like Cranston, was a very polite man. I think he
understood that though she was not rich, and never
bought a great deal, mamma was different in herself
from the grandly-dressed Mexington ladies who drove
up to his shop in their carriages, with a long list
of all the things they wanted. And when mamma
had finished giving her order, he used always to offer
Haddie and me a gingerbread biscuit of a very


16 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP. I



particular and delicious kind. They were large
round biscuits, of a nice bright brown colour, and
underneath they had thin white wafer, which we
called ‘eating paper.’ They were crisp without being
hard. I never see gingerbreads like them now.

‘This is a lucky day, mamma, I said, when we
came out of the grocer’s. ‘Mr. Simeon never forgets
to give us gingerbreads when he is there himself’

‘No, said mamma, ‘he is a very kind man.
Perhaps he has got Haddies and Geraldines of his
own, and knows what they like.’

‘And now are we going to Cranston’s?’ asked my
brother.

Mamma looked at the paper in her hand. She
was very careful and methodical in all her ways, and
always wrote down what she had to do before she
came out.

‘Yes, she said, ‘I think I have done everything
else. But I shall be some little time at Cranston’s.
Mrs. Selwood has asked me to settle ever so many
things with him—she is going abroad for the winter,
and wants him to do a good deal of work at Fernley
while she is away.’
CHAPTER II

'

A HAPPY EVENING

Happrg and I were not at all sorry to hear that
mamma’s call at Cranston’s was not to be a hurried
one.

‘We don’t mind if you are ever so long, I said;
“do we, Haddie ?’

‘No, of course we don’t, Haddie agreed. ‘I
should like to spend a whole day in those big show-
rooms of his. Couldn’t we have jolly games of
hide-and-seek, Sis? And then riding the lions! I
wish you were rich enough to buy one of the lions,
mamma, and have it for an ornament in the hall, or
in the drawing-room,’

‘We should need to build a hall or a drawing-
room to hold it,’ said mamma, laughing. ‘I’m afraid
your lion would turn into a white elephant, Haddie,
if it became ours.’

I remember wondering what she meant. How

Cc


18 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP,



could a lion turn into an elephant? But I was rather
a slow child in some ways. Very often I thought
a thing over a long time in my mind if I did not
understand it before asking any one to explain it,
And so before I said anything it went out of my
head, for here we were at Cranston’s door.

There was only a young shopman to be seen, but
when mamma told him she particularly wanted to
see Mr. Cranston himself, he asked us to step in and
take a seat while he went to fetch him.

We passed between the lions. It seemed quite
a long time since we had seen them, and I thought
they looked at us very kindly. I was just nudging
Haddie to whisper this to him when mamma stopped
to say to us that we might stay in the outer room if
we liked ; she knew it was our favourite place, and
ina few minutes we heard her talking to old Mr.
Cranston, who had come to her in the inner show-
room through another door.

Haddie’s head was full of climbing up on to one
of the lions to goaride. But luckily he could not
find anything to climb up with, which was a very
good thing, as he would have been pretty sure to
topple over, and Mr. Cranston would not have been
at all pleased if he had scratched the lion.


IL A HAPPY EVENING 19



To keep him quiet I began talking to him about
my fancies. I made him look close into the lions’
faces—it was getting late in the afternoon, and we
had noticed before we came in that the sun was
setting stormily. A ray of bright orange-coloured
light found its way in through one of the high-up
windows which were at the back of the show-room,
and fell right across the mane of one of the lions
and almost into the eyes of the other. The effect
on the dark, almost black, wood of which they were
made was very curious.

‘Look, Haddie,’ I said suddenly, catching his arm,
‘doesn’t it really look as if they were smiling at us
—the one with the light on its face especially? I
really do think there’s something funny about eo
—I wonder if they are enchanted.’

Haddie did not laugh at me. I think in his
heart he was fond of fancies too, though he might
not have liked the boys at school to know it. He
sat staring at our queer friends nearly as earnestly
as I did myself. And as the ray of light slowly
faded, he turned to me.

‘Yes, he said, ‘their faces do seem to change.
But I think they always look kind.’

‘They do to ws,’ I said confidently, ‘but sometimes


20 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



they are quite fierce. I don’t think they looked at
us the way they do now the first time they saw us.
And one day one of the men in the shop shoved
something against one of them and his face frowned
—I’m sure it did’

‘I wonder if he’d frown if I got up on his back,’
said Haddlie.

‘Oh do leave off about climbing on their backs,
Tsaid. ‘It wouldn’t be at all comfortable—they’re
so broad, you couldn’t sit cross-legs, and they’d be
as slippery as anything. It’s much nicer to make
up stories about them coming alive in the night,
or turning into black princes and saying magic
words to make the doors open like in the Arabian
Nights,’

‘Well, tell me stories of all they do then,’ said
Haddie condescendingly.

‘I will if yowll let me think for a minute? I
said. ‘I wish Aunty Etta was here—she does know
such lovely stories.’ .

‘I like yours quite as well, said Haddie encourag-
ingly, ‘I don’t remember Aunty Etta’s; it’s such a
long time since I saw her. You saw her last year,
you know, but I didn’t’ j

‘She told me one about a china parrot, a most


re A HAPPY EVENING 21



beautiful green and gold parrot, that was really a
fairy, I said. ‘I think I could turn it into a lion
story, if I thought about it.’

‘No,’ said Haddie, ‘you can tell the parrot one
another time. Id rather hear one of your own
stories, new, about the lions. I know you've got
some in your head. Begin, do—I’ll help you if you
can’t get on.’

But my story that afternoon was not to be heard.
Just as I was beginning with, ‘Well, then, there was
once an old witch who lived in a very lonely hut
in the middle of a great forest,’ there came voices
behind us, and in another moment we heard mamma
saying,

‘Haddie, my boy, Geraldine, I am quite ready.’

I was not very sorry. I liked to have more time
to make up my stories, and Haddie sometimes
hurried me so. It was Aunty Etta, I think, who
had first put it into my head to make them. She
was so clever about it herself, both in making stories
and in remembering those she had read. And she
had read a lot. But she was away in India at the
time I am now writing about; her going so far off
was a great sorrow to mamma.

Haddie and I started up at once. We had to


22 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



be very obedient, what father called ‘quickly
obedient, and though he was so kind he was very
strict too.

‘My children are great admirers of your lions,
Mr. Cranston, mamma said; and the old man
smiled.

‘ They are not singular in their taste, madam,’ he
said. ‘I own that I am very proud of them myself,
and when my poor daughter was a child there was
nothing pleased her so much as when her mother or
I lifted her on to one of them, and made believe she
was going a ride.

Haddie looked triumphant.

‘There now you see, Sis, he whispered, nudging
me.

But I did not answer him, for I was listening to
what mamma was saying.

‘Oh, by the bye, Mr. Cranston,’ she went on, ‘I
was forgetting to ask how your little grandchild is.
Have you seen her lately ?’

Old Cranston’s face brightened.

‘She is very well, madam, I thank you,’ he re-
plied. ‘And I am pleased to say that she is coming
to stay with us shortly. We hope to keep her
through the winter. Her stepmother is very kind,


I A HAPPY EVENING 23



but with little children of her own, it is not always
easy for her to give as much attention as she would
like to Myra, and she and Mr. Raby have responded
cordially to our invitation.’

‘I am very glad to hear it—very glad indeed,
said mamma. ‘I know what a pleasure it will be
to you and Mrs. Cranston. Let me see—how old is
the little girl now—seven, eight ?’

‘ Nine, madam, getting on for ten Indeed,’ said Mr.
Cranston with pride.

‘Dear me,’ said mamma, ‘how time passes! I
remember seeing her when she was a baby— before
we came to live here, of course, once when I was
staying at Fernley, just after——

Mamma stopped and hesitated.

‘Just after her poor mother died—yes, madam,’
said the old man quietly.

And then we left, Mr. Cranston respectfully
holding the door open.

It was growing quite dark; the street lamps were
lighted and their gleam was reflected on the pave-
ment, for it had been raining and was still quite wet
underfoot. Mamma looked round her.

‘You had better put on your mackintosh, Haddie,’
she said. ‘It may rain again. No, Geraldine dear,


24 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



there is no use opening your umbrella till it does
rain.’

My feelings were divided between pride in my
umbrella and some reluctance to have it wet! I
took hold of mamma’s arm again, while Haddie
walked at her other side. It was not a very cheerful
prospect before us—the gloomy dirty streets of
Mexington were now muddy and sloppy as well—
though on the whole I don’t know but that they
looked rather more cheerful by gaslight than in the
day. It was chilly too, for the season was now very
late autumn, if not winter. But little did we care—
I don’t think there could have been found anywhere
two happier children than my brother and I that
dull rainy evening as we trotted along beside our
mother. There was the feeling of her to take care of
us, of our cheerful home waiting for us, with a bright
fire and the tea-table all spread. If I had not been
a little tired—for we had walked a good way—in my
heart I was just as ready to skip along on the tips
of my toes as when we first came out.

‘We may stop at Miss Fryer’s, mayn’t we,
mamma?’ said Haddie.

‘Well, yes, I suppose I promised you something
for tea,” mamma replied.


IL A HAPPY EVENING 25



‘How much may we spend?’ he asked. ‘Six-
pence—-do say sixpence, and then we can get enough
for you to have tea with us too.’

‘Haddie, I said reproachfully, ‘as if we wouldn’t
give mamma something however little we had!’

‘We'd offer it her of course, but you know she
wouldn’t take it, he replied. ‘So it’s much better to
have really enough for all’

His way of speaking made mamma laugh again.

‘Then I suppose it must be sixpence, she said,
‘and here we are at Miss Fryer’s. Shall we walk on,
my little girl, I think you must be tired, and let
Haddie invest in cakes and run after us?’

‘Oh no, please mamma, dear, I said, ‘I like so
to choose too.’

Half the pleasure of the sixpence would have
been gone if Haddie and I had not spent it together.

‘Then I will go on, said mamma, ‘and you two
can come after me together,’

She took out her purse and gave my brother the
promised money, and then with a smile on her dear
face—I can see her now as she stood in the light of
the street-lamp just at the old Quakeress’s door—
she nodded to us and turned to go.

I remember exactly what we bought, partly,


26 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



perhaps, because it was our usual choice. We used
to think it over a good deal first and each would
suggest something different, but in the end we nearly
always came back to the old plan for the outlay of
our sixpence, namely, half-penny crumpets for three-
pence—that meant seven, not six; it was the received
custom to give seven for threepence—and half-penny
Bath buns for the other threepence—seven of them
too, of course. And Bath buns, not plain ones. You
cannot get these now—not at least in any place
where I have lived of late years. And I am not
sure but that even at Mexington they were a spéci-
alité of dear old Miss Fryer’s. They were so good ;
indeed, everything she sold was thoroughly good of
its kind. She was so honest, using the best materials
for all she made.

That evening she stood with her usual gentle
gravity while we discussed what we should have,
and when after discarding sponge-cakes and finger-
biscuits, which we had thought of ‘for a change,’ and
partly because finger-biscuits weighed light and made
a good show, we came round at last to the seven
crumpets and seven buns, she listened as seriously
and put them up in their little paper bags with as
much interest as though the ceremony had never


il A HAPPY EVENING 27



been gone through before. And then just as we were
turning to leave, she lifted up a glass shade and
drew out two cheese-cakes, which she proceeded to
put into another paper bag.

Haddie and I looked at each other. This was a
lovely present. What a tea we should have!

‘J think thee will find these good,’ she said with
a smile, ‘and I hope thy dear mother will not think
them too rich for thee and thy brother.’

She put them into my hand, and of course we
thanked her heartily. I have often wondered why
she never said ‘thou wilt, but always ‘thee will, for
she was not an uneducated woman by any means.

Laden with our treasures Haddie and I hurried
home. There was mamma watching for us with the
door open. How sweet it was to have her always to
welcome us !

‘Tea is quite ready, dears, she said. ‘Run up-
stairs quickly, Geraldine, and take off your things,
they must be rather damp. Iam going to have my
real tea with you, for I have just had a note from
your father to say he won’t be in till late and I am
not to wait for him.’

Mamma sighed a little as she spoke. I felt sorry
for her disappointment, but, selfishly speaking, we


28 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



sometimes rather enjoyed the evenings father was
late, for then mamma gave us her whole attention,
as she was not able to do when he was at home.
And though we were very fond of our father, we were
—I especially, I think—much more afraid of him
than of our mother,

_ And that was such a happy evening! I have
never forgotten it. Mamma was so good and thought-
ful for us, she did not let us find out in the least
that she was feeling anxious on account of something
father had said in his note to her. She was just
perfectly sweet.

We were very proud of our spoils from Miss
Fryer’s. We wanted mamma to have one cheese-
cake and Haddie and I to divide the other between
us. But mamma would not agree to that. She
would only take a half, so that we had three-quarters
each.

‘“Wasn’t it kind of Miss Fryer, mamma?’ I said.

‘Very kind, said mamma. ‘I think she is really
fond of children though she is so grave. She has
not forgotten what it was to be a child herself’

Somehow her words brought back to my mind
what old Mr. Cranston had said about his little
grand-daughter.


Il A HAPPY EVENING 29



‘I suppose children are all rather like each other,
Isaid. ‘Like about Haddie and that little gul
riding on the lions,’

Haddie was not very pleased at my speaking of
it; he was beginning to be afraid of seeming babyish.

‘That was quite different, he said. ‘She was a
baby and had to be held on. It was the fun of
climbing up J cared for.’

‘She wasn’t a baby, I said. ‘She’s nine years
old, he said she was—didn’t he, mamma ?’

‘You are mixing two things together, said mamma.
‘Mr. Cranston was speaking first of his daughter
long ago when she was a child, and then he was
speaking of her daughter, little Myra Raby, who is
now nine years old.’

‘Why did he say my “poor” daughter?’ I asked.

‘Did you not hear the allusion to her death ?
Mrs. Raby died soon after little Myra was born.
Mr. Raby married again—he is a clergyman not very
far from Fernley——’

‘A clergyman, exclaimed Haddie. He was more
worldly-wise than I, thanks to being at school. ‘A
clergyman, and he married a shopkeeper’s daughter.’

‘There are very different kinds of shopkeepers,
Haddie, said mamma. ‘Mr. Cranston is very rich,


30 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



and his daughter was very well educated and very
nice. Still, no doubt Mr. Raby was in a higher
position than she, and both Mr. Cranston and his
wife are very right-minded people, and never pretend
to be more than they are. That is why I was so
glad to hear that little Myra is coming to stay with
them. I was afraid the second Mrs. Raby might
have looked down upon them perhaps.’

Haddie said no more about it. And though I
listened to what mamma said, I don’t think I quite
took in the sense of it till a good while afterwards,
It has often been like that with me in life. I have a
curiously ‘retentive’ memory, as it is called. Words
and speeches remain in my mind like unread letters,
till some day, quite unexpectedly, something reminds
me of them, and I take them out, as it were, and find
what they really meant.

But just now my only interest in little Myra
Raby’s history was a present one.

‘Mamma,’ I said suddenly, ‘if she is a nice little
girl like what her mamma was, mightn’t I have her
to come and see me and play with me? I have
never had any little girl to play with, and it is so
dull sometimes—the days that Haddie is late at
school, and when you are busy. Do say I may


II A HAPPY EVENING 31



have her—I’m sure old Mr. Cranston would let her
come, and then I might go and play with her some-
times perhaps. Do you think she will play among
the furniture—where the lions are?’

Mamma shook her head.

‘No, dear’ she answered. ‘I am quite sure her
grandmother would not like that. For, you see, any-
body might come in to the shop or show-rooms, and
it would not seem nice for a little girl to be playing
there—not nice for a carefully brought-up little girl,
I mean,’

‘Then I don’t think I should care to go to her
house,’ I said, ‘but I would like her to come here.
Please let her, mamma dear,’

But mamma only said,

‘We shall see.’

After tea she told us stories—some of them we
had heard often before, but we never tired of hearing
them again—about when she and Aunty Etta were
little girls. They were lovely stories—real ones of
course. Mamma was not as clever as Aunty Etta
about making up fairy ones,

We were quite sorry when it was time to go to
bed.

After I had been asleep for a little that night I


32 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP. 11



woke up again—I had not been very sound asleep.
Just then I saw a light, and mamma came into the
room with a candle.

‘I’m not asleep, dear mamma,’ I said. ‘Do kiss
me again.’

‘That is what I have come for,’ she answered.

- And she came up to the bedside and kissed me,
oh so sweetly--more than once. She seemed as if
she did not want to let go of me.

‘Dear mamma, I whispered sleepily, happy—I’m always happy, but to-night I feel so
extra happy somehow.’

‘Darling, said mamma.

And she kissed me again.
CHAPTER III
COMING EVENTS

Tue shadow of coming changes began to fall over us
very soon after that.

Indeed, the very next morning at breakfast I
noticed that mamma looked pale and almost as if
she had been crying, and father was, so to say, ‘ extra’
kind to her and to me. He talked and laughed
more than usual, partly perhaps to prevent our
noticing how silent dear mamma was, but mostly I
think because that is the way men do when they
are really anxious or troubled.

I don’t fancy Haddie thought there was anything
wrong—he was in a hurry to get off to school.

After breakfast mamma told me to go and practise
for half an hour, and if she did not come to me then,
I had better go on doing some of my lessons alone.
She would look them over afterwards. And as I
was going out of the room she called me back and

D


34 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



kissed me again—almost as she had done the night
before.

That gave me courage to say something. For
children were not, in my childish days, on such free
and easy terms with their elders as they are now.
And kind and gentle as mamma was, we knew very
distinctly the sort of things she would think forward
or presuming on our part.

‘Mamma,’ I said, still hesitating a little.

‘Well, dear,’ she replied. She was buttoning, or
pretending to button, the band of the little brown
holland apron I wore, so that I could not see her
face, but something in the tone of her voice told me
that my instinct was not mistaken.

‘Mamma, I repeated, ‘may I say something? I
have a feeling that—that you are—that there is
something the matter’

Mamma did not answer at once. Then she said
very gently, but quite kindly,

‘Geraldine, my dear, you know that I tell you
as much as I think it right to tell any one as young
as you—I tell you more, of our plans and private
matters and such things, than most mothers tell
their little daughters. This has come about partly
through your being so much alone with me. But


TL COMING EVENTS 35



when I don’t tell you anything, even though you ,
may suspect there is something to tell, you should
trust me that there is good reason for my not
doing so.’

‘Yes, I said, but I could not stifle a little sigh.
‘Would you just tell me one thing, mamma, I went
on; ‘it isn’t anything that you're really unhappy
about, is it?’

Again mamma hesitated.

‘Dear child, she said, ‘try to put it out of your
mind. I can only say this much to you, 1 am
anwious more than troubled. There is nothing the
matter that should really be called a trouble. But
your father and I have a question of great importance
to decide just now, and we are very—I may say really
terribly—anxious to decide for the best. That is all
I can tell you. Kiss me, my darling, and try to be
your own bright little self. That will bea comfort
and help to me.’

I kissed her and I promised I would try to do
as she wished. But it was with rather a heavy
heart that I went to my practising. What could it
be? I did try not to think of it, but it would keep
coming back into my mind. And I was only a child.
I had no experience of trouble or anxiety. After a


36 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



time my spirits began to rise again—there was a
sort of excitement in the wondering what this great
matter could be. I am afraid I did not succeed in
putting it out of my mind as mamma wished me
to do.

‘But the days went on without anything particular
happening. I did not speak of what mamma had
said to me to my brother. I knew she did not
wish me to do so. And by degrees other things
began to make me forget about it a little. It was
just at that time, I remember, that some friend—an
aunt on father’s side, I think—sent mea present of
The Wide, Wide World, and while I was reading it
I seemed actually to live in the story. It was curious
that I should have got it just then. If mamma had
read it herself I am not sure that she would have
given it tome. But after all, perhaps it served the
purpose of preparing me a /idtle—a very little—for
what was before me in my own life.

It was nearly three weeks after the time I have
described rather minutely that the blow fell, that
Haddie and I were told the whole. I think, however,
I will not go on telling how we were told, for I am
afraid of making my story too long.

And of course, however good my memory is, I


LI COMING EVENTS 37



cannot pretend that the conversations I relate took
place exactly as I give them. I think T vive the
spirit of them correctly, but now that I have come
to the telling of distinct facts, perhaps it will be
better simply to narrate them.

You will remember my saying that my father had
lost money very unexpectedly, and that this was
what had obliged him to come to live at Mexington
and work so hard. He had got the post he held
there —it was in a bank—ereatly through the
influence of Mrs. Selwood, mamma’s godmother,
who lived in the country at some hours’ distance
from the town, and whose name was well known
there, as she owned a great many houses and other
property in the immediate neighbourhood.

Father was very glad to get this post, and very
grateful to Mrs. Selwood. She took great interest in
us all—that is to say, she was interested in Haddie
and me because we were mamma’s children, though
she did not care for or understand children as a rule.
But she was a faithful friend, and anxious to help
father still more.

Just about the time I have got to in my story,
the manager of a bank in South America, in some
way connected with the one at Great Mexington,


38 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.

became ill, and was told by the doctors that he must
return to England and have a complete rest for two
years. Mrs. Selwood had money connection with
this bank too, and got to hear of what had happened.
Knowing that father could speak both French and
Spanish well, for he had been in the diplomatic
service as a younger man, she at once applied for the
appointment for him, and after some little delay she
was told that he should have the offer of it for the
two years.

Two years are not a very long time, even though
the pay was high, but the great advantage of the
offer was that the heads of the bank at Mexington
promised, if all went well for that time, that some
permanent post should be given to father in England
on his return, This was what made him more
anxious to accept the proposal than even the high
pay. For Mrs. Selwood found out that he would
not be able to save much of his salary, as he would
have a large house to keep up, and would be expected
to receive many visitors. On this account the post
was never given to an unmarried man.

‘If he accepts it, Mrs. Selwood wrote to mamma,
‘you, my dear Blanche, must go with him, and some
arrangement would have to be made about the


tr COMING EVENTS 39



children for the time. I would advise your sending
them to school.’

Now I think my readers will not be at a loss
to understand why our dear mother had looked so
troubled, even though on one side this event promised
to be for our good in the end.

Father was allowed two or three weeks in which
to make up his mind. The heads of the Mexington
bank liked and respected him very much, and they
quite saw that there were two sides to the question
of his accepting the offer. The climate of the place
was not very good—at least it was injurious to
English people if they stayed there for long—and it
was perfectly certain that it would be madness to
take growing children like Haddie and me there.

This was the dark spot in it all to mamma, and
indeed to father too. They were not afraid for them-
selves, They were both strong and still young, but
they could not for a moment entertain the idea of
taking ws, And the thought of the separation was
terrible.

You see, being a small family, and living in a place
like Great Mexington, where my parents had not
many congenial friends, and being poor were obliged
to live carefully, home was everything to usall. We


40 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.

four were the whole world to each other, and knew
no happiness apart.

I do not mean to say that I felt or saw all this at
once, but looking back upon it from the outside, as it
were, I see all that made it a peculiarly hard case,
especially—at the beginning, that is to say—for
mamma.

It seems strange that I did not take it all in—all
the misery of it, I mean—at first, nor indeed for
some time, not till I had actual experience of it.
liven Haddie realised it more in anticipation than I
did. He was two years older, and though he had
never been at a boarding-school, still he knew some-
thing of school life. There were boarders at his
school, and he had often seen and heard how, till they
got accustomed to it at any rate, they suffered from
home-sickness, and counted the days to the holidays.

And for us there were not to be any holidays!
No certain prospect of them at best, though Mrs.
Selwood said something vaguely about perhaps
having us at Fernley for a visit in the summer. But
it was very vague. And we had no near relations
on mamma's side except Aunty Etta, who was in
India, and on father’s no one who could possibly
have us regularly for our holidays.


iL COMING EVENTS 41



All this mamma grasped at once, and her grief
was sometimes so extreme that, but for Mrs. Selwood,
I doubt if father would have had the resolution to
accept. But Mrs. Selwood was what is called ‘very
sensible,” perhaps just a little hard, and certainly uot
sensitive. And she put things before our parents in
such a way that mamma felt it her duty to urge
father to accept the offer, and father felt it his duty
to put feelings aside and do so.

They went to stay at Fernley from a Saturday
to a Monday to talk it well over, and it was
when they came back on the Monday that we
were told.

Before then I think we had both come to
have a strong feeling that something was going to
happen. I, of course, had some reason for this
in what mamma had said to me, though J had
forgotten about it a good deal, till this visit to
Fernley brought back the idea of something un-
usual. For it was very seldom that we were left
by ourselves.

We did not mind it much. After all, it was only
two nights and one whole day, and that a Sunday,
when my brother was at home, so we stood at the
door cheerfully enough, looking at our father and


42 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



mother driving off in the clumsy, dingy old four-
wheeler—though that is a modern word—which was
the best kind of cab known at Mexington.

But when they were fairly off Haddie turned to
me, and I saw that he was very grave. I was rather
surprised.

‘Why, Haddie,’ I said, ‘do you mind so much?
They’ll be back on Monday.’

‘No, of course I don’t mind that, he said. ‘But
I wonder why mamma looks so—so awfully trying-
not-to-ery, you know.’

‘Oh,’ I said, ‘I don’t think she’s quite well. And
she hates leaving us.’

‘No,’ said my brother, ‘there’s something more.’

And when he said that, I remembered the feeling
I had had myself. I felt rather cross with Haddie;
I wanted to forget it quite.

“You needn’t try to frighten me like that, I said.
‘I meant to be quite happy while they were away—
to please mamma, you know, by telling her so when
she comes back,’

Then Haddie, who really was a very good-natured,
kind boy, looked sorry.

‘I didn’t mean to frighten you,’ he said; ‘ perhaps
it was my fancy. I don’t want to be unhappy while


IIL COMING EVENTS 43



they're away, I’m sure. I’m only too glad that
to-day’s Saturday and to-morrow Sunday.’

And he did his very best to amuse me. We went
out a walk that afternoon with the housemaid—
quite a long walk, though it was winter. We went
as far out of the town as we could get, to where
there were fields, which in spring and summer still
looked green, and through the remains of a little
wood, pleasant even in the dullest season. It was
our favourite walk, and the only pretty one near the
town. There was a brook at the edge of the wood,
which still did its best to sing merrily, and to forget
how dingy and grimy its clear waters became a
mile or two farther on; there were still a few
treasures in the shape of ivy sprays and autumn-
tinted leaves to gather and take home with us to
deck our nursery. :

I remember the look of it all so well. It was the
favourite walk of many besides ourselves, especially
on a Saturday, when the hard-worked Mexington
folk were for once free to ramble about—boys and
girls not much older than ourselves among them, for
in those days children were allowed to work in
factories much younger than they do now. We did
not mind meeting some of our townsfellows. On


44 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



the contrary, we felt a good deal of interest in them
and liked to hear their queer way of talking, though
we could scarcely understand anything they said.
And we were very much interested indeed in some
of the stories Lydia, who belonged to this part of the
country, told us of her own life, in a village a few
miles away, where there were two or three great
factories, at which all the people about worked—
men, women, and children too, so that sometimes;
except for babies and very old people, the houses
seemed quite deserted.

‘And long ago before that, said Lydia, ‘when
mother was a little lass, it was such a pretty village
—cottages all over with creepers and honeysuckle—
not ugly rows of houses as like each other as peas.
The people worked at home on their own hand-looms
then.’

Lydia had a sense of the beautiful !

On our way home, of course, we called at Miss
Fryer’s—this time we had a whole shilling to spend,
for there was Sunday’s tea to think of as well as
to-day’s. We had never had so much at a time,
and our consultation took a good while. We decided
at last on seven crumpets and seven Bath buns as
usual, and in addition to these, three large currant


IIL COMING HVENTS 45



— tea-cakes, which our friend Susan told us would be
all the better for toasting if not too fresh. And the
remaining threepence we invested in a slice of sweet
sandwich, which she told us would be perfectly good
if kept in a tin tightly closed. The old Quakeress
for once, I have always suspected, departed on this
occasion from her rule of exact payment for all
purchases, for it certainly seemed a very large slice
of sweet sandwich for threepence.

We were rather tired with our walk that evening
and went to bed early. Nothing more was said by
Haddie about his misgivings. I think he hoped I
had forgotten what had passed, but I had not. It
had all come back again, the strange fecling of change
and trouble in the air which had made me question
mamma that morning two or three weeks ago.

But I did not as yet really believe it. I had never
known what sorrow and trouble actually are. It is
not many children who reach even the age I was
then with so sunny and peaceful an experience of
life. That anything could happen to us—to me—
like what happened to ‘Ellen’ in The Wide, Wide
World, 1 simply could not believe ; even though if
any one had talked to me about it and said that
troubles must come and do come to all, and to some


46 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



much more than to others, and that they might be
coming to us, I should have agreed at once and said
yes, of course I knew that was true.

The next day, Sunday, was very rainy. It made
us feel dull, I think, though we did not really mind
a wet Sunday as much as another day, for we never
went a walk on Sunday. It was not thought right,
and as we had no garden the day would have been a
very dreary one to us, except for mamma.

She managed to make it pleasant. We went to
church in the morning, and in the evening too
sometimes. I think all children like going to church
in the evening ; there is something grown-up about
it. And the rest of the day mamma managed to
find interesting things for us to do. She generally
had some book which she kept for reading aloud on
Sunday—Dr. Adams’s Allegories, ‘The Dark River’
and others, were great favourites, and so were Bishop
Wilberforce’s Agathos. Some of them frightened
me a little, but it was rather a pleasant sort of fright,
there was something grand and solemn about it.

Then we sang hymns sometimes, and we always
had a very nice tea, and mamma, and father too now
and then, told us stories about when they were
children and what they did on Sundays. It was


III COMING EVENTS 47



much stricter for them than for us, though even for
us many things were forbidden on Sundays which
are now thought not only harmless but right.

Still, I never look back to the quiet Sundays in
the dingy Mexington street with anything but a
feeling of peace and gentle pleasure.
CHAPTER IV
ALL SETTLED

Tuat Sunday —that last Sunday I somehow feel
inclined to call it—stands out in my memory quite
differently from its fellows. Both Haddie and I felt
dull and depressed, partly owing no doubt to the
weather, but still more, I think, from that vague
fear of something being wrong which we were both
suffering from, though we would: not speak of it
to each other.

It cleared up a little in the evening, and though
it was cold and chilly we went to church. Mamma
had said to us we might if we liked, and Lydia
was going.

When we came in, cook sent us a little supper
which we were very glad of; it cheered us up.

‘Aren’t you thankful they’re coming home to-
morrow?’ I said to Haddie. ‘I’ve never minded
their being away so much before.’


CHAP. IV ALL SETTLED 49



They had’ been away two or three times that we
could remember. though never for longer than a day
or two.

‘Yes,’ said Haddie, ‘lm very clad’

But that was all he said.

They did come back the next day, pretty early in
the morning, as father had to be at the bank. He
went straight there from the railway station, and
mamma, drove home with the luggage. She was very
particular when she went to stay with her godmother
to take nice dresses, for Mrs. Selwood would not
have been pleased to see her looking shabby, and it
would not have made her any more sympathising or
anxious to help, but rather the other way. Long
afterwards —at least some years afterwards, when
I was old enough to understand—I remember
Mrs. Selwood saying to me that it was mamnia’s
courage and good management which made every-
body respect her.

I was watching at the dining-room window, which
looked out to the street, when the cab drove up.
After the heavy rain the day before, it was for once
a fine day, with some sunshine. And sunshine
was rare at Great Mexington, especially in late
November.

E


50 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



Mamma was looking out to catch the first glimpse
of me—of course she knew that my brother would be
at school. There was a sort of sunshine on her face,
at least I thought so at first, for she was smiling.
But when I looked more closely there was something
in.the smile which gave me a queer feeling, startling
me almost more than if I had seen that she was
erying.

J think for my age I had a good deal of self-
control of a certain kind, I waited till she had
come in and kissed me and sent away the cab and
we were alone. Then I shut the door and drew her
to father’s special arm-chair beside the fire.

‘Mamuna, dear, I half said, half whispered, ‘ what
is it?’

Mamma gave a sort of gasp or choke before she
answered. Then she said,

‘Why, dear, why should you think—oh, I don’t
know what I am saying, and she tried to laugh.

But I wouldn’t let her.

‘Tt’s something in your face, mamma,’ I persisted.

She was silent for a moment.

‘We had meant to tell you and Haddie this
evening,’ she said, ‘father and I together; but perhaps
it is better. Yes, my Geraldine, there is something.


Iv ALL SETTLED 51

Till now it was not quite certain, though it has
been hanging over us for some weeks, ever since

,

‘Since that day I asked you—the morning after
father came home so late and you had been crying ?’

‘Yes, since then,’ said mamma.

She put her arm round me, and then she told me
all that I have told already, or at least as much of
it as she thought I could understand. She told it
quietly, but she did not try not to cry—the tears just
came trickling down her face, and she wiped them
away now and then. I think the letting them come
made her able to speak more calmly.

And I listened. I was very sorry for her, very
I have



very sorry. But you may think it strange
often looked back upon it with wonder myself,
though I now feel as if I understood the causes of it
better—when I tell you that I was not fearfully upset
or distressed myself. I did not feel inclined to cry,
except out of pity for mamma. And I listened with
the most Intense interest, and even curiosity. I was
all wound up by excitement, for this was the first
great event I had ever known, the first change in my
quiet child-life.

And my excitement grew even greater when


52 . THE CARVED LIONS CHAP,



mamma came to the subject of what was decided
about us children.

‘Haddie of course must go to school, she said;
‘to a larger and better school—Mrs. Selwood speaks
of Rugby, if it can be managed. He will be happy
there, every one says. But about you, my Geraldine.’

‘Oh, mamma,’ I interrupted, ‘do let me go to
school too. I have always wanted to go, you know,
and except for being away from you, I would far
rather be a boarder. It’s really being at school then.
I know they rather look down upon day-scholars—
Haddie says so.’

Mamma looked at me gravely. Perhaps she was
just a little disappointed, even though on the other
hand she may have felt relieved too, at my taking
the idea of this separation, which to her over-rode
everything, which made the next two years a black
cloud to her, so very philosophically. But she sighed.
I fancy a suspicion of the truth came to her almost
at once and added to her anxiety—the truth that I
did not the least realise what was before me.

‘We are thinking of sending you to school, my
child,’ she said quietly, ‘and of course it must be as
a boarder. Mrs. Selwood advises Miss. Ledbury’s
school here. She has known the old lady long and


IV ALL SETTLED 53



has a very high opinion of her, and it is not very far
from Fernley in case Miss Ledbury wished to consult
Mrs. Selwood about you in any way, or in case you
were ill,’

‘I am very glad, I said. ‘I should like to go to
Miss Ledbury’s.’

My fancy had been tickled by seeing the girls
at her school walking out two and two in orthodox
fashion. I thought it must be delightful to march
along in a row like that, and to have a partner of
your own size to talk to as much as you liked.

Mamma said no more just then. J think she
felt at a loss what to say. She was afraid of making
me unnecessarily unhappy, and on the other hand
she dreaded my finding the reality all the worse
when I came to contrast it with my rose-coloured
visions.

She consulted father, and he decided that it was
best to leave me to myself and my own thoughts.

‘She is a very young child still” he said to
mamma. (All this of course I was told afterwards.)
‘It is quite possible that she will not suffer from
the separation as we have feared. It may be much
easier for her than if she had been two or three
years older,’


54 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



Haddie had no illusions, From the very first he
took it all in, and that very bitterly. But he was,
as I have said, a very good boy, and a boy with a
ereat deal of resolution and firmness. He said
nothing to discourage me. Mamma told him how
surprised she was at my way of taking it, and he
agreed with father that perhaps I would not be
really unhappy.

And I do think that my chief unhappiness during
the next few weeks came from the sight of dear
mamma’s pale, worn face, which she could not hide,
try as she might to be bright and cheerful.

’ There was of course a great deal of bustle and
preparation, and all children enjoy that, I fancy.
Even Haddie was interested about his school
outfit. He was to go to a preparatory school at
Rugby till he could get into the big school. And
as far as school went, he told me he was sure he
would like it very well, it was only the—but there
he stopped.

‘The what?’ I asked.

‘Oh, the being all separated,’ he said gruffly.

‘But youd have had to go away toa big school
some day, I reminded him. ‘You didn’t want
always to go to a day-school.’
IV ALL SETTLED

or
cr



‘No, he allowed, ‘but it’s the holidays.’

The holidays! I had not thought about that
part of it.

‘Oh, I daresay something nice will be settled for
the holidays,’ I said lightly.

In one way Haddie was very lucky. Mrs. Selwood
had undertaken the whole charge of his education
for the two years our parents were to be away.
And after that ‘we shall see, she said.

She had great ideas about the necessity of giving
a boy the very best schooling possible, but she had
not at all the same opinion about girls’ education.
She was a clever woman in some ways, but very
old-fashioned. Her own upbringing had been at a
time when very little learning was considered needful
or even advisable for our sex. And as she had good
practical capacities, and had managed her own affairs
sensibly, she always held herself up both in her own
mind and to others as a specimen of an walearned
lady who had got on far better than if she had had
all the ‘’ologies,’ as she called them, at her fingers’
ends,

This, I think, was one reason why she approved
of Miss Ledbury’s school, which, as you will hear,
was certainly not conducted in accordance with the


56 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



modern ideas which even then were beginning to
make wise parents ask themselves if it was right to
spend ten times as much on their sons’ education as
on their daughters’.

‘Teach a girl to write a good hand, to read aloud
so that you can understand what she says, to make
a shirt and make a pudding and to add up the
butcher’s book correctly, and she’ll do, Mrs. Selwood
used to say.

‘And what about accomplishments?’ some one
might ask.

‘She should be able to play a tune on the piano,
and to sing a nice Enelish song or two if she has a
voice, and maybe to paint a wreath of flowers if her
taste lies that way. That sort of thing would do no
harm if she doesn’t waste time over it, the old lady
would allow, with great liberality, thinking over her
own youthful acquirements no doubt.

I daresay there was a foundation of solid sense in
the first part of her advice. J don’t see but that
guls nowadays might profit by some of it. And
in many cases they do. It is quite in accordance
with moderh thought to be able to make a good
many ‘puddings, though home-made shirts are not
called for. But as far as the ‘accomplishments’ go,


IV ALL SETTLED

ao
~T



I should prefer none to such a smattering of them
as our old friend considered more than enough.

So far less thought on Mrs. Selwood’s part was
bestowed on Geraldine—that is myself, of course—
than on Haddon, as regarded the school question.
And mamma had to be guided by Mrs. Selwood’s
advice to a great extent just then. She had so much
to do and so little time to do it in, that it would
have been impossible for her to go hunting about for
a school for me more in accordance with her own
ideas. And she knew that personally Miss Ledbury
was well worthy of all respect.

She went to see her once or twice to talk about
me, and make the best arrangements possible. The
first of these visits left a pleasanter impression on
her mind than the second. For the first time she
saw Miss Ledbury alone, and found her gentle and
sympathising, and full of conscientious interest in her
pupils, so that it seemed childish to take objection
to some of the rules mentioned by the schoolmistress
which in her heart mamma did not approve of.

One of these was that all the pupils’ letters were
to be read by one of the teachers, and as to this
Miss Ledbury said she could make no exception.
Then, again, no story-books were permitted, except


58 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



such as were read aloud on the sewing afternoons.
But if I spent my holidays there, as was only too
probable, this rule should be relaxed.

The plan for Sundays, too, struck my mother
disagreeably.

‘My poor Geraldine, she said to father, when she
was telling him all about it, ‘I don’t know how she
will stand such a dreary day,’

Father suggested that I should be allowed to
write my weekly letter to them on Sunday, and
mama said she would see if that could be.

And then father begged her not to look at the
dark side of things.

‘After all” he said, ‘Geraldine is very young, and
will accommodate herself better than you think to
her new circumstances. She will enjoy companions
of her own age too. And we know that Miss
Ledbury is a good and kind woman—the dis-
advantages seem trifling, though I should not like
to think the child was to be there for longer than
these two years.’

Mamma gave in to this. Indeed, there seemed
nothing else to do. But the second time she went
to see Miss Ledbury, the schoolmistress introduced
her niece—her ‘right hand, as she called her—a


lv ALL SETTLED 59



woman of about forty, named Miss Aspinall, who,
though only supposed to be second in command, was
really the principal authority in the establishment,
much more than poor old Miss Ledbury, whose health
was failing, realised herself.

Mamma did not take to Miss Aspinall. But it
was now far too late to make any change, and she
tried to persuade herself that she was nervously
fanciful. 4

And here, perhaps, I had better say distinctly,
that Miss Aspinall was not a bad or cruel woman.
She was, on the contrary, truly conscientious and
perfectly sincere. But she was wanting in all finer
feelings and instincts. She had had a hard and
unloving childhood, and had almost lost the power
of caring much for any one. She loved her aunt
after a fashion, but she thought her weak. She was
just, or wished to be so, and with some of the older
pupils she got on fairly well. But she did not
understand children, and took small interest in the
younger scholars, beyond seeing that they kept the
rules and were not complained of by the under
teachers who took charge of them. And as the
younger pupils were very seldom boarders it did not
very much matter, as they had their own homes and


60 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



mothers to make them happy once school hours
were over.

Mamma did not know that there were scarcely
any boarders as young as I, for when she first asked
about the other pupils, Miss Ledbury, thinking prin-
cipally of lessons, said, ‘oh yes, there was a nice
little class just about my age where I should feel
quite at home.

A few days before the day—the day of separation
for us all—mamma took me to see Miss Ledbury.
She thought I would feel rather less strange if I
had been there once, and had seen the lady who
was to be my schoolmistress.

I knew the house—Green Bank, it was called—
by sight. It was a little farther out of the town
than ours, and had a melancholy bit of garden in
front, and a sort of playground at the back. It was
not a large house—indeed, it was not really large
enough for the number of people living in it—twenty
to thirty boarders, and a number of day-scholars,
who of course helped to fill the schoolrooms and to
make them hot and airless, four resident teachers,
and four or five servants. But in those days people
did not think nearly as much as now about ventila-
tion and lots of fresh air, and perfectly pure water,


IV ALL SETTLED 61



and all such things, which we now know to be quite
as important to our health as food and clothes.

Mamma rang the bell. Everything about Green
Bank was neat and orderly, prim, if not grim. So
was the maid-servant who opened the door, and in
answer to mamma’s inquiry for Miss Ledbury,
showed us into the drawing-room, a square moderate-
sized room, at the right hand of the passage.

I can remember the look of that room even now,
perfectly. It was painfully neat, not exactly ugly,
for most of the furniture was of the spindle-legeed
quaint kind, to which everybody now gives the general
name of ‘Queen Anne. There were a few books set
out on the round table, there was a cottage piano at
one side, there were some faint water-colours on the
wall, and a rather nice clock on the white marble
mantelpiece, the effect of which was spoilt by a pair
of huge ‘lustres, as they were called, at each side of
it. The carpet was very ugly, large and sprawly in
pattern, and so was the hearth-rug. They were the
newest things in the room, and greatly admired by
Miss Ledbury and her niece, who were full of the bad
taste of the day in furniture, and would gladly have
turned out all the delicate spidery-looking tables and
chairs to make way for heavy and cumbersome sofas


62 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP. IV-



and ottomans, but for the question of expense, and
perhaps for the sake of old association on the elder
lady’s part.

There was no fire, though it was November, and
mamma shivered a little as she sat down, possibly,
however, not altogether from cold. It was between
twelve and one in the morning—that was the hour
at which Miss Ledbury asked parents to call.

Afterwards, when I got to know the rules of the
house, I found that the drawing-room fire was never
lighted except on Wednesday and Saturday after-
noons, or on some very special occasion.

I stood beside mamma. Somehow I did not feel
inclined to sit down. TI was full of a strange kind of
excitement, half pleasant, half frightening. I think
the.second half prevailed as the moments went on.
Mamma did not speak, but I felt her hand celasping
my shoulder.

Then at last the door opened.
CHAPTER V
AN UNPROMISING BEGINNING

My first sight of Miss Ledbury was a sort of agreeable
disappointment. She was not the least like what I
had imagined, though till I did see her I do not
think I knew that I bad imagined anything! She
had been much less in my thoughts than her pupils ;
it was the idea of companions, the charm of being
one of a party of other girls, with a place of my own
among them, that my fancy had been full of. I
don’t think I cared very much what the teachers
were like.

What I did see was a very small, fragile-looking
old lady, with quite white hair, a black or purple—
I am not sure which, anyway it was dark—silk dress,
and a soft fawn-coloured cashmere shawl. She had
a white lace cap, tied with ribbons under her chin,
and black Jace mittens. Looking back now, I cannot
picture her in any other dress. I cannot remember


64 : THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



ever seeing her with a bonnet on, and yet she must
have worn one, as she went to church regularly.
Her face was small and still pretty, and the eyes
were naturally sweet, sometimes they had a twinkle
of humour in them, sometimes they looked almost
hard. The truth was: that she was a gentle, kind-
hearted person by nature, but a narrow life and
education had stunted her power of sympathy, and
she thought it wrong to give way to feeling. She
was conscious of what she believed to be weakness
in herself, and was always trying to be firm and
determined. And since her niece had come to live
with her, this put-on sternness had increased.

Yet I was never really afraid of Miss Ledbury,
though I never—well perhaps that is rather too
strong—almost never, I should say, felt at ease with
her. :

I was, I suppose, a very shy child, but till now
the circumstances of my life had not brought this
out.

_ This first time of seeing my future schoolmistress
I liked her very much. There was indeed something
very attractive about her—something almost ‘fairy-
godmother-like’ which took my fancy. .

We did not stay long. Miss Ledbury was not
Vv AN UNPROMISING BEGINNING 65



without tact, and she saw that the mention of the
approaching parting, the settling the day and hour
at which I was to come to Green Bank to stay, were
very, very trying to mamma. And I almost think
her misunderstanding of me began from that first
interview. In her heart I fancy she was shocked at
my coolness, for she did not know, or if she ever had
known, she had forgotten, much about children—
their queer contradictory ways of taking things, how
completely they are sometimes the victims of their
imagination, how little they realise anything they
have had no experience of.

All that the old lady did not understand in me,
she put down to my being spoilt and selfish, She
even, I believe, thought me forward.

Still, she spoke kindly—said she hoped I should
soon feel at home at Green Bank, and try to get on
well with my lessons, so that when my dear mamma
returned she would be astonished at the progress I
had. made.

I did not quite understand what she said—the
word ‘progress’ puzzled me. I wondered if it had
anything to do with the pilgrim’s progress, and I was
half inclined to ask if it had, and to tell her that I
had read the history of Christian and his family quite

r


66 THE CARVED LIONS cHaP.



through, two or three times. But mamma had
already got up to go, so I only said ‘Yes’ rather
vaguely, and Miss Ledbury kissed me somewhat
coldly.

As soon as we found ourselves outside in the
street again, mamma made some little remark. She
wanted to find out what kind of impression had been
left on me, though she would not have considered it
right to ask me straight out what I thought of the
lady who was going to be my superior—in a sense to
fill a parent’s place to me.

And I remember replying that I thought Miss
Ledbury must be very, very old—nearly a hundred,
I should think.

‘Oh dear no, not nearly as old as that,” mamma
said quickly. ‘You must not say anything like that,
Geraldine. It would offend her. She cannot be
more than sixty.’

I opened my eyes. I thought it would be very.
nice to be a hundred.

But before I had time to say more, my attention
was distracted.. For just at that moment, turning a
corner, we almost ran into the procession I was so
eager to join—Miss Ledbury’s girls, returning two
and two from their morning constitutional.


v AN UNPROMISING BEGINNING 67



I felt my cheeks grow red with excitement. I
stared at them, and some of them, I think, looked at
me. Mamma looked at them too, but instead of
getting red, her face grew pale.

They passed so quickly, that I was only able to
glance at two or three of the twenty or thirty faces.
I looked at the smallest of the train with the most
interest, though one older face at the very end
caught my attention almost without my knowing it.

When they had passed I turned to mamma.

‘Did you see that little girl with the rosy cheeks,
mamma? The one with a red feather in her hat.
Doesn’t she look nice ?’

‘She looked a good-humoured little person,’ said
mamma. In her heart she thought the rosy-faced
child rather common-looking and far too showily
dressed, but that was not unusual among the rich
Mexington people, and she would not have said
anything like that to me. ‘I did notice one very
sweet face, she went on, ‘I mean the young lady at
the end—one of the governesses no doubt.’

I had, as I ‘said, noticed her too, and mamma’s
words impressed it upon me. Mamma seemed quite
cheered by this passing glimpse, and she went on
speaking.


68 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



‘She must be one of the younger teachers, I
should think. I hope you may bein her class. You
must tell me if you are when you write to me, and
tell me her name.’

‘I promised I would.

The next two or three days I have no clear
remembrance of at all. They seemed all bustle and
confusion—though through everything I recollect
mamma’s pale drawn face, and the set look of Haddie’s
mouth. He was so determined not to break down.
Of father we saw very little—he was terribly busy.
But when he was at home, he seemed to be always
whistling, or humming a tune, or making jokes.

‘Tlow pleased father seems to be about going so
far away, I said once to Haddie. But he did not
answer.

He—Haddie—was to-go a part of the way in the
same train as father and mamma. They were to
start on the Thursday, and I was taken to Green
Bank on Wednesday morning. Father took me—
and Lydia. I was such a little girl that mamma
thought Lydia should go with me to unpack and
arrange my things, and she never thought that any
one could object to this. For she had never been at
school herself, and did not know much about school


Vv AN UNPROMISING BEGINNING 69



ways. I think the first beginning of my troubles
and disappointments was about Lydia.

Father and I were shown into the drawing-room,
But when the door opened this time, it was not to
admit gentle old Miss Ledbury. Instead of her in
came a tall thin woman, dressed in gray—she had
black hair done rather tightly, and a black lace bow
on the top of her head.

Father was standing looking out of the window,
and I beside him holding his hand. I was not
crying. I had had one sudden convulsive fit of
sobs early that moming when mamma came for a
moment into my room, and for the first time it really
came over me that I was leaving her. But she
almost prayed me to try not to cry, and the feeling
that I was helping her, joined to the excitement I
was in, made it not so very difficult to keep quiet. I
do not even think my eyes were red.

Father turned at the sound of the door opening.

‘Miss Ledbury,’ he began.

‘Not Miss Ledbury. J am Miss Aspinall, her
niece, said the lady; she was not pleased at the
mistake,

‘Oh, I beg your pardon, said poor father. ‘J
understood—— ’


70 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP,



‘Miss Ledbury is not very well this morning,
said Miss Aspinall. ‘She deputed me to express
her regrets.’

‘Oh certainly, said father. ‘This is my little
daughter—you have seen her before, I suppose?’

- No, said the lady, holding out her hand. ‘How
do you do, my dear 2’

I did not speak. I stared up at her, I felt so
confused and strange. I scarcely heard what father
went on to say—some simple messages from mamma
about my writing to them, and so on, and the dates
of the mails, the exact address, etc., etc., to all of
which Miss Aspinall listened with a slight bend of
her head or a stiff ‘indeed, or ‘just so.’

This was not encouraging, I am afraid even
father’s buoyant. spirits went down: I think he had
had some idea that if he came himself he would be able
to make friends. with my schoolmistress and be able
to ensure her special friendliness. But it was clear
that nothing of this kind was to be done with the niece.

So he said at last,

‘Well, I think that is all. Good-bye, my little
woman, then. Good-bye, my darling. She will be a
good girl, Tam sure, Miss Aspinall; she has been a
dear good child at home.’






































































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Vv AN UNPROMISING BEGINNING 71



His voice was on the point of breaking, but the
governess stood there stonily. His praise of me was
not the way to win her favour. I do believe she
would have liked me better if he had said I had been
so naughty and troublesome at home that he trusted
the discipline of school would do me good. And
when I glanced up at Miss Aspinall’s face, something
seemed to choke down the sob which was beginning
again to rise in my throat.

‘Good-bye, my own. little girl” said father. One
more kiss and he was gone.

My luggage was in the hall—which was really a
passage scarcely deserving the more important name
—and beside it stood Lydia. Miss Aspinall looked
at her coldly.

‘Who ’ she began, when I interrupted her.

‘It’s Lydia,” I said. ‘She’s come to unpack my
things. Mamma sent her,’



‘Come to unpack your things,’ repeated the
governess, ‘There must be some mistake—that is
quite unnecessary. There is no occasion for you to
wait,’ she said to poor Lydia, with a slight gesture
towards the door.

Lydia grew very red.

‘Miss Geraldine won’t know about them all, Pm


72 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP,



afraid, she began. ‘She has not been used to taking
the charge of her things yet.’

“Then the sooner she learns the better,’ said Miss
Aspinall, and Lydia dared not persist. She turned
to me, looking ready to burst out crying again,
though, as she had been doing little else for three
days, one might have thought her tears were
exhausted.

‘Good-bye, dear Miss Geraldine,’ she said, half
holding out her arms. I flew into them. I was
beginning to feel very strange.

‘Good-bye, dear Lydia, I said.

“You will write to me, Miss Geraldine?’

‘Of course I will; I know your address, I said.
Lydia was going to her own home to work with a
dressmaker sister in hopes of coming back to us at
the end of the two years.

‘Miss Le Marchant’ (I think I have never said
that our family name was Le Marchant), said a cold
voice, ‘I really cannot wait any longer; you must
come upstairs at once to take off your things.’

Lydia glanced at me.

‘IT beg pardon, she said; and then she too was
gone,

Long afterwards the poor girl told me that her


Vv AN UNPROMISING BEGINNING 73



heart was nearly bursting when she left me, but
she had the good sense to say nothing to add to
mamma's distress, as she knew that my living at
Green Bank was all settled about. She could only
hope the other governesses might be kinder than the
one she had seen. ;

Miss Aspinall walked upstairs, telling me to
follow her. It was not a very large house, but it
was a high one and the stairs were steep. It seemed
to me that I had climbed up a long way when at last
she opened a door half-way down a dark passage.

‘This is your room,’ she said, as she went in.

I followed her eagerly. I don’t quite know what
LT expected. I had not been told if I was to have a
room to myself or not. But at first I think I was
rather startled to see three beds in a room not much
larger than my own one at home—three beds and
two wash-hand stands, a large and a small, two
chests of drawers, a large and a small also, which
were evidently considered to be toilet-tables as well,
as each had a looking-glass, and three chairs.

My eyes wandered round. It was all quite neat,
though dull. For the one window looked on to the
side-wall of the next-door house, and much light
could not have got in at the best of times, added to


74 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP,



which, the day was a very gray one. But the impres-
sion it made upon me was more that of a tidy and
clean servants’ room than of one for ladies, even
though only little girls.

T stood still and silent.

‘This is your bed,’ said Miss Aspinall next, touch-
ing a small white counterpaned iron bedstead in one
corner—I was glad it was ina corner. ‘The Miss
Smiths are your companions. They share the large
chest of drawers, and your things will go into the
smaller one.’

‘There won’t ‘be nearly room enough, I said
quickly. I had yet to learn the habit of not saying
out. whatever came into my head.

‘Nonsense, child,” said the governess. ‘There
must be room enough for you if there is room enough
for much older and—-—’ she stopped. ‘At your age
many clothes are not requisite. I think, on the
whole, it will be better for you not to unpack or
arrange your own things. One of the governesses
shall do so, and all that you do not actually require
must stay in your trunk and be put in the box-room.’

I did not pay very much attention to what she
said. I don’t think I clearly understood it, for, as I
have said, in some ways I was rather a slow child.


wT

v AN UNPROMISING BEGINNING



And my thoughts were running more on the Miss
Smiths and the rest of my future companions than on
my wardrobe. If I had taken in that it was not only
my clothes that were in question, but that my little
houseliold gods, my special pet possessions, were
not to be left in my own Reaping; I would have
minded much more.

‘Now take off your things at once, said Miss
Aspinall, ‘You must keep on your boots till your
shoes are got out, but take care not to stump along
the passages. Do your hands want washing? No,
you have your gloves on. As soon as you are ready,
go down: two flights of stairs till you come to the
passage under this on the next floor. The door at
the end is the second class schoolroom, where you
will be shown your place.’

' Then she went away, leaving me to my own
reflections. Not a. word of sympathy or encourage-
ment, not a pat on my shoulder as she passed me,
nor a kindly glance out of her hard eyes. But at
the time I scarcely noticed this. My mind was still
fall of not unpleasant excitement, though I was
beginning to feel tired and certainly very confused
and bewildered.

I sat down for a moment on the edge of my little


76 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP,



bed when Miss Aspinall left me, without hastening
to take off my coat and bonnet. We wore bonnets
mostly in those days, though hats were beginning to
come into fashion for young girls.

‘I wish there were only two beds, not three, I
said to myself. ‘And I would like the little girl
with the rosy face to sleep in my room. I wonder
if she’s Miss Smith perhaps. I wonder if there’s
several little girls as little as me. I’d like to know
all their names, so as to write and tell them to
mamma and Haddie.’

The inclination to ery had left me—fortunately
in some ways, though perhaps if I had made my
début in the schoolroom looking very woe-begone
and tearful I should have made a better impression.
My future companions would have felt sorry for me.
As it was, when I had taken off my things I made
my way downstairs as I had been directed, and
opening the schoolroom door—I remember wonder-
ing to myself what second class schoolroom could
mean: would it have long seats all round, something
like a second-class railway carriage?—walked in
coolly enough.

The room felt airless and close, though it was a
cold day. And at the first glance it seemed to me


v AN UNPROMISING BEGINNING 77



perfectly full of people—girls—women indeed in my
eyes many of them were, they were so much bigger
and older than I—in every direction, more than I
could count. And the hum of voices was very
confusing, the hwms I should say, for there were two
or three different sets of reading aloud, or lessons
repeating, going on at once.

I stood just inside the door. Two or three heads
were turned in my direction at the sound I made in
opening it, but quickly bent over their books again,
and for some moments no one paid any attention to
me. Then suddenly a governess happened to catch
sight of me. It was the same sweet-faced girl whom
mamma had noticed at the end of the long file in
the street.

She looked at me once, then seemed at a loss,
then she looked at me again, and at last said some-
thing to the girl beside her, and getting up from her
seat went to the end of the room, and spoke to a
small elderly woman in a brown stuff dress, who
was evidently another governess.

This person--I suppose I should say lady—turned
round and stared at me. Then she said something
to the younger governess, nothing very pleasant, I
fancy, for the sweet-looking one—I had better call


78 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



her by her name, which was Miss Fenmore—went
back to her place with a heightened colour.

You may ask how I can remember all these little
particulars so exactly. Perhaps I do not quite do
so, but still, all that happened just then made a very
strong impression on me, and I have thought it over
so much and so often, especially since I have had
children of my own, that it is difficult to tell quite
precisely how much is real memory, how much the
after knowledge of how things must have been, to
influence myself and others as they did. And later,
too, I talked them over with those who were older
than I at the time, and could understand more.

So there I stood, a very perplexed little person,
though still more perplexed than distressed or
disappointed, by the door. Now and then some
head was turned to look at me with a sort of stealthy
curiosity, but there was no kindness in any of the
glances, and the young governess kept her eyes
turned away. I was not a pretty child. My hair
was straight and not noticeable in any way, and it
was tightly plaited, as was the fashion, wnless a
child’s hair was thick enough to make pretty ringlets.
My face was rather thin and pale, and there was
nothing of dimpling childish loveliness about me. I


v AN UNPROMISING BEGINNING 79



was rather near-sighted too, and I daresay that often
gave me a worried, perhaps a fretful expression.

After all, I did not have to wait very long. The
elderly governess finished the page she was reading
aloud—she may have been dictating to her pupils,
I cannot say—and came towards me.

‘Did Miss Aspinall send you here?’ she said
abruptly.

IT looked up at her. She seemed to me no better
than our cook, and not half so good-natured:

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Yes, she repeated, as if she was very shocked.
“Yes who, if you please? Yes, Miss ——?’

‘Yes, Miss, I said in a matter-of-fact way.

‘What manners! Fie!’ said Miss
wards I found her name was Broom. ‘I think in-



; after-

deed it was quite time for you to come to school
If you cannot say my name, you can at least say
ma’am.’

T stared up at her. I think my trick of staring
must have been rather provoking, and perhaps even
must have seemed rude, though it arose entirely
from my not understanding.

‘T don’t know your name, Miss—ma’am, I said.

I spoke clearly. I was not frightened. And a


80 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP. V



titter went round the forms. Miss Broom was angry
at being put in the wrong.

‘Miss Aspinall sent you to my class, Miss Broom’s
class,’ she said.

‘No, ma’am——Miss Broom—she didn’t.’

_ The governess thought I meant to be impertinent
—impertinent, poor me!

And with no very gentle hand, she half led, half
pushed me towards her end of the room, where there
was a vacant place on one of the forms.

‘Silence, young ladies, she said, for some whisper-
ing was taking place. ‘Go on with your copying
out.”

And then she turned to me with a book.

‘Let me hear how you can read,’ she said.
CHAPTER VI
A NEW WORLD

I coutp read aloud well, unusually well, I think, for
mamma had taken great pains with my pronunciation.
She was especially anxious that both Haddie and I
should speak well, and not catch the Great Mexington
accent, which was both peculiar and ugly.

But the book which Miss Broom had put before
me was hardly a fair test. I don’t remember what
it was—some very dry history, I think, bristling
with long words, and in very small print. I did not
take in the sense of what I was reading in the very
least, and so, of course, I read badly, tumbling over
the long words, and putting no intelligence into my
tone. I think, too, my teacher was annoyed at the
purity of my accent, for no one could possibly have
mistaken her for anything but what she was—a
native of Middleshire. She corrected me once or
twice, then shut the book impatiently.

G


82 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



‘Very bad, she said, ‘very bad indeed for eleven
years old’

‘IT am not eleven, Miss Broom,’ I said. ‘I am
only nine past.’

‘Little girls must not contradict, and must not be
rude, was the reply.

What had I said that could be called rude? IT
tried to think, thereby bringing on myself a repri-
mand for inattention, which did not have the effect
of brightening my wits, I fear.

I think I was put through a sort of examination
as to all my acquirements. I know I came out of
it very badly, for Miss Broom pronounced me so
backward that there was no class, not even the
youngest, in the school, which I was really fit for.
There was nothing for it, however, but to put me
into this lowest class, and she said I must do extra
work in play hours to make up to my companions.

Even my French, which I now know must have
been good, was found fault with by Miss Broom,
who said my accent was extraordinary. And
certainly, if hers was Parisian, mine must have been
worse than that of Stratford-le-Bow !

Still, I was not unhappy. I thought it must be
always like that at school, and I said to myself I






























































































‘Little girls must not contradict, and must not be rude.’—Pp, 82.


VI A NEW IVORLD 83



really would work hard to make up to the others,
who were so much, much cleverer than J. And I
sat contentedly enough in my place, doing my best
to learn a page of English grammar by heart, from
time to time peeping round the table, till, to my
great satisfaction and delight, I caught sight of the
rosy-cheeked damsel at the farther end of the table.

I was so pleased that I wonder I did not jump
up from my place and run round to speak to her,
forgetful that though I had thought so much of her,
she had probably never noticed me at all the only
other time of our meeting, or rather passing each
other.

But I felt Miss Broom’s eye upon me, and sat
still. I acquitted myself pretty fairly of my page
of grammar, leading to the dry remark from the
governess that it was plain I ‘could learn if I chose.’
As this was the first thing I had been given to learn,
the implied reproach was not exactly called for.
But none of Miss Broom’s speeches were remarkable
for being appropriate. They depended much more on
the mood she happened to be in herself than upon
anything else.

I can clearly remember most of that day. I have
a vision of a long dining-table, long at least it seemed


84 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



to me, and a plateful of roast mutton and potatoes
which I could not manage to finish, followed by rice
pudding with which I succeeded better, though I
was not the least hungry. Miss Aspinall was at-one
end of the table, Miss Broom at the other, and Miss
Fenmore, who seemed always to be jumping up to
ring the bell or hand the governesses something or
other that’ had been forgotten by the servant, sat
somewhere in the middle.

No one spoke unless spoken to by one of the
teachers. Miss Aspinall shot out little remarks from
time to time about the weather, and replied graciously
enough to one or two of the older girls who ventured
to ask if Miss Ledbury’s cold, or headache, was better.

Then came the grace, followed by a shoving back
of forms, and a march in’ order of age, or place in
class rather, to the door, and thence down the passage
to what was called the big schoolroom—a room:on
the ground floor, placed where by rights the kitchen
should have been, I fancy. It was the only large
room in the house, and I think it must have been
built out beyond the original walls on purpose.

And then—there re-echo on my ears even now
the sudden bursting out of noise, the loosening of
a score and a half of tongues, girls’ tongues too,


VI A NEW WORLD 85



forcibly restrained ‘since the morning. For this was
the recreation hour, and on a wet day, to make up
for not going a walk, the ‘young ladies’ were allowed
from two to three to chatter as much as they liked—
in English instead of in the fearful and wonderful
jargon yclept ‘French.’

I stood in a corner by myself, staring, no doubt.
I felt profoundly interested. This was a little more
like what I had pictured to myself, though I had not
imagined it would be quite so noisy and bewildering.
But some of the girls seemed very merry, and their
laughter and chatter fascinated me—if only I were
one of them, able to laugh and chatter too! Should
I ever be admitted to share their fun ?

The elder girls did not interest me. They seemed
to me quite grown-up. Yet it was from their ranks
that came the first token of interest in me—of notice
that I was there at all.

‘What's your name?’ said a tall thin girl with
fair curls, which one could see she was very proud
of. She was considered a beauty in the school. She
was silly, but very good-natured. She spoke with a
sort of lisp, and very slowly, so her question did not
strike me as rude. Nor was it meant to be so. It
was a mixture of curiosity and amiability.


— 86 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



‘My name, I repeated, rather stupidly. I was
startled by being spoken to.

‘Yes, your name. Didn't Miss Lardner say
what’s your name? Dear me—don’t stand gaping
there like a monkey on a barrel-organ,’ said another
girl,

By this time a little group had gathered round
me. The girls composing it all laughed, and though
it does not sound very witty—to begin with, I never
heard of a monkey ‘gaping’—I have often thought
since that there was some excuse for the laughter.
I was small and thin, and I had a trick of screwing
up my eyes which madé them look smaller than
they really were. And my frock was crimson
merino with several rows of black velvet above the
hem of the skirt.

I was not offended. But I did not laugh. The
girl who had spoken last was something of a tomboy,
and looked upon also as a wit. Her name was
Josephine Mellor, and her intimate friends called
her Joe. She had very fuzzy red hair, and rather
good brown eyes.

‘I say, she went on again, ‘what is your name?
And are you going to stay to dinner every day, or
only when it rains, like Lizzie Burt?’


VI A NEW WORLD 87



Who was Lizzie Burt? That question nearly set
my ideas adrift again. But the consciousness of my
superior position fortunately kept me to the point.

‘I am going. to be at dinner always, I said
proudly. ‘I aim a boarder’

The girls drew a little nearer, with evidently
increased interest.

‘A boarder,” repeated Josephine. ‘Then Harriet
Smith’ll have to give up being baby. You're ever
go much younger than her, I’m sure.’

‘What are you saying about me?’ said Harriet,
who had caught the sound of her own name, as one
often does.

‘Only that that pretty snub nose of yours is
going to be put out of joint, said Miss Mellor
mischievously.

Harriet came rushing forward. She was my rosy-
cheeked girl! Her face was redder than usual. I
felt very vexed with Miss Mellor, even though I did
not quite understand her.

‘What are you saying?’ the child called out.
‘Ym not going to have any of your teasing, Joe.’

‘It’s not teasing—it’s truth, said the elder girl.
‘Yow’re not the baby any more. She, and she pointed
to me, ‘she’s younger than you.’


88 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



‘How old are you?’ said Harriet roughly.

‘Nine past, I said. ‘Nine and a half,’

‘Hurrah! Hurrah!’ shouted Harriet. ‘I’m only
nine anda month. Tm still the baby, Miss Joe.’

She was half a head at least taller than I, and
broad in proportion.

‘What a mite you are, to be sure” said Miss
Mellor, ‘nine and a half and no bigger than that.’

I felt myself getting red. I think one or two of
the girls must have had perception enough to feel a
little sorry for me, for one of them—I fancy it was
Miss Lardner—said in a good-natured patronising
way,

‘You haven't told us your name yet, after all.’

‘Tt’s Geraldine,” I said. ‘That's my first name,
and I’m always called it.’

‘Geraldine what?’ said the red-haired girl.

‘Geraldine Theresa Le Marchant—that’s all my
names.’

‘My goodness, said Miss Mellor, ‘how grand we
are! Great Mexington’s growing quite aristocratic.
T didn’t know monkeys had such fine names.’

Some of the girls laughed, some, I think, thought
her as silly as she was.

‘Where do you come from?’ was the next question.


VI A NEW WORLD 89



‘Come from?’ I repeated. ‘I don’t know.’

At this they all did laugh, and I suppose it was
only natural. Suddenly Harriet Smith made a sort
of dash at me.

‘Oh, I say, she exclaimed. ‘I know. She’s
going to sleep in our room. I saw them putting
sheets on the bed in the corner, but Jane wouldn't
tell me who they were for. Emma,’ she called out
loudly to a girl of fourteen or fifteen, ‘Emma, I say,
she’s going to sleep in our room I’m sure.’

Emma Smith was taller and thinner and paler
than her sister, but still they were rather like.
Perhaps it was for that very reason that they got on
so badly—they might have been better friends if
they had been more unlike. As it was, they quarrelled
constantly, and I must say it was generally Harriet’s
fault. She was very spoilt, but she had something
hearty and merry about her, and so had Emma.
They were the daughters of a rich Great Mexington
manufacturer, and they had no mother. They were
favourites in the school, partly I suspect because
they had lots of pocket money, and used to invite
their companions to parties in the holidays. But
they were not mean or insincere, though rough and
noisy—more like boys than girls.


oO THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.

Emma came bouncing forward.

‘I say, she began to me, ‘if it’s true you're to
sleep in our room I hope you understand you must
do what I tell you. I’m the eldest. You're not to
back up Harriet to disobey me.’

‘No, [ said. ‘I don’t want to do anything like
that’

‘Well, then, said Harriet, ‘youll be Emma's
friend, not mine.’

My faee fell, and I suppose Harriet saw it. She
came closer to me and looked at me well, as if expect-
ing me to answer. But for the first time since I had
been in my new surroundings I felt more than be-
wildered—lI felt frightened and lonely, terribly lonely.

‘Qh, mamma,’ I thought to myself, ‘I wish I could
see you to tell you about it. It isn’t a bit like what
I thought it would be’ ,

But I said nothing aloud. I think now that if I
had burst out crying it would have been better for
me, but I had very little power of expressing myself,
and Haddie had instilled into me a great horror of
being a ery-baby at school.

In their rough way, however, several of the girls
were kind-hearted, the two Smiths perhaps as much
so as any. Harriet came close up to me.


VI A NEW WORLD 91



‘Tm only in fun,’ she said; ‘of course we'll be
friends. Il tell you how we'll do, and she put her
fat little arm round me in a protecting way which I
much appreciated. ‘Come over here, she went on
in a lower voice, ‘where none of the big ones can
hear what we say,’ and she drew me, nothing loth,
to the opposite corner of the room.

As we passed through the group of older girls
standing about, one or two fragments of their talk
reached my ears.

‘“Yes—Tm sure it’s the same. He’s a bank
clerk, I think. I’ve heard papa speak of them.
They're awfully poor—come-down-in-the-world sort
of people.’

‘Oh, then, I expect when she’s old enough she'll
be a governess—perhaps she’ll be a sort of teacher
here to begin with’

Then followed some remark about looking far
ahead, and a Jaugh at the idea of ‘the monkey’
ever developing into a governess.

But after my usual fashion it was not till I thought
it over afterwards that I understood that it was I
and my father they had been discussing. In the
meantime I was enjoying a confidential talk with
Harriet Smith—that is to say, I was listening to all


92 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



she said to me; she did not seem to expect me to
say much in reply.

I felt flattered by her condescension, but I did not
in my heart feel much interest in her communications.
They were mostly about Emma—how she tried to
bully her, Harriet, because she herself was five years
older, and how the younger girl did not intend to
stand it much longer. Emma was as bad as a
boy.

‘As bad as a boy,’ I repeated. ‘I don’t know
what you mean,’

‘ That’s because you've not got a brother, I suppose,
said Harriet. ‘Our brother’s a perfect nuisance. He’s
so spoilt—papa lets him do just as he likes. Emma
and I hate the holidays because of him being at home.
But it’s the worst for me, you see. Emma hates Fred
bullying her, so she might know I hate her bullying
me.’

This was all very astonishing to me.

‘I have a brother, I said after a moment or two’s
reflection.

‘Then you know what it is. Why didn’t you say
so?’ asked Harriet.

‘Because I don’t know what it.is. Haddie never
teases me. I love being with him.’


VI A NEW WORLD 93



‘My goodness! Then you're not like most,’ said
Harriet elegantly, opening her eyes.

She asked me some questions after this—as to
where we lived, how many servants we had, and so
on. Some I answered—some I could not, as I was
by no means as worldly-wise as this precocious young
person.

She gave me a great deal of information about
school—she hated the governesses, except the old
lady, and she didn’t care about her much. Miss
Broom was her special dislike. But she liked school
very well, she’d been there a year now, and before
that she had a daily governess at home, and it was
very dull indeed. What had I done till now—had I
had a governess ?

‘Oh no, I said. ‘I had mamma.’

‘Was she good to you, asked my new friend, ‘or
was she very strict?’

I stared at Harriet. Mamma was strict, but she
was very, very good to me. I said so.

‘Then why are you a boarder?’ she asked. ‘ We've
not got a mamma, but even if we had I’m sure she
wouldn’t teach us herself. JI suppose your mamma
isn’t rich enough to pay for a governess for you.

‘Idon’t know, Isaidsimply. I had never thought


94 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



in this way of mamma’s teaching me, but I was not
at all offended. ‘I don’t think any governess would
be as nice as mamma.’

‘Then why have you come to school?’ inquired

Harriet.
_ ‘Because’—‘ because father and mamma have to
go away, I was going to say, when suddenly the full
meaning of the words seemed to rush over me. A
strange giddy feeling made me shut my eyes and I
caught hold of Harriet’s arm.

‘What's the matter?’ she said wonderingly, as I
opened my eyes and looked at her again.

‘Td rather not talk about mamma just now,’ I
said. ‘V1 tell you afterwards.’ ,

‘Up in our room, said Harriet, ‘oh yes, that'll be
jolly. We've got all sorts of dodges.’

But before she had time to explain more, or I to
ask her why ‘dodges ’—I knew the meaning of the
word from Haddie—were required, a bell rang loudly.

Instantly the hubbub ceased, and there began a
sort of silent scramble—the elder girls collecting
books and papers and hurrying to their places ; the
younger ones rushing upstairs to the other schoolroom,
I following.

In a few minutes we were all seated round the


VI A NEW WORLD: 95



long tables. It was a sewing afternoon, and to my
great delight I saw that Miss Fenmore, the pretty
governess whom I had taken such a fancy to, though
T had not yet spoken to her, was now in Miss Broom’s
place.

Mamma had provided me with both plain work
and a little simple fancy work, but as my things
were not yet unpacked, I had neither with me, and
I sat feeling awkward and ashamed, seeing all the
others busily preparing for business.

‘Have you no work, my dear?’ said Miss Fen-
more gently. It was the first kind speech I had
had from a governess.

‘It isn’t unpacked, I said, feeling my cheeks grow
red, I did not know why.

Miss Fenmore hesitated for a moment. Then
she took out a stocking—or rather the beginning
of one on knitting-needles.

‘Can you knit?’ she asked.

‘I can knit plain—plain and purl—just straight
on, I said. ‘But I’ve never done it round like that.’

‘Never mind, you will learn easily, as you know
how to knit. Come and sit beside me, so that I can
watch you.’

She made the girls sit a little more closely, making


96 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP. VI



a place for me beside her, and I would have been
quite happy had I not seen a cross expression on
several faces, and heard murmurs of ‘favouring,’
‘spoilt pet,’ and so on.

Miss Fenmore, if she heard, took no notice. . And
in a few moments all was in order. We read aloud
in turns—the book was supposed to be a story-book,
but it seemed to me very dull, though the fault may
have lain in the uninteresting way the girls read, and
the constant change of voices, as no one read more
than two pages at a time. I left off trying to
listen and gave my whole attention to my knitting,
encouraged by Miss Fenmore’s whispered ‘ very nice
—a little looser,’ or ‘won’t it be nice to knit socks
for your father or brother, if you have a brother ?’

I nodded with a smile. I was burning to tell her
everything, Already I felt that I loved her dearly
—her voice was as sweet as her face. Yet there
were tones in the former and lines in the latter tell-
ing of much sorrow and suffering, young as she was.
I was far too much of a child to understand this.
I only felt vaguely that there was something about
her which reminded me of mamma as she had
looked these last few weeks,

And my heart was won.
CHAPTER VII
GATHERING CLOUDS

Arter that first day at Green Bank, the remembrance
of things in detail is not so clear to me.

To begin with, the life was very monotonous.
Except for the different lessons, one day passed much
like another, the principal variety being the coming
of Sunday and the two weekly half-holidays—
Wednesday and Saturday. But to me the half-
holidays brought no pleasure. I think I disliked
them more than lesson days, and most certainly I
disliked Sundays most of all.

Looking back now, I think my whole nature and
character must have gone through some curious
changes in these first weeks at school. I grew older
very rapidly.

There first came by degrees the great disappoint-
ment of it all—for though I am anxious not to
exaggerate anything, it was a bewildering ‘dis-
u


98 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



illusionment’ to me. Nobody and nothing were
what I had imagined they would be. Straight out
of my sheltered home, where every thought and
tone and word were full of love, J was tossed into
this world of school, where, though no doubt there
were kind hearts and nice natures as there are every-
where, the whole feeling was different. Even the
good-nature was rough and unrefined—the tones of
voice, the ways of moving about, the readiness to
squabble, though very likely it was more a kind
of bluster than anything worse, all startled and
astounded me, as I gradually awoke from my dream
of the delights of being at school surrounded by
companions.

And there was really a prejudice against me, both
among teachers and pupils. A story had got about
that my family was very, very poor, that father had
had to go abroad on this account, and that my
schooling was to be paid for out of charity. So even
my gentleness, my soft way of speaking, the surprise
IT was too innocent to conceal at much that I saw,
were all put down to my ‘giving myself airs.’ And
I daresay the very efforts I made to please those
about me and to gain their affection did more harm
than good. Because I clung more or less to Harriet


VIL GATHERING CLOUDS 99
‘Smith, my room-mate, and the nearest to me in
age, I was called a little sneak, trying to get all
I could ‘out of her? as she was such a rich little
eirl.

I overheard these remarks once or twice, but it
was not for some time that I in the least knew what
they meant, and so I daresay the coarse-minded girls
who made them thought all the worse of me because
I did not resent them and just went quietly on my
own way.

What I did want from Harriet was sympathy; and
when she was in the humour to pay attention to me,
she did give me as much as it was in her to give.

I shall never forget the real kindness she and
Emma too showed me that first night at Green Bank,
when a great blow fell on me after we went upstairs
to go to bed.

Some one had unpacked my things. My night-
dress was lying on the bed, my brushes and sponges
were in their places, and when I opened the very
small chest of drawers I saw familiar things neatly
arranged in them. But there seemed so few—and in
the bottom drawer only one frock, and that my oldest
one, not the pretty new one mamma had got me for
Sundays or any special occasion.


100 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP,



‘Where can all my other things be?’ I said to
Harriet, who was greatly interested in my possessions.

‘What more have you?’ she said, peering over
my shoulder.

I named several.

‘And all my other things,’ I went on, ‘not clothes,
I don’t mean, but my workbox and my new writing-
desk, and the picture of father and mamma and
Haddie’—it was before the days of ‘ carte-de-visite’
or ‘cabinet’ photographs; this picture was what was
called a ‘daguerreotype’ on glass, and had been taken
on purpose for me at some expense—‘and my china
dog and the rabbits, and my scraps of silk, and
all my puzzles, and, and——’ I stopped short, out of
breath with bewilderment. ‘Can they be all together
for me to unpack myself?’ I said.

Emma, the most experienced of the three, shook
her head.

‘I’m afraid, she was beginning, when the door
opened, and Miss Broom’s face appeared.

‘Young ladies, she said, ‘I cannot have this. No
talking after the last bell has rung. My dear Miss
Smith, you are not usually so forgetful. If it is
you, Miss Marchant, it is a very bad beginning,
disobedience the very first evening.’


VIL GATHERING CLOUDS 101



‘She didn’t know,’ said both the girls. ‘It isn’t
her fault.’ ‘And if she had known, Harriet went on,
‘she couldn’t have helped it. ‘Miss Broom, some-
body’s took such lots of her things. Tell her, Gerry.

Under her protection I repeated the list of missing
articles, but before I had got to the end the governess
interrupted me.

‘You are a most impertinent child, she said, ‘to
say sucha thing. There are no thieves at Green
Bank—what a mind you must have! Your things
are safely packed away. Such as you really need
you shall have from time to time as I or Miss
Aspinall think fit. The frock you have on must
be kept as your best one, and you must wear the
brown check every day. You have far too many
no wonder——’ but



clothes—absurd extravagance
here she had the sense to stop short.

I did not care so much about my clothes.

‘It’s the other things I mind,’ I began, but Miss
Broom, who was already at the door, again interrupted.

‘Nonsense, she said. ‘We cannot have the
rooms littered with rubbish. Miss Aspinall left it
to me. You may have your Biblical dissected maps
on Sundays, and perhaps some of the other puzzles
during the Christmas holidays, but young ladies do


102 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



not come to school to amuse themselves, but to work
hard at their lessons,’

I dared not say anything more. There may have
been some reason in putting away a certain number
of my treasures, for dear mamma, in her wish to do
all she possibly could for my happiness, had very
probably sent more things with me than was
advisable. But I was not a silly spoilt child; I
had always been taught to be reasonable, and I
would have given in quite cheerfully if Miss Broom
had put it before me in any kindly way.

J was not left quite without defence, however.

‘IT don’t see but what you might let her have
some things out,’ said Emma. ‘Harry and I have.
Look at the mantelpiece—the china figures and the
Swiss chalets are our ornaments, and there’s quite
room for some more.’

But Miss Broom was by this time at the door,
which shut after her sharply without her saying
another word,

‘Horrid old cat,’ said both the Smiths.

I said nothing, for if I had I knew I should have
burst into tears. But after I was ready for bed and
had said my prayers, I could not help the one bitter
complaint.
VII GATHERING CLOUDS 103



‘IT wouldn’t mind anything else if only she’d let
me have papa and mamma’s picture,’ I said.

‘Of course you should have that, said Emma.
‘Tm sure Miss Ledbury would let you have it. I
think even Miss Aspinall would. Don’t be unhappy,
Gerry, V'll see if I can’t do something for you to-
morrow.’

And with this consolation I fell asleep. Nor did
Emma forget her promise. The next day I found
my daguerreotype installed on the mantelpiece, where
it stayed all the time I was at school.

My happiest days were those of our French
lessons, for then Miss Fenmore was the teacher.
She spoke French very well, and she was most kind
and patient. Yet for some reason or other she was
not much liked in the school. There was a prejudice
against her as there was against me: partly, because
she did not belong to that part of the country,
she was said to ‘give herself airs’; partly, I think,
because she was quiet and rather reserved; partly, I
am afraid, because some of the elder girls were
jealous of her extreme loveliness. She was as kind
to me as she dared to be, but I had no lessons from
her except French, and she has since told me that
she did not venture to show me anything like
104 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP,



partiality, as it would only have made my life still
harder and lonelier.

The remembrances which stand out the most

clearly in my mind will give a fair idea of my time
at Green Bank. The next great trouble I had came
on my first Sunday there.
It had been settled that I was to write to mamma
once a week—by every mail, that is to say. The
usual day for writing home was Wednesday, the
half-holiday, but as the South American mail left
England that very day, mamma had arranged with
Miss Ledbury that I should be allowed to add a
little on Sundays to my letter, as otherwise my news
would be a whole week late before it left.

So on the first Sunday afternoon I got out my
writing things with great satisfaction, and when
Miss Broom asked me what I was going to do, L
was pleased to be able to reply that Miss Ledbury
had given leave for a Sunday letter. Miss Broom
said something to Miss Aspinall, but though they
both looked very disapproving, they said no more.

I wrote a long letter. This time, of course, it had
to be a complete one, as I had only come to Green
Bank on the Thursday. I poured out my heart to
mamma, but yet, looking back now and recalling, as


Vil GATHERING CLOUDS 105

I know I can, pretty correctly, all I said, I do not
think it was exaggerated or wrong. I tried to write
cheerfully, for childish as I was in many ways, I did
understand that it would make mamma miserable to
think I was unhappy.

I was just closing the envelope when Miss Broom
entered the room.

‘What are you doing?’ she said. ‘Dear, dear,
you don’t mean to say you have been all this
afternoon writing that letter? What a waste of
time! No, no, you must not do that. Miss Ledbury
will seal it.’

‘It doesn’t need sealing, I replied. ‘It is a
gumming-down envelope.’

But she had come close to me, and drew it out
of my hand.

‘No letters leave this house without being first
read by Miss Ledbury or Miss Aspinall,’ she said.
‘Why do you stare so? It is the rule at every
school, and so in those days I suppose it was. ‘If
you have written nothing you-should not, you have
no reason to dread its being seen.’

‘Yes, I have, I replied indignantly. Even the
three or four days I had been at school had made
me months older. ‘I have,’ I repeated. ‘Nobody


106 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



would say to strangers all they’d say to their own
mamma.’

I felt my face growing very red; I pulled the
letter out of the envelope and began to tear it across,
But Miss Broom’s strong hands caught hold of
. mine.

“You are a very naughty girl,’ she said, ‘a very
naughty girl indeed. I saw at once how spoilt and
self-willed you were, but I never could have believed
you would dare to give way to-such violent temper.’

She dragged the letter out of my fingers—indeed,
I was too proud to struggle with her—and left the
room. I sat there in a sort of stupefied indifference.
That day had been the worst IJ had had. There was
not the interest of lessons, nor the daily bustle which
had always something enlivening about it. It was
so dull, and oh so different from home! The home-
sickness which I was too ignorant to give a name to
began to come over me with strides; but for my
letter to mamma I felt as if I could not have lived
through that afternoon. Jor even the Smiths were
away. They were what was called ‘ weekly boarders,’
going home every Saturday at noon and staying till
Monday morning.

The indifference did not last long. Gradually
BSS Ass NS a

( SS) “i Wi AG

\\N ‘

\ \\
WANE

SN \\\



t 7s the matter ?’—p, 107.

‘My poor little girl, wha


VIL 5 GATHERING CLOUDS 107



both it and the indignation broke down. [I laid my
head on the table before me and burst into convulsive
crying.

I do not think I cried loudly. I only remember the
terrible sort of shaking that went through me—I had
never felt anything like it in my life—and I remember
trying to choke down my sobs for fear of Miss Broom
hearing me and coming back.

Some one opened the door and looked in. I tried
to be perfectly quiet. But the some one, whoever it
was, had seen and perhaps heard me, for she came
forward, and in another moment I felt an arm steal
gently round me, while a kind voice said softly, very
softly,

‘My poor little girl, what is the matter?’ and
looking up, I saw that the new-comer was Miss
Fenmore.

‘Oh, I said through my tears, ‘it’s my letter,
and she’s taken it away—that horrid, horrid Miss
Broom.’

And I told her the whole story.

Miss Fenmore was very wise as well as kind. I
_ have often wondered how she had learnt so much
self-control in her short life, for though she then
seemed quite ‘old’ to me, I now know she cannot


108 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



have been more than eighteen or nineteen. But she
had had a sad life—that of an orphan since childhood.
I suppose sorrow had done the work of years in her
case—work that is indeed often not done at all!
For she had a character which was, good soil for all
discipline. She was naturally so sweet and joyous—
‘she seemed born with rose-coloured spectacles.

‘Dear child, she said, ‘try not to take this so
much to heart. I daresay your letter will be sent
just as it is. Miss Broom is sure to apply to Miss
Aspinall, perhaps to Miss Ledbury. And Miss Led-
bury is really kind, and she must have had great
experience in such things.’ .

Bué the last words were spoken with more
hesitation. Miss Fenmore knew that the class of
children composing Miss Ledbury’s school had not
had a home like mine.

Suddenly she started up—steps were coming along
the passage.

‘T must not talk to you any more just now, she
said, ‘I came to fetch a book.’

After all, the steps did not come to the school-
room. So after sitting there a little longer, somewhat
comforted by the young governess’s words, I went
up to my own room, where I bathed my eyes and


VIL GATHERING CLOUDS 109



smoothed my hair, mindful of Haddie’s warning—not
to get the name of a cry-baby!

Late that evening, after tea, I was sent for to
Miss Ledbury in the drawing-room. It was a very
rainy night, so only a few of the elder girls had gone
to church. Miss Ledbury herself suffered sadly from
asthma, and could never go out in bad weather. This
was the first time I had seen her to speak to since I
came.

I was still too unhappy to feel very frightened,
and I was not naturally shy, though I seemed so,
owing to my difficulty in expressing myself. And
there was something about the old lady’s manner,
gentle though she was, which added to my constraint.
I have no doubt she found me very dull and stupid,
and it must have been disappointing, for she did mean
to be kind.

She spoke to me about my letter which she had
read, according to her rule, to which she said she
could make no exceptions. I did not clearly under-
stand what she meant, so I just replied ‘No, ma’am,’
and ‘Yes, ma’am.’ She said the letter should be sent
as it was, but she gave me advice for the future which
in some ways was very good. Could I not content
myself with writing about my own affairs—my


110 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



lessons, the books I was reading, and so on? * What
was the use of telling mamma that I did not like
Miss Aspinall, and that I could not bear Miss Broom ?
Would it please mamma, or would it make school-life
any happier for me to take up such prejudices?
These ladies were my teachers and I must respect
them. How could I tell at the end of three days if J
should like them or not?

I felt I cowd tell, but I did not dare to say so.
All I longed for was to get away. So when the old
lady went on putting words into my mouth, as it
were, about being wiser for the future, and not touchy
and fanciful, and so on, I agreed with her and said
‘No,ma’am’ and ‘Yes,ma’am’ a few more times,meekly
enough. Then she kissed me, and again I felt that
she meant to be kind and that it was wrong of me
to disappoint her, but somehow I could not help it.
And I went upstairs to bed feeling more lonely than
ever, now that I quite understood that my letters to
mamma must never be anything more than I might
write to a stranger—a mere mockery, in short.

There was but one person I felt that I could
confide in. That was Miss Fenmore. But the days
went on and she seemed to take less instead of more
notice of me. I did not understand that her position,
VII GATHERING CLOUDS 111





poor girl, was much more difficult than mine. If she
had seemed to pet me or make much of me it would
only have made Miss Broom still more severe to me,
and angry with her. For, as was scarcely to be
wondered at, Miss Broom was very indignant indeed
at the way I had spoken of her in my letter to
mamma. And Miss Fenmore was entirely at that
time dependent upon her position at Green Bank.
She had no home, and if she brought displeasure upon
herself at Miss Ledbury’s her future would look very
dark indeed.

Yet she was far from selfish. Her caution was
quite as much for my sake as for her own.
CHAPTER VIII
‘NOBODY— NOBODY’

Tue history of that first week might stand for the
history of several months at Green Bank. That is
why I have related it as clearly as possible. In one
sense I suppose people would say my life grew easier
to me, that is to say I got more accustomed to it, but
with the ‘growing accustomed,’ increased the loss of
hope and spring, so I doubt if time did bring any
real improvement.

I became very dull and silent. I seemed to be
losing the power of complaining, or even of wishing
for sympathy. I took some interest in my lessons,
and almost the only pleasure I had was when I got
praise for them. But that did not often happen, not
as often as it should have done, I really believe. For
the prejudice against me on the part of the upper
teachers did not wear off. And I can see now that
I must have been a disagreeable child.


CHAP. VIII ‘“NOBODY—NOBODY’ 113

Nor did I win more liking among my companions.
They gradually came to treat me with a sort of in-
different contempt.

‘It’s only that stupid child, I would hear said
when I came into the room.

The Christmas holidays came and went, without
much improving matters. I spent them at school
with. one or two other pupils, much older than I.
Miss Broom went away, and we were under Miss
Aspinall’s charge, for Miss Ledbury had caught a bad
cold and her niece would not leave her. I preferred
Miss Aspinall to Miss Broom certainly, but I had
half hoped that Miss Fenmore would have stayed.
She too went away, however, having got a ‘holiday
engagement, which she was very glad of she told me
when she bade me goodbye. I did not understand
what she meant, beyond hearing that she was glad to
go, so I said nothing about being sorry.

‘She doesn’t care for me,’ I thought.

I saw nothing of Haddie, though he wrote that he
was very happy spending the holidays at the house
of one of his schoolfellows, and I was glad of this,
even while feeling so utterly deserted myself.

Tt was very, very dull, but I felt as if I did not
mind. Even mamma’s letters once a fortnight gave

I


114 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



me only a kind of tantalising pleasure, for I knew I
dared not really answer them. ‘The only thing I felt
glad of was that she did not know how lonely and
unhappy I was, and that she never would do so till
the day—the day which I could scarcely believe would
ever, ever come—when I should see her again, and feel
her arms round me, and know that all the misery and
loneliness were over !

Some new pupils came after the Christmas holidays,
and one or two of the elder girls did not return. But
the new boarders were older than I and took no
notice of me, so their coming made no difference.
One event, however, did interest me—that was the
appearance at certain classes two or three times a
week of a very sweet-looking little girl about my own
age. She was pretty and very nicely dressed, though
by no means showily, and her tone of voice and way
of speaking were different from those of most of my
companions. I wished she had come altogether, and
then I might have made friends with her. ‘Only,’ I
said to myself unselfishly, ‘she would most likely be
as unhappy as I am, so I shouldn’t wish for it.’

One of the classes she came to was the French one—
the class which, as I have said, Miss Fenmore taught.
And Miss Fenmore seemed to know her, for she called
VIII ‘NOBODY—NOBODY’ 115



her by her Christian name—‘ Myra.’ The first time
Theard it I felt quite puzzled. I knew I had heard
it before, though I could not remember where or when,
except that it was not very long ago. And when I
heard her last name, ‘ Raby ’—‘ Miss Raby’ one of the
other teachers called her—and put the two together
—‘Myra Raby’-—I felt more and more certain I had
heard them spoken of before, though I was equally
certain I had never seen the little girl herself.

I might have asked Miss Fenmore about her, but
it did not enter into my head to do so: that was
one of my odd childish ways. And it was partly, too,
that I was growing more and more reserved and silent.
Even to Harriet Smith I did not talk half as much as
at first, and she used to tell me I was growing sulky.

I took great interest in watching for Myra’s
appearance. I daresay if I could make a picture of
her now she would seem a quaint old-fashioned little
figure to you, but to me she seemed perfectly lovely.
She had pretty brown hair, falling in ringlets round
her delicate little face; her eyes were gray, very
soft and gentle, and she had a dear little rosebud of
a mouth. She was generally dressed in pale gray
merino or cashmere, with white lace frilled round the
neck and short sleeves—all little girls wore short
116 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP,





sleeves then, even in winter; and once when I caught
a glimpse of her getting into a carriage which was
waiting for her at the door, I was lost in admiration
of her dark green cloth pelisse trimmed with
ehinchilla fur.

_ ‘She must be somebody very rich and grand,’ I
thought. But I had no opportunity of getting to
know more of her, than a nice little smile or a word
or two of thanks if I passed her a book at the class
or happened to sit next her. For she always left
immediately after the lesson was over.

Up to Easter she came regularly. Then we had
three weeks’ holidays, and as before, Miss Fenmore
went away. She was pleased to go, but when she
said goodbye to me I thought she looked sad, and
she called me ‘my poor little girl’

‘Why do you say that?’ I asked her. She smiled
and answered that she did not quite know; she
thought I looked dull, and she wished I were going too.

‘Are you less unhappy that when you first came
to school ?’ she said, looking at me rather earnestly.
It was very seldom she had an opportunity of speak-
ing to me alone.

‘No, I replied, ‘I’m much unhappier when J think
about it. But I’m getting not to think, so I don’t care.’
VII ‘NOBODY—NOBODY’ 117

She looked still graver at this. I fancy she saw
that. what I said was true. I was growing dulled
and stupefied, as it were, for want of any one to
sympathise with me or draw me out, though I did
not know quite how to put this in words. As I have
said before, was not a child with much power of
expression.

Miss Fenmore kissed me, but she sighed as she
did so.

‘I wish——’ she began, but then she stopped.
‘When I come back after Easter,’ she said more
cheerfully, ‘I hope I may somehow manage to see
more of you, dear Geraldine.’

‘Thank you, I answered. I daresay my voice
did not sound as if I did thank her or as if I cared,
though in my heart I was pleased, and often thought
of what she had said during the holidays, which I
found even duller than the Christmas ones had heen.

They came to an end at last, however, but among
the returning governesses and pupils there: was no
Miss Fenmore. Nor did Myra Raby come again
to the classes she used to attend. I wondered to
myself why it was so, but for some time I knew
nothing about Miss Fenmore, and in the queer silent
way which was becoming my habit I did not ask.


118 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.

At last one, day a new governess made her appear-
ance, and then I overheard some of the girls saying
she was to take Miss Fenmore’s place. A sort of
choke came into my throat, and for the first time
I vealised that I had been looking forward to the
pretty young governess’s return.

I do not remember anything special happening
for some time after that. I suppose Easter must
have been early that year, for when the events
occurred which I am now going to relate, it was still
cold and wintry weather—very rainy at least, and
Mexington was always terribly gloomy in rainy
weather. It seems a long stretch to look back upon
—those weeks of the greatest loneliness I had yet
known—but in reality I do not think it could have
been more than three or four.

I continued to work steadily—even hard—at my
lessons. I knew that it would please mamma, and
T had a vague feeling that somehow my getting on
fast might shorten the time of our separation, though
I could not have said why. I was really interested
in some of my lessons, and anxious to do well even
in those I did not like. But I was not quick or
clever, and often, very often, my hesitation in ex-
pressing myself made me seem far less intelligent
VIIL ‘NOBODY—NOBODY? 119



than I actually was. Still I generally got good
marks, especially for wrtten tasks, for the teachers,
though hard and strict, were not unprincipled. They
did not like me, but they were fair on the whole,
T think.

Unluckily, however, about this time I got a bad
cold. I was not seriously ill, but it hung about me
for some time and made me feel very dull and stupid.
I think, too, it must have made me a little deaf,
though I did not know it at the time. I began
to get on less well at lessons, very often making
mistakes and replying at random, for which I was
scolded as if I did it out of carelessness.

And though I tried more and more to prepare
my lessons perfectly, things grew worse and worse.

At last one day they came to a point. I forget
what the lesson was, and it does not matter, but
every time a question came to me I answered wrongly.
Once or twice I did not hear, and when I said so,
Miss Broom, whose class it was, was angry, and said
I was talking nonsense. It ended in my bursting
into tears, which I had never done before in public
since I had been at Green Bank.

Miss Broom was very annoyed. She said a great
deal to me which between my tears and my deafness


120 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



I did not hear, and at last she must have ordered
me to go up to my room, for her tone grew more
and more angry.

‘Do you mean to defy me?’ she said, so loud
that I heard her plainly.

I stared, and I do not know what would have
happened if Harriet Smith, who was near me, had
not started up in her good-natured way.

‘She doesn’t hear; she’s erying so, she said.
‘Gerry, dear, Miss Broom says yowre to go up to
your room,’

I was nothing loth, I got up from my seat
and made my way more by feeling than seeing—so
blinded was I by crying—to the door, and upstairs.

Arrived there, I flung myself on to the end of my
bed. It was cold, and outside it was raining, raining
—it seems to me now that it never left off raining
at Mexington that spring; the sky, if I had looked
out of the window, was one dull gray sheet. But I
seemed to care for nothing—just at first the comfort
of being able to cry with no one to look at me was
all I wanted. So I lay there sobbing, though not
loudly.

After some little time had passed the downstairs
bell rang—it was afternoon, and the bell meant, I
vVuT “NOBODY— NOBODY? 121



knew, preparation for tea. So I was not very sur-
prised when the door opened and Emma and Harriet
came in—they were both kind, Harriet especially,
though her kindness was chiefly shown by loud
abuse of Miss Broom.

‘You'd better take care, Harry, said her sister
at last, ‘or you'll be getting into disgrace yourself,
which certainly won’t do Gerry any good. Do be
quick and make yourself tidy, the tea-bell will be
ringing ina moment. Hadn't you better wash your
face and brush your hair, Gerry—you do look such
a figure.

‘T can’t go down unless Miss Broom says I may,’
I replied, ‘and I don’t want any tea, though in my
heart I knew I was feeling hungry. Much crying
often makes children hungry; they are not like
grown-up people.

‘Oh, nonsense, said Emma. ‘You'd feel ever so
much better if you had some tea. What J think
you're so silly for is minding—why need you care
what that old Broom says? She daren’t beat you
or starve you, and once yowre at home again you
can snap your fingers at school and governesses
and——’

Here Harriet said something to her sister in a


122 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



low voice which I did not hear. It made Emma
stop.

‘Oh, well, I can’t help it, she said, or something
of that kind. ‘It doesn’t do any good to cry like
that, whatever troubles you have, she went on.

I got up slowly and tried to wash away some of
the traces of my tears by plunging my face in cold
water. Then Harriet helped me to smoothe my
hair and make myself look neat. Emma’s words
had had the effect of making me resolve to cry no
more if I could help it. And a moment or two
later I was glad I had followed her advice, for one
of the elder girls came to our room with a message
to say that I was to go down to tea, and after tea
I was to stay behind in the dining-room as Miss
Aspinall wished to speak to me.

‘Very well, I said. But the moment the other
gitl had gone both Emma and Harriet began again.

‘That horrid old Broom,’ said Harriet, ‘just fancy
her complaining to Miss Aspinall.’

And ‘Promise me, Gerry, said Emma, ‘not to
mind what she says, and whatever you do, don’t cry.
There’s nothing vexes old Broom so much as seeing
we don’t care—mean old cat.’

I could scarcely help laughing, my spirits had


VUL ‘“NOBODY—NUBODY’ 123

got up a little—that is to say, I felt more angry
than sad now. I felt as if I really did not much
care what was said to me.

And I drank my tea and ate my slices of thick
bread and butter with a good appetite, though I saw
Miss Broom watching me from her end of the table ;
and when I had finished I felt, as Emma had said
I should, ‘ever so much better’—that is to say, no
longer in the least inclined to cry.

Nor did I feel nervous or frightened when Miss
Aspinall—all the othérs having gone—seated herself
in front of me and began her talk. It began quite
differently from what I had expected. She was a
good woman, and not nearly so bad-tempered as Miss
Broom, though hard and cold, and I am sure she
meant to dome good. She talked about how changed
I had been of late, my lessons so much less well
done, and how careless and inattentive I seemed.
There was some truth in it. I knew my lessons
had not been so well done, but I also knew I had
not been careless or inattentive.

‘And worst of all,’ continued the governess, ‘ you
have got into such a habit of making excuses that
it really amounts to telling untruths. Several times,
Miss Broom tells me, you have done a wrong lesson


1294 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



or not done one at all, and you have maintained to
her that you had not been told what you had been
told—there was something about your French poetry
yesterday, which you must have known you were to
learn. Miss Broom says you positively denied it,

I was getting very angry now—I had wanted to
say I was sorry about my lessons, but now that I
was accused of not speaking the truth I felt nothing
but anger.

‘I never tell stories, I said very loudly ; ‘and if
Miss Broom says I do, Pl write to mamma and tell
her. I wont stay here if you say such things to
me.’

Miss Aspinall was quite startled; she had never
seen me in a passion before, for I was usually con-
sidered in the school as sulky rather than violent-
tempered. For a moment or two she stared, too
astonished to speak. Then

‘Go back to your room,’ she said. ‘I am sorry to
say I must lay this before Miss Ledbury,’

I got up from my seat--Miss Aspinall had not
kept me standing—and went upstairs again to my
room, where'I stayed for the rest of the evening, my
supper—a cup of milk and a piece of dry bread—
being brought me by a servant, and with it a message




ViI ‘NOBODY—NOBODY’ 125



that I was to undress and go to bed, which I was
not sorry to do.

I lay there, not asleep, and still burning with
indignation, when Harriet came up to bed. She
had not been told not to speak to me, very likely
the teachers thought I would be asleep, and she was
very curious to know what had passed. I told her all.
She was very sympathising, but at the same time
she thought it a pity I had lost my temper with
Miss Aspinall. .

‘I don’t know how you'll get on now,’ she said,
‘with both her and Miss Broom so against you. You
should just not have minded—like Emma said.’

‘Not mind her saying I told stories, I burst out.
Harriet did not seem to think there was anything
specially annoying in that. ‘Well,’ I went on, ‘Z
mind it, whether you do or not. And I’m going to
mind it. I shall write to mamma and tell her I
can’t stay here any more, and I’m sure when she
hears it she'll do something. She won’t let me stay
here. Or—or—perhaps father will fix to come home
again and not stay as long as two years there.’

‘I don’t think hell do that, said Harriet
mysteriously.

‘What do you mean? What do you know about


126 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP,



it?’ I asked, for something in her voice struck
me.

‘Oh, nothing—I shouldn’t have said it—it was
only something I heard,’ she replied, looking rather
confused. ,

‘Something you heard, I repeated, starting up in
bed and catching hold of her. ‘Then you musé¢ tell
me. Do you mean there’s been letters or news about
father and mamma, that I don’t know about ?’ -

‘No, no, said Harriet. ‘Of course not.’

‘Then what do you mean? You shall tell me—
if you don’t, I went on, more and more excitedly,
‘TU—’ I hesitated—‘T’ll tell you what I'll do, I'l go
straight downstairs, just as I am, in my nightgown,
to Miss Ledbury herself, and tell her what you’ve
said. J don’t care if she beats me, I don’t care what
she does, but I wilt know,’

Harriet tried to pull herself away.

‘What a horrid temper you're getting, Gerry,’ she
said complainingly. ‘Just when I hurried up to bed
as quick as I could to talk to you. It’s nothing, I
tell you—only something I heard at home, and
Emma said I wasn’t ever to tell it you.’

I clutched her more firmly.

‘You shall tell me, or I'll do what I said.’


VII “NOBODY—NOBODY’ 127

Harriet looked really frightened.

‘You'll not tell Emma, then? You promise?’

I nodded. ‘I promise.’

‘Well, then, it was only one day—papa was talk-
ing about somebody going to South America, and I
said that was where your papa and mamma had gone,
and papa asked your name, and then he said he had
seen your papa at the bank, and it was a pity he
hadn’t been content to stay there. It was such a
bad climate where he’d gone—lots of people got ill
and died there, unless they were rich enough to live
out of the town, and he didn’t suppose any one who'd
only been a clerk in the bank here would be that.
And Emma said, couldn’t your papa and mamma
come back if they got ill, and he said if they waited
till then it would be rather too late. There’s some
fever people get there, that comes all of a sudden,
And besides that, your papa must have promised
he’d stay two years—they always do.’

As she went on, my heart fell lower and lower—
for a moment or two I could not speak. All sorts of
dreadful fears and imaginings began to fill my mind ;
perhaps my parents had already got that terrible ill-
ness Harriet spoke of, perhaps one or both of them
had already died. I could have screamed aloud. I


128 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP,



felt I could not bear it—I must write to mamma a
letter that nobody should read. I must see somebody
who would tell me the truth— Haddie, perhaps, knew
more than I did. If I could goto him! But I had
no money and no idea of the way, and Miss Aspinall
would never, never let me even write to ask him.
Besides, I was in disgrace, very likely they would not
believe me if I told them why I was so miserable ;
they had already said I told stories, and then I must
not get Harriet into trouble.

What should I do? If only Miss Fenmore had
still been there, I felt she would have been sorry for
me, but there was nobody—nobody.

I turned my face away from my little companion,
and buried itin the pillow. Harriet grew frightened.

‘What are you doing, Gerry?’ she said. ‘Why
don’t you speak? Are you going to sleep or are you
erying? Very likely your papa and mamma won’t
get that illness, I wish I hadn’t told you.’

‘Never mind, I said. ‘I’m going to sleep.’

‘And you won't tell Emma ?’ Harriet repeated.

‘Of course not—don’t you believe my word? Do
you too think that I tell stories ?’

I tried to get rid of my misery by letting myself
grow angry:


VIL ‘NOBODY—NOBODY’ 129



‘Yowre very cross,’ said Harriet; but all the same
I think she understood me better than she could
express, for she kissed me and said, ‘Do go to sleep
—don’t be so unhappy.’

K
CHAPTER Ix
OUT IN THE RAIN

Iv would be an exaggeration to say that I did not
sleep that night. Children often sleep very heavily
when they are specially unhappy, and I was unhappy
enough, even before Harriet’s telling me what she
had heard. But though I did sleep, I shall never
forget that night. My dreams were so miserable, and
when I awoke—very early in the morning—I could
scarcely separate them from real things. It was
actually not so bad when I was quite awake, for then
I set myself thoroughly to think it all over.

I could not bear it—I could not go on without
knowing if it was true about father and mamma. I
could not bear my life at school, if the looking forward
to being with them again, before very long, was to be
taken from me. I must write a letter to mamma
that no one would see; but first—yes, first I must
know how much was true. Whom could I ask?


CHAP. IX OUT IN THE RAIN 131



Haddie? Perhaps he knew no more than I did, and
it was just as difficult to write to him as to mamma.
Then suddenly another thought struck me—Mrs.
Selwood, old Mrs. Selwood, if I could but see her.
Perhaps if I wrote to her she would come to see me;
mamma always said she was very kind, though I
know she did not care much for children, especially
little girls. Still I thought I would try, though it
would be difficult, for I should not like Miss Ledbury
to know I had written to Mrs. Selwood secretly. She
would be so angry, and I did not want to make Miss
Ledbury angry. She was much nicer than the others.
Once or twice the idea came to me of going straight
to her and telling her how miserable I was, but that
would bring in Harriet, and oh, how furious the other
governesses would be! No, I would try to write to
Mrs. Selwood—only, I did not know her address. I
only knew the name of her house—Fernley—that
would not be enough, at least I feared not. I would
try to find out; perhaps Harriet could ask some one
when she went home.

My spirits rose a little with all this planning. I
am afraid that the life I led was beginning to make
me unchildlike and concealed in my ways. J enjoyed
the feeling of having a secret and, so to say, out-


1382 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



witting my teachers, particularly Miss Broom. So,
though I was looking pale and my eyes were still
very swollen, I think Harriet was surprised, and
certainly very glad, to find that I was not very
miserable or upset.

_ A message was sent up to say I was to go down
to breakfast with the others. And after prayers and
breakfast were over I went into the schoolroom as
usual.

That morning did not pass badly; it happened to be
a day for lessons I got on well with—written ones prin-
cipally,and reading aloud. So I got into no fresh dis-
grace. It wasa very rainy day, there was no question
of going out, and I was sent to practise at twelve
o'clock till the dressing-bell rang for the early dinner.
That was to keep me away from the other girls.

As soon as dinner was over Miss Broom came to
me with a French poetry book in her hand.

‘This is the poem you should have learnt yesterday,’
she said, ‘though you denied having been told so.
Miss Aspinall desires you to take it upstairs to your
room and learn it, as you can do perfectly, if you
choose, by three o’clock. Then you are to come
downstairs to the drawing-room, where you will
find her,’


IX OUT IN THE RAIN 133



‘Very well, I said, as I took the book, ‘T will
learn it.’

They were going to let me off rather easily, I
thought, and possibly, just posssbly, if Miss Ledbury
was in the drawing-room too and seemed kind, I
might ask her to give me leave to write to Mrs.
Selwood just to say how very much I would like to
see her, and then if I did see her I could tell her what
Harriet had said, without risking getting Harriet into
trouble.

So I set to work at my French poetry with good
’ will, and long before three o’clock I had learnt it
perfectly. There was a clock on the landing half-way
down the staircase which struck the quarters and
half-hours. I heard the quarter to three strike and
then I read the poem right through six times, and
after that, closing the book, I said it aloud to myself
without one mistake, and then just as the clock began
‘burr-ing’ before striking the hour I made my way
quietly down to the drawing-room,

I tapped at the door.

‘Come in, said Miss Aspinall.

She was standing beside Miss Ledbury, who was
sitting in an arm-chair near the fire. She looked very
pale, her face nearly as white as her hair, and it made


134 THE CARVED LIONS CMAP.



me feel sorry, so that I stared at her and forgot
to curtsey as we always were expected to do on
entering a room where any of the governesses were.

‘Do you not see Miss Ledbury?’ said Miss
Aspinall sharply. I felt my cheeks get red, and I
turned back towards the door to make my curtsey.
et forgot, I said, and before Miss Aspinall
had time to speak again, the old lady held out her
hand.

‘You must try to be more thoughtful, she said,
but her voice was gentle. ‘Now give me your book,’
she went on, ‘I want to hear your French verses
‘myself.’

I handed her the book, which was open at the
place. I felt very glad I had learnt the poetry so
well, as I wished to please Miss Ledbury.

‘Begin, my dear,’ she said.

I did so, repeating the six or eight verses without
any mistake or hesitation.

Miss Ledbury seemed pleased and relieved.

‘Very well said—now, my dear child, that shows
that you can learn well when you try,’

‘Of course she can,’ said Miss Aspinall.

‘But more important than learning your lessons
well,’ continued Miss Ledbury, ‘is to be perfectly

Â¥


IX OUT IN THE RAIN 135.



truthful and honest. What has distressed me,
Geraldine, has been to hear that when—as may
happen to any child—you have forgotten a lesson,
or learnt it imperfectly, instead of at once owning
your fault, you have tried to screen yourself behind
insincere excuses. That was the case about these
very verses, was it not, Miss Aspinall?’ (Miss
Ledbury always called her niece ‘Miss Aspinall’
before any of us.)

‘It was,’ replied Miss Aspinall. ‘Miss Broom
will tell you all the particulars, and as she spoke
Miss Broom came in.

Miss Ledbuty turned to her.

‘T wish you to state exactly what you have had
to complain of in Geraldine Le Marchant,’ she said.
And Miss Broom, with a far from amiable expression,
repeated the whole—my carelessness and ill-prepared
lessons for some time past, the frequent excuses I
made, saying that she had not told me what she
certainly had told me, my forgetting my French
poetry altogether, and persisting in denying that it
had been given out.

I did not hear clearly all she said, but she raised
her voice at the end, and I caught her last words. |
felt again a sort of fury at her, and I gave up all

#


136 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



idea of confiding in Miss Ledbury, or of trying to
please any one.
Miss Ledbury seemed nervous.
‘Geraldine has said her French poetry perfectly,’ she
said. ‘I think she has taken pains to learn it well.’
‘It is some time since she has said any lesson
perfectly to me, I am sorry to say,’ snapped Miss
Broom. :
Miss Ledbury handed her the book.

‘You can judge for yourself, she said. ‘Repeat
the verses to Miss Broom, Geraldine.’

Then a strange thing happened. I really wanted
to say the poetry well, partly out of pride, partly
because again something in Miss Ledbury’s manner
made me feel gentler, but as I opened my mouth to
begin, the words entirely left my memory. I looked
up—possibly a little help, a syllable just to start me,
would have set me right, but instead of that I saw
Miss Broom’s half-mocking, half-angry face, and
Miss Aspinall’s cold hard eyes. Miss Ledbury
I did not look at. In reality I think both she and
Miss Aspinall were afraid of Miss Broom. I do not
think Miss Aspinall was as hard as she seemed.

I drew a long breath—no, it was no use. I could
not recall one word.


Ix OUT IN THE RAIN 137



‘T’ve forgotten it,’ I said.

Miss Aspinall gave an exclamation—Miss Ledbury
looked at me with reproach. Both believed that I
was not speaking the truth, and that I had determined
not to say the verses to Miss Broom.

‘Impossible, said Miss Aspinall.

‘Geraldine,’ said Miss Ledbury sadly but sternly,
‘do not make me distrust you.’

I grew stony. Now I did not care. Even Miss
Ledbury doubted my word. I almost think if the
verses had come back to me then, I would not have
said them. I stood there, dull and stupid and
obstinate, though a perfect fire was raging inside
me.

‘Geraldine, said Miss Ledbury again, still more
sadly and sternly.

I was only a child, and I was almost exhausted
by all I had gone through. Even my pride gave
way. I forgot all that Emma and Harriet had said
about not crying, and, half turning away from the
three before me, I burst into a loud fit of tears and
sobbing.

Miss Ledbury glanced at her niece. I think the
old lady had hard work to keep herself from some
impulsive kind action, but I suppose she would have


138 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.





thought it wrong. But Miss Aspinall came towards
me, and placed her arm on my shoulders.

‘Geraldine, she said, and her voice was not
unkind, ‘I beg you to try to master this naughty
obstinate spirit. Say the verses again, and all may

be well.’
‘No, no, I cried. I can’t, I can’t. It is true that
I’ve forgotten them, and if I could say them I wouldn’t
now, because you all think me a story-teller,’

She turned away, really grieved and shocked.

‘Take her upstairs to her room again,’ said Miss
Ledbury. ‘Geraldine, your tears are only those of
anger and temper.’

I did not care now. I suffered myself to be led
back to my room, and I left off crying almost as
suddenly as I had begun, and when Miss Aspinall
shut the door, and left me there without speaking to
me again, I sat down on the foot of my bed as if I
did not care at all, for again there came over me that
strange stolid feeling that nothing mattered, that
nothing would ever make me cry again.

Tt did not last long, however. I got up ina few
minutes and looked out of the window. It was the
dullest afternoon I had ever seen, raining, raining
steadily, the sky all gloomy no-colour, duller even


IX OUT IN THE RAIN 139



than gray. It might have been any season, late
autumn, mid-winter; there was not a leaf, or the
tiniest beginning of one, on the black branches of
the two or three trees in what was called ‘the
garden ’—for my window looked to the back of the
house—not the very least feeling of spring, even
though we were some way on in April. I gave a
little shiver, and then a sudden thought struck me.
It would be a very good time for getting out without
any one seeing me—no one would fancy it possible
that I would venture out in the rain, and all my
schoolfellows and the governesses were still at lessons.
What was the use of waiting here? They might
keep me shut up in my room for—for ever, perhaps
—and I should never know about father and mamma,
or get Mrs. Selwood’s address or be allowed to write
to her, or—or any one. I would go.

It took but a few minutes to put on my things.
As I have said, there was a queer mixture of childish-
ness and ‘old-fashionedness,’ as it is called, about me.
I dressed myself as sensibly as if I had been a grown-
up person, choosing my thickest boots and warm
jacket, and arming myself with my waterproof cape
and umbrella. I also put my purse in my pocket—
it contained a few shillings.


140 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



Then I opened the door and listened, going out a
little way into the passage to do so. All was quite
quiet—not even a piano was to be heard, only the
clock on the landing sounded to me much louder
than usual. If I had waited long, it would have

made me nervous. I should have begun to fancy it
was talking to me like Dick Whittington’s bells,
though, I am sure, it would not have said anything
half so cheering !

But I did not wait to hear. I crept downstairs,
past one schoolroom with its closed door, and a
muffled sound of voices as I drew quite close to it,
then on again, past the downstairs class-room, and
along the hall to the front door. For that was what
I had made up my mind was the best, bold as it
seemed. I would go right out by the front door. I ~
knew it opened easily, for we went out that way on
Sundays to church, and once or twice I had opened
it. And nobody would ever dream of my passing
out that way.

It was all managed quite easily, and almost before
I had time to take in what I had done, I found
myself out in the road some little distance from
Green Bank, for as soon as the gate closed behind
me I had set off running from a half-nervous fear


























































































































































































































































































































































































































































































‘I crept downstairs, past one schoolroom with its closed door.’--P. 140.


1X OUT IN THE RAIN 141



that some one might be coming in pursuit of me. I
yan on a little farther, in the same direction, that of
the town, for Miss Ledbury’s house was in the out-
skirts—then, out of breath, I stood still to think
what I should do.

I had really not made any distinct plan. The
only idea clearly in my mind was to get Mrs.
Selwood’s address, so that I could write to her. But
as I stood there, another thought struck me. I
would go home—to the house in the dull street
which had never seemed dull to me! For there, I
suddenly remembered, I might find one of our own
servants. I recollected Lydia’s telling me that cook
was probably going to ‘engage’ with the people who
had taken the house. And cook would be sure to
know Mrs. Selwood’s address, and—perhaps—cook
would be able to tell me something about father and
mamma. She was a kind woman—I would not
mind telling her how dreadfully frightened I was
about them since Harriet Smith had repeated what
she had heard. ;

I knew the way to our house, at least I thought
I did, though afterwards I found I had taken two or
three wrong turnings, which had made my journey
longer. It was scarcely raining by this time, but


142 THE CARVED LIONS CHAD.



the streets were dreadfully wet and muddy, and the
sky still dark and gloomy.

At last I found myself at the well-known comer
of our street—how often I had run round it with
Haddie, when we had been allowed to go on some

little errand by ourselves! I had not passed this
_ way since mamma went, and the feeling that came
over me was very strange. I went along till I came
to our house, number 39; then, in a sort of dream, I
mounted the two or three steps to the door, and rang
the bell. How well I knew its sound! It seemed
impossible to believe that Lydia would not open to
me, and that if I hurried upstairs I should not find
mamma sitting in her usual place in the drawing-
room !

But of course it was not so. A strange face met
me as the door drew back, and for a moment or two
I felt too confused to speak, though I saw the servant
was looking at me in surprise.

‘Is—can I see cook ?’ I got out at last.

“Cook, the maid repeated. ‘I’m sure I can’t say.
Can't you give me your message—Miss ?’ adding the
last word after a little hesitation.

‘I’d rather see her, please. I want to ask her for
Mrs. Selwood’s address. Mrs. Selwood’s a friend of


Ix OUT IN THE RAIN 143



mamma’s, and I’m sure cook would know. We used
to live here, and Lydia said cook was going to stay.’

The servant’s face cleared, but her reply was not
encouraging.

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I see. But it’s no use your seeing
our cook, Miss. She’s a stranger. The other one—
Sarah Wells was her name——’

‘Yes, yes, I exclaimed, ‘that’s her.

‘She’s gone—weeks ago. Her father was ill, and
she had to go home. I’m sorry, Miss’—she was a
good-natured girl—‘ but it can’t be helped. And I
think you’d better go home quick. It’s coming on to
rain again, and it'll soon be dark, and you’re such a
little young lady to be out alone’

‘Thank you,’ I said, and I turned away, my heart
swelling with disappointment.

I walked on quickly for a little way, for I felt
sure the servant was looking after me. Then I
stopped short and asked myself again ‘what should
I do?’ The girl had advised me to go ‘home’—
‘home’ to Green Bank, to be shut up in my room
again, and be treated as a story-teller, and never
have a chance of writing to Mrs. Selwood or any
one! No, that I would not do. The very thought
of it made me hasten my steps as if to put a greater


144 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



distance between myself and Miss Ledbury’s house.
And T walked on some way without knowing where I
was going except that it was in an opposite direction
from school.

It must have been nearly six o’clock by this time,
and the gloomy day made it already dusk. The
shops were lighting up, and the glare of the gas on
the wet pavement made me look about me. I was
in one of the larger streets now, a very long one,
that led right out from the centre of the town to the
outskirts. I was full ofa strange kind of excitement ;
I did not mind the rain, and indeed it was not very
heavy; I did not feel lonely or frightened, and my
brain seemed unusually active and awake.

‘I know what I'll do, I said to myself; ‘Tl go to
the big grocer’s where they give Haddie and me
those nice gingerbreads, and I’ll ask them for Mrs.
Selwood’s address. I remember mamma said Mts.
Selwood always bought things there. And—and—
I won’t write to her. Tl go to the railway and see
if I’ve money enough to get a ticket, and I'll go to
Mrs. Selwood and tell her how I can’t bear it any
longer. I’ve got four shillings, and if that isn’t
enough I daresay the railway people wouldn’t mind
if I promised I’d send it them,’


IX OUT IN THE RAIN 145

I marched on, feeling once more very determined
and valiant. I thought I knew the way to the big
grocer’s quite well, but when I turned down a street
which looked like the one where it was, I began to
feel a little confused. There were so many shops,
and the lights in the windows dazzled me, and worst
of all, I could not remember the name of the grocer’s,
It was something like Simpson, but not Simpson. I
went on, turning again more than once, always in
hopes of seeing it before me, but always disappointed.
And I was beginning to feel very tired; I must, I
suppose, have been really tired all the time, but my
excitement had kept me up.

At last I found myself in a much darker strect
than the others. For there were few shops in it,
and most of the houses were offices of some kind.
It was a wide street and rather hilly. As I stood at
the top I saw it sloping down before me; the light
of the tall lamps glimmered brokenly in the puddles,
for it was raining again more heavily now. Suddenly,
_as if in a dream, some words came back to me, so
clearly that I could almost have believed some one
was speaking. It was mamma’s voice.

‘You had better put on your mackintosh, Haddie,
I seemed to hear her say, and then I remembered it

L


146 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP. IX.



all—it came before me like a picture—that rainy
evening not many months ago when mamma and
Haddie and I had walked home so happily, we two
tugging at her arms, one on each side, heedless of the
rain or the darkness, or anything except that we
were all together.
' stood still. Never, I think, was a child’s heart
more nearly breaking.
CHAPTER X
TAKING REFUGE

For a minute or two I.seemed to feel nothing; then
there came over mea sort of shiver, partly of cold,
for it was very cold, partly of misery. I roused
myself, however. With the remembrance of that
other evening had come to me also the knowledge
of where I was. Only a few yards down the sloping
street on the left-hand side came a wide stretch of
pavement, and there, in a kind of angle, stood a
double door, open on both sides, leading into a small
outer hall, from which again another door, glazed
at the top, was the entrance to Cranston’s show-
rooms.

I remembered it all perfectly. Just beyond the
inner entrance stood the two carved lions that
Haddie and I admired so much. I wished I could
see them again, and—yes—a flash of joy went through
me at the thought—I could get Mrs. Selwood’s


148 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



address quite as well from old Mr. Cranston as from
the big grocer!

As soon as the idea struck me I hurried on, seem-
ing to gain fresh strength and energy. It was almost
dark, but a gas-lamp was burning dimly above the
lintel, and inside, on the glass of the inner door, were
- the large gilt letters ‘Cranston and Co.’

I ran up the two or three broad shallow steps and
pushed open the door, which was a swing one. It
was nearly time for closing, but that I did not know.
There was no one to be seen inside, not, at least,
in the first room, and the door made no noise. But.
there stood the dear lions—I could not see them
very clearly, for the place was not brightly lighted,
but I crept up to them, and stroked softly the one
nearest me. They seemed like real friends.

I had not courage to go into the other show-room,
and all was so perfectly still that I could scarcely
think any one was there. I thought I- would wait
a few minutes in hopes of some one coming out, of
whom I could inquire if I could see Mr. Cranston.

And I was now beginning to feel so tired—so very
tired, and so cold.

In here, though I did not see any fire, it felt ever
so much warmer than outside. There was no chair


x TAKING REFUGE 149



or stool, but I found a seat for myself on the stand
of the farther-in lion—each of them had a heavy
wooden stand. It seemed very comfortable, and I
soon found that by moving on a little I could get a
nice rest for my head against the lion’s body. A
strange pleasant sense of protection and comfort came
over me.

‘How glad I am J came in here, I said to myself,
‘I don’t mind if I have to wait a good while. It is so
cosy and warm.’

I no longer made any plans. I knew I wanted to
ask for Mrs. Selwood’s address, but that was all I
thought of. What I should do when I had got it I
did not know ; where I should go for the night, for
it was now quite dark, I did not trouble about in
the least. I think I must have been very much in
the condition I have heard described, of travellers
lost in the snow —the overpowering wish to stay
where I was and rest, was all I was conscious of I
did not think of going to sleep. I did not know I
was sleepy.

And for some time I knew nothing.

The first thing that caught my attention was a
very low murmur—so low that it might have been
merely a breath of air playing in the keyhole; I seemed


150 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



to have been hearing it for some time before it took
shape, as it were, and grew into a softly-whispering
voice, gradually gathering into words.

‘Poor little girl; so she has come at last. Well,
as you say, brother, we have been expecting her for
a good while, have we not?’

‘Yes, indeed, but speak softly. It would be a
pity to awake her. And what we have to do can be
done just as well while she sleeps.’

‘I don’t agree with you, said the first speaker.
‘I should much prefer her being awake. She would
enjoy the ride, and she is an intelligent child and
would profit by our conversation.’

‘As you like,’ replied number two. ‘I must be off
to fetch the boy. She will perhaps be awake by the
time I return.’

And then—just as I was on the point of starting
up and telling them I was awake—came a sound of
stamping and rustling, and a sort of whirr and a
breath of cold air, which told me the swing door
had been opened. And when I sat straight up and
looked about me, lo and behold, there was only one
lion to be seen—the stand of his brother was empty !

‘I—-please I am awake, I said rather timidly.
‘It was me you were talking about, wasn’t it?’


x TAKING REFUGE 151



«[—*it was J”—the verb to be takes the same
case after it as before it,’ was the reply, much to
my surprise and rather to my disgust. Who would
have thought that the carved lions bothered about
‘erammar !

‘It was I, then, I repeated meekly. I did not
want to give any offence to my new friend. ‘ Please
—I heard you saying something—something about
going a ride. And where has the-—the other Mr.
Lion gone? I heard about—a boy.’

‘You heard correctly, my lion replied, and I knew
somehow that he was smiling, or whatever lions do
that matches smiling. ‘My brother has gone to fetch
your brother—we planned it all some time ago—we
shall meet on the sea-shore and travel together. But
we should be starting. Can you climb up on to my
back ?’

‘Oh yes,’ I said quite calmly, as if there was
nothing the least out of the common in all this, ‘I’m
sure I can.’

‘Catch hold of my mane,’ said the lion; ‘don’t
mind tugging, it won’t hurt, and—not to my surprise,
for nothing surprised me—I felt my hands full of soft
silky hair, as the lion shook down his long wavy
mane to help my ascent.


152 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



Nothing was easier. In another moment I was
cosily settled on his back, which felt deliciously
comfortable, and the mane seemed to tuck itself round
- me like a fleecy rug.

‘Shut your eyes, said my conductor or steed, I
don’t know which to call him; ‘go to sleep if you
‘like. IU wake you when we meet the others,’

‘Thank you, I said, feeling too content and
comfortable to disagree with anything he said.

Then came a feeling of being raised up, a breath
of colder air, which seemed to grow warm again
almost immediately, and I knew nothing more till I
heard the words, ‘ Here they are.’

I opened my eyes and looked about me. It was
night—overhead in the deep blue sky innumerable
stars were sparkling, and down below at our feet J
heard the lap-lap of rippling waves. A dark, half-
shadowy figure stood at my right hand, and as I saw
it more clearly I distinguished the form of the other
lion, with—yes, there was some one sitting on his
back.

‘Haddie? I exclaimed.

‘Yes, yes, Geraldine, it’s me,’ my brother’s own
dear voice replied. ‘We're going right over the sea
—did you know ?—isn’t it splendid? We're going








































































ee Se cn
a, a f i i

=
ae
yt
f i ! Hil
‘The brother lions rose into the air.’—p. 153.

i




e

a





to see father and mamma. Hold out your hand so
that you can feel mine.’

I did so, and my fingers clasped his, and at that
moment the brother lions rose into the air, and down
below, ever fainter and fainter, came the murmur of
the sea, while up above, the twinkling stars looked
down on what surely was one of the strangest sights
they had ever seen in all their long, long experience !

Then again I seemed to know nothing, though
somehow, all through, I felt the clasp of Haddie’s
hand and knew we were close together.

A beautiful light streaming down upon us, of
which I was conscious even through my closed
eyelids, was the next thing I remember. It seemed
warm as well as bright, and I felt as if basking in it.

‘Wake up, Geraldine, said Haddie’s voice.

I opened my eyes. But now I have come to a
part of my story which I have never been able, and
never shall be able, to put into fitting words. The
scene before me was too beautiful, too magically
exquisite for me even to succeed in giving the faintest
idea of it. Still I must try, though knowing that I
cannot but fail.

Can you picture to yourselves the loveliest day of
all the perfect summer days you have ever known—


154 THE CARVED LIONS cHar.



no, more than that, a day like summer and spring in
one—the richness of colour, the balmy fragrance of
the prime of the year joined to the freshness, the
indescribable hopefulness and expectation which is
the charm of the spring? The beauty and delight
seemed made up of everything lovely mingled
' together—sights, sounds, scents, feelings. There was
the murmur of running streams, the singing of birds,
the most delicious scent from the flowers growing in
profusion and of every shade of colour.

Haddie and I looked at each other—we still held
each other by the hand, but now, somehow, we were
standing together on the grass, though I could not
remember having got down from my perch on the
lion’s back.

‘Where are the lions, Haddie?’ I said.

Haddie seemed to understand everything better
than I did.

‘They’re all right,’ he replied, ‘resting a little. You
see we've come a long way, Geraldine, and so quick,’

‘And where are we?’ I asked. ‘What is this
place, Haddie? Is it fairyland or—or-—heaven ?’

Haddie smiled.

‘It’s not either, he said. ‘You'll find out the
name yourself. But come, we must be quick, for


Xs TAKING REFUGE 155



we can’t stay very long, Hold my hand tight and
then we can run faster,’

I seemed to know that something more beautiful
than anything we had seen yet was coming. I did
not ask Haddie any more questions, even though I
had a feeling that he knew more than I did. He
seemed quite at home in this wonderful place, quite
able to guide me, And his face was shining with
happiness.

We ran a good way, and very fast. But I did not
feel at all tired or breathless. My feet seemed to
have wings, and all the time the garden around us
grew lovelier and lovelier. If Haddie had not been
holding my hand so fast I should scarcely have been
able to resist stopping to gather some of the lovely
flowers everywhere in such profusion, or to stand still
to listen to the dear little birds singing so exquisitely
overhead.

‘It must be fairyland, I repeated to myself more
than once, in spite of what Haddie had said.

But suddenly all thought of fairyland or flowers,
birds and garden, went out of my head, as Haddie
stopped in his running.

‘Geraldine,’ he half whispered, ‘look there,’

‘There’ was a little arbour a few yards from


156 THE CARVED LIONS CHar.



where we stood, and there, seated on a rustic bench,
her dear face all sunshine, was mamma !

She started up as soon as she saw us and hastened
forward, her arms outstretched.

‘My darlings, my darlings,’ she said, as Haddie
and I threw ourselves upon her.

She did look so pretty ; she was all in white, and
she had a rose—one of the lovely roses I had been
admiring as we ran—fastened to the front of her
dress.

‘Mamma, mamma, I exclaimed, as I hugged her,
‘oh, mamma, I am so happy to be with you. Is this
your garden, mamma, and may we stay with you
always now? Wasn't it good of the lions to bring
us? JI have been so unhappy, mamma—somebody
said you would get ill far away. But nobody could
get ill here. Oh, mamma, you will let us stay always,’

She did not speak, but looking at Haddie I saw
a change in his face.

‘Geraldine,’ he said, ‘I told you we couldn’t stay
long. The lions would be scolded if we did, and
you know you must say your French poetry’

And then there came over me the most agonising
feeling of disappointment and misery. All the pent-
up wretchedness of the last weeks at school woke up


x TAKING REFUGKH 1

-~1

wo



and overwhelmed me like waves of dark water. It
is as impossible for me to put this into words as it
was for me to describe my exquisite happiness, for
no words ever succeed in expressing the intense and
extraordinary sensations of some dreams. And of
course, as you will have found out by this time, the
strange adventures I have been relating were those
of a dream, though I still, after all the years that
have passed since then, remember them so vividly.

It was the fatal words ‘French poetry’ that
seemed to awake me—to bring back my terrible
unhappiness, exaggerated by the fact of my dreaming.

‘French poetry,’ I gasped, ‘oh, Haddie, how can
you remind me of it?’

Haddie suddenly turned away, and I saw the
face of one of the lions looking over his shoulder,
with, strange to say, a white frilled cap surround-
ing it.

‘You must try to drink this, my dear, said the
lion, if the lion it was, for as I stared at him the
brown face changed into a rather ruddy one—a round
good-humoured face, with pleasant eyes and smile,
reminding me of mamma’s old nurse who had once
come to see us.

I stared still more, and sat up a little, for,


"158 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



wonderful to relate, I was no longer in the lovely
garden, no longer even in the show-room leaning
against the lion: 1 was in bed in a strange room
which I had never seen before. And leaning over
me was the owner of the frilled cap, holding a glass
in her hand.

‘Try to drink this, my dearie,’ she said again, and
then I knew it was not the lion but this stranger who
had already spoken to me.

I felt very tired, and I sank back again upon
the pillow. What did it all mean? Where was I ?
Where had I been? I asked myself this in a vague
sleepy sort of way, but I was too tired to say it aloud,
and before I could make up my mind to try I fell
asleep again.

The room seemed lighter the next time I opened
my eyes. It was in fact nearly the middle of the
day, and a fine day—as clear as it ever was in Great
Mexington. I felt much better and less tired now,
almost quite well, except for a slight pain in my
throat which told me I must have caught cold, as
my colds generally began in my throai.

‘I wonder if it was with riding so far in the
night, I first said to myself, with a confused remem-
brance of my wonderful dream. ‘I didn’t feel at


x TAKING REFUGE 159



all cold on the lion’s back, and in the garden it was
lovelily warm.’

Then, as my waking senses quite returned, I
started. It had been only a dream—oh dear, oh
dear! But still, something had happened—I was
certainly not in my little bed in the corner of the
room I shared with Emma and Harriet Smith at
Green Bank. When had my dream begun, or was I
still dreaming ?

I raised myself a little, very softly, for now I
began to remember the good-humoured face in the
frilled cap, and I thought to myself that unless its
owner were a dream too, perhaps she was still in the
room, and I wanted to look about me first on my
own account. :

What there was to see was very pleasant and very
real. I felt quite sure I was not dreaming now,
wherever I was. It was a large old-fashioned room,
with red curtains at the two windows and handsome
dark wood furniture. There was a fire burning
cheerfully in the grate and the windows looked very
clean, even though there was a prospect of chimney-
tops to be seen out of the one nearest to me, which
told me I was still in a town. And then I began to
distinguish sounds outside, though here in this room


160 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP,



it was so still. There were lots of wheels passing,
some going quickly, some lumbering along with heavy
slowness—it was much noisier than at Miss Ledbury’s
or at my own old home. Here I seemed to be in
the very heart of a town. I began to recall the events
of the day before more clearly. Yes, up to the time
’ I remembered leaning against the carved lion in Mr.
Cranston’s show-room all had been real, J felt certain.
I recollected with a little shiver the scene in the
drawing-room at Green Bank, and how they had all
refused to believe I was speaking the truth when I
declared that the French poetry had entirely gone
out of my head. And then there was the making
up my mind that I could bear school no longer, and
the secretly leaving the house, and at last losing my
way in the streets.

I had meant to go to Mrs. Selwood’s, or at least:
to get her address and write to her—but where was
I now ?_what should I do?

_My head grew dizzy again with trying to think,
and a faint miserable feeling came over me and I
burst into tears.

I did not cry loudly. But there was some one
watching in the room who would have heard even a
fainter sound than that of my sobs—some one sitting


x TAKING REFUGE 161





behind my bed-curtains whom I had not seen,
who came forward now and leant over me, saying,
in words and voice which seemed curiously familiar
to me,

‘Geraldine, my poor little girl’

M
CHAPTER XI
KIND FRIENDS

It was Miss Fenmore. J knew her again at once,
And she called me ‘my poor little girl’—the very
words she had used when she said goodbye to me
and looked so sorry before she went away for the
Easter holidays, never to come back, though she did
not then know it, to Green Bank.

‘You remember me, dear?’ she said, in the sweet
tones I had loved to hear. ‘Don’t speak if you feel
too ill or if xt tires you. But don’t feel frightened
or unhappy, though you are in a strange place—
everything will be right’

I felt soothed almost at once, but my curiosity
grew greater.

‘When did you come?’ I said. ‘You weren’t
here when I woke before. It was—somebody with
a cap—first I thought it was one of the lions.’

The sound of my own voice surprised me, it was


CHAP. XI KIND FRIENDS 163



so feeble and husky, and though my throat did not
hurt me much I felt that it was thick and swollen.

Miss Fenmore thought I was still only half awake
or light-headed, but she was too sensible to show
that she thought so.

‘One of the lions?’ she said, smiling. ‘You mean
the carved lions that Myra is so fond of No—that
was a very funny fancy of yours—a lion with a cap
on! It was old Hannah that you saw, the old nurse.
She has been watching beside you all night. When
you awoke before, I was out. I went out very early.’

She spoke in a very matter-of-fact way, but rather
slowly, as if she wanted to be sure of my understand-
ing what she said. And as my mind cleared and I
followed her words I grew more and more anxious
to know all there was to hear.

‘T don’t understand,’ I said, ‘and it hurts me to
speak. Is this your house, Miss Fenmore, and how
do you know about the lions? And who brought
me in here, and why didn’t I know when I was put
in this bed?’

Miss Fenmore looked at me rather anxiously
when I said it hurt me to speak. But she seemed
pleased, too, at my asking the questions so distinctly.

‘Don’t speak, dear, she said quietly, ‘and I will


164 THE CARVED LIONS OHAP.



explain it all. The doctor said you were not to speak
if it hurt you.’

‘The doctor? I repeated. Another puzzle!

‘Yes, said. Miss Fenmore, ‘the doctor who lives
in this street—Dr. Fallis. He knows you quite well,
and you know him, don’t you? Just nod your head
a little, instead of speaking,’

But the doctor's name brought back too many
thoughts for me to be content with only nodding my
head.

‘Dy. Fallis? I said. ‘Oh, I would go like to see
him. He could tell me ’ but I stopped. ‘Mrs.
Selwood’s address’ I was going to say, as all the
memories of the day before began to rush over me.
‘Why didn’t I know when he came?’



‘You were asleep, dear, but he is coming again,’
said Miss Fenmore quietly. ‘He was afraid you
had got a sore throat by the way you breathed. You
must have caught cold in the evening down in the
show-room by the lions, before they found you.’

And then she went on to explain it all tome. I
was in Mr. Cranston’s house!—-up above the big
show-rooms, where he and old Mrs. Cranston lived.
They had found me fast asleep, leaning against one
of the lions—the old porter and the boy who went


XI KIND FRIENDS 165



round late in the evening to see that all was right
for the night, though when the rooms were shut up
earlier no one had noticed me. I was so fast asleep,
so utterly exhausted, that I had not awakened when
the old man carried me up to the kitchen, just as the
servants were about going to bed, to ask what in the
world was to be done with me; nor even later, when,
on Miss Fenmore’s recognising me, they had undressed
and settled me for the night in the comfortable old-
fashioned ‘best bedroom,’ had I opened my eyes or
spoken.

Old Hannah watched beside me all night, and
quite early in the morning Dr. Fallis, who fortunately
was the Cranstons’ doctor too, had been sent for.

‘He said we were to let you have your sleep out,
said Miss Fenmore, ‘though by your breathing he
was afraid you had caught cold. How is your throat
now, dear ?’

‘Tt doesn’t hurt very much,’ I said, ‘only it feels
very shut up.’

‘I expect you will have to stay in bed all to-day,
she replied. ‘Dr. Fallis will be coming soon and
then we shall know.’

‘But—but, I began; then as the thought of it
ali came over me still more distinctly I hid my face
166 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



in the pillow and burst into tears. ‘Must I go back
to school?’ I said. ‘Oh, Miss Fenmore, they will
be so angry—I came away without leave, because—
because I couldn’t bear it, and they said I told what
wasn’t true—that was almost the worst of all. Fancy
if they wrote and told mamma that I told lies’

‘She would not believe it’ said Miss Fenmore
quietly ; ‘and besides, I don’t think Miss Ledbury
would do such a thing, and she always writes to the
parents herself, I know. And she és kind and good,
Geraldine.’

‘P’raps she means to be,’ I said among my teéars,
‘but it’s Miss Aspinall and—and—Miss Broom. I
think I hate her, Miss Fenmore. Oh, I shouldn’t
say that—I never used to hate anybody. I’m getting
all wrong and naughty, I know,’ and I burst. into
fresh sobs.

Poor Miss Fenmore looked much distressed. No
doubt she had been told to keep me quiet and not |
let me excite myself.

‘Geraldine, dear, she said, ‘do try to be calm. If
you could tell me all about it quietly, the speaking
would do you less harm than crying so. Try, dear.
You need not speak loud.’

T swallowed down my tears and began the. story


xI KIND FRIENDS 167



of my troubles. Once started I could not have helped
telling her all, even if it had hurt my throat much
more than it did. And she knew a good deal already.
She was a girl of great natural quickness and full of
sympathy. She seemed to understand what I had
been going through far better than I could put it in
words, and when at last, tired out, I left off speaking,
she said all she could to comfort me. There was no
need for me to trouble about going back to Green
Bank just now. Dr. Fallis had said I must stay
where I was for the present, and when I saw him I
might tell him anything I liked.

‘He will understand,’ she said, ‘and he will explain
to Miss Ledbury. I have seen Miss Ledbury this
morning already, and——’

“Was she dreadfully angry ?’ I interrupted.

‘No, dear, Miss Fenmore replied. ‘She had been
terribly frightened about you, and Miss Aspinall and
some of the servants had been rushing about every-
where. But Miss Ledbury is very good, as I keep
telling you, Geraldine. She is very sorry to hear
how unhappy you have been, and if she had known
how anxious you were about your father and mother
she would have tried to comfort you. I wish you
had told her.’


168 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



‘I wanted to tell her, but Miss Broom was there,
and they thought I told stories, I repeated.

‘Well, never mind about that now. You shall
ask Dr. Fallis, and I am sure he will tell you you
need not be so unhappy.’

It was not till long afterwards that I knew how
very distressed poor old Miss Ledbury had been,
and how she had blamed herself for not having tried
harder to gain my confidence. Nor did I fully under-
stand at the time how very sensibly Miss Fenmore
had behaved when Mr. and Mrs. Cranston sent her off
to Green Bank to tell of my having, without intending
it, taken refuge with them; she had explained things
so that Miss Ledbury, and indeed Miss Aspinall, felt
far more sorry for me than angry with me.

Just as Miss Fenmore mentioned his name there
came a tap at the door, and in another moment I
saw the kind well-known face of our old doctor
looking in.

‘Well, well,’ he began, looking at me with a rather
odd smile, ‘and how is the little runaway? My
dear child, why did you not come to me, instead of
wandering all about Great Mexington streets in the
dark and the rain? Not that you could have found
anywhere better for yourself than this kind house,


XI KIND FRIENDS 169



but you might have been all night downstairs in the
cold! Tell me, what made you run away like that—
no, don’t tell me just yet. It is all right now, but
I think you have talked enough. Has she had
anything to eat?’ and he turned to Miss Fenmore.
Then he looked at my throat and listened to my
breathing, and tapped me and felt my pulse and
looked at my tongue before I could speak at all.

‘She must stay in bed all to-day, he said at last.
‘T will see her again this evening, and he went on
to give Miss Fenmore a few directions about me, I
fidgeting all the time to ask him about father and
mamma, though feeling too shy to do so.

‘Geraldine is very anxious to tell you one of the
chief causes of her coming away from Green Bank as
she did, said Miss Fenmore. And then she spoke
of the gossip that had reached me through Harriet
Smith aboutthe terribly unhealthy climate my parents
were in.

Dr. Fallis listened attentively.

‘I wanted to write to Mrs. Selwood, and I thought
Mr. Cranston would tell me her address,’ I said,
though I almost started when I heard how hoarse
and husky my voice sounded. ‘Can you tell it me ?
I do go want to write to her’ .


170 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



‘Mrs. Selwood is abroad, my dear, and not returning
till next month, said Dr. Fallis; but when he saw how
my face fell, he added quickly, ‘but I think I can
tell you perhaps better than she about your parents.
I know the place—Mr. Le Marchant consulted me
about it before he decided on going, as he knew I had
been there myself in my young days. Unhealthy?
No, not if people take proper care. Your father and
mother live in the best part—on high ground out of
the town—there is never any fever there. And I
had a most cheerful letter from your father quite
lately. Put all these fears out of your head, my poor
child. Please God you will have papa and mamma
safe home again before long. But they must not
find such a poor little white shrimp of a daughter
when they come. You must get strong and well and
do all that this kind young lady tells you to do.
Goodbye—goodbye,’ and he hurried off.

I was crying again by this time, but quietly now,
and my tears were not altogether because I was weak
and ill. They were in great measure tears of relief—
-I was so thankful to hear what he said about father
and mamma.

‘Miss Fenmore,’ I whispered, ‘I wonder why they
didn’t take me with them, if it’s a nice place. And


XI KIND FRIENDS 171



then there wouldn’t have been all these dreadful
things.’

‘It is quite a different matter to take a child toa
hot climate,’ she said. ‘Grown-up people can stand
much that would be very bad for girls and boys.
When I was little my father was in India, and my
sister and I had to be brought up by an aunt in
England?

‘Did you mind?’ I said eagerly. ‘And did
your papa soon come home? And where was your
mamma ?’

Miss Fenmore smiled, but there was something a
little sad in her smile.

I was very happy with my aunt, she said; ‘she
was like a mother to me. For my mother died when
I was a little baby. Yes, my father has been home
several times, but he is in India again now, and he
won't be able to come back for good till he is quite
old. So you have much happier things to look for-
ward to, you see, Geraldine.’

That was true. I felt very sorry for Miss Fenmore
as I lay thinking over what she had been telling me.
Then another idea struck me.

‘Is Mrs, Cranston your aunt?’ I said. ‘Is that
why you are living here?’


172 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



Miss Fenmore looked up quickly.

‘No,’ she replied; ‘I thought somehow that you
understood. I am here because I am Myra Raby’s
governess—Myra Raby, who used to come for some
lessons to Green Bank.’

‘Oh!’ Texclaimed. This explained several things.
‘Oh yes, I went on, ‘J remember her, and I know
she’s Mr. Cranston’s granddaughter—he was speaking
of her to mamma one day. I should like to see her,
Miss Fenmore. May I?’

Miss Fenmore was just going to reply when again
there came a tap at the door, and in answer to her
‘Come in’ it opened and two figures appeared.

I could see them from where I lay, and I shall
never forget the pretty picture they made. Myra I
knew by sight, and as I think I have said before, she
was an unusually lovely child. And with her was a
quite old lady, a small old lady—Myra was nearly as
tall as she—with a face that even I (though children
seldom notice beauty in elderly people) saw was quite
charming. This was Mrs. Cranston.

I felt quite surprised. Mr. Cranston was a rather
stout old man, with spectacles and a big nose, I had
not thought him at all ‘pretty,’ and somehow I had
fancied Mrs. Cranston must be something like him,










'—P, 1730

‘Myra came forward gently, her sweet face looking rather grave,


XI KIND FRIENDS 173



and I gave a sigh of pleasure as the old lady came
up to the side of the bed with a gentle smile on
her face.

‘Dr. Fallis gave us leave to come in to see you,
my dear, she said. ‘Myra has been longing to do so
all the morning,’

‘T’ve been wanting to see her too, I said, half
shyly. ‘And—please—it’s very kind of you to let
me stay here in this nice room. I didn’t mean to
fall asleep downstairs. J only wanted to speak to
Mr. Cranston.’

‘T’m sure Mr. Cranston would be very pleased to
tell you anything he can that you want to know, my
dear. But I think you mustn’t trouble just now
about anything except getting quite well, said the
old lady. ‘Myra has been wanting to come to see you
all the morning, but we were afraid of tiring you.’

Myra came forward gently, her sweet face looking
rather grave. I put out my hand, and she smiled.

‘May she stay with me a little?’ I asked Mrs.
Cranston.

‘Of course she may—that’s what she came for,’ said
the grandmother heartily. ‘But I don’t think you
should talk much. Missie’s voice sounds as if it hurt
her to speak, she went on, turning to Miss Fenmore.


174 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



‘It doesn’t hurt me much,’ I said. ‘I daresay I
shall be quite well to-morrow. I am so glad I’m
here—I wouldn’t have liked to be ill at school, and
I gave a little shudder. ‘I’m quite happy now that
Dr. Fallis says it’s not true about father and mamma
getting ill at that place, and I don’t want to ask
Mr. Cranston anything now, thank you. It was about
Mrs. Selwood, but I don’t mind now,

Thad been sitting up a little—now I laid my head
down on the pillows again with a little sigh, half of
weariness, half of relief.

Mrs. Cranston looked at me rather anxiously.

‘Are you very tired, my dear?’ she said. ‘Perhaps
it would be better for Myra not to stay just now.’

‘Oh, please let her stay, I said; ‘I like to see her’

So Myra sat down beside my bed and took hold
of my hand, and though we did not speak to each
other, I liked the feeling of her being there.

Mrs. Cranston left the room then, and Miss Fenmore
followed her. I think the old lady had made her a
little sign to do so, though I did not see it. After-
wards I found out that Mrs. Cranston had thought
me looking very ill, worse than she had expected,
and she wanted to hear from Miss Fenmore if it was
natural to me to look so pale.


XI KIND FRIENDS 175



I myself, though feeling tired and disinclined to
talk, was really happier than I had been for a very
long time. There was a delightful sensation of being
safe and at home, even though the kind people who
had taken me in, like a poor little stray bird, were
strangers. The very look of the old-fashioned room
and the comfortable great big four-post bed made me
hug myself when I thought how different it all was
from the bare cold room at Green Bank, where there
had never once been a fire all the weeks I was there.
Jt reminded me of something—what was it? Oh
yes, ina minute or two I remembered. It was the
room I had once slept in with mamma at grand-
mamma’s house in London, several years before, when
I was quite a little girl. For dear grandmamma had
died soon after we came to live at Great Mexington.
But there was the same comfortable old-fashioned
feeling : red curtains to the window and the bed, and
a big fire and the shiny dark mahogany furniture.
Oh yes, how well I remembered it, and how enormous
the bed seemed, and how mamma tucked me in at
night and left the door a little open in case I should
feel lonely before she came to bed. It all came back
to me so that I forgot where I was for the moment,
till I felt a little tug given to the hand that Myra


176 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP,



was still holding, and heard her voice say very
softly,

‘Are you going to sleep, Geraldine ?’

This brought me back to the present.

‘Oh no, I said, ‘I’m not sleepy. I was only
thinking” and I told her what had come into my
mind.

She listened with great interest.

‘How unhappy you must have been when your
mamma went away, she said. ‘I can’t remember
my own mamma, but mother’—she meant her step-
mother—‘is so kind, and granny is so sweet. I’ve
never been lonely.’

“You can’t fancy what it’s like’ I said. ‘It wasn’t
only mamma’s going away; I know Haddie—that’s
my brother—loves her as much as I do, but he’s not
very unhappy, because he likes his school. Oh, Myra,
what shall I do when I have to go back to school ?
Td rather be ill always. Do you think I'll have to
go back to-morrow 2’

Myra looked most sympathising and concerned.

‘I don’t think you'll be quite well to-morrow, was
the best comfort she could give me. ‘When I have
bad colds and sore throats they always last longer
than one day,’ ,


XI KIND FRIENDS 177

‘Td like to talk a great lot to keep my throat
from getting quite well, I said, ‘but I suppose that
would be very naughty.’

‘Yes, said Myra with conviction, ‘I’m sure it would
be. You really mustn’t talk, Geraldine; granny said
so. Mayn’t I read aloud to you? I’ve brought a
book with me—it’s an old story-book of mamma’s
that she had when she was a little girl. Granny
keeps them here all together. This one is called
Ornaments Discovered.’

‘Thank you, I said. ‘Yes, I should like it very
much.’

And in her gentle little voice Myra read the
quaint old story aloud tome. It was old-fashioned
even then, for the book had belonged to her mother,
if not in the first place to her grandmother. How
very old-world it would seem to the children of
to-day—I wonder if any of you know it? For I
am growing quite an old woman myself, and the
little history of my childhood that I am telling you
will, before long, be half a century in age, though its
events seem as clear and distinct to me as if they
had only happened quite recently! I came across
the little red gilt-leaved book not long ago in the
house of one of Myra’s daughters, and with the

N

XM


178 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



sight of it a whole flood of memories rushed over
me.

It was not a very exciting story, but I found it
very interesting, and now and then my little friend
stopped to talk about it, which I found very interest-
ing too. I was quite sorry when Miss Fenmore,
who had come back to the room and was sitting
quietly sewing, told Myra that she thought she
had read enough, and that it must be near dinner-
time.

‘T will come again after dinner, said Myra, and
then I whispered something to her. She nodded;
she quite understood me. What I said was this:

‘I wish you would go downstairs and tell the
carved lions that they made me very happy last
night, and I am so glad they brought me back here
to you, instead of taking me to Green Bank,’

‘Where did they take you to in the night?’ said
Myra with great interest, though not at all as if she
thought I was talking nonsense.

‘Tl tell you all about it afterwards, I said. «It
was beautiful. But it would take a long time to

tell, and I’m rather tired’
, ‘You are looking tired, dear, said Miss Fenmore,
who heard my last words, as she gave me a cupful




XI KIND FRIENDS 179



of beef-tea. ‘Try to go to sleep for a little, and then
Myra can come to sit with you again.’ :
I did go to sleep, but Myra was not allowed to
see me again that day, nor the next—nor for several
days after, except for a very few minutes at a time.
For I did not improve as the kind people about me
had hoped I would, and Dr. Fallis looked graver
when he came that evening than he had done in
the morning. Miss Fenmore was afraid she had Jet
me talk too much, but after all I do not think
anything would have made any great difference. I
had really been falling out of health for months past,
and I should probably have got ill in some other
way if I had not caught cold in my wanderings. I
do not very clearly remember those days of serious
illness. I knew whenever I was awake that I was
being tenderly cared for, and in the half-dozing,
half-dreaming state in which many hours must
have been passed, I fancied more than once that
mamma was beside me, which made me very happy.
And though never actually delirious, I had very
strange though not unpleasant dreams, especially
about the carved lions; none of them, however, so
clear and real as the one I related at full in the
last chaptey.


180 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP. XI



On the whole, that illness left more peaceful and
sweet memories than memories of pain. Through it
all I had the delightful feeling of being cared for
and protected, and somehow it all seemed to have
to do with the pair of lions downstairs in Mr.
Cranston’s show-room !
CHAPTER XII
GOOD NEWS

I Don’r suppose there was anything really infectious
about my illness, though nowadays whenever there
is any sort of sore throat people are very much on
their guard. Perhaps they were not so cautious long
ago. However that may have been, Myra was not
banished from my room for very long. I rather
think, indeed, that she used to creep in and sit like
a little mouse behind the curtains before I was well
enough to notice her.

But everything for a time seemed dreamy to me.
The first event I can quite clearly recall was my
being allowed to sit up for an hour or two, or, more
correctly speaking, to die up, for I was lifted on to
the sofa and tucked in almost as if I were still
in bed.

That was a very happy afternoon. It was happy
for several reasons, for that morning had brought


182 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



me the first letter I had had from dear mamma since
she had heard of my bold step in running away from
school! Lying still and silent for so many hours as
I had done, things had grown to look differently to
me. I began to see where and how I had been
wrong, and to think that if I had been more open
about my troubles, more courageous—that is to say,
if I had gone to Miss Ledbury and told her every-
thing that was on my mind—TI need not have been
so terribly unhappy or caused trouble and distress
to others.

A little of this mamma pointed out to me in her
letter, which was, however, so very kind and loving,
so full of sorrow that I had been so unhappy, that
I felt more grateful than I knew how to express.
Afterwards, when we talked it all over, years after-
wards even, for we often talked of that time after I
was grown up and married, and had children of my
own, mamma said to me that she could not blame
me though she knew I had not done right, for she
felt so broken-hearted at the thought of what I
had suffered.

It had been a mistake, no doubt, to send me to
Green Bank, but mistakes are often overruled for
good. I am glad to have had the experience of it,


XII GOOD NEWS 183



as I think it made me more sympathising with
others. And it made me determine never to send
any child of mine, or any child I had the care of, to
a school where there was so little feeling of home,
so little affection and gentleness—above all, that
dreadful old-world rule of letters being read, and
the want of trust and confidence in the pupils, which
showed in so many ways.

A few days after I received mamma’s letter I
was allowed to write to her. It was slow and tiring
work, for I was only able to write a few lines at a
time, and that in pencil. But it was delightful to
be free to say just what I wanted to say, without
the terrible feeling of Miss Aspinall, or worse still
Miss Broom, judging and criticising every line. I
thanked mamma with my whole heart for not being
angry with me, and to show her how truly I meant
what I said, I promised her that when I was well
again and able to go back to school I would try my
very, very best to get on more happily.

But I gave a deep sigh as I wrote this, and Myra,
who ‘was sitting beside me, looked up anxiously, and
asked what was the matter.

‘Oh, Myra,’ I said, ‘it is just that I can’t bear to
think of going back to school. I’d rather never get


184 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP,

well if only I could stay here till mamma comes
home.’

‘Dear little Geraldine,” said Myra—she often
called me ‘little’ though she was scarcely any taller
than I—‘dear little Geraldine, you mustn’t say that.
IT don’t think it’s right. And, you know, when you
are quite well again things won’t seem so bad to
you. I remember once when I was ill—I was quite
a little girl then’—Myra spoke as if she was now a
very big girl indeed!—‘T think it was when I had
had the measles, the least thing vexed me dreadfully.
I cried because somebody had given me a present
of a set of wooden tea-things in a box, and the tea
ran out of the cups when I filled them! Fancy
erying for that !’

‘I know, I said, ‘I’ve felt like that too. But
this is a real trouble, Myra—a real, very bad, dreadful
trouble, though I’ve promised mamma to try to be
good. Do you think, Myra, that when I’m back at
school your grandmamma will sometimes ask me to
come to see you 2’

‘Tm sure——’ my little friend began eagerly. But
she was interrupted. For curiously enough, just at
that moment Mrs. Cranston opened the door and
came in. She came to see me every day, and though


XII GOOD NEWS 185



at first I was just a tiny bit afraid of her—she
seemed to me such a very old lady—I soon got to
love her dearly, and to talk to her quite as readily
as to kind Miss Fenmore.

‘What is my little girl sure about?’ she said.
‘And how is my other little girl to-day? Not too
tired,’ and she glanced at my letter. ‘You have
not been writing too much, dearie, I hope?’

‘No, thank you,’ I replied, ‘I’m not tired’

‘She’s only rather unhappy, granny, said Myra.

‘I think that’s a very big “only,’’ said Mrs.
Cranston. ‘Can’t you tell me, my dear, what you
are unhappy about ?’

I glanced at Myra, as if asking her to speak for
me. She understood.

‘Granny, she said. ‘Poor little Geraldine is
unhappy to think of going away and going back
to school,’

Mrs. Cranston looked at me very kindly.

‘Poor dear, she said, ‘you have not had much
pleasure with us, as you have been ill all the time.’

‘I don’t mind,’ I said. ‘I was telling Myra, only
she thought it was naughty, that I’d rather be ill
always if I was with kind people, than—than—be
at school where nobody cares for me.’


186 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



‘Well, well, my dear, the troubles we dread are
often those that don’t come to pass. Try to keep
up your spirits and get quite well and strong, so
that you may be able to enjoy yourself a little before
both you and Myra leave us,’

‘Oh, is Myra going away?’ I said. ‘I thought she
was going to live here always, and somehow I felt
as if I did not mind qwite so much to think of going
away myself in that case.

‘Qh no,’ said the old lady, ‘ Myra has her own home
where she must spend part of her time, though grand-
father and I hope to have her here a good deal too. Itis
easy to manage now Miss Fenmore is with her always.’

_ In my heart I thought Myra a most fortunate
child—zwo homes were really hers ; and I—I had
none. This thought made me sigh again. I don’t
know if Myra guessed what I was thinking of, but
she came close up to me and put her arms round my
neck and kissed me.

‘Geraldine, she whispered, by way of giving me
something pleasant to think of, perhaps, ‘as soon as
you are able to walk about a little I want you to
come downstairs with me to see the lions.’ -

‘Yes, I said in the same tone, ‘but you did give
them my message, Myra ?’


XII GOOD NEWS 187





‘Of course I did, and they sent you back their
love, and they are very glad you're better, and they
want you very much indeed to come to see them,

Myra and I understood each other quite well
about the lions, you see.

~ T went on getting well steadily after that, and not

many days later I went downstairs with Myra to the
big show-room to see the lions. It gave me such a
curious feeling to remember the last time I had been
there, that rainy evening when I crept in, as nearly
broken-hearted and in despair as a little girl could
be. And as I stroked the lions and looked up in
their dark mysterious faces, I could not get rid of
the idea that they knew all about it, that somehow
or other they had helped and protected me, and when
I tried to express this to Myra she seemed to think
the same.

After this there were not many days on which we
did not come downstairs to visit our strange play-
fellows, and not a few interesting games or ‘actings,’
as Myra called them, did we invent, in which the
lions took their part.

We were only allowed to be in the show-rooms at
certain hours of the day, when there were not likely
to be any customers there. Dear old Mrs. Cranston


188 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



was as particular as she possibly could be not to let
me do anything or be seen in any way which mamma
could possibly have disliked.

And before Jong I began to join a little in
Myra’s lessons with Miss Fenmore—lessons which
our teacher’s kind and ‘understanding’ ways made
delightful. So that life was really very happy for
me at this time, except of course for the longing for
mamma and father and Haddie, which still came
over me in fits, as it were, every now and then, and
except—a still bigger ‘except’-—-for the dreaded
thought of the return to school which must be
coming nearer day by day.

Myra and I never spoke of it. I tried to forget
about it, and she seemed to enter into my feeling
without saying anything.

I had had a letter from mamma in answer to the
one I wrote to her just after my illness. In it she
said she was pleased with all I said, and my promise
to try to get on better at Green Bank, but ‘in the
meantime, she wrote, ‘what we want you to do is to
get quite strong and well, so put all troubling thoughts
out of your head and be happy with your kind
friends,’

That letter had come a month ago, and the last


XII GOOD NEWS 189



mail had only brought me a tiny little note enclosed
in a letter from mamma to Mrs. Cranston, with the
promise of a longer one ‘next time.’ And ‘next time’
was about due, for the mail came every fortnight, one
afternoon when Myra and I were sitting together in
our favourite nook in the show-room.

‘T have a fancy, Myra, I said, ‘that something is
going to happen. My lion has been so queer to-day
—I see a look on his face as if he knew something.’

For we had each chosen one lion as more
particularly our own.

‘I think they always look rather like that, said
Myra dreamily. ‘But I suppose something must
happen soon. I shall be going home next week.’

‘Next week, I repeated. ‘Oh, Myra!’

I could not speak for a moment. Then [ re-
membered how I had made up my mind to be brave.

‘Do you mind going home?’ I asked. ‘I mean,
are you sorry to go?’

‘I’m always sorry to leave grandpapa and grand-
mamma,’ she said, ‘and the lions, and this funny
old house. But I’m very happy at home, and I
shall like it still better with Miss Fenmore. No, I
wouldn’t be unhappy—I’d be very glad to think of
seeing father and mother and my little brothers


190 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



again-—I wouldn’t be unhappy, except for— you
know, Geraldine—for leaving you, and my little
friend’s voice shook.

‘ Dear Myra,’ I said. ‘But you mustn’t mind about
me. Im going to try——’ but here I had to stop
to choke down something in my throat. ‘ After all; I
went on, after a moment or two, ‘more than a quarter
of the time that father and mamma have to be away
is gone. And perhaps in the summer holidays I
shall see Haddie,’

‘I wish——’ Myra was beginning, but a voice
interrupted her. It was Miss Fenmore’s.

‘I have brought you down a letter that has just
come by the second post, Geraldine, dear, she said ;
‘a letter from South America.’

‘Oh, thank you,’ I said, eagerly seizing it.

Miss Fenmore strolled to the other side of the
room, and Myra followed her, to leave me alone
to read my letter. It was a pretty long one, but
I read it quickly, so quickly that when I had finished
it, I felt breathless—and then I turned over the
pages and glanced at it again. I felt as if I could
not believe what I read. It was too good, too beauti-
fully good to be true.

‘Myra, I gasped, and Myra ran back to me,


XII GOOD NEWS 191



looking quite startled. I think I must have grown
very pale.

‘No, no,’ I went on, ‘it’s nothing wrong. Read it,
or ask Miss Fenmore—she reads writing quicker.
Oh, Myra, isn’t it beautiful 2’

They soon read it, and then we all three kissed
and hugged each other, and Myra began dancing
about as if she had gone out of her mind.

‘Geraldine, Geraldine, I can’t believe it,’ she kept
saying, and Miss Fenmore’s pretty eyes were full of
tears.

I wonder if any of my readers can guess what
this delightful news was? It was not that mamma
was coming home—no, that could not be yet. But
next best to that it certainly was.

It was to tell me this—that ¢// dear father and
she returned, my home was to be with Myra, and
I was to be Miss Fenmore’s pupil too. Wherever
Myra was, there I was to be—principally at her
father’s vicarage in the country, but some part of the
year with her kind grandparents at Great Mexineton.
Té was all settled and arranged—of course I did not
trouble my head about the money part of it, though
afterwards mamma told me that both Mr. and Mrs.
Raby and the Cranstons had been most exceedingly




192 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP.



kind, making out that the advantage of a companion
for their little girl would be so great that all the
thanking should be on their side, though, of course,
they respected father too much not to let him pay a
proper share of all the expense. And it really cost
less than my life at Green Bank, though father was
_ now a good deal richer, and would not have minded
paying a good deal more to ensure my happiness.

There is never so much story to tell when people
are happy, and things go rightly; and the next
year or two of my life, except of course for the
separation from my dear parents, were very happy.
Even though father’s appointment in South America
kept him and mamma out there for nearly three
years instead of two, I was able to bear the dis-
appointment in a very different way, with such kind
and sympathising friends at hand to cheer me, so
that there is nothing bitter or sad to look back to
in that part of my childhood. Haddie spent the
summer holidays with me, either at Crowley Vicar-
age, or sometimes at the sea-side, where Miss Fenmore
took care of us three. Once or twice he and I paid
a visit to Mrs. Selwood, which we enjoyed pretty
well, as we were together, though otherwise it was
rather dull.


XII . GOOD NEWS 193



And oh, how happy it was when father and
mamma at last came home! no words can describe
it. It was not guite unmixed pleasure—nothing
ever is, the wise folk say—for there was the separa-
tion from Myra and her family. But after all, that
turned out less than we feared. Miss Fenmore
married soon after, and as father had now a- good
post in London, and we lived there, it was settled
that Myra should be with us, and join in my lessons
for a good part of the year, while I very often went
back to Crowley with her for the summer holidays.
And never without staying a few days at Great
Mexington, to see Mr. and Mrs. Cranston and the
lions !

Many years have passed since I went there for
the last time. Myra’s grandparents have long been
dead—my own dear father and mother are dead too,
for I am growing quite old. My grandchildren are
older now than I was when I ran away from the
school at Green Bank. But once, while mamma was
still alive and well, she and I together strolled
through the streets of the grim town, which had for
a time been our home, and lived over the old days
again in fancy. I remember how tightly I clasped

0
194 THE CARVED LIONS CHAP. XII

her hand when we passed the corner where once was
the old Quakeress’s shop—all changed now—and
walked down the street, still not very different: from
what it had been, where we used to live.

There was no use in going to Mr. Cranston’s show-
rooms—they had long been done away with. But
the lions are still to be seen. They stand in the hall
of Myra’s pretty house in the country, where she and
Haddon, her husband, have lived for many years, ever
since my brother lefé the army and they came home
for good from India.

I spend a part of every year with them, for I
am alone now. They want me to live with them
altogether, but I cling to a little home of my own.
Our grandchildren know the lions well, and stroke
their smooth sides, and gaze up into their dark faces
just as Myra and I used to do. So I promised them
that some time I would write out the simple story
that I have now brought to a close.

THE END

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