Abbeychurch by Charlotte M. Yonge (best english novels for beginners TXT) 📖

Turner made about St. Augustine. What could we have been dreaming of?'

'Midsummer madness,' said Sir Edward.

'But just tell me, Papa,' said Anne, 'do you not think Helen quite the heroine of the story?'

'I think Helen very much improved in appearance and manners,' said Sir Edward; 'and I am quite willing to believe all that I see you have to tell me of her.'

'Do not wait to tell it now, Anne,' said Lady Merton, 'or Mrs. Woodbourne will not think us improved in appearance or manners. It is nearly six o'clock.'

'I will keep it all for the journey home,' said Anne, 'when Papa's ears will be disengaged.'

'And his tongue too, to give you a lecture upon Radicalism, Miss,' said Sir Edward, with a fierce gesture, which drove Anne away laughing.

Elizabeth had finished dressing, a little too rapidly, and had gone to find Mrs. Woodbourne. 'Well, Mamma,' said she, as soon as she came into her room, 'Winifred has lived to say 'the dog is dead'.'

'What do you mean, my dear?' said Mrs. Woodbourne.

'The enemy is dead, Mamma,' said Elizabeth; 'we found him drowned by the green meadow.'

'Poor little fellow! your aunt will be very sorry,' was kind Mrs. Woodbourne's remark.

'But now, Mamma,' said Elizabeth, 'you may be quite easy about Winifred; he could not possibly have been mad.'

'How could he have fallen in, poor little dog?' said Mrs. Woodbourne.

'He must have strayed about upon the bridge while we were at the Mechanics' Institute,' said Elizabeth; 'it was all my fault, and I am afraid it is a very great distress to Lucy. Helen might well say mischief would come of our going.'

'I wish the loss of Fido was all the mischief likely to come of it, my dear,' said Mrs. Woodbourne, with a sigh; 'I am afraid your papa will be very much annoyed by it, with so much as he has on his mind too.'

'Ah! Mamma, that is the worst of it, indeed,' said Elizabeth, covering her face with her hands; 'if I could do anything--'

'My dearest child,' said Mrs. Woodbourne, 'do not go on making yourself unhappy, I am very sorry I said anything about your Papa; you know he cannot be angry with one who grieves so sincerely for what she has done amiss. I am sure you have learnt a useful lesson, and will be wiser in future. Now do put your scarf even, and let me pin this piece of lace straight for you, it is higher on one side than the other, and your band is twisted.'

On her side, Lucy, trembling as she entered her mother's room, but firm in her purpose of preserving her sister from the temptation to prevaricate, by taking all the blame which Mrs. Hazleby chose to ascribe to her, quietly communicated the fatal intelligence to Mrs. Hazleby. Her information was received with a short angry 'H--m,' and no more was said upon the matter, as Mrs. Hazleby was eager to shew Harriet some wonderful bargains which she had met with at Baysmouth.


CHAPTER XI.

As soon as Mrs. Hazleby made her appearance in the drawing-room before dinner, Rupert began repeating,

'The wound it seemed both sore and sad
To every Christian eye,
And while they swore the dog was mad,
They swore the child would die,

But soon a wonder came to light,
That shewed the rogues they lied,
The child recovered of the bite,
It was the dog that died.'

'I beg to offer my congratulations,' continued he, setting a chair for her.

Mrs. Hazleby looked surprised.

'On the demonstration we have this day received of your superior judgement, Ma'am,' said Rupert, 'though indeed we could hardly have doubted it before.'

'Pray let me understand you, Mr. Merton,' said Mrs. Hazleby.

'Have you not heard of the circumstance to which I allude?' said Rupert; 'for if you are not already aware of it, I must beg to be excused from relating it; I could not bear to give so great a shock to a lady's feelings.'

'Oh! you mean about Fido,' said Mrs. Hazleby, almost smiling; 'yes, Lucy told me that you had found him. Really, my girls are so careless, I can trust nothing to them.'

'Indeed, Madam,' said Rupert, 'I assure you that nothing could have been more heart-rending than the scene presented to our eyes when the Miss Hazlebys first became aware of the untimely fate of their favourite. Who could behold it with dry eye--or dry foot?' added he, in an under-tone, with a side glance at Anne.

Rupert contrived to talk so much nonsense to Mrs. Hazleby, that he charmed her with his attention, gave her no time to say anything about Fido, and left Anne much surprised that she had never found out that he was laughing at her. At dinner, the grouse he had brought came to their aid; Mrs. Hazleby was delighted to taste a blackcock once more, and was full of reminiscences of Inchlitherock; and by means of these recollections, and Rupert's newly imported histories, Sir Edward and Mr. Woodbourne contrived to make the conversation more entertaining than Elizabeth thought it ever could be in any party in which Mrs. Hazleby was present.

Afterwards in the drawing-room, Dora's bulrushes and the other children's purchases were duly admired, and the little people, being rather fatigued, were early sent to bed, although Edward vehemently insisted, with his eyes half shut, that he was not in the least sleepy. The elder girls then arranged themselves round the table. Helen was working a bunch of roses of different colours; Anne admired it very much, but critics were not wanting to this, as to every other performance of Helen's.

'It is all very pretty except that rose,' said Katherine, 'but I am sure that is an unnatural colour.--Is it not, Anne?'

'I do not think that I ever saw one like it,' said Anne; 'but that is no proof that there is no such flower.'

'What do you think, Lizzie?' said Katherine; 'ought not Helen to alter it?'

Anne was rather alarmed by this appeal; but Elizabeth answered carelessly, without looking up, 'Oh! you know I know nothing about that kind of work.'

'But you can tell what colour a rose is,' persisted Katherine; 'now do not you think Helen will spoil her work with that orange-coloured rose? who ever heard of such a thing?'

Helen was on the point of saying that one of the gable-ends of the house at Dykelands was covered with a single rose of that colour, but she remembered that Dykelands was not a safe subject, and refrained.

'Come, do not have a York and Lancaster war about an orange-coloured rose, Kate,' said Elizabeth, coming up to Helen; 'why, Anne, where are your eyes? did you never see an Austrian briar, just the the colour of Helen's lambs-wools?'

Though this was a mere trifle, Helen was pleased to find that Elizabeth could sometimes be on her side of the question, and worked on in a more cheerful spirit.

'Why, Anne,' said Elizabeth, presently after, 'you are doing that old wreath over again, that you were about last year, when I was at Merton Hall.'

'Yes,' said Anne; 'it is a pattern which I like very much.'

'Do you like working the same thing over again?' said Katherine; 'I always get tired of it.'

'I like it very much,' said Anne; 'going over the same stitches puts me in mind of things that were going on when I was working them before.--Now, Lizzie, the edge of that poppy seems to have written in it all that delightful talk we had together, at home, about growing up, that day when Papa and Mamma dined out, and we had it all to ourselves. And the iris has the whole of Don Quixote folded up in it, because Papa was reading it to us, when I was at work upon it.'

'There certainly seems to be a use and pleasure in never sitting down three minutes without that carpet-work, which I should never have suspected,' said Elizabeth.

'Anne thinks as I do,' said Mrs. Woodbourne; 'I find carpet-work quite a companion to me, but I cannot persuade Lizzie to take any pleasure in it.'

'I have not time for it,' said Elizabeth, 'nor patience if I had time. It is all I can persuade myself to do to keep my clothes from being absolute rags.'

'Yes,' said Katherine; 'you always read with Meg in your lap, when you have no mending to do; you have been six months braiding that frock.'

'Oh! that is company work,' said Elizabeth; 'I began it at Merton Hall for Dora, but I believe Winifred must have it now. But now it is so nearly done, that I shall finish while you are here.'

Elizabeth did not however long continue working, for as soon as tea was over she proposed to play at the game of Conglomeration, as she had talked of doing in the course of the walk. 'I give notice, however,' said she, 'that we are likely to laugh more than will suit the gravity of the elders, therefore I recommend adjourning to the inner drawing-room.--Mamma, may we have candles there?'

Consent was given, and while the candles were being brought, and Elizabeth was looking out some paper, Anne whispered to her brother, 'Rupert, pray say nothing about Fido, or the Mechanics' Institute, or something unpleasant will surely come of it.'

'Oh! Anne,' was the answer, 'you have robbed me of my best couplet--

Weeping like forsaken Dido,
When she found the slaughtered Fido.

Where is the use of playing if there is to be no fun?'

''Where is the use of fun?' said the cockchafer to the boy who was spinning it,' said Anne.

'Impertinence, impertinence, impertinence,' said Rupert, shaking his head at her.

By this time all was ready, and Elizabeth called the brother and sister to take their places at the table in the inner drawing-room. She then wrote a substantive at the upper end of a long strip of paper, and folding it down, handed it on to Lucy, who also wrote a noun, turned it down, and gave the paper to Helen, who, after writing hers and hiding it, passed it on to Rupert. Thus the paper was handed round till it was filled. It was then unrolled, and each player was required to write a copy of verses in which these words were to be introduced as rhymes in the order in which they stood in the list. Rupert was rather put out by his sister's not allowing him to turn the poem in the way he wished, and he thought proper to find fault with half the words in the