Susan by Amy Walton (red queen free ebook .TXT) 📖

afterwards. But I must go; there's Margaretta calling me."

"I hope, Susan," said Margaretta, as they walked along the parade together, "that you will remember to behave very nicely, and answer properly when Mrs Winslow speaks to you. Don't blush and look shy. The little Winslows never look silly, and I have never seen them blush."

"Are you fond of Mrs Winslow?" asked Susan. "She's very kind," answered Margaretta, "and very clever. She knows a great deal about education."

Susan asked no more questions, and in a quarter of an hour they arrived at the house which was large and tall, with green balconies, and a great many windows. Part of it faced the sea, and part of it went round the corner into a street, and it all looked, inside and out, so bright and clean and new that it was quite dazzling. Susan thought she had never seen a house where everything shone so much, and there was so much light. Not a shadow, not a dark corner anywhere, and all the furniture was polished so highly that she saw herself and Margaretta reflected a dozen times as they moved along. When they reached the drawing-room it was still more confusing, for there were so many mirrors, and windows, and statuettes under glass cases, that the brilliancy almost brought tears to her eyes, it was such a contrast to the dimness of Aunt Hannah's low ceilings and small rooms. Wherever she turned her head, too, another Susan stared at her, and this made her feel shy and uncomfortable.

"Isn't it a beautiful room?" said Margaretta, seating herself on a pompous yellow sofa. "So cheerful!"

Before Susan could answer, Mrs Winslow came in. She was a fair lady with a very straight nose, and she welcomed them kindly, and asked after Sophia Jane.

"My little people," she continued, scarcely waiting, Susan noticed, for Margaretta's answer, "are just returning from their walk. Air and light are as necessary to the young as to flowers, are they not? How can we expect their minds to expand unless the body is healthy?"

"No, indeed," said Margaretta.

Mrs Winslow then proposed that they should go and take off their hats, which being done she led the way down-stairs into the dining-room, where the "little people" were already assembled with their governess for their early dinner. During this Susan had plenty of time for observation, and she soon decided that she should have to tell Sophia Jane that they were _not_ nicer in-doors than out. They were wonderfully alike: all had little straight noses, fair complexions, and pale blue eyes, and when they spoke they said all their words very distinctly, and never cut any of them short. They were very polite to Susan.

"I encourage conversation with my children during meal-time, on principle," said Mrs Winslow. "How can you expect them to acquire right habits of speaking if silence is imposed?"

"No, indeed," said Margaretta again.

"The force of habit," continued Mrs Winslow, putting down her knife and fork, and looking from Margaretta to Miss Pink, the governess, "has never, it seems to me, been sufficiently considered in education. It in a giant power. It rests with us to turn it this way or that, to give it a right or a wrong direction, to use it for good or for evil. I say to my children, for instance, `always think before you act, in the smallest as well as the greatest things.' By degrees I thus form in them habits of steadiness, thoughtfulness, calmness, which will not desert them when called upon to act in moments of danger and difficulty. `Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it'--nay more, he _cannot_ depart from it."

It was quite by chance as Mrs Winslow said these last words that her eyes rested on Susan, who had been staring at her all the while she had been speaking, and who now felt that an answer of some kind was expected. She had none to give, however, for she had not been listening at all to what had been said, her mind being filled with wonder and awe at Mrs Winslow, who talked as though she were reading aloud. She only blushed, therefore, and immediately became aware that three pairs of pale blue eyes were fastened upon her from the other side of the table. The little Winslows never blushed, Margaretta had said, and of course they thought her very silly. She longed for the meal to be over, and the visit also. Why, she wondered, were Margaretta and Nanna so fond of coming here? Margaretta did not look as if she were enjoying herself much. She was sitting in a stiff position, with her head a little on one side, watching every glance of Mrs Winslow's, so that she might say, "yes, indeed," or "quite so," or "exactly," in the right place. Her voice did not sound like the voice she had at Aunt Hannah's, but smaller, and she said her words mincingly. Susan felt sure she was not enjoying herself. Why _did_ she come?

Presently the conversation became more interesting, and Susan now listened to it with some anxiety, for Mrs Winslow was making arrangements for the afternoon, and she hoped to hear of an early return to Belmont Cottage. She did not want to see any more of the little Winslows, and quite longed to get back to Sophia Jane and tell her all about them. It was disappointing, therefore, to hear it decided that Margaretta should drive out with Mrs Winslow, who would leave her at Aunt Hannah's, and that Susan should walk back later with Miss Pink and the little people. Margaretta was almost to be envied. Perhaps it was because she liked driving in a carriage with a pair of swift horses that she liked coming here. And yet Mrs Winslow's presence would spoil anything, Susan thought. If she went on talking like that, and Margaretta had to sit up and listen to her and make little remarks, the drive would not be worth having; it could not be much worse to walk home with the little Winslows.

After dinner the little girls took their visitor into the schoolroom, where they were to amuse themselves until it was time to start for their walk. It was a large bright room like all the others in the house; but this cheerfulness did not seem to have affected the Winslows themselves. They were quiet children, always good and obedient, but rather dull. They did not seem to understand games, and seldom laughed. How very different they were to Sophia Jane! Certainly she was not nearly so well behaved, but then she was a far more amusing companion. The afternoon seemed endless.

"Don't you ever play with dolls?" Susan asked at last.

"No," answered Lucy the eldest, "we are too old. Eva has one, but we put away our dolls on my last birthday."

"What _do_ you play at?" inquired Susan.

"We haven't much time to play," replied Lucy seriously, "because we belong to so many things."

"What things?"

"There's the `Early Rising Society,' and the `Half-hour Needlework for the East-End Society,' and the `Reading Society,' and the `Zenana Meetings;' and we're all `Young Abstainers.'"

"What's that?" asked Susan.

"It's the children's temperance society. We pledge ourselves not to take alcohol, and to prevent others from taking it if we can. There's a meeting once a month. It's our turn next time to have it here."

"What do you do when you meet?" inquired Susan.

"Some of us work," said Lucy, "and someone reads aloud."

"And then," added little Eva, "we have tea."

There was a faint look of satisfaction on Eva's face as she said this.

"Eva thinks tea is the best part of all," said Julia, the next sister, rather scornfully.

"Well," said Susan, "I expect I should too, because I'm not fond of needlework. Unless," she added, "the book was _very_ interesting to listen to."

"Sometimes it is," said Julia, "and sometimes it isn't. Are you fond of reading?"

"Some books," answered Susan.

"If you belonged to the Reading Society," put in Lucy, "you'd have to read an improving book for half an hour every day, and perhaps at the end of the year you'd get a prize."

"I suppose you mean an uninteresting book like a lesson book," said Susan. "I shouldn't like that."

"Well, of course, it mustn't be a _story_-book," said Julia.

"Would the _Pilgrim's Progress_ do?" asked Susan.

The little girls looked doubtfully at each other. "I'm not sure," said Lucy, "whether that that _would_ be considered an improving book."

Susan proceeded to make more inquiries about the various societies, but she did not think any of them sounded attractive, and certainly had no wish to join the little Winslows in belonging to them. This filled up the time until four o'clock, when, with Miss Pink, they all set out on their walk to Belmont Cottage. Susan was surprised to see that each little girl was provided with a hoop, which was the nearest approach to a toy of any kind that she had observed during her visit.

"We always take hoops out in the afternoon until the month of May," explained Lucy. "Mother considers the exercise healthy."

It was such a relief to Susan to feel that the visit was over, and that she was really going back, that she could not walk quite soberly with Miss Pink, but danced along the parade by little Eva's side as she bowled her hoop, and was almost inclined to sing aloud with pleasure. There were a great many people about, and quite a crowd of carriages, and soon in the distance they saw Mrs Winslow's black horses approaching. She had left Margaretta at Belmont Cottage, and was now returning. Just as the carriage passed, Eva, who was staring at her mother, gave her hoop a blow which sent it in the wrong direction, and it trundled out into the middle of the road, almost under the horses' feet. Not quite, however, for Susan, who was watching it, sprang after it and caught it away just in time. Mrs Winslow nodded and smiled at the children, the carriage drove on, and Susan carried the hoop back to the path where the little Winslows were drawn up in a row with very serious faces.

"You might have been run over," said Lucy gravely.

"I didn't think about it," said Susan.

"Mother says," continued Lucy, "_Always_ think before you act."

"My dear," interrupted Miss Pink hastily, "Susan has done very well. There are exceptions to every rule."

When Susan reached home she found Sophia Jane still sitting up, and eager to hear all the news about the visit. She at once inquired if the Winslows were "horrid;" but Susan would not quite say that. "They were very kind to her and very good, but--" she added, "I haven't enjoyed myself a bit, and I never want to go there again or see them any more."

"I told you so," said Sophia Jane, and she gave herself a hug of satisfaction.


CHAPTER SEVEN.

"CAPTAIN ENTICKNAPP."

It was the end of March before Sophia Jane was allowed to go down-stairs. She had