<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2>
<p><span class="smcap">Dick</span> and Veronica returned laden
with parcels. They explained that “Daddy Slee,”
as it appeared he was generally called, a local builder of
renown, was following in his pony-cart, and was kindly bringing
the bulkier things with him.</p>
<p>“I tried to hustle him,” said Dick, “but
coming up after he had washed himself and had his tea seemed to
be his idea of hustling. He has got the reputation of being
an honest old Johnny, slow but sure; the others, they tell me,
are slower. I thought you might care, later on, to talk to
him about the house.”</p>
<p>Veronica took off her things and put them away, each one in
its proper place. She said, if no one wanted her, she would
read a chapter of “The Vicar of Wakefield,” and
retired upstairs. Robina and I had an egg with our tea; Mr.
Slee arrived as we had finished, and I took him straight into the
kitchen. He was a large man, with a dreamy expression and a
habit of sighing. He sighed when he saw our kitchen.</p>
<p>“There’s four days’ work for three men
here,” he said, “and you’ll want a new
stove. Lord! what trouble children can be!”</p>
<p>Robina agreed with him.</p>
<p>“Meanwhile,” she demanded, “how am I to
cook?”</p>
<p>“Myself, missie,” sighed Mr. Slee, “I
don’t see how you are going to cook.”</p>
<p>“We’ll all have to tramp home again,”
thought Dick.</p>
<p>“And tell Little Mother the reason, and frighten her out
of her life!” retorted Robina indignantly.</p>
<p>Robina had other ideas. Mr. Slee departed, promising
that work should be commenced at seven o’clock on Monday
morning. Robina, the door closed, began to talk.</p>
<p>“Let Pa have a sandwich,” said Robina, “and
catch the six-fifteen.”</p>
<p>“We might all have a sandwich,” suggested Dick;
“I could do with one myself.”</p>
<p>“Pa can explain,” said Robina, “that he has
been called back to town on business. That will account for
everything, and Little Mother will not be alarmed.”</p>
<p>“She won’t believe that business has brought him
back at nine o’clock on a Saturday night,” argued
Dick; “you think that Little Mother hasn’t any
sense. She’ll see there’s something up, and ask
a hundred questions. You know what she is.”</p>
<p>“Pa,” said Robina, “will have time while in
the train to think out something plausible; that’s where Pa
is clever. With Pa off my hands I sha’n’t
mind. We three can live on cold ham and things like
that. By Thursday we will be all right, and then he can
come down again.”</p>
<p>I pointed out to Robina, kindly but firmly, the utter
absurdity of her idea. How could I leave them, three
helpless children, with no one to look after them? What
would the Little Mother say? What might not Veronica be up
to in my absence? There were other things to be
considered. The donkey might arrive at any moment—no
responsible person there to receive him—to see to it that
his simple wants would be provided for. I should have to
interview Mr. St. Leonard again to fix up final details as
regarded Dick. Who was going to look after the cow, about
to be separated from us? Young Bute would be down again
with plans. Who was going to take him over the house,
explain things to him intelligibly? The new boy might turn
up—this simple son of the soil Miss Janie had promised to
dig out and send along. He would talk Berkshire. Who
would there be to understand him—to reply to him in
dialect? What was the use of her being impetuous and
talking nonsense?</p>
<p>She went on cutting sandwiches. She said they were not
helpless children. She said if she and Dick at forty-two
hadn’t grit enough to run a six-roomed cottage it was time
they learned.</p>
<p>“Who’s forty-two?” I demanded.</p>
<p>“We are,” explained Robina, “Dick and
I—between us. We shall be forty-two next
birthday. Nearly your own age.”</p>
<p>“Veronica,” she continued, “for the next few
days won’t be a child at all. She knows nothing of
the happy medium. She is either herself or she goes to the
opposite extreme, and tries to be an angel. Till about the
end of the week it will be like living with a vision. As
for the donkey, we’ll try and make him feel as much at home
as if you were here.”</p>
<p>“I don’t mean to be rude, Pa,” Robina
explained, “but from the way you put it you evidently
regard yourself as the only one among us capable of interesting
him. I take it he won’t mind for a night or two
sharing the shed with the cow. If he looks shocked at the
suggestion, Dick can knock up a partition. I’d rather
for the present, till you come down again, the cow stopped where
she was. She helps to wake me in the morning. You may
reckon you have settled everything as far as Dick is
concerned. If you talk to St. Leonard again for an hour it
will be about the future of the Yellow Races or the possibility
of life in Jupiter. If you mention terms he will be
insulted, and if he won’t let you then you will be
insulted, and the whole thing will be off. Let me talk to
Janie. We’ve both of us got sense. As for Mr.
Bute, I know all your ideas about the house, and I
sha’n’t listen to any of his silly arguments.
What that young man wants is someone to tell him what he’s
got to do, and then let there be an end of it. And the
sooner that handy boy turns up the better. I don’t
mind what he talks. All I want him to do is to clean knives
and fetch water and chop wood. At the worst I’ll get
that home to him by pantomime. For conversation he can wait
till you come down.”</p>
<p>That is the gist of what she said. It didn’t run
exactly as I have put it down. There were points at which I
interrupted, but Robina never listens; she just talks on, and at
the end she assumes that, as a matter of course, you have come
round to her point of view, and persuading her that you
haven’t means beginning the whole thing over again.</p>
<p>She said I hadn’t time to talk, and that she would write
and tell me everything. Dick also said he would write and
tell me everything; and that if I felt moved to send them down a
hamper—the sort of thing that, left to themselves, Fortnum
& Mason would put together for a good-class picnic, say, for
six persons—I might rely upon it that nothing would be
wasted.</p>
<p>Veronica, by my desire, walked with me to the end of the
lane. I talked to her very seriously. Her difficulty
was that she had not been blown up. Had she been blown up,
then she would have known herself she had done wrong. In
the book it is the disobedient child that is tossed by the
bull. The child that has been sent with the little basket
to visit the sick aunt may be right in the bull’s
way. That is a bit of bad luck for the bull. The poor
bull is compelled to waste valuable time working round carefully,
so as not to upset the basket. If the wicked child had
sense (which in the book does not happen), it would, while the
bull was dodging to get past the good child, seize the
opportunity to move itself quickly. The wicked child never
looks round, but pegs along steadily; and when the bull arrives
it is sure to be in the most convenient position for receiving
moral lessons. The good child, whatever its weight, crosses
the ice in safety. The bad child may turn the scale at two
stone lighter; the ice will have none of him.
“Don’t you talk to me about relative pressure to the
square inch,” says the indignant ice. “You were
unkind to your little baby brother the week before last: in you
go.” Veronica’s argument, temperately and
courteously expressed, I admit, came practically to this:</p>
<p>“I may have acted without sufficient knowledge to guide
me. My education has not, perhaps, on the whole, been
ordered wisely. Subjects that I feel will never be of the
slightest interest or consequence to me have been insisted upon
with almost tiresome reiteration. Matters that should be
useful and helpful to me—gunpowder, to take but one
example—I have been left in ignorance concerning.
About all that I say nothing; people have done their best
according to their lights, no doubt. When, however, we come
to purity of motives, singleness of intention, then, I maintain,
I am above reproach. The proof of this is that Providence
has bestowed upon me the seal of its approval: I was not blown
up. Had my conduct been open to censure—as in certain
quarters has been suggested—should I be walking besides you
now, undamaged—not a hair turned, as the saying is?
No. Discriminating Fate—that is, if any reliance at
all is to be placed on literature for the young—would have
made it her business that at least I was included in the
<i>débris</i>. Instead, what do we notice!—a
shattered chimney, a ruined stove, broken windows, a wreckage of
household utensils; I, alone of all things, miraculously
preserved. I do not wish to press the point offensively,
but really it would almost seem that it must be you
three—you, my dear parent, upon whom will fall the bill for
repairs; Dick, apt to attach too much importance, maybe, to his
victuals, and who for the next few days will be compelled to
exist chiefly upon tinned goods; Robina, by nature of a worrying
disposition, certain till things get straight again to be next
door to off her head—who must, by reason of conduct into
which I do not enquire, have merited chastisement at the hands of
Providence. The moral lesson would certainly appear to be
between you three. I—it grows clear to me—have
been throughout but the innocent instrument.”</p>
<p>Admit the premise that to be virtuous is to escape whipping,
the argument is logical. I felt that left uncombated it
might lead us into yet further trouble.</p>
<p>“Veronica,” I said, “the time has come to
reveal to you a secret: literature is not always a safe guide to
life.”</p>
<p>“You mean—” said Veronica.</p>
<p>“I mean,” I said, “that the writer of books
is, generally speaking, an exceptionally moral man. That is
what leads him astray: he is too good. This world does not
come up to his ideas. It is not the world as he would have
made it himself. To satisfy his craving for morality he
sets to work to make a world of his own. It is not this
world. It is not a bit like this world. In a world as
it should be, Veronica, you would undoubtedly have been blown
up—if not altogether, at all events partially. What
you have to do, Veronica, is, with a full heart, to praise Heaven
that this is not a perfect world. If it were I doubt very
much, Veronica, your being here. That you are here happy
and thriving proves that all is not as it should be. The
bull of this world, feeling he wants to toss somebody, does not
sit upon himself, so to speak, till the wicked child comes
by. He takes the first child that turns up, and thanks God
for it. A hundred to one it is the best child for miles
around. The bull does not care. He spoils that
pattern child. He’d spoil a bishop, feeling as he
does that morning. Your little friend in the velvet suit
who did get himself blown up, at all events as regards the
suit— Which of you was it that thought of that
gunpowder, you or he?”</p>
<p>Veronica claimed that the inspiration had been hers.</p>
<p>“I can easily believe it. And was he anxious to
steal the gunpowder and put it on the fire, or did he have to be
persuaded?”</p>
<p>Veronica admitted that in the qualities of a first-class hero
he was wanting. Not till it had been suggested to him that
he must at heart be a cowardy cowardy custard had he been moved
to take a hand in the enterprise.</p>
<p>“A lad, clearly,” I continued, “that left to
himself would be a comfort to his friends. And the story of
the robbers—your invention or his?”</p>
<p>Veronica was generously of opinion that he might have thought
of it had he not been chiefly concerned at the moment with the
idea of getting home to his mother. As it was, the clothing
with romance of incidents otherwise bald and uninteresting had
fallen upon her.</p>
<p>“The good child of the story. The fact stands out
at every point. His one failing an amiable weakness.
Do you not see it for yourself; Veronica? In the book, you,
not he, would have tumbled over the mat. In this wicked
world it is the wicked who prosper. He, the innocent, the
virtuous, is torn into rags. You, the villain of the story,
escape.”</p>
<p>“I see,” said Veronica; “then whenever
nothing happens to you that means that you’re a wrong
’un.”</p>
<p>“I don’t go so far as to say that, Veronica.
And I wish you wouldn’t use slang. Dick is a man, and
a man—well, never mind about a man. You, Veronica,
must never forget that you’re a lady. Justice must
not be looked for in this world. Sometimes the wicked get
what they deserve. More often they don’t. There
seems to be no rule. Follow the dictates of your
conscience, Veronica, and blow—I mean be indifferent to the
consequences. Sometimes you’ll come out all right,
and sometimes you won’t. But the beautiful sensation
will always be with you: I did right. Things have turned
out unfortunately: but that’s not my fault. Nobody
can blame me.”</p>
<p>“But they do,” said Veronica, “they blame
you just as if you’d meant to go and do it.”</p>
<p>“It does not matter, Veronica,” I pointed out,
“the opinion of the world. The good man disregards
it.”</p>
<p>“But they send you to bed,” persisted
Veronica.</p>
<p>“Let them,” I said. “What is bed so
long as the voice of the inward Monitor consoles us with the
reflection—”</p>
<p>“But it don’t,” interrupted Veronica;
“it makes you feel all the madder. It does
really.”</p>
<p>“It oughtn’t to,” I told her.</p>
<p>“Then why does it?” argued Veronica.
“Why don’t it do what it ought to?”</p>
<p>The trouble about arguing with children is that they will
argue too.</p>
<p>“Life’s a difficult problem, Veronica,” I
allowed. “Things are not as they ought to be, I admit
it. But one must not despair. Something’s got
to be done.”</p>
<p>“It’s jolly hard on some of us,” said
Veronica. “Strive as you may, you can’t please
everyone. And if you just as much as stand up for yourself,
oh, crikey!”</p>
<p>“The duty of the grown-up person, Veronica,” I
said, “is to bring up the child in the way that it should
go. It isn’t easy work, and occasionally irritability
may creep in.”</p>
<p>“There’s such a lot of ’em at it,”
grumbled Veronica. “There are times, between
’em all, when you don’t know whether you’re
standing on your head or your heels.”</p>
<p>“They mean well, Veronica,” I said.
“When I was a little boy I used to think just as you
do. But now—”</p>
<p>“Did you ever get into rows?” interrupted
Veronica.</p>
<p>“Did I ever?—was never out of them, so far as I
can recollect. If it wasn’t one thing, then it was
another.”</p>
<p>“And didn’t it make you wild?” enquired
Veronica, “when first of all they’d ask what
you’d got to say and why you’d done it, and then,
when you tried to explain things to them, wouldn’t listen
to you?”</p>
<p>“What used to irritate me most, Veronica,” I
replied—“I can remember it so well—was when
they talked steadily for half an hour themselves, and then, when
I would attempt with one sentence to put them right about the
thing, turn round and bully-rag me for being
argumentative.”</p>
<p>“If they would only listen,” agreed Veronica,
“you might get them to grasp things. But no, they
talk and talk, till at the end they don’t know what they
are talking about themselves, and then they pretend it’s
your fault for having made them tired.”</p>
<p>“I know,” I said, “they always end up like
that. ‘I am tired of talking to you,’ they
say—as if we were not tired of listening to
them!”</p>
<p>“And then when you think,” said Veronica,
“they say you oughtn’t to think. And if you
don’t think, and let it out by accident, then they say
‘why don’t you think?’ It don’t
seem as though we could do right. It makes one almost
despair.”</p>
<p>“And it isn’t even as if they were always right
themselves,” I pointed out to her. “When they
knock over a glass it is, ‘Who put that glass
there?’ You’d think that somebody had put it
there on purpose and made it invisible. They are not
expected to see a glass six inches in front of their nose, in the
place where the glass ought to be. The way they talk
you’d suppose that a glass had no business on a
table. If I broke it, then it was always, ‘Clumsy
little devil! ought to have his dinner in the
nursery.’ If they mislay their things and can’t
find them, it’s, ‘Who’s been interfering with
my things? Who’s been in here rummaging
about?’ Then when they find it they want to know
indignantly who put it there. If I could not find a thing,
for the simple reason that somebody had taken it away and put it
somewhere else, then wherever they had put it was the right place
for it, and I was a little idiot for not knowing it.”</p>
<p>“And of course you mustn’t say anything,”
commented Veronica. “Oh, no! If they do
something silly and you just point it out to them, then there is
always a reason for it that you wouldn’t understand.
Oh, yes! And if you make just the slightest mistake, like
what is natural to all of us, that is because you are wicked and
unfeeling and don’t want to be anything else.”</p>
<p>“I will tell you what we will do, Veronica,” I
said; “we will write a book. You shall help me.
And in it the children shall be the wise and good people who
never make mistakes, and they shall boss the show—you know
what I mean—look after the grown-up people and bring them
up properly. And everything the grown-up people do, or
don’t do, will be wrong.”</p>
<p>Veronica clapped her hands. “No, will you
really?” she said. “Oh, do.”</p>
<p>“I will really,” I answered. “We will
call it a moral tale for parents; and all the children will buy
it and give it to their fathers and mothers and such-like folk
for their birthdays, with writing on the title-page, ‘From
Johnny, or Jenny, to dear Papa, or to dear Aunty, with every good
wish for his or her improvement!’”</p>
<p>“Do you think they will read it?” doubted
Veronica.</p>
<p>“We will put in it something shocking,” I
suggested, “and get some paper to denounce it as a disgrace
to English literature. And if that won’t do it we
will say it is a translation from the Russian. The children
shall stop at home and arrange what to have for dinner, and the
grown-up people shall be sent to school. We will start them
off each morning with a little satchel. They shall be made
to read ‘Grimm’s Fairy Tales’ in the original
German, with notes; and learn ‘Old Mother Hubbard’ by
heart and explain the grammar.”</p>
<p>“And go to bed early,” suggested Veronica.</p>
<p>“We will have them all in bed by eight o’clock,
Veronica, and they will go cheerfully, as if they liked it, or we
will know the reason why. We will make them say their
prayers. Between ourselves, Veronica, I don’t believe
they always do. And no reading in bed, and no final glass
of whisky toddy, or any nonsense of that sort. An Abernethy
biscuit and perhaps if they are good a jujube, and then
‘Good night,’ and down with their head on the
pillow. And no calling out, and no pretending they have got
a pain in their tummy and creeping downstairs in their
night-shirts and clamouring for brandy. We will be up to
all their tricks.”</p>
<p>“And they’ll have to take their medicine,”
Veronica remembered.</p>
<p>“The slightest suggestion of sulkiness, the first
intimation that they are not enjoying themselves, will mean cod
liver oil in a tablespoon, Veronica.”</p>
<p>“And we will ask them why they never use their
commonsense,” chirped Veronica.</p>
<p>“That will be our trouble, Veronica; that they
won’t have any sense of any sort—not what we shall
deem sense. But, nevertheless, we will be just. We
will always give them a reason why they have got to do everything
they don’t want to do, and nothing that they want to
do. They won’t understand it and they won’t
agree that it is a reason; but they will keep that to themselves,
if they are wise.”</p>
<p>“And of course they must not argue,” Veronica
insisted.</p>
<p>“If they answer back, Veronica, that will show they are
cursed with an argumentative temperament which must be rooted out
at any cost,” I agreed; “and if they don’t say
anything, that will prove them possessed of a surly disposition
which must be checked at once, before it develops into a
vice.”</p>
<p>“And whatever we do to them we will tell them it’s
for their own good,” Veronica chortled.</p>
<p>“Of course it will be for their own good,” I
answered. “That will be our chief
pleasure—making them good and happy. It won’t
be their pleasure, but that will be owing to their
ignorance.”</p>
<p>“They will be grateful to us later on,” gurgled
Veronica.</p>
<p>“With that assurance we will comfort them from time to
time,” I answered. “We will be good to them in
all ways. We will let them play games—not stupid
games, golf and croquet, that do you no good and lead only to
language and dispute—but bears and wolves and whales;
educational sort of games that will aid them in acquiring
knowledge of natural history. We will show them how to play
Pirates and Red Indians and Ogres—sensible play that will
help them to develop their imaginative faculties. That is
why grown-up people are so dull; they are never made to
think. But now and then,” I continued, “we will
let them play their own games, say on Wednesday and Saturday
afternoons. We will invite other grown-ups to come to tea
with them, and let them flirt in the garden, or if wet make love
in the dining-room, till nurse comes for them. But we, of
course, must choose their friends for them—nice,
well-behaved ladies and gentlemen, the parents of respectable
children; because left to themselves—well, you know what
they are! They would just as likely fall in love with quite
undesirable people—men and women we could not think of
having about the house. We will select for them companions
we feel sure will be the most suitable for them; and if they
don’t like them—if Uncle William says he can’t
bear the girl we have invited up to love him—that he
positively hates her, we till tell him that it is only his wilful
temper, and that he’s got to like her because she’s
good for him; and don’t let us have any of his
fretfulness. And if Grandmamma pouts and says she
won’t love old man Jones merely because he’s got a
red nose, or a glass eye, or some silly reason of that sort, we
will say to her: ‘All right, my lady, you will play with
Mr. Jones and be nice to him, or you will spend the afternoon
putting your room tidy; make up your mind.’ We will
let them marry (on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons), and play
at keeping house. And if they quarrel we will shake them
and take the babies away from them, and lock them up in drawers,
and tell them they sha’n’t have them again till they
are good.”</p>
<p>“And the more they try to be good, the more it will turn
out that they ain’t been good,” Veronica
reflected.</p>
<p>“Their goodness and their badness will depend upon us in
more senses than one, Veronica,” I explained.
“When Consols are down, when the east wind has touched up
our liver, they will be surprised how bad they are.”</p>
<p>“And they mustn’t ever forget what they’ve
ever been once told,” crowed Veronica. “We
mustn’t have to tell ’em the same thing over and over
again, like we was talking to brick walls.”</p>
<p>“And if we meant to tell them and forgot to tell
them,” I added, “we will tell them that they ought
not to want us to tell them a simple thing like that, as if they
were mere babies. We must remember all these
points.”</p>
<p>“And if they grumble we’ll tell them that’s
’cos they don’t know how happy they are. And
we’ll tell them how good we used to be when—I say,
don’t you miss your train, or I shall get into a
row.”</p>
<p>“Great Scott! I’d forgotten all about that
train, Veronica,” I admitted.</p>
<p>“Better run,” suggested Veronica.</p>
<p>It sounded good advice.</p>
<p>“Keep on thinking about that book,” shouted
Veronica.</p>
<p>“Make a note of things as they occur to you,” I
shouted back.</p>
<p>“What shall we call it?” Veronica screamed.</p>
<p>“‘Why the Man in the Moon looks sat
upon,’” I shrieked.</p>
<p>When I turned again she was sitting on the top rail of the
stile conducting an imaginary orchestra with one of her own
shoes. The six-fifteen was fortunately twenty minutes
late.</p>
<div class="gapspace"> </div>
<p>I thought it best to tell Ethelbertha the truth; that things
had gone wrong with the kitchen stove.</p>
<p>“Let me know the worst,” she said. “Is
Veronica hurt?”</p>
<p>“The worst,” I said, “is that I shall have
to pay for a new range. Why, when anything goes amiss, poor
Veronica should be assumed as a matter of course to be in it,
appears to me unjust.”</p>
<p>“You are sure she’s all right?” persisted
Ethelbertha.</p>
<p>“Honest Injun—confound those children and their
slang—I mean positively,” I answered. The
Little Mother looked relieved.</p>
<p>I told her all the trouble we had had in connection with the
cow. Her sympathies were chiefly with the cow. I told
her I had hopes of Robina’s developing into a sensible
woman. We talked quite a deal about Robina. We agreed
that between us we had accomplished something rather clever.</p>
<p>“I must get back as soon as I can,” I said.
“I don’t want young Bute getting wrong ideas into his
head.”</p>
<p>“Who is young Bute?” she asked.</p>
<p>“The architect,” I explained.</p>
<p>“I thought he was an old man,” said
Ethelbertha.</p>
<p>“Old Spreight is old enough,” I said.
“Young Bute is one of his young men; but he understands his
work, and seems intelligent.”</p>
<p>“What’s he like?” she asked.</p>
<p>“Personally, an exceedingly nice young fellow.
There’s a good deal of sense in him. I like a boy who
listens.”</p>
<p>“Good-looking?” she asked.</p>
<p>“Not objectionably so,” I replied. “A
pleasant face—particularly when he smiles.”</p>
<p>“Is he married?” she asked.</p>
<p>“Really, it did not occur to me to ask him,” I
admitted. “How curious you women are! No, I
don’t think so. I should say not.”</p>
<p>“Why don’t you think so?” she demanded.</p>
<p>“Oh, I don’t know. He doesn’t give you
the idea of a married man. You’ll like him.
Seems so fond of his sister.”</p>
<p>“Shall we be seeing much of him?” she asked.</p>
<p>“A goodish deal,” I answered. “I
expect he will be going down on Monday. Very annoying, this
stove business.”</p>
<p>“What is the use of his being there without you?”
Ethelbertha wanted to know.</p>
<p>“Oh, he’ll potter round,” I suggested,
“and take measurements. Dick will be about to explain
things to him. Or, if he isn’t, there’s
Robina—awkward thing is, Robina seems to have taken a
dislike to him.”</p>
<p>“Why has she taken a dislike to him?” asked
Ethelbertha.</p>
<p>“Oh, because he mistook the back of the house for the
front, or the front of the house for the back,” I
explained; “I forget which now. Says it’s his
smile that irritates her. She owns herself there’s no
real reason.”</p>
<p>“When will you be going down again?” Ethelbertha
asked.</p>
<p>“On Thursday next,” I told her; “stove or no
stove.”</p>
<p>She said she would come with me. She felt the change
would do her good, and promised not to do anything when she got
there. And then I told her all that I had done for
Dick.</p>
<p>“The ordinary farmer,” I pointed out to her,
“is so often a haphazard type of man with no ideas.
If successful, it is by reason of a natural instinct which cannot
be taught. St. Leonard has studied the theory of the
thing. From him Dick will learn all that can be learnt
about farming. The selection, I felt, demanded careful
judgment.”</p>
<p>“But will Dick stick to it?” Ethelbertha
wondered.</p>
<p>“There, again,” I pointed out to her, “the
choice was one calling for exceptional foresight. The old
man—as a matter of fact, he isn’t old at all;
can’t be very much older than myself; I don’t know
why they all call him the old man—has formed a high opinion
of Dick. His daughter told me so, and I have taken care to
let Dick know it. The boy will not care to disappoint
him. Her mother—”</p>
<p>“Whose mother?” interrupted Ethelbertha.</p>
<p>“Janie’s mother, Mrs. St. Leonard,” I
explained. “She also has formed a good opinion of
him. The children like him. Janie told me
so.”</p>
<p>“She seems to do a goodish deal of talking, this Miss
Janie,” remarked Ethelbertha.</p>
<p>“You will like her,” I said. “She is a
charming girl—so sensible, and good, and unselfish,
and—”</p>
<p>“Who told you all this about her?” interrupted
Ethelbertha.</p>
<p>“You can see it for yourself,” I answered.
“The mother appears to be a nonentity, and St. Leonard
himself—well, he is not a business man. It is Janie
who manages everything—keeps everything going.”</p>
<p>“What is she like?” asked Ethelbertha.</p>
<p>“I am telling you,” I said. “She is so
practical, and yet at the same time—”</p>
<p>“In appearance, I mean,” explained
Ethelbertha.</p>
<p>“How you women,” I said, “do worry about
mere looks! What does it matter? If you want to know,
it is that sort of face that grows upon you. At first you
do not notice how beautiful it is, but when you come to look into
it—”</p>
<p>“And has she also formed a high opinion of Dick?”
interrupted Ethelbertha.</p>
<p>“She will be disappointed in him,” I said,
“if he does not work hard and stick to it. They will
all be disappointed in him.”</p>
<p>“What’s it got to do with them?” demanded
Ethelbertha.</p>
<p>“I’m not thinking about them,” I said.
“What I look at is—”</p>
<p>“I don’t like her,” said Ethelbertha.
“I don’t like any of them.”</p>
<p>“But—” She didn’t seem to be
listening.</p>
<p>“I know that class of man,” she said; “and
the wife appears, if anything, to be worse. As for the
girl—”</p>
<p>“When you come to know them—” I said.</p>
<p>She said she didn’t want to know them. She wanted
to go down on Monday, early.</p>
<p>I got her to see—it took some little time—the
disadvantages of this. We should only be adding to
Robina’s troubles; and change of plan now would unsettle
Dick’s mind.</p>
<p>“He has promised to write me,” I said, “and
tell me the result of his first day’s experience. Let
us wait and hear what he says.”</p>
<p>She said that whatever could have possessed her to let me take
those poor unfortunate children away from her, and muddle up
everything without her, was a mystery to herself. She hoped
that, at least, I had done nothing irrevocable in the case of
Veronica.</p>
<p>“Veronica,” I said, “is really wishful, I
think, to improve. I have bought her a donkey.”</p>
<p>“A what?” exclaimed Ethelbertha.</p>
<p>“A donkey,” I repeated. “The child
took a fancy to it, and we all agreed it might help to steady
her—give her a sense of responsibility.”</p>
<p>“I somehow felt you hadn’t overlooked
Veronica,” said Ethelbertha.</p>
<p>I thought it best to change the conversation. She seemed
in a fretful mood.</p>
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