Gray-bellied pencil-tailed tree mouse

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The Getting of Wisdom by Henry Handel Richardson DEDICATION: TO MY UNNAMED LITTLE COLLABORATOR: Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding. Proverbs, iv, 7 Chapter I. The four children were lying on the grass. "... and the Prince went further and further into the forest," said the elder girl, "till he came to a beautiful glade--a glade, you know, is a place in the forest that is open and green and lovely. And there he saw a lady, a beautiful lady, in a long white dress that hung down to her ankles, with a golden belt and a golden crown. She was lying on the sward--a sward, you know, is grass as smooth as velvet, just like green velvet--and the Prince saw the marks of travel on her garments. The bottom of the lovely silk dress was all dirty----" "Wondrous Fair, if you don't mind you'll make that sheet dirty, too," said Pin. "Shut up, will you!" answered her sister who, carried away by her narrative, had approached her boots to some linen that was bleaching. "Yes, but you know Sarah will be awfly cross if she has to wash it again," said Pin, who was practical. "You'll put me out altogether," cried Laura angrily.--"Well, as I said, the edge of her robe was all muddy--no, I don't think I will say that; it sounds prettier if it's clean. So it hung in long, straight beautiful folds to her ankles, and the Prince saw two little feet in golden sandals peeping out from under the hem of the silken gown, and----" "But what about the marks of travel?" asked Leppie. "Donkey! haven't I said they weren't there? If I say they weren't, then they weren't. She hadn't travelled at all." "Oh, parakeets!" cried little Frank. Four pairs of eyes went up to the bright green flock that was passing over the garden. "Now you've all interrupted, and I shan't tell any more," said Laura in a proud voice. "Oh, yes, please do, Wondrous Fair! Tell what happened next," begged Pin and Leppie. "No, not another word. You can only think of sheets and parakeets." "Please, Wondrous Fair," begged little Frank. "No, I can't now.--Another thing: I don't mind if you call me Laura to-day, as it's the last day." She lay back on the grass, her hands clasped under her head. A voice was heard, loud, imperative. "Laura, I want you. Come here." "That's mother calling," said Pin. Laura kicked her heels. The two little boys laughed approval. "Go on, Laura," coaxed Pin. "Mother will be angry. I'll come, too." Laura raised herself with a grumble. "It's to try on that horrid dress." In very fact Mother was standing, already somewhat impatient, with the dress in her hand. Laura wriggled out of the one she had on, and stood stiffly and ungraciously, with her arms held like pokers from her sides, while Mother on her knees arranged the length. "Don't put on a face like that, miss!" she said sharply on seeing Laura's air. "Do you think I'm making it for my own pleasure?" She had sewn at it all day, and was hot and tired. "It's too short," said Laura, looking down. "It's nothing of the kind," said Mother, with her mouth full of pins. "It is, it's much too short." Mother gave her a slight shake. "Don't you contradict ME! Do you want to tell me I don't know what length you're to wear your dresses?" "I won't wear it at all if you don't make it longer," said Laura defiantly. Pin's chubby, featureless little face lengthened with apprehension. "Do let her have it just a tiny bit longer, mother dear, dear!" she pleaded. "Now, Pin, what have you got to do with it I'd like to know!" said Mother, on the verge of losing her temper over the back folds, which WOULD not hang. "I'm going to school to-morrow, and it's a shame," said Laura in the low, passionate tone that never failed to exasperate Mother, so different was it from her own hearty fashion of venting displeasure. Pin began to sniff, in sheer nervous anxiety. "Very well then, I won't do another stitch to it!" and Mother, now angry in earnest, got up and bounced out of the room. "Laura, how can you?" said Pin, dissolving. "It's only you who make her so cross." "I don't care," said Laura rebelliously, though she was not far off tears herself. "It IS a shame. All the other girls will have dresses down to the tops of their boots, and they'll laugh at me, and call me a baby;" and touched by the thought of what lay before her, she, too, began to sniffle. She did not fail, however, to roll the dress up and to throw it unto a corner of the room. She also kicked the ewer, which fell over and flooded the floor. Pin cried more loudly, and ran to fetch Sarah. Laura returned to the garden. The two little boys came up to her; but she waved them back. "Let me alone, children. I want to think." She stood in a becoming attitude by the garden-gate, her brothers hovering in the background.--Then Mother called once more. "Laura, where are you?" "Here, mother. What is it?" "Did you knock this jug over or did Pin?" "I did, mother." "Did you do it on purpose?" "Yes." "Come here to me." She went, with lagging steps. But Mother's anger had passed: she was at work on the dress again, and by squinting her eyes Laura could see that a piece was being added to the skirt. She was penitent at once; and when Mother in a sorry voice said: "I'm ashamed of you, Laura. And on your last day, too," her throat grew narrow. "I didn't mean it, mother." "If only you would ask properly for things, you would get them. "Laura knew this; knew indeed that, did she coax, Mother could refuse her nothing. But coaxing came hard to her; something within her forbade it. Sarah called her "high-stomached", to the delight of the other children and her own indignation; she had explained to them again and again what Sarah really meant. On leaving the house she went straight to the flower-beds: she would give Mother, who liked flowers very well but had no time to gather them, a bouquet the size of a cabbage. Pin and the boys were summoned to help her, and when their hands were full, Laura led the way to a secluded part of the garden on the farther side of the detached brick kitchen. In this strip, which was filled with greenery, little sun fell: two thick fir trees and a monstrous blue-gum stood there; high bushes screened the fence; jessamine climbed the wall of the house and encircled the bedroom windows; and on the damp and shady ground only violets grew. Yet, with the love children bear to the limited and compact, the four had chosen their own little plots here rather than in the big garden at the back of the house; and many were the times they had all begun anew to dig and to rake. But if Laura's energy did not fizzle out as quickly as usual--she was the model for the rest—Mother was sure to discover that it was too cramped and dark for them in there, and send Sarah to drive them off. Here, safely screened from sight, Laura sat on a bench and made up her bouquet. When it was finished--red and white in the centre with a darker border, the whole surrounded by a ring of violet leaves—she looked about for something to tie it up with. Sarah, applied to, was busy ironing, and had no string in the kitchen, so Pin ran to get a reel of cotton. But while she was away Laura had an idea. Bidding Leppie hold the flowers tight in both his sticky little hands, she climbed in at her bedroom window, or rather, by lying on the sill with her legs waving in the air, she managed to grab, without losing her balance, a pair of scissors from the chest of drawers. With these between her teeth she emerged, to the excited interest of the boys who watched her open-mouthed. Laura had dark curls, Pin fair, and both wore them flapping at their backs, the only difference being that Laura, who was now twelve years old, had for the past year been allowed to bind hers together with a ribbon, while Pin's bobbed as they chose. Every morning early, Mother brushed and twisted, with a kind of grim pride, these silky ringlets round her finger. Although the five odd minutes the curling occupied were durance vile to Laura, the child was proud of her hair in her own way; and when in the street she heard some one say: look, what pretty curls!" she would give her head a toss and send them all a-rippling. In addition to this, there was a crowning glory connected with them: one hot December morning, when they had been tangled and Mother had kept her standing too long, she had fainted, pulling the whole dressing-table down about her ears; and ever since, she had been marked off in some mysterious fashion from the other children. Mother would not let her go out at midday in summer: Sarah would say: "Let that be, can't you!" did she try to lift something that was too heavy for her; and the younger children were to be quelled by a threat to faint on the spot, if they did not do as she wished. "Laura's faint" had become a byword in the family; and Laura herself held it for so important a fact in her life that she had more than once begun a friendship with the words: "Have you ever fainted? I have." From among these long, glossy curls, she now cut one of the longest and most spiral, cut it off close to the root, and with it bound the flowers together. Mother should see that she did know how to give up something she cared for, and was not as selfish as she was usually supposed to be. "Oh .. h .. h!" said both little boys in a breath, then doubled up in noisy mirth. Laura was constantly doing something to set their young blood in amazement: they looked upon her as the personification of all that was startling and unexpected. But Pin, returning with the reel of thread, opened her eyes in a different way. "Oh, Laura ...!" she began, tearful at once. "Now, res'vor!" retorted Laura scornfully--"res'vor" was Sarah's name for Pin, on account of her perpetual wateriness. "Be a cry-baby, do." But she was not damped, she was lost in the pleasure of self-sacrifice. Pin looked after her as she danced off, then moved submissively in her wake to be near at hand should intercession be needed. Laura was so unsuspecting, and Mother would be so cross. In her dim, childish way Pin longed to see these, her two nearest, at peace; she understood them both so well, and they had little or no understanding for each other.--So she crept to the house at her sister's heels. Laura did not go indoors; hiding against the wall of the flagged verandah, she threw her bouquet in at the window, meaning it to fall on Mother's lap. But Mother had dropped her needle, and was just lifting her face, flushed with stooping, when the flowers hit her a thwack on the head. She groped again, impatiently, to find what had struck her, recognized the peace-offering, and thought of the surprise cake that was to go into Laura's box on the morrow. Then she saw the curl, and her face darkened. Was there ever such a tiresome child? What in all the world would she do next? "Laura, come here, directly!" Laura had moved away; she was not expecting recognition. If Mother were pleased she would call Pin to put the flowers in water for her, and that would be the end of it. The idea of a word of thanks would have made Laura feel uncomfortable. Now, however, at the tone of Mother's voice, her mouth set stubbornly. She went indoors as bidden, but was already up in arms again. "You're a very naughty girl indeed!" began Mother as soon she appeared. How dare you cut off your hair? Upon my word, if it weren't your last night I'd send you to bed without any supper!"--an unheard-of threat on the part of Mother, who punished her children in any way but that of denying them their food. "It's a very good thing you're leaving home to-morrow, for you'd soon be setting the others at defiance, too, and I should have four naughty children on my hands instead of one.-- But I'd be ashamed to go to school such a fright if I were you. Turn round at once and let me see you!" Laura turned, with a sinking heart. Pin cried softly in a corner. "She thought it would please you, mother," she sobbed. "I WILL not have you interfering, Pin, when I'm speaking to Laura. She's old enough by now to know what I like and what I don't," said Mother, who was vexed at the thought of the child going among strangers thus disfigured.--"And now get away, and don't let me see you again. You're a perfect sight." "Oh, Laura, you do look funny!" said Leppie and Frank in weak chorus, as she passed them in the passage. "Well, you 'ave made a guy of yourself this time, Miss Laura, and no mistake!" said Sarah, who had heard the above. Laura went into her own room and locked the door, a thing Mother did not allow. Then she threw herself on the bed and cried. Mother had not understood in the least; and she had made herself a sight into the bargain. She refused to open the door, though one after another rattled the handle, and Sarah threatened to turn the hose in at the window. So they left her alone, and she spent the evening in watery dudgeon on her pillow. But before she undressed for the night she stealthily made a chink and took in the slice of cake Pin had left on the door-mat. Her natural buoyancy of spirit was beginning to reassert itself. By brushing her hair well to one side she could cover up the gap, she found; and after all, there was something rather pleasant in knowing that you were misunderstood. It made you feel different from everyone else. Mother--sewing hard after even the busy Sarah had retired—Mother smiled a stern little smile of amusement to herself; and before locking up for the night put the dark curl safely away. Chapter II. Laura, sleeping flat on her stomach, was roused next morning by Pin who said: "Wake up, Wondrous Fair, mother wants to speak to you. She says you can get into bed in my place, before you dress." Pin slept warm and cosy at Mother's side. Laura rose on her elbow and looked at her sister: Pin was standing in the doorway holding her nightgown to her, in such a way as to expose all of her thin little legs. "Come on," urged Pin. "Sarah's going to give me my bath while you're with mother." "Go away, Pin," said Laura snappily. "I told you yesterday you could say Laura, and ... and you're more like a spider than ever." "Spider" was another nickname for Pin, owed to her rotund little body and mere sticks of legs--she was "all belly" as Sarah put it--and the mere mention of it made Pin fly; for she was very touchy about her legs. As soon as the door closed behind her, Laura sprang out of bed and, waiting neither to wash herself nor to say her prayers, began to pull on her clothes, confusing strings and buttons in her haste, and quite forgetting that on this eventful morning she had meant to dress herself with more than ordinary care. She was just lacing her shoes when Sarah looked in. "Why, Miss Laura, don't you know your ma wants you?" "It's too late. I'm dressed now," said Laura darkly. Sarah shook her head. "Missis'll be fine an' angry. An' you needn't 'ave 'ad a row on your last day." Laura stole out of the door and ran down the garden to the summer-house. This, the size of a goodly room, was formed of a single dense, hairy-leafed tree, round the trunk of which a seat was built. Here she cowered, her elbows on her knees, her chin in her hands. Her face wore the stiff expression that went by the name of "Laura's sulks," but her eyes were big, and as watchful as those of a scared animal. If Sarah came to fetch her she would hold on to the seat with both hands. But even if she had to yield to Sarah's greater strength--well, at least she was up and dressed. Not like the last time--about a week ago Mother had tried this kind of thing. Then, she had been caught unawares. She had gone into Pin's warm place, curious and unsuspecting, and thereupon Mother had begun to talk seriously to her, and not with her usual directness. She had reminded Laura that she was growing up apace and would soon be a woman; had told her that she must now begin to give up childish habits, and learn to behave in a modest and womanly way--all disagreeable, disturbing things, which Laura did not in the least want to hear. When it became clear to her what it was about, she had thrown back the bedclothes and escaped from the room. And since then she had been careful never to be long alone with Mother. But now half an hour went by and no one came to fetch her: her grim little face relaxed. She felt very hungry, too, and when at length she heard Pin calling, she jumped up and betrayed her hiding-place. "Laura! Laura, where are you? Mother says to come to breakfast and not be silly. The coach'll be here in an hour." Taking hands the sisters ran to the house. In the passage, Sarah was busy roping a battered tin box. With their own hands the little boys had been allowed to paste on this a big sheet of notepaper, which bore, in Mother's writing, the words: Miss Laura Tweedle Rambotham The Ladies' College Melbourne. Mother herself was standing at the breakfast-table cutting sandwiches. "Come and eat your breakfast, child," was all she said at the moment. "The tea's quite cold." Laura sat down and fell to with appetite, but also with a side-glance at the generous pile of bread and meat growing under Mother's hands. "I shall never eat all that," she said ungraciously; it galled her still to be considered a greedy child with an insatiable stomach. "I know better than you do what you'll eat," said Mother. "You'll be hungry enough by this evening I can tell you, not getting any dinner. Pin's face fell at this prospect. "Oh, mother, won't she really get any dinner?" she asked: and to her soft little heart going to school began to seem one of the blackest experiences life held. "Why, she'll be in the train, stupid, 'ow can she?" said Sarah. "Do you think trains give you dinners?" "Oh, mother, please cut ever such a lot!" begged Pin sniffing valiantly. Laura began to feel somewhat moved herself at this solicitude, and choked down a lump in her throat with a gulp of tea. But when Pin had gone with Sarah to pick some nectarines, Mother's face grew stern, and Laura's emotion passed. "I feel more troubled about you than I can say, Laura. I don't know how you'll ever get on in life--you're so disobedient and self-willed. It would serve you very well right, I'm sure, for not coming this morning, if I didn't give you a penny of pocket-money to take to school." Laura had heard this threat before, and thought it wiser not to reply. Gobbling up the rest of her breakfast she slipped away. With the other children at her heels she made a round of the garden, bidding good-bye to things and places. There were the two summer-houses in which she had played house; in which she had cooked and eaten and slept. There was the tall fir-tree with the rung-like branches by which she had been accustomed to climb to the very tree-top; there was the wilderness of bamboo and cane where she had been Crusoe; the ancient, broadleaved cactus on which she had scratched their names and drawn their portraits; here, the high aloe that had such a mysterious charm for you, because you never knew when the hundred years might expire and the aloe burst into flower. Here again was the old fig tree with the rounded, polished boughs, from which, seated as in a cradle, she had played Juliet to Pin's Romeo, and vice versa--but oftenest Juliet: for though Laura greatly preferred to be the ardent lover at the foot, Pin was but a poor climber, and, as she clung trembling to her branch, needed so much prompting in her lines--even then to repeat them with such feeble emphasis--that Laura invariably lost patience with her and the love-scene ended in a squabble. Passing behind a wooden fence which was a tangle of passion-flower, she opened the door of the fowl-house, and out strutted the mother-hen followed by her pretty brood. Laura had given each of the chicks a name, and she now took Napoleon and Garibaldi up in her hand and laid her cheek against their downy breasts, the younger children following her movements in respectful silence. Between the bars of the rabbit hutch she thrust enough green stuff to last the two little occupants for days; and everywhere she went she was accompanied by a legless magpie, which, in spite of its infirmity, hopped cheerily and quickly on its stumps. Laura had rescued it and reared it; it followed her like a dog; and she was only less devoted to it than she had been to a native bear which died under her hands. "Now listen, children," she said as she rose from her knees before the hutch. "If you don't look well after Maggy and the bunnies, I don't know what I'll do. The chicks will be all right. Sarah will take care of them, 'cause of the eggs. But Maggy and the bunnies don't have eggs, and if they're not fed, or if Frank treads on Maggy again, then they'll die. Now if you let them die, I don't know what I'll do to you! Yes, I do: I'll send the devil to you at night when the room's dark, before you go to sleep.--So there!" "How can you if you're not here?" asked Leppie. Pin, however, who believed in ghosts and apparitions with all her fearful little heart, promised tremulously never, never to forget; but Laura was not satisfied until each of them in turn had repeated, in a low voice, with the appropriate gestures, the sacred secret, and forbidden formula: Is my finger wet? Is my finger dry? God will strike me dead, If I tell a lie. Then Sarah's voice was heard calling, and the boys went out into the road to watch for the coach. Laura's dressing proved a lengthy business, and was accomplished amid bustle, and scolding, and little peace-making words from Pin; for in her hurry that morning Laura had forgotten to put on the clean linen Mother had laid beside the bed, and consequently had now to strip to the skin. The boys announced the coming of the coach with shrill cries, and simultaneously the rumble of wheels was heard. Sarah came from the kitchen drying her hands, and Pin began to cry. "Now, shut up, res'vor!" said Sarah roughly: her own eyes were moist. "You don't see Miss Laura be such a silly-billy. Anyone 'ud think you was goin', not 'er." The ramshackle old vehicle, one of Cobb's Royal Mail Coaches, big-bodied, lumbering, scarlet, pulled by two stout horses, drew up before the door, and the driver climbed down from his seat. "Now good day to you, ma'am, good day, miss"--this to Sarah who, picking up the box, handed it to him to be strapped on under the apron. "Well, well, and so the little girl's goin' to school, is she? My, but time flies! Well do I remember the day ma'am, when I drove you all across for the first time. These children wasn't big enough then to git up and down be themselves. Now I warrant you they can--just look at 'em, will you?--But my! Ain't you ashamed of yourself"--he spoke to Pin--"pipin' your eye like that? Why, you'll flood the road if you don't hould on.--Yes, yes, ma'am, bless you, I'll look after her, and put her inter the train wid me own han's. Don't you be on easy. The Lord he cares for the wider and the orphun, and if He don't, why Patrick O'Donnell does." This was O'Donnell's standing joke; he uttered it with a loud chuckle. While speaking he had let down the steps and helped the three children up--they were to ride with Laura to the outskirts of the township. The little boys giggled excitedly at his assertion that the horses would not be equal to the weight. Only Pin wept on, in undiminished grief. "Now, Miss Laura." "Now, Laura. Good-bye, darling. And do try and be good. And be sure you write once a week. And tell me everything. Whether you are happy—and if you get enough to eat--and if you have enough blankets on your bed. And remember always to change your boots if you get your feet wet. And don't lean out of the window in the train." For some time past Laura had had need of all her self-control, not to cry before the children. As the hour drew near it had grown harder and harder; while dressing, she had resorted to counting the number of times the profile of a Roman emperor appeared in the flowers on the wallpaper. Now the worst moment of all was come--the moment of good-bye. She did not look at Pin, but she heard her tireless, snuffly weeping, and set her own lips tight. "Yes, mother ... no, mother," she answered shortly, "I'll be all right. Good-bye." She could not, however, restrain a kind of dry sob, which jumped up her throat. When she was in the coach Sarah, whom she had forgotten climbed up to kiss her; and there was some joking between O'Donnell and the servant while the steps were being folded and put away. Laura did not smile; her thin little face was very pale. Mother's heart went out to her in a pity which she did not know how to express. "Don't forget your sandwiches. And when you're alone, feel in the pocket of your ulster and you'll find something nice. Good-bye, darling." "Good-bye ... good-bye." The driver had mounted to his seat, he unwound the reins cried "Get up!" to the two burly horses, the vehicle was set in motion and trundled down the main street. Until it turned the corner by the Shire Gardens, Laura let her handkerchief fly from the window. Sarah waved hers; then wiped her eyes and lustily blew her nose. Mother only sighed. "It was all she could do to keep up," she said as much to herself as to Sarah. "I do hope she'll be all right. She seems such a child to be sending off like this. Yet what else could I do? To a State School, I've always said it, my children shall never go--not if I have to beg the money to send them elsewhere." But she sighed again, in spite of the energy of her words, and stood gazing at the place where the coach had disappeared. She was still a comparatively young woman, and straight of body; but trouble, poverty and night-watches had scored many lines on her forehead. "Don't you worry," said Sarah. "Miss Laura will be all right. She's just a bit too clever--brains for two, that's what it is. An' children WILL grow up an' get big ... an' change their feathers." She spoke absently, drawing her metaphor from a brood of chickens which had strayed across the road, and was now trying to mount the wooden verandah--"Shooh! Get away with you!" "I know that. But Laura--The other children have never given me a moment's worry. But Laura's different. I seem to get less and less able to manage her. If only her father had been alive to help!" "I'm sure no father livin' could do more than you for those blessed children," said Sarah with impatience. You think of nothing' else. It 'ud be a great deal better if you took more care o' yourself. You sit up nights an' don't get no proper sleep slavin' away at that blessed embroidery an' stuff, so as Miss Laura can get off to school an' to 'er books. An' then you want to worry over 'er as well.--She'll be all right. Miss Laura's like peas. You've got to get 'em outer the pod--they're in there sure enough. An' besides I guess school will knock all the nonsense out of 'er." "Oh, I hope they won't be too hard on her," said Mother in quick alarm.--"Shut the side gate, will you. Those children have left it open again.--And, Sarah, I think we'll turn out the drawing-room." Sarah grunted to herself as she went to close the gate. This had not entered into her scheme of work for the day, and her cooking was still undone. But she did not gainsay her mistress, as she otherwise would have made no scruple of doing; for she knew that nothing was more helpful to the latter in a crisis than hard, manual work. Besides, Sarah herself had a sneaking weakness for what she called "dra'in'-room days". For the drawing-room was the storehouse of what treasures had remained over from a past prosperity. It was crowded with bric-a-brac and ornament; and as her mistress took these objects up one by one, to dust and polish them, she would, if she were in a good humour, tell Sarah where and how they had been bought, or describe the places they had originally come from: so that Sarah, pausing broom in hand to listen, had with time gathered some vague ideas of a country like "Inja", for example, whence came the little silver "pagody", and the expressionless brass god who squatted vacantly and at ease. Chapter III. As long as the coach rolled down the main street Laura sat bolt upright at the window. In fancy she heard people telling one another that this was little Miss Rambo ham going to school. She was particularly glad that just as they went past the Commercial Hotel, Miss Perrotet, the landlord's red-haired daughter, should put her fuzzy head out of the window--for Miss Perrotet had also been to boarding-school, and thought very highly of herself in consequence, though it had only been for a year, to finish. At the National Bank the manager's wife waved a friendly hand to the children, and at the Royal Mail Hotel where they drew up for passengers or commissions, Mrs. Paget, the stout landlady, came out, smoothing down her black satin apron. "Well, I'm sure I wonder your ma likes sendin' you off so alone." The ride had comforted Pin a little; but when they had passed the chief stores and the flour-mill, and were come to a part of the road where the houses were fewer, her tears broke out afresh. The very last house was left behind, the high machinery of the claims came into view, the watery flats where Chinamen were for ever rocking wash dirt in cradles; and O'Donnell dismounted and opened the door. He lifted the three out one by one, shaking his head in humorous dismay at Pin, and as little Frank showed sighs of beginning, too, by puckering up his face and doubling up his body, the kindly man tried to make them laugh by asking if he had the stomach-ache. Laura had one more glimpse of the children standing hand in hand--even in her trouble Pin did not forget her charges--then a sharp bend in the road hid them from her sight. She was alone in the capacious body of the coach, alone, and the proud excitement of parting was over. The staunchly repressed tears welled up with a gush, and flinging herself down across the seat she cried bitterly. It was not a childishly irresponsible grief like Pin's: it was more passionate, and went deeper; and her overloaded feelings were soon relieved. But as she was not used to crying, she missed the moment at which she might have checked herself, and went on shedding tears after they had become a luxury. "Why, goodness gracious, what's this?" cried a loud, cheerful and astonished voice, and a fat, rosy face beamed in on Laura. "Why, here's a little girl in here, cryin' fit to break 'er heart. Come, come, my dear, what's the matter? Don't cry like that, now don't." The coach had stopped, the door opened and a stout woman climbed in, bearing a big basket, and followed by a young man with straw-colored whiskers. Laura sat up like a dart and pulled her hat straight, crimson with mortification at being discovered in such a plight. She had instantly curbed her tears, but she could not disguise the fact that she had red eyes and a swollen nose--that she was in short what Sarah called "all bunged up". She made no reply to the newcomer's exclamations, but sat clutching her handkerchief and staring out of the window. The woman's good-natured curiosity, however, was not to be done. "You poor little thing, you!" she persisted. "Wherever are you goin', my dear, so alone?" "I'm going to boarding-school," said Laura, and shot a glance at the couple opposite. "To boarding'-school? Peter! D'you hear?--Why, whatever's your ma thinkin' of to send such a little chick as you to boarding'-school? ... and so alone, too." Laura's face took on a curious air of dignity. "I'm not so very little," she answered; and went on to explain, in phrases which she had heard so often that she knew them by heart: "Only small for my age. I was twelve in spring. And I have to go to school, because I've learnt all I can at home." This failed to impress the woman. "Snakes alive!--that's young enough in all conscience. And such a delicate little creature, too. Just like that one o' Sam MacFarlane's that popped off last Christmas--isn't she, Peter?" Peter, who avoided looking at Laura, sheepishly mumbled something about like enough she was. "And who IS your ma, my dear? What's your name?" continued her interrogator. Laura replied politely; but there was a reserve in her manner which, together with the name she gave, told enough: the widow, Laura's mother, had the reputation of being very "stuck-up", and of bringing up her children in the same way. The woman did not press Laura further; she whispered something behind her hand to Peter, then searching in her basket found a large, red apple, which she held out with an encouraging nod and smile. "Here, my dear. Here's something for you. Don't cry any more, don't now. It'll be all right." Laura, who was well aware that she had not shed a tear since the couple entered the coach, colored deeply, and made a movement, half shy, half unwilling, to put her hands behind her. "Oh no, thank you," she said in extreme embarrassment, not wishing to hurt the giver's feelings. "Mother doesn't care for us to take things from strangers." "Bless her soul!" cried the stout woman in amaze. "It's only an apple! Now, my dear, just you take it, and make your mind easy. Your ma wouldn't have nothin' against it to-day, I'm sure o' that--goin' away so far and all so alone like this.--It's sweet and juicy." "It's Melb'm you'll be boun' for I dessay?" said the yellow-haired Peter so suddenly that Laura started. She confirmed this, and let her solemn eyes rest on him wondering why he was so red and fidgety and uncomfortable. The woman said: "Tch, tch, tch!" at the length of the journey Laura was undertaking, and Peter, growing still redder, volunteered another remark. "I was nigh to bein' in Melb'm once meself," he said. "Aye, and he can't never forget it, the silly loon," threw in the woman, but so good-naturedly that it was impossible, Laura felt, for Peter to take offence. She gazed at the pair, speculating upon the relation they stood in to each other. She had obediently put out her hand for the apple, and now sat holding it, without attempting to eat it. It had not been Mother's precepts alone that had weighed with her in declining it; she was mortified at the idea of being bribed, as it were, to be good, just as though she were Pin or one of the little boys. It was a punishment on her for having been so babyish as to cry; had she not been caught in the act, the woman would never have ventured to be so familiar. The very largeness and rosiness of the fruit made it hateful to her, and she turned over in her mind how she could get rid of it. As the coach bumped along, her fellow-passengers sat back and shut their eyes. The road was shade less; beneath the horses' feet a thick red dust rose like smoke. The grass by the wayside, under the scattered gum trees or round the big black boulders that dotted the hillocks, was burnt to straw. In time, Laura also grew drowsy, and she was just falling into a doze when, with a jerk, the coach pulled up at the "Halfway House." Here her companions alighted, and there were more nods and smiles from the woman. "You eat it, my dear. I'm sure your ma won't say nothin'," was her last remark as she pushed the swing-door and vanished into the house, followed by Peter. Then the driver's pleasant face appeared at the window of the coach. In one hand he held a glass, in the other a bottle of lemonade. "Here, little woman, have a drink. It's warm work riding'." Now this was quite different from the matter of the apple. Laura's throat was parched with dust and tears. She accepted the offer gratefully, thinking as she drank how envious Pin would be, could she see her drinking bottle-lemonade. Then the jolting and rumbling began anew. No one else got in, and when they had passed the only two landmarks she knew--the leprous Chinaman's hut and the market garden of Ah Chow, who twice a week jaunted at a half-trot to the township with his hanging baskets, to supply people with vegetables--when they had passed these, Laura fell asleep. She wakened with a start to find that the coach had halted to apply the brakes, at the top of the precipitous hill that led down to the railway township. In a two-wheeled buggy this was an exciting descent; but the coach jammed on both its brakes, moved like a snail, and seemed hardly able to crawl. At the foot of the hill the little town lay sluggish in the sun. Although it was close on midday, but few people were astir in the streets; for the place had long since ceased to be an important mining center: the chief claims were worked out; and the coming of the railway had been powerless to give it the impetus to a new life. It was always like this in these streets of low, verandahed, red-brick houses, always dull and sleepy, and such animation as there was, was invariably to be found before the doors of the many public-houses. At one of these the coach stopped and unloaded its goods, for an interminable time. People came and looked in at the window at Laura, and she was beginning to feel alarmed lest O'Donnell, who had gone inside, had forgotten all about her having to catch the train, when out he came, wiping his lips. "Now for the livin' luggage!" he said with a wink, and Laura drew back in confusion from the laughter of a group of larrikins round the door. It was indeed high time at the station; no sooner was her box dislodged and her ticket taken than the train steamed in. O'Donnell recommended her to the guard's care; she shook hands with him and thanked him, and had just been locked into a carriage by herself when he came running down the platform again, holding in his hand, for everyone to see, the apple, which Laura believed she had safely hidden under the cushions of the coach. Red to the roots of her hair she had to receive it before a number of heads put out to see what the matter was, and she was even forced to thank O'Donnell into the bargain. Then the guard came along once more, and told her he would let no one get in beside her: she need not be afraid. "Yes. And will you please tell me when we come to Melbourne." Directly the train was clear of the station, she lowered a window and, taking aim at a telegraph post, threw the apple from her with all her might. Then she hung out of the window, as far out as she could, till her hat was nearly carried off. This was the first railway journey she had made by herself, and there was an intoxicating sense of freedom in being locked in, alone, within the narrow compass of the compartment. She was at liberty to do everything that had previously been forbidden her: she walked up and down the carriage, jumped from one seat to another, then lay flat on her back singing to herself, and watching the telegraph poles fly past the windows, and the wires mount and descend.--But now came a station and, though the train did not stop, she sat up, in order that people might see she was travelling alone. She grew hungry and attacked her lunch, and it turned out that Mother had not provided too much after all. When she had finished, had brushed herself clean of crumbs and handled, till her finger-tips were sore, the pompous half-crown she had found in her pocket, she fell to thinking of them at home, and of what they would now be doing. It was between two and three o'clock: the sun would be full on the flagstones of the back verandah; inch by inch Pin and Leppie would be driven away to find a cooler spot for their afternoon game, while little Frank slept, and Sarah splashed the dinner-dishes in the brick-floored kitchen. Mother sat sewing, and she would still be sitting there, still sewing, when the shadow of the fir tree, which at noon was shrunken like a dwarf, had stretched to giant size, and the children had opened the front gate to play in the shade of the public footpath.--At the thought of these shadows, of all the familiar things she would not see again for months to come, Laura's eyelids began to smart. They had flashed through several stations; now they stopped; and her mind was diverted by the noise and bustle. As the train swung into motion again, she fell into a pleasanter line of thought. She painted to herself, for the hundredth time, the new life towards which she was journeying, and, as always, in the brightest colours. She had arrived at school, and in a spacious apartment, which was a kind of glorified Mother's drawing-room, was being introduced to a bevy of girls. They clustered round, urgent to make the acquaintance of the newcomer, who gave her hand to each with an easy grace and an appropriate word. They were too well-bred to cast a glance at her clothes, which, however she might embellish them in fancy, Laura knew were not what they ought to be: her ulster was some years old, and so short that it did not cover the flounce of her dress, and this dress, and her hat with it, were Mother's taste, and consequently, Laura felt sure, nobody else's. But her new companions saw that she wore these clothes with an elegance that made up for their shortcomings; and she heard them whisper: "Isn't she pretty? What black eyes! What lovely curls!" But she was not proud, and by her ladylike manners soon made them feel at home with her, even though they stood agape at her cleverness: none of THEM could claim to have absorbed the knowledge of a whole house. With one of her admirers she had soon formed a friendship that was the wonder of all who saw it: in deep respect the others drew back, forming a kind of allee, down which, with linked arms, the two friends sauntered, blind to everything but themselves.--And having embarked thus upon her sea of dreams, Laura set sail and was speedily borne away. "Next station you'll be there, little girl." She sprang up and looked about her, with vacant eyes. This had been the last stoppage, and the train was passing through the flats. In less than two minutes she had collected her belongings, tidied her hair and put on her gloves. Some time afterwards they steamed in alongside a gravelled platform, among the stones of which a few grass-blades grew. This was Melbourne. At the nearer end of the platform stood two ladies, one stout and elderly in bonnet and mantle, with glasses mounted on a black stick, and shortsighted, peering eyes; the other stout and comely, too, but young, with a fat, laughing face and rosy cheeks. Laura descried them a long way off; and, as the carriage swept past them, they also saw her, eager and prominent at her window. Both stared at her, and the younger lady said something, and laughed. Laura instantly connected the remark, and the amusement it caused the speaker, with the showy red lining of her hat, at which she believed their eyes had been directed. She also realized, when it was too late, that her greeting had been childish, unnecessarily effusive; for the ladies had responded only by nods. Here were two thrusts to parry at once, and Laura's cheeks tingled. But she did not cease to smile, and she was still wearing this weak little smile, which did its best to seem easy and unconcerned, when she alighted from the train. Chapter IV. The elderly lady was Laura's godmother; she lived at Prahran, and it was at her house that Laura would sometimes spend a monthly holiday. Godmother was good to them all in a brusque, sharp-tongued fashion; but Pin was her especial favourite and she made no secret of it. Her companion on the platform was a cousin of Laura's, of at least twice Laura's age, who invariably struck awe into the children by her loud and ironic manner of speech. She was an independent, manly person, in spite of her plump roundness's; she lived by herself in lodgings, and earned her own living as a clerk in an office. The first greetings over, Godmother's attention was entirely taken up by Laura's box: after this had been picked out from among the other luggage, grave doubts were expressed whether it could be got on to the back seat of the pony-carriage, to which it was conveyed by a porter and the boy. Laura stood shyly by and waited, while Cousin Grace kept up the conversation by putting abrupt and embarrassing questions. "How's your ma?" she demanded rather than asked, in the slangy and jocular tone she employed. "I guess she'll be thanking her stars she's got rid of you;" at which Laura smiled uncertainly, not being sure whether Cousin Grace spoke in jest or earnest. "I suppose you think no end of yourself going to boarding-school?" continued the latter. "Oh no, not at all," protested Laura with due modesty; and as both at question and answer Cousin Grace laughed boisterously, Laura was glad to hear Godmother calling: "Come, jump in. The ponies won't stand." Godmother was driving herself--a low basket-carriage, harnessed to two buff-coloured ponies. Laura sat with her back to them. Godmother flapped the reins and said: "Get up!" but she was still fretted about the box, which was being held on behind by the boy. An inch larger, she asserted, and it would have had to be left behind. Laura eyed its battered sides uneasily. Godmother might remember, she thought, that it contained her whole wardrobe; and she wondered how many of Godmother's own ample gowns could be compressed into so small a space. "All my clothes are inside," she explained; "that I shall need for months." "Ah, I expect your poor mother has sat up sewing herself to death, that you may be as well dressed as the rest of them," said Godmother, and heaved a doleful sigh. But Cousin Grace laughed the wide laugh that displayed a mouthful of great healthy teeth. "What? All your clothes in there?" she cried. "I say! You couldn't be a queen if you hadn't more togs than that." "Oh, I know," Laura hastened to reply, and grew very red. "Queens need a lot more clothes than I've got." "Tut, tut!" said Godmother: she did not understand the allusion, which referred to a former ambition of Laura's. "Don't talk such nonsense to the child." She drove very badly, and they went by quiet by-streets to escape the main traffic: the pony-chaise wobbled at random from one side of the road to the other, obstacles looming up only just in time for Godmother to see them. The ponies shook and tossed their heads at the constant sawing of the bits, and Laura had to be continually ducking, to keep out of the way of the reins. She let the unfamiliar streets go past her in a kind of dream; and there was silence for a time, broken only by Godmother's expostulations with the ponies, till Cousin Grace, growing tired of playing her bright eyes first on this, then on that, brought them back to Laura and studied her up and down. "I say, who on earth trimmed your hat?" she asked almost at once. "Mother," answered Laura bravely, while the color mounted to her cheeks again. "Well, I guess she made up her mind you shouldn't get lost as long as you wore it," went on her cousin with disconcerting can dour. "It makes you look just like a great big red double dahlia." "Let the child be. She looks well enough," threw in Godmother in her snappish way. But Laura was sure that she, too disapproved; and felt more than she heard the muttered remark about "Jane always having had a taste for something gay." "Oh, I like the colour very much. I chose it myself," said Laura, and looked straight at the two faces before her. But her lips twitched. She would have liked to snatch the hat from her head, to throw it in front of the ponies and hear them trample it under their hoofs. She had never wanted the scarlet lining of the big, upturned brim; in a dislike to being conspicuous which was incomprehensible to Mother, she had implored the latter to "leave it plain". But Mother had said: "Nonsense!" and "Hold your tongue!" and "I know better,"--with this result. Oh yes, she saw well enough how Godmother signed with her eyes to Cousin Grace to say no more; but she pretended not to notice, and for the remainder of the drive nobody spoke. They went past long lines of grey houses, joined one to another and built exactly alike; past large, fenced-in public parks where all kinds of odd, unfamiliar trees grew, with branches that ran right down their trunks, and bushy leaves. The broad streets were hilly; the wind, coming in puffs, met them with clouds of gritty white dust. They had just, with bent heads, their hands at their hats, passed through one of these miniature whirlwinds, when turning a corner they suddenly drew up, and the boy sprang to the ponies' heads. Laura, who had not been expecting the end so soon, saw only a tall wooden fence; but Cousin Grace looked higher, gave a stagey shudder and cried: "Oh my eye Betty Martin! Aren't I glad it isn't me that's going to school! It looks just like a prison." It certainly was an imposing building viewed from within, when the paling-gate had closed behind them. To Laura, who came from a township of one-storied brick or weatherboard houses, it seemed vast in its breadth and height, appalling in its somber greyness. Between Godmother and Cousin Grace she walked up an asphalted path, and mounted the steps that led to a massive stone portico. The bell Godmother rang made no answering sound, but after a very few seconds the door swung back, and a slender maidservant in cap and apron stood before them. She smiled at them pleasantly, as, in Chinaman-fashion, they crossed the threshold; then, inclining her head at a murmured word from Godmother, she vanished as lightly as she had come, and they sat and looked about them. They were in a plainly furnished but very lofty waiting-room. There were two large windows. The venetian blinds had not been lowered, and the afternoon sun, beating in, displayed a shabby patch on the carpet. It showed up, too, a coating of dust that had gathered on the desk-like, central table. There was the faint, distinctive smell of strange furniture. But what impressed Laura most was the stillness. No street noises pierced the massy walls, but neither did the faintest echo of all that might be taking place in the great building itself reach their ears: they sat aloof, shut off, as it were, from the living world. And this feeling soon grew downright oppressive: it must be like this to be dead, thought Laura to herself; and inconsequently remembered a quarter of an hour she had once spent in a dentist's ante-room: there as here the same soundless vacancy, the same anguished expectancy. Now, as then, her heart began to thump so furiously that she was afraid the others would hear it. But they, too, were subdued; though Cousin Grace tittered continually you heard only a gentle wheezing, and even Godmother expressed the hope that they would not be kept waiting long, under her breath. But minute after minute went by; there they sat and nothing happened. It began to seem as if they might sit on for ever. All of a sudden, from out the spacious halls of which they had caught a glimpse on arriving, brisk steps began to come towards them over the oilcloth--at first as a mere tapping in the distance, then rapidly gaining in weight and decision. Laura's palpitations reached their extreme limit--another second and they might have burst her chest. Cousin Grace ceased to giggle; the door opened with a peculiar flourish; and all three rose to their feet. The person who entered was a very stately lady; she wore a cap with black ribbons. With the door-handle still in her hand she made a slight obeisance, in which her whole body joined, afterwards to become more erect than before. Having introduced herself to Godmother as Mrs. Gurley, the Lady Superintendent of the institution, she drew up a chair, let herself down upon it, and began to converse with an air of ineffable condescension. While she talked Laura examined her, with a child's thirst for detail. Mrs. Gurley was large and generous of form, and she carried her head in such a haughty fashion that it made her look taller than she really was. She had a high color, her black hair was touched with grey, her upper teeth were prominent. She wore gold eyeglasses, many rings, a long gold chain, which hung from an immense cameo brooch at her throat, and a black apron with white flowers on it, one point of which was pinned to her ample bosom. The fact that Laura had just such an apron in her box went only a very little way towards reviving her spirits; for altogether Mrs. Gurley was the most impressive person she had ever set eyes on. Beside her, God mother was nothing but a plump, shortsighted fidgety lady. Particularly awe-inspiring was Mrs. Gurley when she listened to another speaking. She held her head a little to one side, her teeth met her underlip and her be-ringed hands toyed incessantly with the long gold chain, in a manner which seemed to denote that she set little value on what was being said. Awful, too, was the habit she had of suddenly lowering her head and looking at you over the tops of her glasses: when she did this, and when her teeth came down on her lip, you would have liked to shrink to the size of a mouse. Godmother, it was true, was not afraid of her; but Cousin Grace was hushed at last and as for Laura herself, she consciously wore a fixed little simper, which was meant to put it beyond doubt that butter would not melt in her mouth. Godmother now asked if she might say a few words in private, and the two ladies left the room. As the door closed behind them Cousin Grace began to be audible again. "Oh, snakes!" she giggled, and her double chin spread itself "There's a Tartar for you! Don't I thank my stars it's not me that's being shunted off here! She'll give you what-for." "I don't think so. I think she's very nice," said Laura staunchly, out of an instinct that made her chary of showing fear, or pain, or grief. But her heart began to bound again, for the moment in which she would be left alone. "You see!" said Cousin Grace. "It'll be bread and water for a week, if you can't do AMARE first go-off--not to mention the deponents." "What's AMARE?" asked Laura anxiously, and her eyes grew so big that they seemed to fill her face. But Cousin Grace only laughed till it seemed probable that she would burst her bodice; and Laura blushed, aware that she had compromised herself anew. There followed a long and nervous pause. "I bet Godmother's asking her not to wallop you too often," the tease had just begun afresh, when the opening of the door forced her to swallow her sentence in the middle. Godmother would not sit down; so the dreaded moment had come. "Now, Laura. Be a good girl and learn well, and be a comfort to your mother.--Not that there's much need to urge her to her books," Godmother interrupted herself, turning to Mrs. Gurley. "The trouble her dear mother has always had has been to keep her from them." Laura glowed with pleasure. Now at least the awful personage would know that she was clever, and loved to learn. But Mrs. Gurley smiled the chilliest thinkable smile of acknowledgment, and did not reply a word. She escorted the other to the front door, and held it open for them to pass out. Then, however, her pretense of affability faded clean away: turning her head just so far that she could look down her nose at her own shoulder, she said: "Follow me!"--in a tone Mother would not have used even to Sarah. Feeling inexpressibly small Laura was about to obey, when a painful thought struck her. "Oh please, I had a box--with my clothes in it!" she cried. "Oh, I hope they haven't forgotten and taken it away again." But she might as well have spoken to the hat stand: Mrs. Gurley had sailed off, and was actually approaching a turn in the hall before Laura made haste to follow her and to keep further anxiety about her box to herself. They went past one staircase, round a bend into shadows as black as if, outside, no sun were shining, and began to ascend another flight of stairs, which was the widest Laura had ever seen. The banisters were as thick as your arm, and on each side of the stair-carpeting the space was broad enough for two to walk abreast: what a splendid game of trains you could have played there! On the other hand the landing windows were so high up that only a giant could have seen out of them. These things occurred to Laura mechanically. What really occupied her, as she trudged behind, was how she could please this hard-faced woman and make her like her, for the desire to please, to be liked by all the world, was the strongest her young soul knew. And there must be a way, for Godmother had found it without difficulty. She took two steps at once, to get nearer to the portly back in front of her. "What a VERY large place this is!" she said in an insinuating voice. She hoped the admiration, thus subtly expressed in the form of surprise, would flatter Mrs. Gurley, as a kind of co-proprietor; but it was evident that it did nothing of the sort: the latter seemed to have gone deaf and dumb, and marched on up the stairs, her hands clasped at her waist, her eyes fixed ahead, like a walking stone-statue. On the top floor she led the way to a room at the end of a long passage. There were four beds in this room, a wash hand-stand, a chest of drawers, and a wall cupboard. But at first sight Laura had eyes only for the familiar object that stood at the foot of one of the beds. "Oh, THERE'S my box!" she cried, "Someone must have brought it up." It was unroped; she had simply to hand over the key. Mrs. Gurley went down on her knees before it, opened the lid, and began to pass the contents to Laura, directing her where to lay and hang them. Overawed by such complaisance, Laura moved nimbly about the room shaking and unfolding, taking care to be back at the box to the minute so as not to keep Mrs. Gurley waiting. And her promptness was rewarded; the stern face seemed to relax. At the mere hint of this, Laura grew warm through and through; and as she could neither control her feelings nor keep them to herself, she rushed to an extreme and overshot the mark. "I've got an apron like that. I think they're so pretty," she said cordially, pointing to the one Mrs. Gurley wore. The latter abruptly stopped her work, and, resting her hands on the sides of the box, gave Laura one of the dreaded looks over her glasses, looked at her from top to toe, and as though she were only now beginning to see her. There was a pause, a momentary suspension of the breath, which Laura soon learned to expect before a rebuke. "Little gels," said Mrs. Gurley--and even in the midst of her confusion Laura could not but be struck by the pronunciation of this word. "Little gels--are required--to wear white aprons when they come here!"--a break after each few words, as well as an emphatic head-shake, accentuated their severity. "And I should like to know, if your mother, has never taught you, that it is very rude, to point, and also to remark, on what people wear." Laura went scarlet: if there was one thing she, Mother all of them prided themselves on, it was the good manners that had been instilled into them since their infancy.--The rough reproof seemed to scorch her. She went to and fro more timidly than before. Then, however, something happened which held a ray of hope. "Why, what is this?" asked Mrs. Gurley freezingly, and held up to view--with the tips of her fingers, Laura thought--a small, black Prayer Book. "Pray, are you not a dissenter?"--For the College was nonconformist. "Well ... no, I'm not," said Laura, in a tone of intense apology. Here, at last, was her chance. "But it really doesn't matter a bit. I can go to another church quite well. I even think I'd rather. For a change. And the service isn't so long, at least so I've heard--except the sermon," she added truthfully. Had she denied religion altogether, the look Mrs. Gurley bent on her could not have been more annihilating. "There is--unfortunately!--no occasion, for you to do anything of the kind," she retorted. "I myself, am an Episcopalian, and I expect those gels, who belong to the Church of England, to attend it, with me." The unpacking at an end, Mrs. Gurley rose, smoothed down her apron, and was just on the point of turning away, when on the bed opposite Laura's she espied an under-garment, lying wantonly across the counterpane. At this blot on the orderliness of the room she seemed to swell like a turkey-cock. seemed literally to grow before Laura's eyes as, striding to the door, she commanded an invisible some one to send Lilith Gordon to her "DI-rectly!"! There was an awful pause; Laura did not dare to raise her head; she even said a little prayer. Mrs. Gurley stood working at her chain, and tapping her foot--like a beast waiting for its prey, thought the child. And at last a hurried step was heard in the corridor, the door opened and a girl came in, high-coloured and scant of breath. Laura darted one glance at Mrs. Gurley's face, then looked away and studied the pattern of a quilt, trying not to hear what was said. Her throat swelled, grew hard and dry with pity for the culprit. But Lilith Gordon--a girl with sandy eyebrows, a turned-up nose, a thick plait of red-gold hair, and a figure so fully developed that Laura mentally dubbed it a "lady's figure", and put its owner down for years older than herself—Lilith Gordon neither fell on her knees nor sank through the floor. Her lashes were lowered, in a kind of dog-like submission, and her face had gone very red when Laura ventured to look at her again; but that was all. And Mrs. Gurley having swept Jove-like from the room, this bold girl actually set her finger to her nose and muttered: "Old Brimstone Beast!" As she passed Laura, too, she put out her tongue and said: "Now then, goggle-eyes, what have you got to stare at?" Laura was deeply hurt: she had gazed at Lilith out of the purest sympathy. And now, as she stood waiting for Mrs. Gurley, who seemed to have forgotten her, the strangeness of things, and the general unfriendliness of the people struck home with full force. The late afternoon sun was shining in, in an unfamiliar way; outside were strange streets, strange noises, a strange white dust, the expanse of a big, strange city. She felt unspeakably far away now, from the small, snug domain of home. Here, nobody wanted her .. she was alone among strangers, who did not even like her ... she had already, without meaning it, offended two of them. Another second, and the shameful tears might have found their way out. But at this moment there was a kind of preparatory boom in the distance, and the next, a great bell clanged through the house, pealing on and on, long after one's ears were rasped by the din. It was followed by an exodus from the rooms round about; there was a sound of voices and of feet. Mrs. Gurley ceased to give orders in the passage, and returning, bade Laura put on a pinafore and follow her. They descended the broad staircase. At a door just at the foot, Mrs. Gurley paused and smoothed her already faultless bands of hair; then turned the handle and opened the door, with the majestic swing Laura had that day once before observed. Chapter V. Fifty-five heads turned as if by clockwork, and fifty-five pairs of eyes were levelled at the small girl in the white apron who meekly followed Mrs. Gurley down the length of the dining-room. Laura crimsoned under the unexpected ordeal, and tried to fix her attention on the flouncing of Mrs. Gurley's dress. The room seemed hundreds of feet long, and not a single person at the tea-tables but took stock of her. The girls made no scruple of leaning backwards and forwards, behind and before their neighbors, in order to see her better, and even the governesses were not above having a look. All were standing. On Mrs. Gurley assigning Laura a place at her own right hand, Laura covered herself with confusion by taking her seat at once, before grace had been said, and before the fifty-five had drawn in their chairs with the noise of a cavalry brigade on charge. She stood up again immediately, but it was too late; an audible titter whizzed round the table: the new girl had sat down. For minutes after, Laura was lost in the pattern on her plate; and not till tongues were loosened and dishes being passed, did she venture to steal a glance round. There were four tables, with a governess at the head and foot of each to pour out tea. It was more of a hall than a room and had high, church-like windows down one side. At both ends were scores of pigeon-holes. There was a piano in it and a fireplace; it had pale blue walls, and only strips of carpet on the floor. At present it was darkish, for the windows did not catch the sun. Laura was roused by a voice at her side; turning, she found her neighbor offering her a plate of bread. "No, thank you," she said impulsively; for the bread was cut in chunks, and did not look inviting. But the girl nudged her on the sly. "You'd better take some," she whispered. Laura then saw that there was nothing else. But she saw, too, the smiles and signs that again flew round: the new girl had said no. Humbly she accepted the butter and the cup of tea which were passed to her in turn, and as humbly ate the piece of rather stale bread. She felt forlornly miserable under the fire of all these unkind eyes, which took a delight in marking her slips: at the smallest further mischance she might disgrace herself by bursting out crying. Just at this moment, however, something impelled her to look up. Her vis-a-vis, whom she had as yet scarcely noticed, was staring hard. And now, to her great surprise, this girl winked at her, winked slowly and deliberately with the right eye. Laura was so discomposed that she looked away again at once, and some seconds elapsed before she was brave enough to take another peep. The wink was repeated. It was a black-haired girl this time, a girl with small blue eyes, a pale, freckled skin, and large white teeth. What most impressed Laura, though, was her extraordinary gravity: she chewed away with a face as solemn as a parson's; and then just when you were least expecting it, came the wink. Laura was fascinated: she lay in wait for it beforehand and was doubtful whether to feel offended by it or to laugh at it. But at least it made her forget her mishaps, and did away with the temptation to cry. When, however, Mrs. Gurley had given the signal, and the fifty-five had pushed back their chairs and set them to the table again with the same racket as before, Laura's position was a painful one. Everybody pushed, and talked, and laughed, in a hurry to leave the hall, and no one took any notice of her except to stare. After some indecision, she followed the rest through a door. Here she found herself on a verandah facing the grounds of the school. There was a long bench, on which several people were sitting: she took a modest seat at one end. Two of the younger governesses looked at her and laughed, and made a remark. She saw her room-mate, Lilith Gordon, arm in arm with a couple of companions. The winker of the tea-table turned out to be a girl of her own age, but of a broader make; she had fat legs, which were encased in thickly-ribbed black stockings. As she passed the bench she left the friend she was with, to come up to Laura and dig her in the ribs. "DIDN'T she like her bread and butter, poor little thing?" she said. Laura shrank from the dig, which was rough; but she could not help smiling shyly at the girl, who looked good-natured. If only she had stayed and talked to her! But she was off and away, her arm round a comrade's neck. Besides herself, there was now only an elderly governess left, who was reading. She, Laura, in her solitude, was conspicuous to every eye. But at this juncture up came two rather rollicking older girls, one of whom was fair, with a red complexion. AS soon as their loud voices had driven the governess away, the smaller of the two, who had a pronounced squint, turned to Laura. "Hullo, you kid," she said, "what's YOUR name?" Laura artlessly replied. She was dumbfounded by the storm of merriment that followed. Maria Morell, the fat girl, went purple, and had to be thumped on the back by her friend. "Oh, my!" she gasped, when she had got her breath. "Oh, my ... hold me, some one, or I shall split! Oh, golly! Laura ... Tweedle ... Rambo ham--Laura ... Tweedle ... Rambo ham! ..." her voice tailed off again. "Gosh! Was there ever such a name?" She laughed till she could laugh no more, rocking backwards and forwards and from side to side; while her companion proceeded to make further inquiries. "Where do you come from?" the squint demanded of Laura, in a business-like way. Laura named the township, quaveringly. "What's your father?" "He's dead," answered the child. "Well, but I suppose he was alive once wasn't he, duffer? What was he before he was dead?" "A barrister." "What did he die of?" "Consumption." "How many servants do you keep?" "One." "How much have you got a year?" "I don't know." "How old are you?" "Twelve and a quarter." "Who made your dress?" "Mother." "Oh, I say, hang it, that's enough. Stop teasing the kid," said Maria Morell, when the laughter caused by the last admission had died away. But the squint spied a friend, ran to her, and there was a great deal of whispering and sniggering. Presently the pair came sauntering up and sat down; and after some artificial humming and hawing the newcomer began to talk, in a loud and fussy manner, about certain acquaintances of hers called Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Both the fat girl and the squint "split" with laughter. Laura sat with her hands locked one inside the other; there was no escape for her, for she did not know where to go. But when the third girl put the regulation question: "What's your name and what's your father?" she turned on her, with the courage of despair. "What's yours?" she retorted hotly, at the same time not at all sure how the big girl might revenge herself. To her relief, the others burst out laughing at their friend's bafflement. "That's one for you, Kate Horner," said Maria with a chuckle. "Not bad for the kid.--Come on, Kid, will you have a walk round the garden?" "Oh yes, PLEASE," said Laura, reddening with pleasure; and there she was, arm in arm with her fat savior, promenading the grounds like any other of the fifty-five. She assumed, as well as she could, an air of feeling at her ease even in the presence of the cold and curious looks that met her. The fat girl was protective, and Laura felt too grateful to her to take it amiss that every now and then she threw back her head and laughed anew, at the remembrance of Laura's patronymics; or that she still exchanged jokes about them with the other couple, when they met. But by this time half an hour had slipped away, and the girls were fast disappearing. Maria Morell loitered till the last minute, then said, she, too, must be off to 'stew'. Every one was hastening across the verandah laden with books, and disappearing down a corridor. Left alone, Laura made her way back to the dining-hall. Here some of the very young boarders were preparing their lessons, watched over by a junior governess. Laura lingered for a little, to see if no order were forthcoming, then diffidently approached the table and asked the governess if she would please tell her what to do. "I'm sure I don't know," answered that lady, disinclined for responsibility. "You'd better ask Miss Chapman. Here, Maggie, show her where the study is." Laura followed the little girl over the verandah and down the corridor. At the end, the child pointed to a door, and on opening this Laura found herself in a very large brightly lighted room, where the boarders sat at two long tables with their books before them. Every head was raised at her entrance. In great embarrassment, she threaded her way to the more authoritative-looking of the governesses in charge, and proffered her request. It was not understood, and she had to repeat it. "I'm sure I don't know," said Miss Day in her turn: she had stiff, black, wavy hair, a vivid colour, and a big, thick nose which made her profile resemble that of a horse. "Can't you twiddle your thumbs for a bit?--Oh well, if you're so desperately anxious for an occupation, you'd better ask Miss Chapman." The girls in the immediate neighborhood laughed noiselessly, in a bounden-duty kind of way, at their superior's pleasantry, and Laura, feeling as though she had been hit, crossed to the other table. Miss Chapman, the head governess, was neither so hard-looking nor so brilliant as Miss Day. She even eyed Laura somewhat uneasily, meanwhile toying with a long gold chain, after the manner of the Lady Superintendent. "Didn't Mrs. Gurley tell you what to do?" she queried. "I should think it likely she would. Oh well, if she didn't, I suppose you'd better bring your things downstairs. Yes ... and ask Miss Zielinski to give you a shelf." Miss Zielinski--she was the governess in the dining-hall--said: "Oh, very well," in the rather whiny voice that seemed natural to her, and went on reading. "Please, I don't think I know my way," ventured Laura. "Follow your nose and you'll find it!" said Miss Zielinski without looking up, and was forthwith wrapt in her novel again. Once more Laura climbed the wide staircase: it was but dimly lighted, and the passages were in darkness. After a few false moves she found her room, saw that her box had been taken away, her books left lying on a chair. But instead of picking them up, she threw herself on her bed and buried her face in the pillow. She did not dare to cry, for fear of making her eyes red, but she hugged the cool linen to her cheeks. "I hate them all," she said passionately, speaking aloud to herself. "Oh, HOW I hate them!"--and wild schemes of vengeance flashed through her young mind. She did not even halt at poison or the knife: a big cake, sent by Mother, of which she invited all alike to partake, and into which she inserted a fatal poison, so that the whole school died like rabbits; or a nightly stabbing, a creeping from bed to bed in the dark, her penknife open in her hand... But she had not lain thus for more than a very few minutes when steps came along the passage; and she had only just time to spring to her feet before one of the little girls appeared at the door. "You're to come down at once." "Don't you know you're not ALLOWED to stay upstairs?" asked Miss Zielinski crossly. "What were you doing?" And as Laura did not reply: "What was she doing, Jessie?" "I don't know," said the child. "She was just standing there." And all the little girls laughed, after the manner of their elders. Before Laura had finished arranging her belongings on the shelves that were assigned to her, some of the older girls began to drop in from the study. One unceremoniously turned over her books, which were lying on the table. "Let's see what the kid's got." Now Laura was proud of her collection: it really made a great show; For a daughter of Godmother's had once attended the College, and her equipment had been handed down to Laura. "Why, you don't mean to say a kid like you's in the Second Principia already?" said a big girl, and held up, incredulously, Smith's black and red boards. "Wherever did YOU learn Latin?" In the reediest of voices Laura was forced to confess that she had never learnt Latin at all. The girl eyed her in dubious amaze, then burst out laughing. "Oh, I say!" she called to a friend. "Here's a rum go. Here's this kid brings the Second Principia with her and doesn't know the First." Several others crowded round; and all found this divergence from the norm, from the traditional method of purchasing each book new and as it was needed, highly ridiculous. Laura, on her knees before her shelf, pretended to be busy; but she could not see what she was doing, for the mist that gathered in her eyes. Just at this moment, however, in marched Maria Morell. "Here, I say, stop that!" she cried. "You're teasing that kid again. I won't have it. Here, come on, Kid--Laura Tweedledum come and sit by me for supper." For the second time, Laura was thankful to the fat girl. But as ill-luck would have it, Miss Chapman chanced to let her eyes stray in their direction; and having fingered her chain indecisively for a little, said: "It seems a pity, doesn't it, Miss Day, that that nice little girl should get in with that vulgar set?" Miss Chapman liked to have her opinions confirmed. But this was a weakness Miss Day did not pamper; herself strong-minded, she could afford to disregard Miss Chapman's foibles. So she went on with her book, and ignored the question. But Miss Zielinski, who lost no opportunity of making herself agreeable to those over her, said with foreign emphasis: "Yes, indeed it does." So Laura was summoned and made to sit down at the end of the room, close to the governesses and beside the very big girls--girls of eighteen and nineteen, who seemed older still to her, with their figures, and waists, and skirts that touched the ground. Instinctively she felt that they resented her proximity. The biggest of all, a pleasant-faced girl with a kind smile, said on seeing her downcast air: "Poor little thing! Never mind." But when they talked among themselves they lowered their voices and cast stealthy glances at her, to see if she were listening. Supper over, three chairs were set out in an exposed position; the big bell in the passage was lightly touched; everyone fetched a hymn-book, one with music in it being handed to Miss Chapman at the piano. The door opened to admit first Mrs. Gurley, then the Principal and his wife--a tall, fair gentleman in a long coat, and a sweet-faced lady, who wore a rose in her velvet dress. "Let us sing in the hundred and fifty-seventh hymn," said the gentleman, who had a Grecian profile and a drooping, sandy moustache; and when Miss Chapman had played through the tune, the fifty-five, the governesses, the lady and gentleman rose to their feet and sang, with halting emphasis, of the Redeemer and His mercy, to Miss Chapman's accompaniment, which was as indecisive as her manner, the left hand dragging lamely along after the right. "Let us read in the third chapter of the Second Epistle of Paul to the Thessalonians." Everyone laid her hymn-book on the table and sat down to listen to Paul's words, which the sandy gentleman read to a continual nervous movement of the left leg. "Let us pray." Obeying the word, the fifty-five rose, faced about, and knelt to their chairs. It was an extempore prayer, and a long one, and Laura did not hear much of it; for the two big girls on her right kept up throughout a running conversation. Also, when it was about half over she was startled to hear Miss Zielinski say, in a shrill whisper: "Heavens! There's that mouse again," and audibly draw her skirts round her. Even Miss Chapman, praying to her piano-chair some distance off, had heard, and turned her head to frown rebuke. The prayer at an end, Mr. and Mrs. Strachey bowed vaguely in several directions, shook hands with the governesses, and left the room. This was the signal for two of the teachers to advance with open Bibles. "Here, little one, have you learned your verse?" whispered Laura's pleasant neighbor. Laura knew nothing of it; but the big girl lent her a Bible, and, since it was not a hard verse and every girl repeated it, it was quickly learned. I WISDOM DWELL WITH PRUDENCE AND FIND OUT KNOWLEDGE OF WITTY INVENTIONS. Told off in batches, they filed up the stairs. On the first landing stood Miss Day, watching with lynx-eyes to see that no books or eatables were smuggled to the bedrooms. In a strident voice she exhorted the noisy to silence, and the loiterers to haste. Laura sped to her room. She was fortunate enough to find it still empty. Tossing off her clothes, she gabbled ardently through her own prayers, drew the blankets up over her head, and pretended to be asleep. Soon the lights were out and all was quiet. Then, with her face burrowed deep, so that not a sound could escape, she gave free play to her tears. Chapter VI. My dear mother i sent you a postcard did you get it. I told you i got here all right and liked it very much. I could not write a long letter before i had no time and we are only allowed to write letters two evenings a week Tuesday and Friday. When we have done our lessons for next day we say please may i write now and miss chapman says have you done everything and if we say we have she says yes and if you sit at miss days table miss day says it. And sometimes we haven't but we say so. I sit up by miss chapman and she can see everything i do and at tea and dinner and Breakfast i sit beside Mrs. Gurley. Another girl in my class sits Opposite and one sits beside me and we would rather sit somewhere else. I don't care for Mrs. Gurley much she is very fat and never smiles and Never listens to what you say unless she scolds you and i think miss Chapman is afraid of her to. Miss day is not afraid of anybody. I am in The first class. I am in the college and under that is the school. Only Very little girls are in the school they go to bed at half past eight And do their lessons in the dining hall. I do mine in the study and go To bed with the big girls. They wear dresses down to the ground. Lilith Gordon is a girl in my class she is in my room to she is only as old as Me and she wears stays and has a beautiful figure. All the girls wear Stays. Please send me some i have no waste. A governess sleeps in our Room and she has no teeth. She takes them out every night and puts them In water when the light is out. Lilith Gordon and the other girl say Goodnight to her after she has taken them off then she cant talk Properly and we want to hear her. I think she knows for she is very Cross. I don't learn Latin yet till i go into the second class my sums Are very hard. For supper there is only bread and butter and water if We don't have cake and jam of our own. Please send me some strawberry jam and another cake. Tell sarah there are three servants to wait at dinner they have white aprons and a cap on their heads. They say will you take beef miss i remain, Your loving daughter : Laura. Dear pin: I am very busy i will write you a letter. You would not like being here I think you should always stop at home you will never get as far as Long division. Mrs. Gurley is an awful old beast all the girls call her That. You would be frightened of her. In the afternoon after school we Walk two and two and you ask a girl to walk with you and if you don't You have to walk with miss chapman. Miss chapman and miss day walks Behind and they watch to see you don't laugh at boys. Some girls write Letters to them and say they will meet them up behind a tree in the Corner of the garden a paling is lose and the boys put letters in. I Think boys are silly but Maria morel says they are tip top that means Awfully jolly. She writes a letter to boys every week she takes it to Church and drops it coming out and he picks it up and puts an answer Through the fence. We put our letters on the mantelpiece in the Dining-hall and Mrs. Gurley or miss chapman read the address to see we Don't write to boys. They are shut up she cant read the inside. I hope You don't cry so much at school no one cries. Now miss chapman says it Is time to stop I remain Your affectionate sister Laura. P.S. I took the red lineing out of my hat. Warrenega Sunday. My dear Laura: We were very glad to get your letters which came this morning. Your Postcard written the day after you arrived at the college told us Little or nothing. However godmother was good enough to write us an Account of your arrival so that we were not quite without news of you. I hope you remembered to thank her for driving in all that way to meet You and take you to school which was very good of her. I am glad to Hear you are settling down and feeling happy and I hope you will work Hard and distinguish yourself so that I may be proud of you. But there Are several things in your letters I do not like. Did you really think I shouldn't read what you wrote to pin. You are a very foolish girl if You did. Pin the silly child tried to hide it away because she knew it Would make me cross but I insisted on her showing it to me and I am Ashamed of you for writing such nonsense to her. Maria morel must be a Very vulgar minded girl to use the expressions she does. I hope my Little girl will try to only associate with nice minded girls. I didn't Send you to school to get nasty ideas put into your head but to learn Your lessons well and get on. If you write such vulgar silly things Again I shall complain to Mrs. Gurley or Mr. Strachey about the tone of The college and what goes on behind their backs. I think it is very Rude of you too to call Mrs. Gurley names. Also about the poor Governess who has to wear false teeth. Wait till all your own teeth are Gone and then see how you will like it. I do want you to have nice Feelings and not grow rough and rude. There is evidently a very bad Tone among some of the girls and you must be careful in choosing your Friends. I am sorry to hear you are only in the lowest class. It would Have pleased me better if you had got into the second but i always told You you were lazy about your sums--you can do them well enough if you Like. You don't need stays. I have never worn them myself and i don't Intend you to either. Your own muscles are quite strong enough to bear The weight of your back. Bread and water is not much of a supper for You to go to bed on. I will send you another cake soon and some jam and I hope you will share it with the other girls. Now try and be sensible And industrious and make nice friends and then i shant have to scold you . Your loving mother. J.T.R P.S. Another thing in your letter i don't like. You say you tell your Governess you have finished your lessons when you have not done so. That is telling an untruth and i hope you are not going to be led away By the examples of bad girls. I have always brought you children up to Be straightforward and i am astonished at you beginning fibbing as soon As you get away from home. Fibbing soon leads to something worse. P.P.S. You must have written your letter in a great hurry for your Spelling is anything but perfect. You are a very naughty girl to meddle With your hat. Pin has written a letter which i enclose though her Spelling is worse than ever. Dear Laura: Mother says you are a very silly girl to rite such silly letters i think You are silly to i shood be frightened of Mrs. Girly i don't want to go to School I wood rather stop with mother and be a comfort to her i think it Is naughty to drop letters in church and verry silly to rite to boys boys Are so silly Sarah sends her luv she says she wood not ware a cap on her Hed not for anything she says she wood just as soon ware a ring through Her nose. I remain Your loving sister pin. Dear mother: Please please don't write to Mrs. Gurley about the tone in the college Or not to Mr. Strachey either. I will never be so silly again. I am Sorry my letters were so silly i wont do it again. Please don't write To them about it. I don't go much with Maria morel now i think she she Is vulgar to. I know two nice girls now in my own class their names are Inez and bertha they are very nice and not at all vulgar. Maria morel Is fat and has a red face she is much older than me and i don't care For her now. Please don't write to Mrs. Gurley i will never call her Names again. I had to write my letter quickly because when i have done My lessons it is nearly time for supper. I am sorry my spelling was Wrong I will take more pains next time I will learn hard and get on and Soon I will be in the second class. I did not mean I said I had done my Lessons when I had not done them the other girls say it and I think it Is very wrong of them. Please don't write to Mrs. Gurley I will try and Be good and sensible and not do it again if you only wont write. I remain Your affectionate daughter Laura. P.S. I can do my sums better now. Warrenega My dear Laura My letter evidently gave you a good fright and i am not sorry to hear It for i think you deserved it for being such a foolish girl. I hope You will keep your promise and not do it again. Of course i don't mean That you are not to tell me everything that happens at school but I Want you to only have nice thoughts and feelings and grow into a wise And sensible girl. I am not going to write a long letter today. This is only a line to comfort you and let you know that i shall not Write to Mrs. Gurley or Mr. Strachey as long as i see that you are Being a good girl and getting on well with your lessons. I do want you To remember that you are a lady though you are poor and must behave in A ladylike way. You don't tell me what the food at the college is like And whether you have blankets enough on your bed at night. Do try and Remember to answer the questions I ask you. Sarah is busy washing today And the children are helping her by sitting with their arms in the Tubs. I am to tell you from pin that muggy is molting badly and has Not eaten much since you left which is just three weeks today Your loving Mother. Friday; My dear mother I was so glad to get your letter i am so glad you will not write to Mrs. Gurley this time and i will promise to be very good and try to Remember everything you tell me. I am sorry i forgot to answer the Questions i have two blankets on my bed and it is enough. The food is Very nice for dinner for tea we have to eat a lot of bread and butter I Don't care for bread much. Sometimes we have jam but we are not allowed To eat butter and jam together. A lot of girls get up at six and go Down to practice they don't dress and have their bath they just put on Their dressing gowns on top of their night gowns. I don't go down now Till seven i make my own bed. We have prayers in the morning and the Evening and prayers again when the day scholars come. I do my sums Better now i think i shall soon be in the second class. Pins spelling Was dreadful and she is nearly nine now and is such a baby the girls Would laugh at her. I remain Your affectionate daughter Laura. P.S. I parsed a long sentence without any mistakes. Chapter VII. The mornings were beginning to grow dark and chilly: fires were laid overnight in the outer classrooms--and the junior governess who was on early duty, having pealed the six-o'clock bell, flitted like a grey wraith from room to room and from one gas-jet to another, among stretched, sleeping forms. And the few minutes' grace at an end, it was a cold, unwilling pack that threw off coverlets and jumped out of bed, to tie on petticoats and snuggle into dressing-gowns and shawls; for the first approach of cooler weather was keenly felt, after the summer heat. The governess blew on speedily chilblained fingers, in making her rounds of the verandahs to see that each of the twenty pianos was rightly occupied; and, as winter crept on, its chief outward sign an occasional thin white spread of frost which vanished before the mighty sun of ten o'clock, she sometimes took the occupancy for granted, and skipped an exposed room. At eight, the boarders assembled in the dining-hall for prayers and breakfast. After this meal it was Mrs. Gurley's custom to drink a glass of hot water. While she sipped, she gave audience, meting out rebukes and crushing complaints--were any bold enough to offer them—standing erect behind her chair at the head of the table, supported by one or more of the staff. To suit the season she was draped in a shawl of crimson wool, which reached to the flounce of her skirt, and was borne by her portly shoulders with the grace of a past day. Beneath the shawl, her dresses were built, year in, year out, on the same plan: cut in one piece, buttoning right down the front, they fitted her like an eel skin, rigidly outlining her majestic proportions, and always short enough to show a pair of surprisingly small, well-shod feet. Thus she stood, sipping her water, and boring with her hard, unflagging eye every girl that presented herself to it. Most shrank noiselessly away as soon as breakfast was over; for, unless one was very firm indeed in the conviction of one's own innocence, to be beneath this eye was apt to induce a disagreeable sense of guilt. In the case of Mrs. Gurley, familiarity had never been known to breed contempt. She was possessed of what was little short of genius, for ruling through fear; and no more fitting overseer could have been set at the head of these half-hundred girls, of all ages and degrees: gentle and common; ruly and unruly, children hardly out of the nursery, and girls well over the brink of womanhood, whose ripe, bursting forms told their own tale; the daughters of poor ministers at reduced fees; and the spoilt heiresses of wealthy wool-brokers and squatters, whose dowries would mount to many thousands of pounds.--Mrs. Gurley was equal to them all. In a very short time, there was no more persistent shirker from the ice of this gaze than little Laura. In the presence of Mrs. Gurley the child had a difficulty in getting her breath. Her first week of school life had been one unbroken succession of snubs and reprimands. For this, the undue familiarity of her manner was to blame: she was all too slow to grasp-- -being of an impulsive disposition and not naturally shy--that it was indecorous to accost Mrs. Gurley off-hand, to treat her, indeed, in any way as if she were an ordinary mortal. The climax had come one morning--it still made Laura's cheeks burn to remember it. She had not been able to master her French lesson for that day, and seeing Mrs. Gurley chatting to a governess had gone thoughtlessly up to her and tapped her on the arm. "Mrs. Gurley, please, do you think it would matter very much if I only took half this verb today? It's COUDRE, and means to sew, you know, and it's SO hard. I don't seem to be able to get it into my head." Before the words were out of her mouth, she saw that she had made a terrible mistake. Mrs. Gurley's face, which had been smiling, froze to stone. She looked at her arm as though the hand had bitten her, and Laura's sudden shrinking did not move her, to whom seldom anyone addressed a word unbidden. "How DARE you interrupt me--when I am speaking!"--she hissed, punctuating her words with the ominous head-shakes and pauses. "The first thing, miss, for you to do, will be, to take a course of lessons, in manners. Your present ones, may have done well enough, in the outhouse, to which you have evidently belonged. They will not do, here, in the company of your betters." Above the child's head the two ladies smiled significantly at each other, assured that, after this, there would be no further want of respect; but Laura did not see them. The iron of the thrust went deep down into her soul: no one had ever yet cast a slur upon her home. Retreating to a lavatory she cried herself nearly sick, making her eyes so red that she was late for prayers in trying to wash them white. Since that day, she had never of her own free will approached Mrs. Gurley again, and even avoided those places where she was likely to be found. This was why one morning, some three weeks later, on discovering that she had forgotten one of her lesson-books, she hesitated long before re-entering the dining-hall. The governesses still clustered round their chief, and the pupils were not expected to return. But it was past nine o'clock; in a minute the public prayer-bell would ring, which united boarders, several hundred day-scholars, resident and visiting teachers in the largest class-room; and Laura did not know her English lesson. So she stole in, cautiously dodging behind the group, in a twitter lest the dreaded eyes should turn her way. It was Miss Day who spied her and demanded an explanation. "Such carelessness! You girls would forget your heads if they weren't screwed on," retorted the governess, in the dry, violent manner that made her universally disliked. Thankful to escape with this, Laura picked out her book and hurried from the room. But the thoughts of the group had been drawn to her. "The greatest little oddity we've had here for some time," pronounced Miss Day, pouting her full bust in decisive fashion. "She is, indeed," agreed Miss Zielinski. "I don't know what sort of a place she comes from, I'm sure," continued the former: "but it must be the end of creation. She's utterly no idea of what's what, and as for her clothes they're fit for a Punch and Judy show." "She's had no training either--stupid, I call her," chimed in one of the younger governesses, whose name was Miss Snodgrass. "She doesn't know the simplest things, and her spelling is awful. And yet, do you know, at history the other day, she wanted to hold forth about how London looked in Elizabeth's reign--when she didn't know a single one of the dates!" "She can say some poetry," said Miss Zielinski. "And she's read Scott." One and all shook their heads at this, and Mrs. Gurley went on shaking hers and smiling grimly. "Ah! the way gels are brought up nowadays," she said. "There was no such thing in my time. We were made to learn what would be of some use and help to us afterwards." Elderly Miss Chapman twiddled her chain. "I hope I did right Mrs. Gurley. She had one week's early practice, but she looked so white all day after it that I haven't put her down for it again. I hope I did right?" "Oh, well, we don't want to have them ill, you know," replied Mrs. Gurley, in the rather irresponsive tone she adopted towards Miss Chapman. "As long as it isn't mere laziness." "I don't think she's lazy," said Miss Chapman. "At least she takes great pains with her lessons at night." This was true. Laura tried her utmost, with an industry born of despair. For the comforting assurance of speedy promotion, which she had given Mother, had no root in fact. These early weeks only served to reduce, bit by bit, her belief in her own knowledge. How slender this was, and of how little use to her in her new state, she did not dare to confess even to herself. Her disillusionment had begun the day after her arrival, when Dr Pugh son, the Headmaster, to whom she had gone to be examined in arithmetic, flung up hands of comical dismay at her befogged attempts to solve the mysteries of long division. An upper class was taking a lesson in Euclid, and in the intervals between her mazy reckonings she had stolen glances at the master. A tiny little nose was as if squashed flat on his face, above a grotesquely expressive mouth, which displayed every one of a splendid set of teeth. He had small, short-sighted, red-rimmed eyes, and curly hair which did not stop growing at his ears, but went on curling, closely cropped, down the sides of his face. He taught at the top of his voice, thumped the blackboard with a pointer, was biting at the expense of a pupil who confused the angle BFC with the angle BFG, a moment later to volley forth a broad Irish joke which convulsed the class. He bewitched Laura; she forgot her sums in the delight of watching him; and this made her learning seem a little scantier than it actually was; for she had to wind up in a great hurry. He pounced down upon her; the class laughed anew at his playful horror; and yet again at the remark that it was evident she had never had many pennies to spend, or she would know better what to do with the figures that represented them.--In these words Laura scented a reference to Mother's small income, and grew as red as fire. In the lowest class in the College she sat bottom, for a week or more: what she did know, she knew in such an awkward form that she might as well have known nothing. And after a few efforts to better her condition she grew cautious, and hesitated discreetly before returning one of those ingenuous answers which, in the beginning, had made her the merry-andrew of the class. She could for instance, read a French story-book without skipping very many words; but she had never heard a syllable of the language spoken, and her first attempts at pronunciation caused even Miss Zielinski to sit back in her chair and laugh till the tears ran down her face. History Laura knew in a vague, pictorial way: she and Pin had enacted many a striking scene in the garden--such as "Not Angles but Angels, or, did the pump-drain overflow, Canute and his silly courtiers--and she also had out-of-the-way scraps of information about the characters of some of the monarchs, or, as the governess had complained, about the state of London at a certain period; but she had never troubled her head with dates. Now they rose before her, a hard, dry, black line from 1066 on, accompanied, not only by the kings who were the cause of them, but by dull laws, and their duller repeals. Her lessons in English alone gave her a mild pleasure; she enjoyed taking a sentence to pieces to see how it was made. She was fond of words, too, for their own sake, and once, when Miss Snodgrass had occasion to use the term "eleemosynary", Laura was so enchanted by it that she sought to share her enthusiasm with her neighbor. This girl, a fat little Jewess, went crimson, from trying to stifle her laughter. "What IS the matter with you girls down there?" cried Miss Snodgrass. "Carrie Isaacs, what are you laughing like that for?" "It's Laura Rambo ham, Miss Snodgrass. She's so funny," spluttered the girl. "What are you doing, Laura?" Laura did not answer. The girl spoke for her. "She said--hee, hee!--she said it was blue." "Blue? What's blue?" snapped Miss Snodgrass. "That word. She said it was so beautiful ... and that it was blue." "I didn't. Grey-blue, I said," murmured Laura her cheeks aflame. The class rocked; even Miss Snodgrass herself had to join in the laugh while she hushed and reproved. And sometimes after this, when a particularly long or odd word occurred in the lesson, she would turn to Laura and say jocosely: "Now, Laura, come on, tell us what color that is. Red and yellow, don't you think?" But these were "Tom Fool's colors"; and Laura kept a wise silence. One day at geography, the pupils were required to copy the outline of the map of England. Laura, about to begin, found to her dismay that she had lost her pencil. To confess the loss meant one of the hard, public rebukes from which she shrank. And so, while the others drew, heads and backs bent low over their desks, she fidgeted and sought--on her [P.72] lap, the bench, the floor. "What on earth's the matter?" asked her neighbor crossly; it was the black-haired boarder who had winked at Laura the first evening at tea; her name was Bertha Ramsey. "I can't draw a stroke if you shake like that." "I've lost my pencil." The girl considered Laura for a moment, then pushed the lid from a box of long, beautifully sharpened drawing-pencils. "Here, you can have one of these." Laura eyed the well-filled box admiringly, and modestly selected the shortest pencil. Bertha Ramsay, having finished her map, leaned back in her seat. "And next time you feel inclined to boo-hoo at the tea-table, hold on to your eyebrows and sing Rule Britannia.--DID it want its mummy, poor ickle sing?" Here Bertha's chum, a girl called Inez, chimed in from the other side. "It's all very well for you," she said to Bertha, in a deep, slow voice. "You're a weekly boarder." Laura had the wish to be very pleasant, in return for the pencil. So she drew a sigh, and said, with over-emphasis: "How nice for your mother to have you home every week!" Bertha only laughed at this, in a teasing way: "Yes, isn't it?" But Inez leaned across behind her and gave Laura a poke. "Shut up!" she telegraphed. "Who's talking down there?" came the governess's cry. "Here you, the new girl, Laura what's--your-name, come up to the map." A huge map of England had been slung over an easel; Laura was required to take the pointer and show where Stafford lay. With the long stick in her hand, she stood stupid and confused. In this exigency, it did not help her that she knew, from hear-say, just how England looked; that she could see, in fancy, its ever-green grass, thick hedges, and spreading trees; its never-dry rivers; its hoary old cathedrals; its fogs, and sea-mists, and over-populous cities. She stood face to face with the most puzzling map in the world--a map seared and scored with boundary-lines, black and bristling with names. She could not have laid her finger on London at this moment, and as for Stafford, it might have been in the moon. While the class straggled along the verandah at the end of the hour, Inez came up to Laura's side. "I say, you shouldn't have said that about her mother." She nodded mysteriously. "Why not?" asked Laura, and colored at the thought that she had again, without knowing it, been guilty of a FAUX PAS. Inez looked round to see that Bertha was not within hearing, then put her lips to Laura's ear. "She drinks." Laura gaped incredulous at the girl, her young eyes full of horror. From actual experience, she hardly knew what drunkenness meant; she had hitherto associated it only with the lowest class of Irish agricultural labourer, or with those dreadful white women who lived, by choice, in Chinese Camps. That there could exist a mother who drank was unthinkable ... outside the bounds of nature. "Oh, how awful!" she gasped, and turned pale with excitement. Inez could not help giggling at the effect produced by her words--the new girl was a 'rum stick' and no mistake--but as Laura's consternation persisted, she veered about. "Oh, well, I don't know for certain if that's it. But there's something awfully queer about her." "Oh, HOW do you know?" asked her breathless listener, mastered by a morbid curiosity. "I've been there--at Values--from a Saturday till Monday. She came in to lunch, and she only talked to herself, not to us. She tried to eat mustard with her pudding too, and her meat was cut up in little pieces for her. I guess if she'd had a knife she'd have cut our throats." "Oh!" was all Laura could get out. "I was so frightened my mother said I shouldn't go again." "Oh, I hope she won't ask me. What shall I do if she does?" "Look out, here she comes! Don't say a word. Bertha's awfully ashamed of it," said Inez, and Laura had just time to give a hasty promise. "Hullo, you two, what are you gassing about?" cried Bertha, and dealt out a couple of her rough and friendly punches.--"I say, who's on for a race up the garden?" They raced, all three, with flying plaits and curls, much kicking-up of long black legs, and a frank display of frills and tuckers. Laura won; for Inez's wind gave out half way, and Bertha was heavy of foot. Leaning against the palings Laura watched the latter come puffing up to join her--Bertha with the shameful secret in the background, of a mother who was not like other mothers. Chapter VIII. Laura had been, for some six weeks or more, a listless and unsuccessful pupil, when one morning she received an invitation from Godmother to spend the coming monthly holiday--from Saturday till Monday—at Prahran. The month before, she had been one of the few girls who had nowhere to go; she had been forced to pretend that she liked staying in, did it in fact by preference.--Now her spirits rose. Marina, Godmother's younger daughter, from whom Laura inherited her school-books, was to call for her. By a little after nine o'clock on Saturday morning, Laura had finished her weekly mending, tidied her bedroom, and was ready dressed even to her gloves. It was a cool, crisp day; and her heart beat high with expectation. From the dining-hall, it was not possible to hear the ringing of the front-door bell; but each time either of the maids entered with a summons, Laura half rose from her chair, sure that her turn had come at last. But it was half-past nine, then ten, then half-past; it struck eleven, the best of the day was passing, and still Marina did not come. Only two girls besides herself remained. Then respectively an aunt and a mother were announced, and these two departed. Laura alone was left: she had to bear the disgrace of Miss Day observing: "Well, it looks as if YOUR friends had forgotten all about you, Laura." Humiliated beyond measure, Laura had thoughts of tearing off her hat and jacket and declaring that she felt too ill to go out. But at last, when she was almost sick with suspense, Mary put her tidy head in once more. "Miss Rambotham has been called for." Laura was on her feet before the words were spoken. She sped to the reception-room. Marina, a short, sleek-haired, soberly dressed girl of about twenty, had Godmother's brisk, matter-of-fact manner. She offered Laura her cheek to kiss. "Well, I suppose you're ready now?" Laura forgave her the past two hours. "Yes, quite, thank you," she answered. They went down the asphalted path and through the garden-gate, and turned to walk town wards. For the first time since her arrival Laura was free again--a prisoner at large. Round them stretched the broad white streets of East Melbourne; at their side was the thick, exotic greenery of the Fitzroy Gardens; on the brow of the hill rose the massive proportions of the Roman Catholic Cathedral.--Laura could have danced, as she walked at Marina's side. After a few queries, however, as to how she liked school and how she was getting on with her lessons, Marina fell to contemplating a strip of paper that she held in her hand. Laura gathered that her companion had combined the task of calling for her with a morning's shopping, and that she had only worked half through her list of commissions before arriving at the College. At the next corner they got on to the outside car of a cable-tramway, and were carried into town. Here Marina entered a co-operative grocery store, where she was going to give an order for a quarter's supplies. She was her mother's housekeeper, and had an incredible knowledge of groceries, as well as a severely practical mind: she stuck her finger-nail into butter, tasted cheeses off the blade of a knife, ran her hands through currants, nibbled biscuits, discussed brands of burgundy and desiccated soups--Laura meanwhile looking on, from a high, uncomfortable chair, with a somewhat hungry envy. When everything, down to pepper and salt, had been remembered, Marina filled in a cheque, and was just about to turn away when she recollected an affair of some empty cases, which she wished to send back. Another ten minutes' parley ensued; she had to see the manager, and was closeted with him in his office, so that by the time they emerged into the street again a full hour had gone by. "Getting hungry?" she inquired of Laura. "A little. But I can wait," answered Laura politely. "That's right," said Marina, off whose own appetite the edge had no doubt been taken by her various nibbling's. "Now there's only the chemist." They rode to another street, entered a druggist's, and the same thing on a smaller scale was repeated, except that here Marina did no tasting, but for a stray gelatine or jujube. By the time the shop door closed behind them, Laura could almost have eaten liquor ice powder. It was two o'clock, and she was faint with hunger. "We'll be home in plenty of time," said Marina, consulting a neat watch. "Dinner's not till three today, because of father. "Again a tramway jerked them forward. Some half mile from their destination, Marina rose. "We'll get out here. I have to call at the butcher's." At a quarter to three, it was a very white-faced, exhausted little girl that followed her companion into the house. "Well, I guess you'll have a fine healthy appetite for dinner," said Marina, as she showed her where to hang up her hat and wash her hands. Godmother was equally optimistic. From the sofa of the morning-room, where she sat knitting, she said: "Well, YOU'VE had a fine morning's gadding about I must say! How are you? And how's your dear mother?" "Quite well, thank you." Godmother scratched her head with a spare needle, and the attention she had had for Laura evaporated. "I hope, Marina, you told Graves about those empty jam-jars he didn't take back last time?" Marina, without lifting her eyes from a letter she was reading, returned: "Indeed I didn't. He made such a rumpus about the sugar-boxes that I thought I'd try to sell them to Petersen instead." Godmother grunted, but did not question Marina's decision. "And what news have you from your dear mother?" she asked again, without looking at Laura--just as she never looked at the stocking she held, but always over the top of it. Here, however, the dinner-bell rang, and Laura, spared the task of giving more superfluous information, followed the two ladies to the dining-room. The other members of the family were waiting at the table. Godmother's husband--he was a lawyer--was a morose, black-bearded man who, for the most part, kept his eyes fixed on his plate. Laura had heard it said that he and Godmother did not get on well together; she supposed this meant that they did not care to talk to each other, for they never exchanged a direct word: if they had to communicate, it was done by means of a third person. There was the elder daughter, Georgina, dumpier and still brusquer than Marina, the eldest son, a bank-clerk who was something of a dandy and did not waste civility on little girls; and lastly there were two boys, slightly younger than Laura, black-haired, pug-nosed, pugnacious little creatures, who stood in awe of their father, and were all the wilder when not under his eye. Godmother mumbled a blessing; and the soup was eaten in silence. During the meat course, the bank-clerk complained in extreme displeasure of the way the laundress had of late dressed his collars--these were so high that, as Laura was not slow to notice, he had to look straight down the two sides of his nose to see his plate--and announced that he would not be home for tea, as he had an appointment to meet some 'chappies' at five, and in the evening was going to take a lady friend to Brock's Fireworks. These particulars were received without comment. As the family plied its pudding-spoons, Georgina in her turn made a statement. "Joey's coming to take me driving at four." It looked as if this remark, too, would founder on the general indifference. Then Marina said warningly, as if recalling her parent's thoughts: "Mother!" Awakened, Godmother jerked out: "Indeed and I hope if you go you'll take the boys with you!" "Indeed and I don't see why we should!" "Very well, then, you'll stop at home. If Joey doesn't choose to come to the point-----" "Now hold your tongue, mother!" "I'll do nothing of the sort." "Crikey!" said the younger boy, Erwin, in a low voice. "Joey's got to take us riding." "If you and Joey can't get yourselves properly engaged," snapped Godmother, "then you shan't go driving without the boys, and that's the end of it." Like dogs barking at one another, thought Laura, listening to the loveless bandying of words--she was unused to the snappishness of the Irish manner, which sounds so much worse than it is meant to be: and she was chilled anew by it when, over the telephone, she heard Georgy holding a heated conversation with Joey. He was a fat young man, with hanging cheeks, small eyes, and a lazy, lopsided walk. "Hello--here's a little girl! What's HER name?--Say, this kiddy can come along too." As it had leaked out that Marina's afternoon would be spent between the shelves of her storeroom, preparing for the incoming goods, Laura gratefully accepted the offer. They drove to Marlborough Tower. With their backs to the horse sat the two boys, mercilessly alert for any display of fondness on the part of the lovers; sat Laura, with her straight, inquisitive black eyes. Hence Joey and Georgy were silent, since, except to declare their feelings, they had nothing to say to each other. The Tower reached, the mare was hitched up and the ascent of the light wooden erection began. It was a blowy day. "Boys first!" commanded Joey. "Cos o' the petticuts."--His speech was as lazy as his walk. He himself led the way, followed by Erwin and Marmaduke, and Laura, at Georgie's bidding, went next. She clasped her bits of skirts anxiously to her knees, for she was just as averse to the frills and flounces that lay beneath being seen by Georgy, as by any of the male members of the party. Georgy came last, and, though no one was below her, so tightly wound about was she that she could hardly advance her legs from one step to another. Joey looked approval; but the boys sniggered, and kept it up till Georgy, having gained the platform, threatened them with a "clout on the head". On the return journey a dispute arose between the lovers: it related to the shortest road home, waxed hot, and was rapidly taking on the dimensions of a quarrel, when the piebald mare shied at a traction-engine and tried to bolt. Joey gripped the reins, and passed his free arm round Georgy's waist. "Don't be frightened, darling." Though the low chaise rocked from side to side and there seemed a likelihood of it capsizing, the two boys squirmed with laughter, and dealt out sundry nudges, kicks and pokes, all of which were received by Laura, sitting between them. She herself turned red—with embarrassment. At the same time she wondered why Joey should believe George was afraid; there was no sign of it in Georgy's manner; she sat stolid and unmoved. Besides she, Laura, was only a little girl, and felt no fear.--She also asked herself why Joey should suddenly grow concerned about Georgy, when, a moment before, they had been so rude to each other.--These were interesting speculations, and, the chaise having ceased to sway, Laura grew meditative. In the evening Godmother had a visitor, and Laura sat in a low chair, listening to the ladies' talk. It was dull work: for, much as she liked to consider herself "almost grown up", she yet detested the conversation of "real grown-ups" with a child's heartiness. She was glad when nine o'clock struck and Marina, lighting a candle, told her to go to bed. The next day was Sunday. Between breakfast and church-time yawned two long hours. Georgy went to a Bible-class; Marina was busy with orders for the dinner. It was a bookless house--like most Australian houses of its kind: in Marina's bedroom alone stood a small bookcase containing school and Sunday school prizes. Laura was very fond of reading, and as she dressed that morning had cast longing looks at these volumes, had evenly shyly fingered the glass doors. But they were locked. Breakfast over, she approached Marina on the subject. The latter produced the key, but only after some haggling, for her idea of books was to keep the gilt on their covers untarnished. "Well, at any rate it must be a Sunday book," she said ungraciously. She drew out THE GIANT CITIES OF BASHAN AND SYRIA'S HOLY PLACES, and with this Laura retired to the drawing-room, where Godmother was already settled for the day, with a suitable magazine. When the bells began to clang the young people, primly hatted, their prayer-books in their hands, walked to the neighboring church. There Laura sat once more between the boys, Marina and Georgy stationed like sentinels at the ends of the pew, ready to pounce down on their brothers if necessary, to confiscate animals and eatables, or to rap impish knuckles with a Bible. It was a spacious church; the pew was in a side aisle; one could see neither reading-desk nor pulpit; and the words of the sermon seemed to come from a great way off. After dinner, Laura and the boys were dispatched to the garden, to stroll about in Sunday fashion. Here no elder person being present, the natural feelings of the trio came out: the distaste of a quiet little girl for rough boys and their pranks; the resentful indignation of the boys at having their steps dogged by a sneak and a tell-tale. As soon as they had rounded the tennis-court and were out of sight of the house, Erwin and Marmaduke clambered over the palings and dropped into the street, vowing a mysterious vengeance on Laura if she went indoors without them. The child sat down on the edge of the lawn under a mulberry tree and propped her chin on her hands. She was too timid to return to the house and brave things out; she was also afraid of some one coming into the garden and finding her alone, and of her then being forced to "tell"; for most of all she feared the boys, and their vague, rude threats. So she sat and waited ... and waited. The shadows on the grass changed their shapes before her eyes; distant chapel-bells tinkled their quarter of an hour and were still again; the blighting torpor of a Sunday afternoon lay over the world. Would to-morrow ever come? She counted on her fingers the hours that had still to crawl by before she could get back to school--counted twice over to be sure of them--and all but yawned her head off, with ennui. But time passed, and passed, and nothing happened. She was on the verge of tears, when two black heads bobbed up above the fence, the boys scrambled over, red and breathless, and hurried her into tea. She wakened next morning at daybreak, so eager was she to set out. But Marina had a hundred and one odd jobs to do before she was ready to start, and it struck half-past nine as the two of them neared the College. Child-like, Laura felt no special gratitude for the heavy pot of mulberry jam Marina bore on her arm; but at sight of the stern, grey, stone building she could have danced with joy; and on the front door swinging to behind her, she drew a deep sigh of relief. Chapter IX. From this moment on--the moment when Mary the maid's pleasant smile saluted her--Laura's opinion of life at school suffered a change. She was glad to be back--that was the first point: just as an adventurous sheep is glad to regain the cover of the flock. Learning might be hard; the governesses mercilessly secure in their own wisdom; but here she was at least a person of some consequence, instead of as at Godmother's a mere negligible null. Of her unlucky essay at holiday-making she wrote home guardedly: the most tell-tale sentence in her letter was that in which she said she would rather not go to Godmother's again in the meantime. But there was Such a lack of warmth in her account of the visit that mother made This, together with the above remark, the text for a scolding. "You're a very ungrateful girl," she wrote, "to forget all godmother Has done for you. If it hadn't been for her supplying you with books And things i couldn't have sent you to school at all. And i hope when You grow up you'll be as much of a help to me as marina is to her Mother. I'd much rather have you good and useful than clever and I Think for a child of your age you see things with very sharp unkind Eyes. Try and only think nice things about people and not be always Spying out their faults. Then you'll have plenty of friends and be Liked wherever you go. Laura took the statement about the goodness and cleverness with a grain Of salt: she knew better. Mother thought it the proper thing to say, And she would certainly have preferred the two qualities combined; but, Had she been forced to choose between them, there was small doubt how Her choice would have fallen out. And if, for instance, Laura confessed That her teachers did not regard her as even passably intelligent, There would be a nice to-do. Mother's ambitions knew no bounds; and, Wounded in these, she was quite capable of writing post-haste to Mrs. Gurley or Mr. Strachey, complaining of their want of insight, And bringing forward a string of embarrassing proofs. So, leaving Mother to her pleasing illusions, Laura settled down again to her role of dunce, now, though, with more equanimity than before. School was really not a bad place after all--this had for some time been her growing conviction, and the visit to Godmother seemed to bring it to a head. About this time, too, a couple of pieces of good fortune came her way. The first: she was privileged to be third in the friendship between Inez and Bertha--a favor of which she availed herself eagerly, though the three were as different from one another as three little girls could be. Bertha was a good-natured romp, hard-fisted, thick of leg, and of a plodding but ineffectual industry. Inez, on the other hand, was so pretty that Laura never tired of looking at her: she had a pale skin, hazel eyes, brown hair with a yellow light in it, and a Greek nose. Her mouth was very small; her nostrils were mere tiny slits; and so lazy was she that she seldom more than half opened her eyes. Both girls were well over fourteen, and very fully developed: compared with them, Laura was like nothing so much as a skinny young colt. She was so grateful to them for tolerating her that she never took up a stand of real equality with them: proud and sensitive, she was always ready to draw back and admit their prior rights to each other; hence the friendship did not advance to intimacy. But such as it was, it was very comforting; she no longer needed to sit alone in recess; she could link arms and walk the garden with complacency; and many were the supercilious glances she now threw at Maria Morell and that clique; for her new friends belonged socially to the best set in the school. In another way, too, their company made things easier for her: neither of them aimed high; and both were well content with the lowly places they occupied in the class. And so Laura, who was still, in her young confusion, unequal to discovering what was wanted of her, grew comforted by the presence and support of her friends, and unmindful of higher opinion; and Miss Chapman, in supervising evening lessons, remarked with genuine regret that little Laura was growing perky and lazy. Her second piece of good luck was of quite a different nature. Miss Hicks, the visiting governess for geography, had a gift for saying biting things that really bit. She bore Inez a peculiar grudge; for she believed that certain faculties slumbered behind the Grecian profile, and that only the girl's ingrained sloth prevented them. One day she lost patience with this sluggish pupil. "I'll tell you what it is, Inez," she said; "you're blessed with a real woman's brain: vague, slippery, inexact, interested only in the personal aspect of a thing. You can't concentrate your thoughts, and, worst of all, you've no curiosity--about anything that really matters. You take all the great facts of existence on trust--just as a hen does--and I've no doubt you'll go on contentedly till the end of your days, without ever knowing why the ocean has tides, and what causes the seasons.--It makes me ashamed to belong to the same sex." Inez's classmates tittered furiously, let the sarcasm glide over them, unhit by its truth. Inez herself, indeed, was inclined to consider the governess's taunt a compliment, as proving that she was incapable of a vulgar inquisitiveness. But Laura, though she laughed docilely with the rest, could not forget the incident--words in any case had a way of sticking to her memory--and what Miss Hicks had said often came back to her, in the days that followed. And then, all of a sudden, just as if an invisible hand had opened the door to an inner chamber, a light broke on her. Vague, slippery, inexact, interested only in the personal--every word struck home. Had Miss Hicks set out to describe HER, in particular, she could not have done it more accurately. It was but too true: until now, she, Laura, had been satisfied to know things in a slipslop, razzle-dazzle way, to know them anyhow, as it best suited herself. She had never set to work to master a subject, to make it her own in every detail. Bits of it, picturesque scraps, striking features--what Miss Hicks no doubt meant by the personal--were all that had attracted her.--Oh, and she, too, had no intelligent curiosity. She could not say that she had ever teased her brains with wondering why the earth went round the sun and not the sun round the earth. Honestly speaking, it made no difference to her that the globe was indented like an orange, and not the perfect round you began by believing it to be.--But if this were so, if she were forced to make these galling admissions, then it was clear that her vaunted cleverness had never existed, except in Mother's imagination. Or, at any rate, it had crumbled to pieces like a lump of earth, under the hard, heavy hand of Miss Hicks. Laura felt humiliated, and could not understand her companions treating the matter so airily. She did not want to have a woman's brain, thank you; not one of that sort; and she smarted for the whole class. Straightway she set to work to sharpen her wits, to follow the strait road. At first with some stumbling, of course, and frequent backslidings. Intellectual curiosity could not, she discovered, be awakened to order; and she often caught herself napping. Thus though she speedily became one of the most troublesome askers-why, her desire for information was apt to exhaust itself in putting the question, and she would forget to listen to the answer. Besides, for the life of her she could not drum up more interest in, say, the course of the Gulf Stream, or the formation of a plateau, than in the fact that, when Nelly Bristow spoke, little bubbles came out of her mouth, and that she needed to swallow twice as often as other people; or that when Miss Hicks grew angry her voice had a way of failing, at the crucial moment, and flattening out to nothing--just as if one struck tin after brass. No, it was indeed difficult for Laura to invert the value of these things.--In another direction she did better. By dint of close attention, of pondering both the questions asked by Miss Hicks, and the replies made by the cleverest pupils, she began to see more clearly where true knowledge lay. It was facts that were wanted of her; facts that were the real test of learning; facts she was expected to know. Stories, pictures of things, would not help her an inch along the road. Thus, it was not the least use in the world to her to have seen the snowy top of Mount Kosciusko stand out against a dark blue evening sky, and to know its shape to a tittle in. On the other hand, it mattered tremendously that this mountain was 7308 and not 7309 feet high: That piece of information was valuable, was of genuine use to you; for it was worth your place in the class. Thus did Laura apply herself to reach the school ideal, thus force herself to drive hard nails of fact into her vagrant thoughts. And with success. For she had, it turned out, a retentive memory, and to her joy learning by heart came easy to her--as easy as to the most brilliant scholars in the form. From now on she gave this talent full play, memorizing even pages of the history book in her zeal; and before many weeks had passed, in all lessons except those in arithmetic--you could not, alas! get sums by rote--she was separated from Inez and Bertha by the width of the class. But neither her taste of friendship and its comforts, nor the abrupt change for the better in her class-fortunes, could counterbalance Laura's luckless knack of putting her foot in it. This she continued to do, in season and out of season. And not with the authorities alone. There was, for instance, that unfortunate evening when she was one of the batch of girls invited to Mrs. Strachey's drawing room. Laura, ignorant of what it meant to be blasé, had received her note of invitation with a thrill, had even enjoyed writing, in her best hand, the prescribed formula of acceptance. But she was alone in this; by the majority of her companions these weekly parties were frankly hated, the chief reason being that every guest was expected to take a piece of music with her. Even the totally unfit had to show what they could do. And the fact that cream-tarts were served for supper was not held to square accounts. "It's all very well for you," grumbled Laura's room-mate, Lilith Gordon, as she lathered her thick white arms and neck before dressing. "You're a new girl; you probably won't be asked." Laura did not give the matter a second thought: hastily selecting a volume of music, she followed the rest of the white dresses into the passage. The senior girl tapped at the drawing room door. It was opened by no other than the Principal himself. In the girls' eyes, Mr. Strachey stood over six feet in his stocking-soles. He had also a most arrogant way of looking down his nose, and of tugging, intolerantly, at his long, drooping moustache. There was little need for him to assume the frigid contemptuousness of Mrs. Gurley's manner: his mere presence, the very unseeingness of his gaze, inspired awe. Tales ran of his wrath, were it roused; but few had experienced it. He quelled the high spirits of these young colonials by his dignified air of detachment. Now, however, he stood there affable and smiling, endeavoring to put a handful of awkward girls at their ease. But neither his nor Mrs. Strachey's efforts availed. It was impossible for the pupils to throw off, at will, the crippling fear that governed their relations with the Principal. To them, his amiability resembled the antics of an uncertain-tempered elephant, with which you could never feel safe.-- Besides on this occasion it was a young batch, and of particularly mixed stations. And so a dozen girls, from twelve to fifteen years old, sat on the extreme edges of their chairs, and replied to what was said to them, with dry throats. Though the youngest of the party, Laura was the least embarrassed: she had never known a nursery, but had mixed with her elders since her babyhood. And she was not of a shy disposition; indeed, she still had to be reminded daily that shyness was expected of her. So she sat and looked about her. It was an interesting room in which she found herself. Low bookshelves, three shelves high, ran round the walls, and on the top shelf were many outlandish objects. What an evening it would have been had Mr. Strachey invited them to examine these ornaments, or to handle the books, instead of having to pick up a title here and there by chance. From the shelves, her eyes strayed to the pictures on the walls; one, in particular struck her fancy. It hung over the mantelpiece, and was a man's head seen in profile, with a long hooked nose, and wearing a kind of peaked cap. But that was not all: behind this head were other profiles of the same face, and seeming to come out of clouds. Laura stared hard, but could make nothing of it.—And meanwhile her companions were rising with sickly smiles, to seat themselves, red as turkey-cocks' combs, on the piano stool, where with cold, stiff fingers they stumbled through the movement of a sonata or sonatina. It was Lilith Gordon who broke the chain by offering to sing. The diversion was welcomed by Mrs. Strachey, and Lilith went to the piano. But her nervousness was such that she broke down half-way in the little prelude to the ballad. Mrs. Strachey came to the rescue. "It's so difficult, is it not, to accompany oneself?" she said kindly. "Perhaps one of the others would play for you?" No one moved. "Do any of you know the song?" Two or three ungraciously admitted the knowledge, but none volunteered. It was here Laura chimed in. "I could play it," she said; and colored at the sound of her own voice. Mrs. Strachey looked doubtfully at the thin little girl. "Do you know it, dear? You're too young for singing, I think." "No, I don't know it. But I could play it from sight. It's quite easy." Everyone looked disbelieving, especially the unhappy singer. "I've played much harder things than that," continued Laura. "Well, perhaps you might try," said Mrs. Strachey, with the ingrained distrust of the unmusical. Laura rose and went to the piano, where she conducted the song to a successful ending. Mrs. Strachey looked relieved. "Very nice indeed." And to Laura: "Did you say you didn't know it, dear?" "No, I never saw it before." Again the lady looked doubtful. "Well, perhaps you would play us something yourself now?" Laura had no objection; she had played to people before her fingers were long enough to cover the octave. She took the volume of Thalberg she had brought with her, selected "Home, Sweet Home", and pranced in. Her audience kept utter silence; but, had she been a little sharper, she would have grasped that it was the silence of amazement. After the prim sonatinas that had gone before, Thalberg's florid ornaments had a shameless sound. Her performance, moreover, was a startling one; the forte pedal was held down throughout; the big chords were crashed and banged with all the strength a pair of twelve-year-old arms could put into them; and wrong notes were freely scattered. Still, rhythm and melody were well marked, and there was no mistaking the agility of the small fingers. Dead silence, too, greeted the conclusion of the piece Several girls were very red, from trying not to laugh. The Principal tugged at his moustache, in abstracted fashion. Laura had reached her seat again before Mrs. Strachey said undecidedly: "Thank you, dear. Did you ... hm ... learn that piece here?" Laura saw nothing wrong. "Oh, no, at home," she answered. "I wouldn't care to play the things I learn here, to people. They're so dull." A girl emitted a faint squeak. But a half turn of Mrs. Strachey's head subdued her. Oh, I hope you will soon get to like classical music also," said the lady gravely, and in all good faith. "We prefer it, you know, to any other." "Do you mean things like the AIR IN G WITH VARIATIONS? I'm afraid I never shall. There's no tune in them." Music was as fatal to Laura's equilibrium as wine would have been. Finding herself next Mr. Strachey, she now turned to him and said, with what she believed to be ease of manner: "Mr. Strachey, will you please tell me what that picture is hanging over the mantelpiece? I've been looking at it ever since I came in, but I can't make it out. Are those ghosts, those things behind the man, or what?" It took Mr. Strachey a minute to recover from his astonishment. He stroked hard, and the look he bent on Laura was not encouraging. "It seems to be all the same face," continued the child, her eyes on the picture. "That," said Mr. Strachey, with extreme deliberation: "that is the portrait, by a great painter, of a great poet--Dante Alighieri." "Oh, Dante, is it?" said Laura showily--she had once heard the name. "Oh, yes, of course, I know now. He wrote a book, didn't he, called FAUST? I saw it over there by the door.-- What lovely books!" But here Mr. Strachey abruptly changed his seat, and Laura's thirst for information was left unquenched. The evening passed, and she was in blessed ignorance of anything being amiss, till the next morning after breakfast she was bidden to Mrs. Gurley. A quarter of an hour later, on her emerging from that lady's private sitting-room, her eyes were mere swollen slits in her face. Instead, however, of sponging them in cold water and bravely joining her friends, Laura was still foolish enough to hide and have her cry out. So that when the bell rang, she was obliged to go in to public prayers looking a prodigious fright, and thereby advertising to the curious what had taken place. Mrs. Gurley had crushed and humiliated her. Laura learnt that she had been guilty of a gross impertinence, in profaning the ears of the Principal and Mrs. Strachey with Thalberg's music, and that all the pieces she had brought with her from home would now be taken from her. Secondly, Mr. Strachey had been so unpleasantly impressed by the boldness of her behaviour, that she would not be invited to the drawing-room again for some time to come. The matter of the music touched Laura little: if they preferred their dull old exercises to what she had offered them, so much the worse for them. But the reproach cast on her manners stung her even more deeply than it had done when she was still the raw little newcomer: for she had been pluming herself of late that she was now "quite the thing". And yet, painful as was this fresh overthrow of her pride, it was neither the worst nor the most lasting result of the incident. That concerned her schoolfellows. By the following morning the tale of her doings was known to everyone. It was circulated in the first place, no doubt, by Lilith Gordon, who bore her a grudge for her offer to accompany the song: had Laura not put herself forward in this objectionable way, Lilith might have escaped singing altogether. Lilith also resented her having shown that she could do it--and this feeling was generally shared. It evidenced a want of good-fellowship, and made you very glad the little prig had afterwards come to grief: if you had abilities that others had not you concealed them, instead of parading them under people's noses. In short, Laura had committed a twofold breach of school etiquette. No one of course vouchsafed to explain this to her; these things one did not put into words, things you were expected to know without telling. Hence, she never more than half understood what she had done. She only saw disapproval painted on faces that had hitherto been neutral, and from one or two quarters got what was unmistakably the cold shoulder.-- Her little beginnings at popularity had somehow received a setback, and through her own foolish behavior.