I thought it was a crazy bull
Firing a blunderbuss;
I looked again, and, lo, it was
A water polypus.
Oh, guard my life, I said, for she
Will make an awful fuss.
Ah! do you remember that? cried Mysie. I have so often tried to recollect what it really was when she looked again. Captain Grantley made it, you know, when we were trying to comfort Betty.
I remember you and Lady Phyllis said you would go and confess to Mrs. Bernard and take all the blame, and Lord Rotherwood said he would escort you!
Yes, and Betty said it was no good, for if her mother forgave her ten times over, still that spiteful French maid would put her to bed and say she had no robe convenable, went on Mysie. But then you took her to your own room, and washed her and mended her, so that she came out all right at luncheon, and nobody knew anything, but she thought that horrid woman guessed and tweaked her hair all the harder for it.
Poor child, she looked as if she were under a tyranny.
Have you seen her since?
No; but Phyllis tells me she has burst forth into liberty, bicycles, and wild doings that would drive her parents to distraction if she dreamt of them.
How is Lady Phyllis? Did I not hear that the family had gone abroad for her health?
Oh yes, and I went with them. They all had influenza, and were frightened, but it ended in our meeting with Franceska Vanderkist, the very most charming looking being I ever did see; and Ivinghoe had fallen in love with her when she was Miranda, and he married her like a real old hero. Do you remember Ivinghoe?
No; I suppose he was one of an indistinguishable troop of schoolboys.
I remember Lord Rotherwoods good nature and fun when he met the bedraggled party, said Magdalen, smiling.
That is what every one remembers about him, said Lady Merrifield, smiling. You have imported a large party of youth, Miss Prescott.
My young sisters, responded Magdalen; but I shall soon part with Agatha; she is going to Oxford.
Indeed! To which College? I have a daughter at Oxford, and a niece just leaving Cambridge. Such is our lot in these days. No, not this one, but her elder sister Gillian is at Lady Catharines.
I am going to St. Roberts, said Agatha, abruptly.
Close to Lady Catharines! Gillian will be glad to tell her anything she would like to ask about it. You had better come over to tea some afternoon.
The time was fixed, and then Magdalen showed some of the advertisements of tuition in art, music, languages, and everything imaginable, which had begun to pour in upon her, and was very glad of a little counsel on the reputation of each professor. Lady Merrifield saying, however, that her experience was small, as her young people in general were not musical, with the single exception of her son Wilfred, who was at home, reading to go up for the Civil Service, and recreating himself with the Choral Society and lessons on the violin. My youngest is fifteen, she said, and we provide for her lessons amongst us, except for the School of Art, and calisthenics at the High School, which is under superior management now, and very much improved.
Mysie echoed, Oh, calisthenics are such fun! and took the reins to drive away.
Oh! she is very nice, exclaimed Mysie, as they drove down the hill.
Yes, there is something very charming about her. I wonder whether Sam made a great mistake.
Mamma, what do you mean?
Have I been meditating aloud? You said when you met her at Castle Towers, she asked you whether you had a brother Harry.
Yes, she did. I only said yes, but he was going to be a clergyman, and when she heard his age, she said he was not the one she had known; I did not speak of cousin Henry because you said we were not to mention him. What was it, if I may know, mamma?
There is no reason that you should not, except that it is a painful matter to mention to Bessie or any of the Stokesley cousins. Harry was never like the rest, I believe, but I had never seen him since he was almost a baby. He never would work, and was not fit for any examination.
Our Harry used to say that Bessie and David had carried off all the brains of the family.
The others have sense and principle, though. Well, they put their Hal into a Bank at Filsted, and by and by they found he was in a great scrape, with gambling debts; and I believe that but for the forbearance of the partners, he might have been prosecuted for embezzling a sumor at least he was very near it; besides which he had engaged himself to an attorneys daughter, very young, and with a very disagreeable mother or stepmother. The Admiral came down in great indignation, thought these Prescotts had inveigled poor Henry, broke everything hastily off, and shipped him off to Canada to his brothers, George and John. They found some employment for him, but Susan and Bessie doubt whether they were very kind to him, and in a few years more he was in fresh scrapes, and with worse stains and questions of his integrity. It ended in his running away to the States, and no trace has been found of him since. I am afraid he took away money of his brothers.