You have been there seven years.
Yes, and very happy. When Fanny married, Lady Milsom was left alone, and would not part with me, and then came the two little boys from India, so that she had an excuse for retaining me; but that is over now, or will be in a few weeks time. I had been trying for an engagement, and finding that beside your high-school diploma young ladies I am considered quite passée
My dear! With your art, and music, and all!
Too true! And while I was digesting a polite hint that my terms were too high, and therewith Agathas earnest appeal to be sent to Girton, there comes this inheritance! Taking my burthen off my back, and making me ready to throw up my heels like a young colt.
Ah! you will be taking another burthen, perhaps.
No doubt, I suppose so, but let me find it out by degrees. I can only think as yet of having my dear girls to myself, moi, as the French would say, after having seen so little of them.
It has been very unfortunate. Epidemics have been strangely inconvenient.
Yes. First there was whooping cough here to destroy the summer holidays; then came the Milsoms measles, and I could not go and carry infection. Oh! and then Freddy broke his leg, and his grandmother was too nervous to be left with him. And by and by some one told her the scarlatina was in the town.
It really was, you know.
Any way, it would have been sheer selfish inhumanity to leave her, and then she had a real illness, which frightened us all very much. Next came influenza to every one. And these last holidays! What should the newly-come little one from India do, but catch a fever in the Red Sea, and I had to keep guard over the brothers at Weymouth till she was reported safe, and I dont believe it was infectious after all! Still, I am tired of other peoples stairs.
It is nearly five years since you have been with them, except for that one peep you took at Weston.
And that is a great deal at their age. Agatha was a vehement reader; she would hardly look at me, so absorbed was she in The York and Lancaster Rose which I had brought her.
She is rather like that now. I conclude that you will wish to take them away?
Not this time, at any rate till the house is fit to put over their heads. Besides, you have so mothered them, dear Sophy, that I could not bear to make a sudden parting.
There will be pain, especially over little Thekla and Polly. But if George comes home this spring, and I go out to Queensland with him, perhaps I should have asked you to take this house off my hands. May be it would be prudent in you to do so even now, considering all things; only I believe that transplanting would be good for them all.
I am glad you think so, for I have a perfect longing for that little house of my own.
You will be able to give them a superior kind of society to what they have had access to here. There is a good deal that I should like to talk over with you before they come in.
Agatha seems to be in despair at her failure.
So is all the house, for we were very proud of her, and, of course, we all thought it a fad of the examiners, but perhaps our headmistress might not say the same. She is a good, hardworking girl though, and ambitious, and quite worth further training.
I am glad of being able to secure it to her at least, and by the time her course is finished I shall be able to judge about the others.
You thought of taking them in hand yourself?
Certainly; how nice it will be to teach my own kin, and not endless strangers, lovable as they have been!
It will be very good for them all to see something of life and manners superior to what I can give them here. You will take them into a fresh sphere, andas things werebesides that, I could notI did not know whether their lives would not lie among our people here.
Dear Sophy, dont concern yourself. I am quite certain you would never let them fall in with anything hurtful.
Why, no! I hope not; but if I had known what was coming, I dont think I should have asked you to consent to Vera and Theklas spending their holidays at Mr. Warings country house.
Very worthy people, you said. I remember Tom Waring, a very nice boy; and Jessie Dale went to school with usI liked her. Fancy them having a country house.
Waring Grange they call it. He has got on wonderfully as upholsterer, decorator, and auctioneer. It is a very handsome one, with a garden that gets the prizes at the horticultural shows. They are thoroughly good people, but I was afraid afterwards that there had been a good deal of noisiness among the young folks at Christmas. Hubert Delrio was there, and I fancy there was some nonsense going on.
Ah, the Delrios! Are they here?
Yes, poor Fred did not make his art succeed when he had a family to provide for, and he is the head of the Art School here. His son has a good deal of talent, and very prudently has got taken on by the firm of Eccles and Co., who do a great deal of architectural decoration. The boy is doing very well, but there have been giggles and whispers that make me rejoice that Vera should be out of the neighbourhood.