Scenes and Characters

'Oh! Claude,' said Lily, 'you cannot think how much we like Miss Weston, she lets us call her Alethea, and-'

Here came an interruption from Mr. Mohun, who perceiving the position of Reginald's dusty shoes, gave a loud 'Ah-h!' as if he was scolding a dog, and ordered him to change them directly.

'Here, Phyl!' said Reginald, kicking off his shoes, 'just step up and bring my shippers, Rachel will give them to you.'

Away went Phyllis, well pleased to be her brother's fag.

'Ah! Redgie does not know the misfortune that hangs over him,' said Emily.

'What?' said Reginald, 'will not the Baron let Viper come to the house?'

'Worse,' said Emily, 'Rachel is going away.'

'Rachel?' cried Claude, starting up from the sofa.

'Rachel?' said Maurice, without raising his eyes.

'Rachel! Rachel! botheration!' roared Reginald, with a wondrous caper.

'Yes, Rachel,' said Emily; 'Rachel, who makes so much of you, for no reason that I could ever discover, but because you are the most troublesome.'

'You will never find any one to mend your jackets, and dress your wounds like Rachel,' said Lily, 'and make a baby of you instead of a great schoolboy. What will become of you, Redgie?'

'What will become of any of us?' said Claude; 'I thought Rachel was the mainspring of the house.'

'Have you quarrelled with her, Emily?' said Reginald.

'Nonsense,' said Emily, 'it is only that her brother has lost his wife, and wants her to take care of his children.'

'Well,' said Reginald, 'her master has lost his wife, and wants her to take care of his children.'

'I cannot think what I shall do,' said Ada; 'I cry about it every night when I go to bed. What is to be done?'

'Send her brother a new wife,' said Maurice.

'Send him Emily,' said Reginald; 'we could spare her much better.'

'Only I don't wish him joy,' said Maurice.

'Well, I hope you wish me joy of my substitute,' said Emily; 'I do not think you would ever guess, but Lily, after being in what Rachel calls quite a way, has persuaded every one to let us have Esther Bateman.'

'What, the Baron?' said Claude, in surprise.

'Yes,' said Lily, 'is it not delightful? He said at first, Emily was too inexperienced to teach a young servant; but then we settled that Hannah should be upper servant, and Esther will only have to wait upon Phyl and Ada. Then he said Faith Longley was of a better set of people, but I am sure it would give one the nightmare to see her lumbering about the house, and then he talked it over with Robert and with Rachel.'

'And was not Rachel against it, or was she too kind to her young ladies?'

'Oh! she was cross when she talked it over with us,' said Lily; 'but we coaxed her over, and she told the Baron it would do very well.'

'And Robert?'

'He was quite with us, for he likes Esther as much as I do,' said lily.

'Now, Lily,' said Jane, 'how can you say he was quite with you, when he said he thought it would be better if she was farther from home, and under some older person?'

'Yes, but he allowed that she would be much safer here than at home,' said Lily.

'But I thought she used to be the head of all the ill behaviour in school,' said Claude.

'Oh! that was in Eleanor's time,' said Lily; 'there was nothing to draw her out, she never was encouraged; but since she has been in my class, and has found that her wishes to do right are appreciated and met by affection, she has been quite a new creature.'

'Since she has been in MY class,' Claude repeated.

'Well,' said Lily, with a slight blush, 'it is just what Robert says. He told her, when he gave her her prize Bible on Palm Sunday, that she had been going on very well, but she must take great care when removed from those whose influence now guided her, and who could he have meant but me? And now she is to go on with me always. She will be quite one of the old sort of faithful servants, who feel that they owe everything to their masters, and will it not be pleasant to have so sweet and expressive a face about the house?'

'Do I know her face?' said Claude. 'Oh yes! I do. She has black eyes, I think, and would be pretty if she did not look pert.'

'You provoking Claude!' cried Lily, 'you are as bad as Alethea, who never will say that Esther is the best person for us.'

'I was going to inquire for the all-for-love principle,' said Claude, 'but I see it is in full force. And how are the verses, Lily? Have you made a poem upon Michael Moone, or Mohun, the actor, our uncle, whom I discovered for you in Pepys's Memoirs?'

'Nonsense,' said Lily; 'but I have been writing something about Sir Maurice, which you shall hear whenever you are not in this horrid temper.'

The next afternoon, as soon as luncheon was over, Lily drew Claude out to his favourite place under the plane-tree, where she proceeded to inflict her poem upon his patient ears, while he lay flat upon the grass looking up to the sky; Emily and Jane had promised to join them there in process of time, and the four younger ones were, as usual, diverting themselves among the farm buildings at the Old Court.

Lily began: 'I meant to have two parts about Sir Maurice going out to fight when he was very young, and then about his brothers being killed, and King Charles knighting him, and his betrothed, Phyllis Crossthwayte, embroidering his black engrailed cross on his banner, and then the taking the castle, and his being wounded, and escaping, and Phyllis not thinking it right to leave her father; but I have not finished that, so now you must hear about his return home.'

'A romaunt in six cantos, entitled Woe woe,

By Miss Fanny F. known more commonly so,'

muttered Claude to himself; but as Lily did not understand or know whence his quotation came, it did not hurt her feelings, and she went merrily on:-

''Tis the twenty-ninth of merry May;

Full cheerily shine the sunbeams to-day,

Their joyous light revealing

Full many a troop in garments gay,

With cheerful steps who take their way

By the green hill and shady lane,

While merry bells are pealing;

And soon in Beechcroft's holy fane

The villagers are kneeling.

Dreary and mournful seems the shrine

Where sound their prayers and hymns divine;

For every mystic ornament

By the rude spoiler's hand is rent;

Scarce is its ancient beauty traced

In wood-work broken and defaced,

Reft of each quaint device and rare,

Of foliage rich and mouldings fair;

Yet happy is each spirit there;

The simple peasantry rejoice

To see the altar decked with care,

To hear their ancient Pastor's voice

Reciting o'er each well-known prayer,

To view again his robe of white,

And hear the services aright;

Once more to chant their glorious Creed,

And thankful own their nation freed

From those who cast her glories down,

And rent away her Cross and Crown.