It was not a very remarkable day, and the pleasures of it seemed hardly enough to justify the little girls' great excitement. There was first the dinner at the luncheon of the parents, where the children sat up rather formal and subdued, and not quite certain what all the dishes might contain, a little afraid of getting what they COULD not eat, though desirous of making experiments in this land of wonders. None of them had forgotten, and they thought no one else had, how Bessie had once come to disgrace by bursting out crying over the impossibility of finishing some terrible rice-bordered greenish yellow stuff that burnt her mouth beyond bearing, and which Ida called curry, and said people in the East Indies liked. However, that was when Bessie had been a very little girl; and she still continued adventurous, saying, "Yes, if you please," to cutlets set round in a wreath, with all their bones sticking up, and covered with a reddish incrustation that Susan and Annie thought so unnatural, that they preferred the boiled chicken that at least they could understand, though it had funny-hooking accompaniments in the sauce. And Hal's report of some savoury jelly which he had once encountered would have deterred them from the pink transparency in the shape of a shell, if they had not seen Bessie getting on very well with it, Miss Fosbrook happily perceiving and cutting short Annie's intended inquiry whether it were nice. To her great relief, this was the only want of manners betrayed by her little savages, and she was able to keep her attention tolerably free from them, so as to look at the pictures on the walls, observe the two boys, Hal's friends, and talk to Mrs. Greville, who made conversation with her very pleasantly.
She was much grieved to perceive, from what that lady said, that Mrs. Merrifield was thought to be much more ill, and in a far more alarming state, than she had at all understood. The girls were too young to enter into the tone of sad sympathy with which Mrs. Greville spoke, and the manner in which a doubt was expressed whether the Captain would be able to sail with Admiral Penrose if he should have the offer; and as soon as she saw that they and their governess were in ignorance, she turned it off; but she had said enough to fill Christabel with anxiety and desire to know more; and as soon as the dinner was over, and the little girls had run off together to visit Ida's beautiful cockatoo in the conservatory, she turned to Fraulein Munsterthal, and begged to hear whether she knew more than had been said.
Fraulein Munsterthal did not quite know that such a person as Mrs. Merrifield was in existence; but she was very amiable and warm- hearted, and said how sad it was to think of the trouble that hung over "these so careless children," and was doubly kind to the girls when they came back from their conversation with pretty "Cocky," who set up his lemon-coloured crest, coughed, sneezed, and said "Cocky want a biscuit!" to admiration, till the boys were seen approaching; when Ida, knowing that some torment would follow, took herself and her visitors back to the protection of the governesses in time to prevent the cockatoo from being made to fly at the girls, and powder them with the white dust under his feathers.
The afternoon was spent in the garden, the little girls betaking themselves to a pretty moss-covered arbour, where there was a grand doll's feast. Ida had no less than twenty-three dolls, ranging from the magnificent Rosalind, who had real hair that could be brushed, and was as large as little Sally at home, down to poor little china Mildred, whose proper dwelling-place was a bath, and who had with great difficulty been put into petticoats enough to make her fit to be seen out of it. Now nobody at home could have saved the life of a doll for a single day, and Susan and Elizabeth were both thought far above them; but these beautifully arrayed young ladies had always been the admiration of the heart of Bessie as well as of Annie, and they were not too old for extreme satisfaction in handling their elegant ladyships, and still more their beautiful dinner and tea- service of pink and white ware.
Susan, though she could not write a note, or do lessons like Ida, was older in the ways of life, and played rather as she did with the little ones at home than for her own amusement. She would much rather have had the fun of "cats and mice" with her brothers; and but for the honour of the thing, so perhaps would Annie. However, they were all very happy, getting the dolls up in the morning, giving Mildred washing enough for all the twenty-three, making them breakfast, hearing lessons, in which Ida was governess, and made them talk so many languages that Annie was alarmed. Of course one of the young ladies was very naughty, and was treated with extreme severity; then there was dinner, a walk, an illness, and a dinner-party. While all the time the two real governesses sat in the shade outside, and talked in English or German as best they might, the Fraulein understanding Christabel's English the best, as did Christabel the Fraulein's German. They began to make friends, and to wish to see more of one another.
There was a walk round the garden, and admiration of the beautiful flowers, and the fountain and pond of gold-fish, till the boys came home, and got hold of the garden-engine for watering, crying out, "Fire! fire!" and squirting out the showers of water very much in the direction of the girls.
Ida became quite crimson red, and got hold of Susan's hand to drag her away; then, as the foremost drops of another shower touched her, she faced about, and said, "Osmond! don't, or I'll tell Mamma." There was a great rude laugh, as of boys who well knew the threat was never put in execution; and poor Fraulein Munsterthal only shook her head at Miss Fosbrook's look of amaze, and said in German that "die Knaben" were far too unartig for her to keep in order. She pitied Miss Fosbrook for having so many in charge as to destroy all peace. And if Sam and Hal had been like these two, Christabel felt that she could have done nothing with them. To her dismay, Osmond and Martin came in to the school-room tea; and she never had thought to feel so thankful for poor dear Susan's slowness of comprehension, for, from their whispers among themselves, and from their poor tormented sister's blushes, she was clear that the "fire" was a piece of bad wit on Susan's red hair. Boys who could so basely insult a guest, and that a girl, she was sure must be bad companions for Sam and Henry. Such little gentlemen as they had been at dinner too, so polite and well-behaved before their father and mother! There could be no doubt that something must be very wrong about them, or they would not change so entirely when out of sight. It is not always true that a child must be deceitful who is less good in the absence of the authorities; because their presence is a help and a restraint, checking the beginning of mischief, and removing temptation; but one who does not fall by weakness, but intentionally alters his conduct the instant the elder is gone, shows that his will has been disobedient all along
By and by Mr. Greville's voice was heard calling, "Martin! Osmond!" As they went out to meet him in the passage, Miss Fosbrook clearly overheard, "Here is the spring of the garden-engine spoilt. Do you know anything about it?"
"No."
"You have not been meddling with it?"
"No." And they ran downstairs.
The colour flushed into Christabel's cheeks with horror. She was glad that her little girls were all in Ida's room, listening to a musical-box, and well out of hearing of such fearfully direct falsehoods, as it seemed to her, not knowing that the boys excused it to their own minds by the notion that it was not the SPRING of the engine that they had been meddling with, and that so they did not know how the harm had been done--as if it made it any better that they lied to themselves as well as their father! The German saw her dismay, and began to say how unlike her Ida was to her brothers--so truthful, so gentle, and courteous; but poor Christabel could not get over the thought of the ease and readiness with which deceit came to these boys. Could their daily companions, Samuel and Henry, have learnt the same effrontery, and be deceiving her all this time? No, no, she could not, would not think it! Assuredly not of Sam! She was very glad not to see the boys again, and went home with her pupils, rather heavy-hearted, at eight o'clock, just as Ida was to put on her white muslin and pink ribbons, and go down after dinner for half an hour.