第42章 CHAPTER VIII(2)

"Veronica takes great interest in him. She has evidently a motherly side to her character, for which we none of us have given her credit.

She says she is sure there is good in him. She sits beside him while he chops wood, and tells him carefully selected stories, calculated, she argues, to develop his intelligence. She is careful, moreover, not to hurt his feelings by any display of superiority. 'Of course, anyone leading a useful life, such as yours,' I overheard her saying to him this morning, 'don't naturally get much time for reading.

I've nothing else to do, you see, 'cept to improve myself.'

"The donkey arrived this afternoon while I was out--galloping, I am given to understand, with 'Opkins on his back. There seems to be some secret between those two. We have tried him with hay, and we have tried him with thistles; but he seems to prefer bread-and-butter. I have not been able as yet to find out whether he takes tea or coffee in the morning. But he is an animal that evidently knows his own mind, and fortunately both are in the house. We are putting him up for to-night with the cow, who greeted him at first with enthusiasm and wanted to adopt him, but has grown cold to him since on discovering that he is not a calf. I have been trying to make friends with her, but she is so very unresponsive. She doesn't seem to want anything but grass, and prefers to get that for herself. She doesn't seem to want to be happy ever again.

"A funny thing happened in church. I was forgetting to tell you.

The St. Leonards occupy two pews at the opposite end from the door.

They were all there when we arrived, with the exception of the old gentleman himself. He came in just before the 'Dearly Beloved,' when everybody was standing up. A running fire of suppressed titters followed him up the aisle, and some of the people laughed outright.

I could see no reason why. He looked a dignified old gentleman in his grey hair and tightly buttoned frock coat, which gives him a somewhat military appearance. But when he came level with our pew I understood. Hurrying back from his morning round, and with no one there to superintend him, the dear old absent-minded thing had forgotten to change his breeches. From a little above the knee upward he was a perfect Christian; but his legs were just those of a disreputable sinner.

"'What's the joke?' he whispered to me as he passed--I was in the corner seat. 'Have I missed it?'

"We called round on them after lunch, and at once I was appealed to for my decision.

"'Now, here's a plain sensible girl,' exclaimed the old gentleman the moment I entered the room.' (You will notice I put no comma after 'plain.' I am taking it he did not intend one. You can employ one adjective to qualify another, can't you?) 'And I will put it to her, What difference can it make to the Almighty whether I go to church in trousers or in breeches?'

"'I do not see,' retorted Mrs. St. Leonard somewhat coldly, 'that Miss Robina is in any better position than myself to speak with authority on the views of the Almighty'--which I felt was true. 'If it makes no difference to the Almighty, then why not, for my sake, trousers?'

"'The essential thing,' he persisted, 'is a contrite heart.' He was getting very cross.

"'It may just as well be dressed respectably,' was his wife's opinion. He left the room, slamming the door.

"I do like Janie the more and more I see of her. I do hope she will let me get real chums with her. She does me so much good. (I read that bit twice over to Ethelbertha, pretending I had lost the place.)

I suppose it is having rather a silly mother and an unpractical father that has made her so capable. If you and Little Mother had been proper sort of parents I might have been quite a decent sort of girl. But it's too late finding fault with you now. I suppose I must put up with you. She works so hard, and is so unselfish. But she is not like some good people, who make you feel it is hopeless your trying to be good. She gets cross and impatient; and then she laughs at herself, and gets right again that way. Poor Mrs. St.

Leonard! I cannot help feeling sorry for her. She would have been so happy as the wife of a really respectable City man, who would have gone off every morning with a flower in his buttonhole and have worn a white waistcoat on Sundays. I don't believe what they say: that husbands and wives should be the opposite of one another. Mr. St.

Leonard ought to have married a brainy woman, who would have discussed philosophy with him, and have been just as happy drinking beer out of a tea-cup: you know the sort I mean. If ever I marry it will be a short-tempered man who loves music and is a good dancer; and if I find out too late that he's clever I'll run away from him.

"Dick has not yet come home--nearly eight o'clock. Veronica is supposed to be in bed, but I can hear things falling. Poor boy! I expect he'll be tired; but today is an exception. Three hundred sheep have had to be brought all the way from Ilsley, and must be 'herded'--I fancy it is called--before anybody can think of supper.

I saw to it that he had a good dinner.

"And now to come to business. Young Bute has been here all day, and has only just left. He is coming down again on Friday--which, by the way, don't forget is Mrs. St. Leonard's 'At Home' day. She hopes she may then have the pleasure of making your acquaintance, and thinks that possibly there may be present one or two people we may like to know. From which I gather that half the neighbourhood has been specially invited to meet you. So mind you bring a frock-coat; and if Little Mother can put her hand easily on my pink muslin with the spots--it is either in my wardrobe or else in the bottom drawer in Veronica's room, if it isn't in the cardboard box underneath mother's bed--you might slip it into your bag. But whatever you do don't crush it. The sash I feel sure mother put away somewhere herself.