’Mamma has talked a lot of rubbish about my
keeping up my studies and practising two hours a day,
and she means to disinfect my books and send them
down, but I have made up my mind that I will not open
one. I am going to enjoy myself, and nurse sick
people, and do real work, instead of grinding away
at that stupid German.’ And Jill set her
little white teeth, and looked determined, so I thought
it best not to contradict her.
‘I am so glad Uncle Max thought of Miss Gillespie,
dear.’
’Who is she? I hate her already. I
expect she is only an Anglicised Fraeulein,’
observed Jill, with a vixenish look.
’You are quite wrong. Miss Gillespie is
Scotch, and she is very nice and good, and pretty
too, for I have often heard Uncle Max talk of her.
Her father was Max’s great friend, and at his
death the daughters were obliged to go out in the
world. Miss Gillespie is the eldest. No,
she is not very young,—nearly forty, I
believe,—but she is so nice-looking; she
was engaged to a clergyman, but he died, and they had
been engaged so many years, and so now she will not
marry. She is very cheerful, however, and all
her pupils love her, and I am sure you will be happy
with her, Jill.’
Jill would not quite allow this, but the next day
she recurred to the subject, and asked me a good many
questions about Miss Gillespie, and when I told her
that it was settled that Miss Gillespie should join
them at Hastings she really looked quite pleased;
but nothing would induce her to open the case of books
Aunt Philippa had sent down, and when I told Uncle
Max he only laughed.
’Let her be as idle as she likes. She is
over-educated now, and knows far more than most girls
of her age. Take her about with you, and make
her useful.’ And I followed this advice
implicitly, but for a different reason,—there
was no keeping Mr. Tudor out of the house; so when
I was engaged, and Jill could not be with me, I took
advantage of a general invitation that Miss Hamilton
had given me, and sent her up to Gladwyn.
They were all very kind to her, and she seemed to
amuse Miss Darrell, but after a time Mr. Tudor began
going there too, and then indeed I should have been
at my wits’ end, only Mrs. Maberley came to my
rescue. She took a fancy to Jill, and Jill reciprocated
it, and presently she and Lady Betty began to spend
most of their idle hours at Maplehurst.
‘THEY HAVE BLACKENED HIS MEMORY FALSELY’
I loved having Jill with me, but I could not deny
to myself or other people that I found her a great
responsibility. In the first place, I had so
little leisure to devote to her, for just after Christmas
I was unusually busy. Poor Mrs. Marshall died
on the eve of the New Year, and both Mr. Hamilton
and I feared that Elspeth would soon follow her.
A hard frost had set in, and granny’s feeble
strength seemed to succumb under the pressure of the
severe cold; she had taken to her bed, and lay there
growing weaker every day. Poor Mary had died very
peacefully, with her hand in her husband’s.
I had been with her all day, and I did not leave until
it was all over.
