“And, Miss Rachel,” added the old servant,
“you’ll excuse me, but they do say very
odd things of the matron at that place, and I doubt
you are deceived in her. Our lads went to the
the-a-ter the other night, and I checked them well
for it; but mother, says they, we had more call to
be there than the governess up to Miss Rachel’s
schule in Nichol Street, dressed out in pink feathers.”
“Well, Mrs. Rossitur, I will make every inquiry,
and I do not think you will find anything wrong.
There must be some one about very like Mrs. Rawlins.
I have heard of those pink feathers before, but I
know who the matron is, and all about her! Good-bye.
I’ll see you again before you go, I suppose
it won’t be till the seven o’clock train.”
Mrs. Rossitur remained expressing her opinion to the
butler that dear Miss Rachel was too innocent, and
then proceeded to lose all past cares in a happy return
to “melting day,” in the regions of her
past glories as cook and housekeeper.
Rachel repaired to her room to cool her glowing cheeks,
and repeat to herself, “A mistake, an error.
It must be a blunder! That boy that went to
the theatre may have cheated them! Mrs. Rawlins
may have deceived Mr. Mauleverer. Anything must
be true rather than—No, no! such a tissue
of deception is impossible in a man of such sentiments!
Persecuted as he has been, shall appearances make me—me,
his only friend—turn against him?
Oh, me! here come the whole posse purring upstairs
to take off their things! I shall be invaded
in a moment.”
And in came Grace and the two younger ladies, and
Rachel was no more her own from that moment.
THE FORLORN HOPE.
“She whipped two female ’prentices
to death,
And hid them in the coal-hole. For
her mind
Shaped strictest plans of discipline,
sage schemes,
Such as Lycurgus taught.”—Canning
and Frere.
The favourite dentist of the neighbourhood dwelt in
a grand mansion at St. Norbert’s, and thither
were conducted Conrade and Francis, as victims to
the symmetry of their mouths. Their mother accompanied
them to supply the element of tenderness, Alison that
of firmness; and, in fact, Lady Temple was in a state
of much greater trepidation than either of her sons,
who had been promised five shillings each as the reward
of fortitude, and did nothing but discuss what they
should buy with it.
They escaped with a reprieve to Conrade, and the loss
of one tooth of Francis’s, and when the rewards
had been laid out, and presents chosen for all the
stay-at-home children, including Rose, Lady Temple
became able to think about other matters. The
whole party were in a little den at the pastrycook’s;
the boys consuming mutton pies, and the ladies ox-tail
soup, while waiting to be taken up by the waggonette
which had of late been added to the Myrtlewood establishment,
when the little lady thus spoke—
