‘You mean to say that I have been talking nonsense,
Aunt Anne,’ said Elizabeth.
‘I say nothing of the kind, Lizzie,’ said
her aunt; ’I only say that you are in the habit
of splitting hairs.’
Elizabeth saw that her aunt was not pleased.
She went to the chimney-piece, and employed herself
in making a delicate piece of ixia get a better view
of itself in the looking-glass. Presently she
turned round, saying, ’Yes, Aunt Anne, I was
very wrong; I was making a foolish pretence at refinement,
to defend myself.’
’I did not mean to begin scolding you the very
moment I came near you, Lizzie,’ said Lady Merton.
‘Indeed I wish you would, Aunt Anne,’
said Elizabeth; ’pray scold me from morning
till night, there is no one who wants it more.’
‘My dear child, how can you say so?’ cried
Mrs. Woodbourne.
‘Many thanks for the agreeable employment you
propose to me, Lizzie,’ said Lady Merton.
’If Rupert docs not come to-night, I mean to
undertake a little of that agreeable employment myself,
when he arrives,’ said Elizabeth, ‘and
to make Anne help me.’
’I believe Rupert is so fond of being scolded,
that it only makes him worse,’ said Lady Merton.
‘Here are Papa and Uncle Edward coming back
at last,’ said Katherine, who was, as usual,
sitting in the window.
Mrs. Woodbourne looked greatly relieved; she had been
for some time in trouble for the dinner, not being
able to console herself in the way in which Elizabeth
sometimes attempted to re-assure her in such cases—’Never
mind, Mamma, the dinner is used to waiting.’
As soon as dinner was over, the girls proposed to
walk to the new church, that Anne might see it at
her leisure before the Consecration. The younger
children were very urgent to be allowed to accompany
them, but Mrs. Woodbourne would only consent to Dora’s
doing so, on her eldest sister’s promise to return
before her bed-time.
‘And, Mamma,’ said Elizabeth, as soon
as this question was decided, and the other two children
had taken out their basket of bricks at the other
end of the room, ’have you settled whether Edward
is to go to the Consecration to-morrow?’
‘I really think he is almost too young, my dear,’
said Mrs. Woodbourne; ‘you know it is a very
long service.’
‘Oh! Mamma,’ said Dora, ’he
is five years old now, and he says he will be very
good, and he will be very much disappointed if he has
to stay at home, now he has had his new frock and
trousers; and Winifred and I are going.’
‘Really, Dora,’ said Elizabeth, ’I
think he had better not go, unless he has some reason
for wishing to do so, better than what you have mentioned.’
‘I believe he understands it all as well as
we do,’ said Dora; ’we have all been talking
about it in the nursery, this evening, at supper:—and
you know, Mamma, he has quite left off being naughty
in church.’
