The Hawthorns Part 8

Miss Unity stopped a moment to think; then she said:

"Would you be happier, David, if Nancy were to be punished?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because it would be fair."

"Well--you know it's Nancy's birthday soon, and she has to choose what present I shall give her?"

David nodded his head. He knew it very well; and not only that, he knew what Nancy was going to choose, for she had confided to him as a great secret that her heart was set on a kitchen-range for the doll's house.

"When she chooses, would you like me to say: 'No, Nancy. Because you were careless and forgot David's pig I shall give you nothing this year?'"

Miss Unity waited eagerly for the answer. How she hoped it would be "No." She had not been so anxious for anything for a long time.

But David raised his head, gazed at her calmly, and said quite distinctly:

"Yes."

Miss Unity sighed as she got up from her lowly seat.

"Very well, David," she said, "it shall be so; but I am sorry you will not forgive your sister."

She went sadly back to the house, thinking to herself:

"Of course _I_ could not persuade where others have failed. It was foolish to try. I have no influence with children. I ought to have remembered that."

But she was mistaken. That night when she was dressing for dinner there was a little knock at her door, very low down as though from somebody of short stature. She opened it, and there was David.

"If you please," he said, "I've come to say that I'd rather you gave Nancy the kitchen-range--I mean, whatever she chooses for her birthday."

"Then you've forgiven her?" asked Miss Unity excitedly.

"Yes," said David. "Good-night, because it's bed-time. Nurse said I was to go back directly."

He held out his hand, and also raised a pursed-up mouth towards Miss Unity, which meant that he wished to be kissed.

Feeling the honour deeply she stooped and kissed him, and her eyes followed the little square figure wistfully as it trotted down the pa.s.sage to the nursery; when it disappeared she turned into her room again with a warmer feeling about her heart than she had known for many a day.

Three days after this was Nancy's birthday, and although the kitchen-range did not appear she hopped and skipped and looked so brimful of delight that David could not help asking: "What are you so pleased about?"

"Come with me," was Nancy's reply, "and I'll show you Miss Unity's birthday present. It's the best of all."

She hurried David into the garden, and up to the pig-sty--empty no longer! There was Antony as lively as ever, and ready to greet his master with a cheerful grunt!

"There," she said, in the intervals of a dance of triumph, "I and Andrew fetched him home. Father said we might. I asked Miss Unity to ask him to have him back for a birthday present. And she did. She was so kind; and I don't think she's ugly now at all."

Nor did David; and he never said again that the thing he liked least at Nearminster was Miss Unity, for he had a long memory for benefits as well as for injuries.

CHAPTER SIX.

ETHELWYN.

"Oh, dear me!" said Pennie, looking at herself in the gla.s.s over the nursery mantel-shelf; "it _is_ ugly, and _so_ uncomfortable. I wish I needn't wear it."

"It," was Pennie's new winter bonnet, and certainly it was not very becoming; it was made of black plush with a very deep brim, out of which her little pointed face peered mournfully, and seemed almost swallowed up. There was one exactly like it for Nancy, and the bonnets had just come from Miss Griggs, the milliner at Nearminster, where they had been ordered a week ago. "Do you come and try yours on, Miss Pennie," said Nurse as she unpacked them, "there's no getting hold of Miss Nancy."

So Pennie put it on with a little secret hope that it might be a prettier bonnet than the last; she looked in the gla.s.s, and then followed the exclamation with which this chapter begins.

"I don't see anything amiss with it," said Nurse, who stood with her head on one side, and the other bonnet perched on her hand. "They're as alike as two pins," she added, twirling it round admiringly.

"They're both just as ugly as they can be," said Pennie mournfully; "but mine's sure to look worse than Nancy's--it always does. And they never _will_ stay on," she added in a still more dejected voice, "unless I keep on catching at the strings in front with my chin."

"Oh, well, Miss Pennie," said Nurse, "your head will grow to it, and you ought to be thankful to have such a nice warm bonnet. How would you like to go about with just a shawl over your head, like them gypsies we saw the other day?"

"_Very much indeed_," said Pennie, who had now taken off the bonnet and was looking at it ruefully. "There was one gypsy who had a red handkerchief, which looked much prettier than this ugly old thing."

"You oughtn't to mind how things look," returned Nurse. "You think too much of outsides, Miss Pennie."

"But the outside of a bonnet is the only part that matters," replied Pennie.

She was quite prepared to continue the subject, but this was not the case with Nurse.

"I've no time for argufying, miss," she said as she put the bonnets carefully back into their boxes. "I'm sure my mistress will like them very much. They're just as she ordered them." And so the subject was dismissed, and Pennie felt that she was again a victim.

For, as Nurse had said, Pennie _did_ care a great deal about outsides, and she thought it hard sometimes that she and Nancy must always be dressed alike, for the same things did not suit them at all. Probably this very bonnet which was such a trial to Pennie would be a suitable frame for Nancy's round rosy face, and look quite nice. It was certainly hard. Pennie loved all beautiful things, from the flowers in the garden and fields to the yellow curls on Cicely's ruffled head, and it often troubled her to feel that with pretty things all round her she did not look pretty herself. So the winter bonnet cast quite a gloom on her for the moment, and although it may seem a small trial to sensible people it was a large one to Pennie. How often she had sighed over the straight little serge frocks which she and Nancy always wore, and secretly longed for brighter colours and more flowing lines, and now this ugly dark bonnet had come to make things worse. It would make her feel like a blot in a fair white copybook, to walk about in it when the beautiful clean snow covered the earth. What a pity that everything in the world was not pretty!

Pennie's whole soul went out towards beauty, and anyone with a pretty face might be sure of her loving wors.h.i.+p and admiration. "All is not gold that glitters, Miss Pennie," Nurse would say, or, "Handsome is that handsome does;" but it made no impression at all; Pennie continued to feel sure that what looked pretty _must_ be good, and that a fair outside meant perfection within.

She stood thoughtfully watching Nurse as she put the bonnets away. It _would_ be nice to wear a scarlet handkerchief over your head like that gypsy. Such a lovely colour! And then there would be no tormenting "caught back" feeling when the wind blew, which made it necessary to press the chin firmly on the strings to keep that miserable bonnet on at all. And besides these advantages it would be much cheaper, for she had heard her mother say that Miss Griggs' things were _so_ expensive; "but then," Mrs Hawthorn had added, "the best of them is that they _do_ last." Pennie thought that decidedly "the worst" of them, for she and Nancy would have to wear those bonnets for at least two winters before they showed any signs of wearing out--indeed, they had been made rather large in the head on purpose.

But it was of no use to think about it any more now, so with a little sigh she turned away and went back to her dolls, prepared to treat the ugly one, Jemima, with even more than usual severity. Jemima was the oldest doll of the lot, made of a sort of papier-mache; her hair was painted black and arranged in short fat curls; her face, from frequent was.h.i.+ng and punishment, had become of a leaden hue, and was full of dents and bruises; her nose was quite flat, and she had lost one arm; in her best days she had been plain, but she was now hideous. And no wonder! Poor Jemima had been through enough trials to mar the finest beauty. She had been the victim at so many scenes of torture and executions that there was scarcely a noted sufferer in the whole of the History of England whom she had not, at some time or other, represented.

To be burnt alive was quite a common thing to Jemima, and sometimes, descending from the position of martyr to that of criminal, she was hanged as a murderer! In an unusually bloodthirsty moment Ambrose had once suggested _really_ putting out her eyes with red-hot gauffering-irons, but this was overruled, and Jemima's eyes, pale blue and quite expressionless, continued to stare placidly on the stake, gibbet, or block, as the case might be.

It was a relief to Pennie just now to cuff and scold Jemima, and to pet the Lady Dulcibella, who was a wax doll with a lovely pink and white complexion, and real golden hair and eyelashes. She had everything befitting a doll of her station and appearance--a comfortable bed with white curtains, an arm-chair with a chintz cus.h.i.+on, private brushes and combs, and an elegant travelling trunk. Her life altogether was a contrast to Jemima's, who never went to bed at all, and had no possessions except one ragged old red dress; nevertheless, it is possible that Dulcibella with all her elegance would have been the more easily spared of the two.

Nancy soon joined Pennie, and the little girls became so absorbed in their play that they were still busy when tea-time came; they hurried down-stairs to the schoolroom, for Miss Grey was particular about punctuality, and found that David and Ambrose were already seated, each with his own special mug at his side; mother was in the room too, talking to Miss Grey about an open letter which she held in her hand.

Mrs Hawthorn always paid the children a visit at schoolroom tea, and they generally had something wonderful to tell her saved up for this occasion--things which had occurred during their walk, or perhaps exciting details about the various pet animals. Sometimes she in her turn had news for them, and when Pennie saw the open letter she changed her intention of saying that the bonnets had come home, and waited quietly. Perhaps mother had something interesting to tell.

Pennie was right, for Mrs Hawthorn presently made an announcement of such a startling character that the new bonnets sank at once into insignificance.

"Children," she said, "a little girl is coming to stay with you."

Now such a thing had never happened before, and it was so astonis.h.i.+ng that they all stared at their mother in silence with half-uplifted mugs, and slices of bread and b.u.t.ter in their hands. Then all at once they began to pour forth a torrent of questions:-- What is she like? Where does she live? How old is she? What is her name?