My Young Days Read online

  VI.

  _WHAT ABOUT LESSONS?_

  And now, little reader, I know quite well what thought has been poppingin and out of your head all this time. You have been wanting to ask mewhat had become of lessons all these weeks, and how a number of littleboys and girls could be allowed to run wild, doing just what they likedall day long.

  BABY, DEAR!]

  Well, it does seem very shocking, and there is no denying that, for awhole month, we did not often see the inside of a book. Yet, I hadlearnt to read, and had been in the habit of learning to spell and tocount every day of my life at home. I don't quite know how it came aboutthat we were not all of us a very untamed set after a month's idlenessat the Park. Perhaps, it was a good thing for us that grandmamma waswhat she was. The very perfection of tender kindness we all felt her,and yet there was a certain dignity about her, that made it a simpleimpossibility to be rough or rude before her. And on the whole we were agreat deal with her. When not with her, we were supposed to be pickingup a great deal of French from my cousin's Swiss nurse. And so, in ourway, we did, although I think Susette learned English a great dealfaster than we learned French. Yet, when we wished to coax her, theFrench words came fast enough, such as they were.

  But I am afraid grandmamma did not think that we were learning quiteenough, for one day she called Lottie and me, and told us that she hadjust seen such a nice young lady, and that she had promised to come andbe our governess. What an excitement this news caused us all! How wetalked it over all day long. We had many different ideas as to what shewas to be like; in fact, the elder boys made pictures of her, which, asit turned out, were anything but good portraits.

  How we did look at her that first evening! She was very young, very fairand in deep mourning. That is my earliest impression of her. We had akind of unconfessed idea that she did not take half pains enough to makeus like her. She did not seem to care whether we did or not--hardly, Ifancy, to think about the matter. It was just the very end of April,almost the bright May-time, and grandmamma went round the garden withher, Lottie and I making our remarks from a distance. I think we were alittle surprised to see our new governess so much at her ease, laughingmerrily and talking away to grandmamma, just as if there were no littlecritics taking note of all. By and by, she came in and sat down in "theschoolroom"--such a new word that seemed!--to write a letter. Lottie andI pretended to be very busy with our dolls in one corner, but we werekeeping up our watch, and every now and then we met her eye with a merrytwinkle in it, looking greatly amused at us.

  "She looks so young, only a girl! she will never be able to manage us,Jane says," Lottie remarked very softly to me; "but then, I daresay, shecan be cross enough when she likes, governesses always are!"

  All of a sudden, a merry laugh startled us both, and in another minuteLottie found herself flat on the floor, being tickled and kissed andlaughed over all at once. I don't think she quite liked it, though shecouldn't help laughing, too, but her cheeks were very red, when MissGrant raised her own head. She kept Lottie flat on her back, and lookeddown at her, the most thorough amusement all over her face.

  "Cross enough, do you think? Oh, yes, to be sure I can! Cross enough toeat you up at one mouthful, and little Sissy after you!"

  How funny it sounded! Lottie laughed and so did I, only very nervously.Then all at once Miss Grant grew very comically grave, and asked uswhether we thought we should soon make her cross? And then followedsuch a funny talk, I think I shall never forget it. Miss Grant was halflying on the sofa now, Lottie and I were bobbing up and down beside her,sometimes looking right into her blue laughing eyes, sometimes hidingour own rosy faces, that she mightn't see how queer she made us feel.

  "You don't much like the idea of having a governess, I see," she said;"you fancy it will be lessons, lessons all day long now, a great deal ofcrying, and punishments, very hard things to learn, and no fun any more.If that's what it really is going to be, I shall get so unhappy that Ishall soon run away home again! And then you think I shall have to growcross and ill-tempered, too--that is the worst part of it all."

  She pretended to be ready to cry, and Lottie, who didn't quite like togive up her own opinion, muttered something about "She thought theyalways were!"

  "Are they?" asked Miss Grant, just as if she really wanted to know, and,when we laughed and hid our faces, she went on: "I think I know how itis. This is what you will do to me: You will begin by getting into allthe mischief you can think of, and that will give me a headache; andthen you will be cross and rude, and that will give me great, deep linesin the forehead; and last of all, you will do vulgar things, that willmake my mouth get into the 'don't' shape, which is so ugly, you know;and, by and by, when I look at myself in the glass, I shall find myselfturned into a grey-headed old woman, and I shall say, 'Sissy gave methose wrinkles between my eyes, I always had to frown at her so;' andthen, 'Those ugly lines by my mouth came when Lottie vexed me so.' Whata funny thing it will be to have to remember you in that way when youare grown-up people!"

  Of course, we did not like this way of taking it for granted that wewere rude, troublesome children, yet there was a funny look in MissGrant's eyes that seemed as if she didn't really mean what she said. Andthe end of it all was that we made a compact, as she called it, that wewould be ever so good-tempered, and then she and we would have thehappiest time together that you can fancy.

  And I think it all came true. Thanks to our papas and mammas, we werenot quite the rude children we might have been. They had saved us everso much trouble, and ever so many tears, by teaching us that hardestlesson "do as you are told," before we were old enough to understand itsdifficulty. And Miss Grant was always so bright and happy that shescarcely ever let us suspect, even in the naughtiest times, that we were"making the lines come." Out of doors she was the merriest among us, andgrandmamma would often say to Lottie that she was ever so much olderthan Miss Grant, because she would walk soberly about with a book, whileMiss Grant was having all sorts of fun with the boys. At last she, too,caught the infection, and then we all had the merriest romps together!How well I remember those early summer days, and the luxury of flowerseverywhere. Is there anything so happy-looking, so full of overflowingdelight, as the long grass, and the buttercups and daisies, hawthorn andbluebells? We thought ourselves very wise about flowers then, and hadvery decided opinions on the proper blending of colours. Miss Grant wasteaching us this, and even now, when I see any one making a nosegay ofwild-flowers, I fancy myself running up to her with a handful of brightthings, to watch in my eagerness how they were in a minute turned intothe beautiful bouquet that nobody could equal or copy.

  She had been with us some time, when one morning we had a visitor cometo spend the day at Beecham. This lady was not old, yet she had the mostwrinkled, aged face I ever saw. When she was gone, Harry, who neverminded what he said, asked grandmamma about her, and cried out insurprise when he heard that she had been his own father's playfellow.

  "You think Mrs. Mowbray looks double as old as papa, do you?" saidgrandmamma. "Ah, it is trouble that has aged her. You would not wonderat all those lines and wrinkles if you knew all the sorrow and grief herown poor boys have given her through their sin and wilfulness!"

  Lottie and I looked at each other, and then glanced slily at Miss Grant,but I don't think she noticed us. When we were alone again, we resolvedthat we would try ever so hard to be good.

  "Because, you know, Sissy, it wouldn't be nice if Miss Grant were toget her face all puckered and creasy like that, just as if it wantedironing out, as Susette did with my frock when Murray scrunched it allup under his pillow to hide it. But I suppose you couldn't iron out yourface!"

  Anyhow, I agreed with Lottie not to run any risks, and I do not think wedid. At least, all my memories of that happy year at Beecham are mingledwith the bright, merry, gentle friend who made easy all the lessons thatcould be easy, and gave me courage for those that _had_ to be hard; andagainst whose shoulder I loved to nestle, and listen to Bible-storieswith those lit
tle hints in them which always set me thinking of my ownfaults and duties, and made me long to do right, and be the good littleChristian girl she wished me to be.

  Little reader, dear, are you making lines on anybody's forehead?