The Getting of Wisdom
Henry Handel Richardson



TO MY
UNNAMED
LITTLE COLLABORATOR



Wisdom is the principal thing;
therefore get wisdom: and with
all thy getting get understanding.

Proverbs, iv, 7



I.



The four children were lying on the grass.

". . . and the Prince went further and further into the forest," said
the elder girl, "till he came to a beautiful glade--a glade, you know,
is a place in the forest that is open and green and lovely. And there he
saw a lady, a beautiful lady, in a long white dress that hung down to
her ankles, with a golden belt and a golden crown. She was lying on the
sward--a sward, you know, is grass as smooth as velvet, just like green
velvet--and the Prince saw the marks of travel on her garments. The
bottom of the lovely silk dress was all dirty----"

"Wondrous Fair, if you don't mind you'll make that sheet dirty, too,"
said Pin.

"Shut up, will you!" answered her sister who, carried away by her
narrative, had approached her boots to some linen that was bleaching.

"Yes, but you know Sarah'll be awfly cross if she has to wash it again,"
said Pin, who was practical.

"You'll put me out altogether," cried Laura angrily.--"Well, as I said,
the edge of her robe was all muddy--no, I don't think I will say that;
it sounds prettier if it's clean. So it hung in long, straight beautiful
folds to her ankles, and the Prince saw two little feet in golden
sandals peeping out from under the hem of the silken gown, and----"

"But what about the marks of travel?" asked Leppie.

"Donkey! haven't I said they weren't there? If I say they weren't,
then they weren't. She hadn't travelled at all."

"Oh, parrakeets!" cried little Frank.

Four pairs of eyes went up to the bright green flock that was passing
over the garden.

"Now you've all interrupted, and I shan't tell any more," said Laura in
a proud voice.

"Oh, yes, please do, Wondrous Fair! Tell what happened next," begged Pin
and Leppie.

"No, not another word. You can only think of sheets and parrakeets."

"Please, Wondrous Fair," begged little Frank.

"No, I can't now.--Another thing: I don't mind if you call me Laura
to-day, as it's the last day."

She lay back on the grass, her hands clasped under her head. A voice was
heard, loud, imperative.

"Laura, I want you. Come here."

"That's mother calling," said Pin.

Laura kicked her heels. The two little boys laughed approval.

"Go on, Laura," coaxed Pin. "Mother'll be angry. I'll come, too."

Laura raised herself with a grumble. "It's to try on that horrid dress."

In very fact Mother was standing, already somewhat impatient, with the
dress in her hand. Laura wriggled out of the one she had on, and stood
stiffly and ungraciously, with her arms held like pokers from her sides,
while Mother on her knees arranged the length.

"Don't put on a face like that, miss!" she said sharply on seeing
Laura's air. "Do you think I'm making it for my own pleasure?" She
had sewn at it all day, and was hot and tired.

"It's too short," said Laura, looking down.

"It's nothing of the kind," said Mother, with her mouth full of pins.

"It is, it's much too short."

Mother gave her a slight shake. "Don't you contradict ME! Do you want to
tell me I don't know what length you're to wear your dresses?"

"I won't wear it at all if you don't make it longer," said Laura
defiantly.

Pin's chubby, featureless little face lengthened with apprehension.

"Do let her have it just a tiny bit longer, mother dear, dear!" she
pleaded.

"Now, Pin, what have you got to do with it I'd like to know!" said
Mother, on the verge of losing her temper over the back folds, which
WOULD not hang.

"I'm going to school to-morrow, and it's a shame," said Laura in the
low, passionate tone that never failed to exasperate Mother, so
different was it from her own hearty fashion of venting displeasure. Pin
began to sniff, in sheer nervous anxiety.

"Very well then, I won't do another stitch to it!" and Mother, now angry
in earnest, got up and bounced out of the room.

"Laura, how can you?" said Pin, dissolving. "It's only you who make her
so cross."

"I don't care," said Laura rebelliously, though she was not far off
tears herself. "It IS a shame. All the other girls will have dresses down
to the tops of their boots, and they'll laugh at me, and call me a [P.4]
baby;" and touched by the thought of what lay before her, she, too,
began to sniffle. She did not fail, however, to roll the dress up and to
throw it unto a corner of the room. She also kicked the ewer, which fell
over and flooded the floor. Pin cried more loudly, and ran to fetch
Sarah.

Laura returned to the garden. The two little boys came up to her; but
she waved them back.

"Let me alone, children. I want to think."

She stood in a becoming attitude by the garden-gate, her brothers
hovering in the background.--Then Mother called once more.

"Laura, where are you?"

"Here, mother. What is it?"

"Did you knock this jug over or did Pin?"

"I did, mother."

"Did you do it on purpose?"

"Yes."

"Come here to me."

She went, with lagging steps. But Mother's anger had passed: she was at
work on the dress again, and by squinting her eyes Laura could see that
a piece was being added to the skirt. She was penitent at once; and when
Mother in a sorry voice said: "I'm ashamed of you, Laura. And on your
last day, too," her throat grew narrow.

"I didn't mean it, mother."

"If only you would ask properly for things, you would get them."

Laura knew this; knew indeed that, did she coax, Mother could refuse her
nothing. But coaxing came hard to her; something within her forbade it.
Sarah called her "high-stomached", to the delight of the other
children and her own indignation; she had explained to them again and
again what Sarah really meant.

On leaving the house she went straight to the flower-beds: she would
give Mother, who liked flowers very well but had no time to gather them,
a bouquet the size of a cabbage. Pin and the boys were summoned to help
her, and when their hands were full, Laura led the way to a secluded
part of the garden on the farther side of the detached brick kitchen. In
this strip, which was filled with greenery, little sun fell: two thick
fir trees and a monstrous blue-gum stood there; high bushes screened the
fence; jessamine climbed the wall of the house and encircled the bedroom
windows; and on the damp and shady ground only violets grew. Yet, with
the love children bear to the limited and compact, the four had chosen
their own little plots here rather than in the big garden at the back of
the house; and many were the times they had all begun anew to dig and to
rake. But if Laura's energy did not fizzle out as quickly as usual--she
was the model for the rest--Mother was sure to discover that it was too
cramped and dark for them in there, and send Sarah to drive them off.

Here, safely screened from sight, Laura sat on a bench and made up her
bouquet. When it was finished--red and white in the centre with a
darker border, the whole surrounded by a ring of violet leaves--she
looked about for something to tie it up with. Sarah, applied to, was
busy ironing, and had no string in the kitchen, so Pin ran to get a reel
of cotton. But while she was away Laura had an idea. Bidding Leppie hold
the flowers tight in both his sticky little hands, she climbed in
at her bedroom window, or rather, by lying on the sill with her legs
waving in the air, she managed to grab, without losing her balance, a
pair of scissors from the chest of drawers. With these between her teeth
she emerged, to the excited interest of the boys who watched her
open-mouthed.

Laura had dark curls, Pin fair, and both wore them flapping at their
backs, the only difference being that Laura, who was now twelve years
old, had for the past year been allowed to bind hers together with a
ribbon, while Pin's bobbed as they chose. Every morning early, Mother
brushed and twisted, with a kind of grim pride, these silky ringlets
round her finger. Although the five odd minutes the curling occupied
were durance vile to Laura, the child was proud of her hair in her own
way; and when in the street she heard some one say: "Look--what pretty
curls!" she would give her head a toss and send them all a-rippling. In
addition to this, there was a crowning glory connected with them: one
hot December morning, when they had been tangled and Mother had kept her
standing too long, she had fainted, pulling the whole dressing-table
down about her ears; and ever since, she had been marked off in some
mysterious fashion from the other children. Mother would not let her go
out at midday in summer: Sarah would say: "Let that be, can't you!" did
she try to lift something that was too heavy for her; and the younger
children were to be quelled by a threat to faint on the spot, if they
did not do as she wished. "Laura's faint" had become a byword in the
family; and Laura herself held it for so important a fact in her
life that she had more than once begun a friendship with the words: "Have
you ever fainted? I have."

From among these long, glossy curls, she now cut one of the longest and
most spiral, cut it off close to the root, and with it bound the flowers
together. Mother should see that she did know how to give up something
she cared for, and was not as selfish as she was usually supposed to be.

"Oh . . h . . h!" said both little boys in a breath, then doubled up in
noisy mirth. Laura was constantly doing something to set their young
blood in amazement: they looked upon her as the personification of all
that was startling and unexpected. But Pin, returning with the reel of
thread, opened her eyes in a different way.

"Oh, Laura . . .!" she began, tearful at once.

"Now, res'vor!" retorted Laura scornfully--"res'vor" was Sarah's name
for Pin, on account of her perpetual wateriness. "Be a cry-baby, do."
But she was not damped, she was lost in the pleasure of self-sacrifice.

Pin looked after her as she danced off, then moved submissively in her
wake to be near at hand should intercession be needed. Laura was so
unsuspecting, and Mother would be so cross. In her dim, childish way Pin
longed to see these, her two nearest, at peace; she understood them both
so well, and they had little or no understanding for each other.--So
she crept to the house at her sister's heels.

Laura did not go indoors; hiding against the wall of the flagged
verandah, she threw her bouquet in at the window, meaning it to
fall on Mother's lap.

But Mother had dropped her needle, and was just lifting her face,
flushed with stooping, when the flowers hit her a thwack on the head.
She groped again, impatiently, to find what had struck her, recognised
the peace-offering, and thought of the surprise cake that was to go into
Laura's box on the morrow. Then she saw the curl, and her face darkened.
Was there ever such a tiresome child? What in all the world would she do
next?

"Laura, come here, directly!"

Laura had moved away; she was not expecting recognition. If Mother were
pleased she would call Pin to put the flowers in water for her, and that
would be the end of it. The idea of a word of thanks would have made
Laura feel uncomfortable. Now, however, at the tone of Mother's voice,
her mouth set stubbornly. She went indoors as bidden, but was already up
in arms again.

"You're a very naughty girl indeed!" began Mother as soon she
appeared. "How dare you cut off your hair? Upon my word, if it weren't
your last night I'd send you to bed without any supper!"--an unheard-of
threat on the part of Mother, who punished her children in any way but
that of denying them their food. "It's a very good thing you're leaving
home to-morrow, for you'd soon be setting the others at defiance, too,
and I should have four naughty children on my hands instead of one.--
But I'd be ashamed to go to school such a fright if I were you. Turn
round at once and let me see you!"

Laura turned, with a sinking heart. Pin cried softly in a corner.

"She thought it would please you, mother," she sobbed.

"I WILL not have you interfering, Pin, when I'm speaking to Laura. She's
old enough by now to know what I like and what I don't," said Mother,
who was vexed at the thought of the child going among strangers thus
disfigured.--"And now get away, and don't let me see you again. You're a
perfect sight."

"Oh, Laura, you do look funny!" said Leppie and Frank in weak chorus, as
she passed them in the passage.

"Well, you 'ave made a guy of yourself this time, Miss Laura, and no
mistake!" said Sarah, who had heard the above.

Laura went into her own room and locked the door, a thing Mother did not
allow. Then she threw herself on the bed and cried. Mother had not
understood in the least; and she had made herself a sight into the
bargain. She refused to open the door, though one after another rattled
the handle, and Sarah threatened to turn the hose in at the window. So
they left her alone, and she spent the evening in watery dudgeon on her
pillow. But before she undressed for the night she stealthily made a
chink and took in the slice of cake Pin had left on the door-mat. Her
natural buoyancy of spirit was beginning to reassert itself. By brushing
her hair well to one side she could cover up the gap, she found; and
after all, there was something rather pleasant in knowing that you were
misunderstood. It made you feel different from everyone else.

Mother--sewing hard after even the busy Sarah had retired--
Mother smiled a stern little smile of amusement to herself; and before
locking up for the night put the dark curl safely away. 




II.



Laura, sleeping flat on her stomach, was roused next morning by Pin who
said:

"Wake up, Wondrous Fair, mother wants to speak to you. She says you can
get into bed in my place, before you dress." Pin slept warm and cosy at
Mother's side.

Laura rose on her elbow and looked at her sister: Pin was standing in
the doorway holding her nightgown to her, in such a way as to expose all
of her thin little legs.

"Come on," urged Pin. "Sarah's going to give me my bath while you're with
mother."

"Go away, Pin," said Laura snappily. "I told you yesterday you could say
Laura, and . . . and you're more like a spider than ever."

"Spider" was another nickname for Pin, owed to her rotund little body
and mere sticks of legs--she was "all belly" as Sarah put it--and the
mere mention of it made Pin fly; for she was very touchy about her legs.

As soon as the door closed behind her, Laura sprang out of bed and,
waiting neither to wash herself nor to say her prayers, began to pull on
her clothes, confusing strings and buttons in her haste, and quite
forgetting that on this eventful morning she had meant to dress herself
with more than ordinary care. She was just lacing her shoes when Sarah
looked in.

"Why, Miss Laura, don't you know your ma wants you?"

"It's too late. I'm dressed now," said Laura darkly.

Sarah shook her head. "Missis'll be fine an' angry. An' you needn't 'ave
'ad a row on your last day."

Laura stole out of the door and ran down the garden to the summer-house.
This, the size of a goodly room, was formed of a single dense,
hairy-leafed tree, round the trunk of which a seat was built. Here she
cowered, her elbows on her knees, her chin in her hands. Her face wore
the stiff expression that went by the name of "Laura's sulks," but her
eyes were big, and as watchful as those of a scared animal. If Sarah
came to fetch her she would hold on to the seat with both hands. But
even if she had to yield to Sarah's greater strength--well, at least
she was up and dressed. Not like the last time--about a week ago Mother
had tried this kind of thing. Then, she had been caught unawares. She
had gone into Pin's warm place, curious and unsuspecting, and thereupon
Mother had begun to talk seriously to her, and not with her usual
directness. She had reminded Laura that she was growing up apace and
would soon be a woman; had told her that she must now begin to give up
childish habits, and learn to behave in a modest and womanly way--all
disagreeable, disturbing things, which Laura did not in the least want
to hear. When it became clear to her what it was about, she had thrown
back the bedclothes and escaped from the room. And since then she had
been careful never to be long alone with Mother.

But now half an hour went by and no one came to fetch her: her
grim little face relaxed. She felt very hungry, too, and when at length
she heard Pin calling, she jumped up and betrayed her hiding-place.

"Laura! Laura, where are you? Mother says to come to breakfast and not
be silly. The coach'll be here in an hour."

Taking hands the sisters ran to the house.

In the passage, Sarah was busy roping a battered tin box. With their own
hands the little boys had been allowed to paste on this a big sheet of
notepaper, which bore, in Mother's writing, the words:

Miss Laura Tweedle Rambotham The Ladies' College Melbourne.

Mother herself was standing at the breakfast-table cutting sandwiches.

"Come and eat your breakfast, child," was all she said at the
moment. "The tea's quite cold."

Laura sat down and fell to with appetite, but also with a side-glance at
the generous pile of bread and meat growing under Mother's hands.

"I shall never eat all that," she said ungraciously; it galled her still
to be considered a greedy child with an insatiable stomach.

"I know better than you do what you'll eat," said Mother. "You'll be
hungry enough by this evening I can tell you, not getting any dinner."

Pin's face fell at this prospect. "Oh, mother, won't she really get any
dinner?" she asked: and to her soft little heart going to school began
to seem one of the blackest experiences life held.

"Why, she'll be in the train, stupid, 'ow can she?" said Sarah. "Do you
think trains give you dinners?"

"Oh, mother, please cut ever such a lot!" begged Pin sniffing valiantly.

Laura began to feel somewhat moved herself at this solicitude, and
choked down a lump in her throat with a gulp of tea. But when Pin had
gone with Sarah to pick some nectarines, Mother's face grew stern, and
Laura's emotion passed.

"I feel more troubled about you than I can say, Laura. I don't know how
you'll ever get on in life--you're so disobedient and self-willed. It
would serve you very well right, I'm sure, for not coming this morning,
if I didn't give you a penny of pocket-money to take to school."

Laura had heard this threat before, and thought it wiser not to reply.
Gobbling up the rest of her breakfast she slipped away.

With the other children at her heels she made a round of the garden,
bidding good-bye to things and places. There were the two summer-houses
in which she had played house; in which she had cooked and eaten and
slept. There was the tall fir-tree with the rung-like branches by which
she had been accustomed to climb to the very tree-top; there was the
wilderness of bamboo and cane where she had been Crusoe; the ancient,
broadleaved cactus on which she had scratched their names and drawn
their portraits; here, the high aloe that had such a mysterious charm
for you, because you never knew when the hundred years might expire and
the aloe burst into flower. Here again was the old fig tree with the
rounded, polished boughs, from which, seated as in a cradle, she
had played Juliet to Pin's Romeo, and vice versa--but oftenest Juliet:
for though Laura greatly preferred to be the ardent lover at the foot,
Pin was but a poor climber, and, as she clung trembling to her branch,
needed so much prompting in her lines--even then to repeat them with
such feeble emphasis--that Laura invariably lost patience with her and
the love-scene ended in a squabble. Passing behind a wooden fence which
was a tangle of passion-flower, she opened the door of the fowl-house,
and out strutted the mother-hen followed by her pretty brood. Laura had
given each of the chicks a name, and she now took Napoleon and Garibaldi
up in her hand and laid her cheek against their downy breasts, the
younger children following her movements in respectful silence. Between
the bars of the rabbit hutch she thrust enough greenstuff to last the
two little occupants for days; and everywhere she went she was
accompanied by a legless magpie, which, in spite of its infirmity,
hopped cheerily and quickly on its stumps. Laura had rescued it and
reared it; it followed her like a dog; and she was only less devoted to
it than she had been to a native bear which died under her hands.

"Now listen, children," she said as she rose from her knees before the
hutch. "If you don't look well after Maggy and the bunnies, I don't know
what I'll do. The chicks'll be all right. Sarah'll take care of them,
'cause of the eggs. But Maggy and the bunnies don't have eggs, and if
they're not fed, or if Frank treads on Maggy again, then they'll die.
Now if you let them die, I don't know what I'll do to you! Yes, I
do: I'll send the devil to you at night when the room's dark, before you
go to sleep.--So there!"

"How can you if you're not here?" asked Leppie.

Pin, however, who believed in ghosts and apparitions with all her
fearful little heart, promised tremulously never, never to forget; but
Laura was not satisfied until each of them in turn had repeated, in a
low voice, with the appropriate gestures, the sacred secret, and
forbidden formula: 


Is my finger wet?
Is my finger dry?
God'll strike me dead,
If I tell a lie.


Then Sarah's voice was heard calling, and the boys went out into the
road to watch for the coach. Laura's dressing proved a lengthy business,
and was accomplished amid bustle, and scolding, and little peace-making
words from Pin; for in her hurry that morning Laura had forgotten to put
on the clean linen Mother had laid beside the bed, and consequently had
now to strip to the skin.

The boys announced the coming of the coach with shrill cries, and
simultaneously the rumble of wheels was heard. Sarah came from the
kitchen drying her hands, and Pin began to cry.

"Now, shut up, res'vor!" said Sarah roughly: her own eyes were
moist. "You don't see Miss Laura be such a silly-billy. Anyone 'ud think
you was goin', not 'er."

The ramshackle old vehicle, one of Cobb's Royal Mail Coaches,
big-bodied, lumbering, scarlet, pulled by two stout horses, drew
up before the door, and the driver climbed down from his seat.

"Now good day to you, ma'am, good day, miss"--this to Sarah who,
picking up the box, handed it to him to be strapped on under the
apron. "Well, well, and so the little girl's goin' to school, is she? My,
but time flies! Well do I remember the day ma'am, when I drove you all
across for the first time. These children wasn't big enough then to git
up and down be thimselves. Now I warrant you they can--just look at
'em, will you?--But my! Ain't you ashamed of yourself"--he spoke to
Pin--"pipin' your eye like that? Why, you'll flood the road if you don't
hould on.--Yes, yes, ma'am, bless you, I'll look after her, and put her
inter the train wid me own han's. Don't you be oneasy. The Lord he cares
for the widder and the orphun, and if He don't, why Patrick O'Donnell
does."

This was O'Donnell's standing joke; he uttered it with a loud chuckle.
While speaking he had let down the steps and helped the three children
up--they were to ride with Laura to the outskirts of the township. The
little boys giggled excitedly at his assertion that the horses would not
be equal to the weight. Only Pin wept on, in undiminished grief.

"Now, Miss Laura."

"Now, Laura. Good-bye, darling. And do try and be good. And be sure you
write once a week. And tell me everything. Whether you are happy--and
if you get enough to eat--and if you have enough blankets on your bed.
And remember always to change your boots if you get your feet wet. And
don't lean out of the window in the train."

For some time past Laura had had need of all her self-control,
not to cry before the children. As the hour drew near it had grown
harder and harder; while dressing, she had resorted to counting the
number of times the profile of a Roman emperor appeared in the flowers
on the wallpaper. Now the worst moment of all was come--the moment of
good-bye. She did not look at Pin, but she heard her tireless, snuffly
weeping, and set her own lips tight.

"Yes, mother . . . no, mother," she answered shortly, "I'll be all right.
Good-bye." She could not, however, restrain a kind of dry sob, which
jumped up her throat.

When she was in the coach Sarah, whom she had forgotten climbed up to
kiss her; and there was some joking between O'Donnell and the servant
while the steps were being folded and put away. Laura did not smile; her
thin little face was very pale. Mother's heart went out to her in a pity
which she did not know how to express.

"Don't forget your sandwiches. And when you're alone, feel in the pocket
of your ulster and you'll find something nice. Good-bye, darling."

"Good-bye . . . good-bye."

The driver had mounted to his seat, he unwound the reins cried "Get up!"
to the two burly horses, the vehicle was set in motion and trundled down
the main street. Until it turned the corner by the Shire Gardens, Laura
let her handkerchief fly from the window. Sarah waved hers; then wiped
her eyes and lustily blew her nose. Mother only sighed.

"It was all she could do to keep up," she said as much to herself
as to Sarah. "I do hope she'll be all right. She seems such a child to be
sending off like this. Yet what else could I do? To a State School, I've
always said it, my children shall never go--not if I have to beg the
money to send them elsewhere."

But she sighed again, in spite of the energy of her words, and stood
gazing at the place where the coach had disappeared. She was still a
comparatively young woman, and straight of body; but trouble, poverty
and night-watches had scored many lines on her forehead.

"Don't you worry," said Sarah. "Miss Laura'll be all right. She's just a
bit too clever--brains for two, that's what it is. An' children WILL
grow up an' get big . . . an' change their feathers." She spoke
absently, drawing her metaphor from a brood of chickens which had
strayed across the road, and was now trying to mount the wooden verandah
-"Shooh! Get away with you!"

"I know that. But Laura--The other children have never given me a
moment's worry. But Laura's different. I seem to get less and less able
to manage her. If only her father had been alive to help!"

"I'm sure no father livin' could do more than you for those blessed
children," said Sarah with impatience. "You think of nothin' else. It 'ud
be a great deal better if you took more care o' yourself. You sit up
nights an' don't get no proper sleep slavin' away at that blessed
embroid'ry an' stuff, so as Miss Laura can get off to school an' to 'er
books. An' then you want to worry over 'er as well.--She'll be all
right. Miss Laura's like peas. You've got to get 'em outer the
pod--they're in there sure enough. An' b'sides I guess school'll knock
all the nonsense out of 'er."

"Oh, I hope they won't be too hard on her," said Mother in quick alarm.
-"Shut the side gate, will you. Those children have left it open again.
--And, Sarah, I think we'll turn out the drawing-room."

Sarah grunted to herself as she went to close the gate. This had not
entered into her scheme of work for the day, and her cooking was still
undone. But she did not gainsay her mistress, as she otherwise would
have made no scruple of doing; for she knew that nothing was more
helpful to the latter in a crisis than hard, manual work. Besides, Sarah
herself had a sneaking weakness for what she called "dra'in'-room days".
For the drawing-room was the storehouse of what treasures had remained
over from a past prosperity. It was crowded with bric-a-brac and
ornament; and as her mistress took these objects up one by one, to dust
and polish them, she would, if she were in a good humour, tell Sarah
where and how they had been bought, or describe the places they had
originally come from: so that Sarah, pausing broom in hand to listen,
had with time gathered some vague ideas of a country like "Inja", for
example, whence came the little silver "pagody", and the expressionless
brass god who squatted vacantly and at ease. 




III.



As long as the coach rolled down the main street Laura sat bolt upright
at the window. In fancy she heard people telling one another that this
was little Miss Rambotham going to school. She was particularly glad
that just as they went past the Commercial Hotel, Miss Perrotet, the
landlord's red-haired daughter, should put her fuzzy head out of the
window--for Miss Perrotet had also been to boarding-school, and thought
very highly of herself in consequence, though it had only been for a
year, to finish. At the National Bank the manager's wife waved a
friendly hand to the children, and at the Royal Mail Hotel where they
drew up for passengers or commissions, Mrs. Paget, the stout landlady,
came out, smoothing down her black satin apron.

"Well, I'm sure I wonder your ma likes sendin' you off so alone."

The ride had comforted Pin a little; but when they had passed the chief
stores and the flour-mill, and were come to a part of the road where the
houses were fewer, her tears broke out afresh. The very last house was
left behind, the high machinery of the claims came into view, the watery
flats where Chinamen were for ever rocking washdirt in cradles; and
O'Donnell dismounted and opened the door. He lifted the three out one by
one, shaking his head in humorous dismay at Pin, and as little Frank
showed sighs of beginning, too, by puckering up his face and [P.22]
doubling up his body, the kindly man tried to make them laugh by asking
if he had the stomach-ache. Laura had one more glimpse of the children
standing hand in hand--even in her trouble Pin did not forget her
charges--then a sharp bend in the road hid them from her sight.

She was alone in the capacious body of the coach, alone, and the proud
excitement of parting was over. The staunchly repressed tears welled up
with a gush, and flinging herself down across the seat she cried
bitterly. It was not a childishly irresponsible grief like Pin's: it was
more passionate, and went deeper; and her overloaded feelings were soon
relieved. But as she was not used to crying, she missed the moment at
which she might have checked herself, and went on shedding tears after
they had become a luxury.

"Why, goodness gracious, what's this?" cried a loud, cheerful and
astonished voice, and a fat, rosy face beamed in on Laura. "Why, here's a
little girl in here, cryin' fit to break 'er heart. Come, come, my dear,
what's the matter? Don't cry like that, now don't."

The coach had stopped, the door opened and a stout woman climbed in,
bearing a big basket, and followed by a young man with straw-coloured
whiskers. Laura sat up like a dart and pulled her hat straight, crimson
with mortification at being discovered in such a plight. She had
instantly curbed her tears, but she could not disguise the fact that she
had red eyes and a swollen nose--that she was in short what Sarah
called "all bunged up". She made no reply to the newcomer's exclamations,
but sat clutching her handkerchief and staring out of the window.
The woman's good-natured curiosity, however, was not to be done.

"You poor little thing, you!" she persisted. "Wherever are you goin', my
dear, so alone?"

"I'm going to boarding-school," said Laura, and shot a glance at the
couple opposite.

"To boardin'-school? Peter! D'you hear?--Why, whatever's your ma
thinkin' of to send such a little chick as you to boardin'-school? . . .
and so alone, too."

Laura's face took on a curious air of dignity.

"I'm not so very little," she answered; and went on to explain, in
phrases which she had heard so often that she knew them by heart: "Only
small for my age. I was twelve in spring. And I have to go to school,
because I've learnt all I can at home."

This failed to impress the woman.

"Snakes alive!--that's young enough in all conscience. And such a
delicate little creature, too. Just like that one o' Sam MacFarlane's
that popped off last Christmas--isn't she, Peter?"

Peter, who avoided looking at Laura, sheepishly mumbled something about
like enough she was.

"And who IS your ma, my dear? What's your name?" continued her
interrogator.

Laura replied politely; but there was a reserve in her manner which,
together with the name she gave, told enough: the widow, Laura's mother,
had the reputation of being very "stuck-up", and of bringing up her
children in the same way.

The woman did not press Laura further; she whispered something behind
her hand to Peter, then searching in her basket found a large, red
apple, which she held out with an encouraging nod and smile.

"Here, my dear. Here's something for you. Don't cry any more, don't now.
It'll be all right."

Laura, who was well aware that she had not shed a tear since the couple
entered the coach, coloured deeply, and made a movement, half shy, half
unwilling, to put her hands behind her.

"Oh no, thank you," she said in extreme embarrassment, not wishing to
hurt the giver's feelings. "Mother doesn't care for us to take things
from strangers."

"Bless her soul!" cried the stout woman in amaze. "It's only an apple!
Now, my dear, just you take it, and make your mind easy. Your ma
wouldn't have nothin' against it to-day, I'm sure o' that--goin' away
so far and all so alone like this.--It's sweet and juicy."

"It's Melb'm you'll be boun' for I dessay?" said the yellow-haired Peter
so suddenly that Laura started.

She confirmed this, and let her solemn eyes rest on him wondering why he
was so red and fidgety and uncomfortable. The woman said: "Tch, tch,
tch!" at the length of the journey Laura was undertaking, and Peter,
growing still redder, volunteered another remark.

"I was nigh to bein' in Melb'm once meself," he said.

"Aye, and he can't never forget it, the silly loon," threw in the woman,
but so good-naturedly that it was impossible, Laura felt, for Peter to
take offence.

She gazed at the pair, speculating upon the relation they stood
in to each other. She had obediently put out her hand for the apple, and
now sat holding it, without attempting to eat it. It had not been
Mother's precepts alone that had weighed with her in declining it; she
was mortified at the idea of being bribed, as it were, to be good, just
as though she were Pin or one of the little boys. It was a punishment on
her for having been so babyish as to cry; had she not been caught in the
act, the woman would never have ventured to be so familiar.--The very
largeness and rosiness of the fruit made it hateful to her, and she
turned over in her mind how she could get rid of it.

As the coach bumped along, her fellow-passengers sat back and shut their
eyes. The road was shadeless; beneath the horses' feet a thick red dust
rose like smoke. The grass by the wayside, under the scattered gum trees
or round the big black boulders that dotted the hillocks, was burnt to
straw. In time, Laura also grew drowsy, and she was just falling into a
doze when, with a jerk, the coach pulled up at the "Halfway House." Here
her companions alighted, and there were more nods and smiles from the
woman.

"You eat it, my dear. I'm sure your ma won't say nothin'," was her last
remark as she pushed the swing-door and vanished into the house,
followed by Peter.

Then the driver's pleasant face appeared at the window of the coach. In
one hand he held a glass, in the other a bottle of lemonade.

"Here, little woman, have a drink. It's warm work ridin'."

Now this was quite different from the matter of the apple. Laura's
throat was parched with dust and tears. She accepted the offer
gratefully, thinking as she drank how envious Pin would be, could she
see her drinking bottle-lemonade.

Then the jolting and rumbling began anew. No one else got in, and when
they had passed the only two landmarks she knew--the leprous Chinaman's
hut and the market garden of Ah Chow, who twice a week jaunted at a
half-trot to the township with his hanging baskets, to supply people
with vegetables--when they had passed these, Laura fell asleep. She
wakened with a start to find that the coach had halted to apply the
brakes, at the top of the precipitous hill that led down to the railway
township. In a two-wheeled buggy this was an exciting descent; but the
coach jammed on both its brakes, moved like a snail, and seemed hardly
able to crawl.

At the foot of the hill the little town lay sluggish in the sun.
Although it was close on midday, but few people were astir in the
streets; for the place had long since ceased to be an important mining
centre: the chief claims were worked out; and the coming of the railway
had been powerless to give it the impetus to a new life. It was always
like this in these streets of low, verandahed, red-brick houses, always
dull and sleepy, and such animation as there was, was invariably to be
found before the doors of the many public-houses.

At one of these the coach stopped and unloaded its goods, for an
interminable time. People came and looked in at the window at Laura, and
she was beginning to feel alarmed lest O'Donnell, who had gone inside,
had forgotten all about her having to catch the train, when out he came,
wiping his lips.

"Now for the livin' luggage!" he said with a wink, and Laura drew
back in confusion from the laughter of a group of larrikins round the
door.

It was indeed high time at the station; no sooner was her box dislodged
and her ticket taken than the train steamed in. O'Donnell recommended
her to the guard's care; she shook hands with him and thanked him, and
had just been locked into a carriage by herself when he came running
down the platform again, holding in his hand, for everyone to see, the
apple, which Laura believed she had safely hidden under the cushions of
the coach. Red to the roots of her hair she had to receive it before a
number of heads put out to see what the matter was, and she was even
forced to thank O'Donnell into the bargain. Then the guard came along
once more, and told her he would let no one get in beside her: she need
not be afraid.

"Yes. And will you please tell me when we come to Melbourne."

Directly the train was clear of the station, she lowered a window and,
taking aim at a telegraph post, threw the apple from her with all her
might. Then she hung out of the window, as far out as she could, till
her hat was nearly carried off. This was the first railway journey she
had made by herself, and there was an intoxicating sense of freedom in
being locked in, alone, within the narrow compass of the compartment.
She was at liberty to do everything that had previously been forbidden
her: she walked up and down the carriage, jumped from one seat to
another, then lay flat on her back singing to herself, and watching the
telegraph poles fly past the windows, and the wires mount and
descend.--But now came a station and, though the train did not stop,
she sat up, in order that people might see she was travelling alone.

She grew hungry and attacked her lunch, and it turned out that Mother
had not provided too much after all. When she had finished, had brushed
herself clean of crumbs and handled, till her finger-tips were sore, the
pompous half-crown she had found in her pocket, she fell to thinking of
them at home, and of what they would now be doing. It was between two
and three o'clock: the sun would be full on the flagstones of the back
verandah; inch by inch Pin and Leppie would be driven away to find a
cooler spot for their afternoon game, while little Frank slept, and
Sarah splashed the dinner-dishes in the brick-floored kitchen. Mother
sat sewing, and she would still be sitting there, still sewing, when the
shadow of the fir tree, which at noon was shrunken like a dwarf, had
stretched to giant size, and the children had opened the front gate to
play in the shade of the public footpath.--At the thought of these
shadows, of all the familiar things she would not see again for months
to come, Laura's eyelids began to smart.

They had flashed through several stations; now they stopped; and her
mind was diverted by the noise and bustle. As the train swung into
motion again, she fell into a pleasanter line of thought. She painted to
herself, for the hundredth time, the new life towards which she was
journeying, and, as always, in the brightest colours.

She had arrived at school, and in a spacious apartment, which was a kind
of glorified Mother's drawing-room, was being introduced to a
bevy of girls. They clustered round, urgent to make the acquaintance of
the newcomer, who gave her hand to each with an easy grace and an
appropriate word. They were too well-bred to cast a glance at her
clothes, which, however she might embellish them in fancy, Laura knew
were not what they ought to be: her ulster was some years old, and so
short that it did not cover the flounce of her dress, and this dress,
and her hat with it, were Mother's taste, and consequently, Laura felt
sure, nobody else's. But her new companions saw that she wore these
clothes with an elegance that made up for their shortcomings; and she
heard them whisper: "Isn't she pretty? What black eyes! What lovely
curls!" But she was not proud, and by her ladylike manners soon made
them feel at home with her, even though they stood agape at her
cleverness: none of THEM could claim to have absorbed the knowledge of a
whole house. With one of her admirers she had soon formed a friendship
that was the wonder of all who saw it: in deep respect the others drew
back, forming a kind of allee, down which, with linked arms, the two
friends sauntered, blind to everything but themselves.--And having
embarked thus upon her sea of dreams, Laura set sail and was speedily
borne away.

"Next station you'll be there, little girl."

She sprang up and looked about her, with vacant eyes. This had been the
last stoppage, and the train was passing through the flats. In less than
two minutes she had collected her belongings, tidied her hair and put on
her gloves.

Some time afterwards they steamed in alongside a gravelled
platform, among the stones of which a few grass-blades grew. This was
Melbourne. At the nearer end of the platform stood two ladies, one stout
and elderly in bonnet and mantle, with glasses mounted on a black stick,
and shortsighted, peering eyes; the other stout and comely, too, but
young, with a fat, laughing face and rosy cheeks. Laura descried them a
long way off; and, as the carriage swept past them, they also saw her,
eager and prominent at her window. Both stared at her, and the younger
lady said something, and laughed. Laura instantly connected the remark,
and the amusement it caused the speaker, with the showy red lining of
her hat, at which she believed their eyes had been directed. She also
realised, when it was too late, that her greeting had been childish,
unnecessarily effusive; for the ladies had responded only by nods. Here
were two thrusts to parry at once, and Laura's cheeks tingled. But she
did not cease to smile, and she was still wearing this weak little
smile, which did its best to seem easy and unconcerned, when she
alighted from the train. 




IV.



The elderly lady was Laura's godmother; she lived at Prahran, and it was
at her house that Laura would sometimes spend a monthly holiday.
Godmother was good to them all in a brusque, sharp-tongued fashion; but
Pin was her especial favourite and she made no secret of it. Her
companion on the platform was a cousin of Laura's, of at least twice
Laura's age, who invariably struck awe into the children by her loud and
ironic manner of speech. She was an independent, manly person, in spite
of her plump roundnesses; she lived by herself in lodgings, and earned
her own living as a clerk in an office.

The first greetings over, Godmother's attention was entirely taken up by
Laura's box: after this had been picked out from among the other
luggage, grave doubts were expressed whether it could be got on to the
back seat of the pony-carriage, to which it was conveyed by a porter and
the boy. Laura stood shyly by and waited, while Cousin Grace kept up the
conversation by putting abrupt and embarrassing questions.

"How's your ma?" she demanded rather than asked, in the slangy and
jocular tone she employed. "I guess she'll be thanking her stars she's
got rid of you;" at which Laura smiled uncertainly, not being sure
whether Cousin Grace spoke in jest or earnest.

"I suppose you think no end of yourself going to boarding-school?"
continued the latter.

"Oh no, not at all," protested Laura with due modesty; and as
both at question and answer Cousin Grace laughed boisterously, Laura was
glad to hear Godmother calling: "Come, jump in. The ponies won't stand."

Godmother was driving herself--a low basket-carriage, harnessed to two
buff-coloured ponies. Laura sat with her back to them. Godmother flapped
the reins and said: "Get up!" but she was still fretted about the box,
which was being held on behind by the boy. An inch larger, she asserted,
and it would have had to be left behind. Laura eyed its battered sides
uneasily. Godmother might remember, she thought, that it contained her
whole wardrobe; and she wondered how many of Godmother's own ample gowns
could be compressed into so small a space.

"All my clothes are inside," she explained; "that I shall need for
months."

"Ah, I expect your poor mother has sat up sewing herself to death, that
you may be as well dressed as the rest of them," said Godmother, and
heaved a doleful sigh. But Cousin Grace laughed the wide laugh that
displayed a mouthful of great healthy teeth.

"What? All your clothes in there?" she cried. "I say! You couldn't be a
queen if you hadn't more togs than that."

"Oh, I know," Laura hastened to reply, and grew very red. "Queens need a
lot more clothes than I've got."

"Tut, tut!" said Godmother: she did not understand the allusion, which
referred to a former ambition of Laura's. "Don't talk such nonsense to
the child."

She drove very badly, and they went by quiet by-streets to escape
the main traffic: the pony-chaise wobbled at random from one side of the
road to the other, obstacles looming up only just in time for Godmother
to see them. The ponies shook and tossed their heads at the constant
sawing of the bits, and Laura had to be continually ducking, to keep out
of the way of the reins. She let the unfamiliar streets go past her in a
kind of dream; and there was silence for a time, broken only by
Godmother's expostulations with the ponies, till Cousin Grace, growing
tired of playing her bright eyes first on this, then on that, brought
them back to Laura and studied her up and down.

"I say, who on earth trimmed your hat?" she asked almost at once.

"Mother," answered Laura bravely, while the colour mounted to her cheeks
again.

"Well, I guess she made up her mind you shouldn't get lost as long as
you wore it," went on her cousin with disconcerting candour. "It makes
you look just like a great big red double dahlia."

"Let the child be. She looks well enough," threw in Godmother in her
snappish way. But Laura was sure that she, too disapproved; and felt
more than she heard the muttered remark about "Jane always having had a
taste for something gay."

"Oh, I like the colour very much. I chose it myself," said Laura, and
looked straight at the two faces before her. But her lips twitched. She
would have liked to snatch the hat from her head, to throw it in front
of the ponies and hear them trample it under their hoofs. She had never
wanted the scarlet lining of the big, upturned brim; in a dislike
to being conspicuous which was incomprehensible to Mother, she had
implored the latter to "leave it plain". But Mother had said: "Nonsense!"
and "Hold your tongue!" and "I know better,"--with this result.

Oh yes, she saw well enough how Godmother signed with her eyes to Cousin
Grace to say no more; but she pretended not to notice, and for the
remainder of the drive nobody spoke. They went past long lines of grey
houses, joined one to another and built exactly alike; past large,
fenced-in public parks where all kinds of odd, unfamiliar trees grew,
with branches that ran right down their trunks, and bushy leaves. The
broad streets were hilly; the wind, coming in puffs, met them with
clouds of gritty white dust. They had just, with bent heads, their hands
at their hats, passed through one of these miniature whirlwinds, when
turning a corner they suddenly drew up, and the boy sprang to the
ponies' heads. Laura, who had not been expecting the end so soon, saw
only a tall wooden fence; but Cousin Grace looked higher, gave a stagey
shudder and cried: "Oh my eye Betty Martin! Aren't I glad it isn't me
that's going to school! It looks just like a prison."

It certainly was an imposing building viewed from within, when the
paling-gate had closed behind them. To Laura, who came from a township
of one-storied brick or weatherboard houses, it seemed vast in its
breadth and height, appalling in its sombre greyness. Between Godmother
and Cousin Grace she walked up an asphalted path, and mounted the steps
that led to a massive stone portico. The bell Godmother rang made no
answering sound, but after a very few seconds the door swung
back, and a slender maidservant in cap and apron stood before them. She
smiled at them pleasantly, as, in Chinaman-fashion, they crossed the
threshold; then, inclining her head at a murmured word from Godmother,
she vanished as lightly as she had come, and they sat and looked about
them. They were in a plainly furnished but very lofty waiting-room.
There were two large windows. The venetian blinds had not been lowered,
and the afternoon sun, beating in, displayed a shabby patch on the
carpet. It showed up, too, a coating of dust that had gathered on the
desk-like, central table. There was the faint, distinctive smell of
strange furniture. But what impressed Laura most was the stillness. No
street noises pierced the massy walls, but neither did the faintest echo
of all that might be taking place in the great building itself reach
their ears: they sat aloof, shut off, as it were, from the living world.
And this feeling soon grew downright oppressive: it must be like this to
be dead, thought Laura to herself; and inconsequently remembered a
quarter of an hour she had once spent in a dentist's ante-room: there as
here the same soundless vacancy, the same anguished expectancy. Now, as
then, her heart began to thump so furiously that she was afraid the
others would hear it. But they, too, were subdued; though Cousin Grace
tittered continually you heard only a gentle wheezing, and even
Godmother expressed the hope that they would not be kept waiting long,
under her breath. But minute after minute went by; there they sat and
nothing happened. It began to seem as if they might sit on for ever.

All of a sudden, from out the spacious halls of which they had
caught a glimpse on arriving, brisk steps began to come towards them
over the oilcloth--at first as a mere tapping in the distance, then
rapidly gaining in weight and decision. Laura's palpitations reached
their extreme limit--another second and they might have burst her
chest. Cousin Grace ceased to giggle; the door opened with a peculiar
flourish; and all three rose to their feet.

The person who entered was a very stately lady; she wore a cap with
black ribbons. With the door-handle still in her hand she made a slight
obeisance, in which her whole body joined, afterwards to become more
erect than before. Having introduced herself to Godmother as Mrs.
Gurley, the Lady Superintendent of the institution, she drew up a chair,
let herself down upon it, and began to converse with an air of ineffable
condescension.

While she talked Laura examined her, with a child's thirst for detail.
Mrs. Gurley was large and generous of form, and she carried her head in
such a haughty fashion that it made her look taller than she really was.
She had a high colour, her black hair was touched with grey, her upper
teeth were prominent. She wore gold eyeglasses, many rings, a long gold
chain, which hung from an immense cameo brooch at her throat, and a
black apron with white flowers on it, one point of which was pinned to
her ample bosom. The fact that Laura had just such an apron in her box
went only a very little way towards reviving her spirits; for altogether
Mrs. Gurley was the most impressive person she had ever set eyes on.
Beside her, God mother was nothing but a plump, shortsighted fidgety
lady.

Particularly awe-inspiring was Mrs. Gurley when she listened to
another speaking. She held her head a little to one side, her teeth met
her underlip and her be-ringed hands toyed incessantly with the long
gold chain, in a manner which seemed to denote that she set little value
on what was being said. Awful, too, was the habit she had of suddenly
lowering her head and looking at you over the tops of her glasses: when
she did this, and when her teeth came down on her lip, you would have
liked to shrink to the size of a mouse. Godmother, it was true, was not
afraid of her; but Cousin Grace was hushed at last and as for Laura
herself, she consciously wore a fixed little simper, which was meant to
put it beyond doubt that butter would not melt in her mouth.

Godmother now asked if she might say a few words in private, and the two
ladies left the room. As the door closed behind them Cousin Grace began
to be audible again.

"Oh, snakes!" she giggled, and her double chin spread itself "There's a
Tartar for you! Don't I thank my stars it's not me that's being shunted
off here! She'll give you what-for."

"I don't think so. I think she's very nice," said Laura staunchly, out
of an instinct that made her chary of showing fear, or pain, or grief.
But her heart began to bound again, for the moment in which she would be
left alone.

"You see!" said Cousin Grace. "It'll be bread and water for a week, if
you can't do AMARE first go-off--not to mention the deponents."

"What's AMARE?" asked Laura anxiously, and her eyes grew so big that
they seemed to fill her face.

But Cousin Grace only laughed till it seemed probable that she
would burst her bodice; and Laura blushed, aware that she had
compromised herself anew.

There followed a long and nervous pause.

"I bet Godmother's asking her not to wallop you too often," the tease
had just begun afresh, when the opening of the door forced her to
swallow her sentence in the middle.

Godmother would not sit down; so the dreaded moment had come.

"Now, Laura. Be a good girl and learn well, and be a comfort to your
mother.--Not that there's much need to urge her to her books,"
Godmother interrupted herself, turning to Mrs. Gurley. "The trouble her
dear mother has always had has been to keep her from them."

Laura glowed with pleasure. Now at least the awful personage would know
that she was clever, and loved to learn. But Mrs. Gurley smiled the
chilliest thinkable smile of acknowledgment, and did not reply a word.

She escorted the other to the front door, and held it open for them to
pass out. Then, however, her pretence of affability faded clean away:
turning her head just so far that she could look down her nose at her
own shoulder, she said: "Follow me!"--in a tone Mother would not have
used even to Sarah. Feeling inexpressibly small Laura was about to obey,
when a painful thought struck her.

"Oh please, I had a box--with my clothes in it!" she cried. "Oh, I hope
they haven't forgotten and taken it away again."

But she might as well have spoken to the hatstand: Mrs. Gurley
had sailed off, and was actually approaching a turn in the hall before
Laura made haste to follow her and to keep further anxiety about her box
to herself. They went past one staircase, round a bend into shadows as
black as if, outside, no sun were shining, and began to ascend another
flight of stairs, which was the widest Laura had ever seen. The
banisters were as thick as your arm, and on each side of the
stair-carpeting the space was broad enough for two to walk abreast: what
a splendid game of trains you could have played there! On the other hand
the landing windows were so high up that only a giant could have seen
out of them.

These things occurred to Laura mechanically. What really occupied her,
as she trudged behind, was how she could please this hard-faced woman
and make her like her, for the desire to please, to be liked by all the
world, was the strongest her young soul knew. And there must be a way,
for Godmother had found it without difficulty.

She took two steps at once, to get nearer to the portly back in front of
her.

"What a VERY large place this is!" she said in an insinuating voice.

She hoped the admiration, thus subtly expressed in the form of surprise,
would flatter Mrs. Gurley, as a kind of co-proprietor; but it was
evident that it did nothing of the sort: the latter seemed to have gone
deaf and dumb, and marched on up the stairs, her hands clasped at her
waist, her eyes fixed ahead, like a walking stone-statue.

On the top floor she led the way to a room at the end of a long
passage. There were four beds in this room, a washhand--stand, a chest
of drawers, and a wall cupboard. But at first sight Laura had eyes only
for the familiar object that stood at the foot of one of the beds.

"Oh, THERE'S my box!" she cried, "Someone must have brought it up."

It was unroped; she had simply to hand over the key. Mrs. Gurley went
down on her knees before it, opened the lid, and began to pass the
contents to Laura, directing her where to lay and hang them. Overawed by
such complaisance, Laura moved nimbly about the room shaking and
unfolding, taking care to be back at the box to the minute so as not to
keep Mrs. Gurley waiting. And her promptness was rewarded; the stern
face seemed to relax. At the mere hint of this, Laura grew warm through
and through; and as she could neither control her feelings nor keep them
to herself, she rushed to an extreme and overshot the mark.

"I've got an apron like that. I think they're so pretty," she said
cordially, pointing to the one Mrs. Gurley wore.

The latter abruptly stopped her work, and, resting her hands on the
sides of the box, gave Laura one of the dreaded looks over her glasses,
looked at her from top to toe, and as though she were only now beginning
to see her. There was a pause, a momentary suspension of the breath,
which Laura soon learned to expect before a rebuke.

"Little gels," said Mrs. Gurley--and even in the midst of her confusion
Laura could not but be struck by the pronunciation of this word. "Little
gels--are required--to wear white aprons when they come here!"
--a break after each few words, as well as an emphatic head-shake,
accentuated their severity. "And I should like to know, if your mother,
has never taught you, that it is very rude, to point, and also to
remark, on what people wear."

Laura went scarlet: if there was one thing she, Mother all of them
prided themselves on, it was the good manners that had been instilled
into them since their infancy.--The rough reproof seemed to scorch her.

She went to and fro more timidly than before. Then, however, something
happened which held a ray of hope.

"Why, what is this?" asked Mrs. Gurley freezingly, and held up to view--
with the tips of her fingers, Laura thought--a small, black Prayer
Book. "Pray, are you not a dissenter?"--For the College was
nonconformist.

"Well . . . no, I'm not," said Laura, in a tone of intense apology.
Here, at last, was her chance. "But it really doesn't matter a bit. I can
go to another church quite well. I even think I'd rather. For a change.
And the service isn't so long, at least so I've heard--except the
sermon," she added truthfully.

Had she denied religion altogether, the look Mrs. Gurley bent on her
could not have been more annihilating.

"There is--unfortunately!--no occasion, for you to do anything of the
kind," she retorted. "I myself, am an Episcopalian, and I expect those
gels, who belong to the Church of England, to attend it, with me."

The unpacking at an end, Mrs. Gurley rose, smoothed down her
apron, and was just on the point of turning away, when on the bed
opposite Laura's she espied an under-garment, lying wantonly across the
counterpane. At this blot on the orderliness of the room she seemed to
swell like a turkey-cock, seemed literally to grow before Laura's eyes
as, striding to the door, she commanded an invisible some one to send
Lilith Gordon to her "DI-rectly!"!

There was an awful pause; Laura did not dare to raise her head; she even
said a little prayer. Mrs. Gurley stood working at her chain, and
tapping her foot--like a beast waiting for its prey, thought the child.
And at last a hurried step was heard in the corridor, the door opened
and a girl came in, high-coloured and scant of breath. Laura darted one
glance at Mrs. Gurley's face, then looked away and studied the pattern
of a quilt, trying not to hear what was said. Her throat swelled, grew
hard and dry with pity for the culprit. But Lilith Gordon--a girl with
sandy eyebrows, a turned-up nose, a thick plait of red-gold hair, and a
figure so fully developed that Laura mentally dubbed it a "lady's
figure", and put its owner down for years older than herself--Lilith
Gordon neither fell on her knees nor sank through the floor. Her lashes
were lowered, in a kind of dog-like submission, and her face had gone
very red when Laura ventured to look at her again; but that was all. And
Mrs. Gurley having swept Jove-like from the room, this bold girl
actually set her finger to her nose and muttered: "Old Brimstone Beast!"
As she passed Laura, too, she put out her tongue and said: "Now
then, goggle-eyes, what have you got to stare at?"

Laura was deeply hurt: she had gazed at Lilith out of the purest
sympathy. And now, as she stood waiting for Mrs. Gurley, who seemed to
have forgotten her, the strangeness of things, and the general
unfriendliness of the people struck home with full force. The late
afternoon sun was shining in, in an unfamiliar way; outside were strange
streets, strange noises, a strange white dust, the expanse of a big,
strange city. She felt unspeakably far away now, from the small, snug
domain of home. Here, nobody wanted her . . . she was alone among
strangers, who did not even like her . . . she had already, without
meaning it, offended two of them.

Another second, and the shameful tears might have found their way out.
But at this moment there was a kind of preparatory boom in the distance,
and the next, a great bell clanged through the house, pealing on and on,
long after one's ears were rasped by the din. It was followed by an
exodus from the rooms round about; there was a sound of voices and of
feet. Mrs. Gurley ceased to give orders in the passage, and returning,
bade Laura put on a pinafore and follow her.

They descended the broad staircase. At a door just at the foot, Mrs.
Gurley paused and smoothed her already faultless bands of hair; then
turned the handle and opened the door, with the majestic swing Laura had
that day once before observed. 




V.



Fifty-five heads turned as if by clockwork, and fifty-five pairs of eyes
were levelled at the small girl in the white apron who meekly followed
Mrs. Gurley down the length of the dining-room. Laura crimsoned under
the unexpected ordeal, and tried to fix her attention on the flouncing
of Mrs. Gurley's dress. The room seemed hundreds of feet long, and not a
single person at the tea-tables but took stock of her. The girls made no
scruple of leaning backwards and forwards, behind and before their
neighbours, in order to see her better, and even the governesses were
not above having a look. All were standing. On Mrs. Gurley assigning
Laura a place at her own right hand, Laura covered herself with
confusion by taking her seat at once, before grace had been said, and
before the fifty-five had drawn in their chairs with the noise of a
cavalry brigade on charge. She stood up again immediately, but it was
too late; an audible titter whizzed round the table: the new girl had
sat down. For minutes after, Laura was lost in the pattern on her plate;
and not till tongues were loosened and dishes being passed, did she
venture to steal a glance round.

There were four tables, with a governess at the head and foot of each to
pour out tea. It was more of a hall than a room and had high,
church-like windows down one side. At both ends were scores of
pigeon-holes. There was a piano in it and a fireplace; it had [P.45]
pale blue walls, and only strips of carpet on the floor. At present it
was darkish, for the windows did not catch the sun.

Laura was roused by a voice at her side; turning, she found her
neighbour offering her a plate of bread.

"No, thank you," she said impulsively; for the bread was cut in chunks,
and did not look inviting.

But the girl nudged her on the sly. "You'd better take some," she
whispered.

Laura then saw that there was nothing else. But she saw, too, the smiles
and signs that again flew round: the new girl had said no.

Humbly she accepted the butter and the cup of tea which were passed to
her in turn, and as humbly ate the piece of rather stale bread. She felt
forlornly miserable under the fire of all these unkind eyes, which took
a delight in marking her slips: at the smallest further mischance she
might disgrace herself by bursting out crying. Just at this moment,
however, something impelled her to look up. Her vis-a-vis, whom she had
as yet scarcely noticed, was staring hard. And now, to her great
surprise, this girl winked at her, winked slowly and deliberately with
the right eye. Laura was so discomposed that she looked away again at
once, and some seconds elapsed before she was brave enough to take
another peep. The wink was repeated.

It was a black-haired girl this time, a girl with small blue eyes, a
pale, freckled skin, and large white teeth. What most impressed Laura,
though, was her extraordinary gravity: she chewed away with a face as
solemn as a parson's; and then just when you were least expecting it,
came the wink. Laura was fascinated: she lay in wait for it
beforehand and was doubtful whether to feel offended by it or to laugh
at it. But at least it made her forget her mishaps, and did away with
the temptation to cry.

When, however, Mrs. Gurley had given the signal, and the fifty-five had
pushed back their chairs and set them to the table again with the same
racket as before, Laura's position was a painful one. Everybody pushed,
and talked, and laughed, in a hurry to leave the hall, and no one took
any notice of her except to stare. After some indecision, she followed
the rest through a door. Here she found herself on a verandah facing the
grounds of the school. There was a long bench, on which several people
were sitting: she took a modest seat at one end. Two of the younger
governesses looked at her and laughed, and made a remark. She saw her
room-mate, Lilith Gordon, arm in arm with a couple of companions. The
winker of the tea-table turned out to be a girl of her own age, but of a
broader make; she had fat legs, which were encased in thickly-ribbed
black stockings. As she passed the bench she left the friend she was
with, to come up to Laura and dig her in the ribs.

"DIDN'T she like her bread and butter, poor little thing?" she said.
Laura shrank from the dig, which was rough; but she could not help
smiling shyly at the girl, who looked good-natured. If only she had
stayed and talked to her! But she was off and away, her arm round a
comrade's neck.

Besides herself, there was now only an elderly governess left, who was
reading. She, Laura, in her solitude, was conspicuous to every eye. But
at this juncture up came two rather rollicking older girls, one
of whom was fair, with a red complexion. AS soon as their loud voices
had driven the governess away, the smaller of the two, who had a
pronounced squint, turned to Laura.

"Hullo, you kid," she said, "what's YOUR name?"

Laura artlessly replied. She was dumbfounded by the storm of merriment
that followed. Maria Morell, the fat girl, went purple, and had to be
thumped on the back by her friend.

"Oh, my!" she gasped, when she had got her breath. "Oh, my . . . hold
me, some one, or I shall split! Oh, golly! Laura . . . Tweedle . . .
Rambotham--Laura . . . Tweedle . . . Rambotham! . . ." her voice tailed
off again. "Gosh! Was there ever such a name?"

She laughed till she could laugh no more, rocking backwards and forwards
and from side to side; while her companion proceeded to make further
inquiries.

"Where do you come from?" the squint demanded of Laura, in a
business-like way.

Laura named the township, quaveringly. "What's your father?"

"He's dead," answered the child.

"Well, but I suppose he was alive once wasn't he, duffer? What was he
before he was dead?"

"A barrister."

"What did he die of?" 

"Consumption."

"How many servants do you keep?" 

"One."

"How much have you got a year?" 

"I don't know."

"How old are you?"

"Twelve and a quarter."

"Who made your dress?" 

"Mother."

"Oh, I say, hang it, that's enough. Stop teasing the kid," said Maria
Morell, when the laughter caused by the last admission had died away.
But the squint spied a friend, ran to her, and there was a great deal of
whispering and sniggering. Presently the pair came sauntering up and sat
down; and after some artificial humming and hawing the newcomer began to
talk, in a loud and fussy manner, about certain acquaintances of hers
called Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Both the fat girl and the
squint "split" with laughter. Laura sat with her hands locked one inside
the other; there was no escape for her, for she did not know where to
go. But when the third girl put the regulation question: "What's your
name and what's your father?" she turned on her, with the courage of
despair.

"What's yours?" she retorted hotly, at the same time not at all sure how
the big girl might revenge herself. To her relief, the others burst out
laughing at their friend's bafflement.

"That's one for you, Kate Horner," said Maria with a chuckle. "Not bad
for the kid.--Come on, Kid, will you have a walk round the garden?"

"Oh yes, PLEASE," said Laura, reddening with pleasure; and there she
was, arm in arm with her fat saviour, promenading the grounds like any
other of the fifty-five.

She assumed, as well as she could, an air of feeling at her ease
even in the presence of the cold and curious looks that met her. The fat
girl was protective, and Laura felt too grateful to her to take it amiss
that every now and then she threw back her head and laughed anew, at the
remembrance of Laura's patronymics; or that she still exchanged jokes
about them with the other couple, when they met.

But by this time half an hour had slipped away, and the girls were fast
disappearing. Maria Morell loitered till the last minute, then said,
she, too, must be off to 'stew'. Every one was hastening across the
verandah laden with books, and disappearing down a corridor. Left alone,
Laura made her way back to the dining-hall. Here some of the very young
boarders were preparing their lessons, watched over by a junior
governess. Laura lingered for a little, to see if no order were
forthcoming, then diffidently approached the table and asked the
governess if she would please tell her what to do.

"I'm sure I don't know," answered that lady, disinclined for
responsibility. "You'd better ask Miss Chapman. Here, Maggie, show her
where the study is."

Laura followed the little girl over the verandah and down the corridor.
At the end, the child pointed to a door, and on opening this Laura found
herself in a very large brightly lighted room, where the boarders sat at
two long tables with their books before them. Every head was raised at
her entrance. In great embarrassment, she threaded her way to the more
authoritative-looking of the governesses in charge, and proffered her
request. It was not understood, and she had to repeat it.

"I'm sure I don't know," said Miss Day in her turn: she had
stiff, black, wavy hair, a vivid colour, and a big, thick nose which
made her profile resemble that of a horse. "Can't you twiddle your thumbs
for a bit?--Oh well, if you're so desperately anxious for an
occupation, you'd better ask Miss Chapman."

The girls in the immediate neighbourhood laughed noiselessly, in a
bounden-duty kind of way, at their superior's pleasantry, and Laura,
feeling as though she had been hit, crossed to the other table. Miss
Chapman, the head governess, was neither so hard-looking nor so
brilliant as Miss Day. She even eyed Laura somewhat uneasily, meanwhile
toying with a long gold chain, after the manner of the Lady
Superintendent.

"Didn't Mrs. Gurley tell you what to do?" she queried. "I should think it
likely she would. Oh well, if she didn't, I suppose you'd better bring
your things downstairs. Yes . . . and ask Miss Zielinski to give you a
shelf."

Miss Zielinski--she was the governess in the dining-hall--said: "Oh,
very well," in the rather whiny voice that seemed natural to her, and
went on reading.

"Please, I don't think I know my way," ventured Laura.

"Follow your nose and you'll find it!" said Miss Zielinski without
looking up, and was forthwith wrapt in her novel again.

Once more Laura climbed the wide staircase: it was but dimly lighted,
and the passages were in darkness. After a few false moves she found her
room, saw that her box had been taken away, her books left lying [P.51]
on a chair. But instead of picking them up, she threw herself on her bed
and buried her face in the pillow. She did not dare to cry, for fear of
making her eyes red, but she hugged the cool linen to her cheeks.

"I hate them all," she said passionately, speaking aloud to herself. "Oh,
HOW I hate them!"--and wild schemes of vengeance flashed through her
young mind. She did not even halt at poison or the knife: a big cake,
sent by Mother, of which she invited all alike to partake, and into
which she inserted a fatal poison, so that the whole school died like
rabbits; or a nightly stabbing, a creeping from bed to bed in the dark,
her penknife open in her hand... 

But she had not lain thus for more than a very few minutes when steps
came along the passage; and she had only just time to spring to her feet
before one of the little girls appeared at the door.

"You're to come down at once."

"Don't you know you're not ALLOWED to stay upstairs?" asked Miss
Zielinski crossly. "What were you doing?" And as Laura did not
reply: "What was she doing, Jessie?"

"I don't know," said the child. "She was just standing there." And all
the little girls laughed, after the manner of their elders.

Before Laura had finished arranging her belongings on the shelves that
were assigned to her, some of the older girls began to drop in from the
study. One unceremoniously turned over her books, which were lying on
the table.

"Let's see what the kid's got."

Now Laura was proud of her collection: it really made a great show; for
a daughter of Godmother's had once attended the College, and her
equipment had been handed down to Laura.

"Why, you don't mean to say a kid like you's in the Second Principia
already?" said a big girl, and held up, incredulously, Smith's black and
red boards. "Wherever did YOU learn Latin?"

In the reediest of voices Laura was forced to confess that she had never
learnt Latin at all.

The girl eyed her in dubious amaze, then burst out laughing. "Oh, I
say!" she called to a friend. "Here's a rum go. Here's this kid brings
the Second Principia with her and doesn't know the First."

Several others crowded round; and all found this divergence from the
norm, from the traditional method of purchasing each book new and as it
was needed, highly ridiculous. Laura, on her knees before her shelf,
pretended to be busy; but she could not see what she was doing, for the
mist that gathered in her eyes.

Just at this moment, however, in marched Maria Morell. "Here, I say,
stop that!" she cried. "You're teasing that kid again. I won't have it.
Here, come on, Kid--Laura Tweedledum come and sit by me for supper."

For the second time, Laura was thankful to the fat girl. But as ill-luck
would have it, Miss Chapman chanced to let her eyes stray in their
direction; and having fingered her chain indecisively for a little,
said: "It seems a pity, doesn't it, Miss Day, that that nice little girl
should get in with that vulgar set?"

Miss Chapman liked to have her opinions confirmed. But this was a
weakness Miss Day did not pamper; herself strong-minded, she could
afford to disregard Miss Chapman's foibles. So she went on with
her book, and ignored the question. But Miss Zielinski, who lost no
opportunity of making herself agreeable to those over her, said with
foreign emphasis: "Yes, indeed it does."

So Laura was summoned and made to sit down at the end of the room, close
to the governesses and beside the very big girls--girls of eighteen and
nineteen, who seemed older still to her, with their figures, and waists,
and skirts that touched the ground.

Instinctively she felt that they resented her proximity. The biggest of
all, a pleasant-faced girl with a kind smile, said on seeing her
downcast air: "Poor little thing! Never mind. "But when they talked among
themselves they lowered their voices and cast stealthy glances at her,
to see if she were listening.

Supper over, three chairs were set out in an exposed position; the big
bell in the passage was lightly touched; everyone fetched a hymn-book,
one with music in it being handed to Miss Chapman at the piano. The door
opened to admit first Mrs. Gurley, then the Principal and his wife--a
tall, fair gentleman in a long coat, and a sweet-faced lady, who wore a
rose in her velvet dress.

"Let us sing in the hundred and fifty-seventh hymn," said the gentleman,
who had a Grecian profile and a drooping, sandy moustache; and when Miss
Chapman had played through the tune, the fifty-five, the governesses,
the lady and gentleman rose to their feet and sang, with halting
emphasis, of the Redeemer and His mercy, to Miss Chapman's
accompaniment, which was as indecisive as her manner, the left hand
dragging lamely along after the right.

"Let us read in the third chapter of the Second Epistle of Paul
to the Thessalonians."

Everyone laid her hymn-book on the table and sat down to listen to
Paul's words, which the sandy gentleman read to a continual nervous
movement of the left leg.

"Let us pray."

Obeying the word, the fifty-five rose, faced about, and knelt to their
chairs. It was an extempore prayer, and a long one, and Laura did not
hear much of it; for the two big girls on her right kept up throughout a
running conversation. Also, when it was about half over she was startled
to hear Miss Zielinski say, in a shrill whisper: "Heavens! There's that
mouse again," and audibly draw her skirts round her. Even Miss Chapman,
praying to her piano-chair some distance off, had heard, and turned her
head to frown rebuke.

The prayer at an end, Mr. and Mrs. Strachey bowed vaguely in several
directions, shook hands with the governesses, and left the room. This
was the signal for two of the teachers to advance with open Bibles.

"Here, little one, have you learned your verse?" whispered Laura's
pleasant neighbour.

Laura knew nothing of it; but the big girl lent her a Bible, and, since
it was not a hard verse and every girl repeated it, it was quickly
learned.

I WISDOM DWELL WITH PRUDENCE AND FIND OUT KNOWLEDGE OF WITTY INVENTIONS. 

Told off in batches, they filed up the stairs. On the first landing
stood Miss Day, watching with lynx-eyes to see that no books or eatables
were smuggled to the bedrooms. In a strident voice she exhorted
the noisy to silence, and the loiterers to haste.

Laura sped to her room. She was fortunate enough to find it still empty.
Tossing off her clothes, she gabbled ardently through her own prayers,
drew the blankets up over her head, and pretended to be asleep. Soon the
lights were out and all was quiet. Then, with her face burrowed deep, so
that not a sound could escape, she gave free play to her tears. 




VI.



MY DEAR MOTHER

I SENT YOU A POSTCARD DID YOU GET IT. I TOLD YOU I GOT HERE ALL RIGHT
AND LIKED IT VERY MUCH. I COULD NOT WRITE A LONG LETTER BEFORE I HAD NO
TIME AND WE ARE ONLY ALOWED TO WRITE LETTERS TWO EVENINGS A WEEK TUESDAY
AND FRIDAY. WHEN WE HAVE DONE OUR LESSONS FOR NEXT DAY WE SAY PLEASE MAY
I WRITE NOW AND MISS CHAPMAN SAYS HAVE YOU DONE EVERYTHING AND IF WE SAY
WE HAVE SHE SAYS YES AND IF YOU SIT AT MISS DAYS TABLE MISS DAY SAYS IT.
AND SOMETIMES WE HAVEN'T BUT WE SAY SO. I SIT UP BY MISS CHAPMAN AND SHE
CAN SEE EVERYTHING I DO AND AT TEA AND DINNER AND BREAKFAST I SIT BESIDE
MRS. GURLEY. ANOTHER GIRL IN MY CLASS SITS OPPOSITE AND ONE SITS BESIDE
ME AND WE WOULD RATHER SIT SOMEWHERE ELSE. I DON'T CARE FOR MRS. GURLEY
MUCH SHE IS VERY FAT AND NEVER SMILES AND NEVER LISTENS TO WHAT YOU SAY
UNLESS SHE SCOLDS YOU AND I THINK MISS CHAPMAN IS AFRAID OF HER TO. MISS
DAY IS NOT AFRAID OF ANYBODY. I AM IN THE FIRST CLASS. I AM IN THE
COLLEGE AND UNDER THAT IS THE SCHOOL. ONLY VERY LITTLE GIRLS ARE IN THE
SCHOOL THEY GO TO BED AT HALF PAST EIGHT AND DO THEIR LESSONS IN THE
DINING HALL. I DO MINE IN THE STUDY AND GO TO BED WITH THE BIG GIRLS.
THEY WEAR DRESSES DOWN TO THE GROUND. LILITH GORDON IS A GIRL IN MY
CLASS SHE IS IN MY ROOM TO SHE IS ONLY AS OLD AS ME AND SHE WEARS STAYS
AND HAS A BEAUTIFUL FIGGURE. ALL THE GIRLS WEAR STAYS. PLEASE SEND ME
SOME I HAVE NO WASTE. A GOVERNESS SLEEPS IN OUR ROOM AND SHE HAS
NO TEETH. SHE TAKES THEM OUT EVERY NIGHT AND PUTS THEM IN WATER WHEN THE
LIGHT IS OUT. LILITH GORDON AND THE OTHER GIRL SAY GOODNIGHT TO HER
AFTER SHE HAS TAKEN THEM OFF THEN SHE CANT TALK PROPPERLY AND WE WANT TO
HEAR HER. I THINK SHE KNOWS FOR SHE IS VERY CROSS. I DON'T LEARN LATIN
YET TILL I GO INTO THE SECOND CLASS MY SUMS ARE VERY HARD. FOR SUPPER
THERE IS ONLY BREAD AND BUTTER AND WATER IF WE DON'T HAVE CAKE AND JAM
OF OUR OWN. PLEASE SEND ME SOME STRAWBERRY JAM AND ANOTHER CAKE. TELL
SARAH THERE ARE THREE SERVANTS TO WAIT AT DINNER THEY HAVE WHITE APRONS
AND A CAP ON THEIR HEADS. THEY SAY WILL YOU TAKE BEEF MISS

I REMAIN

YOUR LOVING DAUGHTER

LAURA.

DEAR PIN

I AM VERY BUSY I WILL WRITE YOU A LETTER. YOU WOULD NOT LIKE BEING HERE
I THINK YOU SHOULD ALWAYS STOP AT HOME YOU WILL NEVER GET AS FAR AS LONG
DIVISION. MRS. GURLEY IS AN AWFUL OLD BEAST ALL THE GIRLS CALL HER THAT.
YOU WOULD BE FRIGHTENED OF HER. IN THE AFTERNOON AFTER SCHOOL WE WALK
TWO AND TWO AND YOU ASK A GIRL TO WALK WITH YOU AND IF YOU DON'T YOU HAVE
TO WALK WITH MISS CHAPMAN. MISS CHAPMAN AND MISS DAY WALKS BEHIND AND
THEY WATCH TO SEE YOU DON'T LAUGH AT BOYS. SOME GIRLS WRITE LETTERS TO
THEM AND SAY THEY WILL MEET THEM UP BEHIND A TREE IN THE CORNER OF THE
GARDEN A PALING IS LOSE AND THE BOYS PUT LETTERS IN. I THINK BOYS ARE
SILLY BUT MARIA MORELL SAYS THEY ARE TIP TOP THAT MEANS AWFULLY JOLLY.
SHE WRITES A LETTER TO BOYS EVERY WEEK SHE TAKES IT TO CHURCH AND
DROPS IT COMING OUT AND HE PICKS IT UP AND PUTS AN ANSWER THROUGH THE
FENCE. WE PUT OUR LETTERS ON THE MANTLEPIECE IN THE DINING-HALL AND MRS.
GURLEY OR MISS CHAPMAN READ THE ADRESS TO SEE WE DON'T WRITE TO BOYS.
THEY ARE SHUT UP SHE CANT READ THE INSIDE. I HOPE YOU DON'T CRY SO MUCH
AT SCHOOL NO ONE CRIES. NOW MISS CHAPMAN SAYS IT IS TIME TO STOP

I REMAIN

YOUR AFECTIONATE SISTER

LAURA.

P.S. I TOOK THE RED LINEING OUT OF MY HAT.

WARRENEGA

SUNDAY.

MY DEAR LAURA

WE WERE VERY GLAD TO GET YOUR LETTERS WHICH CAME THIS MORNING. YOUR
POSTCARD WRITTEN THE DAY AFTER YOU ARRIVED AT THE COLLEGE TOLD US LITTLE
OR NOTHING. HOWEVER GODMOTHER WAS GOOD ENOUGH TO WRITE US AN ACCOUNT OF
YOUR ARRIVAL SO THAT WE WERE NOT QUITE WITHOUT NEWS OF YOU. I HOPE YOU
REMEMBERED TO THANK HER FOR DRIVING IN ALL THAT WAY TO MEET YOU AND TAKE
YOU TO SCHOOL WHICH WAS VERY GOOD OF HER. I AM GLAD TO HEAR YOU ARE
SETTLING DOWN AND FEELING HAPPY AND I HOPE YOU WILL WORK HARD AND
DISTINGUISH YOURSELF SO THAT I MAY BE PROUD OF YOU. BUT THERE ARE
SEVERAL THINGS IN YOUR LETTERS I DO NOT LIKE. DID YOU REALLY THINK I
SHOULDN'T READ WHAT YOU WROTE TO PIN. YOU ARE A VERY FOOLISH GIRL IF YOU
DID. PIN THE SILLY CHILD TRIED TO HIDE IT AWAY BECAUSE SHE KNEW IT WOULD
MAKE ME CROSS BUT I INSISTED ON HER SHOWING IT TO ME AND I AM ASHAMED OF
YOU FOR WRITING SUCH NONSENSE TO HER. MARIA MORELL MUST BE A VERY
VULGAR MINDED GIRL TO USE THE EXPRESSIONS SHE DOES. I HOPE MY LITTLE
GIRL WILL TRY TO ONLY ASSOCIATE WITH NICE MINDED GIRLS. I DIDN'T SEND YOU
TO SCHOOL TO GET NASTY IDEAS PUT INTO YOUR HEAD BUT TO LEARN YOUR
LESSONS WELL AND GET ON. IF YOU WRITE SUCH VULGAR SILLY THINGS AGAIN I
SHALL COMPLAIN TO MRS. GURLEY OR MR. STRACHEY ABOUT THE TONE OF THE
COLLEGE AND WHAT GOES ON BEHIND THEIR BACKS. I THINK IT IS VERY RUDE OF
YOU TOO TO CALL MRS. GURLEY NAMES. ALSO ABOUT THE POOR GOVERNESS WHO HAS
TO WEAR FALSE TEETH. WAIT TILL ALL YOUR OWN TEETH ARE GONE AND THEN SEE
HOW YOU WILL LIKE IT. I DO WANT YOU TO HAVE NICE FEELINGS AND NOT GROW
ROUGH AND RUDE. THERE IS EVIDENTLY A VERY BAD TONE AMONG SOME OF THE
GIRLS AND YOU MUST BE CAREFUL IN CHOOSING YOUR FRIENDS. I AM SORRY TO
HEAR YOU ARE ONLY IN THE LOWEST CLASS. IT WOULD HAVE PLEASED ME BETTER
IF YOU HAD GOT INTO THE SECOND BUT I ALWAYS TOLD YOU YOU WERE LAZY ABOUT
YOUR SUMS--YOU CAN DO THEM WELL ENOUGH IF YOU LIKE. YOU DON'T NEED
STAYS. I HAVE NEVER WORN THEM MYSELF AND I DON'T INTEND YOU TO EITHER.
YOUR OWN MUSCLES ARE QUITE STRONG ENOUGH TO BEAR THE WEIGHT OF YOUR
BACK. BREAD AND WATER IS NOT MUCH OF A SUPPER FOR YOU TO GO TO BED ON. I
WILL SEND YOU ANOTHER CAKE SOON AND SOME JAM AND I HOPE YOU WILL SHARE
IT WITH THE OTHER GIRLS. NOW TRY AND BE SENSIBLE AND INDUSTRIOUS AND
MAKE NICE FRIENDS AND THEN I SHANT HAVE TO SCOLD YOU

YOUR LOVING MOTHER

J.T.R.

P.S. ANOTHER THING IN YOUR LETTER I DON'T LIKE. YOU SAY YOU TELL YOUR
GOVERNESS YOU HAVE FINISHED YOUR LESSONS WHEN YOU HAVE NOT DONE
SO. THAT IS TELLING AN UNTRUTH AND I HOPE YOU ARE NOT GOING TO BE LED
AWAY BY THE EXAMPLES OF BAD GIRLS. I HAVE ALWAYS BROUGHT YOU CHILDREN UP
TO BE STRAIGHTFORWARD AND I AM ASTONISHED AT YOU BEGINNING FIBBING AS
SOON AS YOU GET AWAY FROM HOME. FIBBING SOON LEADS TO SOMETHING WORSE.

P.P.S. YOU MUST HAVE WRITTEN YOUR LETTER IN A GREAT HURRY FOR YOUR
SPELLING IS ANYTHING BUT PERFECT. YOU ARE A VERY NAUGHTY GIRL TO MEDDLE
WITH YOUR HAT. PIN HAS WRITTEN A LETTER WHICH I ENCLOSE THOUGH HER
SPELLING IS WORSE THAN EVER.

DEAR LAURA

MOTHER SAYS YOU ARE A VERY SILY GIRL TO RITE SUCH SILY LETTERS I THINK
YOU ARE SILY TO I SHOOD BE FRITENED OF MRS. GIRLY I DON'T WANT TO GO TO
SKOOL I WOOD RATHER STOP WITH MOTHER AND BE A CUMFERT TO HER I THINK IT
IS NAUTY TO DROP LETTERS IN CHERCH AND VERRY SILY TO RITE TO BOYS BOYS
ARE SO SILY SARAH SENDS HER LUV SHE SAYS SHE WOOD NOT WARE A CAP ON HER
HED NOT FOR ANNYTHING SHE SAYS SHE WOOD JUST AS SOON WARE A RING THRUGH
HER NOSE.

I REMAIN

YOUR LUVING SISTER PIN.

DEAR MOTHER

PLEASE PLEASE DON'T WRITE TO MRS. GURLEY ABOUT THE TONE IN THE COLLEGE OR
NOT TO MR. STRACHEY EITHER. I WILL NEVER BE SO SILLY AGAIN. I AM SORRY
MY LETTERS WERE SO SILLY I WONT DO IT AGAIN. PLEASE DON'T WRITE TO
THEM ABOUT IT. I DON'T GO MUCH WITH MARIA MORELL NOW I THINK SHE SHE IS
VULGER TO. I KNOW TWO NICE GIRLS NOW IN MY OWN CLASS THEIR NAMES ARE
INEZ AND BERTHA THEY ARE VERY NICE AND NOT AT ALL VULGER. MARIA MORELL
IS FAT AND HAS A RED FACE SHE IS MUCH OLDER THAN ME AND I DON'T CARE FOR
HER NOW. PLEASE DON'T WRITE TO MRS. GURLEY I WILL NEVER CALL HER NAMES
AGAIN. I HAD TO WRITE MY LETTER QUICKLY BECAUSE WHEN I HAVE DONE MY
LESSONS IT IS NEARLY TIME FOR SUPPER. I AM SORRY MY SPELLING WAS WRONG I
WILL TAKE MORE PAINS NEXT TIME I WILL LEARN HARD AND GET ON AND SOON I
WILL BE IN THE SECOND CLASS. I DID NOT MEAN I SAID I HAD DONE MY LESSONS
WHEN I HAD NOT DONE THEM THE OTHER GIRLS SAY IT AND I THINK IT IS VERY
WRONG OF THEM. PLEASE DON'T WRITE TO MRS. GURLEY I WILL TRY AND BE GOOD
AND SENSIBLE AND NOT DO IT AGAIN IF YOU ONLY WONT WRITE.

I REMAIN

YOUR AFECTIONATE DAUGHTER

LAURA.

P.S. I CAN DO MY SUMS BETTER NOW.

WARRENEGA

MY DEAR LAURA

MY LETTER EVIDENTLY GAVE YOU A GOOD FRIGHT AND I AM NOT SORRY TO HEAR IT
FOR I THINK YOU DESERVED IT FOR BEING SUCH A FOOLISH GIRL. I HOPE YOU
WILL KEEP YOUR PROMISE AND NOT DO IT AGAIN. OF COURSE I DON'T MEAN THAT
YOU ARE NOT TO TELL ME EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS AT SCHOOL BUT I WANT YOU
TO ONLY HAVE NICE THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS AND GROW INTO A WISE AND
SENSIBLE GIRL. I AM NOT GOING TO WRITE A LONG LETTER TODAY. THIS [P.62]
IS ONLY A LINE TO COMFORT YOU AND LET YOU KNOW THAT I SHALL NOT WRITE TO
MRS. GURLEY OR MR. STRACHEY AS LONG AS I SEE THAT YOU ARE BEING A GOOD
GIRL AND GETTING ON WELL WITH YOUR LESSONS. I DO WANT YOU TO REMEMBER
THAT YOU ARE A LADY THOUGH YOU ARE POOR AND MUST BEHAVE IN A LADYLIKE
WAY. YOU DON'T TELL ME WHAT THE FOOD AT THE COLLEGE IS LIKE AND WHETHER
YOU HAVE BLANKETS ENOUGH ON YOUR BED AT NIGHT. DO TRY AND REMEMBER TO
ANSWER THE QUESTIONS I ASK YOU. SARAH IS BUSY WASHING TODAY AND THE
CHILDREN ARE HELPING HER BY SITTING WITH THEIR ARMS IN THE TUBS. I AM TO
TELL YOU FROM PIN THAT MAGGY IS MOULTING BADLY AND HAS NOT EATEN MUCH
SINCE YOU LEFT WHICH IS JUST THREE WEEKS TODAY

YOUR LOVING

MOTHER.

FRIDAY

MY DEAR MOTHER

I WAS SO GLAD TO GET YOUR LETTER I AM SO GLAD YOU WILL NOT WRITE TO MRS.
GURLEY THIS TIME AND I WILL PROMISE TO BE VERY GOOD AND TRY TO REMEMBER
EVERYTHING YOU TELL ME. I AM SORRY I FORGOT TO ANSWER THE QUESTIONS I
HAVE TWO BLANKETS ON MY BED AND IT IS ENOUGH. THE FOOD IS VERY NICE FOR
DINNER FOR TEA WE HAVE TO EAT A LOT OF BREAD AND BUTTER I DON'T CARE FOR
BREAD MUCH. SOMETIMES WE HAVE JAM BUT WE ARE NOT ALOWED TO EAT BUTTER
AND JAM TOGETHER. A LOT OF GIRLS GET UP AT SIX AND GO DOWN TO PRACTICE
THEY DON'T DRESS AND HAVE THEIR BATH THEY JUST PUT ON THEIR DRESSING
GOWNS ON TOP OF THEIR NIGHT GOWNS. I DON'T GO DOWN NOW TILL SEVEN I MAKE
MY OWN BED. WE HAVE PRAYERS IN THE MORNING AND THE EVENING AND
PRAYERS AGAIN WHEN THE DAY SCHOLERS COME. I DO MY SUMS BETTER NOW I
THINK I SHALL SOON BE IN THE SECOND CLASS. PINS SPELLING WAS DREADFULL
AND SHE IS NEARLY NINE NOW AND IS SUCH A BABY THE GIRLS WOULD LAUGH AT
HER.

I REMAIN

YOUR AFECTIONATE DAUGHTER LAURA.

P.S. I PARSSED A LONG SENTENCE WITHOUT ANY MISTAKES.




VII.



The mornings were beginning to grow dark and chilly: fires were laid
overnight in the outer classrooms--and the junior governess who was on
early duty, having pealed the six-o'clock bell, flitted like a grey
wraith from room to room and from one gas-jet to another, among
stretched, sleeping forms. And the few minutes' grace at an end, it was
a cold, unwilling pack that threw off coverlets and jumped out of bed,
to tie on petticoats and snuggle into dressing-gowns and shawls; for the
first approach of cooler weather was keenly felt, after the summer heat.
The governess blew on speedily chilblained fingers, in making her rounds
of the verandahs to see that each of the twenty pianos was rightly
occupied; and, as winter crept on, its chief outward sign an occasional
thin white spread of frost which vanished before the mighty sun of ten
o'clock, she sometimes took the occupancy for granted, and skipped an
exposed room.

At eight, the boarders assembled in the dining-hall for prayers and
breakfast. After this meal it was Mrs. Gurley's custom to drink a glass
of hot water. While she sipped, she gave audience, meting out rebukes
and crushing complaints--were any bold enough to offer them--standing
erect behind her chair at the head of the table, supported by one or
more of the staff. To suit the season she was draped in a shawl of
crimson wool, which reached to the flounce of her skirt, and was
borne by her portly shoulders with the grace of a past day. Beneath the
shawl, her dresses were built, year in, year out, on the same plan: cut
in one piece, buttoning right down the front, they fitted her like an
eelskin, rigidly outlining her majestic proportions, and always short
enough to show a pair of surprisingly small, well-shod feet. Thus she
stood, sipping her water, and boring with her hard, unflagging eye every
girl that presented herself to it. Most shrank noiselessly away as soon
as breakfast was over; for, unless one was very firm indeed in the
conviction of one's own innocence, to be beneath this eye was apt to
induce a disagreeable sense of guilt. In the case of Mrs. Gurley,
familiarity had never been known to breed contempt. She was possessed of
what was little short of genius, for ruling through fear; and no more
fitting overseer could have been set at the head of these half-hundred
girls, of all ages and degrees: gentle and common; ruly and unruly,
children hardly out of the nursery, and girls well over the brink of
womanhood, whose ripe, bursting forms told their own tale; the daughters
of poor ministers at reduced fees; and the spoilt heiresses of wealthy
wool-brokers and squatters, whose dowries would mount to many thousands
of pounds.--Mrs. Gurley was equal to them all.

In a very short time, there was no more persistent shrinker from the ice
of this gaze than little Laura. In the presence of Mrs. Gurley the child
had a difficulty in getting her breath. Her first week of school life
had been one unbroken succession of snubs and reprimands. For this, the
undue familiarity of her manner was to blame: she was all too
slow to grasp--being of an impulsive disposition and not naturally shy
--that it was indecorous to accost Mrs. Gurley off-hand, to treat her,
indeed, in any way as if she were an ordinary mortal. The climax had
come one morning--it still made Laura's cheeks burn to remember it. She
had not been able to master her French lesson for that day, and seeing
Mrs. Gurley chatting to a governess had gone thoughtlessly up to her and
tapped her on the arm.

"Mrs. Gurley, please, do you think it would matter very much if I only
took half this verb today? It's COUDRE, and means to sew, you know, and
it's SO hard. I don't seem to be able to get it into my head."

Before the words were out of her mouth, she saw that she had made a
terrible mistake. Mrs. Gurley's face, which had been smiling, froze to
stone. She looked at her arm as though the hand had bitten her, and
Laura's sudden shrinking did not move her, to whom seldom anyone
addressed a word unbidden.

"How DARE you interrupt me--when I am speaking!"--she hissed,
punctuating her words with the ominous head-shakes and pauses. "The first
thing, miss, for you to do, will be, to take a course of lessons, in
manners. Your present ones, may have done well enough, in the outhouse,
to which you have evidently belonged. They will not do, here, in the
company of your betters."

Above the child's head the two ladies smiled significantly at each
other, assured that, after this, there would be no further want of
respect; but Laura did not see them. The iron of the thrust went deep
down into her soul: no one had ever yet cast a slur upon her
home. Retreating to a lavatory she cried herself nearly sick, making her
eyes so red that she was late for prayers in trying to wash them white.
Since that day, she had never of her own free will approached Mrs.
Gurley again, and even avoided those places where she was likely to be
found. This was why one morning, some three weeks later, on discovering
that she had forgotten one of her lesson-books, she hesitated long
before re-entering the dining-hall. The governesses still clustered
round their chief, and the pupils were not expected to return. But it
was past nine o'clock; in a minute the public prayer-bell would ring,
which united boarders, several hundred day-scholars, resident and
visiting teachers in the largest class-room; and Laura did not know her
English lesson. So she stole in, cautiously dodging behind the group, in
a twitter lest the dreaded eyes should turn her way.

It was Miss Day who spied her and demanded an explanation.

"Such carelessness! You girls would forget your heads if they weren't
screwed on," retorted the governess, in the dry, violent manner that
made her universally disliked.

Thankful to escape with this, Laura picked out her book and hurried from
the room.

But the thoughts of the group had been drawn to her.

"The greatest little oddity we've had here for some time," pronounced
Miss Day, pouting her full bust in decisive fashion.

"She is, indeed," agreed Miss Zielinski.

"I don't know what sort of a place she comes from, I'm sure,"
continued the former: "but it must be the end of creation. She's utterly
no idea of what's what, and as for her clothes they're fit for a Punch
and Judy show."

"She's had no training either--stupid, I call her," chimed in one of
the younger governesses, whose name was Miss Snodgrass. "She doesn't
know the simplest things, and her spelling is awful. And yet, do you
know, at history the other day, she wanted to hold forth about how
London looked in Elizabeth's reign--when she didn't know a single one
of the dates!"

"She can say some poetry," said Miss Zielinski. "And she's read Scott."

One and all shook their heads at this, and Mrs. Gurley went on shaking
hers and smiling grimly. "Ah! the way gels are brought up nowadays," she
said. "There was no such thing in my time. We were made to learn what
would be of some use and help to us afterwards."

Elderly Miss Chapman twiddled her chain. "I hope I did right Mrs. Gurley.
She had one week's early practice, but she looked so white all day after
it that I haven't put her down for it again. I hope I did right?"

"Oh, well, we don't want to have them ill, you know," replied Mrs.
Gurley, in the rather irresponsive tone she adopted towards Miss
Chapman. "As long as it isn't mere laziness."

"I don't think she's lazy," said Miss Chapman. "At least she takes great
pains with her lessons at night."

This was true. Laura tried her utmost, with an industry born of
despair. For the comforting assurance of speedy promotion, which she had
given Mother, had no root in fact. These early weeks only served to
reduce, bit by bit, her belief in her own knowledge. How slender this
was, and of how little use to her in her new state, she did not dare to
confess even to herself. Her disillusionment had begun the day after her
arrival, when Dr Pughson, the Headmaster, to whom she had gone to be
examined in arithmetic, flung up hands of comical dismay at her befogged
attempts to solve the mysteries of long division. An upper class was
taking a lesson in Euclid, and in the intervals between her mazy
reckonings she had stolen glances at the master. A tiny little nose was
as if squashed flat on his face, above a grotesquely expressive mouth,
which displayed every one of a splendid set of teeth. He had small,
short-sighted, red-rimmed eyes, and curly hair which did not stop
growing at his ears, but went on curling, closely cropped, down the
sides of his face. He taught at the top of his voice, thumped the
blackboard with a pointer, was biting at the expense of a pupil who
confused the angle BFC with the angle BFG, a moment later to volley
forth a broad Irish joke which convulsed the class. He bewitched Laura;
she forgot her sums in the delight of watching him; and this made her
learning seem a little scantier than it actually was; for she had to
wind up in a great hurry. He pounced down upon her; the class laughed
anew at his playful horror; and yet again at the remark that it was
evident she had never had many pennies to spend, or she would know
better what to do with the figures that represented them.--In
these words Laura scented a reference to Mother's small income, and grew
as red as fire.

In the lowest class in the College she sat bottom, for a week or more:
what she did know, she knew in such an awkward form that she might as
well have known nothing. And after a few efforts to better her condition
she grew cautious, and hesitated discreetly before returning one of
those ingenuous answers which, in the beginning, had made her the
merry-andrew of the class. She could for instance, read a French
story-book without skipping very many words; but she had never heard a
syllable of the language spoken, and her first attempts at pronunciation
caused even Miss Zielinski to sit back in her chair and laugh till the
tears ran down her face. History Laura knew in a vague, pictorial way:
she and Pin had enacted many a striking scene in the garden--such
as "Not Angles but Angels," or, did the pump-drain overflow, Canute and
his silly courtiers--and she also had out-of-the-way scraps of
information about the characters of some of the monarchs, or, as the
governess had complained, about the state of London at a certain period;
but she had never troubled her head with dates. Now they rose before
her, a hard, dry, black line from 1066 on, accompanied, not only by the
kings who were the cause of them, but by dull laws, and their duller
repeals. Her lessons in English alone gave her a mild pleasure; she
enjoyed taking a sentence to pieces to see how it was made. She was fond
of words, too, for their own sake, and once, when Miss Snodgrass had
occasion to use the term "eleemosynary", Laura was so enchanted by
it that she sought to share her enthusiasm with her neighbour. This
girl, a fat little Jewess, went crimson, from trying to stifle her
laughter.

"What IS the matter with you girls down there?" cried Miss
Snodgrass. "Carrie Isaacs, what are you laughing like that for?"

"It's Laura Rambotham, Miss Snodgrass. She's so funny," spluttered the
girl.

"What are you doing, Laura?"

Laura did not answer. The girl spoke for her.

"She said--hee, hee!--she said it was blue."

"Blue? What's blue?" snapped Miss Snodgrass.

"That word. She said it was so beautiful . . . and that it was blue."

"I didn't. Grey-blue, I said," murmured Laura her cheeks aflame. 

The class rocked; even Miss Snodgrass herself had to join in the laugh
while she hushed and reproved. And sometimes after this, when a
particularly long or odd word occurred in the lesson, she would turn to
Laura and say jocosely: "Now, Laura, come on, tell us what colour that
is. Red and yellow, don't you think?"

But these were "Tom Fool's colours"; and Laura kept a wise silence.

One day at geography, the pupils were required to copy the outline of
the map of England. Laura, about to begin, found to her dismay that she
had lost her pencil. To confess the loss meant one of the hard, public
rebukes from which she shrank. And so, while the others drew, heads and
backs bent low over their desks, she fidgeted and sought--on her [P.72]
lap, the bench, the floor.

"What on earth's the matter?" asked her neighbour crossly; it was the
black-haired boarder who had winked at Laura the first evening at tea;
her name was Bertha Ramsey. "I can't draw a stroke if you shake like
that."

"I've lost my pencil."

The girl considered Laura for a moment, then pushed the lid from a box
of long, beautifully sharpened drawing-pencils. "Here, you can have one
of these."

Laura eyed the well-filled box admiringly, and modestly selected the
shortest pencil. Bertha Ramsay, having finished her map, leaned back in
her seat.

"And next time you feel inclined to boo-hoo at the tea-table, hold on to
your eyebrows and sing Rule Britannia.--DID it want its mummy, poor
ickle sing?"

Here Bertha's chum, a girl called Inez, chimed in from the other side.

"It's all very well for you," she said to Bertha, in a deep, slow
voice. "You're a weekly boarder."

Laura had the wish to be very pleasant, in return for the pencil. So she
drew a sigh, and said, with over-emphasis: "How nice for your mother to
have you home every week!" 

Bertha only laughed at this, in a teasing way: "Yes, isn't it?" But Inez
leaned across behind her and gave Laura a poke.

"Shut up!" she telegraphed.

"Who's talking down there?" came the governess's cry. "Here you, the new
girl, Laura what's--your-name, come up to the map."

A huge map of England had been slung over an easel; Laura was required
to take the pointer and show where Stafford lay. With the long stick in
her hand, she stood stupid and confused. In this exigency, it did not
help her that she knew, from hear-say, just how England looked; that she
could see, in fancy, its ever-green grass, thick hedges, and spreading
trees; its never-dry rivers; its hoary old cathedrals; its fogs, and
sea-mists, and over-populous cities. She stood face to face with the
most puzzling map in the world--a map seared and scored with
boundary-lines, black and bristling with names. She could not have laid
her finger on London at this moment, and as for Stafford, it might have
been in the moon.

While the class straggled along the verandah at the end of the hour,
Inez came up to Laura's side.

"I say, you shouldn't have said that about her mother." She nodded
mysteriously.

"Why not?" asked Laura, and coloured at the thought that she had again,
without knowing it, been guilty of a FAUX PAS. 

Inez looked round to see that Bertha was not within hearing, then put
her lips to Laura's ear.

"She drinks."

Laura gaped incredulous at the girl, her young eyes full of horror. From
actual experience, she hardly knew what drunkenness meant; she had
hitherto associated it only with the lowest class of Irish agricultural
labourer, or with those dreadful white women who lived, by choice, in
Chinese Camps. That there could exist a mother who drank was unthinkable
. . . outside the bounds of nature.

"Oh, how awful!" she gasped, and turned pale with excitement. Inez could
not help giggling at the effect produced by her words--the new girl was
a 'rum stick' and no mistake--but as Laura's consternation persisted,
she veered about

"Oh, well, I don't know for certain if that's it. But there's something
awfully queer about her."

"Oh, HOW do you know?" asked her breathless listener, mastered by a
morbid curiosity.

"I've been there--at Vaucluse--from a Saturday till Monday. She came
in to lunch, and she only talked to herself, not to us. She tried to eat
mustard with her pudding too, and her meat was cut up in little pieces
for her. I guess if she'd had a knife she'd have cut our throats."

"Oh!" was all Laura could get out.

"I was so frightened my mother said I shouldn't go again."

"Oh, I hope she won't ask me. What shall I do if she does?"

"Look out, here she comes! Don't say a word. Bertha's awfully ashamed of
it," said Inez, and Laura had just time to give a hasty promise.

"Hullo, you two, what are you gassing about?" cried Bertha, and dealt
out a couple of her rough and friendly punches.--"I say, who's on for a
race up the garden?"

They raced, all three, with flying plaits and curls, much kicking-up of
long black legs, and a frank display of frills and tuckers. Laura won;
for Inez's wind gave out half way, and Bertha was heavy of foot.
Leaning against the palings Laura watched the latter come puffing up to
join her--Bertha with the shameful secret in the background, of a
mother who was not like other mothers. 




VIII.



Laura had been, for some six weeks or more, a listless and unsuccessful
pupil, when one morning she received an invitation from Godmother to
spend the coming monthly holiday--from Saturday till Monday--at
Prahran. The month before, she had been one of the few girls who had
nowhere to go; she had been forced to pretend that she liked staying in,
did it in fact by preference.--Now her spirits rose.

Marina, Godmother's younger daughter, from whom Laura inherited her
school-books, was to call for her. By a little after nine o'clock on
Saturday morning, Laura had finished her weekly mending, tidied her
bedroom, and was ready dressed even to her gloves. It was a cool, crisp
day; and her heart beat high with expectation.

From the dining-hall, it was not possible to hear the ringing of the
front-door bell; but each time either of the maids entered with a
summons, Laura half rose from her chair, sure that her turn had come at
last. But it was half-past nine, then ten, then half-past; it struck
eleven, the best of the day was passing, and still Marina did not come.
Only two girls besides herself remained. Then respectively an aunt and a
mother were announced, and these two departed. Laura alone was left: she
had to bear the disgrace of Miss Day observing: "Well, it looks as if
YOUR friends had forgotten all about you, Laura."

Humiliated beyond measure, Laura had thoughts of tearing off her
hat and jacket and declaring that she felt too ill to go out. But at
last, when she was almost sick with suspense, Mary put her tidy head in
once more.

"Miss Rambotham has been called for."

Laura was on her feet before the words were spoken. She sped to the
reception-room.

Marina, a short, sleek-haired, soberly dressed girl of about twenty, had
Godmother's brisk, matter-of-fact manner.

She offered Laura her cheek to kiss. "Well, I suppose you're ready now?"

Laura forgave her the past two hours. "Yes, quite, thank you," she
answered.

They went down the asphalted path and through the garden-gate, and
turned to walk townwards. For the first time since her arrival Laura was
free again--a prisoner at large. Round them stretched the broad white
streets of East Melbourne; at their side was the thick, exotic greenery
of the Fitzroy Gardens; on the brow of the hill rose the massive
proportions of the Roman Catholic Cathedral.--Laura could have danced,
as she walked at Marina's side.

After a few queries, however, as to how she liked school and how she was
getting on with her lessons, Marina fell to contemplating a strip of
paper that she held in her hand. Laura gathered that her companion had
combined the task of calling for her with a morning's shopping, and that
she had only worked half through her list of commissions before arriving
at the College. At the next corner they got on to the outside car of a
cable-tramway, and were carried into town. Here Marina entered a
co-operative grocery store, where she was going to give an order
for a quarter's supplies. She was her mother's housekeeper, and had an
incredible knowledge of groceries, as well as a severely practical mind:
she stuck her finger-nail into butter, tasted cheeses off the blade of a
knife, ran her hands through currants, nibbled biscuits, discussed
brands of burgundy and desiccated soups--Laura meanwhile looking on,
from a high, uncomfortable chair, with a somewhat hungry envy. When
everything, down to pepper and salt, had been remembered, Marina filled
in a cheque, and was just about to turn away when she recollected an
affair of some empty cases, which she wished to send back. Another ten
minutes' parley ensued; she had to see the manager, and was closeted
with him in his office, so that by the time they emerged into the street
again a full hour had gone by.

"Getting hungry?" she inquired of Laura.

"A little. But I can wait," answered Laura politely.

"That's right," said Marina, off whose own appetite the edge had no
doubt been taken by her various nibblings. "Now there's only the
chemist."

They rode to another street, entered a druggist's, and the same thing on
a smaller scale was repeated, except that here Marina did no tasting,
but for a stray gelatine or jujube. By the time the shop door closed
behind them, Laura could almost have eaten liquorice powder. It was two
o'clock, and she was faint with hunger.

"We'll be home in plenty of time," said Marina, consulting a neat
watch. "Dinner's not till three today, because of father."

Again a tramway jerked them forward. Some half mile from their
destination, Marina rose.

"We'll get out here. I have to call at the butcher's."

At a quarter to three, it was a very white-faced, exhausted little girl
that followed her companion into the house.

"Well, I guess you'll have a fine healthy appetite for dinner," said
Marina, as she showed her where to hang up her hat and wash her hands.

Godmother was equally optimistic. From the sofa of the morning-room,
where she sat knitting, she said: "Well, YOU'VE had a fine morning's
gadding about I must say! How are you? And how's your dear mother?"

"Quite well, thank you."

Godmother scratched her head with a spare needle, and the attention she
had had for Laura evaporated. "I hope, Marina, you told Graves about
those empty jam-jars he didn't take back last time?"

Marina, without lifting her eyes from a letter she was reading,
returned: "Indeed I didn't. He made such a rumpus about the sugar-boxes
that I thought I'd try to sell them to Petersen instead."

Godmother grunted, but did not question Marina's decision. "And what
news have you from your dear mother?" she asked again, without looking
at Laura--just as she never looked at the stocking she held, but always
over the top of it.

Here, however, the dinner-bell rang, and Laura, spared the task of
giving more superfluous information, followed the two ladies to the
dining-room. The other members of the family were waiting at the table.
Godmother's husband--he was a lawyer--was a morose, black-bearded man
who, for the most part, kept his eyes fixed on his plate. Laura
had heard it said that he and Godmother did not get on well together;
she supposed this meant that they did not care to talk to each other,
for they never exchanged a direct word: if they had to communicate, it
was done by means of a third person. There was the elder daughter,
Georgina, dumpier and still brusquer than Marina, the eldest son, a
bank-clerk who was something of a dandy and did not waste civility on
little girls; and lastly there were two boys, slightly younger than
Laura, black-haired, pug-nosed, pugnacious little creatures, who stood
in awe of their father, and were all the wilder when not under his eye.

Godmother mumbled a blessing; and the soup was eaten in silence.

During the meat course, the bank-clerk complained in extreme displeasure
of the way the laundress had of late dressed his collars--these were so
high that, as Laura was not slow to notice, he had to look straight down
the two sides of his nose to see his plate--and announced that he would
not be home for tea, as he had an appointment to meet some 'chappies' at
five, and in the evening was going to take a lady friend to Brock's
Fireworks. These particulars were received without comment. As the
family plied its pudding-spoons, Georgina in her turn made a statement.

"Joey's coming to take me driving at four."

It looked as if this remark, too, would founder on the general
indifference. Then Marina said warningly, as if recalling her parent's
thoughts: "Mother!"

Awakened, Godmother jerked out: "Indeed and I hope if you go you'll take
the boys with you!"

"Indeed and I don't see why we should!"

"Very well, then, you'll stop at home. If Joey doesn't choose to come to
the point-----"

"Now hold your tongue, mother!"

"I'll do nothing of the sort."

"Crikey!" said the younger boy, Erwin, in a low voice. "Joey's got to
take us riding."

"If you and Joey can't get yourselves properly engaged," snapped
Godmother, "then you shan't go driving without the boys, and that's the
end of it."

Like dogs barking at one another, thought Laura, listening to the
loveless bandying of words--she was unused to the snappishness of the
Irish manner, which sounds so much worse than it is meant to be: and she
was chilled anew by it when, over the telephone, she heard Georgy
holding a heated conversation with Joey.

He was a fat young man, with hanging cheeks, small eyes, and a lazy,
lopsided walk.

"Hello--here's a little girl! What's HER name?--Say, this kiddy can
come along too."

As it had leaked out that Marina's afternoon would be spent between the
shelves of her storeroom, preparing for the incoming goods, Laura
gratefully accepted the offer.

They drove to Marlborough Tower. With their backs to the horse sat the
two boys, mercilessly alert for any display of fondness on the part of
the lovers; sat Laura, with her straight, inquisitive black eyes. Hence
Joey and Georgy were silent, since, except to declare their feelings,
they had nothing to say to each other.

The Tower reached, the mare was hitched up and the ascent of the
light wooden erection began. It was a blowy day.

"Boys first!" commanded Joey. "Cos o' the petticuts."--His speech was as
lazy as his walk.

He himself led the way, followed by Erwin and Marmaduke, and Laura, at
Georgy's bidding, went next. She clasped her bits of skirts anxiously to
her knees, for she was just as averse to the frills and flounces that
lay beneath being seen by Georgy, as by any of the male members of the
party. Georgy came last, and, though no one was below her, so tightly
wound about was she that she could hardly advance her legs from one step
to another. Joey looked approval; but the boys sniggered, and kept it up
till Georgy, having gained the platform, threatened them with a "clout on
the head".

On the return journey a dispute arose between the lovers: it related to
the shortest road home, waxed hot, and was rapidly taking on the
dimensions of a quarrel, when the piebald mare shied at a
traction-engine and tried to bolt. Joey gripped the reins, and passed
his free arm round Georgy's waist.

"Don't be frightened, darling."

Though the low chaise rocked from side to side and there seemed a
likelihood of it capsizing, the two boys squirmed with laughter, and
dealt out sundry nudges, kicks and pokes, all of which were received by
Laura, sitting between them. She herself turned red--with
embarrassment. At the same time she wondered why Joey should believe
George was afraid; there was no sign of it in Georgy's manner; she sat
stolid and unmoved. Besides she, Laura, was only a little girl, and felt
no fear.--She also asked herself why Joey should suddenly grow
concerned about Georgy, when, a moment before, they had been so rude to
each other.--These were interesting speculations, and, the chaise
having ceased to sway, Laura grew meditative.

In the evening Godmother had a visitor, and Laura sat in a low chair,
listening to the ladies' talk. It was dull work: for, much as she liked
to consider herself "almost grown up", she yet detested the conversation
of "real grown-ups" with a child's heartiness. She was glad when nine
o'clock struck and Marina, lighting a candle, told her to go to bed.

The next day was Sunday. Between breakfast and church-time yawned two
long hours. Georgy went to a Bible-class; Marina was busy with orders
for the dinner.

It was a bookless house--like most Australian houses of its kind: in
Marina's bedroom alone stood a small bookcase containing school and
Sunday school prizes. Laura was very fond of reading, and as she dressed
that morning had cast longing looks at these volumes, had evenly shyly
fingered the glass doors. But they were locked. Breakfast over, she
approached Marina on the subject. The latter produced the key, but only
after some haggling, for her idea of books was to keep the gilt on their
covers untarnished.

"Well, at any rate it must be a Sunday book," she said ungraciously.

She drew out THE GIANT CITIES OF BASHAN AND SYRIA'S HOLY PLACES, and
with this Laura retired to the drawing-room, where Godmother was already
settled for the day, with a suitable magazine. When the bells began to
clang the young people, primly hatted, their prayer-books in
their hands, walked to the neighbouring church. There Laura sat once
more between the boys, Marina and Georgy stationed like sentinels at the
ends of the pew, ready to pounce down on their brothers if necessary, to
confiscate animals and eatables, or to rap impish knuckles with a Bible.
It was a spacious church; the pew was in a side aisle; one could see
neither reading-desk nor pulpit; and the words of the sermon seemed to
come from a great way off.

After dinner, Laura and the boys were dispatched to the garden, to
stroll about in Sunday fashion. Here no elder person being present, the
natural feelings of the trio came out: the distaste of a quiet little
girl for rough boys and their pranks; the resentful indignation of the
boys at having their steps dogged by a sneak and a tell-tale. As soon as
they had rounded the tennis-court and were out of sight of the house,
Erwin and Marmaduke clambered over the palings and dropped into the
street, vowing a mysterious vengeance on Laura if she went indoors
without them. The child sat down on the edge of the lawn under a
mulberry tree and propped her chin on her hands. She was too timid to
return to the house and brave things out; she was also afraid of some
one coming into the garden and finding her alone, and of her then being
forced to "tell"; for most of all she feared the boys, and their vague,
rude threats. So she sat and waited . . . and waited. The shadows on the
grass changed their shapes before her eyes; distant chapel-bells tinkled
their quarter of an hour and were still again; the blighting torpor of a
Sunday afternoon lay over the world. Would to-morrow ever come? She
counted on her fingers the hours that had still to crawl by
before she could get back to school--counted twice over to be sure of
them--and all but yawned her head off, with ennui. But time passed, and
passed, and nothing happened. She was on the verge of tears, when two
black heads bobbed up above the fence, the boys scrambled over, red and
breathless, and hurried her into tea.

She wakened next morning at daybreak, so eager was she to set out. But
Marina had a hundred and one odd jobs to do before she was ready to
start, and it struck half-past nine as the two of them neared the
College. Child-like, Laura felt no special gratitude for the heavy pot
of mulberry jam Marina bore on her arm; but at sight of the stern, grey,
stone building she could have danced with joy; and on the front door
swinging to behind her, she drew a deep sigh of relief. 




IX.



From this moment on--the moment when Mary the maid's pleasant smile
saluted her--Laura's opinion of life at school suffered a change. She
was glad to be back--that was the first point: just as an adventurous
sheep is glad to regain the cover of the flock. Learning might be hard;
the governesses mercilessly secure in their own wisdom; but here she was
at least a person of some consequence, instead of as at Godmother's a
mere negligible null.

Of her unlucky essay at holiday-making she wrote home guardedly: the
most tell-tale sentence in her letter was that in which she said she
would rather not go to Godmother's again in the meantime. But there was
such a lack of warmth in her account of the visit that mother made this,
together with the above remark, the text for a scolding.

"YOU'RE A VERY UNGRATEFUL GIRL," she wrote, "TO FORGET ALL GODMOTHER HAS
DONE FOR YOU. IF IT HADN'T BEEN FOR HER SUPPLYING YOU WITH BOOKS AND
THINGS I COULDN'T HAVE SENT YOU TO SCHOOL AT ALL. AND I HOPE WHEN YOU
GROW UP YOU'LL BE AS MUCH OF A HELP TO ME AS MARINA IS TO HER MOTHER.
I'D MUCH RATHER HAVE YOU GOOD AND USEFUL THAN CLEVER AND I THINK FOR A
CHILD OF YOUR AGE YOU SEE THINGS WITH VERY SHARP UNKIND EYES. TRY AND
ONLY THINK NICE THINGS ABOUT PEOPLE AND NOT BE ALWAYS SPYING OUT THEIR
FAULTS. THEN YOU'LL HAVE PLENTY OF FRIENDS AND BE LIKED WHEREVER YOU
GO."

Laura took the statement about the goodness and cleverness with a
grain of salt: she knew better. Mother thought it the proper thing to
say, and she would certainly have preferred the two qualities combined;
but, had she been forced to choose between them, there was small doubt
how her choice would have fallen out. And if, for instance, Laura
confessed that her teachers did not regard her as even passably
intelligent, there would be a nice to-do. Mother's ambitions knew no
bounds; and, wounded in these, she was quite capable of writing
post-haste to Mrs. Gurley or Mr. Strachey, complaining of their want of
insight, and bringing forward a string of embarrassing proofs. So,
leaving Mother to her pleasing illusions, Laura settled down again to
her role of dunce, now, though, with more equanimity than before. School
was really not a bad place after all--this had for some time been her
growing conviction, and the visit to Godmother seemed to bring it to a
head.

About this time, too, a couple of pieces of good fortune came her way.

The first: she was privileged to be third in the friendship between Inez
and Bertha--a favour of which she availed herself eagerly, though the
three were as different from one another as three little girls could be.
Bertha was a good-natured romp, hard-fisted, thick of leg, and of a
plodding but ineffectual industry. Inez, on the other hand, was so
pretty that Laura never tired of looking at her: she had a pale skin,
hazel eyes, brown hair with a yellow light in it, and a Greek nose. Her
mouth was very small; her nostrils were mere tiny slits; and so lazy was
she that she seldom more than half opened her eyes. Both girls
were well over fourteen, and very fully developed: compared with them,
Laura was like nothing so much as a skinny young colt.

She was so grateful to them for tolerating her that she never took up a
stand of real equality with them: proud and sensitive, she was always
ready to draw back and admit their prior rights to each other; hence the
friendship did not advance to intimacy. But such as it was, it was very
comforting; she no longer needed to sit alone in recess; she could link
arms and walk the garden with complacency; and many were the
supercilious glances she now threw at Maria Morell and that clique; for
her new friends belonged socially to the best set in the school.

In another way, too, their company made things easier for her: neither
of them aimed high; and both were well content with the lowly places
they occupied in the class. And so Laura, who was still, in her young
confusion, unequal to discovering what was wanted of her, grew comforted
by the presence and support of her friends, and unmindful of higher
opinion; and Miss Chapman, in supervising evening lessons, remarked with
genuine regret that little Laura was growing perky and lazy.

Her second piece of good luck was of quite a different nature. 

Miss Hicks, the visiting governess for geography, had a gift for saying
biting things that really bit. She bore Inez a peculiar grudge; for she
believed that certain faculties slumbered behind the Grecian profile,
and that only the girl's ingrained sloth prevented them.

One day she lost patience with this sluggish pupil.

"I'll tell you what it is, Inez," she said; "you're blessed with a
real woman's brain: vague, slippery, inexact, interested only in the
personal aspect of a thing. You can't concentrate your thoughts, and,
worst of all, you've no curiosity--about anything that really matters.
You take all the great facts of existence on trust--just as a hen does
--and I've no doubt you'll go on contentedly till the end