“From idle words, that restless throng And haunt our hearts when we would pray;
From pride’s false chain, and jarring wrong,
Seal Thou my lips, and guard the way.”
Keble.
“Now the doctor’s happy! he has got rid of his gratitude! I knew how it would be!” laughed Mabel, as soon as the girls had walked beyond reach of hearing.
“What do you mean?” asked Ida.
“Did you not see how uncomfortable the poor man was under the weight of even such a little obligation? It was steam high pressure with him, till he opened a safety-valve, and off flew all his debt discharged in the shape of a bunch of hyacinths!”
“How you talk!” said her sister with a smile; “he intended these poor little flowers as a mark of attention; they were no return for our present.”
“O Ida, how little you know! Why, Dr. Bardon does not think that there are hyacinths in the world that can bear comparison with his. He thinks them worth any money. He carries[44] a mental glass of very singular construction, patented by the maker, Pride. Look through the one end, everything is small; look through the other, everything is big! He turns the magnifier to what he does himself, the diminisher to what others do for him; and it is wonderful how he thus manages to economize gratitude, and keep himself out of debt to his friends. Depend upon it, seen through his glass, his hyacinths swelled to the size of hollyhocks, and our curtain diminished to that of a sampler!”
“You are a sad satirical girl!” said Ida.
“Not I, I’ve only practised the ‘vigilance of observation and accuracy of distinction, which neither books nor precepts can teach,’ which the famous Mr. Jenkins used to recommend to papa when he was young. I am merely distinguishing between the kindnesses which a man does to please a friend, and those which he does to gratify his own pride. Dr. Bardon, in spite of his poverty, is as proud as the Earl of Dashleigh can be.”
“But he is one who deserves much indulgence.”
“I am not saying anything against him,” interrupted Mabel; “I rather like a dash of pride in a character; I know I have plenty of it myself.”
“Mabel—”
“Why, darling, I’m proud of you!” exclaimed Mabel, turning her eyes affectionately on her sister; “and I’m proud of my excellent father, proud of my glorious uncle, but I am not proud,”—here Mabel[45] laughed,—“I’m not proud of my step-mother at all.”
“Mabel, dearest—”
“I’m convinced that the world may be divided into two classes—those made of porcelain, and those of crockery. There seems such a wonderful difference in the nature of minds, into whatever shape education may twist them! Now, my father, uncle, and you, are made of real Sevres porcelain, and Mrs. Aumerle—”
“Really, Mabel, you do wrong to speak thus of her.”
“Well, I won’t if you don’t like it, darling, but she’s so intensely common-place and matter-of-fact! I don’t believe that she understands or could enter into our feelings any more than if we had been born in different planets!”
Ida sighed. “It is our appointed trial,” she replied; and these few words, though well intended, did more to impress upon her young sister the hardship of having an uncongenial stepmother, than open complaint might have done. Mabel regarded her gentle sister as a suffering saint, and had no idea that there might be two sides even to such a question as this.
Ida’s conscience warned her that the preceding conversation had been unprofitable, to say the least of it, and she knew well what Scripture saith against every idle word. She therefore turned the channel[46] of discourse, and told Mabel of her new plan of having a class for farm-boys, which she intended herself to conduct.
“You can’t manage more upon Sundays, Ida; you have two classes already, you know.”
“True; this must be on the Saturday evening, when the lads have left off work.”
“You can’t have the school-room, then; that’s Mrs. Aumerle’s time for the mother’s class.”
“I have been thinking about that,” said Ida, gravely; “but there is really no other hour that will be suitable at all for mine. I must ask Mrs. Aumerle to have her women a little earlier in the afternoon.”
“I would not ask a favour of her!” said Mabel proudly.
“It is never pleasant to ask favours,” replied Ida; “but it is sometimes our duty to do so.”
It was growing dark before the sisters reached their home. They found Mrs. Aumerle busily engaged in cutting out clothes for the poor, wielding her large, bright scissors with quick hand, and directing its operations with an experienced eye. She looked up from her occupation as Ida and Mabel entered the room.
“What has made you so late?” asked the lady.
“Oh! we have had a nice, long chat with Cecily Bardon,” replied Mabel; “we never thought of the hour.”
[47]
“I hope that you will think of it another time,” said Mrs. Aumerle, resuming her cutting and clipping; “it is not proper for young ladies to be crossing the fields after sunset without an escort.”
“Not proper!” repeated Mabel half aloud, her cheek suffused with an angry flush.
“We have been always accustomed,” said Ida more calmly, “to walk whither and at what hour we pleased, and we have never found the smallest inconvenience arise from so doing.”
“Your having done so is no reason why you should do so,” said the lady firmly; “you have been too much left to yourselves, and it is well that you have now some one of a little experience to judge what is suitable or unsuitable for two young girls of your age.”
Mabel turned down the corners of her mouth after the fashion of Dr. Bardon; happily Mrs. Aumerle was too busy with a jacket-sleeve to look at her step-daughter’s face. Ida seated herself without reply; but Pride stole up at that moment and whispered in her ear, “You can manage quite as well for yourself as the meddling dame can manage for you. She might be content to let well alone, and confine herself to her own affairs.”
Ida now entered upon the subject of the class for farmers’ boys and labouring lads, and explained the necessity for holding it on the particular day and hour on which the mothers’ meeting usually took[48] place. She dwelt with gentle eloquence upon the difficulties and temptations of the youths who would be benefited by the new arrangement; but it tried her patience not a little to hear the snip-snip of the scissors all the time that she was speaking.
“Well, I’ll consider the matter,” said Mrs. Aumerle, stopping at length in her occupation; “it will cause me a little inconvenience, but I think that the thing may be managed. But,” she continued, as Ida, having gained her point, was about to leave the apartment, “but we have not thought of the most important thing—who is to conduct the class?”
“I had thought of it,” replied Ida; “I am going to conduct it myself.”
“You!” exclaimed Mrs. Aumerle, turning towards Ida a face whose naturally high colour was heightened by stooping over her cutting; “you! the thing is not to be dreamed of! Your father’s daughter to be teaching and preaching to a set of hulking farm lads, as if they were a parcel of little schoolboys! It would not become a young lady like you.”
“I have yet to learn what can become a lady, be she old or young, better than teaching the ignorant and helping the poor,” said Ida with forced calmness, but great constraint and coldness of manner.
“Oh! that’s very fine talking, my dear; the thing may be a very good thing in itself, but we must choose different instruments for different kinds of work. One would not mend quills with scissors,[49] or cut out flannel with a penknife. I can’t hear of your holding such a class.”
Commanding herself sufficiently not to reply, but with an angry and swelling heart Ida sought her own room, followed by the indignant Mabel. No sooner had they reached it than Mabel threw her arms around Ida, and exclaimed, “My own darling, angel sister! how dared she speak so to you!”
“She will grieve one day,” said Ida, struggling to keep down tears, “that she has put any stumbling-block in the way of such a work. Mabel, we must pity and pray for her!”
“And never let yourselves be led by her,” suggested Pride.
“That girl wants somebody to guide her;” such were the reflections of Mrs. Aumerle, as she went on with her work for the poor. “There’s a great deal of good in her, but she wants ballast,—she wants common-sense. She is spoilt by being so long without the control of a mother, and needs, almost as much as saucy Mabel, a good firm hand over her. With all Ida’s gentleness and meekness, there’s in her a world of obstinacy and pride. I wish that I had brought one verse to her recollection, which she seems to leave out when she reads the Bible—Likewise ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder; yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility; for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. Ida has a wonderful[50] conceit of her own opinion, as most inexperienced young people have; and it’s almost impossible to convince her that she ever can be wrong. She is not wrong, however, about the duty of having a class for these poor farm lads; I must consult Lawrence as to how it can be done.” The lady went on with her cogitations upon the subject. “We could not expect our schoolmaster to undertake such an addition to his labours. The clerk, Ashby—no, no, he’s not fitted for it; he’d set the young fellows yawning,—no one would come twice for his teaching. Perhaps the best plan would be for me to take the lads myself, and give up my mother’s meeting to Ida. It would be far more suitable for a pretty young creature like her. But I must keep the cutting out and shaping of the poor-clothes still, for clever as she is in reading and talking, that is a business which poor Ida never could manage with all the goodwill in the world.”
And so the plain, practical stepmother settled the matter in her own mind; and only Pride could suggest that her plan was inconvenient, inconsiderate, or unkind. It was ultimately adopted by Ida, but with a reluctance and coldness which deprived both ladies of the encouragement and pleasure which they would have derived from cheerful, hearty, co-operation with each other in labours of love.