A Houseful of Girls | Page 2

bed. To be sent off as if one were a child in arms is really
too horribly trying!"
"And when Mr Barr was there too! So degrading! Last night he was
talking to me about books, and I'm sure he thought I was quite grown
up. The table was between us, you know, so he couldn't see my legs. I
was enjoying myself so much, and saying that I thought Thackeray
much over- rated, when mother came up and said, `Time for bed,
Chickie! Run away!' I assure you, I blushed with mortification."
"Piteous!" said Christabel, bringing out her pet word with emphasis.
"They never think of our feelings. I shall make it a rule to study the
characters of our young ladies, and avoid wounding their
susceptibilities. I know how it feels!"
In spite of their many sufferings, however, the Rendells would one and
all have been ready to declare that there never had been, might, could,
would, or should be, such another father and mother as they possessed.
To have a son at college, and yourself carry off a prize at a tennis
tournament, was surely a feat to be proud of on the part of a father; and
what joy to have a tiny little scrap of a mother, who could be petted like
a child and lifted up in the arms of the youngest daughter-- a mother
who had solved the problem of eternal youth, and looked so pretty and
so meek, that it was a constant marvel where on earth she managed to
stow that colossal will-power before which every member of the
household bowed and trembled.
The Rendells' house was at once the brightest, the airiest, and the
noisiest in the neighbourhood. As there were only six daughters, it can
truthfully be asserted that there were never more than half a dozen girls

talking at the same moment. Strangers passing beneath the schoolroom
window at a moment when the sisters were assembled together, had
indeed been known to estimate the numbers present as from a dozen to
twenty; but such a statement was obviously false, and tended to that
painful habit of exaggeration which it is the duty of all good folk to
deplore. They were girls of strong individuality, and each felt it a duty
to state her own views on any given subject, which she proceeded to do,
undaunted by the fact that her companions were too much engrossed in
talking themselves to be able to listen to a word she said. Maud talked,
pouring out tea and dropping sugar into the cups with tragic emphasis;
Lilias prattled sweetly, waving her white hands to enforce a point
which no one heard; Nan banged the table and upset her cup in violence
of denunciation; Elsie squeaked away in melancholy treble; and
Agatha's "Too bad!" and Christabel's "Horrid shame!" were heard
uninterruptedly in every pause.
When the door of the Grange opened to admit a stranger, the wail of a
violin, the jingle of the piano, and the clang of Nan's hammer greeted
him on the threshold, and from morn till night the echo of laughter and
of happy voices never died away. There was only one occasion when
the Rendell girls subsided into silence, and that was when Jim--the
brother, the typical man of the race--came home on a visit and shed the
lustre of his presence on his native village. Then the Miss Rendells sat
in rows at his feet, paying obeisance, and, meekly opening their mouths,
swallowed all he said, not even Nan herself daring to raise a question.
CHAPTER TWO.
A HAPPY THOUGHT.
Thurston House, the abode of the Rendell family, was one of those
curiously-constructed houses which are only to be met with in old-
fashioned neighbourhoods. It stood directly on the high road, a big grey
building which could boast of no architectural beauty, and which
indeed presented a somewhat cheerless aspect, with its wire blinds and
tall, straight windows. A gaunt, town-like house--such was the
impression made upon the casual passer--by; but appearances are apt to

be deceptive, and that same stranger would have speedily altered his
impression, if he had been taken round the garden to view the other
side of the house. It was almost impossible to believe in such a
different aspect! From one side a busy high road, strings of cyclists,
char a bancs driving past, bearing parties of brawling trippers, clouds
of dust, the echo of the drivers' horns, and the continued whirl of
wheels; and on the other--deep bay windows looking on to a lawn of
softest green, winding paths shaded with grand old trees, and, beyond
all, a meadow stretching down to the riverside, where punt and canoe
stood waiting in happy proximity, and clumps of bamboos flourished in
eastern luxuriance.
"Our