Aunt Mary | Page 4

simultaneous scream in token of their distress.
Kind-hearted Susan, however, soon set all to rights, for she was well-known to carry in her pocket sundry mysterious little sweet balls, which, if they were not over-clean, had a remarkable tendency to soothe, insomuch that sagacious Master Fred, seeing his sister Mabel one day crying with passion, inquired if he should go and ask Susan for one of her sugar balls, to do her good; a proposition which that young lady highly resented, though the very mention of the said sweets had stopped the crying.
But we must return to poor mamma, who had in vain endeavoured to follow Susan upstairs, she trembled so violently. When, however, Willie was placed on her knee, and she saw the slight nature of the hurt he had sustained, she began to feel more composed, for there was really no harm done.
The poor lady, however, was not suffered to calm down thus easily, for before Susan had time to quit the room, the sound of a key in the front door betokened the dreaded return of her husband, and again excited all her nervous fears.
'Why have you got the children with you, Ada?' said Mr. Ellis to his wife, reproachfully. 'You know that the doctor has told you to keep quiet.'
'Yes, I know,' replied Mrs. Ellis, meekly, 'but poor Willie has hurt his leg, so Susan brought him down to me.'
'But what has Susan to do with the children?' inquired Mr. Ellis. 'Surely Mabel and Julia are quite old enough to take care of them, without calling Susan from her work in the kitchen! Where are the girls?' demanded Mr. Ellis, sharply; 'I hope you have not let them go out after what I said this morning.'
'Mrs. Maitland's little girls came to ask them to take a walk, and I did not like to refuse them,' said Mrs. Ellis, timidly.
'Then I can only tell you, Ada,' said her husband, with suppressed passion, 'that by your foolish weakness you have deprived them of a great pleasure. It is not often that I can spare time to go out with them, but as I have had some tickets given me to go to a panorama, I have, at great inconvenience, come home, in order to take them, and you tell me that they are gone out.'
Poor Mrs. Ellis! This was a terrible mortification to her; she felt for her husband, and she felt for the disappointment of the girls, though they certainly deserved it.
'I am very sorry I let them go, dear Arthur,' she said, 'but they pressed me so much that I did not like to refuse.'
'Yes, yes,' said Mr. Ellis, 'I know; it is the old story: you are too weak-minded to refuse, and our children are to be ruined for want of proper restraint, or else I am to be appealed to in case of punishment, and so must be considered by them harsh and unkind. I cannot help saying that it is very cruel of you, Ada, to give way to this nervous weakness of yours,' continued Mr. Ellis, as he saw the poor lady begin to cry; 'the only way will be, I suppose, to send the girls to a boarding-school, before you have quite spoiled them.'
Having thus delivered his opinion, Mr. Ellis walked out of the room; and soon the rather violent shutting of the front door gave token that he had left the house, to the really great sorrow of his wife, who now heartily repented having given her consent to what had been the cause of so much trouble. But we must leave her to repent at leisure, and follow the gay young party, who, notwithstanding some few qualms of conscience on their first setting out, soon found plenty to interest them in the surrounding villas and gardens, where such diversity of taste is displayed.
CHAPTER III.
THE LOST BROOCH.
It was a lovely afternoon in the beginning of August. Some few fleecy clouds occasionally intercepted the rather too warm beams of the sun, from which our young friends intended to take shelter under the trees in the Regent's Park; for Dora and Annie Maitland had wisely determined not to mention Thomas Hutton and his glass beehives after what they had seen and heard at Camden Terrace, for they well knew that it would be impossible to walk that distance, and back again, in an hour.
'I have a beautiful book that my papa gave me yesterday,' said Dora Maitland; 'I thought you would like to see it, so I brought it with me. We can look at it while we sit to rest in the Park.'
'Oh yes, that will be delightful,' said Mabel; but she almost immediately added, 'I think I would rather look at the gay dresses of the ladies; we can look at