Emilie the Peacemaker | Page 2

it. Oh, dear, I wish I was you. You never seem to have
anything to put you out. I never see you look as if you had been crying
or vexed, but I have so many many things to vex me at home."
Emilie smiled. "As to my having nothing to put me out, you may be
right, and you may be wrong, dear. There is never any excuse for being
what you call put out, by which I understand cross and pettish, but I am
rather amused, too, at your fixing on a daily governess, as a person the
least likely in the world to have trials of temper and patience." "Yes, I
dare say I vex you sometimes, but"--"Well, not to speak of you, dear,
whom I love very much, though you are not perfect, I have other pupils,
and do you suppose, that amongst so many as I have to teach at Miss
Humphrey's school, for instance, there is not one self-willed, not one
impertinent, not one idle, not one dull scholar? My dear, there never
was a person, you may be sure of that, who had nothing to be tried, or,
as you say, put out with. But not to talk of my troubles, and I have not
many I will confess, except that great one, Edith, which, may you be
many years before you know, (the loss of a father;) not to talk of that,

what are your troubles? Your mamma is cross sometimes, that is to say,
she does not always give you all you ask for, crosses you now and then,
is that all?"
"Oh no Emilie, there are Mary and Ellinor, they never seem to like me
to be with them, they are so full of their own plans and secrets.
Whenever I go into the room, there is such a hush and mystery. The
fact is, they treat me like a baby. Oh, it is a great misfortune to be the
youngest child! but of all my troubles, Fred is the greatest. John teases
me sometimes, but he is nothing to Fred. Emilie, you don't know what
that boy is; but you will see, when you come to stay with me in the
holidays, and you shall say then if you think I have nothing to put me
out."
The very recollection of her wrongs appeared to irritate the little lady,
and she put on a pout, which made her look anything but kind and
amiable.
The primroses which she had so much desired, were not quite to her
mind, they were not nearly so fine as those that John and Fred had
brought home. Now she was tired of the dusty road, and she would go
home by the beach. So saying, Edith turned resolutely towards a stile,
which led across some fields to the sea shore, and not all Emilie's
entreaties could divert her from her purpose.
"Edith, dear! we shall be late, very late! as it is we have been out too
long, come back, pray do;" but Edith was resolute, and ran on. Emilie,
who knew her pupil's self-will over a German lesson, although she had
little experience of her temper in other matters, was beginning to
despair of persuading her, and spoke yet more earnestly and firmly,
though still kindly and gently, but in vain. Edith had jumped over the
stile, and was on her way to the cliff, when her course was arrested by
an old sailor, who was sitting on a bench near the gangway leading to
the shore. He had heard the conversation between the governess and
her headstrong pupil, as he smoked his pipe on this favourite seat, and
playfully caught hold of the skirt of the young lady's frock, as she
passed, to Edith's great indignation.

"Now, Miss, I could not, no, that I could'nt, refuse any one who asked
me so pretty as that lady did you. If she had been angry, and
commanded you back, why bad begets bad, and tit for tat you know,
and I should not so much have wondered: but, Miss, you should not
vex her. No, don't be angry with an old man, I have seen so much of the
evils of young folks taking their own way. Look here, young lady," said
the weather beaten sailor, as he pointed to a piece of crape round his hat;
"this comes of being fond of one's own way."
Edith was arrested, and approached the stile, on the other side of which
Emilie Schomberg still leant, listening to the fisherman's talk with her
pupil.
"You see, Miss," said he, "I have brought her round, she were a little
contrary at first, but the squall is over, and she is going home your way.
Oh, a capital good rule,