Etheldreda the Ready | Page 2

blocked the window with determined faces, though deep in each heart lurked the conviction that Miss Bruce's morbidly acute conscience would feel it her duty to interfere.
"Nix for the Spider!" hissed Gurth, prising a hockey-stick against the handle of the door the while he gazed with elaborate calm at a poster on the station wall. It was inevitable that a person named Bruce should be given the nickname of "Spider" by young people who disdained correct appellations as heartily as did the Saxons, and, indeed, the busy little black figure darting to and fro on the platform might have been much less aptly named. She hustled the twins and Nannie into a carriage, turned her head to look for her elder pupils, and, upon realising the position, reared her head with the fighting gesture which they knew so well. For a moment, as she stood facing the coupe window, it seemed absolutely certain that she would insist upon joining the party, and so spoiling sport for the whole of the journey, but even as she looked her expression altered, a flicker of something--what was it?--affection, sympathy, pity passed over her face, she turned without a word, entered the carriage wherein the twins were seated, and disappeared from sight.
The plot had succeeded, but their success had left the conspirators dumb with wonder and surprise.
"I say! what's taken her all of a sudden?" ejaculated Gurth. Hereward whistled loudly, while Dreda, ever the prey of her emotions, began to flush and quiver beneath the prickings of remorse.
"Oh, poor dear! Oh, she saw! She saw we didn't want her! What brutes we are! Gurth, go!--go quickly, before the train starts, and tell her to come in here at once!"
"Not I! What a turncoat you are, Dreda! Of course she saw! We meant her to see. You were the worst of the lot, scowling as if she were an ogre. Don't be a little sneak!"
"Not a sneak!" protested Dreda, hotly. "S'pose I did. I can be sorry, can't I? She looked so--sick! It made me feel mean."
"All right! Go in to the other carriage, then, and suck up! We don't want her here, but there's room for you in there, if you like to change! Say the word! We are off in a minute!"
Etheldreda blushed, shuffled, and tossed her pigtail, but made not the slightest attempt to move from her place, whereat her brothers and sister chuckled with easy amusement.
"Oh, Dreda, in our hours of ease, Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, And variable as the shade By the light thingummy aspen made. When pain and anguish wring the brow, She nothing does, but makes a row."
The mutilated lines were the contributions of the two schoolboys, while Rowena looked down her nose once more, and dismissed the subject in a few scathing remarks.
"You might realise by this time that Dreda's sentiments have not the smallest influence on her actions! The Spider was evidently suffering from a spasm of repentance. Quite time, too! She has made herself most objectionable the last few days, sighing and groaning about the house, and looking as if her heart were broken. If we can stand breaking our engagements and giving up all the fun of the holidays, I don't see why she need grumble. But she is always like that--unsympathetic and absorbed in herself. It's a mystery to me, for what has she got to be absorbed in? To be old, and ugly, and poor, and to have no home or any people that count--there can't possibly be any personal interest in life! Her only hope would be to live for others, and of that, poor dear, she is incapable!"
Rowena folded her hands on her lap, turned her well-cut profile to the window, and sighed in an elderly, forbearing fashion, at which the two boys grinned broadly, while impetuous Dreda burst once more into speech.
"Rowena, I hate you when you talk like that! Don't be so self- righteous and horrid! It's not for you to criticise other people. The Spider is not a patch on you for selfishness, and if she has a poor time of it, that's all the more reason why you should be charitable, and try to cheer her up. You'll be old yourself some day, and ugly too! Fair people always fade soonest. I read that in the toilette column of a magazine, so it's true, and I shouldn't wonder if you grew nut-crackery, too. Your nose is rather beaky even now. You needn't be so proud!"
Rowena turned her head to look round the carriage with a gently tolerant smile.
"Our dear Dreda teaches us a lesson in charity, does she not?" she demanded blandly. That was all the response she deigned to make, but it was enough to reduce her sister to a crimson confusion, and