Girlhood and Womanhood | Page 7

live under an absolute monarchy than to announce myself a member of a republic, and assert my prerogatives and defend my privileges--but I confess I have a temper, papa. Lilias says I am very self-willed, and I must grant that she is generally in the right."
"You don't feel satisfied with the bridle, child, till it gets into stronger hands."
"Yes, Joanna has a temper," chimed in Mrs. Crawfurd, pursuing her own thread of the conversation. "Strangers think her softer than Susan; but I have seen her violent, and when she takes it into her head, she is the most stubborn of the whole family. I don't mean to scold you, my dear; you are a very good girl, too, but you are quite a deception."
"Oh, mamma! what a character!" Joanna could not help laughing. "I must amend my ways."
Of course, Joanna was violent at times, as we imagine a sensitive girl with an abhorrence of meanness and vice, and she was stubborn when she was convinced of the right and her friends would assert the wrong. Mr. Crawfurd's idea was, that Joanna had a temper like Cordelia, not when she spoke in her pleased accents, "gentle, soft, and low," but when she was goaded into vehemence, as will happen in the best regulated palaces and households.
"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Crawfurd, five minutes afterwards, disturbing the cosy little party round the tea-table by her sudden air of distress. "Oh! dear, dear me! Susie has left her pearl sprigs behind her. There they are on the loo-table. My pearl sprigs, Mr. Crawfurd, that I used to wear when I was young; they have come in again for the hair, and Susie settled they were just the thing to give a more dressed look to her spring silk--these easy way parties are so ill to manage, and Polly was of the same mind, and she came in to show me the effect, for I always like to see the girls after they are dressed, and be satisfied how they look--and there she has forgotten the box, and she will appear quite a dowdy, and be so vexed."
"I don't think it will signify very much, mamma; Susan looks very well in her blue silk."
"But it is such a pity, Joanna; so unfortunate,--she only put them out of her hand for one moment, and you see there they are still;" and so Mrs. Crawfurd sounded the lamentation, and dwelt on its salient points, and ingeniously extracted new grounds of regret, till, by dint of repetition, in ten minutes more Mr. Crawfurd and Joanna were almost persuaded that Susan had sustained a serious loss.
"Send a servant with the foolery," proposed Mr. Crawfurd, seeking a little relief, and tolerably affronted at his interest in the question.
"I don't think it would do. Would it, Joanna? There is always such confusion at Hurlton when there is company? and then they have people dining. There would be a mistake, and my pearls are no joke, Mr. Crawfurd. They cost papa fifty pounds when they were so prettily set to go to Sir William's ball. Ah! you don't remember it. There would be a fuss, and Lilias would not like it. If Oliver had not been there at dinner, or Charlie had been at home--"
"Of the two evils choose the least," recommended Mr. Crawfurd, taking up his book.
"If you are very anxious, mamma," said Joanna, "as it is very early, and they set out to walk round by the garden at Houndswood to get some geraniums, which Polly saw yesterday, and set her heart upon; if you order out the ponies and Sandy, I think Conny and I could easily ride over to Hurlton, and deliver the little parcel to the girls in time. It would be a nice evening ride for us, since you are afraid that Conny hangs too much over her books."
"Thank you, dear; that is just like you, Joanna, you are so sensible and helpful, no wonder papa monopolizes you. I will be so glad that Susie has the pearls. Such a pity, poor dear! that her evening should be spoilt, and they lying ready to be put on. Conny? Yes, indeed, that girl will be getting spine complaint, or the rickets. In my day it was sewing in frames that twisted girls; but these books in the lap, the head poked forward, one shoulder up, and knees half as high as the shoulder, are a thousand times worse."
"Good luck to you, Jack. Now you deserve your name, since you constitute yourself groom of the chambers to your sisters."
Joanna laughed back to him. "Come and meet us, papa." And in the shortest interval given to tie on their hats and skirts, the girls were racing along to Hurlton.
In that moorland country, with outlying moorland fields where it was