Modern Broods | Page 2

she consented
to be my godmother. She offered to adopt me on my mother's death,
and once when my father married again, and when we lost him, she
wrote to propose my coming to live with her; but there would have
been no payment, and so--"

"Yes, you dear good thing, you thought it your duty to go and work for
your poor little stepmother and her children!"
"What else was my education good for, which has been a costly thing
to poor father? And then the old lady was affronted for good, and never
took any more notice of me, nor answered my letters. I did not even
know she was dead, till I heard from Mr. Bell, who had learnt it from
his lawyers!"
"It was quite right of her. Dear Magdalen, I am so glad," said Mrs. Best,
crossing over to kiss her; for the first stiffness had worn off, and they
were together again, as had been the solicitor's daughter and the
chemist's daughter, who went to the same school till Magdalen had
been sent away to be finished in Germany.
"Dear Sophy, I wish you had the good fortune, too!"
"Oh! my galleons are coming when George has prospered a little more
in Queensland, and comes to fetch me. Sophia and he say they shall
fight for me," said Mrs. Best, who had been bravely presiding over a
high-school boarding-house ever since her husband, a railway engineer,
had been killed by an accident, and left her with two children to bring
up. "Dear children, they are very good to me."
"I am sure you have been goodness itself to us," said Magdalen, "in
taking the care of these poor little ones when their mother died. I don't
know how to be thankful enough to you and for all the blessings we
have had! And that this should have come just now, especially when
my life with Lady Milsom is coming to an end."
"Indeed!"
"Yes, the little boys are old enough for school, and the Colonel is going
to take a house at Shrewsbury, where his mother will live with them,
and want me no longer."
"You have been there seven years."
"Yes, and very happy. When Fanny married, Lady Milsom was left
alone, and would not part with me, and then came the two little boys
from India, so that she had an excuse for retaining me; but that is over
now, or will be in a few weeks time. I had been trying for an
engagement, and finding that beside your high-school diploma young
ladies I am considered quite passee--"
"My dear! With your art, and music, and all!"
"Too true! And while I was digesting a polite hint that my terms were

too high, and therewith Agatha's earnest appeal to be sent to Girton,
there comes this inheritance! Taking my burthen off my back, and
making me ready to throw up my heels like a young colt."
"Ah! you will be taking another burthen, perhaps."
"No doubt, I suppose so, but let me find it out by degrees. I can only
think as yet of having my dear girls to myself, moi, as the French
would say, after having seen so little of them."
"It has been very unfortunate. Epidemics have been strangely
inconvenient."
"Yes. First there was whooping cough here to destroy the summer
holidays; then came the Milsoms' measles, and I could not go and carry
infection. Oh! and then Freddy broke his leg, and his grandmother was
too nervous to be left with him. And by and by some one told her the
scarlatina was in the town."
"It really was, you know."
"Any way, it would have been sheer selfish inhumanity to leave her,
and then she had a real illness, which frightened us all very much. Next
came influenza to every one. And these last holidays! What should the
newly-come little one from India do, but catch a fever in the Red Sea,
and I had to keep guard over the brothers at Weymouth till she was
reported safe, and I don't believe it was infectious after all! Still, I am
tired of 'other people's stairs.'"
"It is nearly five years since you have been with them, except for that
one peep you took at Weston."
"And that is a great deal at their age. Agatha was a vehement reader;
she would hardly look at me, so absorbed was she in 'The York and
Lancaster Rose' which I had brought her."
"She is rather like that now. I conclude that you will wish to take them
away?"
"Not this time, at any rate till the house is fit to put over their heads.
Besides, you have so mothered them, dear Sophy, that I could not bear
to make a