Modern Broods | Page 4

flying brown hair and round rosy cheeks, exclaiming breathlessly, "Is she come?"
The answer was to take her up with a motherly hug, and "My dear little Thekla!" There was not time for more than a hurried glance and embrace of the three on the steps of the stair, in their sailor hats and blue serge; but when in ten minutes more, the whole party, twenty in number, were seated round the dining table, observation was possible. Agatha, as senior scholar, sat at the foot of the table, fully occupied in dispensing Irish stew. She had a sensible face, to which projecting teeth gave a character, and a brow that would have shown itself finer but for the overhanging mass of hair. Vera and Paulina were so much alike and so nearly of the same age that they were often taken for twins, but on closer inspection Vera proved to be the prettiest, with a more delicately cut nose, clearer complexion, and bluer eyes; but Paulina, with paler cheeks, had softer eyes, and more pencilled brows, as well as a prettier lip and chin, though she would not strike the eye so much as her sister. Little Thekla was a round-faced, rosy little thing, childish for her nearly eleven years, smiling broadly and displaying enough white teeth to make Magdalen forebode that they would need much attention if they were not to be a desight like Agatha's.
She sat between Mrs. Best and Magdalen; and in the first pause, when the first course had just been distributed, she looked up with a great pair of grey eyes, and asked, in a shrill, clear little voice, "Sister, may I have a bicycle?"
"We will see about it, my dear," returned Magdalen, unwilling to pledge herself.
"But haven't you got a fortune?" undauntedly demanded Thekla.
"Something like it, Thekla. You shall hear about it after dinner." And Magdalen felt her colour flushing up under all those young eyes.
"Kitty Best said--"
But here Mrs. Best interposed. "We don't talk over such things at table, Thekla. Take care with the gravy. Did Mr. Jones give a lesson, this morning?"
"Yes, a very long one," said Vera.
"It was about the exact force of the words in the Revised Version," added Agatha, "compared with the Greek."
"That must have been very interesting!" said Magdalen.
Vera and her neighbour looked at one another and shrugged their shoulders; while some one else broke in with the news that another girl had not come back because she was down with influenza; and Magdalen, suspecting that "shop" was not talked at table, and also that the Scripture passage could not well be discussed there, saw that it was wise to let the conversation drift off, by Mrs. Best's leading, into anecdotes of the influenza.
All were glad when grace was chanted, and the five sisters could retreat into the drawing-room, which Mrs. Best let them have to themselves for the half hour before Magdalen's train, and the young ones' return to the High School. She was at once established with Thekla on her lap, and the others perched round on chairs and footstools. Of course the first question was, "And is it really true?"
"It is true, my dears, that my old great aunt has left me a house and some money; but you must not flatter yourselves that it is a great estate."
"Only mayn't I have a bicycle?" began Thekla again.
"Child, I believe you have bicycles on the brain," said Agatha. "But, sister, you do mean that we shall be better off, and I shall be able to go on with my education?"
"Yes, my dear, I think I can promise you so much," said Magdalen, caressing the serge shoulder.
"O thanks! Girton?" cried Agatha.
"There is much that I must inquire about before I decide--"
Again came, "Elsie Warner has a bicycle, and she is no older than me! Please, sister!"
"Hush now, my little Thekla," said the sister kindly; "I will talk to Mrs. Best, and see whether she thinks it will be good for you."
Thekla subsided with a pout, and Magdalen was able to explain her circumstances and plans a little more in detail; seeing however that the girls had no idea of the value of money, Paulina asked whether it meant being as well off as the Colonel and Lady Mary -
"Who keep a carriage and pair, and a butler," interposed Vera.
"Oh no, my dear. If I keep any kind of carriage it will be only a basket or governess cart, and a pony or donkey."
"That's all right," said Agatha. "I would not be rich and stupid for the world."
"Small fear of that!" said Magdalen, laughing. "Our home, the Goyle, is not more than a cottage, in a beautiful Devonshire valley--"
"What's the name of it?"
"The Goyle. I believe it is a diminutive of Gully, a narrow ravine. It is lovely even