My Young Days | Page 8

again! Oh, the
writhings and twistings of Uncle Hugh in his excessive mirth! Would
they ever stop laughing? Even now my cheeks almost tingle with those
painful blushes, and my heart beats with that frightened shame!
And yet it was for Alick that I was chiefly troubled, as I saw him fling
down the flowers and run, while Harry, shouting "conceited young
jackanapes," pursued him at full speed. I had never seen such rough
play or heard such mocking laughter, and I burst into tears, sobbing out
my trouble on my uncle's shoulder as he carried me off and laughingly
soothed me, pressing the prickly wreath all the while against my head.
It was a long time before our adventure was forgotten. Harry's merry
jokes brought the colour over and over again to my face, and the angry
words to Alick's lips. But we were both cured, certainly, for the time, of
any love of display or dandyism!

VI.
WHAT ABOUT LESSONS?
And now, little reader, I know quite well what thought has been
popping in and out of your head all this time. You have been wanting
to ask me what had become of lessons all these weeks, and how a
number of little boys and girls could be allowed to run wild, doing just
what they liked all day long.
[Illustration: BABY, DEAR!]
Well, it does seem very shocking, and there is no denying that, for a
whole month, we did not often see the inside of a book. Yet, I had
learnt to read, and had been in the habit of learning to spell and to count
every day of my life at home. I don't quite know how it came about that
we were not all of us a very untamed set after a month's idleness at the
Park. Perhaps, it was a good thing for us that grandmamma was what
she was. The very perfection of tender kindness we all felt her, and yet
there was a certain dignity about her, that made it a simple
impossibility to be rough or rude before her. And on the whole we were
a great deal with her. When not with her, we were supposed to be
picking up a great deal of French from my cousin's Swiss nurse. And so,
in our way, we did, although I think Susette learned English a great
deal faster than we learned French. Yet, when we wished to coax her,
the French words came fast enough, such as they were.
But I am afraid grandmamma did not think that we were learning quite
enough, for one day she called Lottie and me, and told us that she had
just seen such a nice young lady, and that she had promised to come
and be our governess. What an excitement this news caused us all!
How we talked it over all day long. We had many different ideas as to
what she was to be like; in fact, the elder boys made pictures of her,
which, as it turned out, were anything but good portraits.
How we did look at her that first evening! She was very young, very

fair and in deep mourning. That is my earliest impression of her. We
had a kind of unconfessed idea that she did not take half pains enough
to make us like her. She did not seem to care whether we did or
not--hardly, I fancy, to think about the matter. It was just the very end
of April, almost the bright May-time, and grandmamma went round the
garden with her, Lottie and I making our remarks from a distance. I
think we were a little surprised to see our new governess so much at her
ease, laughing merrily and talking away to grandmamma, just as if
there were no little critics taking note of all. By and by, she came in
and sat down in "the schoolroom"--such a new word that seemed!--to
write a letter. Lottie and I pretended to be very busy with our dolls in
one corner, but we were keeping up our watch, and every now and then
we met her eye with a merry twinkle in it, looking greatly amused at us.
"She looks so young, only a girl! she will never be able to manage us,
Jane says," Lottie remarked very softly to me; "but then, I daresay, she
can be cross enough when she likes, governesses always are!"
All of a sudden, a merry laugh startled us both, and in another minute
Lottie found herself flat on the floor, being tickled and kissed and
laughed over all at once. I don't think she quite liked it, though she
couldn't help laughing, too, but her cheeks were very red, when Miss
Grant raised her own head. She kept Lottie flat