Sarahs School Friend | Page 2

mother

in querulous accents.
'I didn't mean to speak disrespectfully to you, dear old mother,' said the
girl with a kind of patronising affection.
'I don't know w'at you call it, then, callin' me an 'umbug,' objected Mrs
Clay.
'I was in fun, and you know it is humbug your pretending to read
Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,' persisted Sarah.
At the title, the youth in the arm-chair roused himself, and said in quite
a different tone, 'Were you reading that, mater? Is it my copy?'
'Well, I can't say I'd really read it, not to understand it; but I saw it was
one o' the books you were studyin', an' I thought I'd take a look at it just
to know a little w'at you were studyin' w'en you got back to college,'
said his mother apologetically.
'That's awfully nice of you, mater; but why didn't you ask me about it?
I'd have told you anything you wanted to know about my work. That's
such a frightfully dry book. I should grind it up for my trip,' replied her
son.
'I don't know that I want to know about "trips;" but I feel I ought to try
an' educate myself now you two are comin' on, so as not to disgrace
you,' began his mother.
But her son, with an impatient movement--which, however, he
immediately suppressed--interrupted her. 'Dear mater, what does it
matter whether you are learned or not? For my part, I don't see what
women want to be educated for at all.'
'Oh, you don't, don't you? You ought to have lived about the year one.
You're several centuries behind the times, George!' exclaimed his sister
indignantly.
'I wish I had. I'm sure the girls of that time were nicer than they are

nowadays,' he replied, calmly relapsing into his nonchalant attitude.
'I'm sure they never talked about not respectin' their dads,' said Mrs
Clay plaintively. She had, as will be seen, a habit of harping back to the
same grievance, and this remark of her daughter's evidently rankled in
her mind.
'Perhaps their fathers were more respectable than mine,' replied Sarah.
'Well, I never did!' cried Mrs Clay, scandalised.
'Draw it mild, Sarah! The pater may be a bit of a tartar sometimes, but
he's respectable enough, in all conscience,' remonstrated her brother.
'I don't think so,' declared Sarah.
Before her mother could utter the protests which her son saw in her
face, George said, 'Oh, let her talk! She's got some maggot in her brain,
and she wants to air it. It amuses her, and it doesn't hurt us, as long as
the pater doesn't come in and hear her; and she'll take good care to shut
up if he does,' he wound up with a laugh.
His laugh exasperated his sister, and she retorted with some warmth, 'If
I do shut up when he comes in, it's only because he's so violent and
hateful!'
'Sarah! Sarah!' came from the mother and son simultaneously, in
accents of horrified indignation; and Mrs Clay continued, 'Leave the
room at once, miss. I won't sit 'ere an' 'ave my 'usband insulted like
that.'
Without a word, the girl rose from her seat and left the drawing-room,
shutting the door sharply behind her.
'What's the governor been doing to upset her now?' inquired Mr George
Clay of his mother.
'Nothin' that I know of. It's some crotchet of Sairey, now she's begun
studyin' the woman's question, as she calls it, an' thinks 'e treats the

women 'ere badly.'
'Oh goodness, don't you tell me she's started that! Do they go in for
politics at that school, then?' cried her brother. 'I never heard of such a
thing at a girls' school; it ought not to be allowed.'
'Well, I don't know that it's politics exactly; it's somethin' to do wi'
women's duties to each other an' the 'ard life our mill-lasses 'ave, or
somethin'. She was talkin' to me the other evenin' about it, quite
beautifully; an' I will say that for Sairey, she don't mind my not
understandin', but explains, an' never seems to despise me for my
ignorance,' said his mother.
'I should think not, indeed! Book-learning isn't everything. With all
your experience of life you could teach Sarah a precious sight more
than she can teach you,' said George.
'It's very nice o' you to talk like that, dear; but I know you're both far
above me wi' your beautiful manners an' ways o' talkin',' said the poor
woman humbly.
'For goodness' sake, don't talk like that, mother, or I shall be sorry I
ever went to Eton and Cambridge if it makes you feel any distance
between us!' he cried.
'I don't feel it so much wi' you, dear. It's Sairey I feel it worse