The Daisy Chain | Page 5

no protection. Harry would be getting into scrapes, and you and Mary running wild."
"I wish Richard was at home!" said Flora.
"I know!" cried Ethel. "Mr. Ernescliffe will come. I am sure he can walk so far now. I'll ask him."
Ethel had clapped after her the heavy door with its shining brass lock, before Miss Winter well knew what she was about, and the governess seemed annoyed. "Ethel does not consider," said she. "I don't think your mamma will be pleased."
"Why not?" said Flora.
"My dear--a gentleman walking with you, especially if Margaret is going!"
"I don't think he is strong enough," said Flora; "but I can't think why there should be any harm. Papa took us all out walking with him yesterday--little Aubrey and all, and Mr. Ernescliffe went."
"But, my dear--"
She was interrupted by the entrance of a fine tall blooming girl of eighteen, holding in her hand a pretty little maid of five. "Good- morning. Miss Winter. I suppose Flora has told you the request we have to make to you?"
"Yes, my dear Margaret, but did your mamma consider what a lawless place Cocksmoor is?"
"That was the doubt," said Margaret, "but papa said he would answer for it nothing would happen to us, and mamma said if you would be so kind."
"It is unlucky," began the governess, but stopped at the incursion of some new-comers, nearly tumbling over each other, Ethel at the head of them. "Oh, Harry!" as the gathers of her frock gave way in the rude grasp of a twelve-year-old boy. "Miss Winter, 'tis all right-- Mr. Ernescliffe says he is quite up to the walk, and will like it very much, and he will undertake to defend you from the quarrymen."
"Is Miss Winter afraid of the quarrymen?" hallooed Harry. "Shall I take a club?"
"I'll take my gun and shoot them," valiantly exclaimed Tom; and while threats were passing among the boys, Margaret asked, in a low voice, "Did you ask him to come with us?"
"Yes, he said he should like it of all things. Papa was there, and said it was not too far for him--besides, there's the donkey. Papa says it, so we must go, Miss Winter."
Miss Winter glanced unutterable things at Margaret, and Ethel began to perceive she had done something wrong. Flora was going to speak, when Margaret, trying to appear unconscious of a certain deepening colour in her own cheeks, pressed a hand on her shoulder, and whispering, "I'll see about it. Don't say any more, please," glided out of the room.
"What's in the wind?" said Harry. "Are many of your reefs out there, Ethel?"
"Harry can talk nothing but sailors' language," said Flora, "and I am sure he did not learn that of Mr. Ernescliffe. You never hear slang from him."
"But aren't we going to Cocksmoor?" asked Mary, a blunt downright girl of ten.
"We shall know soon," said Ethel. "I suppose I had better wait till after the reading to mend that horrid frock?"
"I think so, since we are so nearly collected," said Miss Winter; and Ethel, seating herself on the corner of the window-seat, with one leg doubled under her, took up a Shakespeare, holding it close to her eyes, and her brother Norman, who, in age, came between her and Flora, kneeling on one knee on the window-seat, and supporting himself with one arm against the shutter, leaned over her, reading it too, disregarding a tumultuous skirmish going on in that division of the family collectively termed "the boys," namely, Harry, Mary, and Tom, until Tom was suddenly pushed down, and tumbled over into Ethel's lap, thereby upsetting her and Norman together, and there was a general downfall, and a loud scream, "The sphynx!"
"You've crushed it," cried Harry, dealing out thumps indiscriminately.
"No, here 'tis," said Mary, rushing among them, and bringing out a green sphynx caterpillar on her finger--"'tis not hurt."
"Pax! Pax!" cried Norman, over all, with the voice of an authority, as he leaped up lightly and set Tom on his legs again. "Harry! you had better do that again," he added warningly. "Be off, out of this window, and let Ethel and me read in peace."
"Here's the place," said Ethel--"Crispin, Crispian's day. How I do like Henry V."
"It is no use to try to keep those boys in order!" sighed Miss Winter.
"Saturnalia, as papa calls Saturday," replied Flora.
"Is not your eldest brother coming home to-day?" said Miss Winter in a low voice to Flora, who shook her head, and said confidentially, "He is not coming till he has passed that examination. He thinks it better not."
Here entered, with a baby in her arms, a lady with a beautiful countenance of calm sweetness, looking almost too young to be the mother of the tall Margaret, who followed her. There was a general hush as she greeted Miss Winter, the girls