The Late Miss Hollingford | Page 2

in the world. She was not so well informed as her elder sisters, and had to make up in the quantity of her teaching what it lacked in the quality. She was fagged, and hunted, and worried from morning till night by all the small girls in the school. She would have been merry if she had had time, and she was witty whenever she could get the chance of being anything but a machine; but she was not always happy, for I slept in her room, and I sometimes heard her crying in the night. As I remember her first she was young and pretty, but as time went on she grew a little faded, and a little harassed-looking; though I still thought her sweet enough for anything.
Well, Miss Kitty went down to the major, and I, following close upon her heels, heard a little scream as I paused at the parlour door, and there when I went in was a bronzed-looking gentleman holding Miss Kitty's two hands in his, and looking in her face. And I could not care about the birds for thinking of it, and when we went up to bed Miss Kitty told me that Major Guthrie was an old friend of her family, and that he had said he would call again. And surely enough he did call again; and then it happened that the three Miss Sweetmans were invited out to an evening party--a great event for them. I thought there was something very particular about it, and so I took care to dress Miss Kitty with my own hands. She had a plain white dress, and I insisted on lending her my blue sash and coral necklace; and when she was dressed she put her finger in her mouth, and asked, between laughing and crying, whether I could further accommodate her with a coral and bells. She looked as young as anybody, though she would make fun of herself. And when she came in that night, and saw my open eyes waiting for her, she sat down on my bed and began to cry, and told me that Major Guthrie had asked her to marry him, and she was going to India as his wife. Then I heard the whole story; how he had loved her dearly long ago; how her friends had refused him because he was too poor, and she was too young; how after he had gone off in a passion reverses had come upon them, and she and her sisters had been obliged to open a school. And so Miss Kitty went out to India, and the only thing that comforted me for her loss was the fact that she took with her the embroidered handkerchief for my mother, and the wrought cigar-case for my father, which it had taken my idleness a whole year to produce. Ah, me! and my eyes never beheld either of these three again: friend, father, or mother.
My first recollections of Mrs. Hollingford are associated with plum-cake, birth-days, and bon-bons. I remember her as an erect, dignified-looking lady in a long velvet cloak, and with a peculiarly venerable face, half severe, half benevolent. I used to feel a little nervous about speaking to her, but I liked to sit at a distance and look at her. I had a superstition that she was the most powerful universal agent in existence; that she had only to say, "Let there be plum-cake," and immediately it would appear on the table; or, "This little girl requires a new doll," and at once a waxen cherub would repose in my arms. The Miss Sweetmans paid her the greatest deference, and the girls used to peep over the blinds in the school-room at her handsome carriage and powdered servants. I remember, when a very little girl, presenting myself before Miss Sweetman one day, and popping up my hand as a sign that I wanted to ask a question. "What is the reason, Miss Sweetman," I asked, "that Mrs. Hollingford makes me think of the valiant woman of whom we were reading in the Bible yesterday?" But Miss Sweetman was busy, and only puckered up her mouth and ordered me back to my seat. Mrs. Hollingford used to take me on her knee and tell me of a little girl of hers who was at school in France, and with whom I was one day to be acquainted; and a tall lad, who was her son, used to call sometimes with bouquets for Miss Sweetman or sugar-plums for me; but I was never in her house, which I believed to be a palace, nor did I ever see Mr. Hollingford, who was a banker in the city. After my twelfth birthday I saw them no more. I missed the