The Long Vacation | Page 9

a ghost, an owl in
its blinkers, and though I know you would rather have died than have
uttered a word, no sooner were you off than he fell upon me with, 'Mrs.
Daisy, I give you to understand that you haven't a husband made of
such tough commodity as you are used to at home, and if you worry
him you will have to rue it.'"
"What an ass I must have looked! Did I really go playing the martyr?"
"A very smiling martyr, pretending to be awfully jolly. I believe I
requited papa by being very cross."
"At his interfering, eh? No wonder."
"Chiefly to conceal my fright, but I did begin trying not to fly out as I
used to do, and I was frightened whenever I did so."
"Poor Daisy! That is why you always seemed to think every headache
your fault."
"The final effect-—I won't say cure-—was from that book on education
which said that a child should never know a cross word or look
between father and mother. So you really have forgotten how horrid I
could be?"
"Or never felt it! But to return to our muttons. I can't believe otherwise
than that Cherry liked her old man, and if their parallel lines did not
meet, she never found it out."
"That is true. She liked him and leant on him, and was constantly
pleased and amused as well as idolized, but I don't think the deep
places in her heart were stirred. Then there were constraints. He could

not stand Angela's freaks. And his politics-—"
"He was not so very much advanced."
"Enough not to like the 'Pursuivant' to lie about, nor her writing for it,
even about art or books; nor did his old bones enjoy the rivers at Vale
Leston. Now you will see a rebound."
"Or will she be too tender of him to do what he disliked?"
"That will be the test. Now she has Clement, I expect an article will
come on the first book they read together."
Lance laughed, but returned to defend his sister.
"Indeed she was attached to him. She was altogether drooping and
crushed at Vale Leston in the autumn."
"It was too soon. She was overdone with the multitudes, and in fact it
was more the renewal of the old sorrow than the new one. Anna tells
me that when they returned there was the same objectless depression.
She would not take up her painting again, she said it was of no use,
there was no one to care. I remember her being asked once to do
something for the Kyrle Society, and Mr. Grinstead did not like it, but
now Clement's illness has made a break, and in a new place, with him
to occupy her instead of only that dawdling boy, you will see what you
shall see!"
"Ah! Gerald!" was the answer, in a doubtful, wistful tone, just as they
arrived.

CHAPTER IV
. SLUM, SEA, OR SEASON

For in spite of all her mother had taught her, She was really remarkably
fond of the water. JANE TAYLOR.
Mr. and Mrs. Lancelot Underwood had not long been gone to their
meeting when there ran into the drawing-room a girl a year older than
Anna, with a taller, better figure, but a less clear complexion, namely
Emilia, the adopted child of Mr. Travis Underwood. She found Anna
freshening up the flowers, and Gerald in an arm-chair reading a weekly
paper.
"I knew I should find you," she cried, kissing Anna, while Gerald held
out a finger or two without rising. "I thought you would not be gone

primrosing."
"A perspicacity that does you credit," said Gerald, still behind his
paper.
"Are the cousins gone?" asked Anna.
"Of course they are; Cousin Marilda, in a bonnet like a primrose bank,
is to pick up Fernan somewhere, but I told her I was too true to my
principles to let wild horses drag me there."
"Let alone fat tame ones," ejaculated Gerald.
"What did she say?" asked Anna.
"Oh, she opened her eyes, and said she never should ask any one to act
against principles, but principles in her time were for Church and State.
Is Aunt Cherry in the vortex?"
"No, she is reading to Uncle Clem, or about the house somewhere. I
don't think she would go now at least."
"Uncle Grin's memory would forbid," muttered Gerald. "He saw a good
many things, though he was a regular old-fashioned Whig, an
Edinburgh Review man."
"You've got the 'Censor' there! Oh, let me see it. My respected cousins
don't think it good for little girls. What are you going to do?"
"I believe the doctors want Uncle Clem to get a long leave of absence,
and that we shall go to