The Pillars of the House, vol 1 | Page 5

the clear white roseately tinted skin, the large well-opened azure eyes, the profuse glossy hair, the long, slender, graceful limbs, and that pretty head leant against the knees of her own very counterpart; for these were Wilmet and Alda, the twin girls who had succeeded Felix, and whose beauty had been the marvel of Vale Leston, their shabby dress the scorn of the day school at Bexley. And forming the apex of the pyramid, perched astride on the very shoulders of much-enduring Wilmet, was three years old Angela--Baby Bernard being quiescent in a cradle near mamma. N.B.--Mrs. Underwood, though her girls had such masculine names, had made so strong a protest against their being called by boyish abbreviations, that only in one case had nature been too strong for her, and Robina had turned into Bobbie. Wilmet's second name being Ursula, she was apt to be known as 'W.'W.
'Make haste, Felix, you intolerable boy! don't be so slow!' cried Alda.
'Is there a letter?' inquired Wilmet.
Yes, more's the pity!' said Felix. 'Now I shall have to answer it.'
'I'll do that, if you'll give me what's inside,' said Edgar.
'Is it there?' exclaimed Cherry, in a tone of doubt, that sent an electric thrill of dismay through the audience; Lance nearly toppling over, to the horror of the adjacent sisters, and the grave rebuke of Clement.
'If it should be a sell!' gasped Fulbert.
'Suppose it were,' said Felix gravely.
'Then, said Edgar, 'you can disown the old rogue Chester.'
'What stuff!' interposed Clement.
'I'd cut him out of my will on the spot,' persisted Edgar.
'But it is all right,' said Cherry, looking with quiet certainty into her brother's face; and he nodded and coloured at the same time.
'But it is not a pretty one,' said little Robina. 'Last year it was green, and before that red; and this is nasty stupid black and white, and all thin crackling paper.'
Felix laughed, and held up the document.
'What!' cried Fulbert. 'Five! Why, 'tisn't only five shillings! the horrid old cheat!'
'It's a five-pound note!' screamed Cherry. 'I saw one when Papa went to the bank! O Felix, Felix!'
A five-pound note! It seemed to take away the breath of those who knew what it meant, and then an exulting shout broke forth.
'Well,' said Edgar solemnly, 'old Chester is a brick! Three cheers for him!'
Which cheers having been perpetrated with due vociferation, the cry began, 'O Felix, what will you do with it?'
'Buy a pony!' cried Fulbert.
'A rocking-horse,' chirped Robina.
'Punch every week,' shouted Lance.
'A knife apiece,' said Fulbert.
'How can you all be so selfish?' pronounced Clement. 'Now a harmonium would be good to us all.'
'Then get some cotton, for our ears into the bargain, if Tina is to play on it,' said Edgar.
'I shall take the note to mother,' said the owner.
'Oh!' screamed all but Wilmet and Cherry, 'that's as bad as not having it at all!'
Maybe Felix thought so, for it was with a certain gravity and solemnity of demeanour that he entered the drawing-room, causing his father to exclaim, 'How now? No slip between cup and lip? Not infelix, Felix?'
'No, papa, but it's this and I thought I ought to bring it.'
The dew at once was in the mother's eyes, as she sprang up and kissed the boy's brow, saying, 'Felix, dear, don't show it to me. You were meant to be happy with it. Go and be so.'
'Stay,' said Mr. Underwood, Felix will really enjoy helping us to this extent more than any private expenditure. Is it not so, my boy? Well then, I propose that the sovereign of old prescriptive right should go to his menus plaisirs, and the rest to something needful; but he shall say to what. Said I well, old fellow?'
'Oh, thank you, thank you!' cried Felix ardently.
'Thank me for permission to do as you will with your own?' smiled Mr. Underwood.
'You will choose, then, Felix?' said his mother wistfully, her desires divided between port wine for papa and pale ale for Geraldine.
'Yes, mamma,' was the prompt answer. 'Then, please, let Wilmet and Alda be rigged out fresh for Sundays.'
'Wilmet and Alda!' exclaimed Mamma.
'Yes, I should like that better than anything, please,' said the boy. 'All our fellows say they would be the prettiest girls in all Bexley, if they were properly dressed; and those horrid girls at Miss Pearson's lead them a life about those old black hats.'
'Poor dears! I have found Alda crying when she was dressing for church,' mused Mrs. Underwood; 'and though I have scolded her, I could have cried too, to think how unlike their girlhood is to mine.'
'And if you went to fetch them home from school, you would know how bad it is, Mamma,' said Felix. 'Wilmet does not mind it, but Alda cries, and the sneaking girls do it the more; and they are girls; so one can't