Uncle Max | Page 9

answered so well with Sara that she could not be brought to comprehend why it should fail with her other child. Sara had grown up blooming and radiant in spite of the depressing influences of Fr?ulein and the dull, narrow schoolroom. Her music and singing masters had come to her there. Little Madame Blanchard had chirped to her in Parisian accent for the hour together over les modes and le beau Paris. Sara had danced and drilled with the other young ladies at Miss Dugald's select establishment, and had joined them at the riding-school or in the cavalcade under Captain Cooper.
Sara had worn her bondage lightly, and had fascinated even grim old Herr Schliefer. Her tact and easy adaptability had kept Fr?ulein Sonnenschein in a state of tepid good-humour. Every one, even cross old Draper, idolised Sara for her beauty and sprightly ways. When Aunt Philippa declared her education finished, she tripped out of the schoolroom as happily as possible to take possession of her grand new bedroom and the little boudoir, where all her girlish treasures were arranged. She had not been the least impatient for her day of freedom: it would all come in good time. When the sceptre was put into her hands and her sovereignty acknowledged by the whole household, the young princess was not a bit excited. She put on her court dress and made her courtesy to her majesty with the same charming unconsciousness and ease of manner. No wonder people were charmed with such good-humour and freshness. If the glossy hair did not cover a large amount of brains, no one found fault with her for that.
Jill raged and stormed fiercely under Sara's light-hearted philosophy; when her sister told her to be patient under Fr?ulein's yoke, that a good time was coming for her also, when lesson-books would be shut up, and Herr Schliefer would cease to scatter snuff on the carpet as he sat drumming with his fingers on the keyboard and grunting out brief interjections of impatience.
'What does it matter about Herr Schliefer?' Jill would say, in a sort of fury. 'I like him a hundred times better than I do that mincing little poll-parrot of a Madame Blanchard: she is odious, and I hate her, and I hate Fr?ulein too. It is not the lessons I mind; one has to learn lessons all one's life; it is being shut up like a bird in a cage when one's wings are ready for flight. I should like to fly away from this room, from Fr?ulein, from the whole of the horrid set; it makes me cross, wicked, to live like this, and all your sugar-plums will do me no good. Go away, Sara; you do not understand as Ursula does, it makes me feel bad to see you standing there, looking so pretty and happy, and just laughing at me.'
'Of course I laugh at you, Jocelyn, when you behave like a baby,' returned Sara, trying to be severe, only her dimples betrayed her. 'Well, as you are so cross, I shall go away. There is the chocolate I promised you. Ta-ta.' And Sara put down the _bonbonni��re_ on the table and walked out of the room.
I was not surprised to see Jill push it away. No one understood the poor child but myself; she was precocious, womanly, for her age; she had twenty times the amount of brains that Sara possessed, and she was starving on the education provided for her.
To dance and drill and write dreary German exercises, when one is thirsting to drink deeply at the well of knowledge; to go round and round the narrow monotonous course that had sufficed for Sara's moderate abilities, like the blind horse at the mill, and never to advance an inch out of the beaten track, this was simply maddening to Jill's sturdy intellect. She often told me how she longed to attend classes, to hear lectures, to rub against full-grown minds.
'Now. Me-ess Jocelyn, we will do a little of ze Wallenstein, by the immortal Schiller. Hold up the head, and leave off striking the table with your elbows.' Jill would give a droll imitation of Fr?ulein, and end with a groan.
'What does she know-about Schiller? She cannot even comprehend him. She is dense,--utterly dense and stupid; but because she knows her own language and has a correct deportment she is fit to teach me.' And Jill ground her little white teeth in impotent wrath. Jill always appeared to me like an infant Pegasus in harness; she wanted to soar,--to make use of her wings,--and they kept her down. She was not naturally gay, like Sara, though her health was good, and she was as powerful as a young Amazon. Her nature was more sombre and took colour from her surroundings.
She was