was inside us. He never answers. He stands stock still, with his mouth as wide open as it will go?which is saying a good deal?and one trusts that one's words are entering into him. All Sunday afternoon he was struggling valiantly against an almost supernatural sleepiness. After tea he got worse, and I began to think he would be no use to me. We none of us ate much supper; and Dick, who appears able to understand him, helped him to carry the things out. I heard them talking, and then Dick came back and closed the door behind him. 'He wants to know,' said Dick, 'if he can leave the corned beef over till tomorrow. Because, if he eats it all to-night, he doesn't think he will be able to walk home.'
'Veronica takes great interest in him. She has evidently a motherly side to her character, for which we none of us have given her credit. She says she is sure there is good in him. She sits beside him while he chops wood, and tells him carefully selected stories, calculated, she argues, to develop his intelligence. She is careful, moreover, not to hurt his feelings by any display of superiority. 'Of course, anyone leading a useful life, such as yours,' I overheard her saying to him this morning, 'don't naturally get much time for reading. I've nothing else to do, you see, 'cept to improve myself.'
'The donkey arrived this afternoon while I was out?galloping, I am given to understand, with 'Opkins on his back. There seems to be some secret between those two. We have tried him with hay, and we have tried him with thistles; but he seems to prefer bread-and-butter. I have not been able as yet to find out whether he takes tea or coffee in the morning. But he is an animal that evidently knows his own mind, and fortunately both are in the house. We are putting him up for to-night with the cow, who greeted him at first with enthusiasm and wanted to adopt him, but has grown cold to him since on discovering that he is not a calf. I have been trying to make friends with her, but she is so very unresponsive. She doesn't seem to want anything but grass, and prefers to get that for herself. She doesn't seem to want to be happy ever again.
'A funny thing happened in church. I was forgetting to tell you. The St. Leonards occupy two pews at the opposite end from the door. They were all there when we arrived, with the exception of the old gentleman himself. He came in just before the 'Dearly Beloved,' when everybody was standing up. A running fire of suppressed titters followed him up the aisle, and some of the people laughed outright. I could see no reason why. He looked a dignified old gentleman in his grey hair and tightly buttoned frock coat, which gives him a somewhat military appearance. But when he came level with our pew I understood. Hurrying back from his morning round, and with no one there to superintend him, the dear old absent-minded thing had forgotten to change his breeches. From a little above the knee upward he was a perfect Christian; but his legs were just those of a disreputable sinner.
''What's the joke?' he whispered to me as he passed?I was in the corner seat. 'Have I missed it?'
'We called round on them after lunch, and at once I was appealed to for my decision.
''Now, here's a plain sensible girl,' exclaimed the old gentleman the moment I entered the room.' (You will notice I put no comma after 'plain.' I am taking it he did not intend one. You can employ one adjective to qualify another, can't you?) 'And I will put it to her, What difference can it make to the Almighty whether I go to church in trousers or in breeches?'
''I do not see,' retorted Mrs. St. Leonard somewhat coldly, 'that Miss Robina is in any better position than myself to speak with authority on the views of the Almighty'?which I felt was true. 'If it makes no difference to the Almighty, then why not, for my sake, trousers?'
''The essential thing,' he persisted, 'is a contrite heart.' He was getting very cross.
''It may just as well be dressed respectably,' was his wife's opinion. He left the room, slamming the door.
'I do like Janie the more and more I see of her. I do hope she will let me get real chums with her. She does me so much good. (I read that bit twice over to Ethelbertha, pretending I had lost the place.) I suppose it is having rather a silly mother and an unpractical father that has made her so capable. If you and Little Mother had been proper sort of parents I might have been quite a decent sort of girl. But it's too late finding fault with you now. I suppose I must put up with you. She works so hard, and is so unselfish. But she is not like some good people, who make you feel it is hopeless your trying to be good. She gets cross and impatient; and then she laughs at herself, and gets right again that way. Poor Mrs. St. Leonard! I cannot help feeling sorry for her. She would have been so happy as the wife of a really respectable City man, who would have gone off every morning with a flower in his buttonhole and have worn a white waistcoat on Sundays. I don't believe what they say: that husbands and wives should be the opposite of one another. Mr. St. Leonard ought to have married a brainy woman, who would have discussed philosophy with him, and have been just as happy drinking beer out of a tea-cup: you know the sort I mean. If ever I marry it will be a short-tempered man who loves music and is a good dancer; and if I find out too late that he's clever I'll run away from him.
'Dick has not yet come home?nearly eight o'clock. Veronica is supposed to be in bed, but I can hear things falling. Poor boy! I expect he'll be tired; but today is an exception. Three hundred sheep have had to be brought all the way from Ilsley, and must be 'herded'?I fancy it is called?before anybody can think of supper. I saw to it that he had a good dinner.
'And now to come to business. Young Bute has been here all day, and has only just left. He is coming down again on Friday?which, by the way, don't forget is Mrs. St. Leonard's 'At Home' day. She hopes she may then have the pleasure of making your acquaintance, and thinks that possibly there may be present one or two people we may like to know. From which I gather that half the neighbourhood has been specially invited to meet you. So mind you bring a frock-coat; and if Little Mother can put her hand easily on my pink muslin with the spots?it is either in my wardrobe or else in the bottom drawer in Veronica's room, if it isn't in the cardboard box underneath mother's bed?you might slip it into your bag. But whatever you do don't crush it. The sash I feel sure mother put away somewhere herself. He sees no reason?I'm talking now about young Bute,?if you approve his plans, why work should not be commenced immediately. Shall I write old Slee to meet you at the house on Friday? From all accounts I don't think you'll do better. He is on the spot, and they say he is most reasonable. But you have to get estimates, don't you? He suggests?Mr. Bute, I mean?throwing what used to be the dairy into the passage, which will make a hall big enough for anything. We might even give a dance in it, he thinks. But all this you will be able to discuss with him on Friday. He has evidently taken a great deal of pains, and some of his suggestions sound sensible. But of course he must fully understand that it is what we want, not what he thinks, that is important. I told him you said I could have my room exactly as I liked it myself; and I have explained to him my ideas. He seemed at first to be under the impression that I didn't know what I was talking about, so I made it quite clear to him that I did, with the result that he has consented to carry out my instructions, on condition that I put them down in black and white?which I think just as well, as then there can be no excuse afterwards for argument. I like him better than I did the first time. About everything else he can be fairly amiable. It is when he talks about 'frontal elevations' and 'ground plans' that he irritates me. Tell Little Mother that I'll write her to-morrow. Couldn't she come down with you on Friday? Everything will be ship-shape by then; and?'
The remainder was of a nature more private. She concluded with a postscript, which also I did not read to Ethelbertha.
'Thought I had finished telling you everything, when quite a stylish rat-tat sounded on the door. I placed an old straw hat of Dick's in a prominent position, called loudly to an imaginary 'John' not to go without the letters, and then opened it. He turned out to be the local reporter. I need not have been alarmed. He was much the more nervous of the two, and was so full of excuses that had I not come to his rescue I believe he would have gone away forgetting what he'd come for. Nothing save an overwhelming sense of duty to the Public (with a capital P) could have induced him to inflict himself upon me. Could I give him a few details which would enable him to set rumour right? I immediately saw visions of headlines: 'Domestic Tragedy!' 'Eminent Author blown up by his own Daughter!' 'Once Happy Home now a Mere Wreck!' It seemed to me our only plan was to enlist this amiable young man upon our side; I hope I did not overdo it. My idea was to convey the impression that one glance at him had convinced me he was the best and noblest of mankind; that I felt I could rely upon his wit and courage to save us from a notoriety that, so far as I was concerned, would sadden my whole life; and that if he did so eternal gratitude and admiration would be the least I could lay at his feet. I can be nice when I try. People have said so. We parted with only a pressure of the hand, and I hope he won't get into trouble, but I see The Berkshire Courier is going to be deprived of its prey. Dick has just come in. He promises to talk when he has finished eating.'
Dick's letter, for which Ethelbertha seemed to be strangely impatient, reached us on Wednesday morning.
'If ever you want to find out, Dad, what hard work really means, you try farming,' wrote Dick; 'and yet I believe you would like it. Hasn't some old Johnny somewhere described it as the poetry of the ploughshare? Why did we ever take to bothering about anything else?shutting ourselves up in stuffy offices, worrying ourselves to death
