Phoebe, Junior

thought of poor Mrs. Copperhead, and who were talking earnestly about the children they expected next morning, and what was to be done with them, had no clue to Ursula’s thoughts. They did not think much of them, one way or another, but took great care not to lose her from their side, and that she should not be frightened by the crowding, which, after all, was the great matter. And they were very glad to get back to the comparative quiet of Suffolk Street, and to take off their bonnets and take their cup of tea. But Ursula, for her part, was sorry when the walk was over. She had enjoyed it so much. It was half Regent Street and half Carlingford, with the pleasure of both mixed up together; and she was half little Ursula May with her head in the air, and half that very great lady in the dream-chariot, who had it in her power to make everybody so happy. Between poor Mrs. Copperhead, who was the most miserable, frightened little slave in the world, with nothing, as she said, but time and money, and Ursula without a penny, and who always had so much to do, what a gulf there was! a gulf, however, which fancy could bridge over so easily. But the dream was broken when she got indoors; not even the quiet of her own little room could bring back in all their glory the disturbed images that had floated before her in the street.

This was Ursula’s last day in town, and there can be no doubt that it was of a nature, without any aid from Sophy’s suggestion, to put a great many ideas into her mind.

VIII

The Dorsets

Next day the little Dorsets came, an odd little pair of shivering babies, with a still more shivering Ayah. It was the failing health of the little exotic creatures, endangered by their English blood, though they had never seen England, and talked nothing but Hindustani, which had brought them “home” at this inhospitable time of the year; and to get the rooms warm enough for them became the entire thought of the anxious aunts, who contemplated these wan babies with a curious mixture of emotions, anxious to be “very fond” of them, yet feeling difficulties in the way. They were very white, as Indian children so often are, with big blue veins meandering over them, distinct as if traced with colour. They were frightened by all the novelty round them, and the strange faces, whose very anxiety increased their alarming aspect; they did not understand more than a few words of English, and shrank back in a little heap, leaning against their dark nurse, and clinging to her when their new relations made overtures of kindness. Children are less easily conciliated in real life than superficial observers suppose. The obstinate resistance they made to all Anne Dorset’s attempts to win their confidence, was enough to have discouraged the most patient, and poor Anne cried over her failure when those atoms of humanity, so strangely individual and distinct in their utter weakness, helplessness, and dependence, were carried off to bed, gazing distrustfully at her still with big blue eyes; creatures whom any moderately strong hand could have crushed like flies, but whose little minds not all the power on earth could command or move. Strange contrast! Anne cried when they were carried off to bed. Sir Robert had escaped from the hot room, which stifled him, long before; and Sophy, half angry in spite of herself, had made up her mind to “take no notice of the little wretches.”

“Fancy!” she said; “shrinking at Anne⁠—Anne, of all people in the world! There is not a little puppy or kitten but knows better. Little disagreeable things! Oh, love them! Why should I love them? They are John’s children, I believe; but they are not a bit like him; they must be like their mother. I don’t see, for my part, what there is in them to love.”

“Oh, much, Sophy,” said Anne, drying her eyes; “they are our own flesh and blood.”

“I suppose so. They are certainly Mrs. John’s flesh and blood; at least, they are not a bit like us, and I cannot love them for being like her, can I?⁠—whom I never saw?”

The illogicality of this curious argument did not strike Anne.

“I hope they will get to like us,” she said. “Poor little darlings! everything strange about them, new faces and places. I don’t wonder that they are frightened, and cry when anyone comes near them. We must trust to time. If they only knew how I want to love them, to pet them⁠—”

“I am going to help little Ursula with her packing,” said Sophy hastily; and she hurried to Ursula’s room, where all was in disorder, and threw herself down in a chair by the fire, “Anne is too good to live,” she cried. “She makes me angry with her goodness. Little white-faced things like nobody I know of, certainly not like our family, shrinking away and clinging to that black woman as if Anne was an ogre⁠—Anne! why, a little dog knows better⁠—as I said before.”

“I don’t think they are very pretty children,” said Ursula, not knowing how to reply.

“Why should we be supposed to be fond of them?” said Sophy, who was relieving her own mind, not expecting any help from Ursula. “The whole question of children is one that puzzles me; a little helpless wax image that does not know you, that can’t respond to you, and won’t perhaps when it can; that has nothing interesting in it, that is not amusing like a kitten, or even pretty. Well! let us suppose the people it belongs to like it by instinct⁠—but the rest of the world⁠—”

“Oh, Cousin Sophy!” cried Ursula, her eyes round with alarm and horror.

“You think I ought to be fond of them because they are my brother’s children? We are not always very