Miss Marjoribanks

which, of course, was the grand and most essential preliminary. In the little interval which he spent over his claret, Miss Marjoribanks had succeeded in effecting another fundamental duty of woman⁠—she had, as she herself expressed it, harmonised the rooms, by the simple method of rearranging half the chairs and covering the tables with trifles of her own⁠—a proceeding which converted the apartment from an abstract English drawing-room of the old school into Miss Marjoribanks’s drawing-room, an individual spot of ground revealing something of the character of its mistress. The Doctor himself was so moved by this, that he looked vaguely round when he came in, as if a little doubtful where he was⁠—but that might only be the effect of the sparkling mass of candles on the mantelpiece, which he was too well-bred to remark upon the first night. But it was only in the morning that Lucilla unfolded her standard. She was down to breakfast, ready to pour out the coffee, before the Doctor had left his room. He found her, to his intense amazement, seated at the foot of the table, in the place which he usually occupied himself, before the urn and the coffeepot. Dr. Marjoribanks hesitated for one momentous instant, stricken dumb by this unparalleled audacity; but so great was the effect of his daughter’s courage and steadiness, that after that moment of fate he accepted the seat by the side where everything was arranged for him, and to which Lucilla invited him sweetly, though not without a touch of mental perturbation. The moment he had seated himself, the Doctor’s eyes were opened to the importance of the step he had taken. “I am afraid I have taken your seat, papa,” said Miss Marjoribanks, with ingenuous sweetness. “But then I should have had to move the urn, and all the things, and I thought you would not mind.” The Doctor said nothing but “Humph!” and even that in an undertone; but he became aware all the same that he had abdicated, without knowing it, and that the reins of state had been smilingly withdrawn from his unconscious hands.

When Nancy made her appearance the fact became still more apparent, though still in the sweetest way. “It is so dreadful to think papa should have been bothered with all these things so long,” said Miss Marjoribanks. “After this I am sure you and I, Nancy, can arrange it all without giving him the trouble. Perhaps this morning, papa, as I am a stranger, you will say if there is anything you would like, and then I shall have time to talk it all over with Nancy, and find out what is best,”⁠—and Lucilla smiled so sweetly upon her two amazed subjects that the humour of the situation caught the fancy of the Doctor, who had a keen perception of the ridiculous.

He laughed out, much to Nancy’s consternation, who was standing by in open-eyed dismay. “Very well, Lucilla,” he said; “you shall try what you can do. I daresay Nancy will be glad to have me back again before long; but in the meantime I am quite content that you should try,” and he went off laughing to his brougham, but came back again before Lucilla could take Nancy in hand, who was an antagonist more formidable. “I forgot to tell you,” said the Doctor, “that Tom Marjoribanks is coming on Circuit, and that I have asked him to stay here, as a matter of course. I suppose he’ll arrive tomorrow. Goodbye till the evening.”

This, though Dr. Marjoribanks did not in the least intend it, struck Lucilla like a Parthian arrow, and brought her down for the moment. “Tom Marjoribanks!” she ejaculated in a kind of horror. “Of all people in the world, and at this moment!” but when she saw the open eyes and rising colour of Nancy the young dictator recovered herself⁠—for a conqueror in the first moment of his victory has need to be wary. She called Nancy to her in her most affectionate tones as she finished her breakfast. “I sent papa away,” said Miss Marjoribanks, “because I wanted to have a good talk with you, Nancy. I want to tell you my object in life. It is to be a comfort to papa. Ever since poor mamma died that is what I have been thinking of; and now I have come home, and I have made up my mind that he is not to be troubled about anything. I know what a good, faithful, valuable woman you are, I assure you. You need not think me a foolish girl who is not able to appreciate you. The dinner was charming last night, Nancy,” said Lucilla, with much feeling; “and I never saw anything more beautifully cooked than papa’s cutlets today.”

“Miss Lucilla, I may say as I am very glad I have pleased you,” said Nancy, who was not quite conquered as yet. She stood very stiffly upright by the table, and maintained her integrity. “Master is particular, I don’t deny,” continued the prime minister, who felt herself dethroned. “I’ve always done my best to go in with his little fancies, and I don’t mean to say as it isn’t right and natural as you should be the missis. But I ain’t used to have ado with ladies, and that’s the truth. Ladies is stingy in a-many things as is the soul of a good dinner to them as knows. I may be valleyable or not, it ain’t for me to say; but I’m not one as can always be kept to a set figger in my gravy-beef, and my bacon, and them sorts of things. As for the butter, I don’t know as I could give nobody an idea. I ain’t one as likes changes, but I can’t abide to be kept to a set figger; and that’s the chief thing, Miss Lucilla, as I’ve got to say.”

“And quite reasonable too,” said Miss Marjoribanks; “you and I will work perfectly well together, Nancy.