The Rector and The Doctor’s Family

in full enjoyment of the warmth and the light. Mrs. Rider, still faded, but no longer travel-worn, sat farther up in the garden, on the green bench, which had been softened with cushions for her use, leisurely working at some piece of needlework, in lonely possession of the chrysanthemums and Michaelmas daisies round her; while on the grass, dropped over with yellow flecks of willow-leaves, lightly loosened by every passing touch of wind, sat Nettie, all brown and bright, working with the most rapid fingers at a child’s frock, and “minding” with a corner of her eye the possessor of the same, the tiny Freddy, an imp of mischief uncontrollable by other hand or look than hers. A little lower down, poking into the invisible brook through the paling, was the eldest boy, silent from sheer delight in the unexpected pleasure of coating himself with mud without remark from Nettie. This unprecedented escape arose from the fact that Nettie had a visitor, a lady who had bent down beside her in a half-kneeling attitude, and was contemplating her with a mingled amaze and pity which intensified the prevailing expression of kindness in the mildest face in the world. It was Miss Wodehouse, in her soft dove-coloured dress and large soft checked shawl. Her mild eyes were fixed upon that brilliant brown creature, all buoyant and sparkling with youth. These wonderful young people perplexed Miss Wodehouse; here was another incomprehensible specimen⁠—most incomprehensible perhaps of all that had ever crossed her mild elderly horizon with bewildering unintelligible light.

“My dear,” said Miss Wodehouse, “things used to be very different when I was young. When we were girls we thought about our own pleasures⁠—and⁠—and vanities of all kinds,” said the good woman, with a little sigh; “and, indeed, I can’t think it is natural still to see you devoting yourself like this to your sister’s family. It is wonderful; but dear, dear me! it isn’t natural, Nettie, such self-devotion.”

“I do wish you wouldn’t speak!” said Nettie, with a sudden start⁠—“self-devotion! stuff! I am only doing what must be done. Freddy can’t go on wearing one frock forever, can he⁠—does it stand to reason? Would you have me sit idle and see the child’s petticoats drop to pieces? I am a colonial girl⁠—I don’t know what people do in England. Where I was brought up we were used to be busy about whatever lay nearest to our hand.”

“It isn’t Freddy’s frock,” said Miss Wodehouse, with a little solemnity. “You know very well what I mean. And suppose you were to marry⁠—what would happen supposing you were to marry, Nettie?”

“It is quite time enough to think of that when there is any likelihood of it happening,” said Nettie, with a little toss of her head. “It is only idle people who have time to think of falling in love and such nonsense. When one is very busy it never comes into one’s head. Why, you have never married, Miss Wodehouse; and when I know that I have everything I possibly could desire, why should I?”

Miss Wodehouse bent her troubled sweet old face over the handle of her parasol, and did not say anything for a few minutes. “It is all very well as long as you are young,” she said, with a wistful look; “and somehow you young creatures are so much handier than we used to be. Our little Lucy, you know, that I can remember quite a baby⁠—I am twice as old as she is,” cried Miss Wodehouse, “and she is twice as much use in the world as I. Well, it is all very strange. But, dear, you know, this isn’t natural all the same.”

“It is dreadful to say so⁠—it is dreadful to think so!” cried Nettie. “I know what you mean⁠—not Freddy’s frock, to be sure, but only one’s whole life and heart. Should one desert the only people belonging to one in the world because one happens to have a little income and they have none? If one’s friends are not very sensible, is that a reason why one should go and leave them? Is it right to make one’s escape directly whenever one feels one is wanted? or what do you mean, Miss Wodehouse?” said the vehement girl. “That is what it comes to, you know. Do you imagine I had any choice about coming over to England when Susan was breaking her heart about her husband? could one let one’s sister die, do you suppose? And now that they are all together, what choice have I? They can’t do much for each other⁠—there is actually nobody but me to take care of them all. You may say it is not natural, or it is not right, or anything you please, but what else can one do? That is the practical question,” said Nettie, triumphantly. “If you will answer that, then I shall know what to say to you.”

Miss Wodehouse gazed at her with a certain mild exasperation, shook her head, wrung her hands, but could find nothing to answer.

“I thought so,” said Nettie, with a little outburst of jubilee; “that is how it always happens to abstract people. Put the practical question before them, and they have not a word to say to you. Freddy, cut the grass with the scissors, don’t cut my trimmings; they are for your own frock, you little savage. If I were to say it was my duty and all that sort of stuff, you would understand me, Miss Wodehouse; but one only says it is one’s duty when one has something disagreeable to do; and I am not doing anything disagreeable,” added the little heroine, flashing those eyes which had confused Edward Rider⁠—those brilliant, resolute, obstinate eyes, always with the smile of youth, incredulous of evil, lurking in them, upon her bewildered adviser. “I am living as I like to live.”

There was a pause⁠—at least there was a pause in the argument, but not in Nettie’s talk, which ran on in an eager