"A pie."

That was the hopeful way in which the examination proceeded, and when

Rachel attempted to say that his mother would be much displeased, he

proceeded to tumble head over heels all round the room, as if he knew

better; which performance broke up the seance, with a resolve on her

part that when she had the books she would not be so beaten. She tried

Francis, but he really did know next to nothing, and whenever he came to

a word above five letters long stopped short, and when told to spell

it, said, "Mamma never made him spell;" also muttering something

depreciating about civilians.

Rachel was a woman of perseverance. She went to the bookseller's, and

obtained a fair amount of books, which she ordered to be sent to Lady

Temple's. But when she came down the next morning, the parcel was

nowhere to be found. There was a grand interrogation, and at last it

turned out to have been safely deposited in an empty dog-kennel in

the back yard. It was very hard on Rachel that Fanny giggled like a

school-girl, and even though ashamed of herself and her sons, could

not find voice to scold them respectably. No wonder, after such

encouragement, that Rachel found her mission no sinecure, and felt at

the end of her morning's work much as if she had been driving pigs to

market, though the repetition was imposing on the boys a sort of sense

of fate and obedience, and there was less active resistance, though

learning it was not, only letting teaching be thrown at them. All the

rest of the day, except those two hours, they ran wild about the house,

garden, and beach--the latter place under the inspection of Coombe,

whom, since the "Jolly Mariner" proposal, Rachel did not in the

least trust; all the less when she heard that Major Keith, whose

soldier-servant he had originally been, thought very highly of him.

A call at Myrtlewood was formidable from the bear-garden sounds, and

delicate as Lady Temple was considered to be, unable to walk or bear

fatigue, she never appeared to be incommoded by the uproar in which she

lived, and had even been seen careering about the nursery, or running

about the garden, in a way that Grace and Rachel thought would tire

a strong woman. As to a tete-a-tete with her, it was never secured by

anything short of Rachel's strong will, for the children were always

with her, and she went to bed, or at any rate to her own room, when they

did, and she was so perfectly able to play and laugh with them that her

cousins scarcely thought her sufficiently depressed, and comparing her

with what their own mother had been after ten months' widowhood, agreed

that after all "she had been very young, and Sir Stephen very old, and

perhaps too much must not be expected of her."




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