Part 1 — CHAPTER II. AN UNPREACHED SERMON.

uch an odd thing happened a few minutes afterwards. I was sitting quite quietly in my corner, turning over in my mind all the arguments with which I had assailed Aunt Agatha that Sunday afternoon, and watching the pink glow of the firelight in contrast to the whiteness of the snow outside, when the door bell rang, and almost the next moment Uncle Keith came into the room.

I suppose he must have overlooked me entirely, for he went up to Aunt Agatha and sat down beside her.

"Sweetheart," he said, taking her hand, and I should hardly have recognised his voice, "I have been thinking about you all the way home, and what a pleasant sight my wife's face would be after my long walk through the snow and——" But here Aunt Agatha must have given him a warning look, for he stopped rather abruptly, and said, "Hir-rumph" twice over, and Aunt Agatha blushed just as though she were a girl.

I could not help laughing a little to myself as I went out of the room to tell Patience to bring in the tea, and yet that sentence of Uncle Keith touched me somehow. Were middle-aged people capable of that sort of love? Did youth linger so long in them? I had imagined those two such a staid, matter-of-fact couple; they had come together so late in life, that one never dreamt of any possible romance in such a courtship, and yet he could call Aunt Agatha "Sweetheart" in a voice that was not the least drawling. At that moment one would not have called him so plain and insignificant with that kind look on his face. I suppose he keeps that look for Aunt Agatha, for I remember she once told me that she had never seen such a good face as Uncle Keith's "not handsome, Merle, but so thoroughly good."

Patience was toasting the muffins in her bright little kitchen, so I sat down and watched her. I was rather partial to Patience; she was a pretty, neat-looking creature, and I always thought it a great pity that she was engaged to a journeyman bootmaker, who aspired to be a preacher. I never could approve of Reuben Locke, though Aunt Agatha spoke well of him; he was such a weak, pale-faced young man; and I think a man, to be one, ought to have some spirit in him, and not possess only the womanish virtues.

"How is Reuben, Patience?" I asked, somewhat amiably, just for the pleasure of seeing our little handmaid's dimples come into view.

"Reuben's but poorly, miss," replied Patience, as she buttered another smoking muffin, the last of the pile. "He was preaching at Whitechapel the other night and caught a cold and sore throat; his mother says he will not be at chapel to-night."

"I do not approve of street preaching myself," I remarked, a little severely.

"Indeed, miss," replied Patience, innocently, as she prepared to carry in the tea-tray, "Reuben always tells me that the Apostles were street preachers, and Reuben is as clear as Gospel in what he says." But here the drawing-room bell broke off Patience's argument, and left me somewhat worsted. I went to church by myself that evening, and I am ashamed to say I heard very little of the sermon. I knew Aunt Agatha would be taking advantage of my long absence to retail what she termed my preposterous scheme to Uncle Keith, and that I should have the benefit of his opinion on my return, and this thought made me restless.

I was not wrong in my surmise. Aunt Agatha looked a little pale and subdued, as though she had been shedding a few tears over my delinquencies, but Uncle Keith was simply inscrutable; when he chose, his face could present a perfect blank.

"Hir-rumph, my dear, what is this your aunt tells me, that you are going to Prince's Gate to-morrow morning to offer your services as nurse in a gentleman's family?"

"Yes, Uncle Keith."

"Do you mean to tell me seriously that you have really made up your mind to take this step?"

"Oh, I am quite serious, I assure you."

"Your aunt's objections and mine do not count for much, then?"

"I should be sorry to go against your wishes or Aunt Agatha's," I returned, trying to keep cool; but his manner, as usual, aggravated me; it said so plainly, "What a silly child you are, and yet you think yourself a woman," "but I must do as I think right in this matter. I hope to prove to you and everyone else that there is nothing derogatory in the work I mean to undertake. It is not what I would choose, perhaps, but everything else is closed to me," thinking sorrowfully of my life-long misfortune, as I always called it, and my repressed longings for hospital training.

"Perhaps if you waited something else might turn up." But I shook my head at this.

"I have waited too long already, Uncle Keith; idleness soon becomes a habit."

"Then if you have made up your mind, it is useless to try and alter it," returned Uncle Keith, in a slightly ironical tone, and he actually took up the volume he was reading in a way that showed he had dismissed the subject. I was never more astonished in my life; never had Uncle Keith so completely baffled me.

I had spent the whole time during which I ought to have been listening to the sermon, in recapitulating the heads of my arguments in favour of this very scheme; I would show Uncle Keith how clearly and logically I could work out the subject.

I had thought out quite an admirable little essay on feminine work in the nineteenth century by the time Mr. Wright had finished his discourse. I meant to have cited the Challoners as an example. Aunt Agatha had stayed in their neighbourhood of Oldfield just before her marriage, and had often paid visits at Longmead and Glen Cottage.

The eldest Miss Challoner—Nan, I think they called her—was just preparing for her own wedding, and Aunt Agatha often told me what a beautiful girl she was, and what a fine, intelligent creature the second sister Phillis seemed. She was engaged to a young clergyman at Hadleigh, and there had been some talk of a double wedding, only Nan's father-in-law, Mr. Mayne, of Longmead, had been rather cross at the notion, so Phillis's was to be postponed until the autumn.

All the neighbourhood of Oldfield had been ringing with the strange exploits of these young ladies. One little fact had leaked out after another; it was said their own cousin, Sir Henry Challoner, of Gilsbank, had betrayed the secret, though he always vowed his wife had a hand, or rather a tongue, in the business; but anyhow, there was a fine nine days' gossip over the matter.

It seemed that some time previously Mrs. Challoner and her three daughters had sustained severe losses, and the three girls, instead of losing courage, had put their shoulders to the wheel, and had actually set up as dressmakers at Hadleigh, carrying on their business in a most masterly fashion, until the unexpected return of their relative, Sir Harry Challoner, from Australia, with plenty of money at his disposal, broke up the dressmaking business, and reinstated them at Glen Cottage.

A few of their friends had been much offended with them, but as it was understood that Lady Fitzroy had spoken warmly of their moral courage and perseverance, it had become the fashion to praise them. Aunt Agatha had often quoted them to me, saying she had never met more charming girls, and adding more than once how thoroughly she respected their independence, and of course in recalling the Challoners I thought I should have added my crowning argument.

There was so much, too, that I longed to say in favour of my theory. The love of little children was very strong with me. I had often been pained as I walked through the streets at seeing tired children dragged along or shaken angrily by some coarse, uneducated nurse. It had always seemed rather a pitiful idea to me that children from their infancy should be in hourly contact with rough, menial natures. "Surely," I would say to myself, "the mother's place must be in her nursery; she can find no higher duty than this, to watch over her little ones; even if her position or rank hinder her constant supervision, why need she relegate her maternal duties to uneducated women? Are there no poor gentlewomen in the world who would gladly undertake such a work from very love, and who would refuse to believe for one moment they were losing caste in discharging one of the holiest and purest duties in life?

"What an advantage to the children," I imagined myself saying in answer to some objection on Uncle Keith's part, never dreaming that all this eloquence would be silenced by masculine cunning.

"What an advantage to these little creatures to hear English pure and undefiled from their cradles, and to be trained to habits of refinement and good manners by merely instinctively following the example before their eyes. Children are such copyists, one shudders to think of these impressionable little beings being permitted by their natural guardians to take their earliest lessons from some uneducated person.

"Women are crying out for work, Uncle Keith," I continued, carrying my warfare into a fresh quarter; but, alas! this, with the rest of my eloquence, died a natural death on my way home. "There are too many of the poor things in this world, and the female market is overstocked. They are invading telegraph offices, and treading on the heels of business men, but sheer pride and stupidity prevent them from trying to open nursery doors."

"Unladylike to be a servant," another imaginary objection on Uncle Keith's part. "Oh, fie, Uncle Keith! this from you, who read your Bible and go to church; and yet I remember a certain passage, 'Whosoever will be chief among you let him be your servant,' which has hallowed the very idea of service ever since.

"To serve others seems the very meaning of womanhood; in some sense, a woman serves all the days of her life. No, I am not farfetched and unpractical." Another supposed masculine tirade. "I have thought over the whole thing most carefully. I am not only working for myself, but for others. I want to open the eyes of my generation, and, like the Challoners, to lead a new crusade against the mighty sham of conventionality. Understand me, Uncle Keith, I do not say to these young gentlewomen, put your pride in your pocket and wheel your perambulator with the twins, or carry the baby into the park before the eyes of your aristocratic acquaintance; that would be unnecessary and foolish; you may leave that part to the under-nurse, who brings your meals and scours your nurseries; I simply say to them, if you have no capacity for teaching, if nature has unfitted you for other work, and you are too proud and conscientious to live a dragging, dependent life under the roof of some overburthened relative, take the charge of some aristocratic nursery. Do not think it beneath your womanhood to feed and wash and clothe an infant, or to watch over weak, toddling creatures. Your work may be humble, but you will grow to love it, and if no one else will put the theory to the test, I, Merle Fenton, will do so, though I must take the plunge unaided, and alone."

But all these feeling observations were locked up in my own inner consciousness, for during the remainder of the evening Uncle Keith simply ignored the subject and read his book with a pretence of being perfectly absorbed in it, though I am certain that his eyes twinkled mischievously whenever he looked in my direction, as though he were quite aware of my flood of repressed oratory.

I determined to have it out with Aunt Agatha, so I followed her into her room, and asked her in a peevish voice what she meant by saying Uncle Keith would be so angry with me, as he had not raised a single objection, and, of course, as silence meant consent, I should most certainly keep my appointment at Prince's Gate.

Aunt Agatha looked a little distressed as she answered me.

"To tell you the truth, Merle, I did not quite understand your uncle myself; I expected a very different reception of my news."

"Tell me all about it from the very beginning," I returned, eagerly. "Patience has made such a nice fire, because she said she was afraid you had a cold, and I can just sit by it and brush out my hair while we talk."

"But I am tired and sleepy, child, and after all there is not much to tell," objected Aunt Agatha; but she was far too good-natured to refuse for all that, so she seated herself, dear soul, in the big chair—that she had christened Idleness—and tried to remember what I wished to hear.

"I told him everything, Merle: how your one little defect hindered you, poor child, from being a nursery governess or companion, and how, in spite of this serious obstacle, you were determined to work and be independent."

"Well, and did he say nothing to all that?" I asked, for I knew in what a feeling manner Aunt Agatha would have described my difficulties.

"Oh, yes; he said, 'poor little thing,' in the kindest possible way, 'and quite right—very proper,' when I spoke of your desire for work."

"Well," rather impatiently.

"He listened very attentively until I read him out the advertisement, but that seemed to upset him, for he burst out laughing, and I thought he would never stop. I was half crying by that time, for you had worried me to death all the afternoon, Merle, but nothing I could say would make him grave for a long time. He said once, 'What could have put such a thing into her head?' and then he laughed again as though the idea amused him, and then he rubbed his hands and muttered, 'What an original child it is; there is no deficiency of brain power as far as I can see; who would have dreamt of such a thing?' and so on."

"Then I may flatter myself that Uncle Keith approves of my scheme," I observed, stiffly, for I was much offended at the idea of his laugh.

"Oh dear, no," returned Aunt Agatha, in an alarmed voice, "he expressed his disapproval very strongly; he said it was all very well in theory, and that, on the whole, he agreed with you that the nursery was undoubtedly a lady-like sphere, but he was far from sure that your scheme would be practical. He foresaw all kinds of difficulties, and that he did not consider you at all the person for such a position."

"Why did not Uncle Keith say all this to me himself?" I demanded.

"Because he said it would only be sowing the wind to raise the whirlwind. In an argument he declares women always have the best of it, because they can talk the fastest, and never will own they are beaten; to raise objections would only be to strengthen you more in your purpose. I think," finished Aunt Agatha, in her softest voice, "that he hoped your plan would die a natural death, for he recommended me to withdraw all opposition."

Oh, the cunning of these men. I would not have believed all this of Uncle Keith. I was far too angry to talk any more to Aunt Agatha; I only commanded my voice sufficiently to say that I fully intended to keep my appointment the next day; and as she only looked at me very sadly and said nothing, I had no excuse for lingering any longer, so I took up my candlestick and marched into my own room.

It felt cold and desolate, and as I sat down by the toilet table, such sad eyes looked into mine from the depths of the mirror, that a curious self-pitying feeling made me prop my chin on my hands and exchange looks of silent sympathy with my image.

My want of beauty never troubled me; it has always been my private conviction that we ought to be thankful if we are tolerably pleasant in other people's eyes; beauty is too rare a gift to be often reproduced. If people thought me nice-looking I was more than content; perhaps it was surprising that, with such good-looking parents, I was just ordinary and nothing else, "But never mind, Merle, you have a good figure and talking eyes," as Aunt Agatha once said to me. "I was much plainer at your age, my dear, but my plainness never prevented me from having a happy life and a good husband."

"Well, perhaps I should like a happy life, too, but as for the husband—never dream of that, my good girl; remember your miserable deficiency in this enlightened age. No man in his senses would condone that; put such thoughts resolutely away and think only of your work in life. Laborare est orare."

(To be continued.)