L.T. Meade (continued 4)

“Oh,” said Robina, speaking quickly, “I am very, very sorry—”

“So am I, dear, more sorry than I can express. I am terribly upset about this letter, and I do not think it wrong to confide my trouble to you.” Here Mr Durrant drew his chair close to Robina’s side.

“You see, my dear child, I treat you as though you were grown-up.”

“Please do, Mr Durrant,” said Robina, “for there is nothing I would not do for you.”

“Well, this is the position,” said Mr Durrant. “Mrs Burton won’t be able to conduct her own school for the next term. She has induced a lady, a great friend of hers, to take the school over, and her hope is that she may be able to return to it herself after Christmas. Even this, however, is doubtful. Mrs Burton’s friend, Miss Stackpole, has had much experience of schools, but she is a maiden lady; and, in short, will not admit dear little Ralph as one of her pupils. Mrs Burton is obliged to spend the next term with her only sister, who is dangerously ill, and must undergo a serious operation. My plans, therefore, for Ralph are completely knocked on the head. I cannot possibly take him with me to South Africa. I have undertaken an expedition to that country which is full of adventure and danger. No young child could accompany me. I cannot bear to send Ralph to the ordinary boys’ school; and, in fact, my dear Robina, it has occurred to me that if I could possibly get a lady, trustworthy, kind, sensible, to keep on this house, I might induce you to stay with her as Ralph’s companion. Were this the case, I would myself undertake all your future education. You should have the best masters, the best mistresses that money could secure, and eventually, if you wish it, you should go to Newnham or Girton. I would see your father, my dear Robina, on the subject, and arrange the matter with him. You would have a right good time, for the lady I have in my mind’s eye is a certain Miss Temple, a cousin of my own, a very gentle and sweet woman, who would do all she could for your comfort and happiness, and would not unduly coerce you. Being Ralph’s school-mother, and the girl he has chosen above all others as his special friend, I doubt not that he would love the arrangement. As to your fees at Mrs Burton’s school, those can, of course, be managed. What do you say, Robina? Are you willing to continue at Sunshine Lodge as my dear little boy’s greatest friend—in fact, as his little school-mother?”

“Oh, I should like it!” said Robina. “But does it not depend on Ralph?” she continued.

Mr Durrant moved rather impatiently. “I have never coerced Ralph in the least,” he answered. “My endeavour has been from his birth to allow my dear little boy to choose for himself. I believe in the young, clear judgment of extreme youth. I think that little children can penetrate far. Of all your school-fellows he chose you, Robina; and who, my dear child, could have been more worthy?”

“But I am full of faults,” said Robina, tears springing to her eyes; “you don’t really know me. At home I am often blamed. My Aunt Felicia doesn’t think highly of me. You ought to go to my home and ask my own people what they really think with regard to me.”

“It is my intention to do so. I must talk to your father and mother about this plan; but somehow, I do not think they will disappoint me, and as a matter of fact I do not believe any little girl could better help my little son than you can.”

“Only suppose—suppose,” said Robina, “that he prefers Harriet.”

“Harriet?” cried Mr Durrant; “but there is surely no chance of that?”

“I don’t know, I am not sure. He likes Harriet certainly next best after me; he may even like her better.”

“I think not: you are without doubt the favoured one. Robina, we are all alone now. Harriet Lane is your schoolfellow. Tell me honestly what you think about her.”

Robina sprang to her feet.

“As her schoolfellow,” she said, hastily, “I cannot tell you anything about her; please don’t ask me. This, Mr Durrant, is a very serious matter, and I—I would rather not say.”

“You have answered me, my child,” said Mr Durrant, “and as I thought you would. Now, we will talk no more on the matter.”

Robina left him, and went into the grounds. The happy summer days were slipping by. Why is it that summer days will rush past one so quickly on such swift wings, that almost before we know it, they have all gone—never, never to return?

The eight little school-mothers at Sunshine Lodge wanted no one good thing that could add to the joys of life. From morning till night, their cup of bliss seemed to overflow. In addition to all the pleasures provided for them, they had perfect weather, for that summer was long to be remembered in England—that summer when day by day the sun shone in the midst of a cloudless sky, and the warm, mellow air was a delight even to breathe.

While on this occasion Mr Durrant was having a long talk with Robina and giving her to understand what he really wished with regard to the future of his little son, that same little son was pouring out his heart to Harriet.

“You is better, isn’t you?” he said.

“Yes,” replied Harriet, who had resolved to make the very most of things. “But I was ill, very ill indeed: I don’t think the doctor expected me to live.”

“And you’d have died—you’d have become deaded for me?” said Ralph.

“Yes,” answered Harriet, patting the little brown hand. “But I am all right now,” she added; “I am only weak.”

“I love you like anything,” said Ralph.

“Of course you do, Ralph,” answered Harriet.

“There is nothing at all I wouldn’t do for you.”

Harriet longed to say: “Love me better than Robina, and I will have obtained my heart’s desire.” But she did not think the time for this speech had come yet; and as, in reality, notwithstanding her affection for Ralph, she found herself from time to time rather worried by his presence, she now requested him to leave her, and the little boy ran downstairs and out into the open air.

There the first person he saw was his father.

“Oh, dad!” said the boy, dancing up to his parent, and putting his little hand in his.

“Well Ralph, old man,” said the great traveller, lifting the boy to his shoulder, “and how are you this afternoon?”

“Werry well,” said Ralph, “nearly quite well,” he added.

“And how is our other invalid, Harriet Lane?”

“She is better, father. Dear Harriet has been awfu’ bad. Did you guess, father, how bad she was?”

“No, my son: and I don’t think she was as bad as all that, for the doctor did not tell me so.”

“But she telled me her own self. She wouldn’t tell a lie, would Harriet.”

“Only, Ralph, when people are ill, they imagine they are much worse than they really are. That was the case with Harriet. She will be all right now in a day or two, and you can enjoy yourself as soon as possible.”

“Oh yes; oh yes!” said Ralph. He clasped one arm round his father’s neck. “Why has you got such a big brown neck?”

“Because, I suppose, I am a big brown man.”

“I love brown men ever so,” said Ralph.

“That is right.”

“And I love you best of all; and—and Harriet, and Robina. I has got three very great special friends—you, and Harriet, and Robina.”

“Why do you put them like that, Ralph?” answered his father, a certain uneasiness in his tone. “You mean it this way: you love father first—that is quite right—then comes Robina, then Harriet.”

“It used to be like that,” said Ralph, in a very low tone.

“And it is still, my son; it is still.”

Ralph fidgetted, and was silent. After a time he said:

“Put me down please, father.”

Mr Durrant obeyed.

“Take my hand, father,” said Ralph, “I want to lead you somewhere.”

Mr Durrant took the little hand. Ralph conducted his father to the edge of the round pond.

“Does you see the water over there?” said Ralph, “just over there where the lilies grow?”

“Of course, my dear boy.”

“And does you see the branch of the willow tree?”

“Well, yes, Ralph; having eyes, I see both the lilies and the willow tree.”

“Could you make a great, great guess, father, about how deep the water is there?”

“Roughly speaking,” said Mr Durrant, “I should say the water in that part was from seven to eight feet deep.”

Ralph straightened himself and looked full up at his father.

“I isn’t eight feet high, is I?”

Mr Durrant laughed.

“You little man,” he said, “you are not four feet yet.”

“Then if I was to stand bolt upright in that water where the lilies grow, I’d be drownded dead as dead could be?”

“Were such a thing to happen, you would be.”

“But if somebody swimmed out, somebody very, very brave, and clutched me, and brought me back to shore, I wouldn’t be a drownded boy; I’d be a saved boy,” said Ralph.

“That is true.”

“I’d most likely,” continued Ralph, “love that person very much.”

“It would be a brave thing to do, certainly,” said Mr Durrant. “But then it has not happened, Ralph, so don’t let your imagination run away with you.”

“No father,” said Ralph; “I won’t let my ’magination run ’way with me. I don’t quite know what it means, father; but—I won’t let it,—’cause then I shouldn’t be close to you, father; and I love you best, and then Harriet, and then Robina.”

“Robina is a very fine girl,” said his parent. “I like her very much; I am glad she is your friend.”

“So does I like her: she was my school-mother. I like Harriet too, father: I like her awfu’ much. I mustn’t tell you nothing at all, but I like Harriet best of all my school-mothers.”

Mr Durrant thought for a short time over Ralph’s little speech to him. It puzzled the good man not a little. He did not, however, lay it deeply to heart. The boy was under the influence of Harriet, and, truth to tell, Mr Durrant did not take to that young lady. He was, however, sufficiently interested in her to pay her a visit that same evening in her own room.

She was a good deal startled and somewhat nonplussed when he first knocked at the door, then bent his tall head and entered the room.

“Well, Harriet,” he said, “I thought I would find out for myself how you are. I hope you are progressing well, and will soon be able to join the rest of us. It was strange how you and Ralph both caught cold the same day: it was very unlucky. How are you to-night, my dear girl?”

“Better,” said Harriet, changing colour as she spoke, for she was rather weak from her illness and was much excited by Mr Durrant’s visit. “I am better,” she continued; “I hope to be quite well by next week.”

“So do I hope you will be quite well, for time is speeding very fast, Harriet: the summer holidays go almost before we know they are with us. Now I have many expeditions in my mind’s eye—expeditions in which I want you and Ralph to join. This is Saturday night. To-morrow is Sunday. To-morrow, I am going to leave home for a day or two, but on Monday I shall be back again. I hope by then to find you quite well and enjoying yourself with the rest of your school-fellows. Everything that man can do will be done for your pleasure, and I trust I shall find my little party without any invalids amongst them waiting to welcome me back on Monday evening at the latest.”

“And what is going to happen on Tuesday?” asked Harriet, whose eyes began to sparkle now, for she had suddenly lost her fear of Mr Durrant.

“The weather is so fine at present,” was his reply, “that I have chartered a yacht and am going to take you all for a cruise. What do you say to that? You are not likely to be sea-sick, are you?”

“Never was sea-sick in the whole course of my life,” said Harriet, dimpling all over her face now with anticipation.

“I thought I’d discovered something to please you. The sea breezes will put colour into those pale cheeks. Ponies, donkeys, governess carts will all be left behind, and for one long perfect week we shall coast round the Isle of Wight, and other parts of this perfect country. What do you say? I have already mentioned the matter to the others, and I find that they are, without a single exception, good sailors.”

“I will be well enough, whoever else isn’t,” said Harriet, stoutly. “It’ll be lovely, lovely. You know I have spent all my early days at the seaside.”

“Have you? Then of course you are accustomed to yachting.”

“I am accustomed to going out in the fishing boats: I often did so at Yarmouth: I used to make great friends with the sailors.”

“Then that will be capital, my dear. Now I am leaving early to-morrow. You won’t guess where I am going, will you?”

“How can I guess, Mr Durrant?”

“To no less a place than Robina’s home.”

“Robina’s home,” said Harriet. She felt herself turning red, and one of her hands which had been lying idle on her lap, clenched itself tightly. “Why to Robina’s home?” she asked.

“That is just it. I have a little scheme in my head; why should not I tell you? I have told her—why should not you also be in the secret?”

“Oh, please, please tell me?” said Harriet. “I love secrets,” she added.

“Most girls do. Well, this is the state of things. You know that my first intention was to send Ralph back to Mrs Burton’s school with you and the other school-mothers. He was to be primarily under Robina’s care, and the rest of you were of course to be good to him. Dear, kind Mrs Burton had consented to the arrangement, and everything was going well, when, lo and behold! I was obliged to change my plans.”

“Oh!” said Harriet: “to change your plans—how? why?”

“I will tell you why, dear Harriet, and I am sure you will sympathise with me. I know you have a great regard for my little boy, and I believe he returns your regard; therefore anything connected with his future will be of interest to you. Mrs Burton cannot receive Ralph at her school as she at first promised to do. She will herself give you her reasons for this, but I need not trouble you about them at the present moment. Suffice it to say that Ralph cannot go back to Abbeyfield, and therefore I have to make other arrangements for him.”

“Yes,” said Harriet, in a breathless sort of voice. “Dear Ralph! He is such a sweet little boy. Have you made your arrangements, Mr Durrant?”

“I am going to South Africa early in October,” was his reply, “and cannot take my dear little son with me: he must remain in England. Now, this house is quite to my liking. It is large, and airy and well drained and not far from the seaside. I know a lady, a special friend of mine, who will come to look after Ralph, and he can have the best masters at Eastbourne and a daily tutor who will come out here to instruct him. But all these advantages are not sufficient. He must have a companion. There is in my opinion no companion so suitable for all that Ralph requires as Robina Starling; and I am going to see her father to-morrow in order to make arrangements for her to remain with him.”

“And not go back to Abbeyfield?” said Harriet.

Her voice was low. It was getting dusk too, and Mr Durrant could not very well see her face.

“Robina would not go back to school?” she repeated.

“In that case, no; but she would lose nothing thereby; for I should make it a personal matter, and would see that her education was thoroughly finished at my expense. She is a clever girl, and I can give her not only the very best masters, to develop what talent she possesses, but would eventually send her to Girton, where I understand she greatly longs to go.” Harriet was quite silent. “You approve, don’t you?” said Mr Durrant, scarcely knowing why he asked the question.

Harriet gave a little gasp.

“You are very, very good,” she said: “you have done a great deal for the girl that Ralph likes best. Is the girl who is to stay with him while you are away to be the girl he likes best, or the girl you like best? Hitherto, it has been the girl he likes best. Is that to be the case still?”

“I hope so, indeed I trust that he will like Robina best.”

“Because you do,” said Harriet.

“Yes, Harriet,” said Mr Durrant. “I like her; she is honest, and honourable. She has never, to my knowledge, done an underhand thing: I could not stand underhand ways in the companion who has to be so much in the society of my little son. I love honour before all things—honour and truth: they are the pillars in which the whole character must be raised to any sort of strength or perfection. I believe Robina to be both honourable and truthful.”

“Yes,” said Harriet: “you would not let her have the charge of Ralph if she had not these qualities.”

“Certainly not: but she has. I will wish you good-night now. I hope you will be quite well on Monday evening when I return from my visit to the Brown House.”

Mr Durrant left the room, and Harriet lay back in her deep, easy chair, lost in thought. Once again she said to herself:

“That horrid girl is about to supplant me. I wonder, oh, I wonder!”

She thought long and hard.

Book Two—Chapter Eight.

Mr Durrant Visits Brown House.

Mr Durrant arrived at the Brown House on Sunday afternoon. It was a day when few visitors were expected. Mr Starling, having gone to church in the morning, invariably spent the afternoon lying back in a cosy corner of the green-house, smoking and reading a Sunday newspaper. He was by no means an irreligious man, but he liked his ease on Sunday, being under the supposition that he worked extremely hard during the week days. Mrs Starling spent Sunday afternoon lying down and imagining herself a little worse than usual. Miss Felicia sat in the drawing-room, and Violet and Rose played on the lawn.

They were quite good little children and never made any unruly noise—that is, except when Robina was at home. Robina brought a disturbing element into their young lives: but now that she was gone, and Bo-peep was gone, the entire Starling family had settled down into their ordinary habits.

The day was an intensely hot one, and when Mr Durrant appeared on the scene, he stood still for a minute to wipe the moisture from his brow.

“Hallo, little ’un!” he said to Rose who, not at all shy, toddled up to him.

“What’s ’oo want, g’ate big man?” was her inquiry.

“I want your father, or your mother, or your aunt,” was Malcolm Durrant’s reply. “I want some one who can tell me something. Now I know you can’t, because you’re too small.”

“There’s my auntie in the drawing-room,” said Violet at that moment. Violet by no means wished Rose to monopolise the stranger. “She’ll say ‘Don’t’ if you has mud on your boots: but you hasn’t, they is quite clean.”

“Only dusty,” said Rose. “Let’s dust ’em.”

She knelt down as she spoke, and, taking the skirt of her little white frock, began to remove the dust from the stranger’s boots.

“Don’t, Rose! Rose, how dare you!” called a shrill voice from the drawing-room, and Miss Felicia made her appearance through the open window. “How do you do, sir,” she said. “I must apologise for my niece. Really, Rose, your conduct is disgraceful. Go away at once to the nursery and get your frock changed; what a dreadful mess you are in!”

“Poor little one!” said Malcolm Durrant. “She but did what her sex did before her for the Saviour of all the world. Forgive her, madam.”

He spoke in a very courteous tone, and, raising his hat, exhibited a noble brow and features which at once puzzled Miss Felicia and caused her heart to beat. “Won’t you come indoors, sir?” she said.

“And don’t ‘don’t’ him, please auntie!” said Violet.

But Miss Felicia, agitated, she knew not why, did not even hear her. She conducted the stranger into the little drawing-room.

“Sit down, sir,” she said. “And now, may I ask your name. You have, of course, come to see my brother-in-law on business. I can call him in a moment; but first, would you not like something to drink?”

“Very much, indeed,” said the stranger. “The fact is, I was never in such a thirsty place in the whole course of my life. A cup of tea or—or lemonade or—or—water—in fact, anything except spirits.”

“Dear sir, I am glad you are a teetotaller.”

“Dear madam, I drink wine in moderation; but that is neither here nor there. I should not like it at the present moment. You want to know my name? Malcolm Durrant. Your niece—for surely you are Miss Felicia Jennings—is at present honouring me by residing under my roof.”

“So you are the great traveller,” said Miss Felicia. She felt herself turning quite pale. “Sir,” she said, in a low reverent tone, “I honour you. It is a great, great privilege to have you under this roof. I will presently tell my brother-in-law and my sister of your arrival. My poor sister is a sad invalid; but to see you—I have not the slightest doubt—she will make an effort to come downstairs.”

“And I earnestly beg,” said Durrant, “she will do nothing of the kind. My business can be confided to you, madam. You can acquaint your sister and your brother-in-law with my desires, and they can either accept or refuse. But first of all—your hospitality was very much to the fore, dear madam, a minute ago; and I am terribly thirsty.”

Never did Miss Felicia Jennings in the whole course of her life feel happier than now. She tripped eagerly from the room, knocking against a chair as she did so. In a few minutes, she conveyed in her own fair hands a large glass of cool lemonade to her guest. He drank it off to the last drop, put down the empty glass, and told Miss Felicia in the most courteous language that she was a good Samaritan.

“Ah! my dear sir,” was her reply. “Who would not be a good Samaritan to you?”

Durrant settled himself comfortably in his easy chair.

“You have a nice little place here,” he said, “and a pretty out-look. How many sweet and peaceful homes there are in England!—and those two dear little maids to welcome me on the lawn. I only wish that they belonged to my party of young people who are at present enjoying life at Sunshine Lodge.”

“They are too young to leave home at present,” said Miss Felicia; “although I doubt not that being in your presence would do them a great deal of good. May I ask, my dear sir, how that precious little animal, Bo-peep, is progressing?”

“Bo-peep is, I believe, in admirable health, and so is Robina. You have not asked yet after the welfare of your niece.”

“Robina is a strong child: she never ails anything,” replied Miss Felicia.

“I am glad to be able to inform you that she remains in her normal, health,” answered Durrant. “And now for the purpose of this visit. I have, as you know, a little son.”

“I have heard of him; a child after your own heart—in fact, your Benjamin.”

“My little son; my only child,” said Durrant. “He is young—not yet quite six years old. I do not care to send children of such a tender age to school. I have many schemes for his future while I, alas! am forced to part from him, and my final desire is to leave him in his present home with a trustworthy lady whom I know, and who was my late dear wife’s relation—and with one young girl to be his constant companion. The girl I particularly wish to be with Ralph during my absence is, madam, your niece, Robina Starling.”

“Indeed!” said Miss Felicia. It was on the tip of her tongue to say, ‘Don’t,’ but the word did not come.

“You look surprised,” said the traveller.

“Well,” said Miss Felicia, “I know you admire Robina, or you would not have given her that pony in such an extraordinary and munificent way. But surely, she is a little—a little rough—if I may so express it.”

“Hers is an upright character: she is upright, honest, truthful. My boy cares for her, and she cares for him: he cannot be under better influence. In short, if her father and mother consent, I want to make them an offer with regard to their child, Robina.”

“And what is that offer, Mr Durrant?”

“I want to take her from her present school, making arrangements with Mrs Burton, so that Mr Starling may be put to no expense by her transfer. I want to give her all the possible advantages of a good education. These can partly be supplied by Mrs Temple, who is a very polished and accomplished lady, and partly by masters and mistresses who visit Eastbourne weekly from London. Eventually, if she so desires it, I would pay all her expenses at Girton or Newnham.”

“It is a great chance for Robina: to be honest with you,” continued Miss Felicia, “we sent her from home because she was a little noisy, and upset her poor dear mother, who is a sad invalid; but she is a good girl on the whole.”

“I find her an excellent girl: I like her very much.”

“Well, sir,” said Miss Felicia; “I thank you for what you have told me. I will now go and acquaint my brother-in-law with the fact that he is deeply honoured by your visit to our humble roof.”

“Don’t put it in that way, I beg of you, madam. Try, please, and remember that when I am at home I may be just an ordinary individual, and in no sense wish to be lionised. You will oblige me by bearing this fact in mind.”

“I will endeavour to do so,” said Miss Felicia. She left the room, nodding many times to herself.

“Now he is under our roof—I have looked at him: I have heard his voice. I wonder if he will write his name in my birthday book. I should so prize it. I have not had one real celebrity to write in my book yet. Malcolm Durrant! How that great name would stand out amongst the inferior signatures of the people in our small neighbourhood. Oh, what a chance for Robina! Of course she will go. And her expenses lifted from her father’s head. He will grab at it. I can’t imagine myself what such a great man as Malcolm Durrant finds in the child. Still, these great people are very odd now and then in their preferences. I must go to wake Edward. Dear, dear! what a lot of sleep that man does require!”

She burst open the green-house door.

“Edward; how you are snoring! Do rouse yourself. Who do you think is in the drawing-room?”

“Dear me, Felicia! How can I tell,” replied Edward Starling, rubbing his eyes and looking at his sister-in-law in a dazed way. “You know perfectly well that I don’t see visitors on Sunday. It is my one day of rest after a week of toil.”

“A week of toil, indeed! Why, you do nothing. But rouse yourself now, if you don’t want your child to lose her golden chance in life. There is no less a person waiting for you in the drawing-room than the great traveller, Malcolm Durrant!”

Now the fame of this very great person had penetrated even to Edward Starling’s ears, and he roused himself at the news, fixing his eyes in some amazement on his sister-in-law.

“You must be dreaming,” he said. “It is quite impossible that Durrant should come here.”

“But he has come here! It is about Robina; he wants to settle her in life, to do everything for her. You had best go and clinch the bargain. What he sees in her is more than I can tell. If I had my way, and could speak honestly to the poor dear man, I would say ‘Don’t’ fast enough. But there—these geniuses always take strange fancies—do let me pull your collar down, Edward, and smooth that long lock of your front hair. It looks so queer half hanging down your back. Now then, you look better. Go in: make yourself agreeable. I will follow in a few minutes just to see that you don’t make a fool of yourself.”

Book Two—Chapter Nine.

A Discovery.

Malcolm Durrant might be a great traveller, and doubtless was; but all the same, Mr Starling felt annoyed at being disturbed in his Sunday nap. Great people did not raise enthusiasm within his breast: he believed in them, of course, and would have been quite interested to hear some of the said Malcolm Durrant’s adventures, had that gentleman been kind enough to tell them. But on a hot August afternoon, sleep was more refreshing than anything else, and he was not in the best of humours, when he entered the room where his guest was waiting for him.

Robina—Something was about to happen which would be to Robina’s advantage. As a matter of fact, she was his favourite child. He had a much better time when she was at home than when she was at school. She suited him, as he himself expressed it, down to the ground. She “ragged” him, as she called it. She was not at all afraid of him. She made him laugh. She encouraged him to be more noisy at meals than Miss Felicia thought was seemly in the house with a great invalid. He had yielded to Miss Felicia’s representations that school was necessary for Robina. She had gone to school, and some one else had discovered her virtues, for she had come back accompanied by a very valuable adjunct—no less a thing than a live pony, a spirited animal which could gallop and canter and trot and look all that was bright and intelligent. This animal, provided with a side-saddle and attendant groom whose wages were paid by some one else was a great addition to the ménage at the Brown House. When Robina went away to Sunshine Lodge, accompanied by the pony and the groom and the side-saddle, Edward Starling had missed his child and her belongings a great deal. He wondered what else was to be expected of him, and nodded curtly now to the stranger as he entered the room.

“Glad to see you, of course, sir,” he said. “How is Robina?”

“Very well, thank you,” said Durrant.

“You are a great person, Mr Durrant,” said Starling: “that is, you have made a great name for yourself. But be that as it may, I hold with the words, ‘A man’s a man for a’ that.’ You are a man, sir, and I am another, and Robina is my child. Now, my sister-in-law, who between ourselves is a right good sort but a bit of a goose, considers you not a man, but an archangel, with a halo round you. Now I see neither the archangel nor the halo, but a person who at present is enjoying the society of my pleasing young daughter. I understand that you have come to say something to me about her. What, Mr Durrant, may that something be?”

“A very outspoken something,” replied Durrant. “I am exceedingly glad, Mr Starling, that you speak to me as you do. I am not an archangel, and I wear no halo. I am an ordinary man. Circumstances have placed me, on several occasions, in positions of extreme danger where, if I had not used an Englishman’s pluck, I should have been worsted in the battle. I only did, sir, what you or any other man would have done under the circumstances. But now—to come to your child. I want to know if you will grant me a very great favour.”

“Well, let us hear it, let us hear it,” said Starling. “But why should we sit moped up in this fusty room? Let us come out into the garden and enjoy our pipes together: what do you say?”

“I shall be only too delighted,” said Durrant.

The two men immediately left the drawing-room. Miss Felicia, from a sheltered corner of her sister’s bedroom, watched them as they passed up and down.

“He has, my dear sister,” she remarked, “the most honourable carriage of the head: it is but to look at that man to see what he is. You, dear, at least, won’t throw any obstacle in the way of Robina’s good luck: all her life long it will be remembered in her favour that she was selected by Malcolm Durrant to be the companion of his little boy during his own absence.”

“I am not likely to put an obstacle in the way,” answered Mrs Starling, “seeing that I have small voice in any matters. Where you don’t rule me,—Felicia,—my husband does; and where my husband doesn’t, the little children do; and where the little children don’t, Robina does; and where Robina doesn’t, the servants do. I am ruled by everyone; I am the most ruled out person on earth; I have not a bit of colour or opinion left. When Bo-peep was here, I felt a little happier than I had done for some time, because the animal seemed to like me without wanting in the very least to get the upper hand of me. But there, it cannot be helped.”

“Don’t talk any more in that silly vein,” was Miss Felicia’s remark. “Each day after day as it goes, you make things quite disagreeable and contrary. I wanted to dress you nicely and bring you downstairs to tea, so that you might have the privilege of conversing yourself with the distinguished traveller; but really, what with hysterics in view, I doubt if it would not be better to leave you upstairs.”

“I am not going to have any hysterics,” said poor Mrs Starling. “I have passed all that. Perhaps Robina rules me rather less than the rest of you; but I should like to see the man who wants to be a sort of father to her. I can’t imagine why she should leave her own father; but you all think otherwise.”

“We all think otherwise,” retorted Miss Felicia with a sort of snort; “when golden chances do come in life, as a rule one isn’t such a fool as to throw them away. But now, my dear Agnes, your purple silk dress with the real lace collar will look exceedingly nice, and it will do you no harm to get into it, even if you don’t come downstairs.”

While Mrs Starling was being dressed, the men were having their smoke in the garden. Durrant made his proposal quite plainly before Mr Starling.

“I shall be absent for a year,” he said. “During that time, I want your daughter to be my little son’s companion; I, of course, paying all expenses. At the end of the year, she can, if you wish it, go back to Mrs Burton, and continue her education in that most excellent school, or she can still remain under my roof, looked after by my friend and relation, Mrs Temple, and given the best possible instruction that Eastbourne and the neighbourhood of London can supply. When she is old enough, I will myself send her to Newnham or Girton; or if she does not care for that sort of education I will give her two or three years’ foreign travel. It will be a great pleasure to me to do all this for the girl who helps my little boy during a rather lonely period of his life. I offer these advantages to your daughter because, in the first place, Ralph likes her better than any other girl he has ever seen, and in the second place, I respect and love her on her own account. During the holidays she will of course spend the time with you, unless you wish it otherwise.”

“There is no use whatever in that,” said Starling, interrupting Mr Durrant’s remarks in a somewhat gruff voice. “Robina is a good girl, and suits me uncommonly well, but she does not get on with the ladies here. Can’t tell why, I am sure—too outspoken—doesn’t suit Felicia Jennings. Felicia, between you and me, is somewhat of a bore—an excellent creature, but too much ‘don’t’ about her. Robina has got a high spirit, and she can’t stand it. That is why she went to school. Believe me, I didn’t want her to go: I miss the girl uncommonly. She takes after me—a little rough, you know.”

“I haven’t found her rough,” said Mr Durrant.

“Well, perhaps you would not call it so; but that is what the women here say. They have dinned it into my ear till at last I have got to believe it. Robina is so rough, they say, and so noisy, and so like a tomboy.”

“I need not tell you, my dear sir, that I found the child spirited and agreeable and an excellent companion. What I admire about her so much is her outspoken honesty and her truthfulness,” said Mr Durrant.

“Well, yes; she is all that: I have never found her out in a lie, never, although, to be sure, many a person might prevaricate a trifle to get away from the ‘don’ts’ of that old woman, Felicia. I am agreeable to your proposal, Mr Durrant: you can carry it out with my consent, and I have no doubt my poor wife will also fall in with your views: but I leave you, sir, to tackle the ladies yourself, for I am no match for them. Women are always slippery sort of creatures, hard to circumvent, sir, and mighty knowing. It is my belief they have twice the brains of us men. A woman can squeeze herself out of a corner where a man would be simply trapped. Now you know my opinion. Robina’s a good girl, and she may as well stay at Sunshine Lodge for a year as at Mrs Burton’s for a year. As to the holidays; if you would invite me to spend part of the time with her at Sunshine Lodge, it would save a lot of ructions; but I don’t make that a sine qua non. I am agreeable to any arrangement that suits you and the ladies.”

“Thank you; you are very kind,” said Mr Durrant.

The conversation languished a little after that, although Mr Starling tried to keep it lively by expatiating on Bo-peep’s many excellent points, and describing how truly his wife loved the little animal. Eventually, a small, clear voice interrupted the conversation, and Violet, dressed in her best and most starchy white frock, appeared on the scene. She announced in a prim little voice that tea was ready.

“You is to come in, and I may hold oo’s hand,” said Violet, giving hers at once with the utmost confidence to the stranger.

The men immediately entered the house, accompanied by the little maid. Rose was within, looking rather tearful, and seated close to her mother.

“I is not to ’peak, but I is ’onging to,” was her first remark as she fixed her cherubic eyes on the stranger’s face.

“Don’t, Rose! Keep silent,” said her aunt. “Mr Durrant, may I present you to my dear sister, Robina’s mother.”

Mr Durrant found a place close to Rose. He presently transferred this small person to his own knee, where she became radiantly happy, and then he entered into conversation with Mrs Starling. Mrs Starling, without in the least intending it, managed to convey to him the fact that she considered Robina a very rough, disobedient child, whom of course she loved, but to whom discipline was sadly necessary.

Mrs Starling was a very sweet looking woman, notwithstanding her illness, and Durrant became instantly much interested in her, and asked her a good many questions with regard to Robina. Finally, it was arranged that the momentous question of the little girl’s becoming Malcolm Durrant’s guest during his absence was to be deferred until the week after that spent by the entire happy party of school-mothers on the yacht; and Durrant promised to write to the Starlings on the subject at the end of that period.

He arrived back at Sunshine Lodge early on Monday morning, and then informed the different children that the weather report being excellent they would start on the cruise early on the following day. Nothing could exceed the delight of all the little school-mothers, and amongst them, no one was more cheerful than Harriet Lane. She had quite recovered her normal health, and was to all appearance in the highest of spirits.

That evening, she and Jane had a short conversation together.

Jane, said Harriet; “I mean, if possible, to be the girl left in charge of Ralph during his father’s absence. I know quite well all that has happened with regard to Robina. Mr Durrant wants Robina to stay with Ralph here; and he went to see her people, because he told me so; but all the same, matters won’t be quite settled until Ralph himself arranges the matter. Now Ralph wishes for me, not Robina, and I think Ralph’s wishes will in the end carry the day.”

Jane looked somewhat unhappy. After a pause, she said:

“Nothing could be more delightful than our life here, and I am looking forward to our time on board the yacht more than anything else in all the world; but you manage somehow always to give an unpleasant tone to things. I thought after the fright you got with regard to Ralph when we were at school that you would let him alone in the future; but you are just as bad as ever.”

“I am,” said Harriet; “I am worse than ever. I am not very happy at home, and I have not the advantages that Robina has.”

“Robina has one thing that you have not,” said Jane, stoutly. “She really and truly loves little children. Don’t you remember how sweet she was to Curly Pate? She has a way about her that all little children like: I suppose it is partly because she has got two little sisters of her own. Now, you do not care for children—not in your heart of hearts.”

“I don’t care for the ordinary child, and I certainly began by not loving Ralph at all,” was Harriet’s response; “but certainly I do care for him now better than I ever did for any other child. If I were left here, I should be good to him, and he would be happy. But that is not the point. I want the advantages that Mr Durrant offers—oh yes! Robina can keep her pony; that wonderful Bo-peep can go back to the Brown House and delight them all, and Robina can ride Bo-peep in the holidays. I don’t grudge her her pony, but I do grudge her Ralph. Why I—oh, but you don’t know about that.”

She stopped abruptly.

“You may as well tell me,” said Jane. “I guessed—I think we all guessed that something happened that day when you were so horribly cross and would not come with us to the sea-shore. You got poor little Ralph into no end of mischief that day, or why should you both have been taken ill that evening?”

“I will tell you, Jane,” said Harriet, “if you will promise never, never to let it out to anybody else.”

There was a girl lying in a hammock close by. That girl was Robina. She had been fast asleep. The day was hot, and she was tired from much exercise, for Mr Durrant’s parties never did let the grass grow under their feet. But she awoke now to find that Harriet and Jane were standing a few feet away. Her impulse was to say, “I am here.” The next moment, she would have uttered the words, but, hearing her own name spoken, arrested the speech that was on her lips. She did not know why, but a swift and horrible temptation came over her. She bent a little forward, and, unperceived by the two who were standing two or three feet off, could hear every word that was spoken.

“You will never tell,” began Harriet.

“No, no,” said Jane, a trifle impatiently; “if I wanted to begin to tell all the things you have confided in me, I’d have a pretty bad time of it. You know you have always plotted and planned against Robina. Well, what did you do against her that day?”

“The only thing I could do, and that was not much. You know all about the gipsies, and my following Ralph and bringing him home and my real sorrow, and my giving Ralph up to Robina; and you know how Robina won the pony?”

“Yes,” said Jane; “I know that story, I am perfectly sick of it,” she added.

“Well, that story has somehow come to an end, but another story has begun. It is this: I will tell you what really did happen. I was, oh! in such a rage; and I wouldn’t ride the horrid donkey, and you all went off without me, only Ralph—he stayed.”

“He is a dear little boy,” said Jane. “He did not want to stay, I can tell you; but he could not stand the thought of your being left all alone, so he asked his father if he might stay, and Mr Durrant said, ‘Of course.’ Mr Durrant never makes much of people being self-sacrificing; he seems to think it only right. Well, anyhow, he stayed.”

“He did,” said Harriet. “In some ways he was rather a little nuisance. He talked to me and I talked to him; and he—he—told me that he loved Robina the best.”

The girl in the hammock gave a quick catch in her breath, then a sigh of relief, but too faint to reach the girls who were talking eagerly in the shrubbery below.

“He said he loved her best; and you know that sort of little chap,” said Harriet, “he never, never could tell a lie—that is quite outside his category.”

“Oh quite, dear little man!” said Jane.

“Well, I wanted some water-lilies; and what do you think? I tried to pull some, but I couldn’t, and he—he crept along a bough. I could have prevented him, but I didn’t, for a thought got into my head.”

“What was that?”

“I knew quite well that if he crept along that bough—that willow bough that hangs over the round pond, that it wouldn’t hold his weight, and that he would fall in.”

“You knew it!” said Jane, gasping, “and you let him do it?”

“I did. I let him do it on purpose. He didn’t see me. He wanted to get the water-lilies for me, and he thought he would manage—oh, so fine! and I watched behind a shrub.”

“Oh, Harriet!”

“Well, my dear; you needn’t go on like that. The bough dipped lower and lower, and Ralph, he is not a bit frightened—you know he never was, he is as plucky as his father. I did feel inclined to say, ‘oh, do go back, Ralph—’”

“And you didn’t say the words, Harriet?”

“No, no; you goose, I didn’t; well, anyhow, he tumbled into the water where it was pretty deep too; and he would have sunk, poor little man, for there are such a lot of weeds about just there—only of course I was close by, and I rushed down to the edge of the pond and flung myself in, and swam out to him. I saved him—oh, it was quite easy; he was not even unconscious when I got him out of the water; only of course we were both drenched to the skin.”

“I don’t understand,” said Jane. “It seemed a horrid mean thing to do, and you speak as though it was something fine.”

“Ralph thinks it awfully fine. You see, he takes it in this way. He thinks he tried to get the lilies for me at the risk of his life.”

“That’s true enough,” said Jane.

“And that I saved him at the risk of mine.”

“Which is not a bit true,” said Jane, “for you can swim like a duck anywhere.”

“Ah, but Ralph does not know that, and there is no one who will dare to tell him. We both got ill afterwards, and I was more ill than Ralph, because I was longer in my dripping wet clothes; and now Ralph loves me much, much better than Robina, for you see I saved his life.”

“Oh! I think you are a horrid girl!” said Jane.

“Do you? do you? Well, perhaps you won’t think me quite so horrid when I get you invited here, say, for Christmas, and when we have a jolly, jolly time, with that old Mr Durrant safe in Africa and Ralph just obliged to put up with us. I’ll always be good to him, you may be sure of that, but I shan’t molly-coddle him: I’ll look after number one, see if I don’t.”

“All the same,” said Jane, “Robina is the one who will be invited to take care of Ralph, and you haven’t a chance.”

“I know better,” said Harriet. “I have my own plans. You will have to help me, for if you don’t, I won’t give you that five pounds that my god-mother allows me on each of my birthdays.”

“Five pounds!” said Jane, with a gasp.

“Yes; if I am allowed to stay as Ralph’s companion, I will give you that money this year. Think what that will mean.”

Jane was absolutely silent. The girls went away from under the shadow of the thick plantation, and walked like any other innocent little pair in the sunshine. Robina, after a long time, crept out of her hammock and went to the house. She had a dreadful feeling at her heart. She must be alone. She reached her bedroom and locked herself in.

Book Two—Chapter Ten.

Harriet Pleads.

Half an hour afterwards, Robina went downstairs. It was a perfect summer’s afternoon. She felt she could not stand the house. She went out. The great heat of the day was over. The stars were beginning to come out in the sky. They could hardly be seen as yet for there was too much light, but by-and-by they would shine brilliantly.

Robina raised her head to the sky, and wondered in a vague, girlish sort of fashion what sort of life it was up there, and if God really understood people, and if, in God’s other worlds, things were right, not wrong. She felt depressed as she had never been depressed before.

Ralph was playing eagerly with the three Amberleys. He looked a bonny, happy little boy. The rich colour had returned to his cheeks, he had lost that slight look of delicacy which had characterised him for a short time after his illness.

His illness! Robina knew about it now. She had guessed about it before, but now, she knew. Those wet clothes which the maid servant had shown her, were explained. The feverish chill which both Ralph and Harriet had suffered from was also explained. Everything was made clear to Robina. She felt herself almost shuddering. Such wickedness! such deceit! such a deeply laid plot to steal the affections of one little boy seemed too horrible to poor Robina! She felt she could scarcely go on in her present position.

“Harriet is too clever for me,” she thought. “I ought to tell Mr Durrant that I listened: I ought to explain to him what really happened. Oh, what—what am I to do! Ralph of course loves Harriet best now. He naturally thinks her conduct heroic. He is the sort of boy to be enraptured with a deed of that sort; and she did it all on purpose—on purpose—and just to win his love from me. Oh, how am I to bear it! Why did I ever know Ralph? Why was I ever sent to school? I was happy enough at home. There were troubles, of course. There was poor Aunt Felicia, and there was mother—darling mother, who never did understand me, much as I cared for her. But all the same, compared to this life, things were peaceful enough.”

“Hullo, Robina!” said a voice at that moment. “A penny for your thoughts, my dear!”

Robina turned swiftly. Her honest grey eyes flashed, then grew a little dim. Mr Durrant came up to her.

“Do you want to walk about with me for a little, my child, or would you rather I left you by yourself?”

“I will walk with you, of course,” said Robina—“that is, if you care to be with me. But,” she added, “I am not a good companion to-night.”

“And why not? is anything wrong?”

“There is something wrong, and I cannot tell it you. Please don’t ask me.”

“Of course I won’t, my dear girl. In a little company of this sort there are sure to be small jars, but what I feel about your character is this—that there is nothing mean about you. You naturally have your faults. I could imagine, for instance, that you were exceedingly high-spirited—too high-spirited at times. I could also imagine that you yourself needed a little discipline in life.”

“I do,” said Robina, suddenly. “I need everything—every sort of training. You don’t know, you can’t realise, what a wild sort of heart I have. It seems to be too difficult at times to control. I thought when I was at school, and when I was given the charge of Ralph, and when I won that dear pony, that I could never know unhappiness again; and then when you asked me here, I felt sure that I could never know unhappiness again.”

“And you did know it once again?” said Mr Durrant, looking kindly and yet with anxiety at the girl.

“Yes,” she said, nodding her head, and tears filling her eyes as she turned away.

“Listen to me, Robina. There are some things about you that appeal to me very forcibly. I know you are not perfect. I have been to your home and have heard the opinion of your father and aunt, and of your mother with regard to you. They have given their true opinions. Your father admires those things in you which try your mother and aunt very much. But I, my dear child, take you on my own valuation. I see in you one inestimable quality. I do not believe under any circumstances you would tell me a lie. That, to me, is the unpardonable sin. A girl who could do anything deceitful would be an impossible companion for my little Ralph. I do not believe you would be that.”

Robina was quite silent. Her silence, and the extreme moodiness of her appearance, rather surprised Mr Durrant.

“As a matter of fact,” he said, after a moment’s pause, “if I am to be able to carry out my plan, which I am exceedingly desirous to do, I shall have to choose between you and Harriet as a companion for my little boy. All my inclinations tend towards you, Robina; but, on the other hand, I have been speaking to Ralph, and Ralph seems to wish me to choose Harriet as his school-mother during the year of my absence. Now the wishes of so young a child cannot altogether guide me in this matter, and I do not mean to come to a decision for at least a week on the subject. During that time, I shall watch you both—not obtrusively in any way, but still with a keen observation, for a great deal depends on the choice which I am forced to make. I am, to tell you the truth, a good deal puzzled at Ralph’s preference for Harriet, and feel, without being able to lay my hand on the mystery, that there is a mystery with regard to it, and that Harriet has a power over him which I am not permitted to know anything about.”

Mr Durrant paused and looked at Robina. She was quite silent.

“It would,” said the traveller, after a long pause, “be a very, very serious thing—in fact, it would be exceedingly wrong for me to entrust my boy to the companionship of a girl who was not truthful, who had the elements of deceit in her composition; and I do beseech of you, Robina, not to consider yourself in the matter, but if you know anything against Harriet, to confide that something to me.”

“You must not ask me,” said Robina, suddenly. “I do not say I know anything; she is my school companion. She is clever; she is not cleverer than I am, but she is undoubtedly clever. You never can tell why a person cares for another. Ralph was fond of Harriet when he was at school, then he turned to me because poor Harriet was tempted to take him away to visit a friend of hers—but you know all about that story.”

“Yes, I know all about it, and about poor Harriet’s subsequent repentance. The incident has, therefore, quite faded from my mind, and cannot influence me in my present decision in the very least.”

“Of course not,” said Robina. “Well, I cannot tell you any more.”

“I am much puzzled,” said Mr Durrant, “and your manner to-night is the reverse of reassuring.” He left Robina a few minutes afterwards, and she walked by herself for a short time. She was just going back to the house when a hand was laid on her arm, and a girl looked eagerly into her face.

“So you were talking to him?”

“What do you mean?” said Robina. She almost flung Harriet’s hand aside.

“I have discovered something,” said Harriet. Harriet’s face was absolutely white. It looked curious and almost dreadful in the light caused by the moon which was now rising. “It was Jane who found out,” she said. “You were in the hammock all the time. You heard us; you listened; you are an eavesdropper. Have you told Mr Durrant what I said to Jane?”

“No,” replied Robina, in a low tone.

“But you did listen?”

“I did: I was in the hammock. How did you find out?”

“We found your handkerchief on the ground when we were passing a few moments afterwards; and you left your book behind you. Your book was in the hammock; your handkerchief on the ground; you dare not deny it; you heard every word.”

“I heard every word,” said Robina.

“Then what do you mean to do?” said Harriet.

“Nothing,” replied Robina.

“Nothing?” said Harriet. “That is so like you. You mean to give up your golden chance?”

Robina folded her hands. She stood and faced Harriet.

“If I can keep straight, I will,” she said—“if by any means it is possible for me to keep straight in the company of a girl like you, I will do so. I believe, hard as it may seem, that that would be better for me in the long run even than spending a whole year with Ralph.”

“Do you indeed think so?” said Harriet. She spoke eagerly. “In that case, Robina, you can help me.”

“No,” said Robina, starting back.

“Don’t be silly,” said Harriet. “Come down this path, no one will hear us; we must talk. On board the yacht, there will be so little opportunity, but here we are alone and together. The choice lies between you and me. Now, you think you want all that Mr Durrant is about to offer, but, compared to me, you don’t want it at all. My home, compared to yours, is, oh! so rough; and my people are oh! so poor! You don’t know, perhaps, that I am supported at Mrs Burton’s school by an aunt who grudges every penny of the money she spends on me. To be educated by a man like that, to be able to live here until I am quite grown-up—oh, it would make such a difference! You don’t want these advantages as badly as I want them. Give up your chance, you have but to help me with Ralph. He loves me better than you now; you have but to say a few words to Mr Durrant, and the deed is done.”

“And what words are those?” said Robina.

“Tell him what you think about me.”

“What I think?” said Robina.

“Yes, yes, yes! Don’t you understand? You haven’t said anything yet—I mean, you haven’t betrayed me?”

“I haven’t.”

“Well, his great idea is that Ralph should be under the care of a truthful girl. Make out to him that I am the most truthful girl, the most honourable, the most upright in all the world.”

“Sell my soul, in fact?” said Robina. She turned and faced her companion. “O Harriet! How I despise you! I tell you what I will do. I will give up this whole thing. I will tell Mr Durrant that I won’t be Ralph’s companion; that I prefer to go back to Mrs Burton’s school, and to take my chance there; that I can have nothing further to do with Ralph, that I can tell him what I know about you, and he can choose Rose Amberley, or Vivian, or Patience Chetwold, or one of the other girls as Ralph’s school-mother. When I put you out of court, I shall put myself out of court. Oh, yes; that is what I will do. You are just dreadful, Harriet, dreadful.”

“You won’t dare to do such a thing,” said Harriet. “You must not; oh, I beseech of you!” Harriet’s whole tone altered. “Robina, I was only joking. Oh, please, please, please don’t betray me. Of course, I will do nothing, only don’t betray me. Let us have our chance, let us both be above-board: probably Mr Durrant and Ralph will choose you, and if they do, I will promise not to say a word.”

“But you will have nothing to say,” replied Robina, in some astonishment.

“That is true; but oh! do nothing, nothing until the week is up!”

“You distract me,” said Robina. “I want to go to him now—at once. He thinks me truthful; perhaps I am; I have been up to the present. Now it seems that, knowing what I know—knowing that you did that thing with regard to the pond—”

“Oh, hush!” said Harriet.

”—That I ought to tell him. It lies on my conscience: I am most miserable!”

“Well, at least promise that you will say nothing until we have been on board the yacht and the time there is over.”

Harriet argued. Robina pleaded; but in spite of herself, the girl who was quite straight, who had no crooked thoughts, whose one desire was to do to others as she would be done by, was no match for the girl who was deceitful and intensely selfish. In the end, Robina was forced by her companion to give the promise that she would say nothing until the week was up.

Book Two—Chapter Eleven.

On Board the “Sea-Gull.”

The next day dawned gloriously, and soon after ten o’clock the entire party were on board the pretty yacht which was known by the name of the “Sea-Gull.” She had been hired by Mr Durrant for the occasion, and was as charming a sea home as any girls could live in. The eight girls who now took possession of the pretty little cabins and who ran up and down the “companion” stairs and walked on the deck, and disported themselves so happily with the sea breezes blowing on their cheeks, and the white sails of the yacht fluttering in the breeze had never known a more enjoyable time than that first day on board the “Sea-Gull.”

The “Sea-Gull,” like a large white bird, skimmed lightly over the water. The girls were all excellent sailors. The sky was cloudless. Mr Durrant seemed absolutely to have recovered his serene good humour. Ralph was in the highest spirits, and even the school-mothers were so absorbed in their new surroundings that they had no time for trouble or care.

It was after dinner, on the first evening of their sojourn on board the “Sea-Gull” that Mr Durrant, rising from his place at the head of the table, spoke to his little party.

“Now, my children,” he said, “we have entered on a week which I hope will remain long in the memories of each and all of you—a week which it will be my endeavour to make one of pure and perfect happiness. There is no time like youth for the enjoyment of such. As we get older, we cannot quite get away from our cares, however hard we try to do so; but when we are young, we are meant to be like the young birds and the young lambs and the young puppy dogs and the young kittens—all gaiety and sunshine, and lightness of heart. I have on board this yacht with me, a crew and an excellent sea-worthy captain and a first mate and all the rest, and I also have nine young people who none of them exceed twelve years of age. This expedition is entirely carried out for the sake of one little boy and his eight school-mothers, and I trust, therefore, we shall have a very jolly time.

“On the night of our return to Sunshine Lodge, I shall have a very important decision to announce, but in the meantime, my children, let us forget all about it; let us be happy while we may; let us banish dull care; let us be, from the oldest to the youngest, each a truly happy child at heart.”

“Oh, yes,” said Robina’s voice.

The others looked round rather startled when she spoke. She was wearing a brown holland frock, which Aunt Felicia had made for her, and which was not exactly becoming, but nothing could take from the bonny expression of her open face, and her very words brought comfort to Mr Durrant’s heart.

“That girl is the girl for me,” he said to himself. “Who would compare her to Harriet Lane?” But then he noticed—and he gave a quick sigh—that Ralph’s little hand was locked in Harriet’s, and that he was standing close to the tall, thin girl.

Soon afterwards, the entire party went on deck, and Ralph, after sitting up for some time, was obliged to go down to the pretty cabin which he shared with his father.

“Oh—I am so sleepy!” he said. “I shan’t sleep without rocking, for I’ll be rocked all night by the sea, won’t I, father?”

“Yes, my son,” replied his father; “and may you sleep without dreams.”

He kissed the little brown face as he spoke. The brown eyes looked into the browner eyes of the man, and the man felt that in all the wide world there was no one so precious to him as that little child who was not yet six years of age.

“If only I could give up my life of adventure for his sake! Dare I leave him?” thought Mr Durrant. “I could, with Robina,” was his next thought.

He looked across at the group of girls, who, on different deck-chairs, were gently swaying to the pleasant rhythmic motion of the yacht. There were certainly prettier girls on board, but there was no one, to Mr Durrant’s mind, so altogether satisfactory as Robina. How was it that even at this juncture, Ralph scarcely kissed Robina at all, but clasped his arms round Harriet’s neck, and whispered something in her ear? and why did Harriet return his kiss with a sort of eager passion and then turn and talk to Jane in an undertone? Mr Durrant felt he did not like it. He was restless, in spite of himself, and though he had vowed that dull Care should not enter the “Sea-Gull,” and that during the happy week on board no contretemps should take place, he was all the time thinking, first of Harriet, and then again of Robina, and then again of Harriet.

The first two days on board passed without any sort of adventure. The party landed and saw almost all the places of interest on the Isle of Wight, and generally entered some little harbour to spend the night. The weather continued to be most propitious. There was no one either sea-sick or sorry; nevertheless, Mr Durrant felt more and more as though that choice which he was about to make were becoming one of greater anxiety each moment.

On the third day of the little party’s residence on board the “Sea-Gull,” Ralph, who woke very early, left his own berth and climbed into his father’s.

“Is you waking up, father?” he said. “Is you going to talk to your little brown boy?”

“Of course I am, Ralph,” answered Durrant, opening one sleepy eye, and glancing comically at Ralph as he perched himself on one side of the bed.

Ralph sat very still for a minute: then he said, in a very low, determined voice:

“I promised I’d say it: so I am going to.”

“You dear little man—you promised you’d say it:—what do you mean by that?”

“Well,” said Ralph, “it is this. I want you to choose Harriet to live with me when you is going to South Africa. I don’t want Robina: I like her next best to Harriet, but I don’t like her as well.”

“Now this is a very serious matter, Ralph,” said his father, changing his tone and becoming wide awake and alert at the moment, and taking his little boy’s hand. “You know, my dear son, that I shall be absent from home for several months.”

“I know,” said Ralph.

“You will have Mrs Temple to look after you.”

“I know,” said Ralph again.

“And being a manly boy, you won’t fret.”

“’Course not,” said Ralph. Whatever feeling there was in his heart, he would not let it come to the surface. “I is your own boy,” he said, after a pause. “You didn’t fret ever, did you?”

“Not to show it,” replied Mr Durrant, after a minute’s pause.

“Sank ’oo,” said Ralph. “I understand,” he repeated.

“Well, my dear boy, that part is all right: but now, to be frank with you: I prefer Robina.”

“And I like Harriet,” said Ralph.

“Do you think, Ralph, that a little boy so young as you are is the best judge of who ought really to be his companion?”

“I don’t understand,” said Ralph then. “I like Harriet best, ’cause she’s so—”

“Ah, yes?” said Mr Durrant, in an encouraging voice. “Give me your reasons, my son; I shall listen with the greatest possible attention.”

“’Cause she is so splendid—and—and brave,” said Ralph, “and—and—noble—”

“Is she?” said Mr Durrant. “Can you prove that?”

“Does you want me to prove it, father?”

“Yes,” said Mr Durrant then. “If Harriet is really the bravest girl of all your school-mothers, and the noblest, then—she shall stay with you as your school-mother. But it has got to be proved to me.”

“And if I can prove it,” said Ralph, “you will really, really let her stay with me as my very own school-mother?”

“Yes, Ralph.”

“Sankoo so much,” said Ralph. His little face looked very much excited and the colour flushed into his cheeks.

“Now then, that is settled,” said Mr Durrant. “You have got to prove the thing, and I have got to see that I believe all about it. We won’t worry any more for the present, for the decision is not to be come to until we return to Sunshine Lodge. Go back to your own berth, Ralph. Turn round and have another hour’s sleep, for it is too early for anyone to be up.” Ralph, quite satisfied with what he had done, immediately obeyed his father. He was just like a little sailor, and instant obedience was his watch-word. But while a small brown boy slept, the big brown man lay awake, consumed with anxious thought.

“I wish I had never given my sanction to this plan; there is something behind the scenes. Harriet brave; Harriet noble? I never yet was mistaken in a face,” was his thought. “Well, little Ralph, you have to prove it to my satisfaction, that is one comfort.” That day the little party landed at Lymington and went for a time into the New Forest under the shade of the “Immemorial Elms.” Ralph and Harriet had time to be alone for a short period. It was rather difficult now for the boy and the girl to be unobserved on these occasions. It seemed to Harriet that the eyes of all the school-mothers watched them, that Robina, in particular, followed them about with those grey eyes of hers.

Robina was true to her word. She tried to enjoy herself and was great friends with all her companions with the exception of Jane, whom she left to Harriet entirely, and with the exception of Ralph, whom, from a motive which she could not define, she left more or less to himself. This very fact distressed Mr Durrant not a little. Now, Robina and the Amberley girls were all walking under the trees, chatting and talking, and Harriet and Ralph found themselves alone.

“I has done it,” said Ralph. “I spoke to father and telled him that I wished him to choose you.”

“Oh, you did, did you?” said Harriet. She pulled Ralph’s little hand through her arm. “You will never be sorry for that, I can tell you, Ralph. I mean to give you a beautiful time when I am your school-mother.”

“Oh, yes,” said Ralph; “but ’tisn’t ’cause of the beautiful time that you’re to be my school-mother, is it, Harriet?”

Harriet looked puzzled.

“I mean,” said Ralph, “that I is going to be a big boy. Next birthday I’ll be six, then seven, then eight—I’ll be growed up in no time. When a person is growed up, then a person hasn’t to think only just of nice things. I telled father that I wanted you to be my school-mother, to stay with me all the time, ’cause you’re so brave and so noble.”

“You told him that?” said Harriet, with a short laugh: “nothing more, I hope?”

“No, nothing more, ’cause you wouldn’t let me. But, Harriet,” he said, “father did—”

“What, dear?”

“That I had got to prove to him that you was brave, and was noble—he likes people who are that; and his eyes flashed. Don’t you like father’s eyes when they grow all of a sudden so very bright? Well, they growed like that when I said you was brave, and noble; only he said you must prove it.”

“Oh! you did put your foot into things,” said Harriet. “How on earth am I to prove it.”

“Why, do something brave and noble,” said Ralph. “I thought I’d tell you, ’cause father said he must know his own self, and then he’ll decide. He is going to decide as soon as ever we get back to Sunshine Lodge—oh! and there he is calling me! Now I must run to him. Coming, father, coming—this instant-minute!” and Ralph lost his hold of Harriet’s hand and flew off to meet his parent.

“Does you want me to swarm up to the top of that tall tree, father? I can, you know: I isn’t a bit frighted,” said Ralph.

Mr Durrant stood and smiled.

“You mustn’t go too far,” he said, “I don’t want you to fall and hurt yourself.”

“No,” said Ralph, “that wouldn’t be right, would it? Special ’cause there’s no water underneath. If I was to run up this tree, and run along that bough that bends over so, and it cracked, same as willow bough cracked, I—”

Then he stopped and turned very red. Durrant was standing very upright and apparently not listening. Ralph felt a choking sensation in his throat. How very nearly he had betrayed himself!

“Was you listening, father?” he said, after a pause; and he came up and pulled the brown man by the sleeve.

“To what, my boy?”

“To a sort of nonsense I was talking.”

Instantly Mr Durrant’s face grew very stern.

“You were not talking nonsense, Ralph,” he said. “You were telling something that happened: but I don’t want to hear the rest. What I have heard doesn’t matter, for a half story is no story all: but it is not exactly true to call what really happened nonsense, and I don’t like those words from the lips of my little son. Now go up your tree; climb along any branch you like: I am below watching you.”

“Yes, yes,” said the boy, the weight of the words he had inadvertently used slipping from his mind. “Father’s below, waiting for me,” he repeated.

He climbed the tall elm tree, springing from branch to branch with the alertness of a little squirrel, and presently came down again, radiant and triumphant.

“Pluckily done, Ralph!” said his father, and he took the boy’s hand and continued to walk with him through the Forest.

“Father,” said Ralph, after a pause, “I have been telling Harriet that you must have it proved that she is both brave and noble.”

“That is right, my boy. Now let us talk of something else. There’ll be a bit of a breeze to-night: we must run the ‘Sea-Gull’ into Yarmouth Harbour. We must run in before long in order that we may be snug and in port before we have any dirty weather.” If there was one girl who was not perfectly happy during this week of sunshine, it was Jane Bush. Poor Jane was completely under Harriet’s influence. If Harriet was poor, Jane was a little poorer. Mrs Burton was one of those good Christian women who took girls, whose parents were poor, on special terms; both Harriet and Jane were girls of this sort. She had long ago made up her mind that those girls who could not afford to pay for a good education should nevertheless, if there was a vacancy at Abbeyfield, receive all the advantages of the best education she could offer.

Harriet was the daughter of an old friend, and Jane Bush was the child of a man who had once done her a service. Both these girls were received at Abbeyfield on very special terms, and Jane, in particular, was at the school almost free of any expense. Mrs Burton was not especially fond of Jane, but she remembered the time when Jane’s father had been kind to her in her need, and she was determined to give the girl all the advantages of a good education; no one knew this; it was never whispered in the school that Harriet and Jane were taken on very different terms from their companions. Their rooms were just as comfortable, their education just as complete: but the girls themselves knew, and the thought rankled sorely in each young breast.

Harriet had an aunt, it is true, who paid something for her schooling, but Jane Bush’s father paid practically nothing at all. He was a very poor artist who could scarcely make two ends meet. Jane’s mother was dead, and the girl would have been absolutely neglected but for Mrs Burton’s great kindness to her.

Jane Bush had a little brother and sister who were cared for, after a fashion, by an aunt, and, with the exception of her school-companions, they were the only people she loved in the world.

Now, the thought of that five pounds, which was to be hers if Harriet was lucky enough to be selected as school-mother to Ralph, visited her heart again and again. What wonders could she not achieve with so large a sum? Why, five pounds! Five pounds meant one hundred shillings, and one hundred shillings meant two hundred sixpences and four hundred threepences! and as to the pennies which that mighty sum represented—Jane felt that she was not old enough yet even to begin to calculate the magnitude of the amount! Yes, if she helped Harriet—she, who had always helped her more or less, would be the happy possessor of that sum. What could she not do for little Bobbie and small, round, black-eyed Miriam if she had five pounds of her own? She remembered too well the sordid condition of these poor little ones; how many things they wanted; how shabby were their little wardrobes; how thin their winter frocks; how bitterly Miriam complained of the cold, and how Bobbie cried when his chilblains hurt him!

While the others were singing and laughing and making merry on board the “Sea-Gull,” and Jane’s very round cheeks got rounder and browner and her eyes blacker and more staring, and people said to themselves, “What a commonplace, careless sort of little girl that is and what an uninteresting face she has,” they little guessed that Jane’s heart was full of care, that she was thinking of Bobbie and Miriam and the things that might be done for their happiness if only she was the possessor of five pounds.

She was completely under Harriet’s spell, and never more so than at the present moment when Harriet dangled before her so tempting a bait. Now Harriet, exceedingly annoyed at what Ralph had communicated, sought her chosen friend.

“Well, Jane,” she said, “this is Friday. We shall be back at Sunshine Lodge on Tuesday next, and then the great decision has to be made. Have you thought of anything?”

“Have I thought of anything?” said Jane, almost crossly. “I am always thinking of things, Harriet, you know very well.”

“But if you don’t think of something good and clever, you may as well not think at all,” said Harriet. “Now, do you know that I don’t like my present position at all. There’s that horrid Robina—she is exactly the sort of girl who, to spoil my chances, would equally spoil her own. She said as much, and if we don’t manage to circumvent her between now and Tuesday, all will be up.”

“I would do anything in all the world to help you, as you know, Harriet,” said Jane; “but please tell me what circumvent means?”

“Why, get the better of her, of course, you goose! You really are too silly,” said Harriet. “Well, how are we to get the better of her? I want you to tell me.”

“I wish I could!”

“Oh, you don’t think at all!” said Harriet in a fretful tone. “If, instead of romping and joking and laughing all day with that silly Vivian or Rose or any of the other girls, you were to put on your considering cap, you would soon find a way to earn your five pounds.”

“I want it most dreadfully,” said Jane: “but please tell me how I am to earn it, Harriet. What is it you want me to do?”

“Well, I tell you what I want you to do. I want you to do; two things. To prove in some sort of fashion to Mr Durrant that Robina is deceitful—yes, that is it, deceitful; he thinks more of truth than of anything under the sun—and that I am exceedingly brave, and exceedingly noble. I gave Ralph the hint to tell his father that I was both brave and noble—you know all about that as far as is connected with the pond. Well, what do you think Mr Durrant has said? He says that if Ralph can prove his words, he will elect me as the school-mother. The deed will be done. There will be no getting out of it; but it has got to be proved—how? I leave you, Jane, to find out a way.”

“Oh, it isn’t so easy,” said Poor Jane.

“You want your five pounds, don’t you?” said Harriet, with a sneer.

“Yes, I want it awfully. I heard from Bobbie and Miriam this morning and—”

“I don’t want to hear about those tiresome children. Now let us come to the boat; they are calling us: don’t you hear them?”

Book Two—Chapter Twelve.

Edged Tools.

Mr Durrant’s prophecies with regard to the weather turned out true. The “Sea-Gull” made with some difficulty into Yarmouth harbour, where it remained snugly ensconced for the night. But even there, although securely at anchor, it tossed about a good deal, and none of the children slept particularly well.

Towards morning, however, the storm abated: the wind went down almost as suddenly as it rose, and Mr Durrant determined to take the yacht as far as Totland Bay, and to give the children a run on the shore. They were all pleased with this decision, and when they landed on the pier, were much delighted to find themselves again on terra firma.

The day was a very hot one; and, except for the swell after the storm, all traces of the tempest of the preceding night had vanished. The entire party went into the hotel for lunch, and afterwards took a long walk on the beach in the direction of the far-famed Needles.

It was so fine and warm that the girls begged to be allowed to bathe. There was a sheltered cove about a mile beyond Totland Bay where they could go into the water; and all the party, provided with their bathing things, started on their expedition.

Harriet and Jane walked on a little in front of the others: Robina, on this occasion, found herself with the Amberley girls: Mr Durrant, Patience and Frederica Chetwold and Ralph brought up the rear. Jane turned now and spoke eagerly to Harriet.

“I have thought of something,” she said.

“Well, what is it?” asked Harriet.

“We are all going to bathe, aren’t we?”

“I suppose so,” said Harriet: “not that I much care for the look of the water,” she added. “There is an awful swell, and I remember my father once telling me that there were strong currents all round this part of the coast. Only very good swimmers ought to go out; but of course we are safe enough, those of us who choose to stay in our depths.”

“Yes,”—said Jane—“those of us who choose; but you won’t, you know—it will be your chance.”

“My chance? of what?” asked Harriet.

“Why, of proving what you want to prove to Mr Durrant.”

Harriet turned and looked full at her companion. It is true she was a good swimmer, and she was not a coward; but she knew enough about the water to understand that even the best swimmer cannot cope against a sea which is still perturbed by a recent storm. She said, after a pause:

“I always knew you were clever enough, Jane, when you chose to put your brains in soak. Now, what is your thought? Out with it.”

“Well,” said Jane; “it is this way. They’re all going to bathe—all of them—Ralph and Mr Durrant, and all the girls. You coax Ralph to get a little out of his depth, and then you save him. Why, it’s done as easy as possible. Why, Mr Durrant, he’ll feel then just as Ralph feels for you—that there’s nothing in all the world that he won’t do for you, and Robina won’t be in it at all.”

Harriet was so astonished at these words, that she stood stock-still and turned and stared at her companion.

“But if Mr Durrant is in the water himself, he will save Ralph. Besides, he won’t allow him to go out of his depth; he will just keep him to himself. Why, Ralph is the apple of his eye, you goose!”

“Yes,” said Jane; “but suppose he isn’t with him.”

“Now what are you talking about?”

“If something was to happen to make him go back and just let the rest of us wait in the cove for him and oh! I know that I am a very bad girl; but I think that if you were to make up a message of some sort he might go back to the yacht, and while he is away, we could go into the water, and then you will do that fine, splendid thing and—and—all will be right.”

“Yes,” said Harriet; “yes.” She looked at the sea. Each moment the waves seemed to be going down; there were no “white horses” anywhere. The whole sea as far as the distant horizon was a blue expanse. There was not much, if any, danger, and people said it was so safe to bathe in the cove, which they were approaching. “But what can we do to make Mr Durrant go back?” said Harriet.

“I have thought of that too,” said Jane, her colour changing. “You remember the letter you got about your father?”

“The letter that reached me this morning?”

“Yes, you said he was ill.”

“Oh, dad is often ill,” said Harriet; “I mean that he is fanciful.”

“Well,” said Jane; “let’s pretend for the time at least that he is not fanciful, and that you are nervous about him, and that you want to hear, and that you think there may be a telegram waiting for you on board the ‘Sea-Gull.’ Mr Durrant is so kind that he would think nothing of going back to find out, and I would speak to him my own self if you would let me. Do let me, please do, Harriet!”

“You want your five pounds,” said Harriet. “It’s a jolly mean way to earn it. But still, I suppose, we are both as mean as we can be and the idea in itself may succeed. I have asked you to manage this thing for me, Janie, it is only fair, as you get such a lot of money by it, so do your best, now; I leave it in your hands.”

The moment Harriet said this, Jane rushed away from her. She joined Mr Durrant, and they talked together for some minutes with great apparent earnestness. Meanwhile, Ralph rushed up to Harriet.

“Isn’t the day lovely?” he said; “won’t it be nice when we are bobbing up and down in the water? I’ll show you how well I can swim, Harriet. I can swim, you know, but I can float better than I can swim.”

“You must be careful not to go out of your depth,” said Harriet. “Of course you can swim, although you are such a little boy, and when you are tired, your father will let you ride on his back. What fun that will be! Your father is so strong, and big.”

“Yes, isn’t he just splendid?” said Ralph.

At that moment, Jane came back.

“Mr Durrant has gone to the yacht,” she whispered to Harriet, “but he doesn’t wish any of us to bathe until he returns.”

Ralph, who was quite uninterested in Jane’s whispered communication now ran down to the edge of the water and began to amuse himself shying pebbles into the sea.

“Of course there will be no telegram,” said Harriet to Jane. “Father’s in all probability as well as usual, still, that was a good idea of yours, and it isn’t likely to be found out.”

“I don’t think it is likely,” said Jane. “I am awfully wicked,” she continued, “and it is you, Harriet, who have made me so. I told Mr Durrant that you were almost certain a telegram would come. It was a lie, of course, but I have done it for Bobbie’s sake, and Miriam’s sake, and now you have got to earn my five pounds for me; now is your chance.”

“But you have spoilt it with that message,” said Harriet. “Mr Durrant said we were none of us to bathe until he came back.”

“You must bathe,” said Jane. “I am going to pretend that I forgot all about the message. You must act as though you never got it.”

“Then you, Jane, will be punished.”

“I can only be in disgrace,” said Jane; “and I don’t mind if I get my money. In any case, I shan’t bathe; I am going to walk about very slowly along the beach, and will wait for you near the yacht. If any of the sailors see me, they will take me on board, and I can wait for you there. I shall be much too miserable to look on. Don’t let Ralph go far into the sea—just a wee, wee bit out of his depth: then catch him very quickly; only be sure you let Robina and the other girls see you do it. Things will be all right for us both now, won’t they?”

“Yes,” said Harriet, in an excited tone. She too felt that her chance had come. Her conscience was dulled to sleep. Not for worlds would she awaken it.

Jane immediately began to walk back to Totland Bay, and Harriet turned to the other girls who had come up now to join her.

“When,”—said Ralph, who was softly jumping up and down and holding Vivian’s hand—“when is we all going into the nice, cool, lovely blue water?”

“But where can Mr Durrant be?” said Robina.

“He said that he would come with us because the current would certainly be a little strong to-day. Perhaps we had better not bathe.”

“Oh, of course those who are frightened need not bathe,” said Harriet: “but I am going into the water for one.”

“But where is father? where is my father?” asked Ralph.

“He has gone,” said Harriet, “out of great kindness to me to find out if a telegram has come on board the ‘Sea-Gull’ to tell me about my own father, who isn’t well. Isn’t it good of him?”

“Just like father,” said Ralph. “And is your father very, very bad, Harriet?”

“Oh, I hope he is much better now,” said Harriet. “But he sometimes does get ill, and then of course I am anxious.”

“’Course you are, poor Harriet,” said Ralph, taking her hand and stroking it softly.

“Well, girls,” said Harriet, looking at the others; “who’s going to bathe, and who isn’t?”

Two or three elected to get into their bathing things, and go into the water. The little cove was absolutely sheltered. The water was like glass. Some of the children were accustomed to sea-bathing, some were not. Harriet began eagerly to question.