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Some good account at last."'

A deep hum of applause rose not only from the two teachers, but from

all the pupils, who were equally astonished to hear Miss Monflathers

improvising after this brilliant style; for although she had been long

known as a politician, she had never appeared before as an original

poet. Just then somebody happened to discover that Nell was crying,

and all eyes were again turned towards her.

There were indeed tears in her eyes, and drawing out her handkerchief

to brush them away, she happened to let it fall. Before she could

stoop to pick it up, one young lady of about fifteen or sixteen, who

had been standing a little apart from the others, as though she had no

recognised place among them, sprang forward and put it in her hand.

She was gliding timidly away again, when she was arrested by the

governess.

'It was Miss Edwards who did that, I KNOW,' said Miss Monflathers

predictively. 'Now I am sure that was Miss Edwards.'

It was Miss Edwards, and everybody said it was Miss Edwards, and Miss

Edwards herself admitted that it was.

'Is it not,' said Miss Monflathers, putting down her parasol to take a

severer view of the offender, 'a most remarkable thing, Miss Edwards,

that you have an attachment to the lower classes which always draws you

to their sides; or, rather, is it not a most extraordinary thing that

all I say and do will not wean you from propensities which your

original station in life have unhappily rendered habitual to you, you

extremely vulgar-minded girl?'

'I really intended no harm, ma'am,' said a sweet voice. 'It was a

momentary impulse, indeed.'

'An impulse!' repeated Miss Monflathers scornfully. 'I wonder that you

presume to speak of impulses to me'--both the teachers assented--'I am

astonished'--both the teachers were astonished--'I suppose it is an

impulse which induces you to take the part of every grovelling and

debased person that comes in your way'--both the teachers supposed so

too.

'But I would have you know, Miss Edwards,' resumed the governess in a

tone of increased severity, 'that you cannot be permitted--if it be

only for the sake of preserving a proper example and decorum in this

establishment--that you cannot be permitted, and that you shall not be

permitted, to fly in the face of your superiors in this exceedingly

gross manner. If you have no reason to feel a becoming pride before

wax-work children, there are young ladies here who have, and you must

either defer to those young ladies or leave the establishment, Miss

Edwards.'

This young lady, being motherless and poor, was apprenticed at the

school--taught for nothing--teaching others what she learnt, for

nothing--boarded for nothing--lodged for nothing--and set down and

rated as something immeasurably less than nothing, by all the dwellers

in the house. The servant-maids felt her inferiority, for they were

better treated; free to come and go, and regarded in their stations

with much more respect. The teachers were infinitely superior, for

they had paid to go to school in their time, and were paid now. The

pupils cared little for a companion who had no grand stories to tell

about home; no friends to come with post-horses, and be received in all

humility, with cake and wine, by the governess; no deferential servant

to attend and bear her home for the holidays; nothing genteel to talk

about, and nothing to display. But why was Miss Monflathers always

vexed and irritated with the poor apprentice--how did that come to pass?

Why, the gayest feather in Miss Monflathers's cap, and the brightest

glory of Miss Monflathers's school, was a baronet's daughter--the real

live daughter of a real live baronet--who, by some extraordinary

reversal of the Laws of Nature, was not only plain in features but dull

in intellect, while the poor apprentice had both a ready wit, and a

handsome face and figure. It seems incredible. Here was Miss Edwards,

who only paid a small premium which had been spent long ago, every day

outshining and excelling the baronet's daughter, who learned all the

extras (or was taught them all) and whose half-yearly bill came to

double that of any other young lady's in the school, making no account

of the honour and reputation of her pupilage. Therefore, and because

she was a dependent, Miss Monflathers had a great dislike to Miss

Edwards, and was spiteful to her, and aggravated by her, and, when she

had compassion on little Nell, verbally fell upon and maltreated her as

we have already seen.

'You will not take the air to-day, Miss Edwards,' said Miss

Monflathers. 'Have the goodness to retire to your own room, and not to

leave it without permission.'

The poor girl was moving hastily away, when she was suddenly, in

nautical phrase, 'brought to' by a subdued shriek from Miss Monflathers.

'She has passed me without any salute!' cried the governess, raising

her eyes to the sky. 'She has actually passed me without the slightest

acknowledgment of my presence!'

The young lady turned and curtsied. Nell could see that she raised her

dark eyes to the face of her superior, and that their expression, and

that of her whole attitude for the instant, was one of mute but most

touching appeal against this ungenerous usage. Miss Monflathers only

tossed her head in reply, and the great gate closed upon a bursting

heart.

'As for you, you wicked child,' said Miss Monflathers, turning to Nell,

'tell your mistress that if she presumes to take the liberty of sending

to me any more, I will write to the legislative authorities and have

her put in the stocks, or compelled to do penance in a white sheet; and

you may depend upon it that you shall certainly experience the

treadmill if you dare to come here again. Now ladies, on.'

The procession filed off, two and two, with the books and parasols, and

Miss Monflathers, calling the Baronet's daughter to walk with her and

smooth her ruffled feelings, discarded the two teachers--who by this

time had exchanged their smiles for looks of sympathy--and left them

to bring up the rear, and hate each other a little more for being

obliged to walk together.

CHAPTER 32

Mrs Jarley's wrath on first learning that she had been threatened with

the indignity of Stocks and Penance, passed all description. The

genuine and only Jarley exposed to public scorn, jeered by children,

and flouted by beadles! The delight of the Nobility and Gentry shorn

of a bonnet which a Lady Mayoress might have sighed to wear, and

arrayed in a white sheet as a spectacle of mortification and humility!

And Miss Monflathers, the audacious creature who presumed, even in the

dimmest and remotest distance of her imagination, to conjure up the

degrading picture, 'I am a'most inclined,' said Mrs Jarley, bursting

with the fulness of her anger and the weakness of her means of revenge,

'to turn atheist when I think of it!'

But instead of adopting this course of retaliation, Mrs Jarley, on

second thoughts, brought out the suspicious bottle, and ordering

glasses to be set forth upon her favourite drum, and sinking into a

chair behind it, called her satellites about her, and to them several

times recounted, word for word, the affronts she had received. This

done, she begged them in a kind of deep despair to drink; then laughed,

then cried, then took a little sip herself, then laughed and cried

again, and took a little more; and so, by degrees, the worthy lady went

on, increasing in smiles and decreasing in tears, until at last she

could not laugh enough at Miss Monflathers, who, from being an object

of dire vexation, became one of sheer ridicule and absurdity.

'For which of us is best off, I wonder,' quoth Mrs Jarley, 'she or me!

It's only talking, when all is said and done, and if she talks of me in

the stocks, why I can talk of her in the stocks, which is a good deal

funnier if we come to that. Lord, what does it matter, after all!'

Having arrived at this comfortable frame of mind (to which she had been

greatly assisted by certain short interjectional remarks of the

philosophical George), Mrs Jarley consoled Nell with many kind words,

and requested as a personal favour that whenever she thought of Miss

Monflathers, she would do nothing else but laugh at her, all the days

of her life.

So ended Mrs Jarley's wrath, which subsided long before the going down

of the sun. Nell's anxieties, however, were of a deeper kind, and the

checks they imposed upon her cheerfulness were not so easily removed.

That evening, as she had dreaded, her grandfather stole away, and did

not come back until the night was far spent. Worn out as she was, and

fatigued in mind and body, she sat up alone, counting the minutes,

until he returned--penniless, broken-spirited, and wretched, but still

hotly bent upon his infatuation.

'Get me money,' he said wildly, as they parted for the night. 'I must

have money, Nell. It shall be paid thee back with gallant interest one

day, but all the money that comes into thy hands, must be mine--not for

myself, but to use for thee. Remember, Nell, to use for thee!'

What could the child do with the knowledge she had, but give him every

penny that came into her hands, lest he should be tempted on to rob

their benefactress? If she told the truth (so thought the child) he

would be treated as a madman; if she did not supply him with money, he

would supply himself; supplying him, she fed the fire that burnt him

up, and put him perhaps beyond recovery. Distracted by these thoughts,

borne down by the weight of the sorrow which she dared not tell,

tortured by a crowd of apprehensions whenever the old man was absent,

and dreading alike his stay and his return, the colour forsook her

cheek, her eye grew dim, and her heart was oppressed and heavy. All

her old sorrows had come back upon her, augmented by new fears and

doubts; by day they were ever present to her mind; by night they

hovered round her pillow, and haunted her in dreams.

It was natural that, in the midst of her affliction, she should often

revert to that sweet young lady of whom she had only caught a hasty

glance, but whose sympathy, expressed in one slight brief action, dwelt

in her memory like the kindnesses of years. She would often think, if

she had such a friend as that to whom to tell her griefs, how much

lighter her heart would be--that if she were but free to hear that

voice, she would be happier. Then she would wish that she were

something better, that she were not quite so poor and humble, that she

dared address her without fearing a repulse; and then feel that there

was an immeasurable distance between them, and have no hope that the

young lady thought of her any more.

It was now holiday-time at the schools, and the young ladies had gone

home, and Miss Monflathers was reported to be flourishing in London,

and damaging the hearts of middle-aged gentlemen, but nobody said

anything about Miss Edwards, whether she had gone home, or whether she

had any home to go to, whether she was still at the school, or anything

about her. But one evening, as Nell was returning from a lonely walk,

she happened to pass the inn where the stage-coaches stopped, just as

one drove up, and there was the beautiful girl she so well remembered,

pressing forward to embrace a young child whom they were helping down

from the roof.

Well, this was her sister, her little sister, much younger than Nell,

whom she had not seen (so the story went afterwards) for five years,

and to bring whom to that place on a short visit, she had been saving

her poor means all that time. Nell felt as if her heart would break

when she saw them meet. They went a little apart from the knot of

people who had congregated about the coach, and fell upon each other's

neck, and sobbed, and wept with joy. Their plain and simple dress, the

distance which the child had come alone, their agitation and delight,

and the tears they shed, would have told their history by themselves.

They became a little more composed in a short time, and went away, not

so much hand in hand as clinging to each other. 'Are you sure you're

happy, sister?' said the child as they passed where Nell was standing.

'Quite happy now,' she answered. 'But always?' said the child. 'Ah,

sister, why do you turn away your face?'

Nell could not help following at a little distance. They went to the

house of an old nurse, where the elder sister had engaged a bed-room

for the child. 'I shall come to you early every morning,' she said,

'and we can be together all the day.'

'Why not at night-time too? Dear sister, would they be angry with you

for that?'

Why were the eyes of little Nell wet, that night, with tears like those

of the two sisters? Why did she bear a grateful heart because they had

met, and feel it pain to think that they would shortly part? Let us

not believe that any selfish reference--unconscious though it might

have been--to her own trials awoke this sympathy, but thank God that

the innocent joys of others can strongly move us, and that we, even in

our fallen nature, have one source of pure emotion which must be prized

in Heaven!

By morning's cheerful glow, but oftener still by evening's gentle

light, the child, with a respect for the short and happy intercourse of

these two sisters which forbade her to approach and say a thankful

word, although she yearned to do so, followed them at a distance in

their walks and rambles, stopping when they stopped, sitting on the

grass when they sat down, rising when they went on, and feeling it a

companionship and delight to be so near them. Their evening walk was

by a river's side. Here, every night, the child was too, unseen by

them, unthought of, unregarded; but feeling as if they were her