Phoebe, Junior. Oliphant Margaret

she was half little Ursula May with her head in the air, and half that very great lady in the dream-chariot, who had it in her power to make everybody so happy. Between poor Mrs. Copperhead, who was the most miserable, frightened little slave in the world, with nothing, as she said, but time and money, and Ursula without a penny, and who always had so much to do, what a gulf there was! a gulf, however, which fancy could bridge over so easily. But the dream was broken when she got indoors; not even the quiet of her own little room could bring back in all their glory the disturbed images that had floated before her in the street.

      This was Ursula's last day in town, and there can be no doubt that it was of a nature, without any aid from Sophy's suggestion, to put a great many ideas into her mind.

      CHAPTER VIII

      THE DORSETS

      Next day the little Dorsets came, an odd little pair of shivering babies, with a still more shivering Ayah. It was the failing health of the little exotic creatures, endangered by their English blood, though they had never seen England, and talked nothing but Hindostanee, which had brought them “home” at this inhospitable time of the year; and to get the rooms warm enough for them became the entire thought of the anxious aunts, who contemplated these wan babies with a curious mixture of emotions, anxious to be “very fond” of them, yet feeling difficulties in the way. They were very white, as Indian children so often are, with big blue veins meandering over them, distinct as if traced with colour. They were frightened by all the novelty round them, and the strange faces, whose very anxiety increased their alarming aspect; they did not understand more than a few words of English, and shrank back in a little heap, leaning against their dark nurse, and clinging to her when their new relations made overtures of kindness. Children are less easily conciliated in real life than superficial observers suppose. The obstinate resistance they made to all Anne Dorset's attempts to win their confidence, was enough to have discouraged the most patient, and poor Anne cried over her failure when those atoms of humanity, so strangely individual and distinct in their utter weakness, helplessness, and dependence, were carried off to bed, gazing distrustfully at her still with big blue eyes; creatures whom any moderately strong hand could have crushed like flies, but whose little minds not all the power on earth could command or move. Strange contrast! Anne cried when they were carried off to bed. Sir Robert had escaped from the hot room, which stifled him, long before; and Sophy, half angry in spite of herself, had made up her mind to “take no notice of the little wretches.”

      “Fancy!” she said; “shrinking at Anne – Anne, of all people in the world! There is not a little puppy or kitten but knows better. Little disagreeable things! Oh, love them! Why should I love them? They are John's children, I believe; but they are not a bit like him; they must be like their mother. I don't see, for my part, what there is in them to love.”

      “Oh, much, Sophy,” said Anne, drying her eyes; “they are our own flesh and blood.”

      “I suppose so. They are certainly Mrs. John's flesh and blood; at least, they are not a bit like us, and I cannot love them for being like her, can I? – whom I never saw?”

      The illogicality of this curious argument did not strike Anne.

      “I hope they will get to like us,” she said. “Poor little darlings! everything strange about them, new faces and places. I don't wonder that they are frightened, and cry when any one comes near them. We must trust to time. If they only knew how I want to love them, to pet them – ”

      “I am going to help little Ursula with her packing,” said Sophy hastily; and she hurried to Ursula's room, where all was in disorder, and threw herself down in a chair by the fire, “Anne is too good to live,” she cried. “She makes me angry with her goodness. Little white-faced things like nobody I know of, certainly not like our family, shrinking away and clinging to that black woman as if Anne was an ogre —Anne! why, a little dog knows better – as I said before.”

      “I don't think they are very pretty children,” said Ursula, not knowing how to reply.

      “Why should we be supposed to be fond of them?” said Sophy, who was relieving her own mind, not expecting any help from Ursula. “The whole question of children is one that puzzles me; a little helpless wax image that does not know you, that can't respond to you, and won't perhaps when it can; that has nothing interesting in it, that is not amusing like a kitten, or even pretty. Well! let us suppose the people it belongs to like it by instinct – but the rest of the world – ”

      “Oh, Cousin Sophy!” cried Ursula, her eyes round with alarm and horror.

      “You think I ought to be fond of them because they are my brother's children? We are not always very fond even of our brothers, Ursula. Don't scream; at your age it is different; but when they marry and have separate interests – if these mites go on looking at me with those big scared eyes as if they expected me to box their ears, I shall do it some day – I know I shall; instead of going on my knees to them, like Anne, to curry favour. If they had been like our family, why, that would have been some attraction. Are you pleased to go home, or would you prefer to stay here?”

      “In London?” said Ursula, with a long-drawn breath, her hands involuntarily clasping each other. “Oh! I hope you won't think me very silly, but I do like London. Yes, I am pleased – I have so many presents to take to them, thanks to you and to Cousin Anne, and to Mrs. Copperhead. I am ashamed to be carrying away so much. But Carlingford is not like London,” she added, with a sigh.

      “No, it is a pretty soft friendly country place, not a great cold-hearted wilderness.”

      “Oh, Cousin Sophy!”

      “My poor little innocent girl! Don't you think it is desolate and cold-hearted, this great sea of people who none of them care one straw for you?”

      “I have seen nothing but kindness,” said Ursula, with a little heat of virtuous indignation; “there is you, and Mrs. Copperhead; and even the gentlemen were kind – or at least they meant to be kind.”

      “The gentlemen?” said Sophy, amused. “Do you mean the Copperheads? Clarence perhaps? He is coming to Easton, Ursula. Shall I bring him into Carlingford to see you?”

      “If you please, Cousin Sophy,” said the girl, simply. She had not been thinking any thoughts of “the gentlemen” which could make her blush, but somehow her cousin's tone jarred upon her, and she turned round to her packing. The room was littered with the things which she was putting into her box, that box which had grown a great deal too small now, though it was quite roomy enough when Ursula left home.

      “Ursula, I think you are a good little thing on the whole – ”

      “Oh, Cousin Sophy, forgive me! No, I am not good.”

      “Forgive you! for what? Yes, you are on the whole a good little thing; not a saint, like Anne; but then you have perhaps more to try your temper. We were always very obedient to her, though we worried her, and papa always believed in her with all his heart. Perhaps you have more to put up with. But, my dear, think of poor Mrs. Copperhead, for example – ”

      “Why do you always call her poor Mrs. Copperhead? she is very rich. She can make other people happy when she pleases. She has a beautiful house, and everything – ”

      “And a bear, a brute of a husband.”

      “Ah! Does she mind very much?” asked Ursula, with composure. This drawback seemed to her insignificant, in comparison with Mrs. Copperhead's greatness. It was only Sophy's laugh that brought her to herself. She said with some haste, putting in her dresses, with her back turned, “I do not mean to say anything silly. When people are as old as she is, do they mind? It cannot matter so much what happens when you are old.”

      “Why? but never mind, the theory is as good as many others,” said Sophy. “You would not mind then marrying a man like that, to have everything that your heart could desire?”

      “Cousin Sophy, I am not going to – marry any one,” said Ursula, loftily, carrying her head erect. “I hope I am not like that, thinking of such things. I am very, very sorry that you should have such an opinion of me, after living together ten days.”

      She turned