Not Without Thorns. Molesworth Mrs.

her legs very wide apart, under one arm a very small kitten, under the other a very big doll – fond objects of her otherwise somewhat unappreciated devotion. She was a curious child, full of “touchy tempers and contrary ways,” not easily cowed, rebellious and argumentative, and no one had as yet taken the trouble to understand her – to draw out the fund of unappropriated affection in her baby heart.

      Roma got tired of holding the door open. “Come, Floss,” she said, impatiently, “come in quickly.”

      Floss stared at her for another minute without speaking. Then, “No,” she said deliberately. “I won’t come in nor neither go out;” and as Roma turned away with a little laugh and a careless, “then stay where you are, Floss,” the child shook with indignation and impotent resentment.

      “She is really dreadful, Roma,” said Mrs Eyrecourt, plaintively. “For some time past nurse tells me it is the same thing every day – out of one temper into another, from morning to night.”

      “She must take after her uncle,” said Roma; “it is all contradiction. Don’t bother yourself about her, Gertrude. I’ll ring for nurse.”

      And the matter ended in the poor little culprit being carried off to the nursery in a whirlwind of misery and passion, reiterating as she went that mamma and aunt made her naughty when she had “comed down good.”

      “What has become of Quintin?” asked Roma, when they were again left in peace. “I haven’t seen him this morning.”

      “He is spending the day with the Montmorris boys. He set off quite early, immediately after his breakfast, in great spirits, dear fellow,” replied his mother. “How different he is from Floss, Roma!”

      “Yes,” answered Roma, “he is a nice boy. But it comes easily to people like Quintin to be good, Gertrude. He has everything in his favour – perfect health, a naturally easy temper, good looks, and every one inclined to think the best of him. Whereas poor little Flossy seems to have been always at war with the world. She is so delicate too. My conscience pricks me sometimes a little about that child.”

      “I don’t see that there is anything more to be done for her. I trust to her growing out of these tempers in time,” said Mrs Eyrecourt, philosophically – she was always philosophical about Floss when not in her immediate presence. “Speaking of the Montmorris boys, Roma, reminds me we are dining there to-day. That is to say – I accepted for myself certainly, and for you conditionally, the day before yesterday. You are not too tired to go?”

      “Oh, no. I daresay I shall feel brisker by the evening,” replied Roma. “I suppose it isn’t anything very overwhelming, is it? for my wardrobe is getting rather dilapidated – I didn’t think I should have been so long without going home, you know. By-the-bye, Gertrude, are you not in deeper mourning than when I went away?”

      “Yes, I forgot to tell you. Indeed, I hardly thought you would care to hear – the poor old man had been virtually dead for so long. It is for our old uncle – Beauchamp’s and my uncle I mean – Mr Chancellor of Halswood. He died a fortnight ago. It was hardly necessary to go into mourning; he was only my father’s uncle. But still he was the head of the family, and I thought it better.”

      “Who succeeds him?” asked Roma. “Halswood is a nice place, isn’t it?”

      “Very; but they have never kept it up properly,” said Mrs Eyrecourt. “At least, not for many years past. Old Uncle Chancellor has been half in his dotage for ever so long, but still he had sense enough to be jealous of his grandsons. There are two of them; the elder of course succeeds. He has sons; he has been married some years. We know very little of them now. My great uncle was angry with my father for selling Winsedge to your people, Roma; for though it was not entailed, and had come into the hands of a younger son, it had been a long, long time in the family. And that made a coolness they never got over.”

      “Why did your father sell it?” inquired Roma. “It would have been very nice for you now if it had belonged to Beauchamp. Much nicer than for it to be Quin’s, who has got plenty already.”

      “Yes,” replied Gertrude, slowly; “it would have been very nice, but it could not have been. My father was dreadfully in debt, and even selling Winsedge didn’t clear him. When he died it was all my poor mother could do to start Beauchamp in the army. Poor Beauchamp! it has been very hard upon him to be so restricted, with his tastes, and his looks, and his feelings altogether. He has never been extravagant, as young men go, but he hates poverty.” Roma laughed. “I don’t think he knows much about it, so far,” she said. “Wait till he is married with very little more than he has now – two or three hundred a year and his pay. It wouldn’t be long before love came flying out of his window. But, dear me,” starting up as a timepiece struck the hour, “how late it is! I must write to tell Mary Dalrymple of my safe arrival. What time is the Montmorris’s dinner hour? Seven; oh, I am glad of that; we shall get home early.”

      The Montmorrises were quiet, steady-going, rather old-fashioned people, who lived in Brighton as evenly and monotonously as they would have lived in a country village. They were not by any means in Mrs Eyrecourt’s “set,” but they were very old friends of the Chancellor family – old Mr Montmorris, indeed, had been their lawyer for generations, and his firm, in which his eldest son now represented him, still managed the Halswood affairs. Once upon a time there had been a large family of young Montmorrises, but, after the manner of large families, they were now scattered far and wide – “some were married, some were dead,” two maiden sisters only, no longer youthful, still representing at home the boys and girls, the “children” of long ago. But their brother – Mr Christian Montmorris, the hope of the family and the head of the firm – had by this time a wife and large family of his own, none of whom had any objection to spending a few weeks now and then at “grandpapa’s,” on which occasions their father used to “run down” from town as many times a week as he could spare the time, “running up again” by the first train the next morning; for he was a shrewd, clever, energetic man, with some fingers to spare for other pies besides those it was his legitimate office to cook; with a clear head and a sharp eye for a wary venture or a profitable investment. Among other by-concerns of this kind, in which his name did not appear, he was interested in the affairs of the great Wareborough engineering company, in whose employ Gerald Thurston, the curate’s elder brother, had spent the last three years in India.

      The sisters-in-law were received by their friends with open arms.

      “So kind of you to come to us in this unceremonious way. So pleased to see Miss Eyrecourt again. We quite feared Mrs Eyrecourt would have left Brighton this year before you joined her,” said Miss Cecilia Montmorris. And then old Mrs Montmorris broke in with self-congratulations that “Christy” had just arrived unexpectedly, and, what was more, had brought a friend with him, a gentleman just arrived from India. “We were quite pleased to see him, I assure you,” she continued, addressing Roma in particular, “for a new-comer always brings a little variety; and now that my boys are all away from us we seem to be falling out of fresh acquaintances sadly. Mr Montmorris and I are getting too old for any sort of gaiety,” she went on. “It is dull for Cecilia and Bessie sometimes, but they are good girls, very, and they know it won’t be always that they will have their father and me to care for. Besides, they have a little change now and then when Mrs Christian takes one of them up to town for a week or two. Bessie is going back with them next week. And you have been away up in the north, I hear, my dear? How did you like that? I used to know Cumberland in my young days.”

      So she chattered on with the not unpleasing garrulity of gentle, kindly old age. She was a very sweet old lady, and Roma considered herself much more fortunate than her sister-in-law, who had been seized upon by Mrs Christian Montmorris to have poured into her sympathising ear an account of how dreadfully ill her youngest but one had been the last two days, cutting its eye-teeth. Gertrude smiled and said, “indeed,” and tried to look interested; but Roma laughed inwardly at her evident eagerness to change the conversation. Mrs Eyrecourt was not a person in whom the maternal instinct was in all directions fully developed: she loved her handsome little son as much as she could love anything; she honestly meant to do her best by Floss, but on certain points she was by no means an authority. It is, indeed, a question