Heriot's Choice: A Tale. Rosa Nouchette Carey

have said anything else but this,' she moaned. 'Not feel as they do, not miss her as much, my dear, beautiful mother, who never scolded me, who believed in me always, even when I disappointed her most;—oh, Cardie, Cardie, how could you have found it in your heart to say that!'

CHAPTER VI

       Table of Contents

CAIN AND ABEL

       Table of Contents

      'There was a little stubborn dame

       Whom no authority could tame;

       Restive by long indulgence grown,

       No will she minded but her own.'—Wilkie.

      Chrissy was sufficiently unwell the next day to make her aunt's petting a wholesome remedy. In moments of languor and depression even a whimsical and erratic nature will submit to a winning power of gentleness, and Chriss's flighty little soul was no exception to the rule: the petting, being a novelty, pleased and amused her, while it evidently astonished the others. Olive was too timid and awkward, and Richard too quietly matter-of-fact, to deal largely in caresses, while Roy's demonstrations somehow never included Contradiction Chriss.

      Chriss unfortunately belonged to the awkward squad, whose manœuvres were generally held to interfere with every one else. People gave her a wide berth; she trod on their moral corns and offended their tenderest prejudices; she was growing up thin-lipped and sharp-tongued, and there was a spice of venom in her words that was not altogether childlike.

      'My poor little girl,' thought Mildred, as she sat beside her working; 'it is very evident that the weeds are growing up fast for lack of attention. Some flowers will only grow in the sunshine; no child's nature, however sweet, will thrive in an atmosphere of misunderstanding and constant fault-finding.'

      Chrissy liked lying in that cool room, arranging Aunt Milly's work-box, or watching her long white fingers as they moved so swiftly. Without wearying the overtasked child, Mildred kept up a strain of pleasant conversation that stimulated curiosity and raised interest. She had even leisure and self-denial enough to lay aside a half-crossed darn to read a story when Chriss's nerves seemed jarring into fretfulness again, and was rather pleased than otherwise when, at a critical moment, long-drawn breaths warned her that she had fallen into a sound sleep.

      Mildred sat and pondered over a hundred new plans, while tired Chriss lay with the sweet air blowing on her and the bees humming underneath the window. Now and then she stole a glance at the little figure, recumbent under the heartsease quilt. 'She would be almost pretty if those sharp lines were softened and that tawny tangle of hair arranged properly; she has nice long eyelashes and a tolerably fair skin, though it would be the better for soap and water,' thought motherly Mildred, with the laudable anxiety of one determined to make the best of everything, though a secret feeling still troubled her that Chrissy would be the least attractive to her of the four.

      Chrissy's sleep lengthened into hours; that kindly foster-nurse Nature often taking restorative remedies of forcible narcotics into her own hands. She woke hungry and talkative, and after partaking of the tempting meal her aunt had provided, submitted with tolerable docility when Mildred announced her intention of making war with the tangles.

      'It hurts dreadfully. I often wish I were bald—don't you, Aunt Milly?' asked Chrissy, wincing in spite of her bravery.

      'In that case you will not mind if I thin some of this shagginess,' laughed Mildred, at the same time arming herself with a formidable pair of shears. 'I wonder you are not afraid of Absalom's fate when you go bird-nesting.'

      'I wish you would cut it all off, like Polly's,' pleaded Chriss, her eyes sparkling at the notion. 'It makes my head so hot, and it is such a trouble. It would be worth anything to see Cardie's face when I go downstairs, looking like a clipped sheep; he would not speak to me for a week. Do please, Aunt Milly.'

      'My dear, do you think that such a desirable result?'

      'What, making Cardie angry? I like to do it of all things. He never gets into a rage like Roy—when you have worked him up properly—but his mouth closes as though his lips were iron, as though it would never open again; and when he does speak, which is not for a very long time, his words seem to clip as sharp as your scissors—"Christine, I am ashamed of you!"'

      'Those were the very words I wanted to use myself.'

      'What?' and Chrissy screwed herself round in astonishment to look in her aunt's grave face. 'I am quite serious, I assure you, Aunt Milly. I sha'n't mind if I look like a singed pony, or a convict; Rex is sure to call me both. Shall I fetch a pudding-basin and have it done—as Mrs. Stokes always does little Jem's?'

      'Hush, Chrissy; this is pure childish nonsense. There! I've trimmed the refractory locks: you look a tidy little girl now. You have really very pretty hair, if you would only keep it in order,' continued Mildred, trying artfully to rouse a spark of womanly vanity; but Chriss only pouted.

      'I would rather be like the singed pony.'

      'Silly child!'

      'Rex was in quite a temper when Polly said she hoped hers would never grow again. You have spoiled such a capital piece of revenge, Aunt Milly; I have almost a mind to do it myself.' But Chriss's mischief-loving nature—always a dangerous one—was quelled for the moment by the look of quiet contempt with which Mildred took the scissors from her hand.

      'I did not expect to find you such a baby at thirteen, Chriss.'

      Chriss blazed up in a moment, with a great deal of spluttering and incoherence. 'Baby! I a baby! No one shall call me that again!' tossing her head and elevating her chin in childlike disdain.

      'Quite right; I am glad you have formed such a wise determination, it would have been babyish, Chriss,' wilfully misunderstanding her. 'None but very wicked and spiteful babies would ever scheme to put another in a rage. Do you know,' continued Mildred cheerfully, as she took up her work, apparently regardless that Chrissy was eyeing her with the same withering wrath, 'I always had a notion that Cain must have tried to put Abel in a passion, and failed, before he killed him!'

      Chrissy recoiled a little.

      'Perhaps he wanted him to fight, as men and boys do now, you know, only Abel's exceeding gentleness could not degenerate into such strife. To me there is something diabolical in the idea of trying to make any one angry. Certainly the weapons with which we do it are forged for us, red-hot, and put into our hands by the evil one himself.'

      'Aunt Milly!' Chrissy's head was quiescent now, and her chin in its normal position: the transition from anger to solemnity bewildered her. Mildred went on in the same quiet tone.

      'You cannot love Cardie very much, when you are trying to make him angry, can you, Chrissy?'

      'No—o—at least, I suppose not,' stammered Chriss, who had no want of truth among her other faults.

      'Well, what is the opposite of loving?'

      'Hating. Oh, Aunt Milly, you can't think so badly of me as that! I don't hate Cardie.'

      'God forbid, my child! You know what the Bible says—'He who hateth his brother is a murderer.' But, Chrissy, does it ever strike you that Cain could not always have been quite bad? He had a childhood too.'

      'I never thought of him but as quite grown up,' returned Chriss, with a touch of stubbornness, arising from an uneasy and awakened conscience. 'How fond you are of Cain, Aunt Milly.'

      'He is my example, my warning beacon, you see. He was the first-begotten of Envy, that eldest-born of Hell—a terrible incarnation of unresisted human passion. Had he first learned to restrain the beginnings of evil, it would not have overwhelmed him so completely. Possibly in their young, hard-working life he would have loved to be able to make Abel angry.'