Clare Avery. Emily Sarah Holt

shyness was extinguished by vexation.

      “Get away!” she said, as Margaret bent down to kiss her. “You are not my sisters! I won’t kiss you! I won’t call you sisters. Blanche is my sister, but not you. Get away, both of you!”

      Lady Enville’s eyes opened—for her—extremely wide.

      “Why, what can the child mean?” she exclaimed. “I can never govern childre. Rachel, do—”

      Barbara was astonished and terrified. She laid a correcting hand upon Clare’s shoulder.

      “Mrs. Clare, I’m ashamed of you! Cruel ’shamed, I am! The ladies will account that I ne’er learned you behaviour. Kiss the young damsels presently (immediately), like a sweet little maid, as you use to be, and not like a wild blackamoor that ne’er saw governance!”

      But the matter was taken out of Barbara’s hands, as Mistress Rachel responded to the appeal made to her—not in words, but in solid deed. She quietly grasped Clare, lifted her from her mother’s knee, and, carrying her to a large closet at one end of the room, shut her inside, and sat down again with judicial imperturbability.

      “There you ’bide, child,” announced Rachel, from her chair, “until such time as you shall be sorry for your fault, and desire pardon.—Meg and Lucrece, come and fold your sewing. ’Tis too dark to make an end thereof this even.”

      “Good Mistress,” entreated poor Barbara in deep dismay, “I beseech you, leave my little maid come out thence. She was never thus dealt withal in all her life afore!”

      “No was she, (was she not), good wife?” returned Rachel unconcernedly. “Then the sooner she makes beginning thereof, the better for her. Ease your mind; I will keep her in yonder no longer than shall stand with her good. Is she oft-times thus trying?”

      “Never afore knew I no such a thing!” said Barbara emphatically.

      “Only a little waywardness then, maybe,” answered Rachel. “So much the better.”

      “Marry, sweet Mistress, the child is hungered and aweary. Pray you, forgive her this once!”

      “Good lack!” plaintively exclaimed Lady Enville. “I hate discords around me. Call Jennet, and bid her take Barbara into the hall, for it must be nigh rear-supper.”

      Go and sit down comfortably to supper, with her darling shut in a dark closet! Barbara would as soon have thought of flying.

      “Leave her come forth, Rachel,” said the child’s mother.

      “I love peace as well as thou, Sister; but I love right better,” answered Rachel unmovedly. But she rose and went to the closet. “Child! art thou yet penitent?”

      “Am I what?” demanded Clare from within, in a voice which was not promising for much penitence.

      “Art thou sorry for thy fault?”

      “No.”

      “Wilt thou ask pardon?”

      “No,” said Clare sturdily.

      “Thou seest, Sister, I cannot let her out,” decided Rachel, looking back.

      In utter despair Barbara appealed to Lady Enville.

      “Mistress Walter, sure you have never the heart to keep the little maid shut up in yon hole? She is cruel weary, the sweeting!—and an-hungered to boot. Cause her to come forth, I pray you of your gentleness!”

      Ah, Barbara! Appearances were illusive. There was no heart under the soft exterior of the one woman, and there was a very tender one, covered by a crust of rule and propriety, latent in the breast of the other.

      “Gramercy, Barbara!” said Lady Enville pettishly, with a shrug of her shoulders. “I never can deal with childre.”

      “Leave her come forth, and I will deal withal,” retorted Barbara bluntly.

      “Dear heart! Rachel, couldst thou not leave her come? Never mind waiting till she is sorry. I shall have never any peace.”

      Rachel laid her hand doubtfully on the latch of the closet door, and stood considering the matter.

      Just then another door was softly pushed open, and a little child of three years old came into the room:—a much prettier child than Clare, having sky-blue eyes, shining fair hair, a complexion of exquisite delicacy, pretty regular features, and eyebrows of the surprised type. She ran up straight to Rachel, and grasped the blue serge kirtle in her small chubby hand.

      “Come see my sis’er,” was the abrupt announcement.

      That this little bit of prettiness was queen at Enville Court, might be seen in Rachel’s complacent smile. She opened the closet door about an inch.

      “Art thou yet sorry?”

      “No,” said Clare stubbornly.

      There was a little pull at the blue kirtle.

      “Want see my sis’er!” pleaded the baby voice, in tones of some impatience.

      “Wilt be a good maid if thou come forth?” demanded Rachel of the culprit within.

      “That is as may be,” returned Clare insubordinately.

      “If I leave thee come forth, ’tis not for any thy goodness, but I would not be hard on thee in the first minute of thy home-coming, and I make allowance for thy coldness and weariness, that may cause thee to be pettish.”

      Another little pull warned Rachel to cut short her lecture.

      “Now, be a good maid! Come forth, then. Here is Blanche awaiting thee.”

      Out came Clare, looking very far from penitent. But when Blanche toddled up, put her fat arms round her sister as far as they would go, and pouted up her little lips for a kiss—to the astonishment of every one, Clare burst into tears. Nobody quite knew why, and perhaps Clare could hardly have said herself. Barbara interposed, by coming forward and taking possession of her, with the apologetic remark—

      “Fair cruel worn-out she is, poor heart!”

      And Rachel condoned the affair, with—“Give her her supper, good wife, and put her abed. Jennet will show thee all needful.”

      So Clare signalised her first entrance into her new home by rebellion and penalty.

      The next morning rose brightly. Barbara and Jennet came to dress the four little girls, who all slept in one room; and took them out at once into the garden. Clare seemed to have forgotten the episode of the previous evening, and no one cared to remind her of it. Margaret had brought a ball with her, and the children set to work at play, with an amount of activity and interest which they would scarcely have bestowed upon work. Barbara and Jennet sat down on a wooden seat which ran round the trunk of a large ash-tree, and Jennet, pulling from her pocket a pair of knitting-needles and a ball of worsted, began to ply the former too quickly for the eye to follow.

      “Of a truth, I would I had some matter of work likewise,” observed Barbara; “I have been used to work hard, early and late, nor it liketh me not to sit with mine hands idle. Needs must that I pray my Lady of some task belike.”

      “Do but say the like unto Mistress Rachel,” said Jennet, laughing, “and I warrant thee thou’lt have work enough.”

      “Mistress Rachel o’erseeth the maids work?”

      “There’s nought here but hoo (she) does o’ersee,” replied Jennet.

      “She keepeth house, marry, by my Lady’s direction?”

      “Hoo does not get much direction, I reckon,” said Jennet.

      “What, my Lady neither makes nor meddles?”

      Jennet laughed. “I ne’er saw her make yet so much as an apple turno’er. As for tapestry