The Clever Woman of the Family [246]
Homestead slopes, with all the world to look on at them. It was a warm, brilliant day, of joyous blossom and lively green, and long laughing streaks of sunlight on the sea, and no one enjoyed it more than did Ermine, as she sat in her chair delighting in the fresh sweetness of the old thorns, laughing at the freaks of the scampering groups of children, gaily exchanging pleasant talk with one friend after another, and most of all with Rachel, who seemed to gravitate back to her whenever any summons had for a time interrupted their affluence of conversation. And all the time Ermine's footstool was serving as a table for the various flowers that two children were constantly gathering in the grass and presenting to her, to Rachel, or to each other, with a constant stream of not very comprehensible prattle, full of pretty gesticulation that seemed to make up for the want of distinctness. The yellow-haired, slenderly-made, delicately-featured boy, whose personal pronouns were just developing, and his consonants very scanty, though the elder of the two, dutifully and admiringly obeyed the more distinct, though less connected, utterances of the little dark-eyed girl, eked out by pretty imperious gestures, that seemed already to enchain the little white-frocked cavalier to her service. All the time it was droll to see how the two ladies could pay full attention to the children, while going on with their own unbroken stream of talk. "I am not overwhelming you," suddenly exclaimed Rachel, checking herself in mid-career about the mothers' meetings for the soldiers' wives. "Far from it. Was I inattentive--?" "Oh no--(Yes, Una dear, very pretty)--but I found myself talking in the voice that always makes Alick shut his eyes."- "I should not think he often had to do so," said Ermine, much amused by this gentle remedy--("Mind, Keith, that is a nettle. It will sting--") "Less often than before," said Rachel--("Never mind the butterfly, Una)--I don't think I have had more than one thorough fit of what he calls leaping into the gulf. It was about the soldiers' wives married without leave, who, poor things, are the most miserable creatures in the world; and when I first found out about them I was in the sort of mood I was in about the lace, and raved about the system, and was resolved to employ one poor woman, and Alick looked meeker and meeker, and assented to all I said, as if he was half asleep, and at last he quietly took up a sheet of paper, and said he must write and sell out, since I was bent on my gulf, and an officer's wife must be bound by the regulations of the service. I was nearly as bad as ever, I could have written an article on the injustice of the army regulations, indeed I did begin, but what do you think the end was? I got a letter from a good lady, who is always looking after the poor, to thank Mrs. Alexander Keith for the help that had been sent for this poor woman, to be given as if from the general fund. After that I could not help listening to him, and then I found it was so impossible to know about character, or to be sure that one was not doing more harm than--What is it, boys?" as three or four Temples rushed up. "Aunt Rachel, Mr. Clare is going to teach us a new game, and he says you know it. Pray come." "Come, Una. What, Keith, will you come too? I'll take care of him, Ermine." And with a child in each hand, Rachel followed the deputation, and had scarcely disappeared before the light gracious figure of Rose glanced through the thorn trees. "Aunt Ermine, you must come nearer; it is so wonderful to see Mr. Clare teaching this game." "Don't push my chair, my dear; it is much too heavy for you uphill." "As if I could not drive you anywhere, and here is Conrade coming." Conrade was in search of the deserter, but he applied himself heartily to the propulsion of aunt Ermine, informing Rose that Mr. Clare was no end of a man, much better than if he could see, and aunt Rachel was grown quite jolly. "I think she has left off her long words," said Rose. "She