A World of Girls.

by L. T. Meade.

CHAPTER I.

"GOOD-BYE" TO THE OLD LIFE.

"Me want to see Hetty," said an imperious baby voice.

"No, no; not this morning, Miss Nan, dear."

"Me do want to see Hetty," was the quick, impatient reply. And a st.u.r.dy indignant little face looked up at Nurse, to watch the effect of the last decisive words.

Finding no affirmative reply on Nurse's placid face, the small lips closed firmly--two dimples came and went on two very round cheeks--the mischievous brown eyes grew full of laughter, and the next moment the little questioner had squeezed her way through a slightly open door, and was toddling down the broad stone stairs and across a landing to Hetty's room. The room-door was open, so the truant went in. A bed with the bed-clothes all tossed about, a half worn-out slipper on the floor, a very untidy dressing-table met her eyes, but no Hetty.

"Me want Hetty, me do," piped the treble voice, and then the little feet commenced a careful and watchful pilgrimage, the lips still firmly shut, the dimples coming and going, and the eyes throwing many upward glances in the direction of Nurse and the nursery.

No pursuit as yet, and great, great hope of finding Hetty somewhere in the down-stair regions. Ah, now, how good! those dangerous stairs had been descended, and the little voice calling in shrill tones for Hetty rang out in the wide hall.

"Let her come to me," suddenly said an answering voice, and a girl of about twelve, dressed in deep mourning, suddenly opened the door of a small study and clasped the little one in her arms.

"So you have found me, my precious, my dearest! Brave, plucky little Nan, you have got away from Nurse and found me out! Come into the study now, darling, and you shall have some breakfast."

"Me want a bicky, Hetty," said the baby voice; the round arms clasped Hester's neck, but the brown eyes were already traveling eagerly over the breakfast table in quest of spoil for those rosy little lips.

"Here are two biscuits, Nan. Nan, look me in the face--here, sit steady on my knee; you love me, don't you, Nan?"

"Course me do," said the child.

"And I'm going away from you, Nan, darling. For months and months I won't see anything of you. My heart will be always with you, and I shall think of you morning, noon and night. I love no one as I love you, Nan. You will think of me and love me too; won't you, Nan?"

"Me will," said Nan; "me want more bicky, Hetty."

"Yes, yes," answered Hester; "put your arms tight round my neck, and you shall have sugar, too. Tighter than that, Nan, and you shall have two lumps of sugar--oh, yes, you shall--I don't care if it makes you sick--you shall have just what you want the last moment we are together."

Baby Nan was only too pleased to crumple up a c.r.a.pe frill and to smear a black dress with sticky little fingers for the sake of the sugar which Hetty plied her with.

"More, Hetty," she said; "me'll skeeze 'oo vedy tight for more."

On this scene Nurse unexpectedly entered.

"Well, I never! and so you found your way all downstairs by yourself, you little toddle. Now, Miss Hetty, I hope you haven't been giving the precious lamb sugar; you know it never does suit the little dear. Oh, fie! baby; and what sticky hands! Miss Hetty, she has crumpled all your c.r.a.pe frills."

"What matter?" said Hester. "I wanted a good hug, and I gave her three or four lumps. Babies won't squeeze you tight for nothing. There, my Nancy, go back to Nurse. Nurse, take her away; I'll break down in a minute if I see her looking at me with that little pout."

Nurse took the child into her arms.

"Good-bye, Miss Hester, dear. Try to be a good girl at school. Take my word, missy--things won't be as dark as they seem."

"Good-bye, Nurse," said Hester, hastily. "Is that you, father? are you calling me?"

She gathered up her m.u.f.f and gloves, and ran out of the little study where she had been making believe to eat breakfast. A tall, stern-looking man was in the hall, b.u.t.toning on an overcoat; a brougham waited at the door. The next moment Hester and her father were bowling away in the direction of the nearest railway station. Nan's little chubby face had faded from view. The old square, gray house, sacred to Hester because of Nan, had also disappeared; the avenue even was pa.s.sed, and Hester closed her bright brown eyes. She felt that she was being pushed out into a cold world, and was no longer in the same snug nest with Nan. An intolerable pain was at her heart; she did not glance at her father, who during their entire drive occupied himself over his morning paper. At last they reached the railway station, and just as Sir John Thornton was handing his daughter into a comfortable first-cla.s.s carriage, marked "For Ladies only," and was presenting her with her railway ticket and a copy of the last week's ill.u.s.trated newspaper, he spoke:

"The guard will take care of you, Hester. I am giving him full directions, and he will come to you at every station, and bring you tea or any refreshment you may require. This train takes you straight to Sefton, and Mrs. Willis will meet you, or send for you there. Good-bye, my love; try to be a good girl, and curb your wild spirits. I hope to see you very much improved when you come home at midsummer. Good-bye, dear, good-bye. Ah, you want to kiss me--well, just one kiss. There--oh, my dear! you know I have a great dislike to emotion in public."

Sir John Thornton said this because a pair of arms had been flung suddenly round his neck, and two kisses imprinted pa.s.sionately on his sallow cheek. A tear also rested on his cheek, but that he wiped away.

CHAPTER II.

TRAVELING COMPANIONS.

The train moved rapidly on its way, and the girl in one corner of the railway carriage cried silently behind her c.r.a.pe veil. Her tears were very subdued, but her heart felt sore, bruised, indignant; she hated the idea of school-life before her; she hated the expected restraints and the probable punishments; she fancied herself going from a free life into a prison, and detested it accordingly.

Three months before, Hester Thornton had been one of the happiest, brightest and merriest of little girls in ----shire; but the mother who was her guardian angel, who had kept the frank and spirited child in check without appearing to do so, who had guided her by the magical power of love and not in the least by that of fear, had met her death suddenly by means of a carriage accident, and Hester and baby Nan were left motherless. Several little brothers and sisters had come between Hester and Nan, but from various causes they had all died in their infancy, and only the eldest and youngest of Sir John Thornton's family remained.

Hester's father was stern, uncompromising. He was a very just and upright man, but he knew nothing of the ways of children, and when Hester in her usual tom-boyish fashion climbed trees and tore her dresses, and rode bare-backed on one or two of his most dangerous horses, he not only tried a little sharp, and therefore useless, correction, but determined to take immediate steps to have his wild and rather unmanageable little daughter sent to a first-cla.s.s school. Hester was on her way there now, and very sore was her heart and indignant her impulses. Father's "good-bye" seemed to her to be the crowning touch to her unhappiness, and she made up her mind not to be good, not to learn her lessons, not to come home at midsummer crowned with honors and reduced to an every-day and pattern little girl. No, she would be the same wild Hetty as of yore; and when father saw that school could do nothing for her, that it could never make her into a good and ordinary little girl, he would allow her to remain at home. At home there was at least Nan to love, and there was mother to remember.

Hetty was a child of the strongest feelings. Since her mother's death she had scarcely mentioned her name. When her father alluded to his wife, Hester ran out of the room; when the servants spoke of their late mistress, Hester turned pale, stamped her feet, and told them to be quiet.

"You are not worthy to speak of my mother," she electrified them all one day by exclaiming: "My mother is an angel now, and you--oh, you are not fit to breathe her name!"

Only to one person would Hetty ever voluntarily say a word about the beloved dead mother, and that was to little Nan. Nan said her prayers, as she expressed it, to Hetty now; and Hetty taught her a little phrase to use instead of the familiar "G.o.d bless mother." She taught the child to say, "Thank G.o.d for making mother into a beautiful angel;" and when Nan asked what an angel was, and how the cozy mother she remembered could be turned into one, Hester was beguiled into a soft and tearful talk, and she drew several lovely pictures of white-robed angels, until the little child was satisfied and said:

"Me like that, Hetty--me'll be an angel too, Hetty, same as mamma."

These talks with Nan, however, did not come very often, and of late they had almost ceased, for Nan was only two and a half, and the strange, sad fact remained that in three months she had almost forgotten her mother.

Hester on her way to school this morning cried for some time, then she sat silent, her c.r.a.pe veil still down, and her eyes watching furtively her fellow-pa.s.sengers. They consisted of two rather fidgety old ladies, who wrapped themselves in rugs, were very particular on the question of hot bottles, and watched Hester in their turn with considerable curiosity and interest. Presently one of them offered the little girl a sandwich, which she was too proud or too shy to accept, although by this time she was feeling extremely hungry.

"You will, perhaps, prefer a cake, my dear?" said the good-natured little old lady. "My sister Agnes has got some delicious queen-cakes in her basket--will you eat one?"

Hester murmured a feeble a.s.sent, and the queen-cake did her so much good that she ventured to raise her c.r.a.pe veil and to look around her.

"Ah, that is much better," said the first little old lady. "Come to this side of the carriage, my love; we are just going to pa.s.s through a lovely bit of country, and you will like to watch the view. See; if you place yourself here, my sister Agnes' basket will be just at your feet, and you can help yourself to a queen-cake whenever you are so disposed."

"Thank you," responded Hester, in a much more cheerful tone, for it was really quite impossible to keep up reserve with such a bright-looking little old lady; "your queen-cakes are very nice, and I liked that one, but one is quite enough, thank you. It is Nan who is so particularly fond of queen-cakes."

"And who is Nan, my dear?" asked the sister to whom the queen-cakes specially belonged.

"She is my dear little baby sister," said Hester in a sorrowful tone.

"Ah, and it was about her you were crying just now," said the first lady, laying her hand on Hester's arm. "Never mind us, dear, we have seen a great many tears--a great many. They are the way of the world. Women are born to them. As Kingsley says--'women must weep.' It was quite natural that you should cry about your sweet little Nan, and I wish we could send her some of these queen-cakes that you say she is so fond of. Are you going to be long away from her, love?"