"But what did they call her that for?" Mrs. Stubbs asked, listening in a way that was rare with her to a bit of t.i.ttle-tattle from the schoolroom.

"Well, Ma, dear, you know what Tom is. He doesn't mean to be rough or rude, but he's just a boy home for the holidays; and after she's had the little ones all day, and perhaps not me to talk to at all, Tom does get a bit too much for Miss Clark's nerves. And last night Tom was just a bit more boisterous than usual, and poor Miss Clark didn't feel very well, and it tried her, you know. And Sarah was sitting by me, and very quiet, and Miss Clark happened to say she behaved like a princess--and so she did. And Tom took it up--Princess Sarah, of Nowhere; her Royal Highness Princess Sarah, of Nowhere, and such-like. I don't think Tom meant to be unkind, but it wasn't very nice for Sarah, being strange to us all; and then Flossie took it up, and Johnnie, but Miss Clark told Johnnie he should go to bed if he said it again, so he soon shut up."

"Well, it's no use taking any notice of it," said Mrs. Stubbs, stroking Sarah's hand kindly, "but you'd better put a stop to it whenever you hear 'em at it, May. I only 'ope Tom won't let his pa 'ear him. He'd be very angry, for Sarah's pore ma, that's dead and gone, was 'is favourite sister, and Pa'd never forgive a slight that was put on her little girl.

It isn't," said Mrs. Stubbs, warming to her subject, "any fault of Sarah's that she's left, at nine years old, without a father, or a mother, or a 'ome; and it's no credit of any of yours that you've got a kind pa and ma, and a lux'r'ous 'ome, and a broom to ride about in. So, Sarah, my dear, don't take no notice if they begin teasing you about anything. Remember, your ma was your uncle's favourite sister, and that you was as welcome as flowers in May to him when I brought you 'ome."

Sarah looked up. "I don't mind anything, Auntie, dear," she said bravely, though her lips were trembling and her eyes were moist. "I'll remember what you told me when we were coming--give and take."

"That's a brave little woman!" Mrs. Stubbs exclaimed. "Yes, you'd better go and choose some sweets, May. Perhaps it was a little 'ard on Flossie she should have to stop at 'ome, but I can't do with more than three in the broom--it gets so 'ot and so stuffy. Perhaps, some day, your pa 'll buy us an open carriage, and then I don't mind 'ow many there are."

May went out into the shop--for they had been sitting alone in an inner room--to choose the sweets, and Mrs. Stubbs continued her talk to Sarah.

"I don't 'old with telling, as a rule; I want my children to be better than tell-pies," she said; "but I am glad May told me of this. If anything goes wrong with you, you tell May about it, Sarah; she's my right 'and; I don't know what I should do without her."

CHAPTER VIII

FLOSSIE'S GRIEVANCES

It was just as well that May had had sufficient forethought to provide herself with a bundle of sweets in the shape of a peace-offering for Flossie, for when they got in they found Flossie in anything but an amiable mood.

And when Flossie was not in an amiable mood, she was anything but an agreeable young person.

She was sitting in the schoolroom, staring sullenly out of the window and kicking impatiently against the window-board in a way which upset Miss Clark's nerves until they could only be fairly described as "shattered."

[Ill.u.s.tration: She was sitting in the schoolroom, staring sullenly out of the window.]

For everything from first to last had gone wrong with poor Flossie that morning. In the first place, she had been intensely disappointed at being left at home that Sarah might go in the carriage with Mrs. Stubbs.

Flossie was particularly fond of going out with her mother in the carriage, and was also very fond of shopping. It was, therefore, quite in vain that Miss Clark tried to make her understand that Sarah had not been taken for favouritism, but simply in order that her aunt might buy her the clothes necessary for their trip to Brighton. Flossie thought and said it was a horrid shame, and vowed vengeance on the unfortunate and inoffensive, though offending, Sarah in consequence.

"Nasty little mean white-faced thing!" she exclaimed. "I suppose I shall always be shoved into the background now, just that she may be coddled up and made to think herself better than anybody else. Princess Sarah! Yes, that's to be the new idea. We're all to be put on one side for Princess Sarah."

"Flossie," said Miss Clark, very severely, "you ought to be thoroughly ashamed of yourself. To be jealous of a poor little girl who has no father or mother, who has come among strangers at nine years old, and is fretting her poor little heart out for the sake of the father who loved her better than any one in all the world; to be jealous of her being taken out once when you know it is only on business they have gone--oh!

for shame, Flossie! for shame!"

"Oh, well, she needn't fret after her pa so much," Flossie retorted, not taking Miss Clark's remarks to heart at all. "He didn't do so much for her. He wasn't a gentleman like Pa. If he had been, he'd have left her some money of her own."

Miss Clark's whole soul rose up in absolute loathing within her.

"You vulgar, vulgar child!" she thought. Aloud she said, "Flossie, my dear, a _lady_ would not say such a thing as that. Your mother would be very, _very_ angry if she heard it. Come, it is useless to stay grumbling and sulking here; you will have to accept the situation. Mrs.

Stubbs is your mother, and the mistress of this house and family. She does not ask your leave whether she shall take you out with her or not.

She would be a very bad mother to you if she did, instead of being, as she is now, a very good one. Let me hear not another word, but put your things on to go out with me."

"Is Tom going?" Flossie inquired, not daring to refuse, though she would dearly have liked to do so.

"No. Tom and Johnnie are going out with Charles."

"And I have to just go out with you and three stupid girls?"

"With your three sisters, certainly."

"It's a beastly shame," Flossie burst out.

"Not another word," said the governess sharply. "Go and get ready at once."

And poor Flossie had to go. Of course it happened that as she began wrong at the beginning nothing went very well with her during the rest of the morning. Miss Clark went the one way she hated above all others; but Miss Clark had to do a small but important commission for Mrs.

Stubbs, and was obliged to take it.

Then her sisters, whom she heartily despised--Tom being her favourite--annoyed her excessively. Janey would persist in lagging behind, and Minnie got a stone in her shoe and had to stop and take it off and shake out the pebble; and then, of course, she had to stop also to have her shoe tied again, and one or two people stopped to see what was amiss, as people do stop when they see any impediment to the general traffic in the London streets. "Making a perfect show of them all,"

Flossie said angrily.

And when they got home, Flossie not feeling quite so bad as when they set off, Mrs. Stubbs and May and "_that_ Sarah" actually had not come back. It really was too bad, and Flossie sat down in the schoolroom window to watch for them with a face like a thunder cloud and a heart in which every outraged and injured feeling capable of being felt by weak human nature seemed to be seething and struggling at once.

If only Tom had come back, it would not have been so bad. But Charles, the indoor servant, had taken him and Johnnie down to Seven Dials to buy some guinea-pigs, and Seven Dials being a long way from South Kensington, they could not possibly have got back by that time if they had tried ever so. Poor Flossie!

So she sat and brooded--brooded over what she was pleased to call her wrongs. She would not so much have minded not going out with the "broom" if only she might have gone with Charles and Tom and Johnnie to enjoy the somewhat doubtful delights of Seven Dials. That, however, Mrs. Stubbs had resolutely and peremptorily refused to allow. So it happened that Flossie sat in the window waiting for their return.

At last they came. She saw them get out of the carriage and disappear within the house; she saw the carriage drive round to the stables.

And then there was a long pause. But they none of them seemed to think of coming upstairs, even then. Poor Flossie kicked at the window-board more noisily than ever, and in vain Miss Clark, driven almost to desperation, cried, "Flossie, _will_ you be quiet?"

And then the door opened quietly, and May came in, looking radiant.

Flossie felt more ill-used even than before.

"Oh, you are here, Flossie. I've been looking for you _every_where,"

she remarked.

"Well, you can't have looked very hard, or you'd have found me," Flossie snapped. Then with a fierce glance at the parcel in her sister's hand, she blurted out, "You've been having ices!"

"Yes, we have," answered May; "but you needn't look like that, Flossie; I've brought you back a great deal more than both our ices cost."

"What have you brought?" half mollified.

"Caramels in chocolate."

"I hate caramels!" Flossie declared, fearing, with the old clinging to ungraciousness that sulky people have, that her last reply had sounded too much like coming round, a concession which Flossie never made too soon or made too cheap.

"Nougat?" said May, putting the caramels on one side.

"You _know_ I can't eat nougat; it _always_ makes my teeth ache!"

Flossie cried.

"Fondants?" May knew that her sister was pa.s.sionately fond of that form of sweetmeats. But Flossie would have none of it.

"I detest fondants!" she said, with an impressiveness which would have been worthy of the occasion had she said that she detested--well, prussic acid, or some pleasant and deadly preparation of that kind.