"Well, Aunt Helen, they had an extraordinary way of pleading their own cause. I cannot understand it. They have saved a good deal of money, if that is any satisfaction."

"None whatever, child. I have got more money than I know what to do with, and I choose my girls to look nice. Let.i.tia, what a pity it is you are not my own child."

"For some reasons I wish I were, Aunt Helen."

"You are so very neat, dear, so very dainty-that is the only word for it. What am I to do with those other two?"

"I am dreadfully afraid you will have to give them their own way."

"Their own way! Nonsense, my dear! impossible. Children, only eighteen."

"But old enough, according to your own showing, Aunt Helen, to be presented to the Queen, to enter society, and to marry if suitable husbands come to the fore."

"Of course; but they would be presented to the Queen by their mother; they would enter society under their mother's wing; and if they married, their husbands would look after them. Now to allow those wild imps, those irresponsible girls, to have their own way is not to be heard of for a single moment."

"Well, Aunt Helen, I am sure it will come right in the end. They are queer, obstinate, out-of-the-way girls; but they have got fine characters, and would not willingly pain you. The only thing is that they look at life from a totally different standpoint. I'll have a right good talk with them, so try not to fret. I will put it to them that it is their bounden duty to yield to you. They often mind what I say when they won't mind their elders. But is not that the carriage? Had not I better get ready?"

CHAPTER VI

BELLE THE SAGE.

Belle Acheson was an ideal scholarly girl of the latter end of the nineteenth century. She wore spectacles, not pince-nez. Her hair was parted smoothly on her forehead and done up in a tiny knot or dab at the back of her neck. Her forehead was high, her complexion sallow, her eyes short-sighted and small. She had a long upper lip, and her mouth was thin and wide. In figure she was extremely spare, her feet and hands were large, and her shoulders angular. She was a plain girl, and she gloried in the fact. Belle Acheson lived altogether for the joys of intellect; to learn was her delight. The more abstruse, the more dry, the science, the more eagerly did Belle absorb it, and make it part of herself. She was a good cla.s.sical scholar, and was also fond of modern languages. She studied Shakespeare, not for his beauty of language, but for his archaisms. She adored musty professors, and never had a good word to say for an athletic man. Her ambition was to carry off double-firsts, and some people thought that she had a fair chance of obtaining this blue ribbon.

Belle was an inmate of St. Wode's College, Wingfield. There were four halls of residence at St. Wode's, and Belle occupied an attic in North Hall. She had been there now for three terms, and had already made a profound impression on her tutors. She ama.s.sed knowledge with great rapidity. No nut was too hard for her to crack.

Now, if there was a girl in the entire of England that Mrs. Chetwynd loathed it was Belle Acheson. Mrs. Acheson was Mrs. Chetwynd's old friend. Their husbands had fought side by side in the same campaigns in India. They had belonged to the same regiment. She felt that nothing would induce her to desert her old friend; but alas! that old friend's daughter! It was fearful to think that such a girl was coming to pay a visit to Marjorie and Eileen at this important crisis in their lives.

"Can anything be done to prevent it?" said Mrs. Chetwynd on the morning of the fatal day. She was addressing Let.i.tia, who was gradually getting herself more and more into the good woman's confidence.

"My dear Lettie," she said, "I would honestly pay twenty pounds to any hansom-driver to let his horse fall between here and Mrs. Acheson's in order to give Belle a wrench of the arm or a twist of the wrist, or something which would give her sufficient pain to send her home again."

"Then, as those are your very heathenish wishes, Aunt Helen, you may be quite certain that Belle will arrive in perfect health, without any accident, not in a hansom, but in that two-horse conveyance which is meant for the convenience of the poorer people of London."

Mrs. Chetwynd sighed.

"I beseech of you, dear," she said, "not to leave the children alone with that pernicious girl. Stay in the room yourself. When you perceive that the conversation is getting into dangerous channels, turn it, my dear child. Now, remember, Lettie, I trust you. Everything depends on your discretion."

"I will do what I can, of course, Aunt Helen; but I must frankly admit that I shall have very little influence."

"I only wish Providence had made you one of my daughters. If you and Marjorie, for instance, had been my daughters, and Eileen had been you, then things might have been quite pleasant, for you would have influenced Marjorie and brought her back again into the right ways. As it is, however--"

"As it is, we must make the best of things," said Let.i.tia.

There came a ring at the hall-door, and Mrs. Acheson and the redoubtable Belle were ushered in. Mrs. Acheson, in her usual somewhat diffident manner, kissed Mrs. Chetwynd, and then Belle flew up to her and gave her a little peck on her cheek.

"How do?" she cried. "Where are the girls? I am most anxious to see them at once. Pray, don't ring; I'll run up to them. I know the old schoolroom. I have a great deal to say. You know I go up again next week, and can think of nothing else. But I determined that whoever else was left in the cold, I must interview Marjorie and Eileen. Mother, have you got my small Virgil in your bag? I am writing a paper on that great man, and I wish to read it to the girls in order to get their opinion."

"They know nothing whatever about the cla.s.sics," interrupted Mrs.

Chetwynd. "I believe they are going out for a walk; would you like to go with them?"

"I don't think we shall have time for that," replied Belle. "I'll find them; don't you trouble."

She nodded to Mrs. Chetwynd and to her mother in a friendly, offhand style, and left the room. Mrs. Chetwynd glanced at Let.i.tia, of whom Belle had not taken the slightest notice, and the young girl followed the eccentric, scholarly undergraduate of St. Wode's upstairs.

Marjorie and Eileen had an old-fashioned schoolroom at the top of the house, They had cleaned it out themselves, and put it into order according to their individual tastes. It was now neat and bare.

Marjorie, still wearing her shabby serge dress, was standing near an open window. She was holding a long, yellow canary on her finger, and whistling to the bird, who pecked at her in happy confidence.

Eileen was putting some pins into a great rent in her petticoat. The door was burst open, and Belle rushed in.

"How do, dears, both?" she said in a friendly voice. "Pray don't rush at me and devour me with kisses; we never go on in that way at North Hall.

My dear Marjorie, how you have grown! Oh! I am pleased to see you in that plain serge dress; and Eileen-petticoat out of order? Never mind-here, this pin will set it finally right."

"Do stop for a moment, Belle. Of course I am delighted to see you," said Marjorie, "but I must put Daffodil back into his cage."

She crossed the room, still holding the bird on her finger, opened the door of his cage, and let him fly in. She then shut the cage-door and came back to where her friend was standing.

"I didn't know you wore spectacles, Belle," she said.

"Yes, dear, my sight is bad. I have been to Wiesbaden to the celebrated oculist, and he has ordered these special gla.s.ses. I have astigmatism in one eye, and have therefore to wear special spectacles. By the way, Marjorie, you look as if you ought to be short-sighted."

"Ought to be short-sighted?" said Marjorie. "I am not; I have excellent sight."

"You ought to be," repeated Belle; "it gives one a distinguished look.

In all probability you will be very short-sighted when you come to college. Most scholarly girls-I see by the shape of your brow that you are meant to be scholarly-are obliged to wear spectacles."

"When I come to college!" replied Marjorie, "and I am supposed to be a scholarly girl. Delightful! And yet I am not sure that I wish to be scholarly; but what a dear delicious creature you are, Belle! Sit down; do sit down."

"Thanks," said Belle. She squatted down on a wooden bench in an ungainly fashion, crossing one leg over the other.

Let.i.tia now advanced; she had been standing near the door.

"Who is that young person?" said Belle, raising her very short-sighted eyes, and staring hard at Lettie.

"You know quite well who I am," replied Let.i.tia. "I am the cousin who has always lived with the twins. We are all three eighteen, and we are coming out in about a week or a fortnight."

"We are not coming out," said Eileen.

"Coming out!" cried Marjorie. "Now, Lettie, for goodness' sake, don't be silly. You know that unpleasant matter has been arranged. Perhaps you would like to go down to the drawing-room to mother and Mrs. Acheson.

Eileen and I have a great deal to say to Belle."

"No, I mean to stay and listen," replied Lettie. "I may have a good deal to say to Belle on my own account."

"Stay, if you wish to," said Belle; "but I don't suppose for a moment our conversation will interest you. You are fashionable; and that is quite enough.-Marjorie, what is it you have to say?"