Hollowmell Part 3

Mona looked on from time to time when she could spare a minute from her work, and at last observed in her most sarcastic manner that "fair words were easily spoken and light vows swiftly broken."

Minnie flared up in a moment.

"Fair words are easily spoken, as you say, Mona," she retorted, "you speak of what you know nothing. It may be so. Sharp things cost more, I dare say, and that is doubtless why they are generally more successful in their aim."

Mona laughed disagreeably, and enquired with mock politeness, "at what object Minnie might at present be aiming."

She was about to retort with a bitterness scarcely less penetrating than Mona's own sharp thrusts, when she suddenly checked herself, and putting her books which she had now collected under her arm, she walked out without even waiting for Mabel, lest she should find the temptation to speak too strong for her. Her heart was very heavy as she walked homewards, and her eyes _would_ keep filling with tears.

Only last night she had been so happy in her efforts to do good, and here she was, actually as bad as any of the people she had been flattering herself she could reform. What _was_ she to do? she asked herself a hundred times, and then it occurred to her that she must tell G.o.d about it.

She hastened home, and shutting herself into her room poured out all her sorrow and contrition into the ear of Him who is ever ready to hear and comfort. When she rose she felt both refreshed and strengthened, and after a little while something came into her mind which she had, only by chance, heard the minister say yesterday. She could not tell the exact words, for she had only a vague remembrance of it, but it was something about the mistake of allowing anything, however good and right it might be in itself, to come between us and our present duty.

"That is just the mistake I have fallen into," thought Minnie, "I ought to have been attending to my lessons, which were clearly of the first importance at the time, and having gone wrong at the beginning, I naturally fell into a great many other sc.r.a.pes. I must remember that about present duty. I am rather afraid I allowed the same thing to occur yesterday in church, or I should have been better able to recollect the words I wanted just now."

On the afternoon of the following day, which happily contained no cause of regret to Minnie, she and Mabel went down to the vacant cottage, and occupied themselves for about two hours busily and happily in rendering it fit for their purpose. They were determined to do all the scrubbing and cleaning themselves, so on that and the two following afternoons all the time they could spare was devoted to the work.

Having got it thoroughly bright and clean, they proceeded to arrange a variety of odd pieces of furniture, dragged by Minnie from their place of concealment in a large attic, where such things were allowed to acc.u.mulate, and supplemented by various old benches, which the gardener had been only too glad to get rid of.

These had been transported to their place of consignment by him during the early hours of the morning, when the lazy inhabitants were still wrapped in slumber, the hour being discriminately chosen to avoid the notice of such miners as might be going or returning from the pit.

These arrangements being successfully carried out by Thursday evening, Minnie paid a visit to all the houses which contained children, and asked leave that they might attend a small treat which they intended to provide for their enjoyment on the following Sat.u.r.day.

Various were the forms of reception which she received. Some regarded the proposal with contempt, enquiring with ironical interest what manner of "treat" they were going to stand, and whether they would not include parents also in their invitations, Others affected anger, and wondered what the "likes of them" had to do coming among poor folk's bairns, and stuffing their heads with their "high and mighty nonsense," whatever style of absurdity such a term might be held to describe.

However, she won over most of them with her bright winning manner, and sweet, unaffected graciousness, and seemed when she left their dirty and untidy dwellings to leave something behind in them that had never been there before.

On Friday evening she and Mabel had a wonderful shopping expedition, to provide the necessary utensils for the preparation of their entertainment. These absorbed the greater part of their treasure, but happily Mabel had some of her pocket-money left which was a great help.

Then they made everything ready for the morrow, the whole forenoon of which was to be devoted to cooking, for they had mutually agreed that all the eatables were to be of their own manufacture--unless, indeed, they were found to be unpalatable to their guests, in which case they should resort to other methods.

Minnie could make oat-cake of a specially delicious kind, so it was to be introduced, Mabel had learnt to make gingerbread of quite an uncommon quality, which was also to make its appearance; and various other delicacies, easily made and of general popularity, were placed upon their bill of fare.

There was much fun and merriment over their cooking operations next day, and when all were completed, both girls came to the conclusion that working for the good and happiness of others, was in itself an excellent cure for irritability, and all forms of bad temper.

"Do you remember the time," enquired Minnie, "when I invited all the girls in the singing-cla.s.s to tea? How I did fret about the cake-basket being old-fashioned, and moaned about the pattern of the tea cups." And she laughed again at the recollection.

"And how perfectly tragic you became on the subject of the drawing-room curtains," reminded Mabel laughing also.

"I don't think," continued Minnie, "that we were ever so near quarrelling as we were that day about those very curtains. Well, that was all because I wished to make a show before the girls, not to have them enjoy themselves. Now it is quite different. We don't mind at all what like the things about us are, as long as the things we make are good, and the children enjoy themselves."

"That reminds me," said Mabel, "that we have forgotten to provide ourselves with confections--they will doubtless be in great request."

"Of course, what could we be thinking about! We must see after them immediately--or stay! Perhaps you could get them when you are coming back--don't you think that would do?"

"I am sure it would, and would save time which is precious," agreed Mabel, and so it was settled.

Their preparations being completed about two o'clock, they repaired to their respective homes, locking the door upon their possessions with a delightful sense of proprietorship and satisfaction, after a solemn mutual reminder concerning the necessity of being back sharp at four, as the festivity was arranged to take place at five prompt.

Minnie found her father and four brothers in the parlour when she came in, flushed and breathless with her run home.

"Hallo, Min!" Exclaimed Charlie, the eldest of her brothers, a young man of about twenty-two. "Aren't you ashamed of yourself, rushing off directly breakfast's over and leaving your poor unhappy enc.u.mbrances of brothers to amuse themselves as best they can during the long hours of a Sat.u.r.day morning. Here are Ned and I, who only get a peep of home once a week, and even on that occasion we seldom get half a peep of you.

Confess now, isn't it too bad?"

"Bad!" put in Ned, before she could speak, "It's villainous. Here am I, shut up in a dingy office all week and every day of the week, with nothing more amusing than that highly respectable old humbug, Blackstone, to lighten the weary moments, and when I come home it isn't a bit better."

"Oh, you two poor, neglected beings!" Cried Minnie, laughing heartlessly at their rueful faces, "What would you like me to do for your amus.e.m.e.nt?

Read goody stories to you, or play at wild beasts?--Which?"

"Why, you're just as heartless as any other girl could possibly be,"

a.s.serted Ned.

"And haven't I quite as good a right?" enquired Minnie saucily. "Pray, tell me why shouldn't I be?"

"Oh, as to that, you may be just as heartless as you please to other fellows--the more so the better, _I_ should say--but you might have a little consideration for the feeling of your brothers," replied Ned, calling up a look of tragic gloom, delightful to behold.

"I say," interrupted Archie at this juncture, "I'm ferociously hungry.

Do let's see about having something to eat. In my opinion, the best way to amuse one's self under the present circ.u.mstances, and to lay the foundation of an imperturbable temper, is to satisfy the cravings of the inner man."

"Well spoken!" approved Charlie, patting him on the head, "you're a sound philosopher, my boy, and deserve every honour."

"''Tis not for praise, my voice I raise,'" sang Charlie, "I speak only in the interests of common sense, and common necessity," he continued in a sepulchral voice, "and I rather think Pope had the same interests at heart when he represented justice weighing solid pudding against empty praise."

They all laughed at the extreme literalness of Archie's interpretation, which Charlie declared would probably have afforded the great poet himself unbounded satisfaction. By this time they had made the transition from the parlour to the dining-room, where, on the table just by Minnie's plate lay a letter, directed in a peculiar yet beautiful form of writing. Ned, in pa.s.sing, was arrested by it, and lifted it the better to observe its beauty.

"Look here!" he exclaimed, "what peculiar writing--I never saw anything like this before. Did you, Charlie?"

Charlie, thus appealed to, came round to see, and started slightly when his eyes fell upon it, but quickly recovering himself, he glanced at it indifferently, and remarked that it was very pretty in a careless tone, which yet had in it an uneasy ring.

"Whose writing is it?" asked Ned, bluntly, as Minnie at last obtained possession of it after it had been criticized and admired by all in turn, with the exception of Charlie, who stood somewhat aloof, humming a tune with a strained a.s.sumption of carelessness, which was only noticed by Seymour, the only member of the family who had been silent during the conversation.

"O, it's a girl in our school--Mona Cameron--a deadly enemy of mine,"

said Minnie with a laugh as she made the last a.s.sertion, "Some of the girls call her 'Soda' and me 'Magnesia,' because we always create a 'phiz' when we come into contact."

She opened the letter carelessly and found it to contain, as she had expected it would, some information relative to an examination for which they were both working. She put the note in her pocket when she had read it, but left the envelope on the table.

Nothing more was said on the subject, but when Minnie came into the dining-room about half-an-hour afterward for something she had left there, she found Charlie standing by the window with the envelope in his hand, gazing at it with a look that was more than merely critical. He put it down hastily as she entered, and remembering his former indifference, she enquired laughingly if he was trying to discover the writer's character from her caligraphy. He laughed too, but it was not a mirthful laugh, and soon after, went out; Minnie observed, however, that the envelope no longer lay where he had laid it, and turned back to look for it, thinking it must have fallen, but it was not to be found.

"Charlie must have taken it with him," she thought. "Is it possible that he has fallen in love with Mona's writing without knowing Mona herself.

Well, when one thinks of it, Mona's writing is almost Mona's self, and any one who would be likely to fall in love with it would be almost likely to fall in love with her. She is just as beautiful and delicate and sharp," she continued to herself, taking out Mona's note and looking at it attentively, "and just the same something about both that repels one and produces an uncomfortable sensation without any visible cause."

She put back the note in a hurry, remembering how much she had to do, and soon forgot the circ.u.mstance among the mult.i.tude of other matters which immediately claimed her attention.

She found her time fully occupied till shortly before four o'clock, and had a pretty exciting scramble to be at Hollowmell at the time appointed.