Home Influence Part 7

"As if your opinion were of such importance, Percy," replied Caroline haughtily; "it really is very little consequence to me whether you think me like mamma or not."

"It is to me, though," rejoined Emmeline, earnestly; "I would rather be like mamma than like any body else, and I should like Percy to think I was, because then he would love me still more."

"Bravo, my little Em.; spoken almost as well as I could myself, and, as a reward, as soon as this most annoying piece of erudition is accomplished, I will help you with your map why, you silly little thing, you have put Kamschatka as the terra firma of South America; no doubt that ice and snow would be very welcome there, but how the Americans would stare to see the fur-clad Kamschatkans such near neighbors. That's it, go on, puzzle away till I can help you. And you Miss Caroline, retain your contempt of my opinion, and may you never repent it."

"I thought you told me not to talk, Percy," replied his sister; "and I should like to know who is talking the most, you or I? You will not finish what you are doing before the bell rings for prayers, if you go on in this way."

"That proves how little you know the extent of my powers. I have only to make a clean copy of these learned reflections. Why, in the name of all the G.o.ds, were there such provokingly clever people as Seneca, Cicero, Pliny, and a host of others! or, if they must be wise, why did they not burn all the written wisdom, instead of leaving it as a means of torture in the hands of learned pedagogues, yclept schoolmasters, and as a curse on those poor unfortunates whose noddles are not wise enough to contain it."

"I should be very sorry if all the ancient authors were thus annihilated," observed Herbert, looking up from his book with a bright smile. "I should lose a great deal of enjoyment even now, and still more by-and-by, when I know more."

"Ay, but my dear fellow, your head is not quite so like a sieve as mine.

Yours receives, contains, digests, and sends forth the matter improved by your own ideas; but as for mine, the matter undoubtedly enters, but runs out again, and only leaves behind that which is too large and gross to pa.s.s through. No, no, Bertie, your head and mine are not related even in the twentieth degree of consanguinity, however nearly connected their masters may be. Hush! not a word; I have only one line more; what a wise man that was to be sure, who said 'Otiosum esse quam nihil agere'--better to be idle than doing nothing. Don't shake your head and laugh, Emmy. Vale: never did I say good-by so willingly. Hurrah! mamma and papa may come home when they like now. Cast your eyes over it Herbert; just tell me if it look correct, and then vale books--vale pens--vale desk for to-night!" He placed his writing on his brother's open bunk, threw his dictionary and grammar high in air, and dexterously caught them as they fell, piled up his books, closed his desk, and then, with a comical sigh of relief, flung himself full length on a sofa.

"Now that you have finished your task, Percy, perhaps you will have the kindness to inform us why at this time of the evening you have been writing Latin?" inquired Caroline.

"And open my wound afresh! However, it is quite right that Miss Harcourt should know that, if I am ill from over-study to-morrow, it is her doing."

"Mine!" answered Miss Harcourt, laughing; "pray explain yourself, young man, for I am so perfectly innocent as not even to understand you."

"Did you not this morning give me a message to Lady Helen Grahame?"

"I did; you pa.s.sed her house on your way to Mr. Howard's."

"Well, then, if you had not given me the message, much as I felt disinclined to pore over musty books and foolscap paper, from the extreme loveliness of the morning, I should have nerved myself to go straight on to the Rectory. Lady Helen was not visible, so I tarried, believing your message of vital importance, and Annie came to me--by-the-by, what a little woman that child is; Emmeline, you are a baby to her. I wonder she condescends to a.s.sociate with you."

"I do not think she is at all fond of me--Caroline is her friend,"

replied Emmeline; "but what can Annie have to do with your Latin?"

"A great deal--for she talked and we walked, and time walked too, and by the time I had seen Lady Helen, it was two hours later than I ought to have been with Mr. Howard. On I went, feeling not particularly comfortable; but though it is clear logic that if Miss Harcourt had not sent me to Lady Helen's I should not have been led into temptation, I was magnanimous enough not to mention her, but to lay the whole blame of my non-appearance, on my own disinclination for any study but that of nature. Mr. Howard looked grave and sorrowful--I wish to heaven he was more like any other schoolmaster; that look and tone of his are worse than any rod!--and to redeem my lost time in the morning, I was desired to write a Latin theme on a letter of Pliny's this evening. And now that I have satisfied all your inquiries, please satisfy mine. Is there any chance of mamma's coming home to-night?"

"Every probability," replied Miss Harcourt. "It only depends on your cousin, who is so very delicate, that if she were too fatigued, Mr.

Hamilton would remain at Exeter to-night, and proceed here early to-morrow."

"Well, my little cousin, though I have not the pleasure of knowing you, I hope you will be so kind as to let mamma come on to-night, for we have been too long without her, and I long to resign to papa his robes of office, for they sit mightily like borrowed plumes upon me. Mamma writes of Ellen and Edward--I wonder what they are like! Come, Tiny, paint them for me--your fertile fancy generally fills up the shadow of a name."

"I can not, Percy, for I am afraid my pictures would not be agreeable."

"Not agreeable!" repeated Percy and Miss Harcourt together. "Why not?"

Emmeline hesitated, then answered ingenuously, "We are so very, very happy together, that I do not feel quite sure that I am glad my cousins are going to live with us."

"What! are you afraid I shall love Ellen more than you, Emmy?" exclaimed her brother, starting up and sitting on her chair; "do not be alarmed, Tiny; no cousin shall take your place."

"Indeed I am not afraid of that, Percy, dear," she replied, looking so fondly in his face, that he gave her a hearty kiss. "I can not tell why I should feel half sorry that they are coming, but I am quite sure I will do all I can to make them happy."

"You could not do otherwise if you were to try, Tiny. Come, Caroline, what say you? We have all been thinking about them, so we may as well give each other the benefit of our thoughts."

"Suppose I do not feel inclined to do so?"

"Why we must all believe you are ashamed of them," replied Percy quickly, "and if you are, I know who has made you so. I would lay any wager, the whole time you have been with Lady Helen Grahame, since mamma has been away, she has been talking of nothing else--look, look, she is blushing--I am right."

"And if she did," replied Caroline, very much provoked, "she said nothing that I am ashamed of repeating. She knew my aunt before she went to India, and I am sure if her children are like her, they will be no agreeable additions to our family."

"Bravo, Caroline! you really are an apt pupil; Lady Helen's words and manner completely! but you may have one comfort; children are not always like their parents, and if they are as unlike Lady Helen's description of my poor aunt (which by the way she had no right to give, nor you to listen to) as you are at this moment unlike mamma, we shall get on capitally, and need have no fears about them."

"Percy you are intolerably disagreeable!"

"Because I speak the sad, sober truth? Caroline, do pray, get rid of that dawning ill temper, before mamma comes; it will not be a pleasant welcome home."

"I am not ill-tempered, Percy: I suppose I may have my own opinion of Ellen and Edward, as well as all of you," replied his sister angrily.

"But do not let it be an unkind one, without knowing them, dear Caroline," observed Herbert gently; "it is so very difficult to get rid of a prejudice when once it has entered our minds, even when we know and feel that it is a wrong one. I am sure if we only thought how sad it is that they have neither father nor mother to love them, and are coming all among strangers--born in a strange land too--we should find quite enough to think kindly about, and leave all wonder as to what they will be like, till we know them. I dare say we shall often have to bear and forbear, but that we have to do with each other, and it will only be one brother and sister more."

"Brother and sister! I am sure I shall not think of them so, Herbert, however you may. My father might have been a n.o.bleman, and who knows any thing of theirs?"

"Caroline, how can you be so ridiculous!" exclaimed Percy, with a most provoking fit of laughter. "Their father served and died for his king--as our grandfather did; and had he lived might have been offered a t.i.tle too--and their mother--really I think you are very insulting to mamma: her sister's children I should imagine quite as high in rank as ourselves!"

"And even if they were not--what would it signify?" rejoined Herbert.

"Dear Caroline, pray do not talk or think so; it makes me feel so sorry, for I know how wrong it is--we might have been in their place."

"I really can not fancy any thing so utterly impossible," interrupted Caroline, "so you may spare the supposition, Herbert."

"It is no use, Bertie; you must bring the antipodes together, before you and Caroline will think alike," interposed Percy, perceiving with regret the expression of pain on his brother's face, and always ready to guard him either from physical or mental suffering, feeling instinctively that, from his extraordinary mind and vivid sense of duty, he was liable to the latter, from many causes which other natures would pa.s.s unnoticed.

Miss Harcourt did not join the conversation. It had always been Mrs.

Hamilton's wish that in their intercourse with each other, her children should be as unrestrained as if they had been alone. Had Caroline's sentiments received encouragement, she would have interfered; but the raillery of Percy and the earnestness of Herbert, she knew were more likely to produce an effect than any thing like a rebuke from herself, which would only have caused restraint before her in future. It was through this perfect unrestraint that Mrs. Hamilton had become so thoroughly acquainted with the several characters of her children. That Caroline's sentiments caused her often real pain was true, but it was far better to know them, and endeavor to correct and remove them, by causing education to bear upon the faults they revealed, than to find them concealed from her by the constant fear of words of reproof.

To remove Herbert's unusual seriousness, Percy continued, laughingly--

"Miss Harcourt, what are your thoughts on this momentous subject? It is no use asking Herbert's, we all know them without his telling us; but you are almost the princ.i.p.ally concerned of the present party, for Ellen will bring you the trouble of another pupil."

"I shall not regret it, Percy; but only shall rejoice if I can in any way lessen your mother's increased charge. As for what your cousins will be like, I candidly tell you, I have scarcely thought about it. I have no doubt we shall find them strange and shy at first; but we must do all we can to make them feel they are no strangers."

"And now, then, it only remains for the right honorable me to speak; and really Emmy and Herbert and you have told my story, and left me nothing.

I do not know whether I am pleased or not, but I am very sorry for them; and it will be capital if this Master Edward turns out a lad of spirit and mischief, and not over-learned or too fond of study--one, in fact, that I can a.s.sociate with, without feeling such a painful sensation of inferiority as I do when in company with my right reverend brother."

"Dear Percy, do not call me reverend," said Herbert, appealingly: "I feel it almost a mockery now, when I am so very far from being worthy to become a clergyman."

"You are a good fellow, Bertie; and I will not tease you, if I can help it--but really I do not mean it for mockery; you know, or ought to know, that you are better now than half the clergymen who have taken orders, and as much superior to me in goodness as in talent."

"Indeed I know no such thing, Percy; I am not nearly so strong in health as you are, and am therefore, naturally more fond of quiet pleasures: and as for talent, if you were as fond of application as of frolic, you would leave me far behind."

"Wrong, Bertie, quite wrong! but think of yourself as you please, I know what every body thinks of you. Hush! is that the sound of a carriage, or only the wind making love to the old oaks?"

"The wind making love, Percy!" repeated Emmeline, laughing; "I neither hear that, nor the carriage wheels kissing the ground."

"Well done, Tiny! my poetry is beaten hollow; but there--there--I am sure it is a carriage!" and Percy bounded from the table so impetuously as nearly to upset it, flung back the curtain, and looked eagerly from the window.