The Carroll Girls Part 15

"Oh, _very_," said Penelope, "I _love_ them. I wish I could grow some.

I think I shall ask Cousin Charlotte to let me have a little bit of garden of my own. Do you think I should ever get anything to grow?"

She talked on rapidly, partly because she was really interested and partly in the hope of ministering balm to Mrs. Bennett's wounded feelings.

"Oh yes, missie, of course you could, and if you'd like a split or two of geranium I'd be glad to give 'ee some off of any of mine, or you could have 'em in pots in your own windy. Have 'ee got a windy-ledge to your room?"

"Yes," said Penelope eagerly.

"Then you could grow mignonette and lots of things there. Look at mine.

I've got flowers 'most all the year round."

Penelope stepped over to look closer at the beautiful pelargoniums, the great white geraniums, and graceful fuchsias, all blooming as happily in their narrow s.p.a.ce as though it had been a handsome conservatory.

"Oh, and what is that?"

Two halves of a cocoanut sh.e.l.l hung from the top of the window with a curious little creeping plant growing in them, and sending long, hanging tendrils down over the sides.

"I was going to ask you if you would accept one of these, missie, by way of a beginning. We calls 'em 'Mothers of Thousands' here, and a very good name for 'em. I tilled both those last year from my old plant there, and look how they've growed a'ready."

Penelope was overjoyed. To have a plant of her very own, and growing in a cocoanut sh.e.l.l, too, gave her the greatest delight. She thanked Mrs.

Bennett profusely, took her new present almost reverently, and hardly knew how she got home, her hands were so full of treasures and her mind of excitement.

CHAPTER X.

The next day, according to promise, Miss Row came to call on Miss Ashe.

The children were all out and very busy when she came, and did not know anything about the call until Cousin Charlotte came to the garden to them after.

Esther was sh.e.l.ling peas, Penelope was filling flower-pots in which to plant some mignonette seeds she had bought at Mrs. Vercoe's that morning.

Angela and Poppy were playing shops. They had the long stool Anna used for her washing-trays on washing-days. This was their counter, and on it they had arranged their stock of goods--a little pile of unripe strawberries, another of currants, a heap of pebbles to represent nuts, gravel for sugar, and earth for tea. One of their greatest treasures was a little tin scoop which Anna had presented to them, and which they took it in turns to use. They both stood behind the stool, with a pile of newspaper cut into all kinds of shapes and sizes in front of them, and were apparently kept as busy as could be by the constant stream of invisible customers which flowed into their shop.

When Miss Charlotte came out she found them as busy as possible.

"Penelope," she called, "I want to speak to you, dear. I have something to tell you--something that I think will please you very much, dear."

Penelope looked up from her seed-sowing with a face full of pleased surprise.

"I have had a visitor, Miss Row, and she has offered to give you lessons on the organ if you would like to learn. She tells me she thinks you would. It is very kind of Miss Row, and a great opportunity for you."

"I'd _love_ to, I told her so." Penelope stopped abruptly, her face crimsoning. "Oh, I hope she did not think I was asking!"

"No, dear, she certainly did not think that," said Miss Charlotte rea.s.suringly. "I know my friend well enough to know that she would never have made the offer if she had."

"But where can I learn?" asked Penelope. "I shouldn't be allowed to use the organ in the church, should I?"

"I think so; but Miss Row will settle all that. You see, her father used to be the vicar at Four Winds, and she has been the organist ever since she was sixteen--"

"Sixteen!" cried Penelope. "Can I be an organist when I am sixteen?"

"As I was saying," said Cousin Charlotte, in a slight tone of reproof, "she has been the organist there since she was sixteen, and all for love, so no one would be so ungrateful as to object to her using it."

"Oh, how beautiful, how beautiful, and just the very thing I wanted."

Penelope fairly danced with delight. "Isn't it strange," she said, "how one gets just the very things one has been longing for?"

Esther did not make any remark. The old demon jealousy surged up in her heart and forbade her saying anything that was nice or kind.

"Why was it that Penelope always attracted all the notice, and made friends, and got the very things she longed for?" she asked herself angrily. She wished she had said she would like to learn to play the organ, and had made friends with Miss Row; then perhaps she would have had lovely flowers given her, and be thought a lot of. Having finished her task she picked up her things and walked away into the house.

Penelope looked after her, a little hurt at her seeming want of interest.

Angela and Poppy had dropped their play and were bubbling over with joyful sympathy.

"Angela dear," said Miss Charlotte, "will you go to the henhouse for me, and see if there are any eggs there?"

Angela was delighted. She was always longing to be employed, and she loved anything to do with the fowls or the garden.

Miss Ashe's fowl-houses were models of what fowl-houses should be, airy, snug, and beautifully clean; and her fowls were something to be proud of.

Angela ran off at once, found three eggs, and took them into the house.

Miss Ashe was busy in the pantry tying down jam.

"I wonder if you could mark them for me," she said. "My fingers are very sticky."

Angela took the pencil and did her best. The figures were clumsy, but they were her neatest. They were something like this--22/6.

She looked up at her cousin with shamed eyes and rosy cheeks as she held out the eggs.

"That will do," said Miss Charlotte kindly. "You will soon be able to make tiny figures." Then, as Esther had done once before, Angela put the eggs in their box; but Esther had forgotten all about her first task in her anxiety to get others.

"Cousin Charlotte, if I learn to write better, may I always collect the eggs and mark them? I'd love to. I love the chicken and fowls, and I'd try to do it properly." She was very eager and very shy about making her request.

"I shall be very glad indeed of your help," said Cousin Charlotte.

"Anna seems too busy and Ephraim forgets; he thinks eggs and hens too unimportant for his notice. I, though, think them very important indeed; they make quite a nice little addition to one's income, I find."

"Do they?" said Angela, full of interest. "When I grow up I shall keep fowls too, I think."

"You will have to learn all about them first," said Cousin Charlotte, "but that you can begin to do at once. You have them here always under your eyes, and you must keep your eyes open and take in all you can."

Angela felt, as Penelope had done, that all her dearest wishes were being granted at once. "Is there something else I can do for you, Cousin Charlotte?" she asked.

"Yes, dear, if you will. I want to send those fresh eggs up to Miss Bazeley. She has a lady lodging there who is ill, and Miss Bazeley's hens seem to have all stopped laying just as she most wants fresh eggs."

"I'd like to go. I'll go now," said Angela, running off to get her hat.

"You can take Poppy with you, dear. It is not far, and you can't make a mistake. Miss Bazeley's house is the very last in the village; it stands at the side of the hill on the way to Four Winds."

"I think I know; it has a honeysuckle arch over the gate, hasn't it?"

"Yes, sharp eyes. Now run along."

Esther was up in her room, trying to work herself into a better state of mind. She knew she was jealous of Penelope's good fortune, and she was vexed with herself for being so. When people recognise their weaknesses, and see the wrong of them, they are on a fair way to recovery--if they choose.