What Necessity Knows - Lily Dougall (readera ebook reader txt) 📗

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"Yes," replied Sophia, tersely. She did not feel at that moment as if she wanted to discuss the point.

"And then he's so jolly," put in the youngest Miss Brown, who was a hearty girl. "That's the sort of religion for me, the kind that can rollick--of course I mean _out of church_," she added naively.

Blue and Red sat shyly upon their chairs and listened to this discourse. It might have been Greek for all the interest they took in it.

As for Sophia, it could not be said to lack interest for her--it was very plain, she thought, why Robert Trenholme thought so highly of the Browns.

There was a youth belonging to this family who was a year or two older than Blue and Red. His mother, sent for him to come into the room, and introduced him to them. He was a nice youth, but precocious; he said to them:

"I suppose you think Chellaston is a very pretty place, but I'll tell you what our natural beauties lack as yet. It is such a literature as you have in England, which has done so much to endear the wildflowers and birds and all natural objects there to the heart of the people. Our Canadian flora and fauna are at present unsung, and therefore, to a large extent, unobserved by the people, for I think the chief use of the poet is to interpret nature to the people--don't you?"

Blue ventured "yes," and Red lisped in confusion, "Do you think so, really?" but as for any opinion on the subject they had none. Sophia, fearing that her sisters would be cast aside as hopeless dunces, was obliged to turn partially from the praise that was being lavished on Trenholme to make some pithy remark upon the uses of the poet.

Sophia, although half conscious of her own unreasonableness, decided now that the Browns might go one way and she another; but she was indebted to this visit for a clue in analysing the impression Trenholme made upon her. His new friends had called him noble; she knew now that when she knew him ten years before he had seemed to her a more noble character.

In the next few weeks she observed that in every picnic, every pleasure party, by land or water, Principal Trenholme was the most honoured guest, and, indeed, the most acceptable cavalier. His holidays had come, and he was enjoying them in spite of much work that he still exacted from himself. She wondered at the manner in which he seemed to enjoy them, and excused herself from participation. It was her own doing that she stayed at home, yet, perversely, she felt neglected. She hardly knew whether it was low spite or a heaven-born solicitude that made her feel bitter regret at the degeneracy she began to think she saw in him.

In due time there came a pleasure party of which Trenholme was to be the host. It was to take place in a lovely bit of wilderness ground by the river side, at the hour of sunset and moonrise, in order that, if the usual brilliancy attended these phenomena, the softest glories of light might be part of the entertainment. Music was also promised. Principal Trenholme came himself to solicit the attendance of the Miss Rexfords; but Sophia, promising for Blue and Red, pleaded lack of time for herself. "And I wish your scheme success," cried she, "but I need not wish you pleasure since, as on all such occasions, you will 'sit attentive to your own applause.'"

She felt a little vexed that he did not seem hurt by her quotation, but only laughed. She did not know that, although the adulation he received was sweet to him, it was only sweet that summer because he thought it must enhance his value in her eyes. Some one tells of a lover who gained his point by putting an extra lace on his servants' liveries; and the savage sticks his cap with feathers: but these artifices do not always succeed.


CHAPTER XIV.

Up the road, about a mile beyond the college and the Harmon house, there was a wilderness of ferns and sumac trees, ending in a stately pine grove that marked the place where road and river met. Thither Blue and Red were sent on the evening of Trenholme's picnic. They were dressed in their new frocks, and had been started at the time all the picnic-goers were passing up the road. They walked alone, but they were consigned to Mrs. Bennett's care at the place of assembly. Several carriages full of guests passed them.

"I'm growing more shy every moment," said Blue.

"So am I," sighed Red.

Young girls will make haunting fears for themselves out of many things, and these two were beset with a not unnatural fear of young men who would talk to them about flora and fauna. Sophia had told them that they looked like ninnies when they appeared not to know what people meant, and they could not endure the thought.

Sighed Blue at last, "Do you think it would be dreadfully wicked not to go?"

All the guests had passed them by this time, for they had loitered sadly. It was not that they were not proud of their clothes; they were as proud as peacocks, and minced along; but then it was enough just to wear one's fine clothes and imagine that they might meet somebody who would admire them.

"Oh, Blue," said Red suddenly, withholding her steps, "suppose we didn't go, and were to walk back just a little later, don't you think we might meet--?" There was no name, but a sympathetic understanding. It was Harkness of whom they thought.

"I'm sure he's a great deal better looking than young Mr. Brown, and I think it's unkind to mind the way he talks. Since Winifred had her teeth done, I think we might just bow a little, if we met him on the road."

"I think it would be naughty," said Red, reflectively, "but nice--much nicer than a grown-up picnic."

"Let's do it," said Blue. "We're awfully good generally; that ought to make up."

The sunset cloud was still rosy, and the calm bright moon was riding up the heavens when these two naughty little maidens, who had waited out of sight of the picnic ground, judged it might be the right time to be walking slowly home again.

"I feel convinced he won't come," said Blue, "just because we should so much like to pass him in these frocks."

Now an evil conscience often is the rod of its own chastisement; but in this instance there was another factor in the case, nothing less than a little company of half tipsy men, who came along from the town, peacefully enough, but staggering visibly and talking loud, and the girls caught sight of them when they had come a long way from the pleasure party and were not yet very near any house. The possibility of passing in safety did not enter their panic-stricken minds. They no sooner spied the men than they stepped back within the temporary shelter of a curve in the road, speechless with terror. They heard the voices and steps coming nearer. They looked back the long road they had come, and perceived that down its length they could not fly. It was in this moment of despair that a brilliant idea was born in the mind of Red. She turned to the low open fence of the little cemetery.

"Come, we can pretend to be tombs," she cried, and whirled Blue over the fence. They climbed and ran like a streak of light, and before the drunkards were passing the place, the girls were well back among marble gravestones.

Some artistic instinct warned them that two such queer monuments ought to be widely apart to escape notice. So, in the gathering dimness, each knelt stock still, without even the comfort of the other's proximity to help her through the long, long, awful minutes while the roisterous company were passing by. The men proceeded slowly; happily they had no interest in inspecting the gravestones of the little cemetery; but had they been gazing over the fence with eager eyes, and had their designs been nothing short of murderous upon any monument they chanced to find alive, the hearts of the two erring maidens could not have beat with more intense alarm. Fear wrought in them that sort of repentance which fear is capable of working. "Oh, we're very, very naughty; we ought to have gone to the picnic when Sophia was so good as to buy us new frocks," they whispered in their hearts; and the moon looked down upon them benevolently.

The stuff of their repentance was soon to be tested, for the voice of Harkness was heard from over the Harmon fence.

"Oh, Glorianna! there was never such sculptures. Only want wings. Hats instead of wings is a little curious even for a funeral monument."

The two girls stood huddled together now in hasty consultation. "We didn't mean to be sculptures," spoke up Red, defending her brilliant idea almost before she was aware. "There's nothing but stand-up slabs here; we thought we'd look something like them."

"We were so frightened at the men," said Blue. They approached the fence as they spoke.

"Those men wouldn't have done you one mite of harm," said the dentist, looking down from a height of superior knowledge, "and if they had, I'd have come and made a clearance double quick."

They did not believe his first assertion, and doubted his ability to have thus routed the enemy, but Blue instinctively replied, "You see, we didn't know you were here, or _of course_ we shouldn't have been frightened."

"Beautiful evening, isn't it?" remarked the dentist.

"Yes, but I think perhaps,"--Red spoke doubtfully--"we ought to be going home now."

She was a little mortified to find that he saw the full force of the suggestion.

"Yes, I suppose your mother'll be looking for you."

They both explained, merely to set him right, that this would not be the case, as they had started to Principal Trenholme's picnic.

He asked, with great curiosity, why they were not there, and they explained as well as they could, adding, in a little burst of semi-confidence, "It's rather more fun to talk to you across a fence than sit up and be grand in company."

He smiled at them good-naturedly.

"Say," said he, "if your mother let you stay out, 'twas because you were going to be at the Trenholme party. You're not getting benefit of clergy here, you know."

"We're going;"--loftily--"we're only waiting to be sure there's no more drunken people."

"I was just about to remark that I'd do myself the pleasure of escorting you."

At this they whispered together. Then, aloud--"Thank you very much, but we're not afraid; we're often out as late in papa's fields. We're afraid mamma wouldn't like it if you came with us."

"Wouldn't she now?" said Harkness. "Why not? Is she stuck up?"

Blue felt that a certain romance was involved in acknowledging her parents' antipathy and her own regret.

"Rather," she faltered. "Papa and mamma are rather proud, I'm afraid." It was a bold flight of speech; it quite took Red's breath away. "And so,"--Blue sighed as she went on--"I'm afraid we mustn't talk to you any more; we're very sorry. We--I'm sure--we think you are very nice."

Her feeling tone drew from him a perfectly sincere reply, "So I am; I'm really a very nice young man. My mother brought me up real