penelope held up a chubby hand, which miss tredgold pretended not to see.

“go on in front, little girl,” she said. “don’t paw me. i hate being pawed by children.”

penelope’s back became very square as she listened to these words, and the red which suffused her face went right round her neck. but she walked solemnly on in front without a word.13

“aunties are unpleasant things,” she said to herself; “but, all the same, i mean to fuss over this one.”

here she opened a door, flung it wide, and cried out to her parent:

“paddy, here comes aunt sophia tredgold.”

but she spoke to empty air—mr. dale was still busy over his toilet.

“whom are you addressing by that hideous name?” said miss sophia. “do you mean to tell me you call your father paddy?”

“we all do,” said penelope.

“of course we do,” said verena, who had followed behind.

“that is our name for the dear old boy,” said pauline, who stood just behind verena, while all the other children stood behind pauline.

it was in this fashion that the entire party invaded mr. dale’s sanctum. miss tredgold gazed around her, her face filled with a curious mixture of amazement and indignation.

“i had an intuition that i ought to come here,” she said aloud. “i did not want to come, but i obeyed what i now know was the direct call of duty. i shall stay here as long as i am wanted. my mission will be to bring order out of chaos—to reduce all those who entertain rebellion to submission—to try to turn vulgar, hoydenish little girls into ladies.”

“oh, oh! i say, aunty, that is hard on us!” burst from josephine.

“my dear, i don’t know your name, but it is useless for you to make those ugly exclamations. whatever your remarks, whatever your words, i shall take no notice. you may struggle as you will, but i am the stronger. oh! here comes—— is it possible? my dear henry, what years it is since we met! don’t you remember me—your sister-in-law sophia? i was but a little girl when you married my dear sister. it is quite affecting to meet you again. how do you do?”

miss tredgold advanced to meet her brother-in-law. mr. dale put both his hands behind his back.

“are you sorry to see me?” asked miss tredgold. “oh, dear, this is terrible!”

the next instant the horrified man found that miss tredgold had kissed him calmly and with vigor on each cheek. even his own children were never permitted to kiss mr. dale. to tell the truth, he was the last sort of person anybody would care to kiss. his face resembled a piece of parchment, being much withered and wrinkled and dried up. there was an occasion in the past when verena had taken his scholarly hand and raised it to her lips, but even that form of endearment he objected to.14

“i forgive you, dear,” he said; “but please don’t do it again. we can love each other without these marks of an obsolete and forgotten age. kissing, my dear, is too silly to be endured in our day.”

that miss tredgold should kiss him was therefore an indignity which the miserable man was scarcely likely to get over as long as he lived.

“and now, girls,” said the good lady, turning round and facing her astonished nieces, “i have a conviction that your father and i would have a more comfortable conversation if you were not present. leave the room, therefore, my dears. go quietly and in an orderly fashion.”

“perhaps, children, it would be best,” said mr. dale.

he felt as though he could be terribly rude, but he made an effort not to show his feelings.

“there is no other possible way out of it,” he said to himself. “i must be very frank. i must tell her quite plainly that she cannot stay. it will be easier for me to be frank without the children than with them.”

so the girls left the room. penelope, going last, turned a plump and bewildered face towards her aunt.

but miss tredgold took no more notice of penelope than she did of the others. when the last pair of feet had vanished down the passage, she went to the door and locked it.

“what are you doing that for?” asked mr. dale.

“my dear henry, i locked the door because i wish to have a quiet word with you. i have come here—i will say it plainly—for the sole purpose of saving you.”

“of saving me, sophia! from what?”

“from the grievous sin you are committing—the sin of absolutely and completely neglecting the ten daughters given to you by providence. do you do anything for them? do you try in the least to help them? are you in any sense of the word educating them? i scarcely know the children yet, but i must say frankly that i never came across more terribly neglected young people. their clothes are in rags, they are by no means perfectly clean in their persons, and they look half-starved. henry, you ought to be ashamed of yourself! i wonder my poor sister doesn’t turn in her grave! when i think that alice was their mother, and that you are bringing them up as you are now doing, i could give way to tears. but, henry, tears are not what are required. action is the necessary thing. i mean to act, and nothing will turn me from that resolution.”

“but, my dear sophia, i have not met you for years. to be frank with you, i had almost forgotten your existence. i am a terribly busy man, sophia—a scholar—at least, i hope so. i do not think the children are neglected; they are well, and no one is ever unkind to them. there is no doubt that we are poor. i am unable to have the house done up as poor alice would have liked to see it; and i have let the 15greater part of the ground, so that we are not having dairy produce or farm produce at present. the meals, therefore, are plain.”

“and insufficient; i have no doubt of that,” said miss tredgold.

“they are very plain,” he answered. “perhaps you like dainty food; most ladies of your age do. i must be as frank with you as you are with me. you won’t like our table. sometimes we do without meat for a week at a time.”

“i do not care if you never touch meat again,” said miss sophia. “thank goodness, with all my faults, i am not greedy.”

“what a pity!” murmured mr. dale.

“what was that you said? do you like greedy women?”

“no, sophia; but i want to put matters so straight before you that you will consider it your bounden duty to leave the dales.”

“where my duty calls me i stay, whatever the circumstances, and however great the inconveniences,” remarked miss sophia.

“well, sophia, your attitude and manner and words distress me considerably. but i must speak to you again. i am busy now over a most important matter. i have just discovered——”

“a gold mine on your estate?”

“no; something fifty times more valuable—a new rendering——”

“of what, may i ask?”

“‘the noblest meter ever moulded by the lips of man.’ bowen is quite wrong in his translation; i am about to prove it. i allude to virgil’s æneid.”

“good heavens!” exclaimed miss tredgold, “is the man staring mad? now, my dear fellow, you have got to put up with me. i can tell you plainly that it will be no treat to live with you. if it were not for my sister i would leave this house and let you and your family go your own way to destruction; but as alice was so fond of me, and did her best for me when i was a little girl, i mean to do my best for your children.”

“but in what way, sophia? i told you i was poor. i am poor. i cannot afford a governess. verena can darn quite nicely, and she knows a little about plain needlework. she turned a skirt of her own a month ago; her work seemed quite creditable, for i did not notice it one way or the other.”

“oh, you man—you man!” said miss tredgold.

“and the other children are also learning to use the needle; and most of them can read, for all the novels that i happen to possess have been removed from the bookshelves. the girls can read, they can write, and they can use their needles. they are thoroughly happy, and they are 16healthy. they do not feel the heat of summer or the cold of winter. the food is plain, and perhaps not over-abundant, but they are satisfied with it. they don’t worry me much. in short, it is only fair to say that i am not well enough off to keep you here. i cannot possibly give you the comforts you require. i should be glad, therefore, my dear sophia, if you would be kind enough to leave the dales.”

“now listen to me, henry. i have resolved to stay, and only force will turn me out. my heavier luggage is coming by the carrier to-morrow. i brought a small trunk in that awful little conveyance which you sent to meet me. as to the money question, it needn’t trouble you, for i shall pay for all extras which my presence requires. as to luxuries, i am indifferent to them. but i mean the girls to eat their food like ladies, and i mean the food to be well cooked; and also everything in the house shall be clean, and there shall be enough furniture in the rooms for the ordinary requirements of ordinary gentlefolks. i shall stay here for at least three months, and if at the end of that time you do not say to me, ‘sophia, i can never thank you enough for what you have done,’ i shall be surprised. now i have stated exactly the position of things, and, my dear henry, you are welcome to go back to your work. you can study your beloved virgil and gloat over your discovery; but for goodness’ sake come to dinner to-night looking like a gentleman.”

“my wardrobe is a little in abeyance, sophia. i mean that i—i have not put on an evening coat for years.”

“you probably have one at the back of nowhere,” said miss tredgold in a contemptuous tone. “but, anyhow, put on the best you have got. believe me, i have not come to this house to sit down with my hands before me. i have come to work, to renovate, to restore, to build up. not another word, henry. i have put the matter into a nutshell, and you and your children must learn to submit to the arrival of sophia tredgold.”

at these words the good lady unlocked the door and stepped out.

as she walked down the passage she heard the quick trampling of many feet, and it occurred to her that some of the girls must have been listening at the keyhole.

“i can’t allow that sort of thing again,” she said to herself. “but now—shall i take notice?”

she stood for a moment thinking. the color came into her cheeks and her eyes looked bright.

“for my sister’s sake i will put up with a good deal,” was her final comment; and then she went into the hall.

there was a wide old hall leading to the front stairs, and in this hall now stood the good child penelope. she had brought in a quantity of fresh grasses, and had a piteous and beseeching expression on her face. miss tredgold took 17no notice of her. she stood by the open hall door and looked out.

“might be made a pretty place,” she said aloud.

then she turned to go upstairs, sighing as she did so. penelope echoed the sigh in a most audible manner. miss tredgold was arrested by the sound, and looked down.

“ah, little girl!” she said. “what are you doing here?”

“i thought perhaps you’d like me to help you,” said penelope. “i wor waiting for you to come out of pad’s room.”

“don’t use that hideous word ‘wor.’ w-a-s, was. can you spell?”

“no; and i don’t want to,” said penelope.

“we’ll see about that. in the meantime, child, can you take me to my room?”

“may i hold of your hand?” said penelope.

“may you hold my hand, not of my hand. certainly not. you may go on in front of me. you have got clearly to understand—— but what did you say your name was?”

“penelope.”

“you must clearly understand, penelope, that i do not pet children. i expect them to be good without sugar-plums.”

now, penelope knew that sugar-plums were delicious. she had heard of them, and at christmas-time she used to dream of them, but very few had hitherto come into her life. she now looked eagerly at miss tredgold.

“if i are good for a long time without them, will you give me two or three?” she asked.

miss tredgold gave a short, grim laugh.

“we’ll see,” she said. “i never make rash promises. oh! so this is my room.”

she looked around her.

“no carpet,” she said aloud; “no curtains; no pictures on the walls. a deal table for a dressing-table, the muslin covering much the worse for dirt and wear. hum! you do live plain at the dales.”

“oh, yes; don’t us?” said penelope. “and your room is much the handsomest of all the rooms. we call it very handsome. if you wor to see our rooms——”

“were to see——”

“yes, were to see,” repeated penelope, who found this constant correction very tiresome.

“and may i ask,” exclaimed miss tredgold suddenly, not paying any heed to the little girl’s words, “what on earth is that in the blue mug?”

she marched up to the dressing-table. in the center was a large blue mug of very common delft filled with poor penelope’s grasses.

“what horror is this?” she said. “take it away at once, and throw those weeds out.”18

at that moment poor penelope very nearly forsook her allegiance to aunt sophia. she ran downstairs trembling. in the hall she was received by a bevy of sisters.

“well, pen, and so you have bearded the lion! you took her to her room, did you? and what did she say? did she tell you when she was going away?”

“yes, did she?” came from verena’s lips; and pauline’s eager eyes, and the eyes of all the other children, asked the same question.

penelope gave utterance to a great sigh.

“i thought i’d be the goodest of you all,” she said. “i maded up my mind that i just would; but i doesn’t like aunt sophia, and i think i’ll be the naughtiest.”

“no, you little goose; keep on being as good as you can. she can’t possibly stay long, for we can’t afford it,” said verena.

“she’ll stay,” answered penelope. “she have made up her mind. she throwed away my lovely grasses; she called them weeds, my darlings that i did stoop so much to pick, and made my back all aches up to my neck. and she said she hated little girls that pawed her. oh, i could cry! i did so want to be the goodest of you all, and i thought that i’d get sugar-plums and perhaps pennies. and i thought she’d let me tell her when you was all bad. oh, i hate her now! i don’t think i care to be took out of the nursery if she’s about.”

“you certainly are a caution, penny,” said verena. “it is well that you have told us what your motives are. believe me, there are worse places than that despised nursery of yours. now, i suppose we must get some sort of dinner or tea for her. i wonder what betty is doing to-day, if her head aches, and if——”

“oh, come along; let’s go and find out,” said pauline. “i feel so desperate that i have the courage for anything.”

it is to be owned that the dales did not keep an extensive establishment. old john pottered about the gardens and did what little gardening he thought necessary. he also did odd jobs about the house. besides john, there was betty. betty ruled supreme as cook and factotum in the kitchen. betty never asked any one for orders; she got what she considered necessary from the local tradesmen, or she did without. as a rule she did without. she said that cooking was bad for her—that it made her head and back ache. on the days when betty’s head or back ached there was never any dinner. the family did not greatly mind. they dined on these occasions on bread, either with butter or without. betty managed to keep them without dinner certainly at the rate of once or twice a week. she always had an excellent excuse. either the boiler was out of gear, or the range would not draught properly, or the coals were out, or the butcher had failed to come. sometimes the children 19managed to have jam with their bread-and-butter, and then they considered that they had a very fine meal indeed. it mattered little to them what sort of food they had if they only had enough; but sometimes they had not even enough. this more constantly happened in the winter than in the summer, for in the summer there was always plenty of milk and always plenty of fruit and vegetables.

when betty heard that miss tredgold was coming to stay she immediately gave verena notice. this was nothing at all extraordinary, for betty gave notice whenever anything annoyed her. she never dreamed of acting up to her own words, so that nobody minded betty’s repeated notices. but on the morning of the day when miss tredgold was expected, betty told nurse that she was about to give a real, earnest notice at last.

“i am going,” she said. “i go this day month. i march out of this house, and never come back—no, not even if a dook was to conduct me to the hymeneal altar.”

betty was always great on the subject of dukes and marquises. she was seldom so low in health as to condescend to a “hearl,” and there had even been a moment when she got herself to believe that royalty might aspire to her hand.

“she must be really going,” said verena when nurse repeated betty’s speech. “she would not say that about the duke if she was not.”

“you leave her alone,” said nurse. “but she’s dreadful put out, miss renny; there’s no doubt of that. i doubt if she’ll cook any dinner for miss tredgold.”

verena, pauline, and penelope now rushed round to the kitchen premises. they were nervous, but at the same time they were brave. they must see what betty intended to do. they burst open the door. the kitchen was not too clean. it was a spacious apartment, which in the days when the old house belonged to rich people was well taken care of, and must have sent forth glorious fires—fires meant to cook noble joints. on the present occasion the fire was dead out; the range looked a dull gray, piles of ashes lying in a forlorn manner at its feet. betty was sitting at the opposite side of the kitchen, her feet on one chair and her capacious person on another. she was busily engaged devouring the last number of the family paper. she had come to a most rousing portion in her story—that part in which the duke marries the governess. betty was, as she said, all in a twitter to see how matters would end; but just at this crucial moment the girls burst in.

“betty, do stop reading,” said verena. “she’s come, betty.”

“i know,” cried betty. “i’m not deaf, i suppose. john told me. he brought her, drat him! he says she’s the sort to turn the house topsy-turvy. i’ll have none of her. 20i won’t alter my ways—no, not a hand’s-turn—for the like of her, and i go this day month.”

“oh, betty!” said verena.

“i do, my dear; i do. i can’t put up with the ways of them sort—never could. i like you well enough, young ladies, and your pa; and i’d stop with you willing—so i would, honey—but i can’t abide the likes of her.”

“all the same, she’s come, betty, and we must have something for dinner. have you anything in the house?”

“not a blessed handful.”

“oh, betty!” said verena; “and i told you this morning, and so did nurse. we said we must have dinner to-night at seven o’clock. you should have got something for her.”

“but i ain’t done it. the stove’s out of order; we want the sweep. i have a splitting headache, and i’m just reading to keep my mind off the pain.”

“but what are we to do? we must get her something.”

“can’t she have tea and bread-and-butter? we’ve half-a-pound of cooking butter in the house.”

“are there any eggs?”

“no. i broke the last carrying it across the kitchen an hour ago. my hands were all of a tremble with the pain, and the egg slipped.”

“betty, you are too dreadful! won’t you put that paper down and try to help us?”

betty looked at the three faces. in their shabby dresses, and with their pretty, anxious eyes, verena having a frown between her charming brows, they made a picture that struck the cook’s heart. with all her odd and peculiar ways, she was affectionate.

“are you fretting about it, miss renny?” she asked.

as she spoke she put down her feet and pushed the tempting number of the family paper from her.

“there!” she said; “poor little miss dunstable may marry the dook of mauleverer-wolverhampton just as soon as she pleases, but i won’t have you put out, miss renny.”

“i did want something nice for dinner,” said verena.

“then i’ll manage it. there ain’t a better cook than i anywhere when i’m put on my mettle. miss penny, will you help me?”

“certainly,” said penelope.

“well, run into the garden and pick all the peas you can find. there’s a nice little joint in the larder, and i’ll roast it, and you shall have a beautiful dinner. now off you go, dears. you shall have custard-pudding and cream and strawberry-jam afterwards.”

“oh, how nice!” cried penelope, with a little gasp. “be sure you give us plenty of strawberry-jam, and make a very large custard-pudding, for there’s such a lot of us to eat the things, and i generally get the teeniest little bit.”21

“you are a nursery child, and it’s in the nursery you’ll have your tea,” said verena in a stern tone. “go and pick the peas.”

“not me,” said penelope.

she sat down just where she was, in an obstinate heap, in the middle of the floor.

“if i are not to eat those peas i don’t pick ’em,” she said. “i wor going to be kind, but i won’t be kind if i’m to be turned into a nursery child.”

“oh! do let her come to the dining-room just for to-night,” pleaded pauline.

“very well, then; just for once,” said verena.