Part 62 (1/2)

returned Flora.

'I have heard you say so, but--'

'We have made girls sensible and clear-headed, till they have grown hard. They have been taught to despise little fears and illusions, and it is certainly not becoming.'

'We had not fears, we were taught to be sensible.'

'Yes, but it is in the influence of the time! It all tends to make girls independent.'

'That's very well for the fine folks you meet in your visits, but it does not account for my Daisy--always at home, under papa's eye--having turned nineteenth century--What is it, Flora? She is reverent in great things, but not respectful except to papa, and that would not have been respect in one of us--only he likes her sauciness.'

'That is it, partly.'

'No, I won't have that said,' exclaimed Ethel. 'Papa is the only softening influence in the house--the only one that is tender. You see it is unlucky that Gertrude has so few that she really does love, with anything either reverend or softening about them. She is always at war with Charles Cheviot, and he has not fun enough, is too lumbering altogether, to understand her, or set her down in the right way; and she domineers over Hector like the rest of us. I did hope the babies might have found out her heart, but, unluckily, she does not take to them. She is only bored by the fuss that Mary and Blanche make about them.

'You know we are all jealous of both Charles Cheviots, elder and younger.'

'I often question whether I should not have taken her down and made her ashamed of all the quizzing and teasing at the time of Mary's marriage.

But one cannot be always spoiling bright merry mischief, and I am only elder sister after all. It is a wonder she is as good to me as she is.'

'She never remembered our mother, poor dear.'

'Ah! that is the real mischief,' said Ethel. 'Mamma would have given the atmosphere of gentleness and discretion, and so would Margaret. How often I have been made, by the merest pained look, to know when what I said was saucy or in bad taste, and I--I can only look forbidding, or else blurt out a reproof that _will_ not come softly.'

'The youngest _must_ be spoilt,' said Flora, 'that's an ordinance of nature. It ends when a boy goes to school, and when a girl--'

'When?'

'When she marries--or when she finds out what trouble is,' said Flora.

'Is that all you can hold out to my poor Daisy?'

'Well, it is the way of the world. There is just now a reaction from sentiment, and it is the less feminine variety. The softness will come when there is a call for it. Never mind when the foundation is safe.'

'If I could only see that child heartily admiring and looking up! I don't mean love--there used to be a higher, n.o.bler reverence!'

'Such as you and Norman used to bestow on Shakespeare and Scott, and--the vision of c.o.c.ksmoor.'

'Not only _used_,' said Ethel.

'Yes, it is your soft side,' said Flora; 'it is what answers the purpose of sentiment in people like you. It is what I should have thought living with you would have put into any girl; but Gertrude has a satirical side, and she follows the age.'

'I wish you would tell her so--it is what she especially wants not to do! But the spirit of opposition is not the thing to cause tenderness.'

'No, you must wait for something to bring it out. She is very kind to my poor little Margaret, and I won't ask how she talks _of_ her.'

'Tenderly; oh yes, that she always would do.'

'There, then, Ethel, if she can talk tenderly of Margaret, there can't be much amiss at the root.'

'No; and you don't overwhelm the naughty girl with baby talk.'