Girls New and Old. Meade L. T.

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СКАЧАТЬ to one Mary Jane won't wish to go," replied Kate. "Anyhow, the nice, honest, hard-working, white sheep can't be crushed on account of the black. I am going to draw up rules for the new club to-morrow. I shall quote Molly Lavender as a noble example of unselfishness. I shall have an interview with Miss Leicester, and get her to give her sanction to my scheme. Oh, I'm certain she will, when she recognizes the terrible position of the studiously minded Dwellers in Cubicles."

      CHAPTER V.

      CECIL AND THE BOYS

      FOUR boys were seated round the break fast table. They ranged in age from fourteen to ten. One glance at their faces was sufficient to show that they belonged to the average healthy-minded, hearty, English schoolboy. A girl was pouring out coffee for the quartet. She was standing to her work. Her age might have been sixteen: in some respects she looked older, in some respects younger. She was a tall, slim girl, with a somewhat long face of a pale but clear olive. Her eyes were dark, large, and well cut; her brow was particularly noble. She had quantities of straight, thick, black hair, which was swept off her forehead and fastened in a thick knot at the nape of her neck. The girl's name was Cecil Ross. She was Molly Lavender's dearest friend, the one around whom Molly's warmest thoughts, hopes, and affections were centered. The boys were eating their breakfast with the voracious appetite of the British schoolboy. The eldest had a look of his sister.

      "I say, Ceci," he exclaimed, "how white you are! You've been fagging last night; I know you have, and I call it a beastly shame."

      "Oh, never mind me, Maurice," said Cecil; "I have to study, you know, and really you four do want such a lot of mending and making and seeing to generally, that if I don't sit up a little bit at night, I simply get no study at all. Jimmy, darling, is it necessary to put six lumps of sugar into that cup of coffee?"

      "There's no sweetening in this sugar," said Jimmy, aged eleven; "I can't make it out. What ails it? I put ten lumps in last night, Ceci, when you were out, and the coffee only tasted like mud."

      "Like treacle, you mean," said Maurice. "Don't you think it's a shame to waste good food? You're a greedy youngster, and I'll punch your head if you don't look out."

      Jimmy bobbed his curly fair head, for Maurice had extended one strong young hand as he uttered his threat.

      "It's time for us all to be off now," he said, rising from the table and shaking the crumbs from his Norfolk suit.

      "Like dear boys, do go out quietly," said Cecil; "Mrs. Rogers has spent a very suffering night, and I don't want to wake her."

      "Oh, bother!" exclaimed Jimmy; "what with no sugar, and having to keep as still as mice, how is a fellow to have a chance? I say, Maurice – Oh, I say, I didn't mean it; no, I didn't, Ceci, not really."

      The boys clattered off; Cecil heard them tumbling and scrambling downstairs; she uttered a faint sigh for Mrs. Rogers' chance of sleep, and then walked to the window to watch them as they ran down the street. They attended the Grammar School – the far-famed Grammar School of the little town of Hazlewick; the school was at the corner of the street.

      "How Maurice grows!" thought Cecil, as she watched them. "Of course, I know this sort of thing can't go on. There's not money enough; it can't be done, and how are they to be educated? I wouldn't tell dear old Maurice what brought the black lines under my eyes last night. No, it wasn't study, – not study in the ordinary sense, – it was that other awful thing which takes more out of one than the hardest of hard work. It was worry. Try as I would, I could not stretch my cloth to cover the space allotted to it. In short, at the end of the year, if something is not done, I, Cecil Ross, will be in debt. Now, I'm not going into debt for anyone. I promised mother six months ago, when she died, that somehow or other I'd keep out of debt, and I'll do it. Oh, dear, dear! what is to be done? I suppose I must give up that delightful scheme of Molly's, that I should go to Redgarth for two or three years, and perfect myself in all sorts of learning, and then take a good post as head-mistress of some high school. I don't see how it's to be done – no, I really don't. What would the boys do without me?"

      At this point in Cecil's meditations, there came a knock, very firm and decided, at the sitting-room door.

      "Come in," she said, and Miss Marshall, her landlady, entered the room.

      "Now, Miss Ross," she said, "I've come to say some plain words. You know I'm a very frank body, and I'm afraid I can't keep you and those boys any longer in the house. There's poor Mrs. Rogers woke up out of the first sleep she's had the entire night. Oh, I don't blame 'em, – the young rascals, – but they simply can't keep quiet. What are they but four schoolboys? and all the world knows what it means when there are four schoolboys in a house."

      "I promise that they shall behave better in future," said Cecil; "they must take off their outdoor shoes in the hall and – "

      Miss Marshall raised her hand; she was a large-limbed, bony woman of fifty. She had a thin red face, small but kindly eyes, and a firm mouth. She would not be cruel to anybody; neither would she be inordinately kind. She was shrewd and matter-of-fact. She had to earn her living, and she considered it her duty to put this fact before all other considerations. Cecil's white young face touched her, but she was not going on that account to give way.

      "It isn't that I don't love the lads," she said, "and you too, Miss Ross, but the thing can't be done. I make my living out of this house, and Mrs. Rogers has sent for me to say she'll leave at the end of the week if I don't find another place for you and your brothers, my dear. Mrs. Rogers is the drawing-room lodger, and, what with her being ill, and one thing and another, I make a lot of extrys out of her. Now, I don't mind letting you know, Miss Ross, that it's from extrys we poor lodging-house keepers make our profit. There's never an extry to put into your account, my dear, and, besides, I could get ten shillings a week more for these rooms, only I promised your poor, dear ma that I wouldn't raise the rent on you. The fact is, Miss Ross, Mr. Chandler would gladly take the parlor and the upstairs rooms for himself and his lady for the whole winter, and I think I ought to put it to you, my dear young lady."

      "Of course," said Cecil.

      She stood upright like a young reed. Her brows were slightly knit; she did not glance at Miss Marshall. She was looking straight before her.

      "I understand," she said, turning her gaze full upon her landlady's red face, "that you wish us to go?"

      "Oh, my dear, it's sorry I am to have to say it, but that's the plain fact."

      "How long can you give us?"

      "Do sit down, Miss Cecil; I declare you're whiter than a sheet; you'll fade off like your dear ma if you're not careful. There, my dear, there, you shan't be hurried; you take your time – you take your time."

      "It's a dreadful position," said Cecil; "it is fearfully inconvenient; there's not another house where we can be so comfortable; there's no one else will bear with us as you have borne with us."

      "Oh, for mercy's sake, my dear, don't you begin that, or I'll yield – I declare I will! and how am I to live if I don't raise my rent, and seek lodgers that go in for extrys. Look here, Miss Cecil, why do you burden yourself with those young gentlemen; why don't you put them to school?"

      "What do you mean?" said Cecil; "they are at school."

      "Why don't you put 'em to boarding school; it would be a sight better, and cost less – and there, I forgot to tell you, Miss Pinchin's English teacher left her only yesterday; there is a vacancy in that first class school for a good English teacher; why shouldn't you try for it, Miss Ross?"

      "I don't know – I'm greatly obliged," СКАЧАТЬ