Magnum Bonum; Or, Mother Carey's Brood. Yonge Charlotte Mary

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СКАЧАТЬ the two Ogilvies the strongest desire to laugh.

      Just then out burst a cry of wrath and consternation, making everyone hurry out into the hall, where, through a perfect cloud of white powder, loomed certain figures, and a scandalised voice cried “Aunt Caroline, Jock and Armine have been and let all the arrowroot fly about.”

      “You told me to be useful and open parcels,” cried Jock.

      “Oh, jolly, jolly! first-rate!” shouted Armine in ecstasy. “It’s just like Paris in the cloud! More, more, Babie. You are Venus, you know.”

      “Master Armine, Miss Barbara! For shame,” exclaimed the nurse’s voice. “All getting into the carpet, and in your clothes, I do declare! A whole case of best arrowroot wasted, and worse.”

      “‘Twas Jessie’s doing,” replied Jock. “She told me.”

      Jessie, decidedly the most like Venus of the party, being a very pretty girl, with an oval face and brown eyes, had retreated, and was with infinite disgust brushing the white powder out of her dress, only in answer ejaculating, “Those boys!”

      Jock had not only opened the case, but had opened it upside down, and the classical performances of Armine and Barbara had powdered themselves and everything around, while the draught that was rushing through all the wide open doors and windows dispersed the mischief far and wide.

      “Can you do nothing but laugh, Caroline?” gravely said Mrs. Brownlow. “Janet, shut that window. Children, out of the way! If you were mine, I should send you to bed.”

      “There’s no bed to be sent to,” muttered Jock, running round to give a sly puff to the white heap, diffusing a sprinkling of white powder over his aunt’s dress.

      “Jock,” said his mother with real firmness and indignation in her voice, “that is not the way to behave. Beg your aunt’s pardon this instant.”

      And to everyone’s surprise the imp obeyed the hand she had laid on him, and muttered something like, “beg pardon,” though it made his face crimson.

      His uncle exclaimed, “That’s right, my boy,” and his aunt said, with dignity, “Very well, we’ll say no more about it.”

      Mary Ogilvie was in the meantime getting some of the powder back into the tin, and Janet running in from the kitchen with a maid, a soup tureen, and sundry spoons, everyone became busy in rescuing the remains—in the midst of which there was a smash of glass.

      “Jock again!” quoth Janet.

      “Oh, mother!” called out Jock. “It’s so long! I thought I’d get the feather-brush to sweep it up with, and the other end of it has been and gone through this stupid lamp.”

      “Things are not unapt to be and go through, where you are concerned, Mr. Jock, I suspect,” said Mr. Ogilvie. “Suppose you were to come with me, and your brothers too, and be introduced to the swans on the lake at Belforest.”

      The boys brightened up, the mother said, “Thank you most heartily, if they will not be a trouble,” and Babie put her hand entreatingly into the schoolmaster’s, and said, “Me too?”

      “What, Venus herself! I thought she had disappeared in the cloud! Let her come, pray, Mrs. Brownlow.”

      “I thought the children would have been with their cousins,” observed the aunt.

      “So we were,” returned Armine; “but Johnnie and Joe ran away when they saw Mr. Ogilvie coming.”

      Babie having by this time had a little black hat tied on, and as much arrowroot as possible brushed out of her frock; Carey warned the schoolmaster not to let himself be chattered to death, and he walked off with the three younger ones.

      Caroline would have kept her friend, but Mary, seeing that little good could be gained by staying with her at present, replied that she would take the walk now, and return to her friend in a couple of hours’ time; and Carey was fain to consent, though with a very wistful look in her eyes.

      At the end of that time, or more, Janet met the party at the garden gate. “You are to go down to my uncle’s, children,” she said; “mother has one of her very bad headaches.”

      There was an outcry that they must take her the flowers, of which their hands and arms were full; but Janet was resolute, though Babie was very near tears.

      “To-morrow—to-morrow,” she said. “She must lie still now, or she won’t be able to do anything. Run away, Babie, they’ll be waiting tea for you. Allen’s there. He’ll take care of you.”

      “I want to give Mother Carey those dear white flowers,” still entreated Babie.

      “I’ll give them, my dear. They want you down there—Ellie and Esther.”

      “I don’t want to play with Ellie and Essie,” sturdily declared Barbara. “They say it is telling falsehoods when one wants to play at anything.”

      “They don’t understand pretending,” said Armine. “Do let us stay, Janet, we’ll not make one smallest little atom of noise, if Jock doesn’t stay.”

      “You can’t,” said Janet, “for there’s nothing for you to eat, and nurse and Susan are as savage as Carribee islanders.”

      This last argument was convincing. The children threw their flowers into Janet’s arms, gave their hands to Miss Ogilvie, and Babie between her two brothers, scampered off, while Miss Ogilvie uttered her griefs and regrets.

      “My mother would like to see you,” said Janet; “indeed, I think it will do her good. She told me to bring you in.”

      “Such a day of fatigue,” began Mary.

      “That and all the rest of it,” said Janet moodily.

      “Is she subject to headaches?”

      “No, she never had one, till—” Janet broke off, for they had reached her mother’s door.

      “Bring her in,” said a weary voice, and Mary found herself beside a low iron bed, where Carey, shaking off the handkerchief steeped in vinegar and water on her brow, and showing a tear-stained, swollen-eyed face, threw herself into her friend’s arms.

      But she did not cry now, her tears all came when she was alone, and when Mary said something of being so sorry for her headache, she said, “Oh! it’s only with knocking one’s head against a mattress like mad people,” in such a matter-of-fact voice, that Mary for a moment wondered whether she had really knocked her head.

      Mary doubted what to say, and wetted the kerchief afresh with the vinegar and water.

      “Oh, Mary, I wish you were going to stay here.”

      “I wish! I wish I could, my dear!”

      “I think I could be good if you were here!” she sighed. “Oh, Mary, why do they say that troubles make one good?”

      “They ought,” said Mary.

      “They don’t,” said Carey. “They make me wicked!” and she hid her face in the pillow with a great gasp.

      “My poor Carey!” said the gentle voice.

      “Oh! СКАЧАТЬ