If a talent be a claw, look how he claws him with a talent.
Love’s Labour’s Lost.
The young ladies were truly in an intense state of excitement about the sale of work, especially about the authorship; and Uncle Lancelot having promised to send an estimate, a meeting of the Mouse-trap was convened to consider of the materials, and certainly the mass of manuscript contributed at different times to the Mouse-trap magazine was appalling to all but Anna, who knew what was the shrinkage in the press.
She, however, held herself bound not to inflict on her busy uncle the reading of anything entirely impracticable, so she sat with a stern and critical eye as the party mustered in Miss Mohun’s drawing-room, and Gillian took the chair.
“The great design,” said she impressively, “is that the Mouse-trap should collect and print and publish a selection for the benefit of the school.”
The Mice vehemently applauded, only Miss Norton, the oldest of the party, asked humbly—
“Would any one think it worth buying?”
“Oh, yes,” cried Valetta. “Lots of translations!”
“The Erl King, for instance,” put in Dolores Mohun.
“If Anna would append the parody,” suggested Gillian.
“Oh, parodies are—are horrid,” said Mysie.
“Many people feel them so,” said Gillian, “but to others I think they are almost a proof of love, that they can make sport with what they admire so much.”
“Then,” said Mysie, “there’s Dolores’ Eruption!”
“What a nice subject,” laughed Gillian. “However, it will do beautifully, being the description of the pink terraces of that place with the tremendous name in New Zealand.”
“Were you there?” cried Anna.
“Yes. I always wonder how she can look the same after such adventures,” said Mysie.
“You know it is much the same as my father’s paper in the Scientific World,” said Dolores.
“Nobody over reads that, so it won’t signify,” was the uncomplimentary verdict.
“And,” added Mysie, “Mr. Brownlow would do a history of Rockquay, and that would be worth having.”
“Oh yes, the dear ghost and all!” cried Valetta.
The acclamation was general, for the Reverend Armine Brownlow was the cynosure curate of the lady Church-helpers, and Mysie produced as a precious loan, to show what could be done, the volume containing the choicest morceaux of the family magazine of his youth, the Traveller’s Joy, in white parchment binding adorned with clematis, and emblazoned with the Evelyn arms on one side, the Brownlow on the other, and full of photographs and reproductions of drawings.
“Much too costly,” said the prudent.
“It was not for sale,” said Mysie, obviously uneasy while it was being handed round.
“Half-a-crown should be our outside price,” said Gillian.
“Or a shilling without photographs, half-a-crown with,” was added.
“Shall I ask Uncle Lance what can be done for how much?” asked Anna, and this was accepted with acclamation, but, as Gillian observed, they had yet got no further than Dolores’ Eruption and the unwritten history.
“There are lots of stories,” said Kitty Varley; “the one about Bayard and all the knights in Italy.”
“The one,” said Gillian, “where Padua got into the kingdom of Naples, and the lady of the house lighted a lucifer match, besides the horse who drained a goblet of red wine.”
“You know that was only the pronouns,” suggested the author.
“Then there’s another,” added Valetta, “called Monrepos—such a beauty, when the husband was wounded, and died at his wife’s feet just as the sun gilded the tops of the pines, and she died when the moon set, and the little daughter went in and was found dead at their feet.”
“No, no, Val,” said Gillian. “Here is a story that Bessie has sent us—really worth having.”
“Mesa! Oh, of course,” was the acclamation.
“And here’s a little thing of mine,” Gillian added modestly, “about the development of the brain.”
At this there was a shout.
“A little thing! Isn’t it on the differential calculus?”
“Really, I don’t see why Rockquay should not have a little rational study!”
“Ah! but the present question is what Rockquay will buy; to further future development it may be, but I am afraid their brains are not yet developed enough,” said Emma Norton.
“Well then, here is the comparison between Euripides and Shakespeare.”
“That’s what you read papa and everybody to sleep with,” said Valetta pertly.
“Except Aunt Lily, and she said she had read something very like it in Schlegel,” added Dolores.
“You must not be too deep for ordinary intellects, Gillian,” said Emma Norton good-naturedly. “Surely there is that pretty history you made out of Count Baldwin the Pretender.”
“That! Oh, that is a childish concern.”
“The better fitted for our understandings,” said Emma, disinterring it, and handing it over to Anna, while Mysie breathed out—
“Oh! I did like it! And, Gill, where is Phyllis’s account of the Jubilee gaieties and procession last year?”
“That would make the fortune of any paper,” said Anna.
“Yes, if Lady Rotherwood will let it be used,” said Gillian. “It is really delightful and full of fun, but I am quite sure that her name could not appear, and I do not expect leave to use it.”
“Shall I write and ask?” said Mysie.
“Oh yes, do; if Cousin Rotherwood is always gracious, it is specially to you.”
“I wrote to my cousin, Gerald Underwood,” said Anna, “to ask if he had anything to spare us, though I knew he would laugh at the whole concern, and he has sent down this. I don’t quite know whether he was in earnest or in mischief.”
And she read aloud—
“Dreaming of her laurels green,
The learned Girton girl is seen,
Or under the trapeze neat
Figuring as an athlete.
Never at the kitchen door
Will she scrub or polish more;
No metaphoric dirt she eats,
Literal dirt may form her treats.
Mary never idle sits,
Home lessons can’t be learnt by fits;
Hard she studies all the week,
Answers with undaunted cheek.
When to exam Mary goes,
Smartly dressed in stunning clothes,
Expert in algebraic rule,
Best pupil-teacher of her school.
Oh, how clever we are found
Who live on England’s happy ground,
Where rich and poor and wretched may
Be drilled in Whitehall’s favoured way.”
There was a good deal of laughter at this parody of Jane Taylor’s Village Girl, though Mysie was inclined to be shocked as at something profane.
“Then what will you think of this?” said Anna, beginning gravely to read aloud The Inspector’s Tour.
It was very clever, so clever that Valetta and Kitty Varley both listened as in sober earnest, never discovering, or only in flashes like Mysie, that it was really a satire on all the social state of the different European nations, under the denomination of schools. One being depicted as highly orthodox, but much given to sentence insubordination to dark cold closets; another as given to severe drill, but neglecting manners; a third as repudiating religious teaching, and now and then preparing explosions for the masters—no, teachers. The various conversations were exceedingly bright and comical; and there were brilliant hits at existing circumstances, all a little in a socialistic spirit, which made Anna pause as she read. She really had not perceived till she heard it in her own voice and with other ears how audacious it was, especially for a school bazaar.
Dolores applauded with her whole heart, but owned that it might be too good for the Mouse-trap, it would be too like catching a monkey! Gillian, more doubtfully, questioned whether it would “quite do”; and Mysie, when she understood the allusions, thought it would not. Emma Norton was more decided, and it ended by deciding that the paper should be read to the elders at Clipstone, and their decision taken before sending it to Uncle Lance.
The spirits of the Muscipula party rose as they discussed the remaining MSS., but these were not of the highest order of merit; and Anna thought that the really good would be sufficient; and all the Underwood kith and kin had sufficient knowledge of the Press through their connection with the ‘Pursuivant’ to be authorities on the subject.
“Fergus has some splendid duplicate ammonites for me and bits of crystal,” said Mysie.
“Oh, do let Fergus alone,” entreated Gillian. “He is almost a petrifaction already, and you know what depends on it.”
“My sister is coming next week for a few days,” said Anna. “She is very clever, and may help us.”
Emilia was accordingly introduced to the Mice, but she was not very tolerant of them. Essay societies, she said, were out of date, and she thought the Rockquay young ladies a very country-town set.
“You don’t know them, Emmie,” said Anna. “Gillian and Dolores are very remarkable girls, only—”
“Only they are kept down by their mothers, I suppose. Is that the reason they don’t do anything but potter after essay societies and Sunday-schools like our little girls at Vale Leston? Why, I asked Gillian, as you call her, what they were doing about the Penitents’ Home, and she said her mother and Aunt Jane went to look after it, but never talked about it.”
“You know they are all very young.”
“Young indeed! How is one ever to be of any use if mothers and people are always fussing about one’s being young?”
“One won’t always be so—”
“They would think so, like the woman of a hundred years old, who said on her daughter’s death at eighty, ‘Ah, poor girl, I knew I never should rear her!’ How shall I get to see the Infirmary here?”
“Miss Mohun would take you.”
“Can’t I go without a fidgety old maid after me?”
“I’ll tell you what I wish you would do, Emmie. Write an account of one of your hospital visits, or of the match-girls, for the Mouse-trap. Do! You know Gerald has written something for it.”
“He! Why he has too much sense to write for your voluntary schools. Or it would be too clever and incisive for you. Ah! I see it was so by your face! What did he send you? Have you got it still?”
“We have really a parody of his which is going in—The Girton Girl. Now, Emmie, won’t you? You have told me such funny things about your match-girls.”
“I do not mean to let them be turned into ridicule by your prim, decorous swells. Why, I unfortunately told Fernan Brown one story—about their mocking old Miss Bruce with putting on imitation spectacles—and it has served him for a cheval de bataille ever since! Oh, my dear Anna, he gets more hateful than ever. I wish you would come back and divert his attention.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t you think we could change? You could go and let Marilda fuss with you, now that Uncle Clem and Aunt Cherry are so well, and I could look after Adrian, and go to the Infirmary, and the penitents, and all that these people neglect; maybe I would write for the Mouse-trap, if Gerald does when he comes home.”
Anna did not like the proposal, but she pitied Emilia, and cared for her enough to carry the scheme to her aunt. But Geraldine shook her head. The one thing she did not wish was to have Emmie riding, walking, singing, and expanding into philanthropy with Gerald, and besides, she knew that Emilia would never have patience to read to her uncle, or help Adrian in his preparation.
“Do you really wish this, my dear?” she asked.
“N—no, not at all; but Emmie does. Could you not try her?”
“Annie dear, if you wish to have a fortnight or more in town—”
“Oh no, no, auntie, indeed!”
“We could get on now without you. Or we would keep Emmie till the room is wanted; but I had far rather be alone than have the responsibility of Emmie.”
“No, no, indeed; I don’t think Adrian would be good long with her. I had much rather stay—only Emmie did wish, and she hates the—”
“Oh, my dear, you need not tell me; I only know that I cannot have her after next week; the room will be wanted for Gerald.”
“She could sleep with me.”
“No, Annie, I must disappoint you. There is not room for her, and her flights when Gerald comes would never do for your uncle. You know it yourself.”
Anna could not but own the wisdom of the decision, and Emmie, after grumbling at Aunt Cherry, took herself off. She had visited the Infirmary and the Convalescent Home, and even persuaded Mrs. Hablot to show her the Union Workhouse, but she never sent her contribution to the Mouse-trap.
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