Part 2 (1/2)

Barbara was incurably shy, and poked her head when she was spoken to, but very few people took as much notice of her as of talkative Alex or pretty little Archie, who was all blue ribbons and fearless smiles. And before very long Lady Isabel was sure to say:

”Now, you'd better run back to the nursery, hadn't you, darlings? or Nurse will be comin' down in search of you. I've got the most invaluable old dragon for them,” she generally added to her friends. ”She's been with us since Alex was a baby, and rules the whole house.”

”Oh, don't send them away!” one of the visiting ladies would exclaim politely. ”_Such_ darlings!”

”Oh, but I must! Their father won't _hear_ of my spoilin' them. Now run along, infants.”

Cedric and Barbara were only too ready to obey, though it was understood that Lady Isabel's ”run along” only meant a very ceremonious departure from the room, Barbara taking little Archie by the hand and leading him to the door, where they both dropped the obeisance considered ”picturesque,” and Cedric making an unwilling progress to execute his carefully practised bow before each one of the ladies scattered about the big room.

If Alex, however, was enjoying herself, and getting the notice that her soul loved, she always said in a pleading whisper, loud enough to be heard by two or three people besides her mother:

”Oh, do let me stay with you a little longer, mummy. Don't send me upstairs yet!”

”How sweet! Do let her stay, dear Lady Isabel.”

”You mustn't encourage me to spoil her. She ought to go up with the others.”

”Just for this once, mummy.”

”Well, just for this once, perhaps. After all,” said Lady Isabel apologetically, ”she _is_ the eldest. She'll be comin' out before I know where I am!”

And Alex would enjoy the privilege of being the eldest, and sit beside her mother, listening to the conversation, and sometimes joining in with remarks that she thought might be acclaimed as amusing or original, or even merely precocious. No wonder that the nursery greeted her return with disdain. Even Emily called her ”drawing-room child,” and by her contempt brought Alex' ready tears of mortified vanity to the surface.

But it was much worse on the rare Sunday afternoons when Nurse was in, when she would greatly resent the slight to Barbara if she was sent up from the drawing-room before her sister.

”Working on your mamma to spoil you like that, just because you're a couple of years older!” Nurse would say, pulling the comb fiercely through Alex' hair as she went to bed.

”I'm three whole years older.”

”Don't you contradict me like that, Alex. I'm not going to have any showing-off up here, I can tell you. You can keep those airs and graces for your mamma's friends in the drawing-room.”

Alex generally went to bed in tears.

If Nurse had not been scolding her, then Barbara had been quarrelling with her. They always quarrelled whenever Barbara ventured to differ from Alex and take up an att.i.tude of her own, or still more when Barbara and Cedric made an alliance together and excluded Alex's autocratic ruling of their games.

”But it is for your good,” she would tell them pa.s.sionately. ”I want to show you a better way. It'll be much more fun if you do it my way--you'll see.”

But they did not want to see.

Their obstinacy always brought to Alex the same sense of incredulous, resentful fury. How _could_ they not want to be shown the best way of doing things, when she knew it and they didn't? And, of course, she always did know it. Was she not the eldest?

It was not till Alex was almost thirteen that her belief in her own infallibility as eldest received a rude shock.

She nearly killed Barbara.

It was the first week of August, and Sir Francis and Lady Isabel had gone to Scotland. The children were going to the sea with Nurse on the following day, and took advantage of her state of excitement over the packing, and the emptiness of the downstair rooms, to play at circus on the stairs. Emily only said, ”Now don't go hurting yourselves, whatever you do, or there'll be no seaside tomorrow,” and then went back to amuse Pamela, who was crying and restless from the heat.

”I'll tell you what!” said Alex. ”We'll have tight-rope dancing. I'm tired of learned pigs and things like that--” This last impersonation having been perseveringly rendered by Cedric with much shuffling and snorting over a pack of cards.

”Give me the skipping-rope, Barbara.”