Part 54 (2/2)

CHAPTER FORTY ONE.

BROTHER AND SISTERS--REFINED.

There was a good deal of conversation about it at the Vicarage, where it became known through a visit paid by Rebecca and Beatrice to the school, and their coming back scandalised at finding it in charge only of the pupil-teachers, who explained the reason of Hazel's absence, and that she had sent a message to Mr Chute, asking him if he would raise one of the shutters, and give an eye occasionally to the girls' school, which was, however, in so high a state of discipline now that the pupil-teachers were able to carry it on pa.s.sably well.

”And of course Mr Chute has done so?” said Miss Lambent.

”No, please 'm; he said he had plenty to do with his own school,”

replied one pupil-teacher.

”And he wouldn't do anything of the sort,” said the other.

”What a disgraceful state of affairs, Beatrice!” exclaimed Miss Lambent; and the sisters hurried away to acquaint their brother with the last piece of news.

”I suppose, with a person of her cla.s.s, one can only expect the same conduct that one would receive from a servant,” said Beatrice acidly.

”I do not understand you, Beatrice,” said her brother.

”I mean, Henry, that now she has resigned or received her dismissal, we shall only get the same amount of inattention that one would from a discharged servant.”

”For my part,” said the vicar, ”I think that Miss Thorne is being hardly dealt with.”

”Absurd, Henry!” said Miss Lambent. ”We cannot say a word to you but you take Miss Thorne's part.”

”Why not, when I see her treated with injustice!”

”Injustice, Henry!” cried Beatrice. ”Is it injustice to speak against a young person who behaves like an unjust steward?”

The vicar was silent.

”For my part,” said Rebecca, ”I think she should have been dismissed at once; and she would have been, but for the opposition offered by you, Henry, and Mr Burge.”

”For my part,” continued the vicar, ignoring the past speeches, ”I can see nothing more touching, more beautiful, and Christian-like than Miss Thorne's behaviour to this child--one of the sick lambs of her fold.”

”We are sorry, of course, for Ophelia Potts,” said Rebecca; ”but she is a dreadful child.”

”A fact, I grant,” said the vicar; ”and one that makes Miss Thorne's conduct s.h.i.+ne out the more.”

”Henry!” exclaimed his sisters in a breath.

”We are not doing wrong in staying here, Rebecca,” said Beatrice haughtily. ”I do not believe in witchcraft or such follies, but it is as though this woman had bewitched our brother, and as if he were shaping himself in accordance with her plans.”

”I do not understand you, Beatrice,” said the vicar sternly.

”I will be plainer, then, Henry. It seems to me that you are offering yourself a willing victim to the wiles of an artful woman; and the next thing will be, I suppose, that you intend bringing her here as mistress of the Vicarage.”

<script>