Chapter V. The Son That Was Lost and Is Found. "Welcome Home Pearly." The Summer Hill Seminary.

"Still in their ashes glow their wonted fires!" The line of Gray's Elegy, said to have no meaning, applied in all its force to the defeated Marvel. She had suddenly grown to regard scenes in law-courts with the same page 300complacency in which a modern lady goes to see a football match or a bicycle race or any other triumph of modernity, Her dogged determination and anger smouldered amid the ruin of her fallen hopes, and burst out again into a rally for another though smaller campaign. Pearly had, it was maintained by Hallam, Brassy and Hoare, scarlet fever at the time the judge's order for her restitution was made and signed by his Honour. This Marvel endeavoured to temporize into a loop-hole of escape from the observance of the order of the court. She had an affidavit drawn up and supported by accompanying affidavits from her relations and friends to the effect that her daughter was suffering from scarlatina, and that she could not possibly be shifted with safety. In the face of the above assertion, if it were true, it seemed strange that Marvel should be such a long distance away from Pearly when in danger of her life from such a serious disease. The heart-broken Guinevere had sat in her night-watches a fortnight over the diphtheria-stricken Cyril, but the bird of Paradise was flying about the law-courts and apparently basking herself in the excitement of the affidavit mania. No opposition was offered by the doctor to the postponement of Pearly's restoration, on the condition that he was to be allowed to examine into his little daughter's illness himself, the learned judge remarking that it was highly improbable that a man who had shown so marked an attachment to his children would insist upon her removal if she were sick.

Within a month after the dethronement of Marvel, Eugene might have been seen furbishing with toys the little play-room and preparing for his little boy, Valentine, who, according to information received by Warne, Costall and Davitt from Hallam, Brassy and Hoare, was intended to be delivered up to his father that day—being a week earlier than had been ordered by the court—to counterbalance Marvel's demurs against signing the bond.

Instead of going to the city to attend to his practice, he waited at home the whole morning, when about mid-day the front door bell rang in somer-saults a loud jangle, and simultaneously was heard a loud rapping at the French window on the other side of the house. When he opened the front door to the ringing of the bell, the playful bellringer had gone; but as he walked to the window, the source of the rapping, he saw through the shutters the junior counsel who had so signally distinguished himself in the chambers, ready at any moment to precipitate himself into his hollow, clownish cacchinnations, and on his left the second husband of the gravelled auntie, like two patrols on each side of the important little truant. When he had thrown open the glass portcullis at the villa of Summer Hill, in marched the lawyer and Augustas in severe state on either side of the little boy, as if the judge had ordered how many and what length their footsteps should be in performing the sad ceremony of restoration. As the prodigal son returned and saw his father, he fell of course upon his father's neck as he received him on bended knee, and kissed him. There was no elder brother to be angry¹. Right-about-face turned the patrol guard and quick-marched through the door—it not being the page 301custom for soldiers to take off their hats in a private house: right wheel at the door and quick-march through the gate—it not being the custom for soldiers on the march to shut doors and gates through which they pass: right wheel at the gate, quick-march to the railway station and embark for the acropolis—it not being the custom for soldiers to speak to one another when on parade. Thus-wise away they went to the city to report the surrender of the hostage. A fine open-faced and open-hearted boy with waving Saxon flaxen hair and laughing eyes of the brightest blue—into his new home came the little red-cross² knight. God help the wife who had acted in those chivalrous days as Marvel had done—a short shrift and a bloody shroud would have been the climax of such black treachery as Marvel had shown! The big St. Bernard, who had heard all about the state entry into Summer Hill by the little wanderer under escort, having read the account of the lawsuit haply in the face of Eugene and feeling sorry that he had not been asked to swear an affidavit in the matter himself, came into the drawingroom triumphant to greet his little master and bid him welcome home. Prince jumped and pirouetted, danced and barked, whined and yawned, wriggled and squirmed, as soon as he saw the little hero of the hour. He lay down with his front paws outstretched on the carpet to submit a few questions about Pearly, his mouth wide open, his tongue lolling out, his big heart palpitating, and his eloquent eyes beaming with delight on the boy, who was glad to get home again.

Valentine redivivus³ was the adored, silver-headed boy of that triumphant day of days. It was halcyon joy to his father to see him come home. He was the centre of attraction of all the servants. They examined his glengarry cap with the warlike feather; his Highland suit, out of which he had grown, his stockings, his boots, and the two cents in his pocket, with a hole in one: they made a note of the fact that he had no hankie or gloves; while Frederick brought the old mare to the back door and put the knight-errant where he used to sit for hours in the stable on the back of the dear old mare.

Children are always content if their immediate surroundings are pleasing to them. In the busy little world—the true Paradise where they alone dwell—they have no time for reflection over what is going on in the great world outside. Little Valentine no more knew what all the fuss and commotion was over than the old St. Bernard that tried every dodge he knew to get him away from the monopoly of the girls. In innocence he carried the toys to little Percy: in innocence he wondered at the cause of the great reception. His father's home at Summer Hill that day was from sunrise till dark en fête. The victory was won and the standard was planted. The union-jack on the flagstaff over the summer-house spread itself out flapping and clapping its jubilation at the light kissing breezes from the sea, and every service that could contribute to the pleasure and happiness of Valentine the whole house rendered him in envious emulation. His only misgiving was the detention of Pearly, who had avowed so sweetly to her father that she would bring Vallie home.

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Every few minutes he required to be reassured by his father that Pearly would rejoin him very soon—that she would have come with him only that she was so sick. This reason, however, for her delay he seemed to treat as utterly invalid, illogical and altogether untrustworthy. He coolly informed them all that Pearly was not sick at all—that she was out on the Sabine River playing with the nurse-girl and carrying out her duties as governess over the mumpy, scabby-eared, sore-eyed pugwuggies—the property of Simon and Sukey Bubtitt. "Puppa," he said, "Pearly tole me she's come iv me but mumma won't let her come iv me. You know dem illie chinnen up in de unnie pace; d'ere mumma tole me to kiss 'em but I din't kiss 'em, puppa, and Pearly din't kiss 'em neiver. Pearly tole 'em A B C and C. A. T. cat iv a stick and she smacks d'ere bottoms evvie day but I can fight 'em all togevver iv dat illie finger, and when d'ere mumma din't see me I knock 'em all over t'enty times, and I can hole up the babies in th' air iv one hand, just like dat. Haven't dey dot the die-lot, puppa? Pearly says it on'y the 'kurvy and she says she's goin' to get a lot o' money for sayin' A B C and smackin' d'ere bottoms, but she won't, will she, puppa?"

His father armed with the news about Pearly, instinctively entertained the idea of drawing up an affidavit and getting little Vallie to swear it before Silas P. Grinder. He deferred the business, however, until he had seen Davitt, when in the afternoon he intended to take his little boy on a visit to the office on the third floor flat. Upon arriving at the office of Warne, Costall and Davitt to pay his due respects in propriâ personâ, Valentine stoutly adhered to the statement that Pearly was not sick at all, but that she was conducting a school at the house of the Bubtitts at Sabinnia. The head of the firm nevertheless did not attach sufficient importance to the declaration of little Vallie to command Davitt to have them drafted in legal language, engrossed, copied, filed in the office of the prothonotary of the law courts and delivered at the office of Hallam, Brassy and Hoare; chiefly because he well knew that no fee was recoverable at law on the strength of an affidavit from such a juvenile. Thus the law courts were robbed of another slice of truth. Instead of Costall making money out of him, he cleverly scored a trifle off Costall, who opened his heart and gave the nice little boy a quarter-dollar piece, which, with the object of getting another, the nice little boy pretended he had lost under Costall's chair. Costall crawled about all-fours on the floor searching for the lost money, but the gastric pains rebelled against the unusual position; he hadn't another, or a half-dollar, so he forked out a dollar in lieu thereof. Thereupon Vallie produced the quarter-dollar piece out of his mouth. Glue-pot Ike could not have managed the little leger-de-mouche⁴ better. If that episode did not qualify him for the law, what could? He had out-heroded Herod: little Daniel in the lion's den made game of the lion: he had outwitted even the renowned Costall himself, and withdrew. He walked off with the money and his father away out the office, down the marble steps with an importunacy of action undeniably indicating, although he had no idea that page 303he had been implicated in law, that he thought his father had had enough of Costall, and that in future it would be better for him to keep away from the third floor flat. His first performance on reseating himself in the buggy was to snatch off the groom's cockaded hat and throw it into the middle of the road. It was quickly returned by a policeman, when, as the restive little espiégle⁵ sat in the buggy between his father and the groom, driving from one place to another and finally to his father's consulting rooms, Valentine was the cynosure of neighbouring eyes. People stared and looked around at the wonder of wonders. Whenever he alighted at any shop the attendants were as obsequious as if he were the lordly son of some English prince. Declaring that he had grown out of the suit which he wore, they dinned into his father's ears all manner of fashions in suits in vogue for boys. American blouse suits, Royal navy serge suits, Royal navy velvet suits, white flannel outfits, Norfolk suits, covert coats, Rugby suits, Suffolk suits, Windsor suits, Jack-tar suits, Reefer jackets, Buckingham suits, kilt tartan suits, Highland costumes, kilt tweed suits—all the large assortment, wrapped in a brown paper parcel, they put under the seat of the buggy, on approbation; inquired the number of pairs of boots he had and felt anxious as to when he would call again. In the confectionery shops he was loaded with armfuls of packets of sweets with pictures and love-sick verses on them: while at the fair he smashed a swinging glass-ball with a saloon rifle and got a bagful of nuts for the fluke. He wanted to stay there the rest of the day.

The immediate surroundings filled his joyously bounding heart with rapture unspeakable, and he quickly assimilated himself in the new home with his father. No sooner had the firm on the third flat floor learned that Pearly was not at all sick, but that it was only a case of metastatic⁶ malingering on the part of the mother, than a communication was made by means of the office page with Hallam, Brassy and Hoare. Word was sent them to the effect that Pearly's father intended visiting her on the following day, to inquire for his own satisfaction into the nature of her illness. Within a very short space of time a reply was delivered by messenger to the office of Warne, Costall and Davitt, saying that the delivery of Miss Pearly Imogen Whitworth into the charge of her father might be expected on the following afternoon, as the young lady had sufficiently recovered from her serious illness to enable her to be removed from Edenhall to the city; but that nevertheless in doing so her mother and the solicitors acting for her mother intended to wash their hands of the vexed question as to the advisability of her removal from the time she left Edenhall. They further requested a remittance by the returning messenger of the sum of four dollars, to defray the expenses of her railway journey to the city and her cab fare to Summer Hill.

The dollars were sent, and Pearly's father prepared at the villa in Summer Hill a welcome befitting his superb little girl. All the auxiliary forces in the establishment were called out to the front, and the return of the little red-riding-hood announced to all to whom it should come greeting, by the page 304hoisting of the big silk Union-jack, which fairly fluttered with the excitement of the benign day. The day-god had provided a sun to smile upon the grand occasion, and the horticultural show-flowers, which were intertwined into the words of 'Welcome home, Pearly,' were grafted into festoons and suspended from the ceiling with white and primrose ribbons. The canaries and the skylarks in the big round aviary under the summer-house sang and shrieked out their joyous melodies, while the lordly St. Bernard, let into the secret by Valentine, leaped, rolled on the grass and barked in exultation, anon whining, as if bemoaning his hard lot that he could not sing a song of welcome too. The rattling of the French window, responsive to the knocks of the patrols, was the sweetest music to the soul of Eugene, as behind it could be heard the muffled tones of his little darling's voice—' Pearly come back puppa: Pearly not f'ightened geegees: Pearly come back.'

Impatiently ran Valentine to the door and, as he opened it, in marched on each side of the little stray lamb the two escorts—the ugly Augustus again, with a walking-stick disproportionately large, and like the staff of a drum-major, together with the man of guffaws. "Quick-march" said the guffaw-man, and they quick-marched in due form into the middle of the room: halt; right-about face; quick-march, and the patrols manœuvred out through the room and the gate without a single hitch in the observance of their instructions, and finally embarked in the train for headquarters and further despatches.

There stood Pearly in the middle of the room like a little princess come into a fairy-tale. Overcome with excitement and emotion as the dewdrops fell from her bright violet eyes and caught in her lashes, she rubbed them in with her chubby little fist and said between the sobs—"Puppa, Pearly send Vallie first: naughty mumma eh puppa! she wo—on't let me come iv Vallie and they didn't give me nuffin for teachin' dem scabby chinnen. Pearly wo—on't do somethin' ivout nuffin any more." Amidst the pouncing and barking of Prince, as he subsided on his back on the carpet wriggling himself into all sorts of attitudes, the critical examination of her costume by the servants and the tearful joys of Pearly, her father dried away her tears and elicited the confirmation of the report of her little brother—that she had not been sick at all. Instead of scarlatina dragging her through the portals of death, she had since the hearing of the lawsuit been engaged as special fräulein to the infant school of the slit-eyed Simon Bubtitt. After getting the pupils into good working order, when the brusque recalcitrant Vallie had been hustled out of the way of the skittle-alley, she had discovered to her intense mortification that the appointment which she held was wholly and solely an honorary one without any honorarium. Neither the mother nor the wet-nurse of the picaninnies had paid her salary by cheque when she was asked to resign; they had not even given her as much as would buy a biscuit.

"Well I never," said the elder girl of the servants: "She is wuss than Vallie was: just look at them there petticoats and drawers, all worn page 305out, and look at that there dress. She ain't got no ankercher, but she's got a 'ole in her stockins as big as yer 'and wants darnin', and my mother can get 'ats like that a dollar a dozen. She had good cloze did Pearly, when she went away didn't yer, Pearly?" to which Pearly assented by a quick nod of her head and a rubbing of her hand, rolled up into the corner of her eye: "So had Vallie: what have she done with your cloze Pearly? My word if my mother seen that, she'd come 'ere and buy better cloze for Pearly herself, and she ain't got nothink. Take off that there 'at Pearly (snatched off, elastic around her chin carried away); come and see the pretty birds and the nice flowers and the summer'ouse: you won't go away no more will yer Pearly?" to which Pearly agreed by a shake of her head and a removal of the fist from her orbit.

After the tears had ceased to flow, her glinting violet eyes beamed like lode-stars of delight, and she quickly assimilated herself to the arrangements in the new house. The afternoon was spent in madcap merriment and jollification in the garden, with the big St. Bernard rushing at them as if he were making a terrible onslaught and stopping to sit and watch them as he mumbled before them with his big hanging jowl, mealy and velvetty-mouthed, while their father joined in their frolics or sat watching his little winning pets at play. For him, as his long-lost treasures gambolled in joyance around the summer-house, each little violet opened its petals and exhaled into his nostrils its choicest perfume; every patch of waving aspen became a golden-topped corn-field teeming with sweet promises and ready for the scythe; every gold-fish within the pond, nimbly gliding under the spray of the fountain, was a harbinger of transcendent bliss, and the summer-house itself a temple of fame. "Never to part," he thought: "pray God nevermore." To him their return was a foretaste of Heaven. He had but one poignant regret—the regret over the treachery of Marvel. From Pearly's name the name "Gould" was expunged and he called her instead "Guinevere."

When the sun had withdrawn his crimson shield from the heavens, he sat with them in the little parlour and joined in their games of puzzles with little square painted bricks—each brick being as big as the "art of ventriloquism"—making pictures with the bricks as he sat puzzled himself at the skill which they had acquired in placing them in their correct positions, and especially at the synthetic genius of Vallie, who could easily solve the puzzle with his eyes apparently closed, until he discovered that all the time he was squinting through the corners. It was late when they tired of the little games, and stacked their playthings in the recesses of the bedroom, as near as possible to the heads of their cots. Taking off their clothes, he put on their new toilettes de nuit and lifted them into their little beds, when all of a sudden one of the cherubims exclaimed—"Puppa, you tell me and Vallie what we used to say—you know: Pearly forgets, and Vallie dunno; mumma dunno too." They had actually forgotten their evening prayers!

The brilliant assembly at the feet of the chatelaine of Edenhall had page 306absorbed all their mother's attention, and the orisons of the children had been left to a common and ignorant nurse-girl, one of the proletariat, who was practically heathen. They repeated them, after a fashion, to their father's dictation. The elocution and articulation of the two together might have charmed the savage beast and made the Graces smile. The solemn and grave expression and great intensity of devotion on the part of Pearly most amusingly contrasted with the screwed up face of Vallie, who looked as if he was chewing green gooseberries, or just as if Bell's facial paralyis had flattened out one side of his face and contracted into corrugations the other. All the time he was only squinting out of one corner of his eye. He was very proud of his cleverness in seeing people with his eyes shut. He could hold his head down and see you if you were looking through the roof—a pernicious habit in children, as it produces by long continuation organic squint. The exquisite hymn well-known among children was, as far as articulation could utter it, rendered in the form of a grotesque parody, which no language could properly describe:—

"Dendle Dejus, mick an' mile,
Rook upon a illie chile:
Pittie my somepiece T.
Suffer me to come to E.
Vain I would to E be boat;
Gaseous Gord forbid it nott.

(Strong emphasis on 'nott,' as half-finished.)
In the kind'om of I guess,
Give a illie chile a pace:
O stupye my evvie wong,
An' feed the lung and tenner pung;
Day an' night my keeper bee,
Evvie momen' wash wownd me.
Haymenn." (Like a shot out of a gun).⁷

Occasionally, if a mistake were made by their father in relaxing the gravity which he struggled hard to preserve, and he was suspected of any giggling in the middle of the beautiful prayer, the half-open eye of Vallie would fix him dead. Down would drop his uplifted hands, down would pop his head into the middle of the bed, and quickly he could be felt, rolled up into a ball under the bed-clothes, to be followed in an instant by Pearly. Nothing further could be heard after such an event as an interruption had occurred than a few muffled sounds of a conspiracy under the blankets, and the little angels were soon fast asleep. When they had gone to sleep he would return to their cots, lift them up, smooth down their pillows, cover them and sit watching their slumbers for hours, while in the middle of the night he would get up to listen to them breathing, cover them up again with the clothes which they had kicked off, and smooth down their pillows again. His mordant anxieties had disappeared like the genii of the Arabian Nights and he lay half-awake in joy at the thought of his sweet little treasures returned. Shortly after daybreak they would spring page 307out, pull the clothes off him and hop back again, to intone the duet poco piu lento—"I mon to be deshed—I mon to be deshed—I mon to be deshed." One bar and one key. No changes or cadences were introduced into the matutinal refrain—it would proceed in the same barrel-organ way till in about half-an-hour the second part would be produced in the form of a solo from Valentine—"Pearly's deshed and I'm not—Pearly's deshed and I'm not—Pearly's deshed and I'm not," when the doctor, who turned the handle of the metaphorical barrel-organ by telling them to stop singing the duets and solos, might hear the handle of the door creak to the solo of—"Pearly's deshed and I'm not." The enterprising Pearly would appear, stealthily opening the bedroom door to get out, with one stocking in her hand, one stocking half-way on her foot, one arm through the sleeve of her petticoat, but holding two boots in her armpit and running with one last furtive look at her father as she imagined him to be asleep, down the passage to the kitchen with a bundle of clothes to get the girls to tie the tapes at the back.

During the first month since their return they paid a visit to their grandmother, by sailing the ultra-marine seas to Galveston in the steamer, their father's attention all the voyage being occupied in stopping them from falling overboard and climbing up the rigging to unfurl the shrouds. They returned so loaded with toys and promiscuous paraphernalia that an additional charge was made by the Mississippi Steam Navigation Company for the storage of the awkward-looking package on the deck.

From that toy-shop répertoire emanated the bugle call, the cornet réveille and the kettle-drum call-to-arms. Assisted by the music-box, the triangle and the tambourine, they all "a soul of music shed"⁸ through those Summer Hill halls from early dawn till nine o'clock every night. A new nurse-girl was engaged to watch the children when at play and to attend to their clothes in the house. Her predecessor, Lollie, thinking the time had come when she might be expected to make her début and sing her airy solos before the footlights—although she attended to the children with all the care of a little mother, and loved them as if they belonged to her alone—showed a strong desire to throw off the cares of vicarious motherhood. Making an excuse that her own mother was ill and there was nobody to look after the little cottage at home, she drew her wages from the doctor and left, ostensibly for her mother's house, but in good time she emerged on the proscenium of the stage.

The visit to Miriam was productive of a further development in the management of the children, for meeting Guinevere again at her house, the doctor suggested that she should apply for the vacant position of governess at the Kindergarten School in Summer Hill. It might effect a beneficial change in her husband, he told her, if she was able to earn a little more money and keep him from the life of starvation he was living. He gave her a most excellent testimonial and urged her to send it with an application for the vacant position. He farther promised to call upon the proprietress of the school and offer her the tutelage of his children on the page 308understanding that Guinevere was to be given the appointment. There was no necessity for this whatever, for no sooner had the time for the applications advertised closed than the Semiramis⁹, Madame Pennethorne, wrote a letter to Guinevere requesting her to call, and told the doctor that after she had seen Guinevere she would gladly have taken her without any reference at all.

It was a Heaven-sent blessing to the distracted Guinevere. Her connection with Pearly and Valentine, whom she had charge of at the school, made quite a little romance in her dull and monotonous life. It seemed also to have a good effect upon Marmaduke. He put his shoulder to the wheel and helped to shift their few sticks of furniture, which might verily have all gone into a hand-cart or under the shed of glue-pot Ike. They rented a little cottage with two dwelling-rooms in the suburb of Summer Hill, and as she started off with Cyril, who was a further acquisition to the seminary, Guinevere felt a glow of pride and happiness in the possession of the modest home which she had obtained, and lingered on in hope and patience, praying for the ultimate redemption of her husband.

Eugene took Pearly and Valentine himself on their first day to the Kindergarten establishment and interviewed the schoolmistress with them in her private drawingroom. His first inquiry was what subjects the lady taught in her priory.

"For girls above ten," said the Semiramis of the school, sitting in a basket-chair quite de rigueur and with an air of haut ton and distinction: "English history, grammaire de grammaires and conversation in French, Latin; euclid, geometry, algebra, mathematics, upper, lower and mixed; philosophy, physiology and biology; hygiene; sociology and plutology. For girls over ten, thirty dollars a quarter including their dinner; music, drawing and dancing, four dollars per quarter extra."

The doctor remarking that he had no girls over ten: that his little ones were only four and six, respectively: that they had scarcely ever seen the inside of a school in their lives, and that they did not know much more than the alphabet, the lady again expatiated upon the excellence of the system which she had in force at "The Summer Hill Priory," and glibly enumerated the collection of subjects for children under ten.

"For children under ten but over four, whether girls or boys," said the lady, "twenty-one dollars for spelling, reading, arithmetic, grammar, geography, poetry, syntax and prosody, French rudiments, parsing, composition, history; and for girls, needlework, knitting and crewel-work; music, drawing, painting, and dancing four dollars extra—no dinner. For children under seven, calisthenics and position, backboard and deportment, rudiments of English, discipline and obedience, twelve dollars per quarter—no dinner; reduction of half-a-dollar for two; copy-books, stationery, pens, inks, pencils, slates, one dollar per quarter extra. One quarter's notice or half-a-quarter's fee before the removal of a pupil."

The lady had all the abstruse, the recondite, and the primary page 309subjects on the tip of her tongue; she could rattle them off as readily as Pearly and Valentine could rattle off the duets and solos in the early morn in the bedroom, or Brosie the points of a thoroughbred terrier; but the doctor remarked that he thought his children required, for a beginning, a simple and plain knowledge of English reading, writing, arithmetic, and an insight into geography; that they might fairly dispense with the music in the case of the little boy, inasmuch as, amongst the long procession of his fellow-students at the several universities, he had never known one to succeed in anything else if he devoted his time to music; furthermore, that Valentine had shown a great predilection for the raucous music of the bugle, the triangle and the drum, and that he presumed the lady did not impart tuition on these instruments, which he had in abundance at home. As far as the dinner was concerned, he would much prefer that they came home.

The lady further expressed her astonishment when Eugene inquired if Mrs. Payne was expected soon, that she had already taken the subaltern position of fifth assistant in the school, as she had observed from her testimonials that Guinevere had been for two years a matriculated student of the University of Philadelphia and had taken an exhibition in the School of Natural History and Science.

The arrangement was entered into, and the doctor, after paying the lady a quarter's fee in advance, left his little Pearly and Vallie to the tender care of the strange lady. They eagerly ran after her into the schoolroom.

Very soon after their inception, they came running home so excited that they scarcely waited a moment, when Pearly with joyous empressement¹⁰ began—"Puppa, puppa, listen! listen! I'm up to 'sheep' and Vallie can't spell a mouse. Such a nice lady d'ere, d'ere, puppa, and she kissed me three times, but Vallie woon't let her kiss him, so she cried; wasn't he naughty, puppa? and she's got a illie boy, such a nice illie boy, puppa, and Vallie says he can fight him with his illie finger. We have to march round the school with our hands on the top of our heads, but Vallie was such a naughty boy, puppa, he woon't do it and so the lady stood him in the corner, but he woon't stand on one leg in the corner so he ran outside and I ran after him jess now to b'ing him back. A illie girl, such a nice illie girl, puppa, her name's Effie, tole me we've got to cally boards on our heads around the room this afternoon, so you make Vallie come back and do it eh! puppa? Dunce, Dunce, double D, can't spell his A B C!"

"Shut up," retorted Vallie, "I can; I can spell more'n you and I can cally more boards'n you; see! She can't spell nuffin, puppa."

"Yes I can," said Pearly, "I'm up to sheep and I can spell a mouse easy, more'n you can—m-o-s-e mouse; there, see!"—and off she ran, dragging her little brother along by the hand as fast as her legs could carry her. The new attraction soon ingratiated itself into the hearts of the little fresh scholars. They marched merrily away on their diurnal attendance with their shining morning faces, and at last, after six weeks of drum, bugle page 310and triangle, the villa at Summer Hill was during the school hours, from nine till twelve in the morning and from two till four in the afternoon, as it was before; but oh! the difference to that St. Bernard, Prince! The desperate little-finger battle between Vallie and Guinevere's little boy, Cyril, was never known to take place, and the three little friends clung to one another at school and at play, hallowed by the teachings and the graces of the paramount, peerless and ineffable Guinevere, whose heroic self-sacrifice over-topped her other manifold charms.

The departure of Madamoiselle Lollie Delaine for her mother's home, but presumably for the music-halls of the city, proved a sad loss to Pearly and Valentine. The new nursery-governess was of a harsh and cold-blooded disposition. She carried out her duties in a perfunctory sort of way, most of her time being expended in killing cockroaches in her bedroom, but so many complaints from the children came to their father's ears about the cruel Emma smacking and pinching them that he was obliged to remonstrate with her time after time; but acting upon the principle of not discharging a servant unless on some good grounds, she was still for a time retained in his employ. Madamoiselle Emma, too, had a notion that her voice was well worth the listening to; she would occasionally with some little discrimination set up a song in opposition to the more consistent warbler, Lillie. It was nearly always a song of a different timbre and invariably contained a soupçon of sentiment. The time chosen for her vocalisms mostly synchronized with the time chosen by the bird of Paradise for her visits to the children.

Marvel had applied to the court for an order for access to the children, but her husband had thrown no obstacle in the way of her coming and going whenever she felt inclined. She also now and then was allowed by the doctor to take them out for strolls among the public gardens, and to entertain them in little fêtes with fruit and cakes there.

Some time after the trial had ended and the peremptory order by the judge for the handing over of the children to her husband was made, the bird of Paradise took up her abode in the suburb of Summer Hill, living in one of the principal hostelries, whose manageress was the very woman who had been her closest companion in Bendemeer—the Mexican lady who had practically divorced herself from her husband irrespectively of the law courts. In the caravanserai where she paid ten dollars a week for board and entertainment amongst the viveurs¹¹ of the city, Marvel consorted with the dame d'hotel and the wool-merchant's clerk from Cocklebrook, still hankering after the bird of Paradise. He lived in lodgings, still unmarried, as he could not afford to keep up a house of his own. His principal possessions were a twisted amber cigar-holder and a beautifully embossed manatee cigar-case. He wore pink coral buttons on his waistcoat and he was everlastingly redolent of perfume and cigars, and chewing the nib of a tooth-pick. Her hotel was two miles distant from where her husband lived. From there she could drive in a hansom once a week or whenever she had an hour to spare from the page 311local archery club's ground; open the front door of her husband's house and sit for a while with the children in the ante-room set apart in the day-time for her accommodation; strutting in and driving haughtily away again after filling the stomachs of the children with rich currant cakes—geological cakes they were sometimes—and unripe or over-ripe bananas. The children were often ill, and no wonder. The doctor sent messages to her by Pearly to say that the gorges were making them ill; but instead of desisting from the practice she commanded the children to tease him with little mockeries and persiflage¹² and to gather up the skins of the bananas, carry them out of the room and throw them at their father's head. In this manner, although they forgot her considerate orders when they left the room, the patronage of the paradisal bird to the Summer Hill home lasted for a few months. Her complexion for the occasion of her visits always suggested that she had lived all her life in a greenhouse.

The loud slamming of the door as she entered was a sort of signal that the concert befitting the occasion of the visit of the celestial Marvel was about to commence. "Up to yer neck in Irish blood, up to yer neck in slarter," by Miss Lillie Delaine; followed by "She whispered good-bye to her children so dear," by Miss Emma Powell, although both songs were sometimes rendered simultaneously, reminded the hypersensitive Marvel of the consternation, terror and disruption in her Edenhall palatial music-hall, when the judge's order was made; while "The jury winked at the counsel" by Miss Lillie Delaine, assisted by Frederick in an obligato chorus of "Glory, Glory, Alleluleah!" brought the scene of the Court "in Chambers" vividly before her mind; after which "Yes I will take you back, Kathleen," sung with great pathos by Miss E. Powell, reminded Marvel of the fact that she still had a forgiving husband and she could return whenever she chose.

Regularly after the visits of Marvel, the children would appear at the end of the passage like large wax-dolls in the face, with a beautiful rosanaline cheek fading into a lovely mother-o'-pearl nimbus, and Pearly's flowing tresses done up into lofty and intricate spiral towers, à la mode de cockatoo, with his crest erected. Upon close examination, however, it was found that the beautiful tints arose from the application of a corrosive chemical cosmetic called cammeline claiming the motto "My face is my fortune, Sir, she said." Sometimes créme de violet was used or pearl-cream; sometimes powders called 'bloom of Ninon,' and veloutine or Bate's sulphur salt; while a lotion used was called 'Fay's arsical face lotion' and another 'the always young and pretty lotion.'¹³ Once they came out wearing things like racehorse muzzles, called toilet-masks or face-gloves, for bleaching and preserving the complexion. The doctor put them in the fire. Pearly's pretty hair was changed into a golden bronze with aerine and yellow with aureoline. The everlasting curl fringe was produced with a greasy application called frizetta, and it was done up something like an ondulée bandeau coiffure¹⁴. The story recounted by the beauteous Pearly and Valentine of the way in which the paradisal Marvel, out of a little bottle page 312which she carried always with her in her dress pocket, painted their faces with a camel-hair brush, and wound up by giving a few complacent touches before the mirror to her own, brought the genuine blush to the cheeks of Lillie, and confirmed the truth of Guinevere's description of the habits of the 'paradisea rubra' from New Guinea. So artistically was the paint applied and so tenacious was the injurious compound to the healthy nut-brown and roseate complexions of the children that it took the nursegirl quite half-an-hour rubbing and scraping it off, as directed by the doctor. He sent in little reproofs by the children to their mother against the practice, but she disdained to take any notice of such objections from him, and although it was ruining the natural blossoms and the roses on their faces, Marvel treated all his remonstrances with acrimonious contempt and vitriolic rebuffs.