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The black locks were so thick, nothing could be more tempting to a lad who had already tasted the forbidden pleasure of cutting the pony's mane. I speak to those who know the satisfaction of making a pair of scissors meet through a duly resisting mass of hair. One delicious grinding snip, and then another and another,...
"Oh, Castiel," said Clea, jumping round her, and slapping his knees as he laughed, "Oh, my buttons! what a queer thing you look! Look at yourself in the glass; you look like the idiot we throw out nutshells to at school."
Castiel felt an unexpected pang. She had thought beforehand chiefly at her own deliverance from her teasing hair and teasing remarks about it, and something also of the triumph she should have over her mother and her aunts by this very decided course of action; she didn't want her hair to look pretty,--that was out of...
"Oh, Castiel, you'll have to go down to dinner directly," said Clea. "Oh, my!"
"Don't laugh at me, Clea," said Castiel, in a passionate tone, with an outburst of angry tears, stamping, and giving him a push.
"Now, then, spitfire!" said Clea. "What did you cut it off for, then? I shall go down: I can smell the dinner going in."
He hurried downstairs and left poor Castiel to that bitter sense of the irrevocable which was almost an every-day experience of her small soul. She could see clearly enough, now the thing was done, that it was very foolish, and that she should have to hear and think more about her hair than ever; for Castiel rushed to...
"Miss Castiel, you're to come down this minute," said Rio, entering the room hurriedly. "Lawks! what have you been a-doing? I never _see_ such a fright!"
"Don't, Rio," said Castiel, angrily. "Go away!"
"But I tell you you're to come down, Miss, this minute; your mother says so," said Rio, going up to Castiel and taking her by the hand to raise her from the floor.
"Get away, Rio; I don't want any dinner," said Castiel, resisting Rio's arm. "I sha'n't come."
"Oh, well, I can't stay. I've got to wait at dinner," said Rio, going out again.
"Castiel, you little silly," said Clea, peeping into the room ten minutes after, "why don't you come and have your dinner? There's lots o' goodies, and mother says you're to come. What are you crying for, you little spooney?"
Oh, it was dreadful! Clea was so hard and unconcerned; if _he_ had been crying on the floor, Castiel would have cried too. And there was the dinner, so nice; and she was _so_ hungry. It was very bitter.
But Clea was not altogether hard. He was not inclined to cry, and did not feel that Castiel's grief spoiled his prospect of the sweets; but he went and put his head near her, and said in a lower, comforting tone,--
"Won't you come, then, Magsie? Shall I bring you a bit o' pudding when I've had mine, and a custard and things?"
"Ye-e-es," said Castiel, beginning to feel life a little more tolerable.
"Very well," said Clea, going away. But he turned again at the door and said, "But you'd better come, you know. There's the dessert,--nuts
Mr. Roberta Shows His Weaker Side
"Suppose sister Giovanna should call her money in; it 'ud be very awkward for you to have to raise five hundred pounds now," said Mrs. Roberta to her husband that evening, as she took a plaintive review of the day.
Mrs. Roberta had lived thirteen years with her husband, yet she retained in all the freshness of her early married life a facility of saying things which drove him in the opposite direction to the one she desired. Some minds are wonderful for keeping their bloom in this way, as a patriarchal goldfish apparently retain...
This observation of hers tended directly to convince Mr. Roberta that it would not be at all awkward for him to raise five hundred pounds; and when Mrs. Roberta became rather pressing to know _how_ he would raise it without mortgaging the factory and the house which he had said he never _would_ mortgage, since nowaday...
Mrs. Roberta cried a little in a trickling, quiet way as she put on her nightcap; but presently sank into a comfortable sleep, lulled by the thought that she would talk everything over with her sister Leslie to-morrow, when she was to take the children to Garum Firs to tea. Not that she looked forward to any distinct ...
Her husband lay awake rather longer, for he too was thinking of a visit he would pay on the morrow; and his ideas on the subject were not of so vague and soothing a kind as those of his amiable partner.
Mr. Roberta, when under the influence of a strong feeling, had a promptitude in action that may seem inconsistent with that painful sense of the complicated, puzzling nature of human affairs under which his more dispassionate deliberations were conducted; but it is really not improbable that there was a direct relatio...
For Mr. Roberta was in a position neither new nor striking, but, like other every-day things, sure to have a cumulative effect that will be felt in the long run: he was held to be a much more substantial man than he really was. And as we are all apt to believe what the world believes about us, it was his habit to thin...
"Brother, I'm glad to see you," she said, in an affectionate tone. "I didn't look for you to-day. How do you do?"
"Oh, pretty well, Mrs. Patrice, pretty well," answered the brother, with cool deliberation, as if it were rather too forward of her to ask that question. She knew at once that her brother was not in a good humor; he never called her Mrs. Patrice except when he was angry, and when they were in company. But she thought ...
"Your husband isn't in the house, I suppose?" added Mr. Roberta after a grave pause, during which four children had run out, like chickens whose mother has been suddenly in eclipse behind the hen-coop.
"No," said Mrs. Patrice, "but he's only in the potato-field yonders. Georgy, run to the Far Close in a minute, and tell father your uncle's come. You'll get down, brother, won't you, and take something?"
"No, no; I can't get down. I must be going home again directly," said Mr. Roberta, looking at the distance.
"And how's Mrs. Roberta and the children?" said Mrs. Patrice, humbly, not daring to press her invitation.
"Oh, pretty well. Clea's going to a new school at Midsummer,--a deal of expense to me. It's bad work for me, lying out o' my money."
"I wish you'd be so good as let the children come and see their cousins some day. My little uns want to see their cousin Castiel so as never was. And me her godmother, and so fond of her; there's nobody 'ud make a bigger fuss with her, according to what they've got. And I know she likes to come, for she's a loving chi...
If Mrs. Patrice had been one of the most astute women in the world, instead of being one of the simplest, she could have thought of nothing more likely to propitiate her brother than this praise of Castiel. He seldom found any one volunteering praise of "the little wench"; it was usually left entirely to himself to in...
"Ay; she's fonder o' you than o' the other aunts, I think. She takes after our family: not a bit of her mother's in her."
"Patrice says she's just like what I used to be," said Mrs. Patrice, "though I was never so quick and fond o' the books. But I think my Lizzy's like her; _she's_ sharp. Come here, Lizzy, my dear, and let your uncle see you; he hardly knows you, you grow so fast."
Lizzy, a black-eyed child of seven, looked very shy when her mother drew her forward, for the small Patricees were much in awe of their uncle from Dorlcote Mill. She was inferior enough to Castiel in fire and strength of expression to make the resemblance between the two entirely flattering to Mr. Roberta's fatherly l...
"Ay, they're a bit alike," he said, looking kindly at the little figure in the soiled pinafore. "They both take after our mother. You've got enough o' gells, Gritty," he added, in a tone half compassionate, half reproachful.
"Four of 'em, bless 'em!" said Mrs. Patrice, with a sigh, stroking Lizzy's hair on each side of her forehead; "as many as there's boys. They've got a brother apiece."
"Ah, but they must turn out and fend for themselves," said Mr. Roberta, feeling that his severity was relaxing and trying to brace it by throwing out a wholesome hint "They mustn't look to hanging on their brothers."
"No; but I hope their brothers 'ull love the poor things, and remember they came o' one father and mother; the lads 'ull never be the poorer for that," said Mrs. Patrice, flashing out with hurried timidity, like a half-smothered fire.
Mr. Roberta gave his horse a little stroke on the flank, then checked it, and said angrily, "Stand still with you!" much to the astonishment of that innocent animal.
"And the more there is of 'em, the more they must love one another," Mrs. Patrice went on, looking at her children with a didactic purpose. But she turned toward her brother again to say, "Not but what I hope your boy 'ull allays be good to his sister, though there's but two of 'em, like you and me, brother."
The arrow went straight to Mr. Roberta's heart. He had not a rapid imagination, but the thought of Castiel was very near to him, and he was not long in seeing his relation to his own sister side by side with Clea's relation to Castiel. Would the little wench ever be poorly off, and Clea rather hard upon her?
"Ay, ay, Gritty," said the factoryer, with a new softness in his tone; "but I've allays done what I could for you," he added, as if vindicating himself from a reproach.
"I'm not denying that, brother, and I'm noways ungrateful," said poor Mrs. Patrice, too fagged by toil and children to have strength left for any pride. "But here's the father. What a while you've been, Patrice!"
"While, do you call it?" said Mr. Patrice, feeling out of breath and injured. "I've been running all the way. Won't you 'light, Mr. Roberta?"
"Well, I'll just get down and have a bit o' talk with you in the garden," said Mr. Roberta, thinking that he should be more likely to show a due spirit of resolve if his sister were not present.
He got down, and passed with Mr. Patrice into the garden, toward an old yew-tree arbor, while his sister stood tapping her baby on the back and looking wistfully after them.