"I have hunted rats once or twice a year now these seventy years or more, and I can't say I am tired yet. And there is Master Fred going at it, for the first time in his life, as fiercely as any of us old veterans, and he has a very good eye for a hit, I can tell you, if it is any satisfaction to you. Ha! hoigh Vixen! hoigh Carey! that's it--there he goes!"

"Now, grandpapa," said Beatrice, catching hold of his hand, "I want just to speak to you. Don't you think we might have a little charade-acting on Monday to enliven the evening a little?"

"Eh? what? More charades? Well, they are very pretty sport, only I think they would astonish the natives here a little. Are we to have the end of Shylock?"

"No," said Beatrice, "we never condescend to repeat ourselves. We have a new word and a beauty, and don't you think it will do very well?"

"I am afraid grandmamma will think you are going to take to private theatricals."

"Well, it won't be nearly such regular acting as the last," said Beatrice, "I do not think it would do to take another half-play for so many spectators, but a scene or two mostly in dumb show would make a very nice diversion. Only say that you consent, grandpapa."

"Well, I don't see any harm in it," said grandpapa, "so long as grandmamma does not mind it. I suppose your mamma does not, Henrietta?"

"O no," said Henrietta, with a certain mental reservation that she would make her not mind it, or at any rate not gainsay it. Fred's calling her affected was enough to make her consent, and bring her mamma to consent to anything; for so little is it really the nature of woman to exercise power, that if she domineers, it is sure to be compensated by some subjection in some other manner: and if Henrietta ruled her mother, she was completely under the dominion of Fred and Beatrice. Themistocles'

wife might rule Athens, but she was governed by her son.

After this conversation they went in, and found Aunt Roger very busy, recommending servants to Aunt Mary, and grandmamma enforcing all she said. The visit soon came to an end, and they went on to the Pleasance, where the inspection did not prove quite as agreeable as on the first occasion; for grandmamma and Beatrice had very different views respecting the appropriation of the rooms, and poor Mrs. Frederick Langford was hara.s.sed and wearied by her vain attempts to accede to the wishes of both, and vex neither. Grandmamma was determined too to look over every corner, and discuss every room, and Henrietta, in despair at the fatigue her mother was obliged to go through, kept on seeking in vain for a seat for her, and having at last discovered a broken-backed kitchen chair in some of the regions below, kept diligently carrying it after her in all her peregrinations. She was constantly wishing that Uncle Geoffrey would come, but in vain; and between the long talking at Sutton Leigh, the wandering about the house, and the many discussions, her mamma was completely tired out, and obliged, when they came home, to confess that she had a headache. Henrietta fairly wished her safe at Rocksand.

While Henrietta was attending her mother to her own room, and persuading her to lay up for the evening, Beatrice, whose head was full of but one matter, pursued Mrs. Langford into the study, and propounded her grand object. As she fully expected, she met with a flat refusal, and sitting down in her arm-chair, Mrs. Langford very earnestly began with "Now listen to me, my dear child," and proceeded with a long story of certain private theatricals some forty years ago, which to her certain knowledge, ended in a young lady eloping with a music master. Beatrice set to work to argue: in the first place it was not probable that either she or Henrietta would run away with their cousins; secondly, that the former elopement was not chargeable on poor Shakespeare; thirdly, that these were not private theatricals at all.

"And pray what are they, then--when you dress yourselves up, and speak the speeches out as boldly as Mrs. Siddons, or any of them?"

"You pay us a great compliment," said Beatrice, who could sometimes be pert when alone with grandmamma; and she then went on with her explanation of how very far this was from anything that could be called theatrical; it was the guessing the word, not their acting, that was the important point. The distinction was too fine for grandmamma; it was play-acting, and that was enough for her, and she would not have it done.

"But grandpapa liked it, and had given full consent." This was a powerful piece of ordnance which Beatrice had kept in reserve, but at the first moment the shot did not tell.

"Ladies were the best judges in such a case as this," said Mrs.

Langford, "and let who would consent, she would never have her granddaughters standing up, speaking speeches out of Shakespeare, before a whole room full of company."

"Well, then, grandmamma, I'll tell you what: to oblige you, we will not have one single scene out of Shakespeare--not one. Won't that do?"

"You will go to some other play-book, and that is worse," said Mrs.

Langford.

"No, no, we will not: we will do every bit out of our own heads, and it shall be almost all Fred and Alex; Henrietta and I will scarcely come in at all. And it will so shorten the evening, and amuse every one so nicely! and grandpapa has said we may."

Mrs. Langford gave a sort of sigh. "Ah, well! you always will have your own way, and I suppose you must; but I never thought to see such things in my house. In my day, young people thought no more of a scheme when their elders had once said, 'No.'"

"Yes, only you must not say so, grandmamma. I am sure we would give it up if you did; but pray do not--we will manage very well."

"And put the whole house in a mess, as you did last time; turn everything upside down. I tell you, Beatrice, I can't have it done. I shall want the study to put out the supper in."

"We can dress in our own rooms, then," said Beatrice, "never mind that."

"Well, then, if you will make merry-andrews of yourselves, and your fathers and mothers like to let you, I can't help it--that's all I have to say," said Mrs. Langford, walking out of the room; while Fred entered from the other side a moment after. "Victory, victory, my dear Fred!"

cried Beatrice, darting to meet him in an ecstasy. "I have prevailed: you find me in the hour of victory. The a.s.sa.s.sin for ever! announced for Monday night, before a select audience!"

"Well, you are an irresistible Queen Bee," said Fred; "why Alex has just been telling me ever so much that his mother told him about grandmamma's dislike to it. I thought the whole concern a gone 'c.o.o.n, as they say in America."

"I got grandpapa first," said Beatrice, "and then I persuaded her; she told me it would lead to all sorts of mischief, and gave me a long lecture which had nothing to do with it. But I found out at last that the chief points which alarmed her were poor Shakespeare and the confusion in the study; so by giving up those two I gained everything."

"You don't mean that you gave up bully Bottom?"

"Yes, I do; but you need not resign your a.s.ses' ears. You shall wear them in the character of King Midas."

"I think," said the ungrateful Fred, "that you might as well have given it all up together as Bottom."

"No, no; just think what capabilities there are in Midas. We will decidedly make him King of California, and I'll be the priestess of Apollo; there is an old three-legged epergne-stand that will make a most excellent tripod. And only think of the whispering into the reeds, 'King Midas has the ears of an a.s.s.' I would have made more of a fight for Bottom, if that had not come into my head."

"But you will have nothing to do."

"That helped to conciliate. I promised we girls should appear very little, and for the sake of effect, I had rather Henrietta broke on the world in all her beauty at the end. I do look forward to seeing her as Queen Eleanor; she will look so regal."

Fred smiled, for he delighted in his sister's praises. "You are a wondrous damsel, busy one," said he, "to be content to play second fiddle."

"Second fiddle! As if I were not the great moving spring! Trust me, you would never write yourself down an a.s.s but for the Queen Bee. How shall we ever get your ears from Allonfield? Sat.u.r.day night, and only till Monday evening to do everything in!"

"Oh, you will do it," said Fred. "I wonder what you and Henrietta cannot do between you! Oh, there is Uncle Geoffrey come in," he exclaimed, as he heard the front door open.

"And I must go and dress," said Beatrice, seized with a sudden haste, which did not speak well for the state of her conscience.

Uncle Geoffrey was in the hall, taking off his mud-bespattered gaiters.

"So you are entered with the vermin, Fred," called he, as the two came out of the drawing-room.

"O how we wished for you, Uncle Geoffrey! but how did you hear it?"

"I met Alex just now. Capital sport you must have had. Are you only just come in?"

"No, we were having a consultation about the charades," said Fred; "the higher powers consent to our having them on Monday."

"Grandmamma approving?" asked Uncle Geoffrey.

"O yes," said Fred, in all honesty, "she only objected to our taking a regular scene in a play, and 'coming it as strong' as we did the other night; so it is to be all extemporary, and it will do famously."

Beatrice, who had been waiting in the dark at the top of the stairs, listening, was infinitely rejoiced that her project had been explained so plausibly, and yet in such perfect good faith, and she flew off to dress in high spirits. Had she mentioned it to her father, he would have doubted, taken it as her scheme, and perhaps put a stop to it: but hearing of it from Frederick, whose pleasures were so often thwarted, was likely to make him far more unwilling to object. For its own sake, she knew he had no objection to the sport; it was only for that of his mother; and since he had heard of her as consenting, all was right. No, could Beatrice actually say so to her own secret soul?

She could not; but she could smother the still small voice that checked her, in a mult.i.tude of plans, and projects, and criticisms, and airy castles, and, above all, the pleasure of triumph and dominion, and the resolution not to yield, and the delight of leading.

CHAPTER XII.

"Our hearts and all our members, being mortified from all worldly and carnal l.u.s.ts:" so speaks the collect with which we begin the new year--such the prayer to which the lips of the young Langfords said, "Amen:" but what was its application to them? What did they do with the wicked world in their own guarded homes? There was Uncle Geoffrey, he was in the world. It might be for him to pray for that spirit which enabled him to pa.s.s unscathed through the perils of his profession, neither tempted to grasp at the honours nor the wealth which lay in his way, unhardened and unsoured by the contact of the sin and selfishness on every side. This might indeed be the world. There was Jessie Carey, with her love of dress, and admiration, and pleasure; she should surely pray that she might live less to the vanities of the world; there were others, whose worn countenances spoke of hearts devoted to the cares of the world; but to those fair, fresh, happy young things, early taught how to prize vain pomp and glory, their minds as yet free from anxiety, looking from a safe distance on the busy field of trial and temptation; were not they truly kept from that world which they had renounced?

Alas! that they did not lay to heart that the world is everywhere; that if education had placed them above being tempted by the poorer, cheaper, and more ordinary attractions, yet allurements there were for them also.

A pleasure pursued with headlong vehemence because it was of their own devising, love of rule, the spirit of rivalry, the want of submission; these were of the world. Other temptations had not yet reached them, but if they gave way to those which a.s.sailed them in their early youth, how could they expect to have strength to bear up against the darker and stronger ones which would meet their riper years?