CHAPTER VII

NANCE'S STORY

The next day Mrs. Hervey drove over to Caryll Place, where she had a long talk with her sister, and made acquaintance with little Rosamond.

'She is a sweet little girl,' she said, when she and Aunt Mattie were by themselves. 'I do hope it will answer for her to come over to us, as we had thought of. Even though she would be mostly with the little ones, you could let her spend a day now and then with all the boys, I hope, Mattie? It would be so good for them, and I _think_, I _hope_ they would not be too rough for her. They must have been unusually unruly yesterday.'

Mrs. Caryll hesitated. She was anxious not to disappoint her sister, as she looked up in her face with her gentle, pleading brown eyes--eyes so like Archie's. Mrs. Hervey was several years older than Aunt Mattie, and yet in some ways she seemed younger. There was something almost child-like about her which made it difficult to believe that she was the mother of the five st.u.r.dy boys. And to tell the truth, she often felt overwhelmed by them. 'If only one of them had been a girl!' she used to say to herself. 'She would have had such a softening influence upon the others!' and she had hailed with delight the prospect of little Rosamond making one of the Moor Edge party to some extent for a time.

'You're not thinking of giving it up?' she went on anxiously.

'No,' replied Aunt Mattie. 'I think now that Rosamond herself would be very disappointed. Her uncle said something to her last night which I see has made a great impression upon her. She really wants to be a sister to them all, for the time. But I think it _will_ be necessary for you--or his father rather--to speak very seriously to Justin. I am afraid there is a touch of the bully about him which seems to have got worse of late, and it is such a bad example for the younger ones.'

'Of course it is,' Mrs. Hervey agreed. 'We have been speaking to him this morning about his rudeness to Miss Ward while we were away. We made her tell about it, poor thing--and on the whole I must say he took it well. He didn't attempt any excuses. And Pat has been _very_ nice, much brighter than usual. I can't help hoping that the thought of Miss Mouse'--she smiled as she said the name-'is going to put them all on their mettle.'

'I shall be very glad indeed if it is so,' said Mrs. Caryll, and when her sister went home again, she carried with her, to her houseful of boys, the news that the little stranger was to join the schoolroom party the next day but one, for to-day was Sat.u.r.day.

They were all more or less pleased. Justin the least so perhaps, unless it were that he thought it rather beneath him to seem to care one way or another about a thing of the kind, and he repeated that it would make no difference to _him_, as Miss Mouse's companions were to be the two little boys.

'Oh, but she's going to be with us on half-holidays, very often,' said Archie.

'What a nuisance!' said Justin, but in his heart he was not ill-pleased.

There was a good deal of love of show-off about him, and a little girl, especially a quiet, gentle child like Rosamond, seemed to him very well suited to fill the place of admirer to his important self.

'We must take her to see old Nance, the first chance we get,' said Pat.

'We almost promised we would, you remember?'

'Do you think Aunt Mattie wouldn't mind,' said Archie doubtfully.

'_Mind_,' repeated Pat, 'of course not. We've never been told we're not to speak to the Crags. All papa said was that he didn't want us to have Bob too much about the place. And I daresay that was partly because the servants are nasty to him, and might get him into trouble somehow or other.

'Oh well yes,' said Archie, who was always inclined to see things in the pleasantest light, 'I daresay it was for that, and Miss Mouse does want very much to go to see their queer cottage.'

And on Monday morning little Rosamond made her appearance for the second time at Moor Edge. She had come over in her aunt's pony-cart, which was to fetch her again in the afternoon, Mrs. Caryll intending very often to drive over for this purpose herself.

Things promised very well in the schoolroom. Miss Ward was a good teacher, and Rosamond was a pleasant child to teach. Three days in the week she was alone with the little ones, the three other days Archie and she did several of their lessons together, for it was only on alternate mornings that he went with his brothers to the vicarage for Latin and Greek, which Miss Ward did not undertake. So a week or more pa.s.sed quietly and uneventfully. The two first half-holidays were not spent by Rosamond at Moor Edge, as her aunt thought it better not to throw the little girl too much with the elder boys till she had grown more accustomed to being among so many, for a change of this kind is often rather trying to an only child.

But on the second Wednesday, when the little girl was starting in the morning, she asked her aunt if she might spend that afternoon with 'the boys,' and not come home till later.

Mrs. Caryll was pleased at her expressing this wish.

'Certainly, dear,' she said. 'I shall very likely drive over myself to bring you back. I have not seen Aunt Flora,'--for so Rosamond had been told to call Mrs. Hervey--'for some days. Have you made some plan for this afternoon?'

'Only to go for a walk with the big ones,' Miss Mouse replied. 'I daresay we'll go on the moor, for I've hardly been there at all.' And after the early dinner at Moor Edge the children set off for their ramble, having informed Miss Ward that they had no intention of coming home till tea-time.

'Aunt Mattie's coming to fetch me herself,' said Rosamond, 'and now the evenings are rather cold and get so soon dark, she is sure to come in a close carriage, so mightn't we have tea a _little_ later, Miss Ward, so as to be able to stay out as long as it's light?'

She looked up coaxingly in Miss Ward's face.

'I don't think it would do to change the hour,' the governess replied.

'But I won't mind if you're not in just to the minute.'

Miss Ward's not often so good-natured as that,' said Justin. 'I suppose she "favours" you because you're a girl, Miss Mouse.'

'I think she's very kind to everybody,' said Rosamond.

'I'm sure she's had nothing to complain of lately,' said Justin. 'We've been as good as good. I'm getting rather tired of it.'

They were close to the moor by this time. It was a mild day for the time of year, and the sky was very clear.

'We might go a good long walk,' said Archie.

'Humph,' said Justin, 'I don't call that much fun. Anyway I mean to go first to Bob Crag's. I don't know what he's doing about those ferrets.

He's had time enough to find out about them by now.'

'What was there to find out?' asked Archie. 'He told us ever so long ago that he could get them at Maxter's.'

'Oh, but you didn't hear,' said Pat. 'It was one morning you weren't with us. He ran after us to say that these ones were sold too. And he had heard of some other place farther off. I don't believe we'll ever get any.'

'Is that the boy whose old grandmother lives in the queer hut on the moor?' asked Rosamond eagerly. 'I remember the first time I came here you said you'd take me to see it some day. Can't we go that way now?'

'We _are_ going that way,' said Justin. 'You're sure you won't be frightened of the old granny? For if you were, Aunt Mattie wouldn't let you come with us again.'

Rosamond opened her eyes very wide.

'Frightened of her,' she repeated. 'Why should I be? Isn't she a kind old woman?'

'Yes,' said Pat, 'but she's very queer. If you don't like her, you need never come back to see her again.'

'And in that case you needn't say anything about it to Aunt Mattie,'

added Justin.

'But _of course_ I won't be frightened,' said Rosamond, a little indignantly. 'I've never been easily frightened. Even when I was only two, mamma said I laughed at the n.i.g.g.e.rs singing and dancing at the seaside. Aunt Mattie would think me very silly if I were frightened.'

'She'd be more vexed with us than with you,' said Justin. 'I think on the whole you needn't say anything about the Crags to her. You see you don't quite understand being with boys. _We_ don't go in and tell every little tiny thing we've done. Miss Ward would be sure to find fault with _something_. And _we_ hate tell-taleing; girls don't think of it the same way.'

'_I_ do,' said Rosamond, flushing a little. 'If you think I'd be a tell-tale I'd rather not go with you.'

'Oh nonsense,' said Archie. 'I'm sure Jus can't think that. Anybody can see you're not that sort of a girl.'

All these remarks put the little girl on her mettle, and, besides this, she was most anxious to gain the good opinion of the two elder boys and to get on happily with them as her aunt had so much wished. Nor was she by nature in the least a cowardly child.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NANCE.]