"And these are my two eldest daughters, Felice and Maggie," continued Mr. Leonard, pointing to two pretty, graceful-looking young girls, who nodded carelessly to the governess; "and these are your pupils," he added, pointing to two little boys, apparently between thirteen and ten, and to a little girl, who, from her resemblance to the younger, was evidently his twin sister. "Albert, Royal, Jennie, come up and shake hands with Miss Randall."
"Miss Randall! why, Licie, that"s the name of that nice gentleman who brought you the roses last night, ain"t it?" said little Jennie, looking up cunningly at her elder sister.
Miss Felice glanced at Miss Maggie and smiled and blushed, and began twisting one of her ringlets over her taper fingers, looking very conscious indeed.
"May I ask if you are any relation to young Mr. Randall, the poet, of New York?" said Mrs. Leonard, pushing up her spectacles and trying to see Georgia through the thick vail which still covered her face.
"Why, mamma, what a question! Of course she"s not," said Miss Felice, rather pettishly; "he has no relatives, you know. There"s plenty of the name."
Georgia threw back her vail at this moment, and stooped to kiss little Jennie, who came up and held her rosy mouth puckered for that purpose, as if she was quite accustomed to be treated to that sort of small coin.
"Oh, Felice, what a beautiful face!" exclaimed Miss Maggie, in an impulsive whisper.
"Ye-es, she"s not bad-looking--for a governess," drawled Miss Felice.
"They are generally so frightfully ugly. She"s a great deal too pale though, and too solemn looking; it gives me the dismals to look at her; and she"s ever so much too tall" (Miss Felice, be it known, was rather on the dumpy pattern than otherwise), "and too slight for her size, and her forehead"s too high, and her--"
"Oh, Felice, stop! You"ll try to make out she"s as ugly as sin directly.
Did you ever see such splendid eyes?"
"I don"t like black eyes," said Miss Felice, in a dissatisfied tone; "they are too sharp and fiery. They do well enough for men, but I don"t approve of them at all for women."
"Dear me, what a pity!" said Miss Maggie, sarcastically; "but you can"t call hers fiery--they"re dreadfully melancholy, I"m sure. Now ain"t they, mamma?"
"What dear?" said Mrs. Leonard, not catching the whispered question.
"Hasn"t Miss Randall got lovely melancholy black eyes?"
"Oh, bother her melancholy black eyes!" said Miss Felice, impatiently.
"What a time you do make about people, Mag. And she only a governess, too. I should think you would be ashamed."
"Well, I ain"t ashamed--not the least," said Maggie; "and no matter whether she"s a governess or not, she looks like a lady. I"m sure she"s very clever, too. I wonder who she"s in black for."
"Ask her," said Miss Felice, shortly, as she picked up a French novel, and, placing her feet on the fender, sat down to read.
Miss Felice was blessed with a temper much shorter than sweet, and Miss Maggie, who was rather good-natured, took her curt replies as a matter of course, and, going over to Georgia, said pleasantly:
"Miss Randall, if you wish to go up to your room, I will be your _cicerone_ for the occasion. Perhaps you would like to brush your hair before tea."
"Thank you," said Georgia, rising languidly, and following Miss Maggie from the room.
"This is to be your _sanctum sanctorum_, Miss Randall," said Maggie, opening the door of a small and plainly but neatly furnished bedroom, rendered cheerful by red drapery and a redder fire. "It"s not very gorgeous, you perceive; but it"s the one the governess always uses here.
Our last one--Miss Fitzgerald, an Irish young lady--went and precipitated herself into the awful gulf of----"
"What?" said Georgia, with a slight start, caused by Miss Maggie"s awe-struck manner.
"Matrimony!" said Miss Maggie, in a thrilling whisper. "Ain"t it dreadful? Governesses, and ministers, and curates, and all sorts of poor people generally _will_ persist in such atrocities, on the principle that what won"t keep one, I suppose, will keep two. Don"t you ever get married, Miss Randall. _I_ never mean to---- Why, my goodness, what"s the matter now?"
Georgia had given such a violent start, and a spasm of such intense anguish had pa.s.sed over her face, that Miss Maggie jumped back, and stood regarding her with wide-open and startled eyes, the picture of astonishment.
"Nothing--nothing," said Georgia, leaning her elbow on the table, and dropping her forehead on it: "a sudden pain--gone now. Pray do not be alarmed."
"Oh, I ain"t alarmed," said Miss Maggie composedly. "Do you think you will like to live out here? It"s awful lonesome, I can tell you; a quarter of a mile almost to the nearest house. Licie and I want papa to stop in New York in the winter, but he won"t--he doesn"t mind a word we say. Papas are always the dreadfulest, most obstinate sort of people in the world--now, ain"t they?--always thinking they know best, you know, and always dreadfully provoking. Oh, dear me!" said Miss Maggie, with a deep sigh, as she fell back in her chair, and held up and glanced admiringly at one pretty little foot and distracting ankle, "I don"t know what we should ever do only papa comes from the city to see us, and that nice Signor Popkins, who was a count or a legion of honor, or some funny thing in France, and got exiled by that nasty Louis Napoleon, comes and gives Licie and me two music lessons every week. Oh! Miss Randall, he"s got just the sweetest hair you ever saw; and mustaches--oh, my goodness! such mustaches--that stick out like two shaving-brushes; and splendid long whiskers, like a cow"s tail. Felice don"t care much for him, because she thinks she"s caught that nice, clever Mr. Randall, your namesake, you know; but I guess she ain"t so sure of him as she thinks. Oh! he does write the most divine poetry ever was--down right splendid, you know; and every lady is raving about him.
He"s travelled all over Europe, and Asia, and Africa, and the North Pole, and California, and lots of other nice places, and knows--oh, dear me, he knows a dreadful sight of things, and is a splendid talker. He only came from England two weeks ago, and everybody is making such a time about him. Felice met him at a party, and he came here last night with the divinest bouquet, and she thinks she has him, but _I_ know better. Then some more gentlemen come here. Lem Turner, and Ike Brown, and d.i.c.k Curtis, but he"s gone away somewhere to the country, to where some friend of his lives---- Hey? What now? Another pain, Miss Randall?"
"No--yes. Excuse me, Miss Leonard, I am very tired, and will lie down now. You will please to tell them I do not feel well enough to go down to tea."
"Well, there! I might have known you were tired, and not kept on talking so, but I am such a dreadful chatterbox. I"ll tell Susan to bring up your tea. Good-by, Miss Randall; I hope you"ll be quite well to-morrow, I"m sure." And the loquacious damsel bowed a smiling adieu, and retired.
Georgia _was_ better the next morning, and able to join the family at breakfast, which meal was enlivened by a steady flow of talk from Miss Maggie, and a series of snappish contradictions and marginal notes from Miss Felice, who never got her temper on till near noon. Mr. and Mrs.
Leonard took both daughters as matters of course, and seemed quite used to this sort of thing. On Georgia"s part it pa.s.sed almost in silence, as she sat like some cold, marble statue, with scarcely more signs of life.
After breakfast Miss Felice sat down to practice some unearthly exercises on the grand piano that adorned the drawing-room, and Miss Maggie Leonard bore off Georgia and the three juvenile Leonards to a large, high, severe-looking room, adorned with a dismal looking blackboard, sundry maps, with red, green, yellow splashes, supposed to represent this terrestrial globe. Four solemn-looking black desks were in the four corners, and one in the middle for the teacher. Books, and ink bottles, and slates, without end, were scattered about, and this, Mrs. Leonard informed Georgia, was the school-room, and after administering a small lecture to Messrs. Albert and Royal and Miss Jennie, the purport of which was that the world in general expected them to be good children and learn fast, and mind Miss Randall, she floated out, bearing off the unwilling Miss Maggie, and Georgia began her new life as teacher.
That day seemed endless to Georgia. Accustomed to uncontrolled freedom and wild liberty, she was fitted less for a teacher than for anything else in the world. That love of children which it is necessary every teacher should possess, Georgia had not, and before the wearisome day was done every feeling that had not been stunned into numbness rose in rebellion against the intolerable servitude.
At four o"clock the day"s labor was over, and the children, glad to be released, scampered off.
Seating herself at the desk, Georgia dropped her throbbing head upon it, giddy and blind with one of her deadly headaches, which until the last month or two, she had never known.
Suddenly the door was flung open, and Miss Maggie"s ringing voice was heard.
"Well, Miss Randall, how did you get on? Mamma wouldn"t let me come up, and it was real mean of her. Why, what"s the matter? Oh, my goodness!
you look dreadful!"
"I have got a headache," said Georgia, pressing her hands to her throbbing temples dizzily.
"Oh, you have! Being in this hot room all day has caused it. Do let me bring you your things, and come out for a walk. It is a beautiful evening, though cold, and the air will do you good. Come. I"ll go with you, Miss Randall: Shall I go and get your things?"
"You are very good," said Georgia, faintly; "I think I will; I feel almost suffocated."
Maggie bounded away, and the next moment came flying back, rolled up in a huge shawl, and her pretty face eclipsed in an immense quilted hood.
She held another shawl and hood in her hands, and before Georgia knew where she was, she found herself all m.u.f.fled up and ready for the road.
"Now, then!" said Miss Maggie, briskly; "come along! See if the wind won"t blow roses into those white cheeks of yours!"
Pa.s.sing her arm around Georgia"s waist, Maggie drew her with her out of the house.
The day was cold, and clear, and bright, and windless; a frosty, sunshiny, cold afternoon. The sun, sinking in the west, shed a red glow over the snow-covered fields, and gave a golden brightness to the windows of the house.
Some of the old wild spirit, that nothing but death could ever entirely crush out of Georgia"s gipsy heart, rose as the cold, keen frosty air cooled her fevered brow. The languid eyes lit up, and she started at a rapid walk that kept Maggie breathless, and laughing, and running, and quite unable to talk.
"Oh, my stars!" said Maggie, at last, as she stopped, panting, and leaned against a fence. "If you haven"t got the seven-league boots on, Miss Randall, then I should like to know who has? You ought to go into training for a female pedestrian, and you would make your fortune in twenty-five-cent pieces. I declare I"m just about tired to death."
"Why, how thoughtless I am!" said Georgia, whose excited pace had scarcely kept time with her excited thoughts; "I forgot you could not walk as fast as I can. Suppose you sit down and rest, and I will wait."
"All right, then," said Maggie, as she clambered with great agility to the top of the fence and sat down on the top rail; "but "Hold, Macduff!
who comes here?""
A sleigh came dashing along the road, drawn by a small, spirited horse that seemed fairly to fly. It was occupied by a gentleman wearing a large black cloak, and a fur cap drawn down over his brow.