meant; but she felt certain that this kind of person was the very last Mademoiselle would wish to see.
"Oh, please don"t," she cried anxiously. "Please, you mustn"t go there.
Mademoiselle herself told me she did not want any visitors, and Anne told me she came here on purpose that she might be quite quiet, because she can"t see them. Please don"t go. If people call she will go away-- I"m sure she will. Anne says she had to move from ever so many places because people would not let her be quiet. _Please_ don"t let her know that I said she lived here. I did not mean to--"
"Dear me! I suppose you have the exclusive right to the lady"s society-- that, knowing Miss Esther Carroll, she does not require any other friends!" Miss Row"s sneering, sarcastic words brought the colour to Esther"s cheeks and the tears to her eyes.
"I didn"t--mean--that," she stammered confusedly, bitterly hurt.
"You know I didn"t," then turned away hastily that they might not see how weak she was.
All this time the others had stood by listening, growing more and more indignant with Miss Row, and more and more sorry for Esther. At first they were afraid to say anything for fear they might make matters worse, but Miss Row"s last speech was more then they could bear. Angela ran to Esther with blazing cheeks and flashing eyes. "Never mind, dear," she cried, putting her arms about her. "You were very brave to speak up so."
Penelope stepped nearer to Miss Row. Her cheeks were white, her eyes very bright and indignant.
"It is not fair to speak to Esther like that, Miss Row," she said reproachfully. "It was by accident she came to know Mademoiselle Leperier, and Mademoiselle _asked_ her to go again, or she wouldn"t have gone, for Esther knew she did not want to have strange visitors--she told her so. She said she didn"t want any one to know she was living here, for she was not strong enough to have visitors, or to go anywhere.
Esther ought not to have said anything about her, and she was frightened when she had; but when she had, she had to tell you--about--about not going there."
Miss Row was not in the frame of mind to be reasonable. She felt she was in the wrong, and that made her the more cross. "Well, Penelope," she said icily, "I did not expect to be spoken to like this by you, after all I have done for you, too. I did expect civility and some grat.i.tude in return, I must confess; but I find I have been grossly mistaken in you."
Penelope started, and her face flushed crimson.
"I suppose," went on Miss Row, turning to Mr. Somerset, "I was foolish to expect it from children brought up as they were." Then turning to Penelope again--"Esther"s unfortunate temper one has grown accustomed to; but you--"
Penelope hung her head for a moment, overcome with mortification; then suddenly raising it she looked fearlessly, but wistfully, into Miss Row"s angry eyes. "I wish you would understand," she said earnestly.
"We neither of us mean to be rude or--or ungrateful." She stammered a little over the last word. "It was only Mademoiselle we were thinking of--and--and then you were unfair to Esther, and--and I couldn"t bear that."
"And I can"t bear rudeness," said Miss Row, beginning to move away.
Her face was very red, and her eyes ugly. "Don"t come to me again this week for a lesson," she said, turning round to face Penelope once more.
"I--I don"t want to see you for a while. When I do I will send for you."; and Miss Row walked away very quickly, chattering volubly all the way to her companion, while Penelope stood, stunned and wounded, scarcely able to believe her own ears.
For a few seconds she remained looking after the retreating pair, then turned, walked silently for a little distance, and suddenly dropped on the old brown turf in a pa.s.sion of sobs.
For a moment Poppy gazed, too entirely astonished to know what to do.
She could not remember when she had last seen Penelope weep; it happened so rarely. Flinging herself on the turf beside her, she threw her arms lovingly about her. "Don"t cry, darling. Oh, Pen, don"t cry," she pleaded. "It doesn"t matter what that horrid old Miss Row says, and we all love you. Don"t cry, dear." She was too young to comprehend what was hurting Penelope most--the words that rankled, and stung; the charge of ingrat.i.tude; the taunt; the throwing up to her of favours she had received--things no lady should ever permit herself to do.
Under the lash of it all Penelope sobbed on uncontrollably. When she did weep, she did weep--a perfect storm of tears that shook and exhausted her.
Poppy grew frightened at the violence of her grief. There seemed to be something more here than she could understand. "Oh, where is Essie?
Essie must come," she cried, raising herself on her knees and looking about for her sisters; but Esther and Angela were at some distance, walking slowly but steadily away, apparently absorbed in talk.
Poppy sighed a big sigh which sounded almost like a sob. "My poor little birthday," she murmured wistfully, "that I fought was going to be so lovely!"
The words and the tone touched Penelope. Her sobs grew less, broke forth again, then stopped, and she struggled up into a sitting position.
"Oh, you poor little Poppet," she cried. "It _is_ hard on you. I _am_ so sorry, dear. It is too bad that your birthday should be spoilt like this.
I wish--I wish we had kept to the moor, and not come anywhere near human beings." Tears welled up into her eyes again, but she only threw up her head and tilted her nose a little higher, as though to make them run back.
"Never mind, darling. We will try to forget all about it, and enjoy ourselves."; but a sob shook her even as she spoke.
"And it began so beautifully," Poppy was murmuring. "Anna said "Laugh before breakfast, cry before night," and it"s come true. I"ll never laugh before breakfast again."
Penelope listening to her, suddenly made up her mind. It _should_ be a beautiful day, after all. They would put away all unpleasant thoughts for Poppy"s sake. It rested with her to be cheerful herself, and to comfort and cheer up the others. She put her arms about her baby sister and drew her closer. "Poppy dear, don"t tell Esther about--Miss Row being so-- nasty, and about my crying. It will only trouble her more, and I want her to forget, and we will all try to be very jolly to-day, won"t we?"
Poppy nodded her head vigorously; but there was a doubtful expression on her pretty face. "She will see you"ve been crying," she said gravely.
"No. We will sit here facing the breeze, and that will soon make my face and eyes look all right, and--we will laugh and talk as if nothing had happened. We are going to have a really jolly day, aren"t we?"
Poppy nodded again; but a second later she shook her head gravely.
"I sha"n"t ever forget what Anna said about laughing before breakfast,"
she said very seriously. "It comes true."
Side by side on the springy turf the two little figures sat, leaning against each other lovingly, waiting for the sweet breeze to take away all traces of sorrow; telling secrets the while of what they would do by and by, when they were grown-up, and trying bravely to forget their own troubles for the benefit of others.
CHAPTER XV.
At last, finding the others did not come back to them, Poppy and Penelope got up and prepared to follow them. "I suppose they don"t mean to go any farther in this direction," said Penelope. "Are my eyes all right, Poppy?"
Poppy a.s.sured her, truthfully, that no one would know she had shed a tear, and Esther and Angela, seated on a boulder waiting for them, saw no trace on either face, and suspected nothing of the storm that had come and gone since they parted.
"I am frantically hungry, aren"t you?" called Penelope gaily, as they drew near.
They were all ravenous.
"Let"s go back and have lunch at once," suggested Esther. "Did you get away from that horrid old thing pretty soon?"
They all understood who the "horrid old thing" was without explanation, and none of them felt inclined to quarrel with the description.
"Oh yes, pretty soon," said Penelope, in an off-hand way, as she stooped to pick some sweet wild thyme.
"I shall never like her any more," said Angela emphatically. "She was so horrid to Esther."
"I wouldn"t be taught by her for something," said Esther. "I don"t envy you, Pen."
Pen felt a big sinking at her heart at the thought of her music lessons, and Miss Row"s last words to her; but she made a brave effort to be cheerful. "She--she _can_ be very nice," she said lamely.
"It"s all very well for you to talk," said Angela, whose usually gentle spirit was greatly roused. "She didn"t speak to you as she did to Esther."
Penelope gave Poppy a warning glance. "Well, she _can_ be nice," she repeated, for want of something else to say. "Now come along, girls; do let"s get back to "the Castle" and have some lunch, and we"ll forget all about Miss Row being so nasty. It is the Poppy"s birthday, and we"ve _got_ to think only of nice things. Now let"s join hands and run down this slope."
With Poppy tightly grasped by her two eldest sisters, they flew over the ground as fast as their legs could go. Poppy, her feet scarcely touching the ground, shrieked with the greatest delight. Guard, who had been distractedly hovering between the two couples while their party was divided, barked and danced, and raced away and back again, as pleased as any of them.
They were quite exhausted before they reached "the Castle," and Poppy and Angela had to be allowed to sit down to recover their breath.
"I will go on and begin to get out the baskets," said Esther, "and unpack them by the time you come. You won"t stay here very long, will you?"
Penelope was lying on her back gazing up at the blue sky and the swarms of tiny insects which hovered and darted between her and it. She was too comfortable to move, even to help get the lunch, so Esther and Guard went alone.
"The Castle," the children"s favourite play-place, was a group of huge boulders, like closely set rough pillars, so arranged by nature as to enclose a considerable s.p.a.ce, like a tiny room, while outside was a kind of natural staircase leading to what they sometimes called "upstairs," and sometimes "the roof," which was formed of a large flat boulder, forming a natural roof, and keeping the interior dry and cosy save for the breezes which blew through the various openings, large and small, between the pillars.