Grace Aguilar - Home Influence - A Tale for Mothers and Daughters

"Now that you have finished your task, Percy, perhaps you will have the kindness to inform us why at this time of the evening you have been writing Latin?" inquired Caroline.

"And open my wound afresh! However, it is quite right that Miss Harcourt should know that, if I am ill from over-study to-morrow, it is her doing."

"Mine!" answered Miss Harcourt, laughing; "pray explain yourself, young man, for I am so perfectly innocent as not even to understand you."

"Did you not this morning give me a message to Lady Helen Grahame?"

"I did; you passed her house on your way to Mr. Howard's."

"Well, then, if you had not given me the message, much as I felt disinclined to pore over musty books and foolscap paper, from the extreme loveliness of the morning, I should have nerved myself to go straight on to the Rectory. Lady Helen was not visible, so I tarried, believing your message of vital importance, and Annie came to me – by-the-by, what a little woman that child is; Emmeline, you are a baby to her. I wonder she condescends to associate with you."

"I do not think she is at all fond of me – Caroline is her friend," replied Emmeline; "but what can Annie have to do with your Latin?"

"A great deal – for she talked and we walked, and time walked too, and by the time I had seen Lady Helen, it was two hours later than I ought to have been with Mr. Howard. On I went, feeling not particularly comfortable; but though it is clear logic that if Miss Harcourt had not sent me to Lady Helen's I should not have been led into temptation, I was magnanimous enough not to mention her, but to lay the whole blame of my non-appearance, on my own disinclination for any study but that of nature. Mr. Howard looked grave and sorrowful – I wish to heaven he was more like any other schoolmaster; that look and tone of his are worse than any rod! – and to redeem my lost time in the morning, I was desired to write a Latin theme on a letter of Pliny's this evening. And now that I have satisfied all your inquiries, please satisfy mine. Is there any chance of mamma's coming home to-night?"

"Every probability," replied Miss Harcourt. "It only depends on your cousin, who is so very delicate, that if she were too fatigued, Mr. Hamilton would remain at Exeter to-night, and proceed here early to-morrow."

"Well, my little cousin, though I have not the pleasure of knowing you, I hope you will be so kind as to let mamma come on to-night, for we have been too long without her, and I long to resign to papa his robes of office, for they sit mightily like borrowed plumes upon me. Mamma writes of Ellen and Edward – I wonder what they are like! Come, Tiny, paint them for me – your fertile fancy generally fills up the shadow of a name."

"I can not, Percy, for I am afraid my pictures would not be agreeable."

"Not agreeable!" repeated Percy and Miss Harcourt together. "Why not?"

Emmeline hesitated, then answered ingenuously, "We are so very, very happy together, that I do not feel quite sure that I am glad my cousins are going to live with us."

"What! are you afraid I shall love Ellen more than you, Emmy?" exclaimed her brother, starting up and sitting on her chair; "do not be alarmed, Tiny; no cousin shall take your place."

"Indeed I am not afraid of that, Percy, dear," she replied, looking so fondly in his face, that he gave her a hearty kiss. "I can not tell why I should feel half sorry that they are coming, but I am quite sure I will do all I can to make them happy."

"You could not do otherwise if you were to try, Tiny. Come, Caroline, what say you? We have all been thinking about them, so we may as well give each other the benefit of our thoughts."

"Suppose I do not feel inclined to do so?"

"Why we must all believe you are ashamed of them," replied Percy quickly, "and if you are, I know who has made you so. I would lay any wager, the whole time you have been with Lady Helen Grahame, since mamma has been away, she has been talking of nothing else – look, look, she is blushing – I am right."

"And if she did," replied Caroline, very much provoked, "she said nothing that I am ashamed of repeating. She knew my aunt before she went to India, and I am sure if her children are like her, they will be no agreeable additions to our family."

"Bravo, Caroline! you really are an apt pupil; Lady Helen's words and manner completely! but you may have one comfort; children are not always like their parents, and if they are as unlike Lady Helen's description of my poor aunt (which by the way she had no right to give, nor you to listen to) as you are at this moment unlike mamma, we shall get on capitally, and need have no fears about them."

"Percy you are intolerably disagreeable!"

"Because I speak the sad, sober truth? Caroline, do pray, get rid of that dawning ill temper, before mamma comes; it will not be a pleasant welcome home."

"I am not ill-tempered, Percy: I suppose I may have my own opinion of Ellen and Edward, as well as all of you," replied his sister angrily.

"But do not let it be an unkind one, without knowing them, dear Caroline," observed Herbert gently; "it is so very difficult to get rid of a prejudice when once it has entered our minds, even when we know and feel that it is a wrong one. I am sure if we only thought how sad it is that they have neither father nor mother to love them, and are coming all among strangers – born in a strange land too – we should find quite enough to think kindly about, and leave all wonder as to what they will be like, till we know them. I dare say we shall often have to bear and forbear, but that we have to do with each other, and it will only be one brother and sister more."

"Brother and sister! I am sure I shall not think of them so, Herbert, however you may. My father might have been a nobleman, and who knows any thing of theirs?"

"Caroline, how can you be so ridiculous!" exclaimed Percy, with a most provoking fit of laughter. "Their father served and died for his king – as our grandfather did; and had he lived might have been offered a title too – and their mother – really I think you are very insulting to mamma: her sister's children I should imagine quite as high in rank as ourselves!"

"And even if they were not – what would it signify?" rejoined Herbert. "Dear Caroline, pray do not talk or think so; it makes me feel so sorry, for I know how wrong it is – we might have been in their place."

"I really can not fancy any thing so utterly impossible," interrupted Caroline, "so you may spare the supposition, Herbert."

"It is no use, Bertie; you must bring the antipodes together, before you and Caroline will think alike," interposed Percy, perceiving with regret the expression of pain on his brother's face, and always ready to guard him either from physical or mental suffering, feeling instinctively that, from his extraordinary mind and vivid sense of duty, he was liable to the latter, from many causes which other natures would pass unnoticed.

Miss Harcourt did not join the conversation. It had always been Mrs. Hamilton's wish that in their intercourse with each other, her children should be as unrestrained as if they had been alone. Had Caroline's sentiments received encouragement, she would have interfered; but the raillery of Percy and the earnestness of Herbert, she knew were more likely to produce an effect than any thing like a rebuke from herself, which would only have caused restraint before her in future. It was through this perfect unrestraint that Mrs. Hamilton had become so thoroughly acquainted with the several characters of her children. That Caroline's sentiments caused her often real pain was true, but it was far better to know them, and endeavor to correct and remove them, by causing education to bear upon the faults they revealed, than to find them concealed from her by the constant fear of words of reproof.