as it were, for the rest of us have been there so long, and she is too old to be in any but the highest class.”
“Unless she’s very stupid for her age,” suggested Jerry. “Very likely she is – perhaps that’s the thing she hasn’t got, Charlotte. Cleverness, I mean. And I’m sure,” he went on with brotherly frankness, “you wouldn’t give up being clever for the sake of being pretty – now, would you?”
Charlotte laughed.
“Surely I’m not so ugly as all that,” she said. “Do you really think I am, Jerry?”
She lifted her face and looked across the table at the boy. Ugly she certainly was not, but though her features were good, her complexion was some degrees browner than “by rights” it should have been to match the very blue eyes common to all the Waldrons. And her hair was short as well as thick and curly, and in consequence rather unmanageable. But it was a bright and kindly and pleasant face, and Jerry felt vaguely as he looked at it that there were things, even in faces, better than strict beauty.
“I don’t know,” he said bluntly. “Your face is you, and so I like it. I don’t want it changed, except that in a bit, I suppose, you’ll have to do your hair up somehow.”
“Yes, I suppose I shall,” replied Charlotte, glancing sideways and somewhat ruefully at the dark brown curly locks in question; “but how I shall do it, I’m sure I can’t tell. I wonder if I should begin to try soon. I think I’ll ask mamma. I wonder how she did hers when she was my age – but hers could never have been difficult to do. It’s so beautifully soft and never gets in a mess.”
“No – I couldn’t fancy anything to do with mamma in a mess,” said Jerry. “You’ll never be anything like as pretty as her, Charlotte.”
“You don’t suppose I ever thought I should, you stupid boy,” retorted his sister indignantly. “I notice that people generally like to make out that children never are as pretty or as good or as something as their parents, and very often I dare say it’s rubbish. But in our case any one with half an eye can see how lovely mamma is. I doubt if even Marion will be anything to compare with her, though she is a very pretty little girl.”
Jerry grunted approval and agreement. He had got to a very delicate point in his occupation, which was that of taking out some stamps which Ted in a hurry had gummed into a wrong place in his album. All such difficult operations, settings right of other people’s puttings wrong, were sure to fall to Jerry – his thin dexterous fingers seemed to have a genius for work that baffled every one else. Charlotte went on with her writing, and for a few minutes there was silence in the room.
Suddenly she looked up again.
“Jerry,” she said, “I’m so glad you think that that girl is sure to be stupid.”
“Wait a minute,” said Jerry, whose mouth was again screwed up in absorbed anxiety. “There now,” he exclaimed, “I’ve got it off without the least scrap tearing. I’m sure Ted should be very much obliged to me. What were you saying, Charlotte? I never said I was sure – only that perhaps she would be.”
“No, no, you said more than that. If you didn’t say you were sure, you said ‘very likely.’ That’s more than ‘perhaps,’” persisted Charlotte. “Well, I hope she is, for then I may be able to like her. If not – but I really think she must be, if not stupid, at least not clever. It wouldn’t be fair for her to have everything,” she went on, reverting to the old grievance. “Nobody has, people say.”
But Jerry’s sympathy on the subject was rather exhausted.
“I wish you’d leave off thinking about her,” he said. “You’ll work yourself up to fancying all sorts of things, and making yourself dislike a person that perhaps you’ll never see. Possibly she won’t come after all.”
Charlotte sighed.
“I dare say you’re right,” she said. “It’s only that I tell you everything, you see, Jerry.”
“Hadn’t you better tell mamma about it?” he said. “She generally finds out what gives one wrong sorts of feelings. She’s put me to rights lots of times when I’d got horrid about – ” and he hesitated.
“About what, Jerry dear?”
In his turn Jerry’s face flushed.
“About being lame,” he said. “You know we did hope for a good while that it was going to get almost quite well, so that it would hardly be noticed. But there’s no chance of that now. I shall always be pretty much the same. And it did make me feel as if everything was wrong for a while.”
“Dear Jerry,” said Charlotte. “And you are so good about it. Nobody would know you minded.”
“It’s a good deal with getting into the way of not thinking about it,” said Jerry. “It’s no use trying not to think of a thing unless you put something else into your head to fill up the place. The trying not is thinking of it, you see. But mamma taught me what a good plan it was, when I found I was going on thinking of a trouble that had to be, to look out for some trouble that didn’t need to be, and to try to put it right. And you wouldn’t believe, unless you get in the way of it, what lots of those there are that you can at least help to put right.”
Charlotte looked a good deal impressed. It was not often that Jerry said so much.
“Yes,” she agreed, “I can fancy it would be a very good plan. But, you see, Jerry, I’ve very seldom had anything that it was better not to think of. Perhaps it is that my head has been so full of lessons, and the lots of things that are nice to think of.”
“Well,” said Jerry, “you can go on keeping your head full of sensible things instead of fussing about a stupid girl you’ve never seen!”
His calm philosophy made Charlotte laugh.
“I’m sure I don’t want to think about her,” she said, as she jumped up and began to put away her books. “What are you going to do now, Jerry? I’m sure you’ve been long enough over Arthur’s stamps. When one has a holiday, I think one should have some of it at least to oneself.”
“Will you play with me, then?” said Jerry. “I really like that better than anything, only it isn’t much fun for you.”
For Jerry was doing his best to learn the violin. He really loved music, and had already mastered the first difficulties, though his teaching had been but some irregular lessons from a friend who had also lent him his fiddle. And Charlotte, who played the piano well, though with less natural taste for music than her brother, could not please him better than by accompanying him. It called for some patience, no doubt, but harder things would have seemed easy to the girl for Jerry’s sake. So the two spent the rest of the dull autumn afternoon happily and contentedly, though the old school-room piano had long ago seen its best days, and the sounds that Jerry extracted from his violin were not always those of the most harmonious sweetness.
At six o’clock Charlotte started up.
“There is the first dinner-bell,” she said. “We must get dressed at once, Jerry. There is to be no school-room tea to-night, for mamma said it wasn’t worth while, as Noble was out. You and I are to dine with her and papa, and dinner is to be half-an-hour earlier than usual.”
“Where are the boys?” asked Mr Waldron, putting his head in at the door at that moment.
“All
