had lasted strangely long.
“Come, we won't be foolish, Tittens,” cried she, suddenly starting up. “We'll put on our bonnets, and go out—that is, one of us will, and the other may take to Berlin wool and Mrs. Ianson.”
The bonnet was popped on quickly and independently—Miss Bowen scorned to indulge in the convenience or annoyance of a lady's-maid. Crossing the hall, the customary question, “Whether she would be home to dinner?” stopped her.
“I don't know—I am not quite sure. Tell Mrs. Ianson not to wait for me.”
And she passed out, feeling keener than usual the consciousness that nobody would wait for her, or look for her, or miss her; that her comings in and goings out were perfectly indifferent to every human being in the house, called by courtesy her “home.” Perhaps this was her own fault, but she could not help it. It was out of her nature to get up an interest among ordinary people, where interests there were none.
Little more had she in the house whither she was going to pay one of her extempore visits; but then there was the habit of old affection, begun before characters develop themselves into the infinite variety from which mental sympathy is evolved. She could not help liking Emma Thornycroft, her sole childish acquaintance, whose elder sister had been Agatha's daily governess, until she died.
“I know Emma will be glad to see me, which is something; and if she does tire me with talk about the babies, why, children are better than Berlin wool. And there is always the piano. Besides, I must walk out, or I shall rust to death in this horrible Bedford Square.”
She walked on, rather in a misanthropic mood, a circumstance to her not rare. But she had never known mother, sister, or brother; and the name of father was to her little more than an empty sound. It had occasionally come mistily over the Indian Ocean, in the shape of formal letters—the only letters that ever visited the dull London house where she spent her shut-up childhood, and acquired the accomplishments of her teens. Mr. Bowen died on the high seas: and when his daughter met the ship at Southampton, a closed black coffin was all that remained to her of the name of father. That bond, like all others, was destined to be to her a mere shadow. Poor Agatha!
Quick exercise always brings cheerfulness when one is young, strong, and free from any real cares; Agatha's imaginary ones, together with the vague sentimentalisms into which she was on the verge of falling, yet had not fallen, vanished under the influence of a cheerful walk on a sunny summer's day. She arrived at Mrs. Thornycroft's time enough to find that admirable young matron busied in teaching to her eldest boy the grand mystery of dining; that is, dining like a Christian, seated at a real table with a real silver knife and fork. These latter Master James evidently preferred poking into his eyes and nose, rather than his mouth, and evinced far greater anxiety to sit on the table than on the chair.
“Agatha, dear—so glad to see you!” and Emma's look convinced even Agatha that this was true. “You will stay, of course! Just in time to see James eat his first dinner, like a man! Now Jemmie, wipe his pretty mouth, and then give Auntie Agatha a sweet kiss.”
Agatha submitted to the kiss, though she did not quite believe in the adjective; and felt a certain satisfaction in knowing that the title of “Auntie” was a mere compliment. She did not positively dislike children, else she would have been only half a woman, or a woman so detestable as to be an anomaly in creation; but her philoprogenitiveness was, to say the least, dormant at present; and her sense of infantile beauty being founded on Sir Joshua's and Murillo's cherubs, she had no great fancy for the ugly little James.
She laid aside her bonnet, and smoothing her curls in the nursery mirror, looked for one minute at her Pawnee-Indian face, the sight of which now often made her smile. Then she sat down to lunch with Emma and the children; being allowed, as a great favour, to be placed next Master James, and drink with him out of his silver mug. Miss Bowen accepted the offered honour calmly, made no remark, but—went thirsty.
For an hour or two she sat patiently listening to what had gone on in the house since she was there—how baby had cut two more teeth, and James had had a new braided frock—(which was sent for that she might look at it)—how Missy had been to her first children's party, and was to learn dancing at Midsummer, if papa could be coaxed to agree.
“How is Mr. Thornycroft?” asked Agatha.
“Oh, very well—papa is always well. I only wish the little ones took after him in that respect.”
Agatha, who was old enough to remember Emma engaged, and Emma newly married, smiled to think how entirely the lover beloved and the all-important young husband had dwindled into a mere “Papa;” liked and obeyed in a certain fashion, for Emma was a good wife, but evidently made a very secondary consideration to “the children.”
The young girl—as yet neither married, nor in love—wondered if this were always so. She often had such wonderings and speculation when she came to Emma's house.
She was growing rather tired of so much domestic information, and had secretly taken out her watch to see how many hours it would be to dinner and to Mr. Thornycroft, a sensible, intelligent man, who from love to his wife had been always very kind to his wife's friends—when there came the not unwelcome sound of a knock at the hall-door.
“Bless me; that is surely the Harpers. I had quite forgotten Major Harper and the bears.”
“An odd conjunction,” observed Agatha, smiling.
“Major Harper, who yesterday, for the fifth time, promised to take Missy to the Zoological Gardens to see the bears. He has remembered it at last.”
No, he had not remembered it; it would have been a very remarkable circumstance if he had; being a person so constantly full of engagements, for himself and others. The visitor was only his younger brother, who had often daundered in at Mrs. Thornycroft's house, possibly from a liking to Emma's friendly manner, or because, cast astray for a fortnight on the wide desert of London, he had, like Agatha, “nothing to do.”
If Nathanael had other reasons, they, of course, never came near the surface, but lay buried under the silent waters of his quiet mind.
Agatha was half pleased, half disappointed at seeing him. Mrs. Thornycroft, good soul, was always charmed to have a visitor, for her society did not attract many. Only betraying, as usual, what was uppermost in her simple thoughts, she could not long conceal her regret concerning little Missy and the bears.
To Agatha's great surprise, Mr. Harper, who she thought, in his dignified gravity, would never have condescended to such a thing, volunteered to assume his brother's duty.
“For,” said he, with a slight smile, “I have had too many perilous encounters with wild bears in America, not to feel some curiosity in seeing a few captured ones in England.”
“That will be charming,” cried Mrs. Thornycroft, looking at him with a mixture of respect and maternal benignity. “Then you can tell Missy all those wonderful stories, only don't frighten her.”
“Perhaps I might She seems rather shy of me.” And the adventurous young gentleman eyed askance a small be-ribboned child, who was creeping about the room and staring at him. “Would it not be better if”——
“If mamma went?”
“There, Missy, don't cry; mamma will go, and Agatha, too, if she would like it?”
“Certainly,” Miss Bowen answered, with a mischievous glance at Nathanael.
