her funeral was in the middle of a hail-storm, horridly chilly.’
‘Where was she buried?’
‘At Brogden. Old Mr. Fotheringham was buried there, and she was brought there. I came home for it. What a day it was—the hailstones standing on the grass, and I shall never forget poor John’s look—all shivering and shrunk up together.’ He shivered at the bare remembrance. ‘It put the finishing touch to the damage he had got by staying in England with her all the winter. By night he was frightfully ill—inflammation worse than ever. Poor John! That old curmudgeon of a grandfather has much to answer for, though you ought to be grateful to him, Violet; for I suppose it will end in that boy of yours being his lordship some time or other.’
The next morning was a brisk one with Violet. She wished Arthur not to be anxious about leaving her, and having by no means ceased to think it a treat to see him in uniform, she gloried in being carried to her sofa by so grand and soldierly a figure, and uttered her choicest sentence of satisfaction—‘It is like a story!’ while his epaulette was scratching her cheek.
‘I don’t know how to trust you to your own silly devices,’ said he, laying her down, and lingering to settle her pillows and shawls.
‘Wise ones,’ said she. ‘I have so much to do. There’s baby—and there’s Mr. Harding to come, and I want to see the cook—and I should not wonder if I wrote to mamma. So you see ‘tis woman’s work, and you had better not bring your red coat home too soon, or you’ll have to finish the letter!’ she added, with saucy sweetness.
On his return, he found her spread all over with papers, her little table by her side, with the drawer pulled out.
‘Ha! what mischief are you up to? You have not got at those abominable accounts again!’
‘I beg your pardon,’ said she, humbly. ‘Nurse would not let me speak to the cook, but said instead I might write to mamma; so I sent for my little table, but I found the drawer in such disorder, that I was setting it to rights. Who can have meddled with it!’
‘I can tell you that,’ said Arthur. ‘I ran against it, and it came to grief, and there was a spread of all your goods and chattels on the floor.’
‘Oh! I am so glad! I was afraid some of the servants had been at it.’
‘What! aren’t you in a desperate fright? All your secrets displayed like a story, as you are so fond of saying—what’s the name of it—where the husband, no, it was the wife, fainted away, and broke open the desk with her head.’
‘My dear Arthur!’ and Violet laughed so much that nurse in the next room foreboded that he would tire her.
‘I vow it was so! Out came a whole lot of letters from the old love, a colonel in the Peninsula, that her husband had never heard of,—an old lawyer he was.’
‘The husband? What made her marry him?’
‘They were all ruined horse and foot, and the old love was wounded, “kilt”, or disposed of, till he turned up, married to her best friend.’
‘What became of her?’
‘I forget—there was a poisoning and a paralytic stroke in it.’
‘Was there! How delightful! How I should like to read it. What was its name?’
‘I don’t remember. It was a green railway book. Theodora made me read it, and I should know it again if I saw it. I’ll look out for it, and you’ll find I was right about her head. But how now. Haven’t you fainted away all this time?’
‘No; why should I?’
‘How do you know what I may have discovered in your papers? Are you prepared? It is no laughing matter,’ added he, in a Blue Beard tone, and drawing out the paper of calculations, he pointed to the tear marks. ‘Look here. What’s this, I say, what’s this, you naughty child?’
‘I am sorry! it was very silly,’ whispered Violet, in a contrite ashamed way, shrinking back a little.
‘What business had you to break your heart over these trumpery butchers and bakers and candlestick makers?’
‘Only candles, dear Arthur,’ said Violet, meekly, as if in extenuation.
‘But what on earth could you find to cry about?’
‘It was very foolish! but I was in such a dreadful puzzle. I could not make the cook’s accounts and mine agree, and I wanted to be sure whether she really—’
‘Cheated!’ exclaimed Arthur. ‘Well, that’s a blessing!’
‘What is?’ asked the astonished Violet.
‘That I have cleared the house of that intolerable woman!’
‘The cook gone!’ cried Violet, starting, so that her papers slid away, and Arthur shuffled them up in his hand in renewed confusion. ‘The cook really gone? Oh! I am so glad!’
‘Capital!’ cried Arthur. ‘There was John declaring you would be in despair to find your precious treasure gone.’
‘Oh! I never was more glad! Do tell me! Why did she go?’
‘I had a skrimmage with her about some trout Fitzhugh sent, which I verily believe she ate herself.’
‘Changed with the fishmonger!’
‘I dare say. She sent us in some good-for-nothing wretches, all mud, and vowed these were stale—then grew impertinent.’
‘And talked about the first families?’
‘Exactly so, and when it came to telling me Mrs. Martindale was her mistress, I could stand no more. I paid her her wages, and recommended her to make herself scarce.’
‘When did it happen?’
‘Rather more than a fortnight ago.’
Violet laughed heartily. ‘O-ho! there’s the reason nurse scolds if I dare to ask to speak to the cook. And oh! how gravely Sarah said “yes, ma’am,” to all my messages! How very funny! But how have we been living? When I am having nice things all day long, and giving so much trouble! Oh dear! How uncomfortable you must have been, and your brother too!’
‘Am I not always telling you to the contrary? Sarah made everything look as usual, and I suspect Brown lent a helping hand. John said the coffee was made in some peculiar way Brown learnt in the East, and never practises unless John is very ill, or they are in some uncivilized place; but he told me to take no notice, lest Brown should think it infra dig.’
‘I’m afraid he thought this an uncivilized place. But what a woman Sarah is! She has all the work of the house, and yet she seems to me to be here as much as nurse!’
‘She has got the work of ten horses in her, with the face of a death’s head, and the voice of a walking sepulchre!’
‘But isn’t she a thorough good creature! I can’t think what will become of me without her! It will be like parting with a friend.’
‘What would you part with her for? I thought she was the sheet-anchor.’
‘That she is; but she won’t
