There was sure to be some anecdote to enliven the home-keepers, or some question to ask Cherry, whose grammar and arithmetic stood on firmer foundations than any at Miss Pearson's, and who was always pleased to help Wilmet. The evening hours were the happiest of the day, only they always ended too soon for Cherry, who was ordered up by Sibby as soon as her mother was put to bed, and had, in consequence, a weary length of wakeful solitude and darkness--only enlivened by the reflection from the gas below--while Felix and Wilmet sat downstairs, she with her mending, and he either reading, or talking to her.
On Saturday, which she always spent at home, and in very active employment in the capacities of nurse, housemaid, or even a slight taste of the cook and laundress, the evening topic was always the accounts--the two young heads anxiously casting the balance--proud and pleased if there were even a shilling below the mark, but serious and sad under such a communication as, 'There's mutton gone up another half-penny;' or, 'Wilmet, I really am afraid those boots of mine cannot be mended again;' or again, 'See what Lance has managed to do to this jacket. If one only could send boys to school in sacking!'
'Are not there a few pence to spare for the chair for Cherry? She will certainly get ill, if she never goes out now spring is coming on.'
'Indeed, Felix, I don't know how! If there is a penny over, it is wanted towards shoes for Bernard; and Cherry begs me, with tears in her eyes, not to let her be an expense!'
Poor Geraldine! the costing anything, and the sense of uselessness, were becoming, by the help of her nightly wakefulness, a most terrible oppression on her spirits. Her father was right. His room had been a hot-bed to a naturally sensitive and precocious character, and the change that had come over her as time carried her farther and farther away from him, affected her more and more.
Her brother and sister, busy all day, and scarcely ever at home, hardly knew what was becoming a sore perplexity to Mr. Audley.
A young tutor, not yet twenty-six, could not exactly tell what to do with a girl not fourteen, who fell into floods of tears on the smallest excuse.
'No, no, Cherry--that is not the nominative.'