Jessie, a nice, clever girl, with a decided taste for music, could teach
the four younger ones very well--had done so, indeed, ever since Miss
Phipps left; but in this, as in everything, Edith was the family
problem. She could not, or would not, learn much from Jessie; she hated
the piano and needlework, and even professed not to care for books.
[Sidenote: "Would it help Papa?"]
Yet she astonished the entire family sometimes by knowing all sorts of
odd out-of-the-way facts; she could find an apt quotation from some
favourite poet for almost any occasion, and did a kind of queer
miscellaneous reading in "a hole-and-corner way," as her brother Tom
said, that almost drove the sister-governess to distraction.
And now the choice of a companion for Miss Rachel Harley, the stern,
middle-aged aunt, whom even the elder girls could scarcely remember to
have seen, had fallen upon Edith.
The news came to her first as a great blow. There could not be very much
sympathy between the gentle, ailing, slightly querulous mother and the
vigorous, active girl; yet Edith had very strong, if half-concealed,
home affections, and it hurt her more than she cared to show that even
her mother seemed to feel a sort of relief in the prospect of her going
away for so long.
"Don't you _mind_ my going, mamma?" she said at last, with a little
accent of surprise.
"Well, Edith dear, papa and I think it will be such a good thing for you
and for us all.
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