Bluebell. Mrs. G. C. Huddleston
where gasping geese were diving in the gutters for the nearest approach to water they could find.
Scarcely less repugnant were the many-coloured crotchet-mats and anti-macassars with which Miss Opie loved to decorate the apartment; nor was a paper frill adorning a paltry green flower-vase wanting to complete the tasteless tout ensemble.
The evening wore on; Mrs. Leigh proceeded with the turning of an old merino dress; Miss Opie adjusted her spectacles, and read Good Words. Bluebell sat down to the piano and executed a selection from Rossini's 'Messe Solennelle' with force and fervour.
"You play very well, child," said Miss Opie.
"That is fortunate," said Bluebell, "for I mean to be a governess."
"You mean you want a governess," retorted the other. "Why, what in the world do you know?"
"More than most children of ten years old. I might get a hundred dollars a year. Mamma, I could buy myself new boots then."
"You are nothing but a self-willed child yourself, unable to bear the slightest disappointment," said Miss Opie.
"Never mind," said Mrs. Leigh, coaxingly; "I'll see if I cannot get you the boots. They will give me credit at the store."
"No, no; I know you can't afford it; they were new last April. Mamma is oil to your vinegar, Aunt Jane."
"And you the green young mustard in the domestic salad—hot enough, and, like all ill weeds, growing apace."
"Then it is field mustard, and not used for salad," said Bluebell, anxious for the last word. And, escaping from the room, went to place some bones in the shed, for a casual in the shape of a starving cur, who called occasionally for food and a night's lodging.
About twenty years ago, when this melancholy Mrs. Leigh was a lovely young Canadian of rather humble origin, Theodore Leigh, a graceless subaltern in the Artillery, had just returned from leave, and, going one day to the Rink, was "regularly flumocksed," as he expressed it, by the vision of Miss Lesbia Jones skimming over the ice like a swallow on the wing. And when she proceeded to cut a figure of 8 backwards, and execute another intricate movement called "the rose," his admiration became vehement, and, seizing on a brother-officer he had observed speaking to her, demanded an introduction.
"To the 'Tee-to-tum'? Oh, certainly."
Miss Lesbia was very small, and wore the shortest of petticoats, which probably suggested the appellation.
Fatigued with her evolutions, she had sunk with a pretty little air of abandon on the platform, and her destiny, in a beaver coat and cap, was presented by Mr. Wingfield.
After this, a common object at the Rink was a tall young man, in all the agonies of a début on skates, and a bewitching little attendant sprite shooting before and around him, occasionally righting him with a fairy touch when he evinced too wild a desire to dash his brains against the wall.
At all the sleighing parties, also, Miss Lesbia's form was invariably observed in Mr. Leigh's cutter, with a violet and white "cloud" matching the robe borders and ribbons on the bells; and he and the "Tee-to-tum" spun round together in half the valses of every ball during the winter.
Perhaps, after all, the attachment might have lived and died without exceeding the "muffin" phase, had not the "beauty," Captain of the battery cut in, and made rather strong running, too, partly because he considered her "fetching," and partly, he said, "from regard to Leigh, who was making an ass of himself."
Jealousy turned philandering into earnest. Theodore went straight to the maiden aunt, with whom Miss Jones resided, and, after most vehement badgering, got her consent to a private marriage within three days. The poor spinster, though much flustered, knowing his attentions to Lesbia had been a good deal talked about, felt almost relieved to have it settled respectably, though so abruptly.
On the appointed day, having obtained a week's leave, Theodore, with his best man, the last joined subaltern, dashed up to the church-door in a cutter, just in time to receive Lesbia and her bewildered chaperone.
After the ceremony, they started off for their week's honeymoon to the Falls; and the best man, absolved from secrecy, spread the news through the regiment.
Theodore had scribbled off the intelligence in reckless desperation to his father, of whom he was the only child, and Sir Timothy Leigh, a proud and ambitious man, never forgave the irrevocable piece of folly so cavalierly announced to him.
Theodore received a letter from the family lawyer, couched in the terms of sorrowful reprehension such functionaries usually assume on similar occasions.
"It was Mr. Vellum's painful duty to inform him that Sir Timothy would decline to receive him on his return to England; that two hundred a year would be placed annually to his credit at Cox's; but the estates not being entailed, that was the utmost farthing he need ever expect from him."
Such was the gist of the communication, and Theodore, hardened by his father's severity, and unable to bear the privations of a narrow income, absented himself more and more from their wretched lodgings, and tried to drown his cares by drinking himself into a state of semi-idiocy.
There is little more to relate of this ill-starred marriage, of which Bluebell was the fruit; for soon after her birth young Leigh was killed by being upset out of a dog-cart.
Driving home with unsteady hands from mess one night, he collided with a street car, which inevitably turned over the two-wheeled vehicle. Theodore was pitched out, his head striking on the iron rails, and never breathed again.
Whatever grief Sir Timothy may have felt at his son being snatched from him, unreconciled and unforgiven, did not show itself in mercy to the widow.
Mr. Vellum was again in requisition, and proposed, on behalf of Sir Timothy, to make Mrs. Leigh a suitable allowance on condition that she remained in Canada, and delivered over the child to her grandfather, to be brought up and educated as his heiress. In case these terms were refused, she would continue to receive annually two hundred a-year; but no farther assistance would be granted.
Lesbia, in her loneliness and bereavement, was heart-broken at this unfeeling proposition, and Bluebell being too young for a choice, she consulted the voice of Nature alone, and refused to part with her child.
The maiden aunt, Miss Opie, willingly received them. She had a mere pittance, and lived in a boarding house; but, by joining their slender purses, they took the cottage in which we find them.
Thus in extreme poverty was Bluebell reared until her seventeenth year, though by personal privation Mrs. Leigh sent her to the school par excellence; attended by most of the girls in the city, whether their parents were "in" or "out" of society. Bluebell having the prestige of an English father, own son of a baronet, and military into the bargain, was considered in the former class, and included at an early age in the gaieties of the winter.
A new friend, who had been particularly kind to her, was Mrs. Rolleston, wife of the Colonel of a regiment quartered there, and to her Bluebell repaired to make sorrowful excuses for the projected picnic, and also to confide the scheme that possessed her mind of earning money as a musical teacher or nursery governess.
Mrs. Rolleston felt half inclined to laugh at the unformed impulsive child, who was such a pet in their household, but seemed far too babyish and unmethodical to be recommended for any situation; yet remembering her mother's straitened circumstances, and that the girl probably wanted some pocket-money, she listened sympathetically, and promised to turn it over in her mind.
Music she knew Bluebell thoroughly understood and excelled in. She had for years received instruction gratis from the organist at the Cathedral, who, originally attracted by her lovely voice singing in the choir, took her up with enthusiasm, and taught her harmony and thorough bass. Thus, instead of only practising a desultory accomplishment, she was able to compose and arrange her tuneful ideas correctly.
A dark striking-looking girl interrupted them. This was Cecil Rolleston, the eldest daughter of the house, or