Mildred Keith - Complete 7 Book Collection. Finley Martha

      Chapter Eleventh.

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      "Zeal and duty are not slow:

       But on occasion's forelock watchful wait."

       —Milton.

      "The impudent thing!" exclaimed Mildred to her mother with a flushed and angry face; "putting us and our maid of all work on the same level! Visit her? Not I, indeed, and I do hope, mother, that neither you nor Aunt Wealthy will ever cross their threshold."

      "My dear, she probably did not mean it," said Mrs. Keith.

      "And now let us go on with our story. You have all waited quietly and politely like good children."

      "Gotobed Lightcap! Lightcap! Gotobed Nightcap!" sang Cyril, tumbling about on the carpet. "O Don, don't you wish you had such a pretty name?"

      "No, I wouldna; I just be Don."

      "There, dears, don't talk now; sister's going to read," said their mother. "If you don't want to be still and listen you may run out and play in the yard."

      "Somebody else tumin'," whispered Fan, pulling at her mother's skirts.

      Mildred closed again the book she had just resumed, rose and inviting the new comer to enter, handed her a chair.

      She was a tall, gaunt, sallow-complexioned woman of uncertain age, with yellow hair, pale watery blue eyes, and a sanctimonious expression of countenance.

      Her dress was almost austere in its simplicity; a dove-colored calico, cotton gloves of a little darker shade, a white muslin handkerchief crossed on her bosom, a close straw bonnet with no trimming but a skirt of plain, white ribbon and a piece of the same put straight across the top, brought down over the ears and tied under the chin.

      "My name is Drybread," she announced with a slight, stiff courtesy; then seating herself bolt upright on Mildred's offered chair, waited to be addressed.

      "Mrs. or Miss?" queried Mrs. Keith pleasantly.

      "Miss. And yours?"

      "Mrs. Keith. Allow me to introduce my aunt, Miss Stanhope, and my daughter Mildred. These little people too belong to me."

      "Gueth we do so?" said Don, showing a double row of pearly teeth, "cauth you're our own mamma. Ain't she, Cyril?"

      "Do you go to school, my little man?" asked the visitor, unbending slightly in the stiffness of her manner.

      "Ain't your man! don't like dwy bwead, 'cept when I'se vewy hungwy."

      "Neither do I," chimed in Cyril. "And we don't go to school. Papa says we're not big enough."

      "Don! Cyril! my little boys must not be rude," reproved the mamma. "Run away now to your plays."

      "They're pretty children," remarked the caller as the twain disappeared.

      "Very frank in the expression of their sentiments and wishes," the mother responded smiling.

      "Extremely so, I should say;" added Mildred dryly.

      "Is it not a mother's duty to curb and restrain?" queried the visitor, fixing her cold blue eyes upon Mrs. Keith's face.

      "Certainly; where she deems it needful."

      Mrs. Keith's tones were perfectly sweet-tempered; Mildred's not quite so, as she added with emphasis, "And no one so capable of judging when it is needful as my mother."

      "Quite natural and proper sentiments for her daughter, no doubt. How do you like Pleasant Plains?"

      The question was addressed more particularly to Miss Stanhope, and it was she who replied.

      "We are quite disposed to like the place Miss Stalebread; the streets are widely pleasant and would be quite beautiful if the forest trees had been left."

      "My name is Drybread! a good honest name; if not quite so aristocratic and fine sounding as Keith."

      "Excuse me!" said Miss Stanhope. "I have an unfortunate kind of memory for names and had no intention of miscalling yours."

      "Oh! then it's all right.

      "Mrs. Keith, I'm a teacher; take young boys and girls of all ages. Perhaps you might feel like entrusting me with some of yours. I see you have quite a flock."

      "I will take it into consideration," Mrs. Keith answered; "What branches do you teach?"

      "Reading, writing, arithmetic, geography and English grammar."

      "I've heard of teachers boarding round," remarked Mildred, assailed by a secret apprehension; "is that the way you do?"

      "No; I live at home, at my father's."

      Miss Drybread was scarcely out of earshot when Ada burst out vehemently.

      "I don't want to be distrusted to her! she doesn't look distrusty, does she, Zillah? Mother please don't consider it!"

      "But just say yes at once?" asked mother playfully, pressing a kiss upon the little flushed, anxious face.

      "Oh no, no, no! please, mamma dear;" cried the child returning the caress and putting her arms lovingly about her mother's neck. "You didn't like her, did you?"

      Mrs. Keith acknowledged laughingly that she had not been very favorably impressed, and Zillah joining in Ada's entreaties, presently promised that she would try to hear their lessons at home. A decision which was received with delight and a profusion of thanks and caresses.

      Mildred was glad to find herself alone with her mother that evening for a short time, after the younger ones were in bed; for she had a plan to unfold.

      It was that she should act as governess to her sisters, and the little boys, if they were considered old enough now to begin the ascent of the hill of science.

      "My dear child!" the mother said with a look of proud affection into the glowing animated face, "I fully appreciate the love and self-devotion to me and the children that have prompted this plan of yours; but I am by no means willing to lay such heavy burdens on your young shoulders."

      "But mother—"

      "Wait a little, dearie, till I have said my say. Your own studies must be taken up again. Your father is greatly pleased with an arrangement he has just made for you and Rupert and Zillah to recite to Mr. Lord.

      "The English branches, Latin, Greek and the higher mathematics, are what he is willing to undertake to teach."

      Mildred's eyes sparkled. "O mother, how glad I am! Will he open a school?"

      "No; only hear recitations for a couple of hours every week-day except Saturdays, which he says he must have unbroken for his pulpit preparations.

      "Your father thinks he is very glad of the opportunity to add a little to his salary; which, of course, is quite small."

      "Then we study at home? I shall like that. But he won't take little ones?"

      "No; none that are too young to learn Latin. Your father wants Zillah to begin that now; and he hopes that a few others will join the class—some of the Chetwoods, perhaps."

      Mildred's face was all aglow with delight; for she had a great thirst for knowledge, and there had seemed small hope of satisfying it in this little frontier town where the means for acquiring a liberal education were so scant and poor.

      "So you see, daughter, you will have no lack of employment," Mrs. Keith went on; "especially as with such inefficient help in the