“I’m afraid it’s old-fashioned,” she said, “but the Rectory girls at Silverfold say ‘mamma.’ Do we call you ‘mother’?”

“Do you know,” said Lady Haredale, ”‘mamma’ is so old-fashioned that I think it’s quite chic. And very pretty of you; go on – I like it. And never mind the frocks. Of course it’s my place to dress you up and show you off – and I will. I’m glad you’re such a pretty creature.”

She kissed Amethyst lightly as she passed her, and went away, leaving the girl embarrassed by the outspoken praise. But Amethyst knew, or thought she knew, all about her own beauty, and accepted it as one of the facts of life; so she roused herself in a moment, clapped her hands together, and sprang at her sisters – seizing Una round the waist.

“Come! come! let us look at each other, let us find each other out! – How big you all are! Come and tell me what work you are doing, and what you each go in for; let’s have a splendid talk together.”

She pulled Una down beside her on the sofa, and looked smiling into her face. She had not been grown-up so long as not to be quite ready for companionship with these younger girls, and girls came natural to her.

Una looked back wistfully into the laughing eyes. She was as tall as Amethyst, and her still childish dress accentuated the lanky slenderness of her figure, which seemed weighed down by the enormous quantities of reddish brown hair that fell over her shoulders and about her face. Indeed she looked out of health; all the colour in her face was concentrated in her full red lips, and her wide-open eyes were set in very dark circles. She looked, spite of her short frock and her long hair, older than her real age, and as unlike a natural healthy school-girl as the most “intense” and aesthetic taste could desire. Kattern was prettier, and, as Amethyst expressed it to herself, more comfortable-looking, but she had a stupid face; and by far the shrewdest, keenest glances came from Tory’s darker eyes, which had an elfish malice in them, that caused Amethyst mentally to comment on her as “a handful for any teacher.”

“We don’t do any work – we’re neglected,” she said, perching herself on the arm of the sofa, and looking at her sisters as they sat upon it, with her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands. “I expect we shall have some lessons now, though, we’re ‘in the school-room,’ now we are in the country – like the Miss Leighs.”

“You could not do regular lessons when you were travelling,” said Amethyst, “but I dare say you’re all good at French and German. We might have some readings together anyhow. I don’t mean to be idle, Una – you’ll help me to stick to work of some kind, won’t you?”

“You’d better ask me, Amethyst,” said Tory. “I think education might be amusing. Una never does anything she can help of any sort, she’s always tired or something.”

“There’s never anything worth doing,” said Una languidly, “it’s so dull.”

“It won’t be so dull next week,” said Kattern, with meaning, while Una coloured and shot a savage glance at her.

“Dear me!” said Amethyst. “We shan’t be dull. There are always such heaps of things to do and to think of. But tell me about the people who are coming next week, and about the neighbours round here.”

“There are Miss Riddell and her brother,” said Una. “He’s the parson, but it seems they’re in society here. They’ll be a bore most likely.”

“And there are the Leighs,” said Kattern. “There’s a young Leigh, who looks rather promising.”

“And next week,” said Tory, “the Lorrimores, and Damers, and Tony.”

“Who is Tony?”

“Oh, Tony’s quite a tame cat here,” said Tory, manifestly mimicking some one. “He’s always round. My lady has him about a great deal, and he’s useful, he’s got a little money. His wife ran away from him – his fault I dare say; and now they’re di – ”

“Tory!” interposed Una, starting up from her lounging attitude, “be quiet directly, you don’t know what you’re talking about. I won’t have it!”

“You can’t help Amethyst getting to know things,” said Tory in her slowest drawl; but she gave in, and swung herself off the end of the sofa, calling Kattern to come out in the garden.

Una let herself drop back on the sofa, it was characteristic of her that she never sat upright a moment longer than she could help it, and looked furtively round under her hair at her sister. Amethyst, however, had encountered children before, possessed of a desire to shock their betters, and took Tory’s measure according to her lights; which were to take no notice of improper remarks, especially as Una had shut the little one up so effectually.

“Well, I must go and write to auntie,” she said; “and then shall we go out too, Una?”

“Yes, if you like,” said Una, and with a sudden impulse she put up her face to Amethyst’s, and kissed her.

During the next week or ten days Amethyst was so much taken up with her own family that the various introductions in the neighbourhood made very little impression on her. The result on her mind of these first days of intercourse was curious. She did not by any means think her home perfection. She had indeed been vaguely prepared for much that was imperfect; and she had far too clear and definite a standard not to know that her sisters really were “neglected,” and was too much accustomed to good sense not to be aware that Lady Haredale talked nonsense. But there was a glamour over her which, perhaps happily, softened all the rough edges. Amethyst fell in love with her new “mamma,” and Una conceived a sudden and vehement devotion for the pretty, cheerful, chattering elder sister, who was so unlike any one in her previous experience. Amethyst forgot to criticise what her mother said or did, when the way of saying it or doing it was so congenial to one who shared the same soft gaiety of nature; and Una, suffering, poor child, in many ways, from the “neglect” of which Tory had too truly spoken, followed all Amethyst’s suggestions, and clung to her with ever-increasing affection.

A lady was recommended by Miss Riddell to come every morning and teach the three girls, and though Amethyst did not exactly share in the lessons, she talked about them, and helped in the preparation of them, and made them the fashion, and Tory at least began, as she had said, to find education interesting. This home-life went on as a background during all the ensuing weeks, when outer interests began to assert themselves, and the flood of life for Amethyst rolled on fast and full.

But all along, and at first especially, there were many intervals filled up with teaching her sisters the delights of country walks and primrose-pickings; with reading her favourite books to them, stirring them up about their lessons, and, all unintentionally, in giving them something else to think of than the vagaries of their elders’ life.

A “school-room” had really been provided for them, high up in one of the corners of the house, with a window in its angle which caught the sun all day, and looked over the pretty, rough open country in which Cleverley lay. Here, with flowers and books and girlish rummage, was the most home-like spot the Haredale girls had ever known; and here late one sunny afternoon lounged Una, curled up in the corner of an old sofa – doing, as was still too often the case, absolutely nothing.

Suddenly a light step came flying up the stairs, and Amethyst ran into the room, and stood before her in the full glory of the early evening sunlight, saying in her fresh girlish voice —

“Look, Una – look!”

Amethyst was already in her white dinner-dress, and round her neck was clasped a broad band of glowing purple jewels. Stars of deep lustrous colour gleamed in her hair and on her bosom, her eyes shone in the sunshine, which poured its full glory on her innocent eager face, which in that clear and searching light seemed to share with the jewels a sort of heavenly radiance, a splendour of light and colour from a fairer and purer world.

“Amethyst,” exclaimed Una, starting up, “you look like an angel.”

Amethyst laughed, and stepping out of the sunlight, came and knelt down by Una’s side; no longer a heavenly vision of light and colour, but a happy-faced girl, decorated with quaint and splendid ornaments of amethysts set with small diamonds.

“Mamma says that she has given me my own jewels. She says she was so fond of these beautiful stones that she made up her mind to call me after them, and I am to wear them whenever I can. Aren’t they lovely?”

“Yes,” said Una; “I didn’t know my lady had them still. They’re just fit for you.”

Amethyst took off the splendid necklet, and held it in her hands.

“They’re too beautiful to be vain of,” she said, dreamily. “It’s rather nice to have a stone and colour of one’s own. I used to think amethysts and purple rather dull when we chose favourites at school. Amethyst means temperance, you know. It’s a dull meaning, but I expect it’s a very useful one for me now.”

“Why, what do you mean?” said Una.

“Well!” said Amethyst, “I do enjoy everything so very much. I feel as if music, and dancing, and going out with mother, and having pretty things to wear, would be so very delightful. So if the most delightful things of all remind me that I mustn’t let myself go, but be temperate in all things, it ought to be getting some good out of the beauty, oughtn’t it?”

Amethyst spoke quite simply, as one to whom various little methods of self-discipline were as natural a subject of discussion as various methods of study.

“I hope you’ll never look different from what you did just now,” said Una, in a curious strained voice, and laying her head on her sister’s shoulder; “but it’s all going to begin.”

“Why, Una, what is it?” as the words ended in a stifled sob. “Headache again? You naughty child, I’m sure you want tonics, or sea air, or something. And I wish you would let me plait all this hair into a tail, it is much too hot and heavy for you.”

“Oh no, no! not now,” said Una, now fairly crying, “not just now – let it alone. I don’t want to be grown-up!”

“A tail doesn’t look grown-up,” said Amethyst in a matter-of-fact voice. “Any way there’s nothing to cry about. If you want to come down and see the people after dinner, you must lie still now and rest. But you ought to go to bed early, and get a good-night. When people cry for nothing, it shows they’re ill.”

“I dare say it does, but I’m not ill,” said Una.

“Then you’re silly,” said Amethyst, with cheerful briskness; but Una did not resent the tone. She gave Amethyst a long clinging kiss, and then lay back on the sofa; while her sister went off to arrange the jewels to her satisfaction, in preparation for the first state dinner-party at which she was to make her appearance.