some distance from the point where the movement we are interested in was set up. The group I am moving towards is at Caleb Garth’s breakfast-table in the large parlour where the maps and desk were: father, mother, and five of the children. Mary was just now at home waiting for a situation, while Christy, the boy next to her, was getting cheap learning and cheap fare in Scotland, having to his father’s disappointment taken to books instead of that sacred calling “business.”
The letters had come—nine costly letters, for which the postman had been paid three and twopence, and Mr Garth was forgetting his tea and toast while he read his letters and laid them open one above the other, sometimes swaying his head slowly, sometimes screwing up his mouth in inward debate, but not forgetting to cut off a large red seal unbroken, which Letty snatched up like an eager terrier.
The talk among the rest went on unrestrainedly, for nothing disturbed Caleb’s absorption except shaking the table when he was writing.
Two letters of the nine had been for Mary. After reading them, she had passed them to her mother, and sat playing with her tea-spoon absently, till with a sudden recollection she returned to her sewing, which she had kept on her lap during breakfast.
“Oh, don’t sew, Mary!” said Ben, pulling her arm down. “Make me a peacock with this bread-crumb.” He had been kneading a small mass for the purpose.
“No, no, Mischief!” said Mary, good-humouredly, while she pricked his hand lightly with her needle. “Try and mould it yourself: you have seen me do it often enough. I must get this sewing done. It is for Rosamond Vincy: she is to be married next week, and she can’t be married without this handkerchief.” Mary ended merrily, amused with the last notion.
“Why can’t she, Mary?” said Letty, seriously interested in this mystery, and pushing her head so close to her sister that Mary now turned the threatening needle toward Letty’s nose.
“Because this is one of a dozen, and without it there would only be eleven,” said Mary, with a grave air of explanation, so that Letty sank back with a sense of knowledge.
“Have you made up your mind, my dear,” said Mrs Garth, laying the letters down.
“I shall go to the school at York,” said Mary. “I am less unfit to teach in a school than in a family. I like to teach classes best. And, you see, I must teach: there is nothing else to be done.”
“Teaching seems to me the most delightful work in the world,” said Mrs Garth, with a touch of rebuke in her tone. “I could understand your objection to it if you had not knowledge enough, Mary, or if you disliked children.”
“I suppose we never quite understand why another dislikes what we like, mother,” said Mary, rather curtly. “I am not fond of a schoolroom: I like the outside world better. It is a very inconvenient fault of mine.”
