rose longed to say that there was a great gulf between seventy-seven and nineteen and two months. she was stopped by the quiet determination and self-satisfaction visible in miss lucilla's face and manner, as she rose and graciously but summarily dismissed the trespasser on her valuable time.
"yes, i hope this will meet the case. you have been overdoing yourself—that explains itself to everybody. dear mrs. jennings must forbid you tea and coffee and limit you to cocoa in the meantime; indeed, my sisters and i take that precaution before any mischief appears. don't forget miss stone's study the first thing on drawing mornings. i trust a little sedative and stimulant in one will prepare you nicely for the drawing lessons."
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to rose's disgust she was compelled to make wry faces and choke over so many doses of sel-volatile and red lavender to the end of the term. she made secret unfulfilled threats to write to her father and get him to say that he would not permit her constitution to be tampered with, he would himself order her what she required, if she needed to be quieted like an incipient mad woman or a weak emotional fool.
rose was not sure that annie ought not to have come to her help. the younger sister did not see what advantage there was to the family in the elder sister's being a nurse if she was not to interfere on occasions of this kind. but annie had the bad taste to take the story as a good joke against rose; and as for hester jennings, it was an instance of "the queen laughed" with a vengeance. however, hester stepped in so far. she would not let the soothing regimen, on which rose was put, go the length of depriving her of her tea and coffee in welby square.
within the next few weeks hester did rose a still better turn. she (hester) came to her friend with an order for decorative designs in scroll-work, which had reached the elder girl from a decorator of some repute.
"i think you could do it, rose," said hester. "it would not take much time, and if your work
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satisfied the great tradesman who has given such an impetus to this kind of art, it might be a perfect windfall to art students wishing to keep themselves. you need not despise it in the light of house-painting. if you read your ruskin, you will find him as good as calling titian and veronese house-painters, though to be sure frescoes are rather an extension of scroll-work."
"indeed, i should never dream of despising it. i should be only too thankful for any kind of copying or pattern-drawing, or designing for christmas-cards—like poor fanny russell—if it were the beginning of the least little bit of an order," said rose meekly, with a stifled sigh given to her and may's old magnificent ideas of commissions. "but why don't you keep the work for yourself, hester?" the young girl inquired. "you could do it so well and so easily, and it would be no pain to you; it would be a pleasure, for it is graceful and true work so far as it goes—not like these cruel illustrations."
but hester waived aside the undertaking. "you have been more accustomed to this kind of thing than i have. no, i mean to stick to my illustrations, cruel or kind. there is a new man in the publisher's office who is giving me more of my own way, and i feel it would not be fair to leave him in the lurch. who knows that we may not, between us, lead the way to a revolution in the style of the
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cheapest original english wood-cut. besides, i do not want any more diversions from my main business. i am already on four different committees for women's trade unions, the female franchise, and all the rest of it. i must crib a little more time for my hand and foot. don't you know?—drawing my own hand and foot from their reflection in a looking-glass till i can put them in any position, and foreshorten them to my mind."
rose competed for the scroll-work order, and did it so well that she got the order, and along with it a note of commendation, a tolerably large extension of the commission, and the first instalment of a liberal payment for the kind of work. her elation knew no bounds—
"oh! hester, i should never, never even have heard of this delightful job but for you. what can i ever do for you?"
"don't hug me," said hester, retreating in veritable terror, for she had a peculiar genuine aversion to caresses, still more than to thanks. "don't knock off my hat, for i cannot spare another minute to put it straight again."
the next thing hester heard was a half-impetuous, half-shamefaced admission from rose that she had resigned her post as assistant drawing-mistress at the misses stone's school.
hester looked grave on the instant. "what did
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you do that for?" she demanded gruffly. "did you mention it to your sister? have you told them at home?"
"no," rose was forced to own—at least not till the deed was done. she had acted on her own responsibility. "but indeed, hester, it is the best plan," she argued volubly. "annie and all of them will say so when they know how i mean to cultivate this scroll-work, which is paying me twice as well already. i put it to you if i could do two things at once, and if it would be wise to sacrifice the more profitable for the less remunerative. why it would be quite shortsighted and cowardly."
"humph," said hester, without the smallest disguise, "much experience you have had of it! do you know, rose millar, these decorators' fads are constantly changing? perhaps in three months they will all be for mosaic, or tiles, or peacocks' feathers again. if i had thought you were such a rash idiotic little goose, i should never have breathed a word to you of this man and his scroll-work."
"oh! but, hester," pled rose, determined not to be offended, "i was only relieving the poor misses stone of a painful necessity. i am sure they have never put any dependence on me since the day i broke down—i grant you idiotically. i cannot stand the repression—suppression—whatever you like to call it. now that there is a way out of it, i
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have felt like a wild beast in the school—the girls are so very tame—so much tamer than we were at miss burridge's—where i was not a black sheep—may will tell you if you care to ask her," protested rose with wounded feeling. "but i am so tired of the rosy and snowy cottages and the ruins, and of that long-nosed collie. sometimes i feel as if i would give the world for him to wag his tail one day, just to give me an excuse for crying out and flinging my india-rubber at him. i wish may saw him; it might stop her ecstasies over her new acquisition—the brute at home. i feel that this other brute, and the rest of the misses stone's copies and models, are injuring my drawing—i know they are making it cramped; while the scrolls help my freedom of touch like hogarth's line of beauty or giotto's o. and it is such humbug, and so horrid to have to swallow these doses of sel-volatile—a great healthy girl like me!"
"humph!" said hester again, "i hope you may not repent what you have done—if so, you need not blame me."
