considered a grand marriage for a poor clergyman’s daughter, Mr. Markham being an M.P. and a man of large property. She had not only married herself well, but had made still more brilliant matches for her two daughters in their first season, and since this success had been most benevolently anxious to do the same for us, her three nieces. Many a time had papa been implored to part with us to her. He was most selfishly sacrificing our prospects. We were “wasting our sweetness on the desert air.” So said Aunt Markham. But the great world and the aunt we had never seen were a terror rather than an attraction for us, and papa too, I believe, thought his sister a vain, worldly woman, and had hitherto been of opinion that his wild moorland flowers would flourish better in their native soil than under her fostering care. Now, however, he seemed suddenly to have changed his mind, and the winter at Brighton and ensuing season in London, with all the splendours which had been suspended over Sarah’s head so long, were now to fall upon it, and—so we feared at least—to crush her. How we should miss her too! never having been separated from one another for a single day in all our lives before. What Mr. Pembroke said and did during that day’s dinner I have forgotten; after he was gone, and papa had retired to his study, Sarah began to bewail her fate.
“What shall I do?” was her exclamation.
“What you are bid, I suppose,” returned Rose, with an affectation of gaiety she did not feel. “Papa bids you go to Aunt Markham, and Aunt Markham—let me see—what will she bid you? In the first place, to learn to dance; in the next, to make a bonfire of all your green dresses, look as pretty as you can; and finally to captivate a live lord or rich baronet at the least.”
“Oh, but Rose!” said Sarah, dolefully, without the shadow of a smile on her face, “I mean, what shall I do about Mr. Pembroke?”
“And oh, Sarah! I mean London is a big place, and I have no doubt contains thousands of black-haired and handsome-featured individuals, just as like the one you saw in the crystal as Mr. Pembroke is, who will make you forget the existence of the latter in no time.”
“You won’t understand me,” said Sarah, almost crossly this time, “I mean what shall I do about the sermons? I begin now to see my own folly—love it never has been. But if Mr. Pembroke ceases to receive the sermons when I go away, he will find me out, and think, oh!—all sorts of horrid things. I am sure I shall never find time to write them when I am with Aunt Markham, or else I might have sent them by post for you to forward. Oh, Fanny! Oh, Rose! Won’t you try to write them when I am away?”
We both, however, positively declined this proposal.
“Qui amat non laborat, Sarah,” I said, “but in Rose’s case and mine the work would be not light but grievous.”
I tried, however, to comfort my sister by suggesting that some other way out of the difficulty would probably turn up before she left us. I said probably, though the chance, indeed, seemed small. In a few days more the time of Sarah’s departure was fixed. Papa was himself to take her to Brighton the week before Christmas—that was in little more than a fortnight. We had been all three taking a walk on the moor the day following this decision; the weather was dark and gloomy, and our spirits in unison with it, when on our return we met papa at the garden gate, just bidding Mr. Pembroke good morning. The Curate’s calls were not unfrequent, and had seldom any important object: we were therefore rather surprised when papa asked us to guess what it had been to-day.
“To inform me of his intention to leave at Easter,” said he, seeing us at a loss: “knowing I was going from home, he thought it better to tell me before I left, as I might, when away, hear of another curate to supply his place. You don’t any of you seem to feel much sorrow at my news,” he added, scanning our faces, “nor do I myself, either. His sermons have been well enough lately, but he is a vain, conceited fellow, whom I could never bring myself to like.”
The news was indeed anything but sorrowful to us. Our first thought was, here was relief for Sarah. The anonymous sermon-writer had only promised assistance so long as Mr. Pembroke should continue in his present curacy. His intention of leaving would remain no secret, and might naturally be supposed speedily to reach the ears of his benefactor or tress, as the case might be. That the latter’s aid should at once be withdrawn might follow as a matter of course. After some discussion, however, we decided it to be advisable that Sarah should send a note to Mr. Pembroke explanatory of these causes and effects, and the following, in the same disguised hand-writing, was accordingly despatched through the B post-office:—
“In consequence of information the writer has received, that it is Mr. Pembroke’s intention to give up the Curacy of , no more sermons will be forwarded.”
“I can’t understand it,” said papa, the next Sunday morning, as we were leaving church; “I can’t understand it, unless the fellow has been preaching sermons not his own for the last two months, and to-day has returned again to his original compositions. Can you explain it otherwise?” he finished by inquiring, looking Sarah full in the face.
She was a bad dissembler, and instead of answering began to cough her old nervous cough. I made an attempt at evasion, but it was unsuccessful. Papa was determined on knowing the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and he questioned and cross-questioned with all the pertinacity of a crown lawyer. So the story came out. He was not very angry; in fact, I think he was rather proud that a daughter of his could write such clever sermons.
“It is the story of Titania and Bottom over again,” he said. “I think, however, we have arrived at the point where the queen discovers the asses’ ears, so we will spare her further ridicule.” And the subject was never again referred to.
The day of Sarah’s departure arrived only too