Milly Darrell and Other Tales | Page 5

this blighted lady.
'Girls of your age are so incorrigibly idle,' she said; 'but I must give you
to understand at once that you will have no time for dawdling at Albury
Lodge. The first bell rings a quarter before six, and at a quarter past I
shall expect to see you in the schoolroom. You will superintend the
younger pupils' pianoforte practice from that time till eight o'clock, at
which hour we breakfast. From nine till twelve you will take the second
division of the second class for English, according to the routine
arranged by me, which you had better copy from a paper I will lend you
for that purpose. After dinner you will take the same class for two
hours' reading until four; from four to five you will superintend the
needle-work class. Your evenings--with the exception of the careful
correction of all the day's exercises--will be your own. I hope you have
a sincere love of your vocation, Miss Crofton.'
I said I hoped I should grow to like my work as I became accustomed
to it. I had never yet tried teaching, except with my young sister and
brothers. My hear sank as I remembered our free-and-easy studies in
the sunny parlour at home, or out in the garden under the pink and

white hawthorns sometimes on balmy mornings in the early summer.
Miss Susan shook her head doubtfully.
'Unless you have a love of your vocation you will never succeed, Miss
Crofton,' she said solemnly.
I freely confess that this love she spoke of never came to me. I tried to
do my duty, and I endured all the hardships of my life in, I hope, a
cheerful spirit. But the dry monotony of the studies had no element of
pleasantness, and I used to wonder how Miss Susan could derive
pleasure--as it was evident she did--from the exercise of her authority
over those hapless scholars who had the misfortune to belong to her
class. Day after day they heard the same lectures, listened submissively
to the same reproofs, and toiled on upon that bleak bare high-road to
learning, along which it was her delight to drive them. Nothing like a
flower brightened their weary way--it was all alike dust and barrenness;
but they ploughed on dutifully, cramming their youthful minds with the
hardest dates and facts to be found in the history of mankind, the
dreariest statistics, the driest details of geography, and the most
recondite rules of grammar, until the happy hour arrived in which they
took their final departure from Albury Lodge, to forget all they had
learnt there in the briefest possible time.
How my thoughts used to wander away sometimes as I sat at my desk,
distracted by the unmelodious sound of Miss Susan's voice lecturing
some victim in her own division at the next table, while one of the girls
in mine droned drearily at Lingard, or Pinnock's Goldsmith, as the case
might be! How the vision of my own bright home haunted me during
those long monotonous afternoons, while the March winds made the
poplars rock in the garden outside the schoolroom, or the April rain
beat against the great bare windows!
CHAPTER II.
MILLY'S VISITOR.
It was not often that I had a half-holiday to myself, for Miss Susan

Bagshot seemed to take a delight in finding me something to do on
these occasions; but whenever I had, I spent it with Milly Darrell, and
on these rare afternoons I was perfectly happy. I had grown to love her
as I did not think it was in me to love any one who was not of my own
flesh and blood; and in so loving her, I only returned the affection
which she felt for me.
I am sure it was the fact of my friendlessness, and of my subordinate
position in the school, which had drawn this girl's generous heart
towards me; and I should have been hard indeed if I had not felt
touched by her regard. She soon grew indescribably dear to me. She
was of my own age, able to sympathize with every thought and fancy
of mine; the frankest, most open-hearted of creatures; a little proud of
her beauty, perhaps, when it was praised by those she loved, but never
proud of her wealth, or insolent to those whose gifts were less than
hers.
I used to write my home-letters in her room on these rare and happy
afternoons, while she painted at an easel near the window. The room
was small, but better furnished than the ordinary rooms in the house,
and it was brightened by all sorts of pretty things,-- handsomely-bound
books upon hanging shelves, pictures, Dresden cups and saucers,
toilet-bottles and boxes, which Miss Darrell had brought from home.
Over