The Youngest Girl in the Fifth | Page 5

She
managed the house, and the children, and the one maid, and the parish,
and her father, all included, with a business-like capacity far in advance
of her twenty years. She was a fine-looking girl, tall and

straight-limbed and ample, with blue eyes and dark brows, and a clear
creamy skin, and that air of noble strength about her which the Greek
sculptors gave to their statues of Artemis. Though she did her best both
for home and hamlet, Beatrice often chafed against the narrowness of
her limits. It was a sore point that she had been obliged to leave school
at sixteen, and devote herself to domestic pursuits, and while not
regretting the sacrifice, she often lamented the two years lopped off her
education.
"I'm so behind, I never could go in even for the matric. now," she
sighed sometimes. "If I could have realized my ambition, I'd have
studied for a lady doctor."
Since the profession of medicine was utterly and entirely out of the
question, Beatrice often consoled herself by planning that when the
children were old enough to do without her, she would go as a nurse to
a big London hospital, and rise to be a ward sister, or perhaps--who
knew?--even a matron. In the meanwhile her talent for administration
had to confine itself within the bounds of the Parsonage and the parish,
where it was apt to become just a trifle dictatorial and overbearing. It is
so hard for a young, keen, ardent nature, anxious to set the world right,
to remember that infinite patience must go hand in hand with our best
endeavours, and that the time of sowing is an utterly different season
from that of harvest.
Between Gwen and Beatrice there was often friction. The former
resented being ordered about by a sister of only twenty, and would
prove rebellious on occasion. Really, the two girls' dispositions were
much alike, but Beatrice's early position of responsibility had turned
into strength of character what was at present mere manifestation of
independence and often bravado in Gwen.
Winnie, a sweet-tempered, pretty girl of eighteen, had just been made
an under-mistress at "Rodenhurst", Miss Roscoe's school, which she
and Gwen and Lesbia attended daily. Teaching was not at all Winnie's
vocation, she hated it heartily, but as her services cancelled her sisters'
school fees, she was obliged to accept the unwelcome drudgery for the
sake of the help it gave to her father's narrow income. If it was

Beatrice's ambition to go out into the world and carve a career for
herself, it was certainly Winnie's ideal to stop at home. She was a born
housekeeper, and loved sewing and cake-baking and jam-making, and
dusting the best china, and gardening, and rearing poultry and ducks. It
seemed a great pity that she could not have changed places with her
elder sister, but Beatrice's education had been stopped too soon for her
to be of any use as a teacher, while Winnie, though not clever, had been
carefully trained in Rodenhurst methods. Fortunately she had a very
cheerful, sunny disposition, that was prone to make the best of things,
so she struggled along, taking Miss Roscoe's many suggestions and
reproofs so amiably that the Principal, often irate at her lack of capacity,
had not the heart to scold her too severely. Of her own choice, I am
afraid, Winnie would never have opened a book, but she managed to
get up her subjects for her classes, and was a conscientious, painstaking
mistress, if not a brilliant one.
After Gwen came the beauty of the family, twelve-year-old Lesbia, a
dear, delightful, smiling, lovable little lazybones, usually at the bottom
of her Form. Lesbia never attempted to work hard at school. She
scraped through her lessons somehow, generally with Gwen's help at
home, and took life in a happy-go-lucky fashion, with as little trouble
to herself as possible. Lesbia's chief virtue was an admirably calm and
unruffled temper: she would laugh philosophically over things that
made Gwen rage, and though she had not half the character of the latter,
she was a far greater general favourite. She was much petted at school,
both by her own Form and by the Seniors, for she had sweet, coaxing
little ways, and a helpless, confiding look in her blue eyes that was
rather fascinating, and her lovely fair flaxen hair gave her the
appearance of a large wax doll, just new from a toy shop. Lesbia had
one great advantage: she was always well dressed. She possessed a rich
cousin of exactly her own age, whose clothes were passed on to her.
Irene grew rapidly, so her handsome frocks and coats were scarcely
worn when they reached Lesbia, and as Aunt Violet invariably sent
them first to the cleaners, they would arrive