Six to Sixteen

Buller girls and the ladies of the regiment, that I seem quite familiar with all that happened; and I hardly k

s ordered home. As Aunt Theresa repeatedly remarked, "There are a great many t

egiment going home, it had been settled that the Colonel's wife should go to England, where her daughters were being educated, and take the two youngest children with her. Her passage in the mail-steamer was all but taken, if not quite. And then, when they heard of the troop-ship, she stayed to go home in that. "Money can be no object to them," said Mrs. Minchi

led to, more than any other lady on board," observed Uncle Buller. "The Quartermas

ommodated with the women of the regiment if we had gone home three mont

s not fond of Mrs. Minchin, and h

ll off what we did not want to take home, and the

Then they know that there are plenty more to come, and they hang back. But further on, people have just got into an extrav

at they don't want,"

, demanding her friends' condolences beforehand on the way in which her goods and chattels would be

ice, if she was managin

ned in every bargain. The question then arises, do people in our rank know so much better on these points of moral conduct than those below them? If Eleanor and her parents are "old-fashioned" (and the boys think us quite behind the times), I fancy, that perhaps high principle and a nice sense of honour are not so well taught now as they used to be. Noble sentiments are not the fashion. The very phrase provokes a smile of ridicule. But I do not know whether the habit of uttering ignoble ones in "chaff" does not at last bring the tone of mind down to the low level. It is so terribly easy to be mean, and covetous, and selfish, and cowardly untrue, if the people by whose good opinion one's character lives will comfortably confess that they also "look out for themselves," and "take care of Number One," and think "money's the great thing in this world," and hold "the social lie" to be a necessary part of social intercourse. I know that once or twice it has happened that young people with whom we have been thrown have said things which have made high-principled Eleanor stand aghast in honourable horror; and that that speechless indignation of hers has been as much lost upon

wind. We have confessed that our experience is very small, and our opinions still unfixed in the matter, so

luable cement. The pecuniary gain may have been half-a-crown. The loss in self-respect she did not seem to estimate. Aunt Theresa would not have done it herself, but she laughed encouragingly. It is difficult to be strait-laced with a lady who had so much old point, and whose silks are so stiff that she can rustle down your remonstrances. Another friend, a young officer whose personal extravagance was a proverb even at a station in India, boas

ittle inclination to be bear-led by Mrs. Minchin. She met that terrible lady so smartly on one occasion that she retired, worsted, for the afternoon, and the bride drove triumphantly round the pla

knew better than to go into deep black, which is trying to indefinite complexions, but was equal to any length of grief in those lavenders, and

t herself in candour bound to reveal what Mrs. Minchin had told her about the bride's having sold a lot of her wedding p

y" know what Mrs. Minchin thought of her going home in the troop-ship, and had made a call upon the Quartermaster's wife for the pleasure of making her acquainted with Mrs. Minchin's wa

deepest dye, was kind-hearted, after a fashion. Her restless energy, which chiefly expended itself in petty social plots, and the fomentation of quarrels, was not seldom employed also in practical kindness towards those who ha

fairs but her own, and combined in the highest degree those qualities of pe

ride. Her maid was sick, and she was slovenly. She was sick herself, and then her selfishness and discontent knew no check. The other ladies bore their own little

ad not lasted much beyond that afternoon in which the bride scattered discord among her acquaintances. She had relieved herself by outpouring the tale of Mrs. Minchin's treachery to Uncle Buller, and then taking him warmly to task for t

nd took home some rare and beauti

ermaster's wife. Neither her kindness of heart nor her love of managing other folks' matters would permit

r at any one thinking the children would be in the

pretty well what Mrs. Seymour's made of, now. Let's go to the children. I'm as good a sick-nurse a

arrel with the surgeon) and all her devotion, which neve

ancy ships in corners, to which he admitted the other children as fancy passengers, or fancy ship's officers of various grades. Once he employed a dozen of us to haul at a rope as if we were "heaving the log." Owing to an unexpected coil, it slackened suddenly, and we all fell over one another a

was fatal to him at a critical point in his illness. How Mrs. Minchin contrived to kee

the bride were with poor Mrs. Curling at the funeral. Mrs. Seymour lay in her berth, and whined complaints of "that horrid bell." She displayed something between an interesting terror and a shr

washed. The sailors in various parts of the ship uncovered their heads. The Colonel and several officers w

ough Mrs. Minchin had tried hard to move her to the natural relief of weeping. She only stood i

the quiet sea, the sun rose, and a long level bea

en cry, the mothe