This Freedom

bout her father and that entirely and completely belonged to her father. Under her father, all males had propriet

females in this world-her mother, and Anna and Flora and Hilda her sisters, and Ellen the cook and Gertrude the maid-did ordinary and unexciting and generally rather tiresome t

nderful creatures who could do what they liked and were always doing

lie; but it was surprising in the sense of being absorbingly wonderful and enthralling. Even better than reading when she first began to read, and far better than anything in the world before the mysteries in books were discoverable, Rosalie liked to sit and stare at her father and think how wonderful he was

ross a field towards her with a bull after him! Wonderful father! Did her mother ever rush along in front of a bull? Never. Was it possible to imagine any of the women she knew rushing before a bull? It was not possible. To see a woman rushing before

pring as high in the air as he sprung forward over the ground. It would not have surprised Rosalie, who was then about four, to see one of these stupendous leaps continue in a whirling flight through mid-air and her father come hurtling over the gate and drop with an enormous plunk at her feet like a hu

dlong avalanche over the gate, Rosalie's father tottered to a felled tree trunk, and s

him, said, "Mother says dinne

waiting for or upon some male other than her father. That was another of the leading principles that Rosalie first came to know in her world. Not only were the males, paramountly her father, abl

n the morning, for instance. T

ded upon it, occupied with one male. Three girls-Anna about sixteen, Flora fourteen, Hilda twelve-and three grown women, all exhaustingly occupied in pushing out of the house one heavy a

hey are, ministering. Entran

he lap of Ellen the cook, who with very violent tugs, as if she were lashing a box, is lacing a boot on to it. Behind Robert is Anna, who is pressing his head down with one hand and washing the back of his neck with the other. In front of him across the table is Hilda, staring before her with bemused eyes and moving lips and rapi

y is working at top speed for him, and ev

ggling, master Robert

Peter de Roche.' Well, say it then, you dr

do please keep up!"

ill you!" (Th

ur and six you carried th

your foot further round

were now incensed. The Barons were now in

fractions or by decimals?...

ing spe

and most violent skirmish in this devoted attendance. Everybody rushes around hunting for things and pushing them on to Robert and pushing Robert, festooned with them, towards the door. Where was his cap? Where was hi

to be pushed off half an hour later than Robert, and as he was a greater and more splendid male than Robert (though infinitely lesser than her father) so the place to which he was pushed off was far more mysterious and enthralling than the place to which Robert was pushed off. A school Rosalie could dimly understand. But a bank! Why Harold should go to sit on a bank all day, and why he should ride on a bicycle to Ashborough to find a bank when there were banks all around the rectory,

ly of the most entrancingly noisy or violent description. When ladies came to the rectory to see her mother they sat in the drawing-room and sipped tea and spoke in thin voices; but when men came to see her father and went into the study, there was very loud talking and often a row. Yes, and once in the village street, Rosalie had seen two men

n

s were) with his splendid button boots in one hand an

ne yet, you laz

't, you lazy

Robert! Robert! You are not

poke to me

speak to you in a minute if you don't ge

an'

bert! Harol

ving my breakfast? Not a thing ready, as usual. Look here, where I'm supposed to sit-flannel and soa

girl's boots wi

ycle; half the female assemblage cover his retreat and block the dash after him of the still more splendid Harold; all the female assemblage, battle

wing a button on to his boot, another with blotting paper and hot iron is removing a stain from his coat, divested for the purpose; one is pouring out his coffee, another is cutting his bread, a

oodness,

, "The

s that young brute ta

took it.

mot

are my boots? Well, never mind the infernal button. How am I going to get to the bank with

ing over the meadow, shouting, scrambling, falling. Out after them plunges Harold, shirt-sleeved, one boot half on, hobbling, leaping, bawling. Glorious to watch him! He outruns them all; he outbellows them all. Of co

y caught. Not Robert. Wonderful and mysterious Robert, wonderfully and mysteriously pedalling at incredible speed, i

rants. Nobody can leave him for a minute. Rosalie's father appears. Everybody leaves Harold simultaneously, abruptly, and as if by magic. Rosalie's father appears. Everybody disappears. Wonderful father! Ev

ng greeting. No "Good morning, dear," as her mother would

t go

o. He is very anxious to go but, like Robert, he will not abandon the field without defiance of the authority next above his

ee the cl

es

ourself, sir. Qu

lock's

h which you could keep time of a morning, or of any hou

"I should have thought that was more a matter for the Ban

more so than when you lad-di-dah that you are right. You may be wrong, but let me tell you

my age I should be hounded out of

ngly slothful habits, you clash with me, sir. My breakfast is delayed because you clash with me, and the

t aware that Rober

e you going or a

g

back th

ngs it

rful

would have dislocated the neck of a horse. The cord

ous f

lso and Hilda shivering in her nightgown beside them, too young to be frightened but with her

a. "How could fath

y