There was, indeed, a certain undeveloped idea held out that some of the duplicates of Fergus’s precious collection might be arranged as a sample of the specimens of minerals and fossils of Rockquay at the long-talked-of sale of work.
CHAPTER VIII. – THE MOUSE-TRAP
If a talent be a claw, look how he claws him with a talent.
The young ladies were truly in an intense state of excitement about the sale of work, especially about the authorship; and Uncle Lancelot having promised to send an estimate, a meeting of the Mouse-trap was convened to consider of the materials, and certainly the mass of manuscript contributed at different times to the Mouse-trap magazine was appalling to all but Anna, who knew what was the shrinkage in the press.
She, however, held herself bound not to inflict on her busy uncle the reading of anything entirely impracticable, so she sat with a stern and critical eye as the party mustered in Miss Mohun’s drawing-room, and Gillian took the chair.
“The great design,” said she impressively, “is that the Mouse-trap should collect and print and publish a selection for the benefit of the school.”
The Mice vehemently applauded, only Miss Norton, the oldest of the party, asked humbly—
“Would any one think it worth buying?”
“Oh, yes,” cried Valetta. “Lots of translations!”
“The Erl King, for instance,” put in Dolores Mohun.
“If Anna would append the parody,” suggested Gillian.
“Oh, parodies are—are horrid,” said Mysie.
“Many people feel them so,” said Gillian, “but to others I think they are almost a proof of love, that they can make sport with what they admire so much.”
“Then,” said Mysie, “there’s Dolores’ Eruption!”
“What a nice subject,” laughed Gillian. “However, it will do beautifully, being the description of the pink terraces of that place with the tremendous name in New Zealand.”
“Were you there?” cried Anna.
“Yes. I always wonder how she can look the same after such adventures,” said Mysie.
“You know it is much the same as my father’s paper in the Scientific World,” said Dolores.
“Nobody over reads that, so it won’t signify,” was the uncomplimentary verdict.
“And,” added Mysie, “Mr. Brownlow would do a history of Rockquay, and that would be worth having.”
“Oh yes, the dear ghost and all!” cried Valetta.
The acclamation was general, for the Reverend Armine Brownlow was the cynosure curate of the lady Church-helpers, and Mysie produced as a precious loan, to show what could be done, the volume containing the choicest morceaux of the family magazine of his youth, the Traveller’s Joy, in white parchment binding adorned with clematis, and emblazoned with the Evelyn arms on one side, the Brownlow on the other, and full of photographs and reproductions of drawings.
“Much too costly,” said the prudent.
“It was not for sale,” said Mysie, obviously uneasy while it was being handed round.
“Half-a-crown should be our outside price,” said Gillian.
“Or a shilling without photographs, half-a-crown with,” was added.
“Shall I ask Uncle Lance what can be done for how much?” asked Anna, and this was accepted with acclamation, but, as Gillian observed, they had yet got no further than Dolores’ Eruption and the unwritten history.
“There are lots of stories,” said Kitty Varley; “the one about Bayard and all the knights in Italy.”
“The one,” said Gillian, “where Padua got into the kingdom of Naples, and the lady of the house lighted a lucifer match, besides the horse who drained a goblet of red wine.”
“You know that was only the pronouns,” suggested the author.
“Then there’s another,” added Valetta, “called Monrepos—such a beauty, when the husband was wounded, and died at his wife’s feet just as the sun gilded the tops of the pines, and she died when the moon set, and the little daughter went in and was found dead at their feet.”
“No, no, Val,” said Gillian. “Here is a story that Bessie has sent us—really worth having.”
“Mesa! Oh, of course,” was the acclamation.
“And here’s a little thing of mine,” Gillian added modestly, “about the development of the brain.”
At this there was a shout.
“A little thing! Isn’t it on the differential calculus?”
“Really, I don’t see why Rockquay should not have a little rational study!”
“Ah! but the present question is what Rockquay will buy; to further future development it may be, but I am afraid their brains are not yet developed enough,” said Emma Norton.
“Well then, here is the comparison between Euripides and Shakespeare.”
“That’s what you read papa and everybody to sleep with,” said Valetta pertly.
“Except Aunt Lily, and she said she had read something very like it in Schlegel,” added Dolores.
“You must not be too deep for ordinary intellects, Gillian,” said Emma Norton good-naturedly. “Surely there is that pretty history you made out of Count Baldwin the Pretender.”
“That! Oh, that is a childish concern.”
“The better fitted for our understandings,” said Emma, disinterring it, and handing it over to Anna, while Mysie breathed out—
“Oh! I did like it! And, Gill, where is Phyllis’s account of the Jubilee gaieties and procession last year?”
“That would make the fortune of any paper,” said Anna.
“Yes, if Lady Rotherwood will let it be used,” said Gillian. “It is really delightful and full of fun, but I am quite sure that her name could not appear, and I do not expect leave to use it.”
“Shall I write and ask?” said Mysie.
“Oh yes, do; if Cousin Rotherwood is always gracious, it is specially to you.”
“I wrote to my cousin, Gerald Underwood,” said Anna, “to ask if he had anything to spare us, though I knew he would laugh at the whole concern, and he has sent down this. I don’t quite know whether he was in earnest or in mischief.”
And she read aloud—
“Dreaming of her laurels green,
The learned Girton girl is seen,
Or under the trapeze neat
Figuring as an athlete.
Never at the kitchen door
Will she scrub or polish more;
No metaphoric dirt she eats,
Literal