In Mrs. Fisher's bedroom a smell of rotten apples oozed through the rosebud pattern on the walls. There were no doors inside, only places in the wall-paper that opened. Behind one of these places there was a cupboard where Mrs. Fisher kept her clothes. Sometimes she would take the lid off the big box covered with wall-paper and show you her Sunday bonnet. You sat on the bed, and she gave you peppermint balls to suck while she peeled off her black merino and squeezed herself into her black silk. You watched for the moment when the brooch with the black tomb and the weeping willow on it was undone and Mrs. Fisher's chin came out first by the open collar and Mrs. Fisher began to swell. When she stood up in her petticoat and bodice she was enormous; her breasts and hips and her great arms shook as she walked about the room.
Mary was sorry when she said good-bye to Uncle Edward and Aunt Bella and Mrs. Fisher.
For, always, as soon as she got home, Roddy rushed at her with the same questions.
"Did you let Uncle Edward kiss you?"
"Yes."
"Did you talk to Pidgeon?"
"Yes."
"Did you kiss Mrs. Fisher?"
"Yes."
And Dank said, "Have they taken Ponto off the chain yet?"
"No."
"Well, then, that shows you what pigs they are."
And when she saw Mark looking at her she felt small and silly and ashamed.
II.
It was the last week of the midsummer holidays. Mark and Dank had gone to stay for three days at Aunt Bella's, and on the second day they had been sent home.
Mamma and Roddy were in the garden when they came. They were killing snails in a flower-pot by putting salt on them. The snails turned over and over on each other and spat out a green foam that covered them like soapsuds as they died.
Mark's face was red and he was smiling. Even Dank looked proud of himself and happy. They called out together, "We've been sent home."
Mamma looked up from her flower-pot.
"What did you do?" she said.
"We took Ponto off the chain," said Dank.
"Did he get into the house?"
"Of course he did," said Mark. "Like a shot. He got into Aunt Bella's bedroom, and Aunt Bella was in bed."
"Oh, Mark!"
"Uncle Edward came up just as we were getting him out. He was in an awful wax."
"I'm afraid," Dank said, "I cheeked him."
"What did you say?"
"I told him he wasn't fit to have a dog. And he said we weren't to come again; and Mark said that was all we had come for—to let Ponto loose."
Mamma put another snail into the flower-pot, very gently. She was smiling and at the same time trying not to smile.
"He went back," said Mark, "and raked it up again about our chasing his sheep, ages ago."
"Did you chase the sheep?"
"No. Of course we didn't. They started to run because they saw Pidgeon coming, and Roddy ran after them till we told him not to. The mean beast said we'd made Mary's lamb die by frightening its mother. When he only gave it her because he knew it wouldn't live. Then he said we'd frightened Aunt Bella."
Mary stared at them, fascinated.
"Oh, Mark, was Aunt Bella ill?"
"Of course she wasn't. She only says she's going to be to keep you quiet."
"Well," said Mamma, "she won't be frightened any more. He'll not ask you again."
"We don't care. He's not a bit of good. He won't let us ride his horses or climb his trees or fish in his stinking pond."
"Let Mary go there," said Dank. "She likes it. She kisses Pidgeon."
"I don't," she cried. "I hate Pidgeon. I hate Uncle Edward and Aunt
Bella. I hate Mrs. Fisher."
Mamma looked up from her flower-pot, and, suddenly, she was angry.
"For shame! They're kind to you," she said. "You little naughty, ungrateful girl."
"They're not kind to Mark and Dank. That's why I hate them."
She wondered why Mamma was not angry with Mark and Dank, who had let
Ponto loose and frightened Aunt Bella.
IV
I.
That year when Christmas came Papa gave her a red book with a gold holly wreath on the cover. The wreath was made out of three words: The Children's Prize, printed in letters that pretended to be holly sprigs. Inside the holly wreath was the number of the year, in fat gold letters: 1869.
Soon after Christmas she had another birthday. She was six years old. She could write in capitals and count up to a hundred if she were left to do it by herself. Besides "Gentle Jesus," she could say "Cock-Robin" and "The House that Jack Built," and "The Lord is my Shepherd" and "The Slave in the Dismal Swamp." And she could read all her own story books, picking out the words she knew and making up the rest. Roddy never made up. He was a big boy, he was eight years old.
The morning after her birthday Roddy and she were sent into the drawing-room to Mamma. A strange lady was there. She had chosen the high-backed chair in the middle of the room with the Berlin wool-work parrot on it. She sat very upright, stiff and thin between the twisted rosewood pillars of the chair. She was dressed in a black gown made of a great many little bands of rough crape and a few smooth stretches of merino. Her crape veil, folded back over her hat, hung behind her head in a stiff square. A jet necklace lay flat and heavy on her small chest. When you had seen all these black things she showed you, suddenly, her white, wounded face.
Mamma called her Miss Thompson.
Miss Thompson's face was so light and thin that you thought it would break if you squeezed it. The skin was drawn tight over her jaw and the bridge of her nose and the sharp naked arches of her eye-bones. She looked at you with mournful, startled eyes that were too large for their lids; and her flat chin trembled slightly as she talked.
"This is Rodney," she said, as if she were repeating a lesson after
Mamma.
Rodney leaned up against Mamma and looked proud and handsome. She had her arm round him, and every now and then she pressed it tighter to draw him to herself.
Miss Thompson said after Mamma, "And this is Mary."
Her mournful eyes moved and sparkled as if she had suddenly thought of something for herself.
"I am sure," she said, "they will be very good."
Mamma shook her head, as much as to say Miss Thompson must not build on it.
Every weekday from ten to twelve Miss Thompson came and taught them reading, writing and arithmetic. Every Wednesday at half-past eleven the boys' tutor, Mr. Sippett, looked in and taught Rodney "Mensa: a table."
Mamma told them they must never be naughty with Miss Thompson because her mother was dead.
They went away and talked about her among the gooseberry bushes at the bottom of the garden.
"I