Down came the rain, a hopeless downpour, and there was a consultation
among the elders, some laughing, some doubtful looks, and at last
Harry, with Macrae and one of the curates, disappeared. Then grace was
sung, and speeches followed--one by the rector, Mr. Leadbitter,
fatherly and prosy;--a paper read by the Branch Secretary, about
affairs in general; and a very amusing speech by Miss Mohun, full of
anecdotes of example and warning. 'You know,' she said, 'all the
school story-books end--when the grown up books marry their people--
with the good girl going out to service under her young lady, and there
she lives happy ever after! But some of us know better! We don't know
how far the marrying ones always do live very happy ever after--'
'For shame, Jenny!' muttered Lady Merrifield.
'But,' went on Miss Mohun, 'even you that have been lucky enough to get
under your own young ladies know that life here is all new beginnings
at the bottom, just as when you were very proud of yourselves for
getting out of the infant school, you found it was only being at the
bottom of the upper one; and I can tell the twelve-year-olds--I see
some of them--that it is often a finer thing to be at the head of the
school than the last in the house. Ay, you've got to work up there
again, and it is a long business and a steady business, but it is to be
done. I knew a girl, thirty-five years ago, that my sister-in-law took
from school, and she was not a genius either, and I am quite sure she
could not do rule-of-three, nor tell what is the capital of Dahomey, as
I dare say every one here can do, but I'll tell you what she did, and
that was, her best, and there she has been ever since; and the last
time I saw her was sitting up in her housekeeper's room, in her silk
gown, with her master's grandchildren hanging about her, respected and
loved by us all.
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