Abbeychurch by Charlotte Mary Yonge - A complete eBook in pages (40 / 228)

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Abbeychurch by Charlotte Mary Yonge
Book, page 40 / 228

consider it as a duty in such as ourselves, to consult the taste of
the people we live with.'

'As your mother said about my hair,' said Elizabeth thoughtfully;
'I will do as she advised, Anne, but not while she is here, for fear
Mamma should fancy that I do so because Aunt Anne wished it, though
I would not to please her. I believe you are right; but look here,
will my bonnet do?'

'I think it looks very well,' said Anne; 'but will it not seem
remarkable for you to be unlike your sisters?'

'Ah! it will give Mrs. Hazleby an opportunity of calling me blue, and
tormenting Mamma,' said Elizabeth; 'besides, Mamma wished us all to
be alike down to the little ones, so I will make the best of it, and
trim it like any London milliner. But, Anne, you must consider it is
a great improvement in me to allow that respectable people must be
neat. I used to allow it in theory, but not in practice.'

'I do not think I ever saw you untidy, Lizzie,' said Anne, 'except
after a day's nutting in the hanging wood.'

'Oh yes, I could generally preserve a little outward tidiness,' said
Elizabeth; 'besides, a visit at Merton Hall is very different from
every day in shabby old Abbeychurch. No, you must know that when I
was twelve years old, I was supposed to be capable of taking care of
my own wardrobe; and for some time all went on very smoothly, only
that I never did a stitch towards mending anything.'

'Did a beneficent fairy do it for you, then?'

'Not a sprite, nor even a brownie, but one of the old wrinkled kind
of fairies. Old Margaret, that kindest of nurses, could not bear to
see her dear Miss Lizzie untidy, or to hear her dear Miss Lizzie
scolded, so she mended and mended without saying anything,
encouraging me in habits of arrant slovenliness, and if I had but
known it, of deceit. Dear old Margery, it was a heart-breaking thing
when she went away, to all from Winifred upwards, and to none more
than to me, who could remember those two melancholy years when she
often seemed my only friend, when I was often naughty and Papa angry

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