AN UNSOCIAL SOCIALIST


by George Bernard Shaw




CHAPTER I

In the dusk of an October evening, a sensible looking woman of forty
came out through an oaken door to a broad landing on the first floor of
an old English country-house. A braid of her hair had fallen forward as
if she had been stooping over book or pen; and she stood for a moment
to smooth it, and to gaze contemplatively--not in the least
sentimentally--through the tall, narrow window. The sun was setting, but
its glories were at the other side of the house; for this window
looked eastward, where the landscape of sheepwalks and pasture land was
sobering at the approach of darkness.

The lady, like one to whom silence and quiet were luxuries, lingered
on the landing for some time. Then she turned towards another door, on
which was inscribed, in white letters, Class Room No. 6. Arrested by a
whispering above, she paused in the doorway, and looked up the stairs
along a broad smooth handrail that swept round in an unbroken curve at
each landing, forming an inclined plane from the top to the bottom of
the house.

A young voice, apparently mimicking someone, now came from above,
saying,

"We will take the Etudes de la Velocite next, if you please, ladies."

Immediately a girl in a holland dress shot down through space; whirled
round the curve with a fearless centrifugal toss of her ankle; and
vanished into the darkness beneath. She was followed by a stately girl
in green, intently holding her breath as she flew; and also by a large
young woman in black, with her lower lip grasped between her teeth, and
her fine brown eyes protruding with excitement. Her passage created a
miniature tempest which disarranged anew the hair of the lady on the
landing, who waited in breathless alarm until two light shocks and a
thump announced that the aerial voyagers had landed safely in the hall.

"Oh law!" exclaimed the voice that had spoken before. "Here's Susan."

"It's a mercy your neck ain't broken," replied some palpitating female.
"I'll tell of you this time, Miss Wylie; indeed I will. And you, too,
Miss Carpenter: I wonder at you not to have more sense at your age and
with your size! Miss Wilson can't help hearing when you come down with a
thump like that. You shake the whole house."

"Oh bother!" said Miss Wylie. "The Lady Abbess takes good care to shut
out all the noise we make. Let us--"

"Girls," said the lady above, calling down quietly, but with ominous
distinctness.

Silence and utter confusion ensued. Then came a reply, in a tone of
honeyed sweetness, from Miss Wylie:

"Did you call us, DEAR Miss Wilson?"

"Yes. Come up here, if you please, all three."

There was some hesitation among them, each offering the other
precedence. At last they went up slowly, in the order, though not at all
in the manner, of their flying descent; followed Miss Wilson into the
class-room; and stood in a row before her, illumined through three
western windows with a glow of ruddy orange light. Miss Carpenter, the
largest of the three, was red and confused. Her arms hung by her sides,
her fingers twisting the folds of her dress. Miss Gertrude Lindsay, in
pale sea-green, had a small head, delicate complexion, and pearly teeth.
She stood erect, with an expression of cold distaste for reproof of any
sort. The holland dress of the third offender had changed from yellow to
white as she passed from the gray eastern twilight on the staircase into
the warm western glow in the room. Her face had a bright olive tone, and
seemed to have a golden mica in its composition. Her eyes and hair were
hazel-nut color; and her teeth, the upper row of which she displayed
freely, were like fine Portland stone, and sloped outward enough to have
spoilt her mouth, had they not been supported by a rich under lip, and
a finely curved, impudent chin. Her half cajoling, half mocking air,
and her ready smile, were difficult to confront with severity; and Miss
Wilson knew it; for she would not look at her even when attracted by
a convulsive start and an angry side glance from Miss Lindsay, who had
just been indented between the ribs by a finger tip.

"You are aware that you have broken the rules," said Miss Wilson
quietly.

"We didn't intend to. We really did not," said the girl in holland,
coaxingly.

"Pray what was your intention then, Miss Wylie?"

Miss Wylie unexpectedly treated this as a smart repartee instead of a
rebuke. She sent up a strange little scream, which exploded in a cascade
of laughter.

"Pray be silent, Agatha," said Miss Wilson severely. Agatha looked
contrite. Miss Wilson turned hastily to the eldest of the three, and
continued:

"I am especially surprised at you, Miss Carpenter. Since you have no
desire to keep faith with me by upholding the rules, of which you are
quite old enough to understand the necessity, I shall not trouble you
with reproaches, or appeals to which I am now convinced that you would
not respond," (here Miss Carpenter, with an inarticulate protest, burst
into tears); "but you should at least think of the danger into which
your juniors are led by your childishness. How should you feel if Agatha
had broken her neck?"

"Oh!" exclaimed Agatha, putting her hand quickly to her neck.

"I didn't think there was any danger," said Miss Carpenter, struggling
with her tears. "Agatha has done it so oft--oh dear! you have torn me."
Miss Wylie had pulled at her schoolfellow's skirt, and pulled too hard.

"Miss Wylie," said Miss Wilson, flushing slightly, "I must ask you to
leave the room."

"Oh, no," exclaimed Agatha, clasping her hands in distress. "Please
don't, dear Miss Wilson. I am so sorry. I beg your pardon."

"Since you will not do what I ask, I must go myself," said Miss Wilson
sternly. "Come with me to my study," she added to the two other
girls. "If you attempt to follow, Miss Wylie, I shall regard it as an
intrusion."

"But I will go away if you wish it. I didn't mean to diso--"

"I shall not trouble you now. Come, girls."

The three went out; and Miss Wylie, left behind in disgrace, made a
surpassing grimace at Miss Lindsay, who glanced back at her. When she
was alone, her vivacity subsided. She went slowly to the window, and
gazed disparagingly at the landscape. Once, when a sound of voices above
reached her, her eyes brightened, and her ready lip moved; but the
next silent moment she relapsed into moody indifference, which was not
relieved until her two companions, looking very serious, re-entered.

"Well," she said gaily, "has moral force been applied? Are you going to
the Recording Angel?"

"Hush, Agatha," said Miss Carpenter. "You ought to be ashamed of
yourself."

"No, but you ought, you goose. A nice row you have got me into!"

"It was your own fault. You tore my dress."

"Yes, when you were blurting out that I sometimes slide down the
banisters."

"Oh!" said Miss Carpenter slowly, as if this reason had not occurred to
her before. "Was that why you pulled me?"

"Dear me! It has actually dawned upon you. You are a most awfully silly
girl, Jane. What did the Lady Abbess say?"

Miss Carpenter again gave her tears way, and could not reply.

"She is disgusted with us, and no wonder," said Miss Lindsay.

"She said it was all your fault," sobbed Miss Carpenter.

"Well, never mind, dear," said Agatha soothingly. "Put it in the
Recording Angel."

"I won't write a word in the Recording Angel unless you do so first,"
said Miss Lindsay angrily. "You are more in fault than we are."

"Certainly, my dear," replied Agatha. "A whole page, if you wish."

"I b-believe you LIKE writing in the Recording Angel," said Miss
Carpenter spitefully.

"Yes, Jane. It is the best fun the place affords."

"It may be fun to you," said Miss Lindsay sharply; "but it is not very
creditable to me, as Miss Wilson said just now, to take a prize in moral
science and then have to write down that I don't know how to behave
myself. Besides, I do not like to be told that I am ill-bred!"

Agatha laughed. "What a deep old thing she is! She knows all our
weaknesses, and stabs at us through them. Catch her telling me, or Jane
there, that we are ill-bred!"

"I don't understand you," said Miss Lindsay, haughtily.

"Of course not. That's because you don't know as much moral science as
I, though I never took a prize in it."

"You never took a prize in anything," said Miss Carpenter.

"And I hope I never shall," said Agatha. "I would as soon scramble for
hot pennies in the snow, like the street boys, as scramble to see who
can answer most questions. Dr. Watts is enough moral science for me. Now
for the Recording Angel."

She went to a shelf and took down a heavy quarto, bound in black
leather, and inscribed, in red letters, MY FAULTS. This she threw
irreverently on a desk, and tossed its pages over until she came to one
only partly covered with manuscript confessions.

"For a wonder," she said, "here are two entries that are not mine. Sarah
Gerram! What has she been confessing?"

"Don't read it," said Miss Lindsay quickly. "You know that it is the
most dishonorable thing any of us can do."

"Poch! Our little sins are not worth making such a fuss about. I always
like to have my entries read: it makes me feel like an author; and so in
Christian duty I always read other people's. Listen to poor Sarah's tale
of guilt. '1st October. I am very sorry that I slapped Miss Chambers in
the lavatory this morning, and knocked out one of her teeth. This was
very wicked; but it was coming out by itself; and she has forgiven me
because a new one will come in its place; and she was only pretending
when she said she swallowed it. Sarah Gerram."'

"Little fool!" said Miss Lindsay. "The idea of our having to record in
the same book with brats like that!"

"Here is a touching revelation. '4th October. Helen Plantagenet is
deeply grieved to have to confess that I took the first place in algebra
yesterday unfairly. Miss Lindsay prompted me;' and--"

"Oh!" exclaimed Miss Lindsay, reddening. "That is how she thanks me for
prompting her, is it? How dare she confess my faults in the Recording
Angel?"

"Serves you right for prompting her," said Miss Carpenter. "She was
always a double-faced cat; and you ought to have known better."

"Oh, I assure you it was not for her sake that I did it," replied Miss
Lindsay. "It was to prevent that Jackson girl from getting first place.
I don't like Helen Plantagenet; but at least she is a lady.'

"Stuff, Gertrude," said Agatha, with a touch of earnestness. "One would
think, to hear you talk, that your grandmother was a cook. Don't be such
a snob."

"Miss Wylie," said Gertrude, becoming scarlet: "you are very--oh! oh!
Stop Ag--oh! I will tell Miss--oh!" Agatha had inserted a steely finger
between her ribs, and was tickling her unendurably.

"Sh-sh-sh," whispered Miss Carpenter anxiously. "The door is open."

"Am I Miss Wylie?" demanded Agatha, relentlessly continuing the torture.
"Am I very--whatever you were going to say? Am I? am I? am I?"

"No, no," gasped Gertrude, shrinking into a chair, almost in hysterics.
"You are very unkind, Agatha. You have hurt me."

"You deserve it. If you ever get sulky with me again, or call me Miss
Wylie, I will kill you. I will tickle the soles of your feet with a
feather," (Miss Lindsay shuddered, and hid her feet beneath the chair)
"until your hair turns white. And now, if you are truly repentant, come
and record."

"You must record first. It was all your fault."

"But I am the youngest," said Agatha.

"Well, then," said Gertrude, afraid to press the point, but determined
not to record first, "let Jane Carpenter begin. She is the eldest."

"Oh, of course," said Jane, with whimpering irony. "Let Jane do all the
nasty things first. I think it's very hard. You fancy that Jane is a
fool; but she isn't."

"You are certainly not such a fool as you look, Jane," said Agatha
gravely. "But I will record first, if you like."

"No, you shan't," cried Jane, snatching the pen from her. "I arm the
eldest; and I won't be put out of my place."

She dipped the pen in the ink resolutely, and prepared to write.
Then she paused; considered; looked bewildered; and at last appealed
piteously to Agatha.

"What shall I write?" she said. "You know how to write things down; and
I don't."

"First put the date," said Agatha.

"To be sure," said Jane, writing it quickly. "I forgot that. Well?"

"Now write, 'I am very sorry that Miss Wilson saw me when I slid down
the banisters this evening. Jane Carpenter.'"

"Is that all?"

"That's all: unless you wish to add something of your own composition."

"I hope it's all right," said Jane, looking suspiciously at Agatha.
"However, there can't be any harm in it; for it's the simple truth.
Anyhow, if you are playing one of your jokes on me, you are a nasty mean
thing, and I don't care. Now, Gertrude, it's your turn. Please look at
mine, and see whether the spelling is right."

"It is not my business to teach you to spell," said Gertrude, taking the
pen. And, while Jane was murmuring at her churlishness, she wrote in a
bold hand:

"I have broken the rules by sliding down the banisters to-day with Miss
Carpenter and Miss Wylie. Miss Wylie went first."

"You wretch!" exclaimed Agatha, reading over her shoulder. "And your
father is an admiral!"

"I think it is only fair," said Miss Lindsay, quailing, but assuming the
tone of a moralist. "It is perfectly true."

"All my money was made in trade," said Agatha; "but I should be ashamed
to save myself by shifting blame to your aristocratic shoulders. You
pitiful thing! Here: give me the pen."

"I will strike it out if you wish; but I think--"

"No: it shall stay there to witness against you. How see how I confess
my faults." And she wrote, in a fine, rapid hand:

"This evening Gertrude Lindsay and Jane Carpenter met me at the top of
the stairs, and said they wanted to slide down the banisters and would
do it if I went first. I told them that it was against the rules,
but they said that did not matter; and as they are older than I am, I
allowed myself to be persuaded, and did."

"What do you think of that?" said Agatha, displaying the page.

They read it, and protested clamorously.

"It is perfectly true," said Agatha, solemnly.

"It's beastly mean," said Jane energetically. "The idea of your finding
fault with Gertrude, and then going and being twice as bad yourself! I
never heard of such a thing in my life."

"'Thus bad begins; but worse remains behind,' as the Standard
Elocutionist says," said Agatha, adding another sentence to her
confession.

"But it was all my fault. Also I was rude to Miss Wilson, and refused
to leave the room when she bade me. I was not wilfully wrong except in
sliding down the banisters. I am so fond of a slide that I could not
resist the temptation."

"Be warned by me, Agatha," said Jane impressively. "If you write cheeky
things in that book, you will be expelled."

"Indeed!" replied Agatha significantly. "Wait until Miss Wilson sees
what you have written."

"Gertrude," cried Jane, with sudden misgiving, "has she made me write
anything improper? Agatha, do tell me if--"

Here a gong sounded; and the three girls simultaneously exclaimed
"Grub!" and rushed from the room.



CHAPTER II

One sunny afternoon, a hansom drove at great speed along Belsize Avenue,
St. John's Wood, and stopped before a large mansion. A young lady sprang
out; ran up the steps, and rang the bell impatiently. She was of the
olive complexion, with a sharp profile: dark eyes with long lashes;
narrow mouth with delicately sensuous lips; small head, feet, and hands,
with long taper fingers; lithe and very slender figure moving with
serpent-like grace. Oriental taste was displayed in the colors of her
costume, which consisted of a white dress, close-fitting, and printed
with an elaborate china blue pattern; a yellow straw hat covered with
artificial hawthorn and scarlet berries; and tan-colored gloves reaching
beyond the elbow, and decorated with a profusion of gold bangles.

The door not being opened immediately, she rang again, violently, and
w as presently admitted by a maid, who seemed surprised to see her.
Without making any inquiry, she darted upstairs into a drawing-room,
where a matron of good presence, with features of the finest Jewish
type, sat reading. With her was a handsome boy in black velvet, who
said:

"Mamma, here's Henrietta!"

"Arthur," said the young lady excitedly, "leave the room this instant;
and don't dare to come back until you get leave."

The boy's countenance fell, and he sulkily went out without a word.

"Is anything wrong?" said the matron, putting away her book with the
unconcerned resignation of an experienced person who foresees a storm in
a teacup. "Where is Sidney?"

"Gone! Gone! Deserted me! I--" The young lady's utterance failed, and
she threw herself upon an ottoman, sobbing with passionate spite.

"Nonsense! I thought Sidney had more sense. There, Henrietta, don't be
silly. I suppose you have quarrelled."

"No! No!! No!!!" cried Henrietta, stamping on the carpet. "We had not a
word. I have not lost my temper since we were married, mamma; I solemnly
swear I have not. I will kill myself; there is no other way. There's a
curse on me. I am marked out to be miserable. He--"

"Tut, tut! What has happened, Henrietta? As you have been married now
nearly six weeks, you can hardly be surprised at a little tiff arising.
You are so excitable! You cannot expect the sky to be always cloudless.
Most likely you are to blame; for Sidney is far more reasonable than
you. Stop crying, and behave like a woman of sense, and I will go to
Sidney and make everything right."

"But he's gone, and I can't find out where. Oh, what shall I do?"

"What has happened?"

Henrietta writhed with impatience. Then, forcing herself to tell her
story, she answered:

"We arranged on Monday that I should spend two days with Aunt Judith
instead of going with him to Birmingham to that horrid Trade Congress.
We parted on the best of terms. He couldn't have been more affectionate.
I will kill myself; I don't care about anything or anybody. And when
I came back on Wednesday he was gone, and there was this letter." She
produced a letter, and wept more bitterly than before.

"Let me see it."

Henrietta hesitated, but her mother took the letter from her, sat down
near the window, and composed herself to read without the least regard
to her daughter's vehement distress. The letter ran thus:

"Monday night.

"My Dearest: I am off--surfeited with endearment--to live my own life
and do my own work. I could only have prepared you for this by coldness
or neglect, which are wholly impossible to me when the spell of your
presence is upon me. I find that I must fly if I am to save myself.

"I am afraid that I cannot give you satisfactory and intelligible
reasons for this step. You are a beautiful and luxurious creature: life
is to you full and complete only when it is a carnival of love. My case
is just the reverse. Before three soft speeches have escaped me I rebuke
myself for folly and insincerity. Before a caress has had time to cool,
a strenuous revulsion seizes me: I long to return to my old lonely
ascetic hermit life; to my dry books; my Socialist propagandism; my
voyage of discovery through the wilderness of thought. I married in an
insane fit of belief that I had a share of the natural affection
which carries other men through lifetimes of matrimony. Already I am
undeceived. You are to me the loveliest woman in the world. Well, for
five weeks I have walked and tallied and dallied with the loveliest
woman in the world, and the upshot is that I am flying from her, and am
for a hermit's cave until I die. Love cannot keep possession of me: all
my strongest powers rise up against it and will not endure it. Forgive
me for writing nonsense that you won't understand, and do not think too
hardly of me. I have been as good to you as my selfish nature allowed.
Do not seek to disturb me in the obscurity which I desire and deserve.
My solicitor will call on your father to arrange business matters, and
you shall be as happy as wealth and liberty can make you. We shall meet
again--some day.

"Adieu, my last love,

"Sidney Trefusis."

"Well?" cried Mrs. Trefusis, observing through her tears that her mother
had read the letter and was contemplating it in a daze.

"Well, certainly!" said Mrs. Jansenius, with emphasis. "Do you think
he is quite sane, Henrietta? Or have you been plaguing him for too much
attention? Men are not willing to give up their whole existence to their
wives, even during the honeymoon."

"He pretended that he was never happy out of my presence," sobbed
Henrietta. "There never was anything so cruel. I often wanted to be by
myself for a change, but I was afraid to hurt his feelings by saying
so. And now he has no feelings. But he must come back to me. Mustn't he,
mamma?"

"He ought to. I suppose he has not gone away with anyone?"

Henrietta sprang up, her cheeks vivid scarlet. "If I thought that I
would pursue him to the end of the earth, and murder her. But no; he is
not like anybody else. He hates me! Everybody hates me! You don't care
whether I am deserted or not, nor papa, nor anyone in this house."

Mrs. Jansenius, still indifferent to her daughter's agitation,
considered a moment, and then said placidly:

"You can do nothing until we hear from the solicitor. In the meantime
you may stay with us, if you wish. I did not expect a visit from you so
soon; but your room has not been used since you went away."

Mrs. Trefusis ceased crying, chilled by this first intimation that her
father's house was no longer her home. A more real sense of desolation
came upon her. Under its cold influence she began to collect herself,
and to feel her pride rising like a barrier between her and her mother.

"I won't stay long," she said. "If his solicitor will not tell me where
he is, I will hunt through England for him. I am sorry to trouble you."

"Oh, you will be no greater trouble than you have always been," said
Mrs. Jansenius calmly, not displeased to see that her daughter had taken
the hint. "You had better go and wash your face. People may call, and
I presume you don't wish to receive them in that plight. If you meet
Arthur on the stairs, please tell him he may come in."

Henrietta screwed her lips into a curious pout and withdrew. Arthur then
came in and stood at the window in sullen silence, brooding over his
recent expulsion. Suddenly he exclaimed: "Here's papa, and it's not five
o'clock yet!" whereupon his mother sent him away again.

Mr. Jansenius was a man of imposing presence, not yet in his fiftieth
year, but not far from it. He moved with dignity, bearing himself as if
the contents of his massive brow were precious. His handsome aquiline
nose and keen dark eyes proclaimed his Jewish origin, of which he was
ashamed. Those who did not know this naturally believed that he was
proud of it, and were at a loss to account for his permitting his
children to be educated as Christians. Well instructed in business,
and subject to no emotion outside the love of family, respectability,
comfort, and money, he had maintained the capital inherited from his
father, and made it breed new capital in the usual way. He was a banker,
and his object as such was to intercept and appropriate the immense
saving which the banking system effects, and so, as far as possible, to
leave the rest of the world working just as hard as before banking was
introduced. But as the world would not on these terms have banked at
all, he had to give them some of the saving as an inducement. So they
profited by the saving as well as he, and he had the satisfaction
of being at once a wealthy citizen and a public benefactor, rich in
comforts and easy in conscience.

He entered the room quickly, and his wife saw that something had vexed
him.

"Do you know what has happened, Ruth?" he said.

"Yes. She is upstairs."

Mr. Jansenius stared. "Do you mean to say that she has left already?" he
said. "What business has she to come here?"

"It is natural enough. Where else should she have gone?"

Mr. Jansenius, who mistrusted his own judgment when it differed from
that of his wife, replied slowly, "Why did she not go to her mother?"

Mrs. Jansenius, puzzled in her turn, looked at him with cool wonder, and
remarked, "I am her mother, am I not?"

"I was not aware of it. I am surprised to hear it, Ruth. Have you had a
letter too. I have seen the letter. But what do you mean by telling
me that you do not know I am Henrietta's mother? Are you trying to be
funny?"

"Henrietta! Is she here? Is this some fresh trouble?"

"I don't know. What are you talking about?"

"I am talking about Agatha Wylie."

"Oh! I was talking about Henrietta."

"Well, what about Henrietta?"

"What about Agatha Wylie?"

At this Mr. Jansenius became exasperated, and he deemed it best to
relate what Henrietta had told her. When she gave him Trefusis's letter,
he said, more calmly: "Misfortunes never come singly. Read that," and
handed her another letter, so that they both began reading at the same
time.

Mrs. Jansenius read as follows:

"Alton College, Lyvern.

"To Mrs. Wylie, Acacia Lodge, Chiswick.

"Dear Madam: I write with great regret to request that you will at once
withdraw Miss Wylie from Alton College. In an establishment like
this, where restraint upon the liberty of the students is reduced to a
minimum, it is necessary that the small degree of subordination which
is absolutely indispensable be acquiesced in by all without complaint
or delay. Miss Wylie has failed to comply with this condition. She has
declared her wish to leave, and has assumed an attitude towards myself
and my colleagues which we cannot, consistently with our duty to
ourselves and her fellow students, pass over. If Miss Wylie has any
cause to complain of her treatment here, or of the step which she has
compelled us to take, she will doubtless make it known to you.

"Perhaps you will be so good as to communicate with Miss Wylie's
guardian, Mr. Jansenius, with whom I shall be happy to make an equitable
arrangement respecting the fees which have been paid in advance for the
current term.

"I am, dear madam,

"Yours faithfully,

"Maria Wilson."

"A nice young lady, that!" said Mrs. Jansenius.

"I do not understand this," said Mr. Jansenius, reddening as he took in
the purport of his son-in-law's letter. "I will not submit to it. What
does it mean, Ruth?"

"I don't know. Sidney is mad, I think; and his honeymoon has brought
his madness out. But you must not let him throw Henrietta on my hands
again."

"Mad! Does he think he can shirk his responsibility to his wife because
she is my daughter? Does he think, because his mother's father was a
baronet, that he can put Henrietta aside the moment her society palls on
him?"

"Oh, it's nothing of that sort. He never thought of us. But I will
make him think of us," said Mr. Jansenius, raising his voice in great
agitation. "He shall answer for it."

Just then Henrietta returned, and saw her father moving excitedly to
and fro, repeating, "He shall answer to me for this. He shall answer for
it."

Mrs. Jansenius frowned at her daughter to remain silent, and said
soothingly, "Don't lose your temper, John."

"But I will lose my temper. Insolent hound! Damned scoundrel!"

"He is not," whimpered Henrietta, sitting down and taking out her
handkerchief.

"Oh, come, come!" said Mrs. Jansenius peremptorily, "we have had enough
crying. Let us have no more of it."

Henrietta sprang up in a passion. "I will say and do as I please," she
exclaimed. "I am a married woman, and I will receive no orders. And I
will have my husband back again, no matter what he does to hide himself.
Papa, won't you make him come back to me? I am dying. Promise that you
will make him come back."

And, throwing herself upon her father's bosom, she postponed further
discussion by going into hysterics, and startling the household by her
screams.



CHAPTER III

One of the professors at Alton College was a Mrs. Miller, an
old-fashioned schoolmistress who did not believe in Miss Wilson's system
of government by moral force, and carried it out under protest. Though
not ill-natured, she was narrow-minded enough to be in some degree
contemptible, and was consequently prone to suspect others of despising
her. She suspected Agatha in particular, and treated her with disdainful
curtness in such intercourse as they had--it was fortunately little.
Agatha was not hurt by this, for Mrs. Miller was an unsympathetic woman,
who made no friends among the girls, and satisfied her affectionate
impulses by petting a large cat named Gracchus, but generally called
Bacchus by an endearing modification of the harsh initial consonant.

One evening Mrs. Miller, seated with Miss Wilson in the study,
correcting examination papers, heard in the distance a cry like that
of a cat in distress. She ran to the door and listened. Presently there
arose a prolonged wail, slurring up through two octaves, and subsiding
again. It was a true feline screech, impossible to localize; but it
was interrupted by a sob, a snarl, a fierce spitting, and a scuffling,
coming unmistakably from a room on the floor beneath, in which, at that
hour, the older girls assembled for study.

"My poor Gracchy!" exclaimed Mrs. Miller, running downstairs as fast as
she could. She found the room unusually quiet. Every girl was deep in
study except Miss Carpenter, who, pretending to pick up a fallen
book, was purple with suppressed laughter and the congestion caused by
stooping.

"Where is Miss Ward?" demanded Mrs. Miller.

"Miss Ward has gone for some astronomical diagrams in which we are
interested," said Agatha, looking up gravely. Just then Miss Ward,
diagrams in hand, entered.

"Has that cat been in here?" she said, not seeing Mrs. Miller, and
speaking in a tone expressive of antipathy to Gracchus.

Agatha started and drew up her ankles, as if fearful of having them
bitten. Then, looking apprehensively under the desk, she replied, "There
is no cat here, Miss Ward."

"There is one somewhere; I heard it," said Miss Ward carelessly,
unrolling her diagrams, which she began to explain without further
parley. Mrs. Miller, anxious for her pet, hastened to seek it elsewhere.
In the hall she met one of the housemaids.

"Susan," she said, "have you seen Gracchus?"

"He's asleep on the hearthrug in your room, ma'am. But I heard him
crying down here a moment ago. I feel sure that another cat has got in,
and that they are fighting."

Susan smiled compassionately. "Lor' bless you, ma'am," she said, "that
was Miss Wylie. It's a sort of play-acting that she goes through. There
is the bee on the window-pane, and the soldier up the chimley, and the
cat under the dresser. She does them all like life."

"The soldier in the chimney!" repeated Mrs. Miller, shocked.

"Yes, ma'am. Like as it were a follower that had hid there when he heard
the mistress coming."

Mrs. Miller's face set determinedly. She returned to the study and
related what had just occurred, adding some sarcastic comments on the
efficacy of moral force in maintaining collegiate discipline. Miss
Wilson looked grave; considered for some time; and at last said: "I must
think over this. Would you mind leaving it in my hands for the present?"

Mrs. Miller said that she did not care in whose hands it remained
provided her own were washed of it, and resumed her work at the papers.
Miss Wilson then, wishing to be alone, went into the empty classroom at
the other side of the landing. She took the Fault Book from its shelf
and sat down before it. Its record closed with the announcement, in
Agatha's handwriting:

"Miss Wilson has called me impertinent, and has written to my uncle that
I have refused to obey the rules. I was not impertinent; and I never
refused to obey the rules. So much for Moral Force!"

Miss Wilson rose vigorously, exclaiming: "I will soon let her
know whether--" She checked herself, and looked round hastily,
superstitiously fancying that Agatha might have stolen into the room
unobserved. Reassured that she was alone, she examined her conscience as
to whether she had done wrong in calling Agatha impertinent, justifying
herself by the reflection that Agatha had, in fact, been impertinent.
Yet she recollected that she had refused to admit this plea on a recent
occasion when Jane Carpenter had advanced it in extenuation of having
called a fellow-student a liar. Had she then been unjust to Jane, or
inconsiderate to Agatha?

Her casuistry was interrupted by some one softly whistling a theme from
the overture to Masaniello, popular at the college in the form of an
arrangement for six pianofortes and twelve hands. There was only one
student unladylike and musical enough to whistle; and Miss Wilson was
ashamed to find herself growing nervous at the prospect of an encounter
with Agatha, who entered whistling sweetly, but with a lugubrious
countenance. When she saw in whose presence she stood, she begged pardon
politely, and was about to withdraw, when Miss Wilson, summoning all her
Judgment and tact, and hoping that they would--contrary to their custom
in emergencies--respond to the summons, said:

"Agatha, come here. I want to speak to you."

Agatha closed her lips, drew in a long breath through her nostrils, and
marched to within a few feet of Miss Wilson, where she halted with her
hands clasped before her.

"Sit down."

Agatha sat down with a single movement, like a doll.

"I don't understand that, Agatha," said Miss Wilson, pointing to the
entry in the Recording Angel. "What does it mean?"

"I am unfairly treated," said Agatha, with signs of agitation.

"In what way?"

"In every way. I am expected to be something more than mortal. Everyone
else is encouraged to complain, and to be weak and silly. But I must
have no feeling. I must be always in the right. Everyone else may be
home-sick, or huffed, or in low spirits. I must have no nerves, and must
keep others laughing all day long. Everyone else may sulk when a word
of reproach is addressed to them, and may make the professors afraid to
find fault with them. I have to bear with the insults of teachers who
have less self-control than I, a girl of seventeen! and must coax
them out of the difficulties they make for themselves by their own ill
temper."

"But, Agatha--"

"Oh, I know I am talking nonsense, Miss Wilson; but can you expect me to
be always sensible--to be infallible?"

"Yes, Agatha; I do not think it is too much to expect you to be always
sensible; and--"

"Then you have neither sense nor sympathy yourself," said Agatha.

There was an awful pause. Neither could have told how long it lasted.
Then Agatha, feeling that she must do or say something desperate, or
else fly, made a distracted gesture and ran out of the room.

She rejoined her companions in the great hall of the mansion, where
they were assembled after study for "recreation," a noisy process which
always set in spontaneously when the professors withdrew. She usually
sat with her two favorite associates on a high window seat near the
hearth. That place was now occupied by a little girl with flaxen hair,
whom Agatha, regardless of moral force, lifted by the shoulders and
deposited on the floor. Then she sat down and said:

"Oh, such a piece of news!"

Miss Carpenter opened her eyes eagerly. Gertrude Lindsay affected
indifference.

"Someone is going to be expelled," said Agatha.

"Expelled! Who?"

"You will know soon enough, Jane," replied Agatha, suddenly grave. "It
is someone who made an impudent entry in the Recording Angel."

Fear stole upon Jane, and she became very red. "Agatha," she said, "it
was you who told me what to write. You know you did, and you can't deny
it."

"I can't deny it, can't I? I am ready to swear that I never dictated a
word to you in my life."

"Gertrude knows you did," exclaimed Jane, appalled, and almost in tears.

"There," said Agatha, petting her as if she were a vast baby. "It shall
not be expelled, so it shan't. Have you seen the Recording Angel lately,
either of you?"

"Not since our last entry," said Gertrude.

"Chips," said Agatha, calling to the flaxen-haired child, "go upstairs
to No. 6, and, if Miss Wilson isn't there, fetch me the Recording
Angel."

The little girl grumbled inarticulately and did not stir.

"Chips," resumed Agatha, "did you ever wish that you had never been
born?"

"Why don't you go yourself?" said the child pettishly, but evidently
alarmed.

"Because," continued Agatha, ignoring the question, "you shall wish
yourself dead and buried under the blackest flag in the coal cellar if
you don't bring me the book before I count sixteen. One--two--"

"Go at once and do as you are told, you disagreeable little thing," said
Gertrude sharply. "How dare you be so disobliging?"

"--nine--ten--eleven--" pursued Agatha.

The child quailed, went out, and presently returned, hugging the
Recording Angel in her arms.

"You are a good little darling--when your better qualities are
brought out by a judicious application of moral force," said Agatha,
good-humoredly. "Remind me to save the raisins out of my pudding for you
to-morrow. Now, Jane, you shall see the entry for which the best-hearted
girl in the college is to be expelled. Voila!"

The two girls read and were awestruck; Jane opening her mouth and
gasping, Gertrude closing hers and looking very serious.

"Do you mean to say that you had the dreadful cheek to let the Lady
Abbess see that?" said Jane.

"Pooh! she would have forgiven that. You should have heard what I said
to her! She fainted three times."

"That's a story," said Gertrude gravely.

"I beg your pardon," said Agatha, swiftly grasping Gertrude's knee.

"Nothing," cried Gertrude, flinching hysterically. "Don't, Agatha."

"How many times did Miss Wilson faint?"

"Three times. I will scream, Agatha; I will indeed."

"Three times, as you say. And I wonder that a girl brought up as
you have been, by moral force, should be capable of repeating such
a falsehood. But we had an awful row, really and truly. She lost her
temper. Fortunately, I never lose mine."

"Well, I'm browed!" exclaimed Jane incredulously. "I like that."

"For a girl of county family, you are inexcusably vulgar, Jane. I don't
know what I said; but she will never forgive me for profaning her pet
book. I shall be expelled as certainly as I am sitting here."

"And do you mean to say that you are going away?" said Jane, faltering
as she began to realize the consequences.

"I do. And what is to become of you when I am not here to get you out
of your scrapes, or of Gertrude without me to check her inveterate
snobbishness, is more than I can foresee."

"I am not snobbish," said Gertrude, "although I do not choose to make
friends with everyone. But I never objected to you, Agatha."

"No; I should like to catch you at it. Hallo, Jane!" (who had suddenly
burst into tears): "what's the matter? I trust you are not permitting
yourself to take the liberty of crying for me."

"Indeed," sobbed Jane indignantly, "I know that I am a f--fool for my
pains. You have no heart."

"You certainly are a f--fool, as you aptly express it," said Agatha,
passing her arm round Jane, and disregarding an angry attempt to shake
it off; "but if I had any heart it would be touched by this proof of
your attachment."

"I never said you had no heart," protested Jane; "but I hate when you
speak like a book."

"You hate when I speak like a book, do you? My dear, silly old Jane! I
shall miss you greatly."

"Yes, I dare say," said Jane, with tearful sarcasm. "At least my snoring
will never keep you awake again."

"You don't snore, Jane. We have been in a conspiracy to make you believe
that you do, that's all. Isn't it good of me to tell you?"

Jane was overcome by this revelation. After a long pause, she said with
deep conviction, "I always knew that I didn't. Oh, the way you kept it
up! I solemnly declare that from this time forth I will believe nobody."

"Well, and what do you think of it all?" said Agatha, transferring her
attention to Gertrude, who was very grave.

"I think--I am now speaking seriously, Agatha--I think you are in the
wrong."

"Why do you think that, pray?" demanded Agatha, a little roused.

"You must be, or Miss Wilson would not be angry with you. Of course,
according to your own account, you are always in the right, and everyone
else is always wrong; but you shouldn't have written that in the book.
You know I speak as your friend."

"And pray what does your wretched little soul know of my motives and
feelings?"

"It is easy enough to understand you," retorted Gertrude, nettled.
"Self-conceit is not so uncommon that one need be at a loss to recognize
it. And mind, Agatha Wylie," she continued, as if goaded by some
unbearable reminiscence, "if you are really going, I don't care whether
we part friends or not. I have not forgotten the day when you called me
a spiteful cat."

"I have repented," said Agatha, unmoved. "One day I sat down and watched
Bacchus seated on the hearthrug, with his moony eyes looking into space
so thoughtfully and patiently that I apologized for comparing you to
him. If I were to call him a spiteful cat he would only not believe me."

"Because he is a cat," said Jane, with the giggle which was seldom far
behind her tears.

"No; but because he is not spiteful. Gertrude keeps a recording angel
inside her little head, and it is so full of other people's faults,
written in large hand and read through a magnifying glass, that there is
no room to enter her own."

"You are very poetic," said Gertrude; "but I understand what you mean,
and shall not forget it."

"You ungrateful wretch," exclaimed Agatha, turning upon her so suddenly
and imperiously that she involuntarily shrank aside: "how often, when
you have tried to be insolent and false with me, have I not driven away
your bad angel--by tickling you? Had you a friend in the college, except
half-a-dozen toadies, until I came? And now, because I have sometimes,
for your own good, shown you your faults, you bear malice against me,
and say that you don't care whether we part friends or not!"

"I didn't say so."

"Oh, Gertrude, you know you did," said Jane.

"You seem to think that I have no conscience," said Gertrude
querulously.

"I wish you hadn't," said Agatha. "Look at me! I have no conscience, and
see how much pleasanter I am!"

"You care for no one but yourself," said Gertrude. "You never think that
other people have feelings too. No one ever considers me."

"Oh, I like to hear you talk," cried Jane ironically. "You are
considered a great deal more than is good for you; and the more you are
considered the more you want to be considered."

"As if," declaimed Agatha theatrically, "increase of appetite did grow
by what it fed on. Shakespeare!"

"Bother Shakespeare," said Jane, impetuously, "--old fool that expects
credit for saying things that everybody knows! But if you complain
of not being considered, Gertrude, how would you like to be me, whom
everybody sets down as a fool? But I am not such a fool as--"

"As you look," interposed Agatha. "I have told you so scores of times,
Jane; and I am glad that you have adopted my opinion at last. Which
would you rather be, a greater fool than y--"

"Oh, shut up," said Jane, impatiently; "you have asked me that twice
this week already."

The three were silent for some seconds after this: Agatha meditating,
Gertrude moody, Jane vacant and restless. At last Agatha said:

"And are you two also smarting under a sense of the inconsiderateness
and selfishness of the rest of the world--both misunderstood--everything
expected from you, and no allowances made for you?"

"I don't know what you mean by both of us," said Gertrude coldly.

"Neither do I," said Jane angrily. "That is just the way people treat
me. You may laugh, Agatha; and she may turn up her nose as much as she
likes; you know it's true. But the idea of Gertrude wanting to make out
that she isn't considered is nothing but sentimentality, and vanity, and
nonsense."

"You are exceedingly rude, Miss Carpenter," said Gertrude.

"My manners are as good as yours, and perhaps better," retorted Jane.
"My family is as good, anyhow."

"Children, children," said Agatha, admonitorily, "do not forget that you
are sworn friends."

"We didn't swear," said Jane. "We were to have been three sworn friends,
and Gertrude and I were willing, but you wouldn't swear, and so the
bargain was cried off."

"Just so," said Agatha; "and the result is that I spend all my time in
keeping peace between you. And now, to go back to our subject, may I ask
whether it has ever occurred to you that no one ever considers me?"

"I suppose you think that very funny. You take good care to make
yourself considered," sneered Jane.

"You cannot say that I do not consider you," said Gertrude
reproachfully.

"Not when I tickle you, dear."

"I consider you, and I am not ticklesome," said Jane tenderly.

"Indeed! Let me try," said Agatha, slipping her arm about Jane's ample
waist, and eliciting a piercing combination of laugh and scream from
her.

"Sh--sh," whispered Gertrude quickly. "Don't you see the Lady Abbess?"

Miss Wilson had just entered the room. Agatha, without appearing to be
aware of her presence, stealthily withdrew her arm, and said aloud:

"How can you make such a noise, Jane? You will disturb the whole house."

Jane reddened with indignation, but had to remain silent, for the eyes
of the principal were upon her. Miss Wilson had her bonnet on. She
announced that she was going to walk to Lyvern, the nearest village. Did
any of the sixth form young ladies wish to accompany her?

Agatha jumped from her seat at once, and Jane smothered a laugh.

"Miss Wilson said the sixth form, Miss Wylie," said Miss Ward, who had
entered also. "You are not in the sixth form."

"No," said Agatha sweetly, "but I want to go, if I may."

Miss Wilson looked round. The sixth form consisted of four studious
young ladies, whose goal in life for the present was an examination by
one of the Universities, or, as the college phrase was, "the Cambridge
Local." None of them responded.

"Fifth form, then," said Miss Wilson.

Jane, Gertrude, and four others rose and stood with Agatha.

"Very well," said Miss Wilson. "Do not be long dressing."

They left the room quietly, and dashed at the staircase the moment they
were out of sight. Agatha, though void of emulation for the Cambridge
Local, always competed with ardor for the honor of being first up or
down stairs.

They soon returned, clad for walking, and left the college in
procession, two by two, Jane and Agatha leading, Gertrude and Miss
Wilson coming last. The road to Lyvern lay through acres of pasture
land, formerly arable, now abandoned to cattle, which made more money
for the landlord than the men whom they had displaced. Miss Wilson's
young ladies, being instructed in economics, knew that this proved that
the land was being used to produce what was most wanted from it; and if
all the advantage went to the landlord, that was but natural, as he was
the chief gentleman in the neighborhood. Still the arrangement had its
disagreeable side; for it involved a great many cows, which made them
afraid to cross the fields; a great many tramps, who made them afraid to
walk the roads; and a scarcity of gentlemen subjects for the maiden art
of fascination.

The sky was cloudy. Agatha, reckless of dusty stockings, waded through
the heaps of fallen leaves with the delight of a child paddling in the
sea; Gertrude picked her steps carefully, and the rest tramped along,
chatting subduedly, occasionally making some scientific or philosophical
remark in a louder tone, in order that Miss Wilson might overhear
and give them due credit. Save a herdsman, who seemed to have caught
something of the nature and expression of the beasts he tended, they
met no one until they approached the village, where, on the brow of an
acclivity, masculine humanity appeared in the shape of two curates: one
tall, thin, close-shaven, with a book under his arm, and his neck craned
forward; the other middle-sized, robust, upright, and aggressive, with
short black whiskers, and an air of protest against such notions as that
a clergyman may not marry, hunt, play cricket, or share the sports
of honest laymen. The shaven one was Mr. Josephs, his companion Mr.
Fairholme. Obvious scriptural perversions of this brace of names had
been introduced by Agatha.

"Here come Pharaoh and Joseph," she said to Jane. "Joseph will blush
when you look at him. Pharaoh won't blush until he passes Gertrude, so
we shall lose that."

"Josephs, indeed!" said Jane scornfully.

"He loves you, Jane. Thin persons like a fine armful of a woman.
Pharaoh, who is a cad, likes blue blood on the same principle of the
attraction of opposites. That is why he is captivated by Gertrude's
aristocratic air."

"If he only knew how she despises him!"

"He is too vain to suspect it. Besides, Gertrude despises everyone,
even us. Or, rather, she doesn't despise anyone in particular, but is
contemptuous by nature, just as you are stout."

"Me! I had rather be stout than stuck-up. Ought we to bow?"

"I will, certainly. I want to make Pharoah blush, if I can."

The two parsons had been simulating an interest in the cloudy firmament
as an excuse for not looking at the girls until close at hand. Jane sent
an eyeflash at Josephs with a skill which proved her favorite assertion
that she was not so stupid as people thought. He blushed and took off
his soft, low-crowned felt hat. Fairholme saluted very solemnly, for
Agatha bowed to him with marked seriousness. But when his gravity and
his stiff silk hat were at their highest point she darted a mocking
smile at him, and he too blushed, all the deeper because he was enraged
with himself for doing so.

"Did you ever see such a pair of fools?" whispered Jane, giggling.

"They cannot help their sex. They say women are fools, and so they are;
but thank Heaven they are not quite so bad as men! I should like to look
back and see Pharaoh passing Gertrude; but if he saw me he would think I
was admiring him; and he is conceited enough already without that."