MILLICENT

AND HER COUSINS.

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6.66

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CHAPTER I.

MILLY AND HER GOVERNESS.

HE first express mention of soap occurs in Pliny." Oh, Miss Horne, must I learn such uninteresting stuff?' exclaimed a brighthaired, rosy-cheeked girl, some ten or eleven years of age.

'My dear,' replied a staid, sad-looking lady, 'you call everything that is useful "uninteresting stuff;" in this instance, Millicent, as in others, I must beg to differ from you. Surely you must like to know the origin of things that you see and use every day? Can you tell me of what substances soap is composed?'

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'Oh dear,' sighed Millicent, what can it matter? It's soap, and it cleans one, whatever it's made of. However, this stupid old book says the Gauls used to make it of tallow and ashes, and that we make it of lixious-whatever that may mean-salts and tallow.'

'Lixious,' began Miss Horne, 'means-'

Oh, there's Herbert, I declare,' interrupted the inattentive Millicent, throwing down her book. Wait one moment, please, Miss Horne;' and before her governess could make any remonstrance she had jumped up and bounded out of the open window to meet her brother, who was coming slowly towards the house.

'What is the matter, Milly?' he asked, as she rushed up to him and caught hold of his arm. 'Is the house on fire,

or-'

'No, no, you dear old stupid,' laughed Milly; 'don't you see it's only because I'm so pleased you've come home? You've been away ever since yesterday morning, remember; that's a long time. And now do let me come with you, walking or riding, or something.'

'And how about the lessons, Milly?' asked her brother as he kissed her. Are they all finished for the day, eh ?' The girl coloured, and, heaving a deep sigh, said, 'No, Herbert, I can't say that they are; but (brightening up) if you will only ask Miss Horne, I'm sure she will let me off the rest of them to-day.'

'But I am very sure I shall not make any such request, Milly. Come, be a sensible little girl, finish your lessons properly, and then I'll do anything you like.'

Milly made no reply; she seldom attempted to argue with her brother, whatever she might do with other people; and now she followed him with a subdued air back into the schoolroom, where Miss Horne was patiently waiting her reappearance.

I've brought back the truant, Miss Horne,' said Mr. Grant, smiling, as he wished her good morning. She quite understands that all the lessons are to be finished before I can have anything to say to her.'

'Oh, thank you, Mr. Grant,' replied the governess, with a sigh. Millicent is really so wild I don't know what to do with her.'

'Well, well,' said Herbert as he made his escape from Milly's pleading eyes and Miss Horne's piteous tones, 'we must tame her by degrees; and I daresay we shall make something of our little savage in time.'

Millicent Grant's parents were in India, and at the time our story opens she herself had only been about six months in England. Her father was in the army. He had twice married, nearly twenty years having elapsed between the Ideath of his first wife-Herbert's mother and his second marriage. Herbert and Milly were therefore only halfbrother and sister; and Colonel Grant's second marriage having taken place in India, Herbert had never seen his little sister until she was sent to England to be educated. Mrs. Grant had first proposed sending her to school; but to this Herbert would not listen, and he insisted on being allowed to make a home for the little maiden, although there were not wanting those who laughed at him for his pains, as well as at the idea of his undertaking such a charge at his age. But to Herbert the idea of a merry little girl running about his old house, and brightening it, was a peculiarly pleasant one; so he let his friends laugh on, and was soon busily employed in making active preparations for Milly's arrival. Mrs. Grant had begged him to engage a governess, and hoped he would be careful to find a staid, steady person; for Milly was inclined to be somewhat wild, and would require a firm hand over her. With this caution in his mind, and aided in his selection by the advice of his nearest neighbour and cousin, Mrs. Marsh, Herbert made choice of Miss Horne, out of fifty or more applicants who

answered his advertisement. But the choice was scarcely a judicious one. Miss Horne was undoubtedly staid and steady, and probably firm enough where her own will was never disputed; but she was not the kind of person to cope with the spoiled, wilful Milly Grant, as Herbert was forced to admit before they had been a month together. Milly was devoted to her brother, and he dearly loved his little self-inflicted plague; but there were times when he was sorely puzzled how to act for the best, and when the repeated mutual complaints of governess and pupil became very irksome to him. He himself rarely had any trouble with Milly; but no amount of petting or scolding could ensure her good behaviour when away from him. Certainly she was not the docile, gentle little being that he had told himself would be so pleasant to have living with him; she differed sadly from Lilly and Georgie Marsh, whom he had never seen but on their best behaviour, either sitting with demure faces working at small coloured crotchet mats in their mamma's drawing-room, or parading gravely and sedately on the common with their governess.

Wild, impulsive, warm-hearted Millicent was of a totally different nature, and, sad to say, she refused to take pattern by, or in any way to tolerate, these model young ladies.

'Little stuck-up creatures,' she called them, curling up her diminutive nose, when Herbert, having taken her to pay a formal visit at Combe, and much shocked at her behaviour there, was gravely trying to remonstrate with her, and to hold them up as examples. 'I don't like them one bit, with their little puggy bits of wool, and prim ways. Mamma and papa never scolded me at home for running about or laughing, or "being wild" as Miss Horne calls it, and why should you all want to alter me? Oh, dear

Milly's dislike to learn Lessons.

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mammy, I wish you were here!' and then, as was always the case at the remembrance of her mother, her eyes would overflow with tears; and Herbert would soon forget his lecture in trying to console her, and her smiles being as ready to break out as her tears, this was no hard task. If easily vexed, it must be allowed that Milly was also easily pleased; her interest was very quickly awakened, for she was totally different to most Indian children; there was nothing languid or torpid about her, her every movement was full of life, too much so to please poor Miss Horne, whose shattered nerves suffered keenly every time the door opened and shut with a loud report, or a pile of books was dashed from the table to the ground. On each occasion Milly was profuse in her apologies; but, somehow or other, the same thing invariably happened again, and poor Miss Horne did little else but give violent starts and violent sighs all the day long.

It was with anything but a good grace that Milly resigned herself to her fate on the afternoon on which our story

opens.

As soon as her brother had closed the door, she shut up her lesson-book, and threw it across the table, exclaiming, "What! no soap? So he died, and she very imprudently married the barber!" I shan't learn any more of that stuff to-day.'

'Millicent, how can you be so naughty! Pray, be sensible, and fetch your book again.'

'Oh no, not that one.

I'll read a chapter of English

history if you like; that will do just as well.'

'Begin then, my dear.'

'Come along, then, Mrs. Markham. I say, Miss Horne,

don't you wish that I was like one of those good little