There
was a continual performance, endless as a Chinese tragedy, of
Spenser's Faery Queene, in which Elfie was always Gloriana, and
Armine and Babie were everybody else in turn, except the wicked
characters, who were represented by the cabbages and a dummy.
"Reading was horrid," Elvira said, and certainly hers deserved the
epithet. Her attainments fell far behind those of Essie and Ellie,
and she did not mean to improve them. Her hostess let her alone till
she had twice shaken her rich mane at her grandfather, and refused to
return with him; and he had shown himself deeply grateful to Mrs.
Brownlow for keeping her there, and had said he hoped she was good at
her lessons.
The first trial resulted in Elvira's going to sleep over her book,
the next in her playing all sorts of ridiculous tricks, and sulking
when stopped, and when she was forbidden to speak or go out till she
had repeated three answers in the multiplication table, she was the
next moment singing and dancing in defiance in the garden. Caroline
did not choose to endure this, and went to fetch her in, thus
producing such a screaming, kicking, rolling fury that Mrs. Coffinkey
might have some colour for the statement that Mrs. Folly Brownlow was
murdering all her children. The cook, as the strongest person in the
house, was called, carried her in and put her to bed, where she fell
sound asleep, and woke, hungry, in high spirits, and without an atom
of compunction.
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