CHAPTER II
The time had come round for the great annual examination of the NationalSchools where the young Dicki'sons received their education, and on thegreat day itself the children came in at tea-time full to overflowingwith the results of their efforts. And Ada Elizabeth was full of ittoo, but not to overflowing; on the contrary, she crept into thekitchen, where her father and mother and little two-year-oldMiriam--commonly called "Mirry"--were already seated at the table, andput her school-bag away in its place with a shamefaced air, as if she,being an ignominious failure, could have no news to bring.
"Well," exclaimed Mrs. Dicki'son to Gerty, who threw her hat and bagdown and wriggled into her seat with her mouth already open to tell hertale, "did you get a prize?"
"No, I didn't, Mother," returned Gerty glibly. "A nasty old crosspatchMiss Simmonds is; she always did hate me, and I think she hates me worsethan ever now. Anyway, she didn't give me a prize--just to show herspite, nasty thing!"
Mrs. Dicki'son always declared that her husband was a slow man; and helooked up slowly then and fixed his dull eyes upon Gerty's flushed face.
"H'm!" he remarked, in a dry tone, and then closed his lips tight andhelped himself to another slice of bread and butter.
Gerty's flushed face grew a fine scarlet. She knew only too well whatthe "h'm" and the dry tone and the tightly-closed lips meant, and madehaste to change the subject, or, at least, to turn the interest of theconversation from herself to her sister.
"But our Ada Elizabeth's got the first prize of all," she informed them;and in her eagerness to divert her father's slow attention from herself,she spoke with such an air of pride in the unlooked-for result of theexamination that Ada Elizabeth cast a glance of passionate gratitudetowards her, and then visibly shrank into herself, as if, in having wonso prominent a place, she had done something to make her mother's trialsharder to bear than ever. "And there's going to be a grander treat thanwe've ever had this year," Gerty went on, in her glibest tones. "And thedean's lady, Lady Margaret, is going to give the prizes away, and allthe company is going to be at the treat, and--and----"
"Oh! what a pity!" exclaimed Mrs. Dicki'son, turning a hopeless gazeupon poor Ada Elizabeth. "Our Ada Elizabeth 'll never show up properly,as you would, Gerty."
"Our Ada Elizabeth's lesson-books 'll show up better than Gerty's, maybe," put in Mr. Dicki'son, in his quietest tone and with his driestmanner.
"Oh! Ada Elizabeth's not clever like Gerty," returned Mrs. Dicki'son,utterly ignorant as she was indifferent to the fact that she was rapidlytaking all the savour out of the child's hour of triumph. "And you wereso sure of it too, Gerty."
"So was the hare of winning the race; but the tortoise won, after all,"remarked Mr. Dicki'son sententiously.
"What _are_ you talking about, Father?" his wife demanded. "I'm sure iftidy 'air has anything to do with it, Gerty ought to be at the top ofthe tree, for, try as I will, I _can't_ make Ada Elizabeth's 'air everlook aught like, wash it and brush it and curl it as ever I will; and asfor 'air-oil----"
Mr. Dicki'son interrupted his wife by a short laugh. "I didn't meanthat at all"--he knew by long experience that it was useless to try tomake her understand what he did mean--"but, now you speak of it, perhapsAda Elizabeth's 'air don't make so much show as some of the others; it'slike mine, and mine never was up to much--not but what there's scarcelyenough left to tell what sort it is."
It was quite a long speech for the unsociable and quiet Mr. Dicki'son tocome out with, and his wife passed it by without comment, only making afretful reiteration of Ada Elizabeth's plainness and a complaint of thesorry figure she would cut among the great doings on the day of theschool treat and distribution of prizes.
"_Is_ our Ada Elizabeth a plain one?" said Mr. Dicki'son, with an air ofastonishment which conveyed a genuine desire for information, thenturned and scanned the child's burning face, after which he lookedclosely at the faces of the other children, so little like hers, and sonearly like that of his pretty, mindless, complaining wife. "Well, yes,little 'un, I suppose you're not exactly pretty," he admittedunwillingly; "you're like me, and I never was a beauty to look at. But,there, 'handsome is as handsome does,' and you've brought home firstprize to-day, which you wouldn't have done, may be, if you'd always beenon the grin, like Gerty there. Seems to me," he went on reflectively,"that that there first prize 'll stand by you when folks has got tiredof Gerty's grin, that's what seems to me. I don't know," he went on,"that I set so much store by looks. I never was aught but a plain man,but I've made you a good husband, Em'ly, and you can't deny it. You'llmind that good-looking chap, Joe Webster, that you kept company withbefore you took up with me? He chucked you up for Eliza Moriarty.Well, I met her this morning, poor soul! with two black eyes and herlips strapped up with plaster. H'm!" with a sniff of self-approval,"seems to me I'd not care to change my plain looks for his handsomeones. 'Handsome is as handsome does' is _my_ motto; and if I want aughtdoing for me, it's our Ada Elizabeth I asks to do it, that's all _I_know."
The great day of the school treat came and went. The dean's wife, LadyMargaret Adair, gave away the prizes, as she had promised, and was sostruck with "our Ada Elizabeth's" timid and shrinking air that she kepther for a few minutes, while she told her that she had heard a very goodaccount of her, and that she hoped she would go on and work harder thanever. "For I see," said Lady Margaret, looking at a paper in her hand,"that you are the first in your class for these subjects, and that youhave carried off the regular attendance and good-conduct prize as well.I am sure you must be a very good little woman, and be a great favouritewith your schoolmistress."
Mrs. Dicki'son--who, as the mother of the show pupil of the day, and asa person of much respectability in the neighbourhood, which was notfamous for that old-fashioned virtue, had been given a seat as near aspossible to the dais on which Lady Margaret and the table of prizes wereaccommodated--heard the pleasant words of praise, which would have mademost mothers' hearts throb with exultant pride, with but little of sucha feeling; on the contrary, her whole mind was filled with regret thatit was not Gerty standing on the edge of the dais, instead of theunfortunate Ada Elizabeth, who did not show off well. If only it hadbeen Gerty! Gerty would have answered my lady with a pretty blush andsmile, and would have dropped her courtesy at the right moment, andwould have been a credit to her mother generally.
But, alas! Gerty's glib tongue and ready smiles had not won her theprizes which had fallen to poor little plain Ada Elizabeth's share, andGerty was out in the cold, so to speak, among the other scholars, whileAda Elizabeth, in an agony of shyness and confusion, stood on the edgeof the dais, first on one foot and then on the other, conscious that hermother's eyes were upon her and that their expression was not anapproving one, feeling, though she would hardly have been able to put itinto words, that in cutting so sorry a figure she was making her poormother's trials more hard to bear than ever. Poor little plain child,she kept courtesying up and down like a mechanical doll, and saying,"Yes, 'm," and "No, 'm," at the wrong moments, and she altogether forgotthat the fresh-coloured, buxom lady in the neat black gown and with onlya bit of blue feather to relieve her black bonnet was not a "ma'am" atall, but a "my lady," who ought to have been addressed as such. Atlast, however, the ceremony, and the games and sports, and the big teawere all over, and Ada Elizabeth went home with her prizes to be aheroine no longer, for she soon, very soon, in the presence of Gerty'sprettiness and Gerty's glib tongue and ready smiles, sank into theinsignificance which had been her portion aforetime. She had not muchencouragement to go on trying to be a credit to the family which she hadso hardly tried by taking after her father, for nobody seemed toremember that she had been at the top of the tree at the greatexamination, or, if they did recall it, it was generally as an exampleof the schoolmistress's "awkwardness" of disposition in having passedover the hare for the tortoise. Yet sometimes, when Gerty was extrahard upon Ada Elizabeth's dulness, or Mrs. Dicki'son found the trial ofher life more heavy to
bear than usual, her father would look up fromhis dinner or his tea, as it might happen to be, and fix his slow gazeupon his eldest daughter's vivacious countenance.
"H'm! Our Ada Elizabeth's too stupid to live, is she? Well, you'relike to know, Gerty; it was you won three first prizes last half, wasn'tit? A great credit to you, to say nought about the 'good conduct andregular attendance.' Yes, you're like to know all about it, you are."
"Dear me, Gerty," Mrs. Dicki'son would as often as not chime infretfully, having just wit enough to keep on the blind side of "Father,""eat your tea, and let our Ada Elizabeth alone, do; it isn't pretty ofyou to be always calling her for something. Our Ada Elizabeth'splain-looking, there's no saying aught again' it, but stupid she isn't,and never was; and, as Father says, ''andsome is as 'andsome does'; sodon't let me hear any more of it."
And all the time the poor little subject of discussion would sitwrithing upon her chair, feeling that, after all, Gerty was quite right,and that she was not only unfortunately plain to look at, but that, inspite of the handsome prizes laid out in state on the top of the chestof drawers, there was little doubt that she was just too stupid to live.