A Dark Night's Work Read Online Free PDF

meaning to have a fresh cry over her
own naughtiness and Mr. Corbet's departure; but the August evening was
still and calm, and put her passionate grief to shame, hushing her up, as
it were, with the other young creatures, who were being soothed to rest
by the serene time of day, and the subdued light of the twilight sky.
    There was a piece of ground surrounding the flower-garden, which was not
shrubbery, nor wood, nor kitchen garden—only a grassy bit, out of which
a group of old forest trees sprang. Their roots were heaved above
ground; their leaves fell in autumn so profusely that the turf was ragged
and bare in spring; but, to make up for this, there never was such a
place for snowdrops.
    The roots of these old trees were Ellinor's favourite play-place; this
space between these two was her doll's kitchen, that its drawing-room,
and so on. Mr. Corbet rather despised her contrivances for doll's
furniture, so she had not often brought him here; but Dixon delighted in
them, and contrived and planned with the eagerness of six years old
rather than forty. To-night Ellinor went to this place, and there were
all a new collection of ornaments for Miss Dolly's sitting-room made out
of fir-bobs, in the prettiest and most ingenious way. She knew it was
Dixon's doing and rushed off in search of him to thank him.
    "What's the matter with my pretty?" asked Dixon, as soon as the pleasant
excitement of thanking and being thanked was over, and he had leisure to
look at her tear-stained face.
    "Oh, I don't know! Never mind," said she, reddening.
    Dixon was silent for a minute or two, while she tried to turn off his
attention by her hurried prattle.
    "There's no trouble afoot that I can mend?" asked he, in a minute or two.
    "Oh, no! It's really nothing—nothing at all," said she. "It's only
that Mr. Corbet went away without saying good-bye to me, that's all." And
she looked as if she should have liked to cry again.
    "That was not manners," said Dixon, decisively.
    "But it was my fault," replied Ellinor, pleading against the
condemnation.
    Dixon looked at her pretty sharply from under his ragged bushy eyebrows.
    "He had been giving me a lecture, and saying I didn't do what his sisters
did—just as if I were to be always trying to be like somebody else—and
I was cross and ran away."
    "Then it was Missy who wouldn't say good-bye. That was not manners in
Missy."
    "But, Dixon, I don't like being lectured!"
    "I reckon you don't get much of it. But, indeed, my pretty, I daresay
Mr. Corbet was in the right; for, you see, master is busy, and Miss Monro
is so dreadful learned, and your poor mother is dead and gone, and you
have no one to teach you how young ladies go on; and by all accounts Mr.
Corbet comes of a good family. I've heard say his father had the best
stud-farm in all Shropshire, and spared no money upon it; and the young
ladies his sisters will have been taught the best of manners; it might be
well for my pretty to hear how they go on."
    "You dear old Dixon, you don't know anything about my lecture, and I'm
not going to tell you. Only I daresay Mr. Corbet might be a little bit
right, though I'm sure he was a great deal wrong."
    "But you'll not go on a-fretting—you won't now, there's a good young
lady—for master won't like it, and it'll make him uneasy, and he's
enough of trouble without your red eyes, bless them."
    "Trouble—papa, trouble! Oh, Dixon! what do you mean?" exclaimed
Ellinor, her face taking all a woman's intensity of expression in a
minute.
    "Nay, I know nought," said Dixon, evasively. "Only that Dunster fellow
is not to my mind, and I think he potters the master sadly with his fid-
fad ways."
    "I hate Mr. Dunster!" said Ellinor, vehemently. "I won't speak a word to
him the next time he comes to dine with papa."
    "Missy will do what papa likes best," said Dixon, admonishingly; and with
this the pair of "friends" parted,

Chapter IV
*
    The summer afterwards Mr. Corbet came again to read with Mr. Ness. He
did not