The Present and the Past Read Online Free

life.’
    â€˜Toby is unprepared, and people seem to like him.’
    â€˜Dear little boy! I should hope he is at three years old.’
    â€˜I ought not to be so very prepared at eight.’
    â€˜Well, I do not suppose you are, my little son.’
    â€˜I am more prepared than you know. I am ready for things to happen. Is Megan more prepared than I am?’
    â€˜I should not wonder. Little girls sometimes are.’
    â€˜They are all of the independent type,’ said Miss Ridley. ‘Guy is again the exception.’
    â€˜Fabian and Megan remind me of each other. They are a true brother and sister.’
    â€˜They are really only half one,’ said Henry.
    â€˜You surely do not feel that?’
    â€˜No, I just know it,’ said Henry, as he followed the others.
    Flavia Clare looked after the group of children. She was a tall, thin woman of forty, with a wide, full head, a firm, curved mouth, honest hazel eyes that seemed to know their own honesty, andhair and clothes as unadorned and unadorning as custom permitted. An air about her of being a personality suggested that she was aware of this, and was careful to give it no thought.
    â€˜It is hard to be impartial to them all, Miss Ridley. I wonder how far I succeed.’
    â€˜I should say to an unusual degree, Mrs Clare. I always feel inclined to congratulate you.’
    â€˜And I gave you the opportunity. What do you think, Miss Bennet? I am giving it to you as well.’
    â€˜Yes. Oh yes,’ said Bennet, recalling her eyes and her thoughts. ‘People say they might all be your own children.’
    â€˜And you would not say it? I have tried to make them so.’
    â€˜You could not do any more,’ said Bennet, in a tone of honest sympathy.
    â€˜And there is so much more to be done. I did not know how much it would be, how easy it would be to fail. But I suppose some failure must be accounted human success. We must be content with our human place.’
    A bell rang in the house, and Miss Ridley turned and went towards it with a running gait, that seemed to incommode her without adding to her speed. Bennet followed without sign of haste, and they reached the house together. The children went severally to the nursery and the schoolroom, in accordance with the convention that allotted the most stairs to the shortest legs, or to those that had to be spared them.
    Bennet sat at the head of her table, with Henry and Megan at the sides. Eliza’s place was at the bottom, with Toby’s high chair at her hand, so that she could divide her attention between her own meals and his. As she carried him from his bed to the chair, he exhibited signs of revulsion and turned his face over her shoulder.
    â€˜Oh, your own nice chair!’
    â€˜No,’ said Toby.
    â€˜We don’t want anyone else to sit in it.’
    Toby cast eyes of suspicion on Henry and Megan, and Eliza took advantage of the moment to insert him into the chair. He bowed to fate to the extent of merely uttering fretting sounds.
    â€˜Now look at the nice dinner,’ said Eliza.
    Toby gave it a glance of careless appraisement and settled to a game with his bib and mug, that involved a crooning song. When a spoon approached his lips he shut them tight.
    â€˜Now what about feeding yourself?’ said Eliza, in a zestful manner.
    Toby took the spoon, misled by the tone, but was repelled by the routine and cast the spoon on the ground. Eliza took another without a change of expression and proceeded to feed him, and he presently leaned over the chair.
    â€˜Poor spoon!’ he said.
    â€˜Yes, poor spoon! You have thrown it on the floor. It is all by itself down there.’
    â€˜Oh, yes. All by itself. Toby not throw it. Eliza did.’
    â€˜No, no, you know quite well you threw it yourself. Now eat your dinner or you won’t be a good boy,’ said Eliza, accepting Toby’s moral range.
    A look of consternation came into the