QUEENIE'S WHIM A Novel BY ROSA NOUCHETTE CAREY AUTHOR OF "NELLIE'S MEMORIES," "WOOED AND MARRIED," ETC. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen 1881 [_Rights of Translation Reserved_] Bungay: CLAY AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS. CONTENTS OF VOL. I. CHAPTER I. TREATS OF ARITHMETIC CHAPTER II. GRANITE LODGE CHAPTER III. CATHY CHAPTER IV. THE FEAST IN THE GARRET CHAPTER V. CALEB RUNCIMAN CHAPTER VI. "YOU ARE EMMIE'S UNCLE!" CHAPTER VII. LOCKED IN CHAPTER VIII. DARK DAYS CHAPTER IX. AN ERRAND OF MERCY CHAPTER X. "THE LITTLE COMFORTER" CHAPTER XI. CHURCH STILE HOUSE CHAPTER XII. MISS COSIE CHAPTER XIII. A VISIT TO ELDERBERRY LODGE CHAPTER XIV. IN THE GRANITE QUARRY CHAPTER XV. QUEENIE'S COUNSELLOR CHAPTER XVI. FAITH AND CHARITY QUEENIE'S WHIM. CHAPTER I. TREATS OF ARITHMETIC. "A little way, a very little way (Life is so short), they dig into the rind, And they are very sorry, so they say,-- Sorry for what they find."--_Jean Ingelow._ I have always thought the history of the ugly duckling one of the truest and most pathetic of all stories. It commences in the sad minor key, a long prelude of oppression, of misunderstanding. The unknown creature, sombre of plumage, makes no way among its companions; its folded-up beauties remain hidden. The duck-pond represents the world. Amidst plenty of quackery and folly the weaker goes to the wall. By and by the key changes; the long neck arches above the weeds; amid a burst of triumph the ugly duckling sails away into fairy-land a beautiful swan. After all there is a wonderful moral hidden under these quaint old stories. Beauty and goodness always go together; the ugly sister, dropping toads instead of diamonds and roses, is only the poetical incarnation of envy and discontent; truth and mercy and kindness to the aged always unfold themselves under the garb of a beautiful young girl. And so the children glean precious stones of wisdom, odd-shaped and many-colored, out of the fanciful borders of fairy-land. Queenie Marriott once compared herself and her little sister Emmie to the ugly duckling of the fable. "There must be two of them," she said; "only it was dubious whether either of them would become swans." No one at Granite Lodge understood them; certainly not Miss Titheridge, or the other teachers, or the girls, unless it were Cathy, and even Cathy, much as she loved them, voted them peculiar. Queenie was only speaking metaphorically when she made this droll simile--the grave young teacher, Madam Dignity, as the other girls had nicknamed her, was sufficiently alive to her own attractions not to fear unjust comparisons.