Scenes and Characters, or, Eighteen Months at Beechcroft — John Shaqi
Scenes and Characters, or, Eighteen Months at BeechcroftYonge, Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary)
General
Scenes and Characters, or, Eighteen Months at Beechcroft
Yonge, Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary)
Domestic fiction; England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
Phyllis never dreamt that she could be happy while standing still and
learning, till Miss Weston began to teach at the Sunday school.
Obedience at school taught her to acquire habits of reverent attention,
which gradually conquered the idleness and weariness which had once
possessed her at church. First, she learnt to be interested in the
Historical Lessons, then never to lose her place in the Psalms, then to
think about and follow some of the Prayers; by this time she was far from
feeling any fatigue at all on week-days; she had succeeded in restraining
any contortions to relieve herself from the irksomeness of sitting still,
and had her thoughts in tolerable order through the greater part of the
Sunday service, and now it was her great wish, unknown to any one, to
abstain from a single yawn through the whole service, including the
sermon!
Her place (chosen for her by Eleanor when first she had begun to go to
Church, as far as possible from Reginald) was at the end of the seat,
between her papa and the wall. This morning, as she put her arm on the
book-board, while rising from kneeling, she felt a sudden thrill of sharp
pain smear her left elbow, which made her start violently, and would have
caused a scream, had she not been in church. She saw a wasp fall on the
ground, and was just about to put her foot on it, when she recollected
where she was. She had never in her life intentionally killed anything,
and this was no time to begin in that place, and when she was angry. The
pain was severe—more so perhaps than any she had felt before—and very
much frightened, she pulled her papa’s coat to draw his attention. But
her first pull was so slight that he did not feel it, and before she gave
a second she remembered that she could not make him hear what was the
matter, without more noise than was proper. No, she must stay where she
was, and try to bear the pain, and she knew that if she did try, help
would be given her. She proceeded to find out the Psalm and join her
voice with the others, though her heart was beating very fast, her
forehead was contracted, and she could not help keeping her right hand
clasped round her arm, and sometimes shifting from one foot to the other.
The sharpness of the pain soon went off; she was able to attend to the
Lessons, and hoped it would soon be quite well; but as soon as she began
to think about it, it began to ache and throb, and seemed each moment to
be growing hotter. The sermon especially tried her patience, her cheeks
were burning, she felt sick and hardly able to hold up her head, yet she
would not lean it against the wall, because she had often been told not
to do so. She was exceedingly alarmed to find that her arm had swelled
so much that she could hardly bend it, and it had received the impression
of the gathers of her sleeve; she thought no sermon had ever been so
long, but she sat quite still and upright, as she could not have done,
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