: The oak staircase by Lee C Catherine Active Lee M Mary Active Symington James Ayton Illustrator - Siblings Juvenile fiction; Uncles Juvenile fiction; Storytelling Juvenile fiction; Great Britain History James II 1685-1688 Juvenile fiction; Husband and wife

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A WET HALF-HOLIDAY

LADY GREENSLEEVES' STORY

LADY GREENSLEEVES' STORY

THE MAIDS OF TAUNTON

BLUE-COAT'S STORY

THE MAID OF HONOUR'S STORY

UNCLE ALGERNON'S LAST STORY

THE OAK STAIRCASE.

A WET HALF-HOLIDAY.

It was the opinion of Robin Dalrymple that Mangnall was a humbug. Such, at least, was the fact that he announced, in tones both loud and decided, as he closed a somewhat battered copy of that author's works with a tremendous clap, and tossed it contemptuously on the table. Lessons were over in the schoolroom at Horsemandown; and Miss Gregory, at the writing-table in her own peculiar corner, was doing her best to be deaf for a few moments to her pupils' clamour, while she tried to finish a letter in time for the post. Now the Horsemandown schoolroom was hardly the place one would choose for the purpose of writing a letter at any time--much less at four o'clock in the afternoon, when the operation of 'clearing away' was taking place. Fortunately, however, Miss Gregory was used to it; and her pen continued to scratch away valiantly, in spite of the opening and shutting of drawers, the tumbling of books or slates on the floor, the heavy bang of the piano lid, and the uproar of shrill voices that almost drowned the rest of the clatter around her. 'Yes,' repeated Robin, taking up a perilous position on the table between two inkstands: 'Mangnall is a humbug! Silvia, don't you agree with me?'

But Silvia was busily engaged with a sponge and a gallipot of water, generally known in the family as 'the schoolroom jam-pot;' and as she never could answer when appealed to suddenly, she was obliged to pause in her occupation of washing the slates, and lean both elbows on the table in order to meditate. Whereupon Sydney burst in: 'Humbug, of course! All lessons are humbug, except perhaps geography. That's the only one that has something like sense in it.'

Robin raised his eyebrows incredulously. 'Sense in geography! Why, Syd, if there is a thing that's utterly abominable and senseless, that's it. To have to remember what's the capital of what, and where rivers "take their source," and to find out the latitude and longitude of wretched places where one never goes, and never wants to go!'

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