Six to Sixteen: A Story for Girls

My name is Margaret Vandaleur. My father was a captain in her Majesty's 202nd Regiment of Foot. The regiment was in India for six years, just after I was born; indeed, I was not...

We were living in a bungalow not far from the barracks at X. when the cholera came. It was when I was within a few weeks of six years old. First we heard that it was among the n...

Major Buller took me home to his house after my father's death. My father had left his affairs in his hands, and in those of a friend in England--the Mr. Arkwright he had spoken...

I only remember a little of our voyage home in the troop-ship, but I have heard so much of it, from the elder Buller girls and the ladies of the regiment, that I seem quite fami...

Riflebury, in the south of England--our next station--was a very lively place. "There was always something going on." "Somebody was always dropping in." "People called and staye...

When we began our biographies we resolved that neither of us should read the other's till both were finished. This was partly because we thought it would be more satisfactory to...

I was much discomfited. My position was not a dignified one at the best, and in childhood such small shames seem too terrible ever to be outlived. My great-grandmother laughed h...

"We are not really connected," Mrs. Buller began. "She is Margery's great-grandmother, and Margery and I are second cousins. That's all. But I knew her long ago, before my poor...

My father was brought up chiefly by his mother's relations. The religious question was always a difficulty as regarded the de Vandaleurs, and I fancy extended to my own case. My...

My great-grandfather had, as I said, some skill in painting. He was gifted with an intense sense of, and love for, colour. I am sure he saw colours where other people did not. W...

In a household where gossip is a principal amusement, the return of any member from a visit is a matter for general congratulation till the new budget is exhausted. Indeed, I pl...

It was not because Major Buller's high opinion of Miss Airlie was in any way lowered that he decided to send us to school. In fact it was only under long and heavy pressure, fro...

We knew when it was summer at Bush House, because there was a lilac-tree by the gate, which had one large bunch of flowers on it in the summer when Eleanor and I and Matilda wer...

Miss Mulberry was our school-mistress, and the head of the Bush House establishment. "Madame" was only a French mistress employed by Miss Mulberry, though she had more to do wit...

Madame was not ungenerous to an apology. She believed in Eleanor too, and was quite disposed to think that Eleanor might be in the right in a dispute with anybody but herself. P...

We were not jealous of Eleanor's popularity. She was popular with the girls as well as with the teachers. If she was apt to be opinionated, she was candid, generous, and modest....

I fancy that when we no longer had to repress ourselves for poor Matilda's sake, Eleanor was more sensible of her own aches and pains. She also became rather irritable, and had...

Eleanor and I overslept ourselves one morning. We had been tired, and when we did get up we hurried through our dressing, looking forward to fines and a scolding to boot.

pronounced it fever--"Probably scarlet fever; and he recommends the school being broken up at once, as the holidays would soon be here anyway." So one of the girls told us.

We had a very noisy, happy journey to London. We chattered, and laughed, and hopped about like a lot of birds turned out of a cage. Emma sat by the window, and made a running co...

It was Midsummer. The heavy foliage brushed our faces as "the old mare," with slack reins upon her back, drew us soberly up the steep drive, and stood still, of her own accord,...

Both Eleanor and I were visited that night by dreams of terrible complications with the authorities at Bush House. It was a curious relief to us to wake to clear consciences and...

The next morning's post brought a letter from Mrs. Arkwright. They were staying in the south of England, and had seen the Bullers, and heard all their news. It was an important...

I wrote to my old friends and relatives, with a full account of my new home. Rather a comically-expressed account too, I fancy, from the bits Uncle Buller used to quote in after...

The coming and going of the boys were our chief events. We packed for them when they went away. We wrote long letters to them, and received brief but pithy replies. We spoke on...

Out of motherly affection, and also because their early attempts at drawing were very clever, Mrs. Arkwright had, years before, begun a scrapbook, or "Household Album," as it wa...

I think it was good for us. Great as were the advantages of the life I now shared over an existence wasted in a petty round of ignoble gossip and social struggle, it had the dra...

The Bullers came home again. Colonel St. Quentin had retired, and when Major Buller got the regiment, he also left the army and settled in a pleasant neighbourhood in the south...

The few marked events of my life have generally happened on my birthdays. It was on my fifteenth birthday that Mr. Arkwright got a letter from one of my relations on the subject...

Now it is past it seems like a dream, my life at The Vine, with its sad end, if indeed that can be justly called a sad end which took away together, and with little pain, those...