“Has she been so long?” asked Agnes.

“Ever since her third year,” answered Mr. Fairland, “though, at first, the attacks were comparatively slight; but of late years they have grown more and more severe.  Her intellect, as you perhaps have already noticed, is much weakened by them, and her temper, naturally very sweet, is at times almost fiendish.  It seems to be her great desire, while suffering so intensely, to injure all within her reach.”

Agnes now understood the reason of the screams of the children, and also of the pinch she had received as Tiney passed her chair.  When poor Tiney’s moans had become more faint, Mr. Fairland said: 

“Agnes, will you sing?  Music seems to soothe her more than anything else, after the extreme suffering is over.”

Agnes sang, with her marvellously sweet voice, a simple air:  presently poor Tiney turned her head, and fixed her half-closed eyes on Agnes’ face.  Then she said, from time to time, in a dreamy way, “Pretty!—­sweet!  Sing more;” and then she lay perfectly quiet, and soon fell into a gentle slumber.  Often and often, after that, when poor Tiney was seized with these excruciating attacks, as soon as the first intense suffering was over, she would say, “Cousin Agnes, sing!” and, from the time she heard the gentle tones of Agnes’ voice, she would be quiet and gentle as a lamb.  The effect could be likened to nothing but the calming of the evil spirit which possessed the monarch of Israel, by the tones of the sweet harp of David.

XIV.

THE SCHOOL IN THE WEST WING.

   “Scatter diligently, in susceptible minds,
   The germs of the good and beautiful,
   They will develop there to trees, bud, bloom,
   And bear the golden fruit of paradise.”

Agnes found it no easy task to bring into training minds so ignorant and so utterly undisciplined as those of her little pupils.  Left entirely to themselves, as they had been for many months, with a mother too indolent to trouble herself about any systematic plan of government, and a father too easy and good-natured to carry out the many plans he was ever forming for their “breaking in;” scolded and fretted at by their older sisters, to whom they were perfect torments; by turns playing harmoniously, and then quarrelling most vigorously,—­they roamed the house and grounds, doing mischief everywhere, and bringing wrath upon their heads at every turn.

With a perfect horror of anything like study, they had expected with great dread the arrival of a governess, as putting a final stop to all their fun and freedom.  This dread had been in nowise diminished by the constant remarks of their older sisters upon governesses in the abstract, and their own expected governess in particular.  One evening with Agnes served to dispel the horror, so far as she was concerned, though the dread of books was still as great as ever.  Before the evening was over, Agnes had them all round her, as she sat on the sofa, telling them beautiful stories, and asking them questions.