Monica's choice — Story, Setting & Ideas

uick, because I’m in a great hurry?"

Even insubordinate Monica quailed before the expressions which flitted across the old lady’s features--amazement, anger, and finally scorn.

"I am simply _astounded_ at your rudeness, Monica," she said, sternly. "How you can possibly allow yourself to speak to me in such a manner, I cannot imagine. It is very evident that you are no Beauchamp."

The scorn expressed in her grandmother’s tones acted in the same way as a touch of the whip about the ears of a thoroughbred mare. She started, and tears of wounded pride welled up in her flashing hazel eyes, but they were quickly forced back.

"I _am_ a Beauchamp!" she cried, her lips quivering with anger, and her head thrown back. "Every one says I am my father over again."

"So you may be, in looks, Monica, but he would never have dreamed of addressing me in the manner you did just now."

"Well, perhaps he wasn’t aggravated like I am. Miss Thompson is enough to provoke a saint," she added, _sotto voce_, with a furtive glance at the old lady’s face.

But Mrs. Beauchamp took no notice of it; indeed, it is doubtful if she heard the remark, so engrossed was she in deciding how best to deliver the lecture she had undertaken to give Monica. A startled exclamation from her grandchild, who had been moodily staring out of one of the French windows, which overlooked a large sweep of the carriage drive, effectually roused her.

"Oh! now he’s gone; I do call it too bad!"

"What do you mean, Monica?" queried the old lady, rising from her chair and following the direction of Monica’s glance.

"Why, Tom. The stable-boy, you know, grand-mamma," she added, as Mrs. Beauchamp looked incredulous. "I was in the yard when you sent for me, and he was telling me about the jolliest little wire-haired terrier his father wants to sell, and I----"

"Monica, how many times have I told you I will not allow you to frequent the stable-yard? I am sure it is there that you pick up all the vulgar expressions you are so continually using. I begin to think Miss Thompson is right in saying you are no lady."

"Bother Miss Thompson!" cried Monica, now thoroughly angry, and losing all control of her words; "she’s a sly old cat, that’s what she is, spying round after me all day long. It’s the only bit of fun I get, when I----"

"Be quiet, Monica, and listen to me," said her grandmother, who was scarcely less angry, but who held herself in admirable check. "It is quite time that some one controlled you, and I have sent for you this afternoon to tell you that I am going to----"

"Send me away to boarding school?" interrupted Monica, her anger temporarily subsiding, for, of all things, she desired to go away to school, but it had always been tabooed. "Oh! grandmamma, _do_! I would really behave well there." And she seized one of the old lady’s white hands impulsively in her warm, and decidedly dirty young fingers, while the girlish face quivered with excitement, until she looked a totally different being. But she was doomed to disappointment.

"Nothing of the kind, Monica," replied Mrs. Beauchamp coldly, and withdrawing her hand. She never responded to her granddaughter’s advances, which probably accounted for the difficulty she had in dealing with her; for Monica had a warm heart hidden away somewhere, which no one but her father had ever reached. "I was going to say, when you so rudely interrupted me again, that as you have had four governesses within very little more than a year, who, one and all, have declared that you are unmanageable, and that it is an utter impossibility to teach you, I shall be obliged to seek some other mode of education for you."

Monica’s face, which had fallen considerably at the beginning of her grandmother’s speech, now brightened visibly.

"There is nothing else but boarding-school left," she said, with satisfaction. It was to this end that she had made the lives of her long-suffering instructresses unendurable by her tricks and general unruliness.

"You know perfectly well, Monica, that you will never go to a boarding-school," replied Mrs. Beauchamp.

"That was only a fad of mother’s," said Monica, disdainfully. "Dad would never have forbidden it. He thought no end of Harrow, and I’m sure he would let me go to school if you told him what a bother the old governesses are."