TERRY ***
Produced by David Edwards, Paul Stephen, Nikolay Fishburne and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
[Illustration: "Vulcan, Vulcan, let me tie your cap-strings."]
TERRY
or, She ought to have been a Boy
BY
ROSA MULHOLLAND
(LADY GILBERT)
Author of "Girls of Banshee Castle" "Four Little Mischiefs" "Giannetta" "Cynthia's Bonnet-shop" &c.
_ILLUSTRATED BY E. A. CUBITT_
BLACKIE AND SON LIMITED
LONDON GLASGOW AND DUBLIN
CONTENTS
CHAP. Page
I. "I HOPE SHE WILL BE CHANGED!" 5
II. "ONLY MISS TERRY COME BACK TO US!" 11
III. A WET DAY 20
IV. DREADFULLY GOOD 34
V. "BAD AGAIN!" 41
VI. A BRASS HELMET 61
VII. UP THE CHIMNEY 76
VIII. THE RUNAWAY BOAT 93
TERRY
CHAPTER I
"I HOPE SHE WILL BE CHANGED!"
"Think of what it was to manage her in the summer months!" said dear old Madam Trimleston, looking wistfully at Nurse Nancy. "What could we do with her this winter weather? I do hope she will be changed. Don't you think it likely that school will have done something for her?"
"Of course I do, madam. What else did we break our hearts sendin' her there for? And little Turly, that would ha' been content to stay here peaceable if she would ha' let him alone! Sure it's often I say to myself that it's Terry ought to have been the boy."
"The same idea has occurred to me, Nancy. Not that we ought to criticise the arrangements of Providence."
"Well, madam," said Nurse Nancy, "I don't agree that Providence has anything to do with it. Providence doesn't make many mistakes, I'm thinkin'? It's ourselves mostly that steps behind His work an' puts things asthray on Him."
"You are right, and yet I do not perceive in what way we made mischief in the matter of poor Terry. Her mother and father and myself have always done our best for her."
"Except when you gave her an unnatural name, if I may make bold to say it to you, madam. She was born all right, God bless her; but when you put a man's name on her, somethin' got into her, poor lamb, somethin' that'll take a good while to work out of her."
"That's a very queer idea, Nancy. You know well that she was named after a brave ancestor. It was hoped she would have been a boy, and her father gave her the name he had intended for a boy; only we softened it, Nancy, softened and changed Terence into Terencia."
A smile lighted up Nurse Nancy's wrinkled face.
"Well now, madam, as if anybody couldn't see through that little thrick! To call her for a fightin' ould warrior that bet Cromwell an' held his own in spite of him! An' her havin' to grow up a young lady with nothin' but niceness in her! Ah, then now, madam, why didn't ye call her Mary, the same as her grandmother before her?"
"We did, Nancy; you forget that we did," urged Madam mildly. "We named her Terencia Mary."
"Then ye put the cart before the horse, madam," said Nancy, shaking her head grimly, "an' the ould warrior has got the foreway in her over the holy lady that has the best right in her, in regard of her sex. But don't fret now, madam, for it's my belief that the Mary is in her still, an' she'll be the gentlest yet that iver walked of the name. Only it's us that'll have a han'ful of her until the ould warrior has done with her."
