JUBILEE HALL;

OR, "THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME."

BY HON. MRS. GREENE

THOMAS NELSON AND SONS LONDON, EDINBURGH, DUBLIN AND NEW YORK

CONTENTS.

I. Joyful News II. The Journey to the Hall III. Jubilee Hall IV. A Bad Beginning V. Berry-picking VI. The Winner of the Prize VII. The Voice of Conscience VIII. Covering the Jam IX. Aunt Marian's Store-room X. A Discovery XI. Watching his Opportunity XII. At Dead of Night XIII. From Bad to Worse XIV. Gloomy Forebodings XV. A Contrast XVI. Fighting with Self XVII. The Mischief Discovered XVIII. A Full Confession XIX. Home, Sweet Home

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

"I'll give each of you three guesses" ... Frontispiece

Fred threw his arms around his mother's neck

Kathleen ducked down as she was told

"I am so glad I have met you"

"Another pot of strawberry, if you please"

The flame of the candle flickered horribly

"Fred, here is mother come to see you"

Supper was laid in the bright parlour

JUBILEE HALL.

CHAPTER I. JOYFUL NEWS.

"Joy! joy! joy!" cried Kathleen Malcomson, as she burst into the schoolroom where her two brothers were at work preparing their lessons for school; "oh, boys, I've just heard such a grand piece of news. I'll give each of you three guesses what it is, and only this one hint, that it's the most glorious thing you could possibly imagine."

"You must tell us first," cried Fred, "does it concern us boys as well as you? Otherwise it would not be worth the bother of guessing."

"Of course it does; that's one guess for you, Fred."

"Humbug! you said we were each to have three guesses, and mine was only a simple remark; besides, I know what it is already, so you need not make such a row about it."

"Why, who told you?" asked Kathleen, her face falling several degrees from its original brightness. "I am almost certain you cannot have guessed it."

"Father is going to have the bagatelle board newly covered, and buy fresh balls; I heard him saying so this morning,—eh? Miss Katy."

"Eh? Miss Katy," repeated Harry in a still more decisive tone; "how wise you are with your three guesses."

"It's as much about the bagatelle board as it's about—about your head," cried Kathleen, glancing around the room for some withering simile; "do you think I'd make such a fuss about an old bagatelle board? No; it's something a thousand times better than that."

"Well, then, tell us it out at once," cried both the boys, roused to real interest by Kathleen's words and manner; "what's the use of bottling up your news, instead of giving us the benefit of it? Pour it all out quick, that's a good old Kat."

"Well, I'll only ask you to give one guess each," said Kathleen, recovering the bright expectant glance of pleasure as she drew nearer. "Now, Fred, you go ahead first, and Harry shall have his afterwards."

"Well, I guess—I guess, humph; you said it was awfully grand, did you not?"

"I did."

"Well, then, I guess, that my new suit has come home from the tailor's."

"Nonsense, Fred; that's no real guess. Who cares about your suit? You did not really try to think."

"I did, 'pon my word; but my head is nothing but a brick-bat over this horrid Euclid. Let Harry have his shot now."

"I have known what it was all along," said Harry calmly; "the midsummer holidays are to begin a week earlier than we thought, for I heard mother saying so this morning; at least she told Leonard that the pony might begin to cart gravel after the end of this week, as we should not want it any more for the croydon, and I twigged at once that there would be no school after that week."

"You are just a shade right in your guess, and nothing more," cried Kathleen triumphantly; "you will not want the croydon for going to school after the end of this week, but only because you are going somewhere else."

"Where?" cried both the boys, springing up from their chairs in great excitement; "not—not to Jubilee Hall, surely."

"Yes, to Jubilee Hall for the whole midsummer holidays. There was a letter from Aunt Marian last night, asking us to spend the whole midsummer holidays there."

The wild whoop of joy and chorus of shouting, dancing, flinging about of lesson-books, and pounding recklessly on the piano, showed that Kathleen had not exaggerated the rapturous quality of her news, nor over-rated the warmth of its reception. The boys proceeded to hug their sister enthusiastically, and to kick each other ignominiously, till at length, lessons having been hopelessly abandoned, they all leaped out through the open window, and rushed off with their news to pour it into the sympathetic bosom of Mrs. Duffy, the dairywoman; or failing her, into the somewhat obtuse ear of Quin, the gardener. But they were both kindly souls, and always received the children's intelligence with the full amount of surprise or joy expected from them.

The dairy came first, being situated at the foot of the lawn, and shaded from the house by a plantation of young firs and laurustinus bushes; and besides, they were always sure of finding "old Mother Duffy" at home, for she never left the precincts of her own place except at milking-time, and it was now only four o'clock in the afternoon.

"Well, bless my heart," cried the good old soul, coming to the door of her dairy as she heard the loud hurrahs and yells of the children, and saw them come flying over the sunk fence and down the meadow towards her, "there must be some rare piece of news up now;—I'd better turn the key on the dairy-room, or Master Harry will be playing some of his wild tricks with the cream, or putting salt in the milk, as he did the other day." And Mrs. Duffy, moving aside to carry out her precautionary measure, had only just turned the key in the lock when the trio burst headlong into the room with a clatter and a row that brought several of the panikins and wooden butter moulds tumbling off the dresser upon the flagged floor of the dairy.

"Now, Master Harry, and you, Master Fred, couldn't you come a trifle easier into the house, without knocking all my little goods and chattels about the place! What bee have you got in your bonnet this morning, Miss Kathleen, that makes you so flighty and wild?"

"She has got the biggest bee that ever was born," cried Fred, quite breathless from his quick race; "and we've all come down to see what you'll think of it. Only fancy, Mother Duffy, there has been a letter from Aunt Marian, and we are all going to spend the midsummer holidays at Jubilee Hall."

"The jolliest place you ever were in," broke in Harry, who, having seen at a glance that the dairy door was locked, was searching behind every cup and platter for the key; "no end of good things to eat and drink, and no stint of milk and butter as there is in some places; nor locks on the doors either."

"Then she must be a rare simple lady to ask such folks as you down to her place, and keep nought under lock and key. Wait till the first day she finds a frog swimming in the milk-pail or a hedgehog at the bottom of the churn, and see whether she'll turn the key in her dairy door or not. She'll be a sillier lady than I take her for, or she'll soon send you packing home again to your own place."

"Oh, will she? that's your view of the question, Mother Duffy, but not mine," retorted Harry, who with his back turned, was busily employed pouring some ink out of a small stone jar into Mother Duffy's empty tea-pot; "Aunt Marian is the jolliest cove in all England."

"I don't understand anything about 'coves,'" replied Mrs. Duffy, shaking her head ominously; "but if you get on with the same tricks at Jubilee Hall as you do here, it's the short holidays you'll have there, I promise you. Not but I'm glad you have such a treat before you; though how folks with such a fine place to live in as this should set so much store by another house, is a matter I don't quite come to see the sense of."

"Oh, but don't you see," cried Kathleen, "there is every kind of fun going on there from morning till night,—archery, and croquet, and lawn tennis, and ponies to ride. Arthur Jackson spent one day there last year, and he says it's the most splendid place he ever was in."

"Splendid is no word for it," cried Fred enthusiastically; "from what he said, it must be a—a—gollumptious place. The gooseberry bushes there are so large and full of fruit, you could stay a whole day under one of them, and leave it none the worse for the picking."

"I'm thinking you'll be a trifle the worse for such a picking," said Mrs. Duffy, laughing good-humouredly, "Do you remember the day you ate all the cherries, and the doctor had to be sent for in the evening."

"Pooh! that was ages ago, when I was quite young," replied Fred, who had only just passed out of his fourteenth year. "You would not catch me making such a fool of myself again."

"I hope not," said Mrs. Duffy; "but I'd be sorry to be the cherry-tree that should come in your way, old as you are and wise. But what's Master Harry at that he's so quiet yonder in the corner?"

"Oh, nothing," cried Harry, gliding away from the dresser, where he had just poured some vinegar into a jug of new milk. "I was looking at that grand picture that you've stuck up on the wall since I was here last."

Harry's face looked so innocent, and his remark was so plausible a one, that Mrs. Duffy, who was only too easily imposed upon, allowed the excuse to pass muster, and continued,—"On what day are you going to leave us, Master Fred? I'll be lonesome enough without you, bad as you are with your tricks and treacherous ways."

"We are going on this day week," replied Kathleen. "I was the first to hear it all, and the boys knew nothing about it until I told them."

"Phew! how grand you are!" cried both the boys contemptuously. "Why should you have been told before either of us, I should like to know? You happened to go into the drawing-room first, and that was all."

"No, it was not all; I was sent for," replied Kathleen proudly. "Mamma had to get me some new clothes made before I went on a visit, and so she told me all about it then. And what was more, she said that although I was the youngest, she hoped I would try to prevent you boys from being too wild or playing practical jokes while you were away; for there are to be lots of other visitors at the Hall, and mamma was afraid you might get into some scrape, and perhaps have to be sent home."

Fred threw his arms around his mother's neck.

"Oh, dear! so we are to be under your thumb, Miss Wiseacre, are we?" cried Fred, pointing contemptuously with his finger at his sister, whose heightened colour betrayed her vexation. "We must do nothing, and say nothing, and think nothing even, without coming to ask your leave or advice; ain't it likely just? that's all I say," and Fred whistling, turned on his heel and stepped over the threshold of the dairy door.

"You might do worse than follow Miss Kathleen's advice," cried Mrs. Duffy, seeing the ready tears in the little girl's eyes, and always prepared to take the part of the weak; "for she's a good girl, and always tries to do what her mamma tells her, and that's more than I can say for either of you. For if a bit of a spree turns up in your paths, it's little you think of who likes it or dislikes it either; and as I said before, I just think it more than likely we'll be having you home here before you've been half a week away."

"Bosh," cried Fred, leaping over the gravel walk and turning off towards the garden.

"Gammon," cried Harry, as he also left the dairy and followed in his brother's wake.

"That last idea is a trifle too rich, ain't it, now?" said Fred, as he linked his arm in that of his younger brother, in the shady shrubbery path leading to the front garden; "that a couple of big fellows like us are to be under the guidance of a little scrap-o'-my-thumb of a child like Katy. Why, I look on the very fact that we shall have no one over us to say, 'do this, or do that,' is the very cream of the whole joke; don't you?"

"Of course I do."

"Father always looks so grave if a fellow does anything the least out of the common run, and mother is so—"

"Mother is awfully jolly, I think, and father too," replied faithful Harry, who, under all his madcap ways, had a loyal, loving heart.

"Well, I should rather think they were. I ain't the one to run down mother, I should think, or father either, for that matter; but I mean it will be an awfully jolly sensation to be entirely one's own master, and no one to pull a long face if one happens to do or say anything not exactly laid down by rule. You see what I mean, don't you, Harry?"

"Oh yes; of course, it will be grand sport and no mistake."

"I hope Kathleen won't really be poking her nose into all our doings," said Fred meditatively; "there are heaps of larks which are perfectly harmless in themselves which might throw her into fits of terror. I'm sorry mother ever put such a silly notion into her head."

"O Fred!"

"My dear fellow, don't 'oh' and 'ah' at every word I say. One would think I was running mother down, by the way you bounce up whenever I mention her name. But ain't it a silly notion, now, for a little meawy kitten like Kathleen to be set to watch over our actions?"

"I expect she will be so nervous when she gets there, she will have enough to do to look after herself," replied Harry evasively; and having reached the garden gate, their talk and walk ended in the ever entrancing operation of gooseberry-picking.

CHAPTER II. THE JOURNEY TO THE HALL.

At length the day arrived for the journey of the children to Jubilee Hall. It had seemed as if it would never come, so ardently did they look forward to the visit; and now it was a picked day, so gloriously sunshiny and fine, and with just enough breeze to prevent the heat from being too oppressive.

The carriage, or rather the pony phaeton, stood already at the door, and the children, impatient of delay, listened to the last words and injunctions of their mother with somewhat less attention than was their wont; for though they were often disobedient and wild, and extraordinarily foolish, still they loved their mother with all their heart; and when she pointed out their faults to them, they made ardent resolutions of amendment, and determined to make their future conduct so good and faultless, that all past errors or mischief should be forgotten. But this morning their thoughts were busy with the pleasures of Jubilee Hall and its thousand and one enjoyments, so that their mother's words fell like hailstones on a glass roof, which touch the surface for a moment only to rebound and fall at a greater distance.

"Harry, love, you will be sure not to play any practical jokes while you are away."

"Oh, mother!"

"Well, you know what I mean; not jokes which are either unkind or mischievous: some jokes are quite innocent, while others do untold harm."

"Oh, of course, mother; but the carriage has been at the door such ages, and the horse is awfully fidgety."

"The horse is not half so fidgety as I am," replied their mother smiling, "sending such a set of wild creatures into a strange house full of company. But, Fred darling, you are the eldest of all, and therefore I am sure you will try to behave well;—and don't burst through any of Aunt Marian's rules so as to follow up your own fancy; promise me that."

"I'll burst through nothing, I promise you, mother, unless it's my clothes, and that I can't answer for, as Tracy has made all my garments an inch smaller than usual."

"And above all, Fred," said Mrs. Malcomson, lowering her voice so as only to be heard by her eldest son, "above all, Fred, you'll not touch anything or go any place where you are forbidden, nor take anything which is not strictly your own."

"Oh, mother, I never do so now."

"I know you have been much better lately, Fred, but still we have had trouble more than once on that point; and though in this house things may readily be forgiven and forgotten, in a strange house you might lose your character and all your promised pleasure by one act of this kind. Aunt Marian is ever so good-natured and generous, but she is very particular about truth and honesty and uprightness; so you'll remember all I have said, will you not, Fred?"

"I'll remember every word as right as a trivet, see if I won't. Good-bye, old mother;" and with these words human endurance came to an end, and Fred, throwing his arms around his mother's neck, rushed out into the hall, and from thence with one bound was seated in the phaeton outside.

Mrs. Malcomson hurried after her children to see that they were safely stowed away, and that the coachman had the reins; for Fred was not a particularly good whip, and Harry was too good a whip, for he generally whipped the horse up into a furious gallop: and as Mrs. Malcomson lifted Kathleen up into the hind seat of the phaeton beside Harry, she whispered, "You'll remember, darling, all I said, and remind the boys each night about their prayers."

"I will," nodded Kathleen, with rather tearful eyes; for now that the moment for parting had come, she did not like leaving her mother's side, to whom, when at home, she always clung like a shadow.

"You'll take great care of your sister, boys," cried she as the pony, raising himself high in the air on his hind legs, made a plunge forward, "and you'll not let her do anything foolish."

"Oh yes; we'll wallop her well if she does anything wrong, I'll promise you. Good-bye once again, and write us awful long budgets of home news," cried Fred.

"And tell old Mother Duffy to send us a stave to say particularly how she liked her last cup of tea," shouted Harry as the phaeton turned round the curve of the avenue and disappeared from sight.

Mrs. Malcomson also turned away with the good-bye smile still lingering about her lips, and re-entered the porch. But ere she had crossed the hall the smile had quite faded away from her face; for dim misgivings began already to fill her heart, lest, after all, instead of the pleasures so much anticipated by the boys, some trouble might arise, either from their thoughtlessness or impatience of restraint, which would make the visit end in disappointment and distress; and, above all, her heart misgave her about Fred, whose conscience was the most pliable of the three, and who sometimes, to gain a desired end, would turn aside from the obstacle of truth, and gain by crooked ways what he could never attain by straight.

But no misgivings of coming evil dimmed the brightness of the boys' pleasure. On the contrary, their spirits rose at every fresh turn of the road, which brought them nearer to their destination; and Brien, the coachman, had by no means an easy time of it trying to keep their hilarity within bounds.

Harry amused himself for some time in making the most appalling grimaces at the passers-by, until a very irate old gentleman on horseback rode up to the side of the phaeton and threatened to horsewhip him if he went on with such tricks. Kathleen was so frightened she burst out crying, which seemed to appease the old gentleman's wrath, for he rode on without making any further remark; and for some time Harry only confined his attentions to Brien, pushing his hat suddenly down on his eyes, or snatching it off and rattling his stick inside of it, which set the pony off at a furious pace, and terrified all the passers-by.

"I shall have a nice story to tell your mamma when I get home," said Brien grimly, as he re-adjusted his hat, and gave it one solemn sideways shake. "It's likely she'll be sending me back again to fetch you to-morrow when she hears the tricks you are up to."

"Pooh," replied Harry, "I'd like to see you tell her anything about it. Had you never a bit of a spree when you were young yourself, eh? But you're such an old land-crab, I don't suppose you ever were young: at the same time, I'm awfully fond of you, in fact I love you like my own child;" and Harry, stretching forward, threw his arms round the old man's neck and leaned his head in an attitude of mock affection on his shoulder.