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 Preface v

intake interviews and genograms are included as these help structure what the counselor is hearing.
Although the focus at this point is how the client understands his or her problem and how this
problem is experienced, the counselor is beginning to conceptualize what is presented by utilizing
theory-based filters. These are presented briefly in Chapter 5 as components of the problem: feel-
ings, cognitions, behaviors, and interpersonal relationships. These components become more dom-
inant later in the book and drive the full discussion of interventions in Chapters 8 through 11.
Chapter 6, Developing Counseling Goals, grounds the reader in the important topic of goal
setting. Goals derive from the careful assessment that has been completed in the prior stage
although the very act of setting goals can open up new areas for assessment as well. It is at this
stage that many counselors begin to appreciate how fluid is the process of counseling.
Chapter 7, Defining Strategies and Selecting Interventions, serves as a transition chapter
from what has come before and the intervention chapters that follow. The chapter focuses on treat-
ment planning that uses the information gleaned from assessment and goal setting. What were
described as components of the problem in Chapter 5 are now framed in a way that will lead to the
selection of interventions: problems as complicated by feeling states, problems as errors in thought
processes, problems as behavior patterns, and problems as interpersonal or systemic conditions.
Up to this point in the text, we have been talking about skills and stages that are generic to
all counseling. They could be called core skills and processes. Some authors refer to them as
common factors. In Chapters 8 through 11, we move into areas that are more specific to working
from a particular orientation or domain. Although we believe that good counselors have some
level of expertise in all of the interventions that are presented in these chapters, we also accept
that each counselor will veer more toward some clusters of interventions than others.
The change to the word intervention at this point in the text is deliberate and it should be
defined as different from skill or technique. As noted earlier, we view skills as core to all coun-
seling. Regardless of one’s orientation, asking good open-ended questions, reflecting well, sum-
marizing what the client has said, and so forth, are all endemic to the counseling process.
A technique comes closer to an intervention and some authors may even use the two terms
­interchangeably. Still, techniques can be used for a very specific process goal and not be tied to
outcome goals. For example, a counselor might use a relaxation exercise at the beginning of each
counseling session because the client tends to arrive to sessions anxious. This is an excellent use of
a technique, but does not fit our definition of an intervention.
By contrast, interventions are chosen only after an assessment process has been completed and
outcome goals have been set. Interventions, then, are integrally connected to how the counselor views
the issues being discussed and are chosen as part of a plan to address (and hopefully alleviate) these
issues. Although interventions may look like and feel like advanced skills (and to some extent they
are), they are used with more sense of where the counselor is headed than are the core skills. Said dif-
ferently, interventions are chosen specifically because the counselor believes they will assist the c­ lient
in resolving the issues that have been presented in as efficient and meaningful a way as possible.
Chapters 8 through 11 are divided into the four principal categories of interventions that
counselors use: Affective Interventions, Cognitive Interventions, Behavioral Interventions, and
Systemic Interventions. In each chapter, we attempt to help the reader see counseling from that
particular orientation and give examples of how this is done. Prior to reading about these differ-
ent categories of interventions, consider these three introductory points about them.
First, these chapters do not present a full review of the possibilities within each category. The
professional literature and now the Internet offer a plethora of possibilities for either fine-tuning
interventions for specific populations or expanding one’s personal collection of interventions.
What we offer here is a sample and some of the most common interventions in the profession. We
vi Preface

hope that the reader will use these chapters as a place to begin, not as an authoritative collection of
what is available.
Second, although the chapters are divided by major orientations or domains, we view
interventions as more flexible than they might appear. Just as a counselor can reflect affect or
reflect thought, some of the interventions could be revised easily to attend to another domain.
We encourage the reader to consider such possibilities as they gain experience as counselors.
Third, we repeat this point on occasion in the chapters themselves, but here we introduce the
idea that a client’s dominant method of communicating is not necessarily the best orientation for
intervention selection for that client. For example, a client might present with a great deal of emo-
tion. It might be tempting, therefore, for a counselor to stay in the affective realm in working with
that client. We believe that this could be an error. Because the client already has access to his or her
emotions, it may be other areas that need exploration for feelings to get “under control.” Similarly,
the highly cognitive client probably needs more than cognitive interventions. Our point is that the
client’s “strong suit” is not the primary criterion for how counselors choose interventions.
We have ended each of the four intervention chapters with some attention to two popular
therapy approaches: Motivational Interviewing (MI; Chapters 8 and 9) and Dialectical Behavior
Therapy (DBT; Chapters 10 and 11). Of course, it is not our intent nor is it realistic for us to offer
any sort of comprehensive explanation of either of these approaches. Rather, we are attempting
to demonstrate the ways that different therapies use interventions and, in the case of DBT, how
interventions from all four orientations can be used at different times as therapy proceeds.
Finally, in Chapter 12, Termination and Evaluation, we return to the final stage of coun-
seling, termination, as a process in itself rather than an event. What are the ingredients of a
successful termination? What ethical issues are raised in the termination process? Who decides
when termination is appropriate? How is referral to another helping source part of the termina-
tion process? We also discuss the evaluation of counseling as an important task for counselors
during this stage so that they can continue to improve.
Each chapter includes exercises and discussion questions that help individual students to
integrate the information they have just read. Discussion questions have also been provided to
aid in group discussions. At the end of each chapter, we provide video illustrations of the skills
that are available at MyCounselingLab, along with suggestions for viewing these videos.
Appendix A offers students more comprehensive practice exercises, along with a Counseling
Skills Checklist that can be copied and used for feedback purposes.
Students will find a variety of forms commonly used in counseling practice in Appendix B.
These forms may be copied and used by students as they practice their craft.

Also available with MyCounselingLab®

This title is also available with MyCounselingLab–an online homework, tutorial, and assess-
ment program designed to work with the text to engage students and improve results. Within its
structured environment, students see key concepts demonstrated through video clips, practice
what they learn, test their understanding, and receive feedback to guide their learning and ensure
they master key learning outcomes.
• Learning Outcomes and Standards measure student results. MyCounselingLab organizes
all assignments around essential learning outcomes and national standards for counselors.
• Video- and Case-Based Assignments develop decision-making skills. Video- and Case-
based Assignments introduce students to a broader range of clients, and therefore a broader
 Preface vii

range of presenting problems, than they will encounter in their own pre-professional clinical
experiences. Students watch videos of actual client-therapist sessions or high-quality role-
play scenarios featuring expert counselors. They are then guided in their analysis of the vid-
eos through a series of short-answer questions. These exercises help students develop the
techniques and decision-making skills they need to be effective counselors before they are in
a critical situation with a real client.
• Licensure Quizzes help students prepare for certification. Automatically graded,
­multiple-choice Licensure Quizzes help students prepare for their certification examina-
tions, master foundational course content, and improve their performance in the course.
• Video Library offers a wealth of observation opportunities. The Video Library pro-
vides more than 400 video clips of actual client-therapist sessions and high-quality role
plays in a database organized by topic and searchable by keyword. The Video Library
includes every video clip from the MyCounselingLab courses plus additional videos from
Pearson’s extensive library of footage. Instructors can create additional assignments
around the videos or use them for in-class activities. Students can expand their observation
experiences to include other course areas and increase the amount of time they spend
watching expert counselors in action.
• Comprehensive online course content. Filled with a wealth of content that is tightly inte-
grated with your textbook, MyLab lets you easily add, remove, or modify existing instruc-
tional material. You can also add your own course materials to suit the needs of your
students or department. In short, MyLab lets you teach exactly as you’d like.
• Robust gradebook tracking. The online gradebook automatically tracks your students’
results on tests, homework, and practice exercises and gives you control over managing
results and calculating grades. The gradebook provides a number of flexible grading
options, including exporting grades to a spreadsheet program such as Microsoft Excel.
And, it lets you measure and document your students’ learning outcomes.

Acknowledgments
Thinking about a new edition begins with the opinions of others—specifically, the persons who serve
as reviewers provide invaluable insights into how the user views a text, both its strengths and its
weaknesses. Insightful reviewers provide enormous value in this renewal process. We thank Jori
Berger-Greenstein, Boston University School of Medicine; Vanessa D. Johnson, Northeastern
Univeristy; Gulsah Kemer, Arizona State University; Yu-Fen Lin, University of North Texas, Dallas;
and Oscar Sida, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, for their generous and serious attention to this
responsibility. Their comments have given us a real advantage in our effort. We also wish to thank
Kevin Davis, our editor, for his support in how this edition was to take shape, and to Lauren Carlson,
project manager, for her expert choreography of the eighth edition. Special thanks to Mercedes
Heston for her careful review of the manuscript and her good humor throughout. Finally, we wish to
thank our students, past and present, who consistently give us new insights into the process of learn-
ing to become a counselor. Without their help and the help of scholars who continue to wrestle with
understanding the counseling process in modern times, no new edition could be in fact new.
H.H.
J.M.B.
 About the Authors

Harold (Dick) Hackney, Professor Emeritus of counseling at

Syracuse University, is a nationally certified counselor and a Fellow
of the American Counseling Association. Dick is past-­president
of the Association for Counselor Education and Supervision and
former member of the ACA Governing Council, and a past-­
president of the Center for Credentialing and Education, an affili-
ate of NBCC. His areas of expertise include counselor training,
training of future counseling ­professors, research methodology,
­counseling processes, and counseling theory. Hackney’s writings
draw from his experiences as a school counselor, a m ­ arriage and
family counselor, and his research on counseling processes. Prior
to his appointment at Syracuse University, Hackney was a profes-
sor at Purdue University and at Fairfield University.

Janine M. Bernard, Professor Emeritus of counseling and counselor

education at Syracuse University, is a nationally certified counselor,
an approved clinical supervisor, and licensed as a mental health coun-
selor in New York. Bernard is a Fellow of the American Counseling
Association and a long-term member of the American Psychological
Association. She is a past-chair of the National Board for Certified
Counselors. Her areas of expertise include clinical supervision, coun-
selor training, multicultural aspects of supervision, and life-span
human development. Prior to her appointment as department chair
at Syracuse University, Bernard held faculty appointments at Purdue
University and at Fairfield University.

viii
 Brief Contents

Chapter 1 Conceptualizing Professional Counseling 1

Chapter 2 The Language of Counseling 20
Chapter 3 The Essential Structure of Counseling 36
Chapter 4 Initiating and Maintaining a Working Relationship 54
Chapter 5 Assessing Client Problems 75
Chapter 6 Developing Counseling Goals 98
Chapter 7 Defining Strategies and Selecting Interventions 116
Chapter 8 Affective Interventions 131
Chapter 9 Cognitive Interventions 157
Chapter 10 Behavioral Interventions 183
Chapter 11 Systemic Interventions 212
Chapter 12 Termination and Evaluation 240
Appendix A Integrative Practice Exercises 259
Appendix B Forms and Guides for Use in Counseling Practice 266

References 284
Index 291

ix
 Contents

Preface iii
About the Authors viii

Chapter 1 Conceptualizing PROFESSIONAL Counseling 1

What Is Counseling? 2
The Parameters of Counseling 3
Counseling Conditions and Their Effects 8
▶ Case Illustration of Possible Counseling Outcomes 11
Characteristics of Effective Helpers 12
The Developmental Nature of Learning to Counsel 16
Summary 18
Exercises 18
Discussion Questions 19
MyCounselingLab Assignment 19

Chapter 2 The Language of Counseling 20

Communication in Counseling 21
Nonverbal Skills of Counseling 21
Basic Verbal Skills of Counseling 23
Advanced Verbal Skills of Counseling 26
Summary 31
Exercises 34
Feedback for Exercise III, Recognizing Different Counselor Responses 34
Discussion Questions 35
MyCounselingLab Assignment 35

Chapter 3 the essential structure of Counseling 36

The Counseling Process 37
The Client’s Experience in Counseling 48
Summary 51
Exercises 52
Discussion Questions 52
MyCounselingLab Assignment 53

Chapter 4 initiating and maintaining A Working Relationship 54

Characteristics of a Therapeutic Relationship 55
Communicating Empathy 59
Relationship-Building Skills 60

x
 Contents xi

Conditions That Convey Genuineness 65

Conditions That Convey Positive Regard 67
Functions of a Therapeutic Relationship 68
Effects of Therapeutic Relationships on Clients 69
▶ Case Illustration of Relationship Building 70
Children and the Counseling Relationship 71
Summary 72
Exercises 73
Discussion Questions 74
MyCounselingLab Assignment 74

Chapter 5 Assessing Client Problems 75

Purposes of Assessment 76
Dimensions of Assessment 77
Clinical Assessment with Children 81
Clinical Assessment with Couples and Families 83
Using Assessment Information 85
Skills Associated with Assessment 85
Effects of Assessment on Clients 90
▶ Case Illustration of the Intake Interview 91
Crisis Assessment 94
Integration of Problem-Definition Information with Treatment
Planning 95
Summary 95
Exercises 96
Discussion Questions 97
MyCounselingLab Assignment 97

Chapter 6 Developing Counseling Goals 98

Functions of Counseling Goals 99
Parameters of Goal Setting: Process and Outcome Goals 100
Three Elements of Good Outcome Goals 101
Obstacles in Developing Specific Goals 102
Skills Associated with Goal Setting 102
Effects of Goal Setting on Clients 107
Goal Setting with Children 107
Crises and Goal Setting 108
Goal Setting and Culture 108
Client Participation in Goal Setting 109
xii Contents

Resistance to Goal Setting 110

Assessing Counseling Goals 111
▶ Case Illustration of Goal Setting 111
Summary 114
Exercises 114
Discussion Questions 115
MyCounselingLab Assignment 115

Chapter 7 Defining Strategies and Selecting Interventions 116

Case Conceptualization Skills 117
Theory and Case Conceptualization 117
Worldview and Case Conceptualization 118
Conceptualizing Presenting Problems 119
Diagnosis and Case Conceptualization 121
Time Orientation and Case Conceptualization 121
Goals and Treatment Planning 122
Strategy Selection 123
Categories of Counseling Interventions 123
▶ Case Illustration of Strategy and Interventions Selection: Angela 125
Defining a Counseling Strategy 126
Strategies for Working with Children 128
Summary 128
Exercises 129
Discussion Questions 130
MyCounselingLab Assignment 130

Chapter 8 Affective Interventions 131

Theories That Stress the Importance of Feelings 132
Affective Interventions 133
Helping Clients Express Affect 134
Nonverbal Affect Cues 135
Verbal Affect Cues 136
Helping Clients Sort Feelings 140
Focusing Intervention 143
▶ Case Illustration of Focusing 144
Helping Clients Integrate or Change Feeling States 145
▶ Case Illustration of Integrating Feelings 146
Role Reversal 147
▶ Case Illustration of Role Reversal 147
 Contents xiii

Alter Ego 148

▶ Case Illustration of the Alter Ego 149
The Empty Chair 150
▶ Case Illustration of the Empty Chair 151
Client Reactions to Affective Interventions 152
Applying Interventions to Dialectical Behavior Therapy and
Motivational Interviewing 152
Summary 155
Exercises 155
Discussion Questions 156
MyCounselingLab Assignment 156

Chapter 9 Cognitive Interventions 157

Theories That Stress the Importance of Cognitive Processes 158
Goals of Cognitive Interventions 158
Assessment of Cognitive Problems 159
Eliciting Thoughts 160
Cognitive Interventions 161
▶ Case Illustration of A-B-C-D Analysis 163
▶ Case Illustration of Injunctions and Redecision Work 168
Second-Order Interventions 173
Meaning-Making Interventions 175
▶ Case Illustration of Meaning Making 177
Client Reactions to Interventions 177
Applying Interventions to Dialectical Behavior Therapy and
Motivational Interviewing 179
Summary 180
Exercises 180
Discussion Questions 182
MyCounselingLab Assignment 182

Chapter 10 Behavioral Interventions 183

Behavioral Interventions and Theory 184
Goals of Behavioral Interventions 186
Basic Behavioral Skills 187
Using Behavioral Interventions 188
▶ Case Illustration of Skill Training 195
▶ Case Illustration of Anxiety Reduction 201
▶ Case Illustration of Self-Management 206
xiv Contents

Client Reactions to Behavioral Interventions 209

Applying Interventions to Dialectical Behavior Therapy 209
Summary 209
Exercises 210
Discussion Questions 211
MyCounselingLab Assignment 211

Chapter 11 Systemic Interventions 212

System Properties 213
Therapies That Stress the Importance of Systems 214
Systemic Skills and Interventions 215
Establishing a Therapeutic Relationship and Assessing System
Issues 216
Goal Setting 220
▶ Case Illustration of Reframing for Goal Setting 221
Systemic Interventions 223
Communication Skill Building 223
Altering System Properties 229
▶ Case Illustration of Altering Hierarchy and Boundary Making 231
▶ Case Illustration of Enactment 233
Second-Order Interventions 235
▶ Case Illustration of Prescribing the Symptom 235
Client Reactions to Systemic Interventions 237
Summary 238
Exercises 238
Discussion Questions 238
MyCounselingLab Assignment 239

Chapter 12 Termination and evaluation  240

The Termination Stage 241
Termination as a Process 244
The Referral Process 246
Blocks to Termination 249
▶ Case Illustration of Termination 250
Evaluation of Counseling 254
Summary 256
Exercises 256
Discussion Questions 257
 Contents xv

Appendix A Integrative Practice Exercises 259

Appendix B Forms and Guides for Use in Counseling
Practice 266
References 284
Index 291
This page intentionally left blank
 Conceptualizing

1
C H A P T E R

Professional
Counseling
INTRODUCTION TO PROFESSIONAL COUNSELING
We have an ambitious goal for the reader of this text. We hope to provide you with the tools to move
you from someone who knows little about the actual process of providing professional counseling to
someone who is ready to see her or his first client under supervision. Therefore, this book includes dis-
cussion of basic skills of counseling but goes beyond this to give you frames of reference that will assist
you in knowing what skills to use when and for what purpose. However, before we begin this exciting
(and occasionally intimidating) journey, it is important to spend some time trying to deconstruct the term
professional counseling and to understand a number of concepts and conditions that are fundamental to
the counseling process.

Purpose of this Chapter

In this chapter, we consider some important topics that should be contemplated before you begin
to learn specific skills for the process of counseling. Foremost to our discussion is that counseling
must be viewed in context. The factors that contribute to that context include philosophy,
theoretical premises, and cultural realities—in other words, the intellectual and social milieu.
In addition, we address different ways client problems can be assessed and counselor qualities
that are universal, crossing theoretical approaches, cultures, and time. Our ultimate objective
is to help you, the reader, begin to identify yourself within these parameters and to do some
introspection regarding how your thinking and your personal qualities match those of the
professional counselor.

Considerations as You Read This Chapter

■ How do you view life? Do you believe that most things that happen to people are unplanned

and coincidental, or do you believe that life events tend to fit a “larger plan”?
■ Is life’s challenge a matter of analyzing situations and developing successful responses to those

situations? Or is it to become the best person one can be, given the circumstances life presents?
■ How do you describe yourself culturally? From whom have you learned the most about

yourself as a cultural being? What do you believe is most misunderstood about you
culturally?
■ As you read about each of the personal qualities required of professional counselors, how

does the explanation describe you? How would you edit the explanation to be a better fit to
how you see yourself?
1
2 Chapter 1 • Conceptualizing Professional Counseling

T
his is a text about the process of counseling. In the hands of a skilled and sensitive person,
this process can be used to enhance the lives of people who are seeking to cope with dif-
ficult life challenges, to change their relationships, or to develop self-understanding.
Although it is almost impossible to define precisely what the experience of providing counseling
will be for you, some general parameters of the counseling process will certainly be part of your
experience. There are several ways to consider the counseling process, beginning with a clear
sense of what the process is, how counseling is applied to human problems, how the client and
the client’s circumstances influence the process, and what constitutes successful counseling. In
this chapter, we examine these and other fundamental issues as they relate to the practice of
counseling.

WHAT IS COUNSELING?
At its core, counseling is the process of offering assistance. It is for this reason that we hear of
credit counselors, investment counselors, camp counselors, and retirement counselors, to name
just a few. This book is about professional counseling as used by mental health professionals in
general and specifically those whose professional home is with the American Counseling
Association and its affiliates. In this text, we use the terms professional counseling and coun-
seling interchangeably. Often, mental health agency settings refer to therapy, short for psycho-
therapy. Again, these terms refer to the same processes that we address in this text.
Counseling is a combination of having specialized knowledge, interpersonal skills, and
personal dispositions that are required to assist clients in facing or understanding successfully
what is interfering with their lives, assisting clients in identifying attainable goals to improve
their situation, and offering interventions that assist clients in goal attainment. You might be ask-
ing, “What knowledge? What skills? What dispositions?”; we begin addressing each of these
questions in this chapter. But we could also include, “What clients?” because clients can be
individuals, groups, families, or institutions. As an example of having an institution as a client,
when a mental health counselor convinces agency staff to provide service at times more con-
venient to clients in a community or when a school counselor offers a new psychoeducational
program, he or she is using counseling skills to intervene at an institutional level to arrive at a
goal the counselor has assessed as worthy. Most counseling, however, is confined to persons in
a room where a professional is listening intently, checking in to be sure that the client(s) is
understood in both a cultural and psychological sense, and moving toward some outcome that
enhances the client’s well-being.
The content of professional counseling tends to include both internal and relational con-
cerns. Internal (intrapersonal) concerns can range from issues of self-concept or self-defeating
habits to severe mental impairment. Relational (interpersonal) concerns can range from com-
munication and perceptual problems between the client and others to issues of hostility, aggres-
sion, and criminal activity toward others. These problems cross all age groups and developmental
stages. It is important to note that these issues, even the “lesser” ones, are diagnostic in nature—
that is, the problems must be understood both in their expression (as behaviors, feelings, or
thoughts) and in the context in which they are supported (what keeps the problem alive).
Finally, although our definition is generic in nature, this is not to suggest that a profes-
sional counselor might be a provider of services for any type of problem. Within the counseling
profession are many specialties, including mental health counselors, marriage and family coun-
selors, school counselors, rehabilitation counselors, pastoral counselors, creative arts counselors,
and career counselors. Each specialty is based on knowledge that is specific to working within
 Chapter 1 • Conceptualizing Professional Counseling 3

certain institutions or with particular populations. Still, despite differences, the actual process of
counseling shares the common elements of relationship, communication, conceptualization, and
intervention skills that are covered in this text.

Why Counseling?
It may be necessary to remind some aspiring counselors that the problems of life can be solved
in many ways, counseling being only one of those ways. The vast majority of the human race has
never experienced professional counseling. Does that mean that they are functioning at some
sublevel of life? Of course not. Many people adapt to life’s challenges by using personal
resources, friends and family, or religious faith. But even with these resources, challenges can
sometimes accumulate to the point that an unencumbered and skilled helper can facilitate the
process of growth and adaptation to such challenges.
Viewed in this way, counseling can assume the function of change, prevention, or life
enhancement. As change, counseling is concerned with situations that, for whatever reason, have
become so disruptive that people are unable to continue through the normal passage of life with-
out excess stress, dissatisfaction, or unhappiness. As prevention, counseling is able to take into
account those predictable life events that produce stress, cause people to draw on their psycho-
logical resources, and, ultimately, demand adaptation to changing life forces. Finally, a third
form of counseling, enhancement counseling, goes beyond life’s challenges and predictabilities.
As a counseling goal, enhancement attempts to open clients’ experiences to new and deeper lev-
els of understanding, appreciation, and wisdom about life’s many potentialities.

THE PARAMETERS OF COUNSELING

Counselors can talk about counseling as change or growth, or they can talk about counseling as
a process or product. If counselors go very deeply into an examination of these alternatives, it
also becomes apparent that they are beginning to talk about philosophical, cultural, and even
spiritual issues as well as psychological or interpersonal concerns. How counselors view these
issues and concerns determines at least part of what they do in the counseling interview. If I hap-
pen to hold an optimistic view of human beings and how they adapt to life’s ups and downs, my
view of what should happen in counseling will be quite different from that of the person who
holds a cautious, or even pessimistic, view of human beings and how they function. If I have
experienced life only in a sheltered or encapsulated environment, then I may view counseling as
not involving cultural dimensions, including the extreme conditions when all some clients have
known is a culture of little opportunity, survival of the fittest, and violence. If I solve my prob-
lems by careful examination and analysis of issues, decisions to be made, appropriateness of
outcomes, and so on, then I might naturally assume that others should approach life problems in
a similar fashion, especially if I have been fortunate enough to have the resources to make this
happen. Or if I see life as a multifaceted adventure, then I might feel less urgency to identify,
prescribe and, thus, control the outcomes of counseling. If I am fearful of things going in a nega-
tive direction if I make an error, then I may seek “solutions” for my clients and attempt to push
these to conclusion. These are just some of the possibilities of how the counselor’s worldview
can affect counseling when she or he enters the process.
Occurring simultaneously with the counselor’s worldview is the presentation of the cli-
ent’s concerns by the client. These concerns may have a strong basis in reality, or they may be
self-generated by the client’s discomfort or skewed by the client’s faulty perceptions. And it is
4 Chapter 1 • Conceptualizing Professional Counseling

also obvious that clients come as optimists or pessimists, bold or cautious, with personal or envi-
ronmental resources, or without them. Whatever the case, the counselor must have a healthy
appreciation of the very broad range of behaviors, attitudes, self-concepts, histories, cultural
contexts, resources, and feelings that their clients represent. In other words, the term normal may
not be very useful apart from understanding the client’s context. For any given client, it may be
normal for a child to live with more criticism than love; it may be normal for a woman to live
with men who are volatile and occasionally violent; it may be normal for substances to be abused
to block out feelings of hopelessness. Regardless of whether something is normal to a particular
client, it may not be functional, and this is where counseling can be helpful. Functional behavior
is that which thwarts dysfunction and opens up new possibilities, including the possibility of
growth, problem solving, and an increased ability to cope with life’s inevitable stressors. When
listening to the personal concerns of clients, counselors must seek to understand life (i.e., what
has been normal for them) as clients see it and the reasons they see life as they do. Only then can
counselors begin to participate as helpers in the counseling relationship. Only then can clients
begin to move toward more functional behavior.
Although we alluded to it earlier, it is important to stress once more that there is no way to
understand human existence by separating it from the setting or environment in which existence
occurs. Children cannot be fully understood separate from their families of origin, their neigh-
borhoods, or their peer groups; adults cannot be understood separate from their families, ethnici-
ties, social class, belief systems, or careers; and individuals cannot be dissected into intellectual
selves, occupational selves, affective selves, or whatever. Each individual is an ecological exist-
ence within a cultural context, living with others in an ecological system. One’s intrapersonal
dimensions are interdependent with others who share one’s life space. A keen understanding and
appreciation of this interdependence will facilitate your understanding of yourself as a counse-
lor, and of your clients as people seeking to become healthier, to make better choices, to grow, or
to enhance their lives.

Counseling and Philosophy

Before we move on to more specific aspects of counseling, including the interface between the-
ory and counseling process, let’s step back for a moment and consider philosophical viewpoints.
Few people consider themselves to be philosophers, and yet everyone has a philosophical out-
look on life. Some people see life as a sequence of events and experiences over which they have
little or no control; others view life as a challenge to be analyzed, controlled, and directed. Some
see achievement and self-improvement as the purpose of life; others view life as a process to be
experienced. Who is right? Everyone. Philosophical outlooks on life are varied, allowing each
individual to choose or to identify with that outlook that seems to fit him or her best.
Counseling theory has drawn primarily from four philosophical positions (Hansen, 2004;
Wilks, 2003). The first of these, essentialism, assumes that human beings are rational by nature,
that reason is the natural goal of education, and that the classical thinkers are the chief repository
of reason. From this orientation come the problem solvers, the analyzers, those who search for
patterns in life.
The second philosophical position, progressivism, is concerned with the fundamental ques-
tion, “What will work?” Knowledge is based on experimental results, truth is identified through
consequences, and values are relative rather than absolute. From this orientation come the persons
who rely on data and research for their truths, who believe that pragmatic solutions do exist for
human problems, and who are committed to the pursuit of logical and lawful relationships in life.
 Chapter 1 • Conceptualizing Professional Counseling 5

The third philosophical position, existentialism, holds that life’s meaning is to be found in
the individual, not in the environment or the event. Lawfulness (progressivism) and rational
thinking (essentialism) are meaningless unless the individual gives them meaning. People who
align with this view of life believe that values are real and individually determined, and that
experiences are subjective rather than lawful or predictable. Individual responsibility is empha-
sized; human reactions are the result of choice or potential choice.
Finally, the fourth philosophical position, postmodernism, raises the fundamental ques-
tion, “What is real?” This question is particularly relevant in terms of the client’s experience
versus an external reality—or more specifically, which reality is more important—the client’s
reality, or an outside reality to which the client should adapt? Although there are some similari-
ties between postmodernism and existentialism in this regard, the important point is that one can
never know a reality outside oneself and, therefore, must focus on personal reality. From this
orientation come persons who believe that reality can have only a personal meaning, that reality
gains meaning through one’s personal perceptions or explanations of experiences.
Obviously, all counselors enter the profession with some variation of these viewpoints. Each
counselor’s philosophical view is reflected in how he or she reacts to client problems and how
those problems are addressed. Similarly, clients enter counseling with some variation of these
viewpoints that are reflected in how they view their problems and what they consider to be viable
solutions. Keeping these variations in mind, both for yourself and for your relationship with clients,
will help you to choose interventions that are relevant to the people you are trying to assist.

Counseling and Theory

Whether you are studying theories of counseling concurrently to learning about the counseling
process or at a different time, at some point, you will be asked to consider how theory will inform
your work. Stated simply, a theory attempts to explain how something came to be or how it
works. Personality theory, from which numerous counseling theories spring, is an effort to
explain the various ways that the psyche emerges, evolves, and matures, both in terms of normal
development and in terms of dysfunction. Counseling theories move beyond an explanation of
dysfunction in relation to normal development, and offer ideas of how corrections to this dysfunc-
tion can be accomplished. Said differently, counseling theory not only hypothesizes about how
humans operate, but also how to intervene when things appear to be unraveling. What confuses
many students of counseling is how differently some theories conceptualize human existence
from others. It would be convenient, perhaps, if the mental health disciplines had only one theory,
like relativity; however, that is not the case, and every counselor must study the extant theories
available and determine which theory or combination of theories resonates with him or her.
Within the context of counseling therapies, more than 400 approaches have been identi-
fied. Most of these approaches would be better labeled as variations on a much smaller number
of theoretical themes. Among the dominant theoretical approaches are psychodynamic, cognitive/
behavioral, humanistic, systemic, and postmodern approaches, each of which offers a type of
map of the counseling process and the route its participants should take to achieve certain
goals. Rarely does a counseling theory prescribe what the specific goals of counseling should
be. Because there is much room for alternative viewpoints on matters such as normal human
functioning, how people change, and what is a desirable outcome, different theories have
emerged to reflect these various viewpoints. On a more practical level, counselors use theories to
organize information and observations, to explain or conceptualize client problems, and to order
and implement particular interventions with clients.
6 Chapter 1 • Conceptualizing Professional Counseling

Counselors tend to identify with particular theories for a variety of reasons. Some counse-
lors look for a theory that provides the most utilitarian explanation of the counseling process.
Their quest is for a theory that provides concrete guidelines. Other counselors look for a theory
that is compatible with their life perspective—that is, a theory that makes similar assumptions
about human nature as their own private assumptions. Still other counselors seek a theory that
best explains or conceptualizes the types of problems their clients present. Of course, it is pos-
sible for a counselor to obtain all three objectives with the same theory, but this realization tends
to emerge only as the counselor gains experience.
Over the years, the counseling profession has witnessed an increased convergence
among theorists and a growing realization that no single theory can explain or fit all client challenges.
The result is an emerging view that theory is meant to serve the user, and when no single
­theory totally fits the counselor’s needs, then a blending of compatible theories is an acceptable
practice. This is known as either an eclectic or an integrative approach. An eclectic approach is
one where a counselor chooses a theory depending on each client’s needs. Hoffman (2006) noted
that the challenge with this approach is that it requires that the counselor become expert in applying
many theories, a feat that could take many years. Rather, Hoffman suggests that many practitioners
adopt an integrative approach, where they claim a central theoretical position but pull from other
theories as needed, such as a counselor who claimed to be cognitive-behavioral-integrative.
Prochaska and Norcross (2014) report that a sizable number of practicing counselors prefer an
integrative or eclectic approach.
Despite a variety of theories to draw from, there are common factors that are present across
all counseling. The following list presents seven elements about counseling that are operative for
all of the major theoretical approaches:
1. Counseling involves responding to the feelings, thoughts, actions, and contexts of the
client. Existing theoretical approaches tend to emphasize one of these over the others. However,
all counselors must be excellent observers and skilled in their ability to engage clients, to elicit
the client’s thoughts and feelings, and to respond to these in ways that are helpful.
2. Counseling involves a basic acceptance of the client’s perceptions and feelings, regard-
less of outside evaluative standards. In other words, you must first acknowledge who the client is
before you can begin to consider who the client might become. Clients need your understanding of
their current reality and concerns before they can anticipate growth and change in a new direction.
3. Counseling is a multicultural experience. This realization affects all aspects of the process,
including assessment, goal setting, and intervention selection.
4. Ethical mandates of the profession are relevant across all counseling, and include confiden-
tiality, receiving adequate supervision, avoiding multiple relationships with clients, informed c­ onsent,
and so forth. All counselors must be familiar with the ethical codes to which they are subject.
5. Counseling must include client buy-in. This is especially important when clients are
mandated, but is also true of many clients who come voluntarily but have not yet made a com-
mitment to work toward change. Therefore, counselors must be skilled in “marketing” what it is
they have to offer as a first step with some clients. This can take the form of showing respect and
interest in the client, even if the client appears to be disengaged; or it can take the form of frank
talk of consequences for the client if no change occurs in his or her life. Whatever is the decided
approach, buy-in must be accomplished if counseling is to have positive outcomes. Otherwise,
the counselor learns that counseling can be a weak intervention with a client who is unable to
make a commitment to the process. This, of course, is the client’s right, and coercion is never
appropriate as a means to continue with a client.
 Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
two faces, fresh and cool like flowers, with that downy bloom upon them
which is the privilege of extreme youth. Miss Brown, who was concerned
about their frocks, saw nothing but the creases in their pink and white
garments; but what Miss Maydew saw was (she herself said) “a picture;”
two fair slim things in white, with touches of pink, in soft shade, with bright
patches of sunshine flitting about them, and the green background of the
common rolled back in soft undulations behind. Poor lady! she was a great
contrast to this picture; her cheeks flushed with the heat, her bonnet-strings
loosed, fanning herself with her handkerchief. And this was what woke up
those gleams of fun in Mab’s saucy eyes.
“But it is not hot,” said Mab. “How can you speak of a street when you
are on the common? Don’t you smell the pines, Aunt Jane, and the honey in
the gorse? Come under the tree near to us; it is not the least hot here.”
“You are a conceited little person,” said Aunt Jane.
“Oh no! she is not conceited—she is only decided in her opinions,” said
Cicely. “You see we are not hot in the shade. But come in this way, the back
way, through the garden, which is always cool. Sit down here in the
summer-house, Aunt Jane, and rest. I’ll run and get you some strawberries.
They are just beginning to get ripe.”
“You are a nice little person,” said Miss Maydew, sitting down with a
sigh of relief. “I don’t want any strawberries, but you can come and kiss
me. You are very like your poor mother. As for that thing, I don’t know who
she is like—not our family, I am sure.”
“She is like the St. John’s,” said Cicely solemnly; “she is like papa.”
Mab only laughed. She did not mind what people said. “I’ll kiss you,
too,” she said, “Aunt Jane, if you like; though you don’t like me.”
“I never said I didn’t like you. I am not so very fond of my family as
that. One can see you are a pickle, though I don’t so much mind that either;
but I like to look at this one, because she is like your poor mother. Dear,
dear! Hester’s very eyes, and her cheeks like two roses, and her nice brown
wavy hair!”
The girls drew near with eager interest, and Mab took up in her artist’s
fingers a great handful of the hair which lay upon her sister’s shoulders.
“Was mamma’s like that?” she said in awe and wonder; and Cicely, too,
fixed her eyes upon her own bright locks reverentially. It gave them a new
strange feeling for their mother to think that she had once been a girl like
themselves. Strangest thought for a child’s mind to grasp; stranger even
than the kindred thought, that one day those crisp half-curling locks, fall of
threads of gold, would be blanched like the soft braids under Mrs. St. John’s
cap. “Poor mamma!” they said simultaneously under their breath.
“Brighter than that!” said Miss Maydew, seeing across the mists of years
a glorified vision of youth, more lovely than Hester had ever been. “Ah,
well!” she added with a sigh, “time goes very quickly, girls. Before you
know, you will be old, too, and tell the young ones how pretty you were
long ago. Yes, Miss Audacity! you mayn’t believe it, but I was pretty, too.”
“Oh yes, I believe it!” cried Mab, relieved from the momentary gravity
which had subdued her. “You have a handsome nose still, and not nearly so
bad a mouth as most people. I should like to draw you, just as you stood
under the beech-tree; that was beautiful!” she cried, clapping her hands.
Miss Maydew was pleased. She recollected how she had admired the two
young creatures under that far-spreading shade; and it did not seem at all
unnatural that they should in their turn have admired her.
“Mabel! Mabel!” said Miss Brown, who knew better, lifting a warning
finger. Miss Maydew took up the sketch-book which Cicely had laid on the
rough table in the summer-house. “Is this what you were all talking about?”
she said. But at this moment the governess withdrew and followed Cicely
into the house. She walked through the garden towards the rectory in a very
dignified way. She could not stand by and laugh faintly at caricatures of
herself as some high-minded people are capable of doing. “I hope Miss
Maydew will say what she thinks very plainly,” she said to Cicely, who
flew past her in a great hurry with a fresh clean white napkin out of the
linen-press. But Cicely was much too busy to reply. As for Mab, I think she
would have escaped too, had she been able; but as that was impossible, she
stood up very demurely while her old aunt turned over the book, which was
a note-book ruled with blue lines, and intended for a more virtuous purpose
than that to which it had been appropriated; and it was not until Miss
Maydew burst into a short but hearty laugh over a caricature of Miss Brown
that Mab ventured to breathe.
“You wicked little thing! Are these yours?” said Miss Maydew; “and
how dared you let that poor woman see them? Why, she is there to the life!”
“Oh! Aunt Jane, give me the book! She has never seen them: only a few
innocent ones at the beginning. Oh! please give me the book! I don’t want
her to see them!” cried Mab.
“You hate her, I suppose?”
“Oh! no, no! give me the book, Aunt Jane! We don’t hate her at all; we
like her rather. Oh! please give it me before she comes back!”
“Why do you make caricatures of her, then?” said Miss Maydew, fixing
her eyes severely on the girl’s face.
“Because she is such fun!” cried Mab; “because it is such fun. I don’t
mean any harm, but if people will look funny, how can I help it? Give me
the book, Aunt Jane!”
“I suppose I looked funny too,” said Miss Maydew, “under the beech-
tree, fanning myself with my pockethandkerchief. I thought I heard you
giggle. Go away, you wicked little thing! Here is your sister coming. I like
her a great deal better than you!”
“So she is, a great deal better than me,” said Mab, picking up her book.
She stole away, giving herself a serious lecture, as Cicely tripped into the
summer-house carrying a tray. “I must not do it again,” she said to herself.
“It is silly of me. It is always getting me into scrapes; even papa, when I
showed him that one of himself!” Here Mab paused to laugh, for it had been
very funny—and then blushed violently; for certainly it was wrong, very
wrong to caricature one’s papa. “At all events,” she said under her breath,
“I’ll get a book with a lock and key as soon as ever I have any money, and
show them only to Cicely; but oh! I must, I must just this once, do Aunt
Jane!”
Cicely meanwhile came into the summer-house carrying the tray. “It is
not the right time for it, I know,” she said, “but I felt sure you would like a
cup of tea. Doesn’t it smell nice—like the hay-fields? Tea is always nice, is
it not, Aunt Jane?”
“My darling, you are the very image of your poor mother!” said Miss
Maydew with tears in her eyes. “She was always one who took the trouble
to think what her friends would like best. And what good tea it is, and how
nicely served! Was the kettle boiling? Ah! I recognise your dear mother in
that. It used always to be a saying with us at home that the kettle should
always be boiling in a well-regulated house.”
Then the old lady began to ask cunning questions about the household:
whether Cicely was in the habit of making tea and carrying trays about, as
she did this so nicely; and other close and delicate cross-examinations, by
which she found out a great deal about the qualities of the servant and the
governess. Miss Maydew was too clever to tell Cicely what she thought at
the conclusion of her inquiry, but she went in thoughtfully to the house, and
was somewhat silent as the girls took her all over it—to the best room to
take off her bonnet, to their room to see what a pretty view they had, and
into all the empty chambers. The comments she made as she followed them
were few but significant. “It was rather extravagant of your papa to furnish
it all; he never could have wanted so large a house,” she said.
“Oh! but the furniture is the Rector’s, it is not papa’s,” cried her
conductors, both in a breath.
“I shouldn’t like, if I were him, to have the charge of other people’s
furniture,” Miss Maydew replied; and it seemed to the girls that she was
rather disposed to find fault with all poor papa’s arrangements, though she
was so kind to them. Mr. St. John was “in the parish,” and did not come
back till it was time for the early dinner; and it was late in the afternoon
when Miss Maydew, knocking at his study door, went in alone to “have a
talk” with him, with the intention of “giving him her mind” on several
subjects, written fully in her face. The study was a well-sized room looking
out upon the garden, and furnished with heavy book-shelves and bureaux in
old dark coloured mahogany. The carpet was worn, but those mournful
pieces of furniture defied the action of time. She looked round upon them
with a slightly supercilious critical glance.
“The room is very well furnished,” she said, “Mr. St. John; exceedingly
well furnished; to rub it up and keep it in order must give your servant a
great deal of work.”
“It is not my furniture, but Mr. Chester’s, my rector,” said the curate;
“we never had very much of our own.”
“It must give the maid a deal of work all the same, and that’s why the
girls have so much housemaiding to do, I suppose,” said Miss Maydew
sharply. “To tell the truth, that was what I came to speak of. I am not at all
satisfied, Mr. St. John, about the girls.”
“The girls? They are quite well, I think, quite well,” said Mr. St. John
meekly. He was not accustomed to be spoken to in this abrupt tone.
“I was not thinking of their health; of course they are well; how could
they help being well with so much fresh air, and a cow, I suppose, and all
that? I don’t like the way they are managed. They are nice girls, but that
Miss Brown knows just about as much how to manage them as you—as that
table does, Mr. St. John. It is ridiculous. She has no control over them. Now,
I’ll tell you what is my opinion. They ought to be sent to school.”
“To school!” he said, startled. “I thought girls were not sent to school.”
“Ah, that is when they have a nice mother to look after them—a woman
like poor Hester; but what are those two doing? You don’t look after them
yourself, Mr. St. John?”
“I suppose it can’t be said that I do,” he said, with hesitation: “perhaps it
is wrong, but what do I know of girls’ education? and then they all said I
should have Miss Brown.”
“Who are ‘they all?’ You should have asked me. I should never have said
Miss Brown. Not that I’ve anything against her. She is a good, silly creature
enough—but pay attention to me, please, Mr. St. John. I say the girls should
go to school.”
“It is very likely you may be right,” said Mr. St. John, who always
yielded to impetuosity, “but what should I do with Miss Brown?”
“Send her away—nothing could be more easy—tell her that you shall
not want her services any longer. You must give her a month’s notice,
unless she was engaged in some particular way.”
“I don’t know,” said the curate in trepidation. “Bless me, it will be very
unpleasant. What will she do? What do you think she would say? Don’t you
think, on the whole, we get on very well as we are? I have always been told
that it was bad to send girls to school; and besides it costs a great deal of
money,” he added after a pause. “I don’t know if I could afford it; that is a
thing which must be thought of,” he said, with a sense of relief.
“I have thought of that,” said Miss Maydew triumphantly: “the girls
interest me, and I will send them to school. Oh, don’t say anything. I don’t
do it for thanks. To me their improving will be my recompense. Put all
anxiety out of your mind; I will undertake the whole——”
“But, Miss Maydew!”
“There are no buts in the matter,” said Aunt Jane, rising; “I have quite
settled it. I have saved a nice little sum, which will go to them eventually,
and I should like to see them in a position to do me credit. Don’t say
anything, Mr. St. John. Hester’s girls!—poor Hester!—no one in the world
can have so great a claim upon me; and no one can tell so well as I what
they lost in poor Hester, Mr. St. John—and what you lost as well.”
The curate bowed his head. Though he was so tranquil and resigned, the
name of his Hester went to his heart, with a dull pang, perhaps—for he was
growing old, and had a calm unimpassioned spirit—but still with a pang,
and no easy words of mourning would come to his lip.
“Yes, indeed,” said Aunt Jane, “I don’t know that I ever knew any one
like her; and her girls shall have justice, they shall have justice, Mr. St.
John. I mean to make it my business to find them a school—but till you
have heard from me finally,” she added, turning back after she had reached
the door, “it will be as well not to say anything to Miss Brown.”
“Oh no,” said the curate eagerly, “it will be much best to say nothing to
Miss Brown.”
Miss Maydew nodded at him confidentially as she went away, and left
him in all the despair of an unexpected crisis. He say anything to Miss
Brown! What should he say? That he had no further occasion for her
services? But how could he say so to a lady? Had he not always gone upon
the amiable ground that she had done him the greatest favour in coming
there to teach his daughters, and now to dismiss her—to dismiss her! Mr. St.
John’s heart sunk down, down to the very heels of his boots. It was all very
easy for Aunt Jane, who had not got it to do; but he, he! how was he ever to
summon his courage and say anything like this to Miss Brown?
 CHAPTER IV.

MISS BROWN.

MR. ST. John’s mind was very much moved by this conversation. It threw a
shadow over his harmless life. He could not say good night or good
morning to Miss Brown without feeling in his very soul the horror of the
moment when he should have to say to her that he had no further need for
her services. To say it to Hannah in the kitchen would have been dreadful
enough, but in that case he could at least have employed Miss Brown, or
even Cicely, to do it for him, whereas now he could employ no one.
Sometimes, from the mere attraction of horror, he would rehearse it under
his breath when he sat up late, and knew that no one was up in the rectory,
or when he was alone on some quiet road at the other extremity of the
parish. “I shall have no further need for your services.” Terrible formula!
the mere thought of which froze the blood in his veins. This horror made
him less sociable than he had ever been. He took no more of those evening
walks which he had once liked in his quiet way,—when, the two girls
speeding on before, with their restless feet, he would saunter along the
twilight road after them, at ease and quiet, with his hands under his coat-
tails; while little Miss Brown, generally a step or two behind, came trotting
after him with her small steps, propounding little theological questions or
moral doubts upon which she would like to have his opinion. The evening
stillness, the shadowy, soft gloom about, the mild, grey mist of imperfect
vision that made everything dreamy and vague, suited him better than the
light and colour of the day. As he wandered on, in perfect repose and ease,
with the two flitting figures before him, darting from side to side of the
road, and from bush to bush of the common, their voices sounding like
broken links of music; notwithstanding all that he had had in his life to wear
him down, the curate was happy. Very often at the conclusion of these
walks he would go through the churchyard and stand for a moment at the
white cross over his wife’s grave. But this act did not change his mood; he
went there as he might have gone had Hester been ill in bed, to say softly,
“Good night, my dear,” through the closed curtains. She made him no reply;
but she was well off and happy, dear soul! and why should not he be so too?
And when he went in to supper after, he was always very cheerful; it was
with him the friendliest moment of the day.
But this was all over since Miss Maydew’s visit; the thought of the
moment, no doubt approaching, when he would have to say, “I shall have
no further need for your services,” overwhelmed him. He had almost said it
over like a parrot on several occasions, so poisoned was his mind by the
horror that was to come. And Miss Maydew, I need not say, did not let any
grass grow under her feet in the matter. She was so convinced of Miss
Brown’s incapacity, and so eager in following out her own plan, and so
much interested in the occupation it gave her, that her tranquil life was quite
revolutionized by it. She went to call upon all her friends, and consulted
them anxiously about the young ladies’ schools they knew. “It must not be
too expensive, but it must be very good,” she told all her acquaintances,
who were, like most other people, struck with respect by the name of St.
John. Almost an excitement arose in that quiet, respectable neighbourhood,
penetrating even into those stately houses in Russell Square, at two or three
of which Miss Maydew visited. “Two very sweet girls, the daughters of a
clergyman, the sort of girls whom it would be an advantage to any
establishment to receive,” Miss Maydew’s friend said; and the conclusion
was, that the old lady found “vacancies” for her nieces in the most
unexpected way in a school of very high pretensions indeed, which gladly
accepted, on lower terms than usual, girls so well recommended, and with
so well-sounding a name. She wrote with triumph in her heart to their father
as soon as she had arrived at this summit of her wishes, and, I need not say,
carried despair to his. But even after he had received two or three warnings,
Mr. St. John could not screw his courage to the sticking point for the
terrible step that was required of him; and it was only a letter from Miss
Maydew, announcing her speedy arrival to escort the girls to their school,
and her desire that their clothes should be got ready, that forced him into
action. A more miserable man was not in all the country than, when thus
compelled by fate, the curate was. He had not been able to sleep all night
for thinking of this dreadful task before him. He was not able to eat any
breakfast, and the girls were consulting together what could be the matter
with papa when he suddenly came into the schoolroom, where Miss Brown
sat placidly at the large deal table, setting copies in her neat little hand. All
his movements were so quiet and gentle that the abruptness of his despair
filled the girls with surprise and dismay.
“Papa came flouncing in,” Mab said, who was partly touched and partly
indignant—indignant at being sent off to school, touched by the sight of his
evident emotion. The girls believed that this emotion was called forth by the
idea of parting with them; they did not know that it was in reality a mixture
of fright and horror as to how he was to make that terrible announcement to
Miss Brown.
“My dears,” he said, faltering, “I have got a letter from your aunt Jane. I
am afraid it will take you by surprise as—as it has done me. She wants you
to—go—to school.”
“To school!” they cried both together, in unfeigned horror and alarm.
Miss Brown, who had been ruling her copybooks very nicely,
acknowledging Mr. St. John’s entrance only by a smile, let the pencil drop
out of her hand.
“It is—very sudden,” he said, trembling—“very sudden. Your poor aunt
is that kind of woman. She means to be very kind to you, my dears; and she
has made up her mind that you must be educated——”
“Educated! Are we not being educated now? Miss Brown teaches us
everything—everything we require to know,” said Cicely, her colour rising,
planting herself in front of the governess; as she had sprung up to defend
her sister, when Miss Maydew saw her first. At that age Cicely was easily
moved to indignation, and started forward perhaps too indiscriminately in
behalf of any one who might be assailed. She was ready to put Miss Brown
upon the highest pedestal, whenever a word was said in her disfavour.
“So I think, my dear; so I think,” said the frightened curate. “I made that
very remark to your aunt; but it is very difficult to struggle against the
impetuosity of a lady, and—and perhaps being taken by surprise, I—
acquiesced more easily than I ought.”
“But we won’t go—we can’t go,” cried Mab. “I shall die, and Cicely will
die, if we are sent away from home.”
“My dears!” said poor Mr. St. John—this impetuosity was terrible to him
—“you must not say so; indeed you must not say so. What could I say to
your aunt? She means to give you all she has, and how could I oppose her?
She means it for the best. I am sure she means it for the best.”
 “And did you really consent,” said Cicely, seriously, looking him straight
in the eyes, “without ever saying a word to us, or to Miss Brown? Oh, papa,
I could not have believed it of you! I hate Aunt Jane! Miss Brown, dear!”
cried the girl, throwing her arms suddenly round the little governess, “it is
not Mab’s fault nor mine!”
Then it was Miss Brown’s turn to fall upon the unhappy curate and slay
him. “My dear love,” she said, “how could I suppose it was your fault or
Mab’s? Except a little levity now and then, which was to be expected at
your age, you have been very good, very good children. There is no fault at
all in the matter,” she continued, turning with that magnanimity of the
aggrieved which is so terrible to an offender, to Mr. St. John. “Perhaps it is
a little sudden; perhaps a person so fond of the girls as I am might have
been expected to be consulted as to the best school; for there is a great
difference in schools. But Miss Maydew is very impetuous, and I don’t
blame your dear papa. When do you wish me to leave, sir?” she said,
looking at him with a smile, which tortured the curate, upon her lips.
“Miss Brown, I hope you will not think badly of me,” he said. “You
can’t think how hard all this is upon me.”
The little woman rose up, and waved her hand with dignity. “We must
not enter into such questions,” she said; “if you will be so very kind as to
tell me when you would like me to go.”
I don’t know what incoherent words the curate stammered forth: that she
should stay as long as she liked; that she must make her arrangements
entirely to suit herself; that he had never thought of wishing her to go. This
was what he said in much disturbance and agitation of mind instead of the
other formula he had rehearsed about having no further need for her
services. All this Miss Brown received with the pale smiling of the injured
and magnanimous; while the girls looked fiercely on their father, leaving
him alone and undefended. When he got away he was so exhausted that he
did not feel able to go out into the parish, but withdrew to his study, where
he lurked, half paralyzed, all the rest of the day, like the criminal abandoned
by woman and by man, which he felt himself to be.
And I will not attempt to describe the commotion which this
announcement raised in the rest of the house. Miss Brown kept up that
smile of magnanimous meekness all day. She would not give in. “No, my
dears,” she said, “there is nothing to be said except that it is a little sudden. I
think your papa is quite right, and that you are getting beyond me.”
“It is not papa,” said Cicely; “it is that horrible Aunt Jane.”
“And she was quite right,” said the magnanimous governess; “quite
right. She saw that I was not strong enough. It is a little sudden, that is all;
and we must not make mountains out of mole-hills, my dears.” But she, too,
retired to her room early, where, sitting forlorn at the window, she had a
good cry, poor soul; for she had begun to grow fond of this rude solitude,
and she had no home.
As for the girls, after their first dismay and wrath the tide turned with
them. They were going out into the unknown, words which sound so
differently to different ears—so miserable to some, so exciting to others. To
Cicely and Mab they were exciting only. A new world, new faces, new
people to know, new places to see, new things to hear; gradually they forgot
their wrath alike and their emotion at this thought. A thrill of awe, of fear, of
delicious curiosity and wonder ran through them. This checked upon their
very lips those reproaches which they had been pouring forth, addressed to
their father and to Aunt Jane. Would they be miserable after all? should not
they, rather, on the whole, like it, if it was not wrong to say so? This first
silenced, then insinuated into their lips little broken words, questions and
wonderings which betrayed to each the other’s feelings. “It might be—fun,
perhaps,” Mab said at last; then looked up frightened at Cicely, wondering
if her sister would metaphorically kill her for saying so. But then a gleam in
Cicely’s eyes looked as if she thought so too.
Miss Brown set about very bravely next morning to get their things in
order. She was very brave and determined to be magnanimous, but I cannot
say that she was cheerful. It is true that she kept smiling all day long, like
Malvolio, though with the better motive of concealing her disappointment
and pain and unjust feeling; but the effect of this smile was depressing. She
was determined, whatever might happen, to do her duty to the last: and
then, what did it matter what should follow? With this valiant resolution she
faced the crisis and nobly took up all its duties. She bought I don’t know
how many dozens of yards of nice “long-cloth,” and cut out and made up,
chiefly with the sewing-machine, garments which she discreetly called
“under-clothing” for the girls; for her delicacy shunned the familiar names
of those indispensable articles. She found it needful that they should have
new Sunday frocks, and engaged the parish dressmaker for a week, and
went herself to town to buy the stuff, after the girls and she had spent an
anxious yet not unpleasant afternoon in looking over patterns. All this she
did, and never a word of murmur escaped her lips. She was a heroic
woman. And the busy days pursued each other so rapidly that the awful
morning came, and the girls weeping, yet not uncheerful, were swept away
by the “fly” from the station—where Miss Maydew, red and excited, met
them, and carried them off remorseless on their further way—before any
one had time to breathe, much less to think. Mr. St. John went to the station
with his daughters, and coming back alone and rather sad, for the first time
forgot Miss Brown; so that when he heard a low sound of the piano in the
schoolroom he was half frightened, and, without thinking, went straight to
the forsaken room to see what it was. Poor curate!—unfortunate Mr. St.
John! and not less unfortunate Miss Brown. The music had ceased before he
reached the door, and when he went in nothing was audible but a
melancholy little sound of sobbing and crying. Miss Brown was sitting
before the old piano with her head bowed down in her hands. Her little
sniffs and sobs were pitiful to hear. When he spoke she gave a great start,
and got up trembling, wiping her tears hastily away with her handkerchief.
“Did you speak, sir?” she said, with her usual attempt at cheerfulness. “I
hope I did not disturb you; I was—amusing myself a little, until it is time
for my train. My th-things are all packed and r-ready,” said the poor little
woman, making a deplorable effort at a smile. The sobs in her voice struck
poor Mr. St. John to the very heart.
“I have never had time,” he said in the tone of a self-condemned
criminal, “to ask where you are going, Miss Brown.”
“Oh yes, I have a pl-place to go to,” she said. “I have written to the
Governesses’ Institution, Mr. St. John, and very fo-fortunately they have a
vacant room.”
“The Governesses’ Institution! Is that the only place you have to go to?”
he said.
“Indeed, it is a very nice place,” said Miss Brown; “very quiet and lady-
like, and not d-dear. I have, excuse me, I have got so fo-fond of them. I
never meant to cry. It is in Harley Street, Mr. St. John, very nice and
respectable, and a great b-blessing to have such a place, when one has no h-
home.”
 Mr. St. John walked to the other end of the room, and then back again,
twice over. How conscience-stricken he was! While poor Miss Brown bit
her lips and winked her eyelids to keep the tears away. Oh, why couldn’t he
go away, and let her have her cry out? But he did not do that. He stopped
short at the table where she had set so many sums and cut out so much
underclothing, and half turning his back upon her said, faltering, “Would it
not be better to stay here, Miss Brown?”
The little governess blushed from head to foot, I am sure, if any one
could have seen; she felt thrills of confusion run all over her at such a
suggestion. “Oh, no, no,” she cried, “you are very kind, Mr. St. John, but I
have nobody but myself to take care of now, and I could not stay here, a
day, not now the girls are gone.”
The poor curate did not move. He took off the lid of the big inkstand and
examined it as if that were what he was thinking of. The Governesses’
Institution sounded miserable to him, and what could he do? “Miss Brown,”
he said in a troubled voice, “if you think you would like to marry me, I have
no objection; and then you know you could stay.”
“Mr. St. John!”
“Yes; that is the only thing I can think of,” he said, with a sigh. “After
being here for years, how can you go to a Governesses’ Institution?
Therefore, if you think you would like it, Miss Brown——”
How can I relate what followed? “Oh, Mr. St. John, you are speaking out
of pity, only pity!” said the little woman, with a sudden romantic gleam of
certainty that he must have been a victim of despairing love for her all this
time, and that the school-going of the girls was but a device for bringing out
his passion. But Mr. St. John did not deny this charge, as she expected he
would. “I don’t know about pity,” he said, confused, “but I am very sorry,
and—and I don’t see any other way.”
This was how it happened that three weeks after the girls went to school
Mr. St. John married Miss Brown. She went to the Governesses’ Institution
after all, resolute in her propriety, until the needful interval had passed, and
then she came back as Mrs. St. John, to her own great surprise, and to the
still greater surprise and consternation of the curate himself, and of the
parish, who could not believe their ears. I need not say that Miss Maydew
was absolutely furious, or that it was a great shock to Cicely and Mab when
they were told what had happened. They did not trust themselves to say
much to each other on the subject. It was the only subject, indeed, which
they did not discuss between themselves; but by-and-by even they got used
to it, as people do to everything, and they were quite friendly, though
distant, to Mrs. St. John.
Only one other important event occurred to that poor little woman in her
life. A year after her marriage she had twin boys, to the still greater
consternation of the curate; and three years after this she died. Thus the
unfortunate man was left once more with two helpless children on his
hands, as helpless himself as either of them, and again subject as before to
the advice of all the parish. They counselled him this time “a good nurse,”
not a governess; but fortunately other actors appeared on the scene before
he had time to see the excellent creature whom Mrs. Brockmill, of Fir Tree
House, knew of. While he listened hopelessly, a poor man of sixty-five,
casting piteous looks at the two babies whom he had no right, he knew, to
have helped into the world, Cicely and Mab, with bright faces and flying
feet, were already on the way to his rescue; and here, dear reader, though
you may think you already know something of it, this true story really
begins.
 CHAPTER V.

THE GIRLS AT SCHOOL.

THE school to which Miss Maydew sent the girls was in the outskirts of a
seaside town, and it was neither the best nor the worst of such
establishments. There were some things which all the girls had to submit to,
and some which bore especially on the Miss St. Johns, who had been
received at a lower price than most of the others; but on the whole the Miss
Blandys were good women, and not unkind to the pupils. Cicely and Mab,
as sisters, had a room allotted to them in the upper part of the house by
themselves, which was a great privilege—a bare attic room, with, on one
side, a sloping roof, no carpet, except a small piece before each small bed,
and the most meagre furniture possible. But what did they care for that?
They had two chairs on which to sit and chatter facing each other, and a
little table for their books and their work. They had a peep at the sea from
their window, and they had their youth—what could any one desire more?
In the winter nights, when it was cold sitting up in their fireless room, they
used to lie down in those two little beds side by side and talk, often in the
dark, for the lights had to be extinguished at ten o’clock. They had not
spoken even to each other of their father’s marriage. This unexpected event
had shocked and bewildered them in the fantastic delicacy of their age.
They could not bear to think of their father as so far descended from his
ideal elevation, and shed secret tears of rage more than of sorrow when they
thought of their mother thus superseded. But the event was too terrible for
words, and nothing whatever was said of it between them. When the next
great occurrence, the birth of the two babies, was intimated to them, their
feelings were different. They were first indignant, almost annoyed; then
amused; in which stage Mab made such a sketch of Miss Brown with a
baby in each arm, and Mr. St. John pathetically looking on, that they both
burst forth into laughter, and the bond of reserve on this event was broken;
and then all at once an interest of which they were half ashamed arose in
their minds. They fell silent both together in a wondering reverie, and then
Mab said to Cicely, turning to her big eyes of surprise—
 “They belong to us too, I suppose. What are they to us?”
“Of course our half-brothers,” said Cicely; and then there was another
pause, partly of awe at the thought of a relationship so mysterious, and
partly because it was within five minutes of ten. Then the candle was put
out, and they jumped into their beds. On the whole, perhaps, it was more
agreeable to talk of their father’s other children in the dark, when the half-
shame, half-wonder of it would not appear in each face.
“Is one expected to be fond of one’s half-brother?” said Mab doubtfully.
“There is one illusion gone,” said Cicely, in all the seriousness of
sixteen. “I have always been cherishing the idea that when we were quite
grown up, instead of going out for governesses or anything of that sort, we
might keep together, Mab, and take care of papa.”
“But then,” said Mab, “what would you have done with Mrs. St. John? I
don’t see that the babies make much difference. She is there to take care of
papa.”
On this Cicely gave an indignant sigh, but having no answer ready held
her peace.
“For my part, I never thought of that,” said Mab. “I have always thought
it such a pity I am not a boy, for then I should have been the brother and
you the sister, and I could have painted and you could have kept my house.
I’ll tell you what I should like,” she continued, raising herself on her elbow
with the excitement of the thought; “I should like if we two could go out
into the world like Rosalind and Celia.

‘Were it not better,

Because that I am more than common tall,
That I did suit me all points like a man?’”

“But you are not more than common tall,” said Cicely, with
unsympathetic laughter; “you are a little, tiny, insignificant thing.”
Mab dropped upon her pillow half-crying. “You have no feeling,” she
said. “Aunt Jane says I shall go on growing for two years yet. Mamma did
——”
“If you please,” said Cicely, “you are not the one that is like mamma.”
This little passage of arms stopped the chatter. Cicely, penitent, would
have renewed it after an interval, but Mab was affronted. Their father’s
marriage, however, made a great difference to the girls, even before the
appearance of the “second family;” the fact that he had now another
housekeeper and companion, and was independent of them affected the
imagination of his daughters, though they were scarcely conscious of it.
They no longer thought of going home, even for the longer holidays; and
settling down at home after their schooling was over had become all at once
impossible. Not that this change led them immediately to make new plans
for themselves; for the youthful imagination seldom goes so far unguided
except when character is very much developed; and the two were only
unsettled, uneasy, not quite knowing what was to become of them; or rather,
it was Cicely who felt the unsettledness and uneasiness as to her own
future. Mab had never had any doubt about hers since she was ten years old.
She had never seen any pictures to speak of, so that I cannot say she was a
heaven-born painter, for she scarcely understood what that was. But she
meant to draw; her pencil was to be her profession, though she scarcely
knew how it was to be wielded, and thus she was delivered from all her
sister’s vague feelings of uncertainty. Mab’s powers, however, had not been
appreciated at first at school, where Miss Maydew’s large assertions as to
her niece’s cleverness had raised corresponding expectations. But when the
drawing-master came with his little stock of landscapes to be copied, Mab,
quite untutored in this kind, was utterly at a loss. She neither knew how to
manage her colours, nor how to follow the vague lines of the “copy,” and I
cannot describe the humiliation of the sisters, nor the half disappointment,
half triumph, of Miss Blandy.
“My dear, you must not be discouraged; I am sure you did as well as you
could; and the fact is, we have a very high standard here,” the school-
mistress said.
It happened, however, after two or three of these failures that Cicely, sent
by Miss Millicent Blandy on a special message into that retired and solemn
chamber, where Miss Blandy the elder sister sat in the mornings supervising
and correcting everything, from the exercises to the characters of her pupils,
found the head of the establishment with the drawing-master looking over
the productions of the week. He had Mab’s drawing in his hand, and he was
shaking his head over it.
“I don’t know what to say about the youngest Miss St. John. This figure
is well put in, but her sky and her distance are terrible,” he was saying. “I
don’t think I shall make anything of her.”
 When Cicely heard this she forgot that she was a girl at school. She
threw down a pile of books she was carrying, and flew out of the room
without a word, making a great noise with the door. What she ought to have
done was to have made a curtsy, put down the books softly by Miss
Blandy’s elbow, curtsied again, and left the room noiselessly, in all respects
save that of walking backward as she would have done at Court. Need I
describe the look of dismay that came into Miss Blandy’s face?
“These girls will be my death,” she said. “Were there ever such colts?—
worse than boys.” This was the most dreadful condemnation Miss Blandy
ever uttered. “If their aunt does not insist upon drawing, as she has so little
real talent, she had better give it up.”
At this moment Cicely burst in again breathless, her hair streaming
behind her, her dress catching in the door, which she slammed after her.
“Look here!” she cried; “look here, before you say Mab has no talent!” and
she tossed down on the table the square blue-lined book, which her sister by
this time had almost filled. She stood before them glowing and defiant, with
flashing eyes and flowing hair; then she recollected some guilty recent
pages, and quailed, putting out her hand for the book again. “Please it is
only the beginning, not the end, you are to look at,” she said, peremptory
yet appealing. Had Miss Blandy alone been in the seat of judgment, she
would, I fear, have paid but little attention to this appeal; but the old
drawing-master was gentle and kind, as old professors of the arts so often
are (for Art is Humanity, I think, almost oftener than letters), and besides,
the young petitioner was very pretty in her generous enthusiasm, which
affected him both as a man and an artist. The first page at once gave him a
guess as to the inexpediency of examining the last; and the old man
perceived in a moment at once the mistake he had made, and the cause of it.
He turned over the first few pages, chuckling amused approbation. “So
these are your sister’s,” he said, and laughed and nodded his kind old head.
When he came to a sketch of Hannah, the maid-of-all-work at the rectory,
the humour of which might seem more permissible in Miss Blandy’s eyes
than the caricatures of ladies and gentlemen, he showed it to her; and even
Miss Blandy, though meditating downright slaughter upon Cicely, could not
restrain a smile. “Is this really Mabel’s?” she condescended to ask. “As you
say, Mr. Lake, not at all bad; much better than I could have thought.”
“Better? it is capital!” said the drawing-master; and then he shut up the
book close, and put it back in Cicely’s hands. “I see there are private
scribblings in it,” he said, with a significant look; “take it back, my dear. I
will speak to Miss Mabel to-morrow. And now, Miss Blandy, we will finish
our business, if you please,” he said benevolently, to leave time for Cicely
and her dangerous volume to escape. Miss Blandy was vanquished by this
stratagem, and Cicely, beginning to tremble at the thought of the danger she
had escaped, withdrew very demurely, having first piled up on the table the
books she had thrown down in her impetuosity. I may add at once that she
did not escape without an address, in which withering irony alternated with
solemn appeal to her best feelings, and which drew many hot tears from
poor Cicely’s eyes, but otherwise so far as I am aware did her no harm.
Thus Mab’s gifts found acknowledgment at Miss Blandy’s. The old
drawing-master shook his fine flexible old artist hand at her. “You take us
all off, young lady,” he said; “you spare no one; but it is so clever that I
forgive you; and by way of punishment you must work hard, now I know
what you can do. And don’t show that book of yours to anybody but me.
Miss Blandy would not take it so well as I do.”
“Oh, dear Mr. Lake, forgive me,” said Mab, smitten with compunction;
“I will never do it again!”
“Never, till the next time,” he said, shaking his head; “but, anyhow, keep
it to yourself, for it is a dangerous gift.”
And from that day he put her on “the figure” and “the round”—studies,
in which Mab at first showed little more proficiency than she had done in
the humbler sphere of landscape; for having leapt all at once into the
exercise of something that felt like original art, this young lady did not care
to go back to the elements. However, what with the force of school
discipline, and some glimmerings of good sense in her own juvenile bosom,
she was kept to it, and soon found the ground steady under her feet once
more, and made rapid progress. By the time they had been three years at
school, she was so proficient, that Mr. Lake, on retiring, after a hard-worked
life, to well-earned leisure, recommended her as his successor. So that by
seventeen, a year before Mrs. St. John’s death, Mab had released Miss
Maydew and her father from all responsibility on her account. Cicely was
not so clever; but she, too, had begun to help Miss Blandy in preference to
returning to the rectory and being separated from her sister. Vague teaching
of “English” and music is not so profitable as an unmistakable and distinct
art like drawing; but it was better than setting out upon a strange world
alone, or going back to be a useless inmate of the rectory. As teachers the
girls were both worse off and better off than as pupils. They were worse off
because it is a descent in the social scale to come down from the level of
those who pay to be taught, to the level of those who are paid for teaching
—curious though the paradox seems to be; and they were better off, in so
far as they were free from some of the restrictions of school, and had a kind
of independent standing. They were allowed to keep their large attic, the
bare walls of which were now half covered by Mab’s drawings, and which
Cicely’s instinctive art of household management made to look more cheery
and homelike than any other room in the house. They were snubbed
sometimes by “parents,” who thought the manners of these Miss St. Johns
too easy and familiar, as if they were on an equality with their pupils; and
by Miss Blandy, who considered them much too independent in their ways;
and now and then had mortifications to bear which are not pleasant to girls.
But there were two of them, which was a great matter; and in the continual
conversation which they carried on about everything, they consoled each
other. No doubt it was hard sometimes to hear music sounding from the
open windows of the great house in the square, where their old
schoolfellow, Miss Robinson, had come to live, and to see the carriages
arriving, and all the glory of the ball-dresses, of which the two young
governesses got a glimpse as they went out for a stroll on the beach in the
summer twilight, an indulgence which Miss Blandy disapproved of.
“Now, why should people be so different?” Cicely said, moralizing;
“why should we have so little, and Alice Robinson so much? It don’t seem
fair.”
“And we are not even prettier than she is, or gooder—which we ought to
be, if there is any truth in compensation,” said Mab, with a laugh.
“Or happier,” said Cicely, with a sigh. “She has the upper hand of us in
everything, and no balance on the other side to make up for it. Stay, though;
she has very droll people for father and mother, and we have a very fine
gentleman for our papa.”
“Poor papa!” said Mab. They interchanged moods with each other every
ten minutes, and were never monotonous, or for a long time the same.
“You may say why should people be so different,” said Cicely, forgetting
that it was herself who said it. “There is papa, now; he is delightful, but he
is trying. When one thinks how altered everything is—and those two little
babies. But yet, you know, we ought to ask ourselves, ‘Were we happier at
home, or are we happier here?’”
“We have more variety here,” said Mab decisively; “there is the sea, for
one thing; there we had only the garden.”
“You forget the common; it was as nice as any sea, and never drowned
people, or did anything dangerous; and the forest, and the sunset.”
“There are sunsets here,” said Mab,—“very fine ones. We are not
forgotten by the people who manage these things up above. And there is
plenty of work; and the girls are amusing, and so are the parents.”
“We should have had plenty of work at home,” said Cicely; and then the
point being carried as far as was necessary the discussion suddenly stopped.
They were walking along the sands, almost entirely alone. Only here and
there another group would pass them, or a solitary figure, chiefly
tradespeople, taking their evening stroll. The fresh sea-breeze blew in their
young faces, the soft dusk closed down over the blue water, which beat
upon the shore at their feet in the softest whispering cadence. The air was
all musical, thrilled softly by this hush of subdued sound. It put away the
sound of the band at Miss Robinson’s ball out of the girls’ hearts. And yet
balls are pleasant things at eighteen, and when two young creatures, quite
deprived of such pleasures, turn their backs thus upon the enchanted place
where the others are dancing, it would be strange if a touch of forlorn
sentiment did not make itself felt in their hearts, though the soft falling of
the dusk, and the hush of the great sea, and the salt air in their faces, gave
them a pleasure, had they but known it, more exquisite than any mere ball,
as a ball, ever confers. One only knows this, however, by reflection, never
by immediate sensation; and so there was, as I have said, just a touch of
pathos in their voices, and a sense of superiority, comfortable only in that it
was superior, but slightly sad otherwise, in their hearts.
“I don’t know what makes me go on thinking of home,” said Cicely,
after a pause. “If we had been at home we should have had more pleasure,
Mab. The people about would have asked us—a clergyman’s daughters
always get asked; and there are very nice people about Brentburn, very
different from the Robinsons and their class.”
“We should have had no dresses to go in,” said Mab. “How could we
ever have had ball-dresses off papa’s two hundred a year?”
 “Ball-dresses sound something very grand, but a plain white tarlatan is
not dear when one can make it up one’s self. However, that is a poor way of
looking at it,” said Cicely, giving a little toss to her head, as if to throw off
such unelevated thoughts. “There are a great many more important things to
think of. How will he ever manage to bring up the two boys?”
Mab made a pause of reflection. “To be sure Aunt Jane is not their
relation,” she said, “and boys are more troublesome than girls. They want to
have tutors and things, and to go to the university; and then what is the
good of it all if they are not clever? Certainly boys are far more
troublesome than girls.”
“And then, if you consider papa,” said Cicely, “that he is not very strong,
and that he is old. One does not like to say anything disagreeable about
one’s papa, but what did he want with those children? Surely we were quite
enough when he is so poor.”
“There is always one thing he can do,” said Mab. “Everybody says he is
a very good scholar. He will have to teach them himself.”
“We shall have to teach them,” said Cicely with energy; “I know so well
that this is what it will come to. I don’t mean to teach them ourselves, for it
is not much Latin I know, and you none, and I have not a word of Greek—
but they will come upon us, I am quite sure.”
“You forget Mrs. St. John,” said Mab.
Cicely gave a slight shrug of her shoulders, but beyond that she did not
pursue the subject. Mrs. St. John’s name stopped everything; they could not
discuss her, nor express their disapprobation, and therefore they forbore
religiously, though it was sometimes hard work.
“Blandina will think we are late,” at last she said, turning round. This
was their name for their former instructress, their present employer. Mab
turned dutifully, obeying her sister’s touch, but with a faint sigh.
“I hope they will be quiet at the Robinsons as we are passing,” the girl
said. “What if they are in full swing, with the ‘Blue Danube’ perhaps! I hate
to go in from a sweet night like this with noisy fiddles echoing through my
head.”
Cicely gave a slight squeeze of sympathy to her sister’s arm. Do not you
understand the girls, young reader? It was not the “Blue Danube” that was
being played, but the old Lancers, the which to hear is enough to make
wooden legs dance. Cicely and Mab pressed each other’s arms, and glanced
up at the window, where dancing shadows and figures were visible. They
sighed, and they went into their garret, avoiding the tacit disapproval of
Miss Blandy’s good-night. She did not approve of twilight walks. Why
should they want to go out just then like the tradespeople, a thing which
ladies never did? But if Miss Blandy had known that the girls were quite
saddened by the sound of the music from the Robinsons’, and yet could not
sleep for listening to it, I fear she would have thought them very improper
young persons indeed. She had forgotten how it felt to be eighteen—it was
so long ago.
On the very next morning the news came of their stepmother’s death. It
was entirely unexpected by them, for they had no idea of the gradual
weakness which had been stealing over that poor little woman, and they
were moved by deep compunction as well as natural regret. It is impossible
not to feel that we might have been kinder, might have made life happier to
those that are gone—a feeling experienced the moment that we know them
to be certainly gone, and inaccessible to all kindness. “Oh, poor Mrs. St.
John!” said Mab, dropping a few natural tears. Cicely was more deeply
affected. She was the eldest and had thought the most; as for the young
artist, her feeling ran into the tips of her fingers, and got expansion there;
but Cicely had no such medium. She went about mournfully all day long,
and in the evening Mab found her seated at the window of their attic,
looking out with her eyes big with tears upon the darkening sea. When her
sister touched her on the shoulder Cicely’s tears fell. “Oh, poor Miss
Brown!” she said, her heart having gone back to the time when they had no
grievance against their kind little governess. “Oh, Mab, if one could only
tell her how one was sorry! if she could only see into my heart now!”
“Perhaps she can,” said Mab, awe-stricken and almost under her breath,
lifting her eyes to the clear wistful horizon in which the evening star had
just risen.
“And one could have said it only yesterday!” said Cicely, realizing for
the first time that mystery of absolute severance; and what light thoughts
had been in their minds yesterday! Sighs for Alice Robinson’s ball,
depression of soul and spirit caused by the distant strains of the Lancers,
and the “Blue Danube”—while this tragedy was going on, and the poor soul
who had been good to them, but to whom they had not been good, was
departing, altogether and for ever out of reach. Cicely in her sorrow blamed
herself unjustly, as was natural, and mourned for the mystery of human
shortsightedness as well as for Mrs. St. John. But I do not mean to say that
this grief was very profound after the first sting, and after that startling
impression of the impossibility of further intercourse was over. The girls
went out quietly in the afternoon, and bought black stuff to make
themselves mourning, and spoke to each other in low voices and grave
tones. Their youthful vigour was subdued—they were overawed to feel as it
were the wings of the great Death-Angel overshadowing them. The very
sunshine looked dim, and the world enveloped in a cloud. But it was within
a week or two of Miss Blandy’s “breaking up,” and they could not go away
immediately. Miss Blandy half audibly expressed her satisfaction that Mrs.
St. John was only their step-mother. “Had she been their own mother, what
should we have done?” she said. So that it was not till the end of July, when
the establishment broke up, that the girls were at last able to get home.
 CHAPTER VI.

THE GIRLS AT HOME.

WE are so proud in England of having a word which means home, which

some of our neighbours we are pleased to think have not, that, perhaps, it is
a temptation to us to indulge in a general rapture over the word which has
sometimes little foundation in reality. When Cicely and Mab walked to the
rectory together from the station a suppressed excitement was in their
minds. Since they first left for school, they had only come back for a few
days each year, and they had not liked it. Their stepmother had been very
kind, painfully kind; and anxious above measure that they should find
everything as they had left it, and should not be disappointed or dull; but
this very anxiety had made an end of all natural ease, and they had been
glad when the moment came that released them. Now, poor woman, she had
been removed out of their way; they were going back to take care of their
father as they might have done had there been no second Mrs. St. John; and
everything was as it had been, with the addition of the two babies, innocent
little intruders, whom the girls, you may be sure, could never find it in their
hearts to be hard upon. Cicely and Mab took each others’ hands
instinctively as they left the station. It was the first of August, the very
prime and glory of summer; the woods were at their fullest, untouched by
any symptom of decay. The moorland side of the landscape was more
wealthy and glorious still in its flush of heather. The common was not
indeed one sheet of purple, like a Scotch moor; but it was all lighted up
between the gorse bushes with fantastic streaks and bands of colour blazing
in the broad sunshine, and haunted by swarms of bees which made a hum in
the air almost as sweet and all-pervading as the murmur of the sea. As they
drew near the house their hearts began to beat louder. Would there be any
visible change upon it? Would it look as it did when they were children, or
with that indefinable difference which showed in her time? They did not
venture to go the familiar way by the garden, but walked up solemnly like
visitors to the front door. It was opened to them by a new maid, whom they
had never seen before, and who demurred slightly to giving them
admittance, “Master ain’t in,” said the girl; “yes miss, I know as you’re
expected,” but still she hesitated. This was not the kind of welcome which
the daughters of a house generally receive. They went in to the house
nevertheless, Betsy following them. The blinds were drawn low over the
windows, which were all shut, and though the atmosphere was stifling with
heat, yet it was cold, miserably cold to Cicely and Mab. Their father’s study
was the only place that had any life in it. The rectory seemed full of nothing
but old black heavy furniture, and heavier memories of some chilled and
faded past.
“What a dreadful old place it is,” said Mab; “it is like coming home to
one’s grave,” and she sat down on the black haircloth easy-chair and
shivered and cried; though this was coming home, to the house in which she
had been born.
“Now it will be better,” said Cicely pulling up the blinds and opening the
window. She had more command of herself than her sister. She let the
sunshine come down in a flood across the dingy carpet, worn with the use
of twenty years.
“Please, miss,” said Betsy interposing, “missis would never have the
blinds up in this room ‘cause of spoiling the carpet. If master says so, I
don’t mind; but till he do——” and here Betsy put up her hand to the blind.
“Do you venture to meddle with what my sister does?” cried Mab,
furious, springing from her chair.
Cicely only laughed. “You are a good girl to mind what your mistress
said, but we are your mistresses now; you must let the window alone, for
don’t you see the carpet is spoiled already? I will answer to papa. What is
it? Do you want anything more?”
“Only this, miss,” said Betsy, “as it’s the first laugh as has been heard
here for weeks and weeks, and I don’t like it neither, seeing as missis is in
her grave only a fortnight to-day.”
“I think you are a very good girl,” said Cicely: and with that the tears
stood in that changeable young woman’s eyes.
No Betsy that ever was heard of could long resist this sort of treatment.
“I tries to be, miss,” she said with a curtsy and a whimper. “Maybe you’d
like a cup of tea?” and after following them suspiciously all over the house,
she left them at last on this hospitable intent in the fading drawing-room,
where they had both enshrined the memory of their mother. Another
memory was there now, a memory as faded as the room, which showed in
all kinds of feeble feminine decorations, bits of modern lace, and worked
cushions and foolish foot-stools. The room was all pinafored and
transmogrified, the old dark picture-frames covered with yellow gauze, and
the needlework in crackling semi-transparent covers.
“This was how she liked things, poor soul! Oh, Mab,” cried Cicely,
“how strange that she should die!”
“No stranger than that any one else should die,” said Mab, who was
more matter of fact.
“A great deal stranger! It was not strange at all that little Mary Seymour
should die. One saw it in her eyes; she was like an angel; it was natural; but
poor Miss Brown, who was quite happy working cushions and covering
them up, and keeping the sun off the carpets, and making lace for the
brackets! It looks as if there was so little sense or method in it,” said Cicely.
“She won’t have any cushions to work up there.”
“I dare say there won’t be anything to draw up there,” said Mab; “and
yet I suppose I shall die too in time.”
“When there are the four walls for Leonardo, and Michel Angelo and
Raphael and poor Andrea,” said the other. “How you forget! Besides, it is
quite different. Hark! what was that?” she cried, putting up her hand.
What it was soon became very distinctly evident—a feeble little cry
speedily joined by another, and then a small weak chorus, two voices
entangled together. “No, no; no ladies. Harry no like ladies,” mixed with a
whimpering appeal to “papa, papa.”
“Come and see the pretty ladies. Harry never saw such pretty ladies,”
said the encouraging voice of Betsy in the passage.
The girls looked at each other, and grew red. They had made up their
minds about a great many things, but never how they were to deal with the
two children. Then Betsy appeared at the door, pushing it open before her
with the tea-tray she carried. To her skirts were hanging two little boys,
clinging to her, yet resisting her onward motion, and carried on by it in spite
of themselves. They stared at the new-comers with big blue eyes wide open,
awed into silence. They were very small and very pale, with light colourless
limp locks falling over their little black dresses. The girls on their side
stared silently too. There was not a feature in the children’s faces which
resembled their elder sisters. They were both little miniatures of Miss
Brown.
“So these are the children,” said Cicely, making a reluctant step forward;
to which Harry and Charley responded by a renewed clutch at Betsy’s dress.
“Yes, miss; them’s the children! and darlings they be,” said Betsy,
looking fondly at them as she set down the tea. Cicely made another step
forward slowly, and held out her hands to them; when the little boys set up
a scream which rang through the house, and hiding their faces
simultaneously in Betsy’s gown, howled to be taken away. Mab put up her
hands to her ears, but Cicely, more anxious to do her duty, made another
attempt. She stooped down and kissed, or tried to kiss the little tear-stained
faces, to which caress each small brother replied by pushing her away with
a repeated roar.
“Don’t you take no notice, miss. Let ‘em alone and they’ll get used to
you in time,” said Betsy.
“Go away, go away! Harry no like ‘oo,” screamed the spokesman
brother. No one likes to be repulsed even by a child. Cicely stumbled to her
feet very red and uncomfortable. She stood ruefully looking after them as
they were carried off after a good preliminary “shake,” one in each of
Betsy’s red hands.
“There is our business in life,” she said in a solemn tone. “Oh, Mab,
Mab, what did papa want with these children? All the trouble of them will
come on you and me.”
Mab looked at her sister with a look of alarm, which changed, however,
into laughter at sight of Cicely’s solemn looks and the dreary presentiment
in her face.
“You are excellent like that,” she said; “and if you had only seen how
funny you all looked when the little demons began to cry. They will do for
models at all events, and I’ll take to painting children. They say it’s very
good practice, and nursery pictures always sell.”
These lighter suggestions did not, however, console Cicely. She walked
about the room with clasped hands and a very serious face, neglecting her
tea.
“Papa will never trouble himself about them,” she said half to herself; “it
will all fall on Mab and me. And boys! that they should be boys. We shall
never be rich enough to send them to the University. Girls we might have
taught ourselves; but when you think of Oxford and Cambridge——”
“We can’t tell,” said Mab; “how do you know I shan’t turn out a great
painter, and be able to send them wherever you like? for I am the brother
and you are the sister, Ciss. You are to keep my house and have the
spending of all my money. So don’t be gloomy, please, but pour out some
tea. I wish, though, they were not quite so plain.”
“So like their mother,” said Cicely with a sigh.
“And so disagreeable; but it is funny to hear one speak for both as if the
two were Harry. I am glad they are not girls. To give them a share of all we
have I don’t mind; but to teach them! with those white little pasty faces
——”
“One can do anything when one makes up one’s mind to it,” said Cicely
with a sigh.
At this moment the hall door opened, and after an interval Mr. St. John
came in with soft steps. He had grown old in these last years; bowed down
with age and troubles. He came up to his daughters and kissed them, laying
his hand upon their heads.
“I am very glad you have come home,” he said, in a voice which was
pathetic in its feebleness. “You are all I have now.”
“Not all you have, papa,” said Mab; “we have just seen the little boys.”
A momentary colour flushed over his pale face. “Ah, the babies,” he
said. “I am afraid they will be a great deal of trouble to you, my dears.”
Cicely and Mab looked at each other, but they did not say anything—
they were afraid to say something which they ought not to say. And what
could he add after that? He took the cup of tea they offered him, and drank
it standing, his tall frame with a stoop in it, which was partly age and partly
weakness, coming against one tall window and shutting out the light. “But
that you are older looking,” he said at last, “all this time might seem like a
dream.”
“A sad dream, papa,” said Cicely, not knowing what to say.
“I cannot say that, my dear. I thank God I have had a great deal of
happiness in my life; because we are sad for the moment we must not forget
to thank Him for all His mercies,” said Mr. St. John; and then with a change
in his voice, he added, “Your aunt sends me word that she is coming soon to
see you. She is a very strong woman for her years; I look older than she
does; and it is a trouble to me now to go to town and back in one day.”
“You have not been ill, papa?”
“No, Cicely, not ill; a little out of my usual,” he said, “that is all. Now
you are here, we shall fall into our quiet way again. The changes God sends
we must accept; but the little worries are trying, my dear. I am getting old,
and am not so able to brave them; but all will be well now you are here.”
“We shall do all we can,” said Cicely; “but you must remember, papa,
we are not used to housekeeping, and if we make mistakes at first——”
“I am not afraid of your mistakes,” said Mr. St. John, looking at her with
a faint smile. He had scarcely looked full at her before, and his eyes dwelt
upon her face with a subdued pleasure. “You are your mother over again,”
he said. “You will be a blessing to me, Cicely, as she was.”
The two girls looked at him strangely, with a flood of conflicting
thoughts. How dared he speak of their mother? Was he relieved to be able to
think of their mother without Miss Brown coming in to disturb his
thoughts? If natural reverence had not restrained them, what a cross-
examination they would have put him to! but as it was, their eager thoughts
remained unsaid. “I will do all I can, papa, and so will Mab,” said Cicely,
faltering. And he put down his cup, and said, “God bless you, my dears,”
and went to his study as if they had never been absent at all, only out
perhaps, as Mab said, for a rather long walk.
“I don’t think he can have cared for her,” said Cicely; “he is glad to get
back to the idea of mamma; I am sure that is what he means. He is always
kind, and of course he was kind to her; but there is a sort of relief in his tone
—a sort of ease.”
“That is all very well for us,” said Mab; “but if you will think of it, it
seems a little hard on poor Miss Brown.”
This staggered Cicely, who loved justice. “But I think she should not
have married him,” she said. “It was easy to see that anybody could have
married him who wished. I can see that now, though I never thought of it
then. And, kind as it was of Aunt Jane, perhaps we should not have left him
unprotected. You ought to have gone to school, Mab, because of your talent,
and I should have stayed at home.”
They decided, however, after a few minutes, that it was needless to
discuss this possibility now, so long after it had become an impossibility.
And then they went upstairs to take off their travelling-dresses and make
themselves feel at home. When they came down again, with their hair
smooth, Cicely carrying her work-basket and Mab her sketch-book, and
seated themselves in the old faded room, from which the sunshine had now
slid away, as the sun got westward, a bewildered feeling took possession of
them. Had they ever been absent? had anything happened since that day
when Aunt Jane surprised them in their pinafores? The still house, so still in
the deep tranquillity of the country, after the hum of their schoolroom life
and the noises of a town, seemed to turn round with them, as they looked
out upon the garden, upon which no change seemed to have passed. “I
declare,” cried Mab, “there is exactly the same number of apples—and the
same branch of that old-plum-tree hanging loose from the wall!”
Thus the first evening passed like a dream. Mr. St. John came from his
study to supper, and he talked a little, just as he had been in the habit of
talking long ago, without any allusion to the past. He told them a few pieces
of news about the parish, and that he would like them to visit the school. “It
has been very well looked after lately,” he said. Perhaps this meant by his
wife—perhaps it did not; the girls could not tell. Then Betsy came in for
prayers, along with a small younger sister of hers who had charge of the
little boys; and by ten o’clock, as at Miss Blandy’s, the door was locked,
and the peaceful house wrapped in quiet. The girls looked out of their
window upon the soft stillness with the strangest feelings. The garden paths
were clearly indicated by a feeble veiled moon, and the trees which
thickened in clouds upon the horizon. There was not a sound anywhere in
the tranquil place except the occasional bark of that dog, who somewhere,
far or near, always indicates existence in a still night in the country. The
stillness fell upon their souls. “He never asked what we were going to do,”
said Mab, for they were silenced too, and spoke to each other only now and
then, chilled out of the superabundance of their own vitality. “But he thinks
with me that the children are to be our business in life,” said Cicely, and
then they went to bed, taking refuge in the darkness. For two girls so full of
conscious life, tingling to the finger points with active faculties and power,
it was a chilly home-coming, yet not so unusual either. When the young
creatures come home, with their new lives in their hands to make something
of, for good or evil, do not we often expect them to settle down to the level
of the calm old lives which are nearly worn out, and find fault with them if
it is a struggle? Mr. St. John felt that it was quite natural his girls should
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