A Young Mutineer

Ruin arrives at the Little Staunton rectory when the Downshire County Bank stops payment and Mr. Merton, the rector, is a poor man by the end of an afternoon. His eldest daughter Hilda, who is eighteen, marries Jasper Quentyns, a young barrister, and leaves for a small London flat. Nine-year-old Judy, motherless and attached to Hilda past all reason, sickens with grief, so Hilda goes down to nurse her and brings her back to town. What follows is a quiet three-cornered struggle: a husband who resents the child’s claim on his wife, a wife who cannot refuse either of them, and a little girl who works out for herself what her presence is costing. Meade wrote it in 1893 as a story for girls, and she treats Judy’s jealousy as real sorrow rather than naughtiness.