A COSY MORNING.
Breakfast was half over before Miss Sefton made her appearance; but her
graceful apology for her tardiness was received by Dr. Lambert in the
most indulgent manner. In spite of his love of punctuality, and his
stringent rules for his household in this respect, he could not have
found it in his heart to rebuke the pretty, smiling creature who told
him so naively that early rising disagreed with her and put her out for
the day.
"I tell mamma that I require a good deal of sleep, and, fortunately, she
believes me," finished Edna complacently.
Well, it was not like the doctor to hold his peace at this glaring
opposition to his favorite theory, and yet, to Tom's astonishment, he
forebore to quote that threadbare and detestable adage, "Early to bed
and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise"--proverbial
and uncomfortable philosophy that Tom hated with all his foolish young
heart. Tom, in his budding manhood, often thought fit to set this
domestic tyranny at defiance, and would argue at some length that his
father was wrong in laying down rules for the younger generation.
"If my father likes to get up early, no one can find any fault with him
for doing it," Tom would say; "but he need not impose his venerable and
benighted opinions upon us. Great men are not always wise; even
intellectual veterans like Dr. Johnson, and others I can mention, if you
only give me time, have their hallucinations, fads, fancies, and
flummeries. For example, every one speaks of Dr. Johnson with respect;
no one hints that he had a bee in his bonnet, and yet a man who could
make a big hole for a cat and a little one for a kitten--was it Johnson
or Newton who did that?--must have had a screw loose somewhere. And so
it is with my father; early rising is his hobby--his pet theory--the
keystone that binds the structure of health together. Well, it is a
respectable theory, but my father need not expect an enlightened and
progressive generation to subscribe to it. The early hours of the
morning are not good for men and mice, only for birds and bricklayers,
and worms weary of existence."
Tom looked on, secretly amused, as his father smiled indulgently at Miss
Sefton's confession of indolence. He asked her how she had slept, and
made room for her beside him, and then questioned her about her intended
journey, and finally arranged to drive her to the station before he went
on his usual round.
An hour afterward the whole family collected in the hall to see Miss
Sefton off. Edna bid them good-bye in her easy, friendly fashion, but as
she took Bessie's hand, she said:
"Good-bye, dear. I have an idea that we shall soon meet again. I shall
not let you forget me;" and then she put up her face to be kissed.
"I am not likely to forget you," thought Bessie, as Edna waved her
little gloved hand to them all; "one could soon get fond of her."
"How nice it must be to be rich," sighed Christine, who was standing
beside Bessie. "Miss Sefton is very little older than we are, and yet
she has lovely diamond and emerald rings. Did you see her dressing bag?
It was filled up so beautifully; its bottles silver mounted; it must
have cost thirty guineas, at least. And then her furs; I should like to
be in her place."
"I should not envy Miss Sefton because she is rich," retorted Hatty
disdainfully. "I would rather change places with her because she is so
strong and so pretty. I did like looking at her so much, and so did Tom.
Didn't you, Tom?"
"I say, I wish you girls would shut up or clear off," responded Tom
crossly; for things felt a little flat this morning. "How is a fellow to
work with all this chattering going on round him?"
"Why, you haven't opened your books yet," replied Hatty, in an aggrieved
voice; but Bessie hastily interposed:
"Tom is quite right to want the room to himself. Come along, girls, let
us go to mother in the morning-room; we might do some of our plain
sewing, and then I can tell you about Aunt Charlotte. It is so long
since we have been cosy together, and our needles will fly while we
talk--eh, Hatty?"
"There are those night shirts to finish," said Christine disconsolately;
"they ought to have been done long ago, but Hatty was always saying her
back ached when I wanted her help, and I could not get on with them by
myself."
"Never mind, we will all set to work vigorously," and Bessie tripped
away to find her work basket. The morning-room, as they called it, was a
small room leading out of the drawing-room, with an old-fashioned bay
window looking out on the garden.
There was a circular cushioned seat running round the bay, with a small
table in the middle, and this was the place where the girls loved to sit
and sew, while their tongues kept pace with their needles. When Hatty's
back ached, or the light made her head throb with pain, she used to
bring her low chair and leave the recess to Bessie and Christine.
The two younger girls went to school.
As Hatty brought her work (she was very skilful with the needle, and
neither of her sisters could vie with her in delicate embroidery), she
slipped a cold little hand into Bessie's.
"It is so lovely to have you back, Betty, dear," she whispered. "I woke
quite happy this morning to know I should see you downstairs."
"I think it is lovely to be home," returned Bessie, with a beaming
smile. "I am sure that is half the pleasure of going away--the coming
back again. I don't know how I should feel if I went to stay at any
grand place; but it always seems to me now that home is the most
delicious place in the world; it never looks shabby to me as it does to
Tom; it is just homelike."
Mrs. Lambert, who was sitting apart from the girls, busy with her weekly
accounts, looked up at hearing her daughter's speech.
"That is right, dear," she said gently, "that is just how I like to hear
you speak; it would grieve me if my girls were to grow discontented with
their home, as some young ladies do."
"Bessie is not like that, mother," interposed Hatty eagerly.
"No, Hatty, we know that, do we not? What do you think father said the
other day, Bessie? He said, 'I shall be glad when we get Bessie back,
for the place does not seem like itself when she is away.' That was a
high compliment from father."
"Indeed it was," returned Bessie; and she blushed with pleasure. "Every
one likes to be missed; but I hope you didn't want me too much, mother."
"No, dear; but, like father, I am glad to get you back again." And the
mother's eyes rested fondly on the girl's face. "Now you must not make
me idle, for I have all these accounts to do, and some notes to write.
Go on with your talking; it will not interrupt me."
It spoke well for the Lambert girls that their mother's presence never
interfered with them; they talked as freely before her as other girls do
in their parent's absence. From children they had never been repressed
nor unnaturally subdued; their childish preferences and tastes had been
known and respected; no thoughtless criticism had wounded their
susceptibility; imperceptibly and gently maternal advice had guided and
restrained them.
"We tell mother everything, and she likes to hear it," Ella and Katie
would say to their school-fellows.
"We never have secrets from her," Ella added. "Katie did once, and
mother was so hurt that she cried about it. Don't you recollect, Katie?"
"Yes, and it is horrid of you to remind me," returned Katie wrathfully,
and she walked away in high dudgeon; the recollection was not a pleasant
one. Katie's soft heart had been pierced by her mother's unfeigned grief
and tender reproaches.
"You are the only one of all my little girls who ever hid anything from
me. No, I am not angry with you, Katie, and I will kiss you as much as
you like," for Katie's arms were round her neck in a moment; "but you
have made mother cry, because you do not love her as she does you."
"Mother shall never cry again on my account," thought Katie; and,
strange to say, the tendency to secretiveness in the child's nature
seemed cured from that day. Katie ever afterward confessed her
misdemeanors and the accidents that happen to the best-regulated
children with a frankness that bordered on bluntness.
"I have done it, mother," she would say, "but somehow I don't feel a bit
sorry. I rather liked hurting Ella's feelings; it seemed to serve her
right."
"Perhaps when we have talked about it a little you will feel sorry," her
mother would reply quietly; "but I have no time for talking just now."
Mrs. Lambert was always very busy; on these occasions she never found
time for a heated and angry discussion. When Katie's hot cheeks had
cooled a little, and her childish wrath had evaporated, she would
quietly argue the point with her. It was an odd thing that Katie
generally apologized of her own accord afterward--generally owned
herself the offender.
"Somehow you make things look different, mother," she would say, "I
can't think why they all seem topsy-turvy to me."
"When you are older I will lend you my spectacles," her mother returned,
smiling. "Now run and kiss Ella, and pray don't forget next time that
she is two years older; it can't possibly be a younger sister's duty to
contradict her on every occasion."
It was in this way that Mrs. Lambert had influenced her children, and
she had reaped a rich harvest for her painstaking, patient labors with
them, in the freely bestowed love and confidence with which her grown-up
daughters regarded her. Now, as she sat apart, the sound of their fresh
young voices was the sweetest music to her; not for worlds would she
have allowed her own inward sadness to damp their spirits, but more than
once the pen rested in her hand, and her attention wandered.
Outside the wintry sun was streaming on the leafless trees and snowy
lawns; some thrushes and sparrows were bathing in the pan of water that
Katie had placed there that morning.
"Let us go for a long walk this afternoon," Christine was saying,
"through the Coombe Woods, and round by Summerford, and down by the
quarry."
"Even Bessie forgets that it will be Frank's birthday to-morrow,"
thought Mrs. Lambert. "My darling boy, I wonder if he remembers it
there; if the angels tell him that his mother is thinking of him. That
is just what one longs to know--if they remember;" and then she sighed,
and pushed her papers aside, and no one saw the sadness of her face as
she went out. Meanwhile Bessie was relating how she had spent the last
three weeks.
"I can't think how you could endure it," observed Christine, as soon as
she had finished. "Aunt Charlotte is very nice, of course; she is
father's sister, and we ought to think so; but she leads such a dull
life, and then Cronyhurst is such an ugly village."
"It is not dull to her, but then you see it is her life. People look on
their own lives with such different eyes. Yes, it was very quiet at
Cronyhurst; the roads were too bad for walking, and we had a great deal
of snow; but we worked and talked, and sometimes I read aloud, and so
the days were not so long after all."
"I should have come home at the end of a week," returned Christine;
"three weeks at Cronyhurst in the winter is too dreadful. It was real
self-sacrifice on your part, Bessie; even father said so; he declared it
was too bad of Aunt Charlotte to ask you at such a season of the year."
"I don't see that. Aunt Charlotte liked having me, and I was very
willing to stay with her, and we had such nice talks. I don't see that
she is to be pitied at all. She has never married, and she lives alone,
but she is perfectly contented with her life. She has her garden and her
chickens, and her poor people. We used to go into some of the cottages
when the weather allowed us to go out, and all the people seemed so
pleased to see her. Aunt Charlotte is a good woman, and good people are
generally happy. I know what Tom says about old maids," continued Bessie
presently, "but that is all nonsense. Aunt Charlotte says she is far
better off as she is than many married people she knows. 'Married people
may double their pleasures,' as folks say, 'but they treble their cares,
too,' I have heard her remark; 'and there is a great deal to be said in
favor of freedom. When there is no one to praise there is no one to
blame, and if there is no one to love there is no one to lose, and I
have always been content myself with single blessedness.' Do you
remember poor Uncle Joe's saying, 'The mare that goes in single harness
does not get so many kicks?'"
"Yes, I know Aunt Charlotte's way of talking; but I dare say no one
wanted to marry her, so she makes the best of her circumstances."
Bessie could not help laughing at Christine's bluntness.
"Well, you are right, Chrissy; but Aunt Charlotte is not the least
ashamed of the fact. She told me once that no one had ever fallen in
love with her, 'I could not expect them to do so,' she remarked
candidly. 'As a girl I was plain featured, and so shy and awkward that
your Uncle Joe used to tell me that I was the only ugly duckling that
would never turn into a swan.'"
"What a shame of Uncle Joe!"
"I don't think Aunt Charlotte took it much to heart. She says her hard
life and many troubles drove all nonsense thoughts out of her head. Why,
grandmamma was ill eight years, you know, and Aunt Charlotte nursed her
all that time. I am sure when she used to come to my bedside of a night,
and tuck me up with a motherly kiss, I used to think her face looked
almost beautiful, it was so full of kindness. Somehow I fancy when I am
old," added Bessie pensively, "I shall not care so much about my looks
nor my wrinkles, if people will only think I am a comfortable,
kind-hearted sort of a person."
"You will be the dearest old lady in the world," returned Hatty,
dropping her work with an adoring look at her Betty. "You are cosier
than other people now, so you are sure to be nicer than ever when you
are old. No wonder Aunt Charlotte loved to have you."
"What a little flatterer you are, Hatty! It is a comfort that I don't
grow vain. Do you know, I think Aunt Charlotte taught me a great deal.
When you get over her little mannerisms and odd ways, you soon find out
what a good woman she really is. She is always thinking of other people;
what she can do to lighten their burdens; and little things give her so
much pleasure. She says the first violet she picks in the hedgerow, or
the sight of a pair of thrushes building their nest in the acacia tree,
makes her feel as happy as a child; 'for in spring,' she said once, 'all
the world is full of young life, and the buds are bursting into flowers,
and they remind me that one day I shall be young and beautiful too.'"
"I think I should like to go and stay with Aunt Charlotte," observed
Hatty, "if you think she would care to have me."
"I am sure she would, dear. Aunt Charlotte loves to take care of
people. You most go in the summer, Hatty; the cottage is so pretty then,
and you could be out in the garden or in the lanes all day. June is the
best month, for they will be making hay in the meadows, and you could
sit on the porch and smell the roses, and watch Aunt Charlotte's bees
filling their honey bags. It is just the place for you, Hatty--so still
and quiet."
This sort of talk lasted most of the morning, until Ella and Katie
returned from school, and Tom sauntered into the room, flushed with his
mental labors, and ready to seek relaxation in his sisters' company.
Bessie left the room and went in search of her mother; when she
returned, a quarter of an hour later, she found Tom sulky and Hatty in
tears.
"It is no use trying to keep the peace," observed Christine, in a vexed
tone. "Tom will tease Hatty, and then she gets cross, and there is no
silencing either of them."
"Come with me, Hatty dear, and help me put my room in order. I have to
finish my unpacking," said Bessie soothingly. "You have been working too
long, and so has Tom. I shall leave him to you, Chrissy." And as Hatty
only moaned a little in her handkerchief, Bessie took the work forcibly
away, and then coaxed her out of the room.
"Why is Tom so horrid to me?" sobbed Hatty "I don't believe he loves me
a bit. I was having such a happy morning, and he came in and spoiled
all."
"Never mind about Tom. No one cares for his teasing, except you, Hatty.
I would not let him see you mind everything he chooses to say. He will
only think you a baby for crying. Now, do help me arrange this drawer,
for dinner will be ready in a quarter of an hour, and the floor is just
strewn with clothes. If it makes your head ache to stoop, I will just
hand you the things; but no one else can put them away so tidily."
The artful little bait took. Of all things Hatty loved to be of use to
any one. In another moment she had dried her eyes and set to work, her
miserable little face grew cheerful, and Tom's sneering speeches were
forgotten.
"Why, I do believe that is Hatty laughing!" exclaimed Christine, as the
dinner-bell sounded, and she passed the door with her mother. "It is
splendid, the way Bessie manages Hatty. I wish some of us could learn
the art, for all this wrangling with Tom is so tiresome."
"Bessie never loses patience with her," returned her mother; "never lets
her feel that she is a trouble. I think you will find that is the secret
of Bessie's influence. Your father and I are often grateful to her.
'What would that poor child do without her?' as your father often says;
and I do believe her health would often suffer if Bessie did not turn
her thoughts away from the things that were fretting her."