The three children were highly excited at the idea of leaving home,
and, on the whole, delighted. The preparations for their departure
were soon completed, and on a pleasant spring morning the party set
off. Lily could hardly conceal her relief as she took leave of them;
she was not fond of children, though, of course, she loved her own,
more or less; and these vivacious young creatures wearied her beyond
everything. She hated care and trouble and exertion, if, indeed, she
had life enough to hate anything; and when Frank declined to take leave
of them on the train because he knew he should disgrace himself by
crying, and did cry, like a big school-boy, as he saw them drive off,
she gave him up as a problem too hard for her comprehension.
The village in which Cyril Heath was settled was a manufacturing one,
and full of activity. His house was a large, old-fashioned, ugly
structure; but he and Belle together had made it home-like and pretty
within doors, and as no part of it was kept in state and shut up, it
smiled a welcome to every guest. Belle was awaiting her mother with
a baby on each arm, and a face all smiles and delight. She let the
three children loose into the garden immediately, where they were soon
joined by Mr. Heath, who chased them up and down the walks with all the
joyousness of a boy.
"It's splendid here," said Frank, Jr. "I never mean to live in a city
again."
"Nor I," said Cil.
"Is it as pretty as this at grandma's?" asked Gabrielle.
"It's a thousand times prettier," replied Mr. Heath. "Have you never
been there in the summer?"
"No; only at Christmas, and at aunty Maud's funeral."
"Oh! then you have a great pleasure before you. Have you all had
gardens?"
"No, no, indeed!"
"You boys must have some at once."
"To dig in ourselves? How jolly!"
"Would you like to see my workshop?" asked their uncle.
Wouldn't they, though? _Any_ thing to work off their steam! Taking
twenty steps when one only was needed, they scampered at his heels, and
arrived, breathless, at a small room in which was a carpenter's bench
in perfect order, a turning-lathe, and other objects, as new to the
boys as Paradise was to Adam.
"Now, I sha'n't want you fellows meddling with my tools," said Mr.
Heath, as the children began to finger and play with whatever they
could lay hands on. "Useful things are not meant for toys. I shall have
another bench made adapted to your height, and whenever you give your
aunty special pleasure, shall give you a tool, till you acquire all you
need."
"Papa hasn't any workshop," said Frank.
"But he's got a bank," said Cil. "Have you a bank, uncle?"
Mr. Heath replied that he had not that article, which greatly relieved
the two.
While this was going on, Mrs. Grey was admiring the babies, lovely
little creatures as need be, and rejoicing over Mabel.
"You will have a hard time with the boys, I am afraid," she said. "Poor
Lily was no more fit to grapple with them than if they were giants."
"I suppose it will be hard, at first. But I already love them with a
new kind of love--the love of possession. To all intents and purposes,
they are mine now. How nice it was that Laura was at Greylock when you
left! You wouldn't have liked to leave Margaret alone so many weeks. To
be sure, she could have come here."
"Not very well, because of her lessons."
"True; I had forgotten that. Now come upstairs, please, and look at the
boys' room."
"Why, you _witch_!" cried Mrs. Grey, "when did you do all this?"
For the room was not only neat and fresh and home-like; it was adorned
with illuminations, pretty engravings, and other agreeable objects
which had cost, not much in money, but a great deal in time.
"If I am a witch I learned it of you, mamma," said Belle. "Besides,
Cyril helped me. He made the bedsteads, and the washstands, and the
brackets, and picture frames. And the illuminations I made years ago.
Don't you remember the mania I had for that sort of thing at one time?"
"I had forgotten it. How nice these upholstered boxes are."
"Yes, Cyril made those, too; and I had chintz left from a piece you
gave me ever so long ago. Come, now, and see my room. It has been
altered since you were here."
"What a pleasant room! How has it been altered?"
"Cyril took away the partition between it and the next one, and put
up this linen-closet. See, isn't it nice. He did it all with his own
hands, and then I painted it."
"Not since the twins came?"
"No, indeed. It was more than a year ago."
"Are these illuminations, also, things of the past, too?"
"Why, yes, mamma. Don't you remember trying to impress those truths on
us children, and having these very illuminations hung at the foot of
our beds, so that we could see them the first thing in the morning?"
"Yes, I do, now you speak of it."
"How many, many times I have read them!"
"'WRONG LIVING LEADS TO WRONG THINKING.'
"'WRONG THINKING LEADS TO WRONG LIVING!'"
"Yes; one whose life is practically wrong will soon form a theory to
adjust to it. And one who starts with a false theory will, inevitably,
end with evil acts."
"Soon after we came here, Cyril preached two sermons, taking those
illuminations for his texts. There were several persons in the
congregation who thought it was no matter what they believed, provided
they were sincere. And there were others who took the ground that they
were just as well off out of the church as in it, and so gradually
slipped back into the world they had promised to forsake. But these are
only specimens of the errors he has had to contend with--growing out of
wrong thinking on the one hand, wrong living on the other. Still, we
have some of the very salt of the earth here."
During all this time Mabel had followed them about, keeping close to
her mother's side, the perfect image of undemonstrative devotion.
"It is you and Maud over again," said Belle, responding to Mrs. Grey's
intelligent glance. "Mabel and I are just in love with each other. The
other children will be home soon. Just look into their bureau-drawers.
Now I have trained them as nearly alike as I could, and see the
difference. Everything in Amy's possession is in apple-pie order; and
unless I see to it every day, Alice keeps hers topsy-turvy."
"Never mind. Habit is second nature. Ah, here they come!"
Two smiling little girls came, somewhat shyly, forward; but grandmamma
soon made them at ease with her.
"Have you seen the babies?" was one of the first questions.
"Yes, indeed. But they are asleep now."
"Which do you think the prettiest, mamma's baby or Mabel's?" was the
next.
"Dear me! I didn't see any difference. They looked exactly alike to me."
"How funny!"
"Run down into the garden, now, my darlings, and find your cousins."
The little ones darted away like gold-fish, and in a few minutes had
renewed their acquaintance with each other.
"Don't you think it would be a good plan, mamma," asked Belle, "to let
the boys run wild for a week before sending them to school? They are
racing in the garden like young colts. Dear me! What is that?"
'_That_' was the sound of four noisy feet rushing up the stairs, with
such a racket as had never been heard in that house. Both babies woke
up in a twinkling, and began to cry.
"Now I shall make short work with that sort of thing," said Belle, as
soon as she had quieted them. "The boys may make as much noise out of
doors as they choose; but such rushing, and tearing, and stamping will
never do within."
"Of course not. It does not add to their happiness or comfort to be
boisterous like that, one iota; and it destroys the peace of the whole
household."
Here came an Indian war-whoop, and bang, bang, bang down-stairs, with a
door slammed tremendously as a _finale_.
"Well, I don't wonder Lily's nerves gave out," said Belle, "if that's
the way she lets the boys tear up and down. Why, our boys never went on
like that."
"No; I would not allow it. If boys are to become gentlemen, they must
begin in the nursery. I have been astonished at the uproar most of them
are allowed to make. One of the first things to teach Frank and Cil,
is, that they are to form the habit of regarding the comfort of the
household."
"I must go down, now, and see about tea," said Belle. "Poor Frank, how
he will miss his boys!"
Shortly after the tea-bell rang, and the three young Greys, their hair
flying, their hands soiled, their feet covered with mud, rushed in,
hungry and eager.
"I want to sit next to grandma," said Gabrielle.
"No, I am going to sit next her," said Frank.
"Neither of you will sit next me with such hands and faces," said Mrs.
Grey. "I thought I convinced you of that before you left home."
The children looked a little crestfallen, and beat a hasty retreat to
their rooms, where they made themselves presentable as fast as they
could.
After tea they were going to rush out again, but Belle detained them.
"I want to tell you something funny before you go out," she said. "Some
years ago--ten, perhaps--I went to visit an institution for the deaf
and dumb, and enjoyed everything I saw. But when school was dismissed,
and the boys came running down-stairs, I did not know but I should
become deaf myself, they made such a noise. I did not know, before,
that one set of fellows made more noise than others; but it seems they
do, because they have no idea of sound. Now, you two young men are not
deaf, and if you choose to listen to yourselves, you will hear what
needless racket you make."
The boys looked in her smiling, kindly, but determined face, and saw
they had no help for it but to give in.
"Alice said she knew we woke the babies this afternoon," said Frank,
"but Cil had got my hat, and run after it, and I tumbled up to take it
away; I'm real sorry I woke the babies."
"Oh, _that's_ not the point. If there wasn't a baby within a mile, I
should not approve of your tearing and shrieking like Indians. You may
have just as much fun and frolic as you like; the more the better; but
I mean to make two little gentlemen of you at the same time. There! be
off with you all into the garden, and have as good a time as you can."
This was one of thousands of lessons that Belle had to teach day after
day, week after week. She made her little sermons as short as she
possibly could, and as quaint; and the mixture of earnestness, and
banter, and fun, with which she assailed their bad habits, told upon
the lads.
But there was work to do below this surface-work. She had to teach
them the life of faith in Christ, a kind of teaching so eminently the
province of woman, and to this end had to efface some impressions
that had been falsely made in their nursery days. Long before they
comprehended her teachings, her courage and patience were put to their
full test. But she was a woman mighty in prayer, and day and night the
name of every child in the house was mentioned singly to God.
Thus wisely and kindly Providence provided a remedy for Frank Grey's
mistaken choice in his wife; thus He will rectify all such errors of
judgment for those who put their trust in Him.