CHAPTER IV.

“When we have quite made up our minds upon what silliness is.  There, the bell has stopped.”

Themost part of church-time Johnnie was eating Nurse Freeman’s plum-cake.  Perhaps this did not make him any easier in the conscience, but he had a very unlucky sentiment, that as he was already naughty and in disgrace, it was of no use to take the trouble of being good till he could make a fresh beginning; and after what the Grevilles had said, he did not think that would be till Papa and Mamma came home; he did not at all mean to give in to a girl that was not even twenty.  So he would not turn to the only wise thing he could have done, the learning of his Collect, but he teased Nurse out of more cake and more, and got what play he could out of little George, and that was not much, for Johnnie was not in a temper to be pleasant with a little one.

Coming home from church, Collects were to be learnt and said before tea: but Hal, after glancing over his own, took up his cap and said, “Come along, Sam, Purday will be feeding the pigs; I want to choose the size of ours.”

“I’ve not done,” said Sam.

“Papa never said we were to say them to Miss Fosbrook.”

“He meant it though,” was all Sam’s answer.  “Don’t hinder me.”

“Well, I’ve no notion of being bound by what people mean,” continued Hal; and no one could imagine the torment he made himself, neither going nor staying, arguing the matter with his elder brother, as if Sam’s coming would justify him, and interrupting everyone; till at last Miss Fosbrook gathered all her spirit, and ordered him either to sit down and learn properly at once, or to go quite away.  She was very much vexed, for Henry had been the most obliging and good-natured of all at first, and likely to be fond of her; but such a great talker could not fail to be weak, and his vanity had been set against her.  He looked saucy at first, and much inclined to resist; if he had seen any sympathy for him in Sam he might have done so, but Miss Fosbrook’s steady eye was too much for him, so he saved his dignity, as he thought, by exclaiming, “I’m sure I don’t want to stay in this stuffy hole with such a set of owls; I shall go to Purday.”  And off he marched.

The others stayed, and said their Collects and Catechism very respectably, all but John, who had not learned the Collect at all, and was sent into another room to finish it, to which he made no resistance; he had had enough of actual fighting with Miss Fosbrook.

Then she offered to read a story to the others, but she found that this was distasteful even to her friend Sam; he thought it stupid to be read to, and said he should see after Hal; David trotted after him, and Susan and Anne repaired to the nursery to play with the little ones and the baby.  She minded it the less, as they all had some purpose; but she had already been vexed to find that all but Davy preferred the most arrant vacant idleness to anything rational.  To be sure, Susan sometimes, Bessie and Hal always, would read any book that made no pretensions to be instructive, but even a fact about a lion or an elephant made them detect wisdom in disguise, and throw it aside.  She thought, however, she would make the most of Bessie, and asked whether she would like to hear reading, or read to herself.

“To myself,” said Bessie; and there was a silence, while Miss Fosbrook, glad of the quiet, began reading herChristian Year.  Presently she heard a voice so low that it seemed at a distance and it made her start, for it was saying “Christabel!” then she almost laughed, for it seemed to have been an audacious experiment, to judge by little Elizabeth’s scared looks and the glow on her cheeks.

“May I say it sometimes when we are alone together?” she said timidly.  “I do like it so much!”

“If it is such a pleasure to you, I would not deprive you of it,” said Miss Fosbrook, laughing; “but don’t do so, except when we are alone, for your Mamma would not like me to seem younger still.”

“Oh, thank you!  Isn’t it a nice secret?” cried Bessie, clinging to her hand: “and will you let me hug you sometimes?”

A little love was pleasant to Miss Fosbrook, when she was feeling lonely, and she took Bessie in her lap, and they exchanged caresses, to the damage of the collar that Miss Fosbrook’s sister had worked for her.

“And you don’t call me silly?” cried Bessie.

“That depends,” was the answer, with some arch fun; but Bessie had not much turn for fun, and presently went on—

“And you saw Ida Greville?”

“Yes.”

“What did you think of her?”

“I had not much opportunity of learning what to think.”

“But her parasol, and her bird!  Did you think her mama very silly to give her pretty things?”

“No, certainly not, unless she wore them at unsuitable times, or thought too much about them.”

“Ida has so many, she does not think of them at all.  And she has shells, and such a lovely work-box, and picture-books; she has all she wants.”

“Are you quite sure?”

“Oh, yes, quite sure! and they don’t tease her for liking pretty things; her brothers keep quite away, and never bother about the schoolroom; but she learns Italian and German, and drawing and singing.  Mr. Greville said something about our spending the day there.  Oh! if we do but go!  Won’t you, Miss Fosbrook?”

“If I am asked, and if your Mamma would wish it.”

“Oh, Mamma always lets us go, except once—when—when—”

“When what?”

“When I cried,” said Elizabeth, hanging down her head; “I couldn’t help it.  It did seem so tiresome here, and she said I was learning to be discontented; but nobody can help wishing, can they?”

“There must be a way of not breaking the Tenth Commandment.”

“I don’t covet; I don’t want to take things away from Ida, only to have the same.”

“Yes; but what does the explanation at the end of the Duty to our Neighbour say, filling out that Commandment?”

“I think I’ll go and see what Susie is doing,” said Elizabeth.

Christabel sighed as the little girl walked off, displeased at having her repinings set before her in a graver light than that in which she had hitherto chosen to regard them.

She saw no more of her charges till tea-time, when the bell brought them from different quarters, Johnnie with such a grimy collar and dirty hands, that he was a very un-Sunday-like figure, and she would have sent him away to make himself decent, but that she was desirous of not over-tormenting him.

Sunday was always celebrated by having treacle with the bread, so the butter riot was happily escaped; and Bessie was not in a gracious mood, and the corners of her mouth provoked the boys to begin on what they knew would make her afford them sport.  Hal first: “I say, Bet, didn’t Purday want his gun to-day at church?”

Elizabeth put out her lip in expectation that something unpleasant was intended, and other voices were not slow to ask an explanation.

“Shooting the cocky-olly birds!”

A general explosion of laughter.

“I say (always the preface to the boy’s wit), shall I get a jay down off the barn to stick into your hat, Betty?”

“Don’t, Hal,” said such a deplorable offended voice, that Sam, who had really held his tongue at first, could not help chiming in,

“No, no; a cock-sparrow, for her London manners.”

“No, that’s for me, Sam,” said Christabel good-humouredly.  “A London-bred sparrow; a pert forward chit.”

She really had found a safety-valve; the boys were entertained, and diverted from their attack on their favourite victim, by finding everyone an appropriate bird; and when they came to “Tomtits” and “Dishwashers,” were so astonished at Miss Fosbrook’s never having seen either, that they instantly fell into the greatest haste to finish their tea, and conduct her into the garden, and through a course of birds, eggs, and nests, about which, as soon as she was assured that there was to be no bird’s-nesting, she was very eager.

Bessie ought to have been thankful that her persecutors were called off, but she was in a dismal mood, and was taken with a fit of displeasure that her own Christabel Angela was following the rabble rout into the garden, instead of staying in the school-room at her service.

The reason of her gloom was, that Miss Fosbrook had spoken a word that she did not choose to take home, and yet which she could not shake off.  So she would neither stay in nor go out cheerfully, and sauntered along looking so piteous, that Johnnie could not help making her worse by plucking at her dress, by suddenly twisting her cape round till the back was in front, and pushing her hat over her eyes, till “Don’t Johnnie,” in a dismal whine, alternated with “I’ll tell Miss Fosbrook.”

Christabel did not see nor hear.  She had gone forward with a boy on either side of her, and Susan walking backwards in front, all telling the story of a cuckoo,—or gowk, as Sara called it in Purday’s language,—which they had found in a water-wagtail’s nest in a heap of stones; how it sat up, constantly gaping with its huge mouth, while the poor little foster-parents toiled to their utmost to keep it supplied with caterpillars, and the last time it was seen, when full-fledged, were trying to lure it to come out of the nest by holding up green palmers at some little distance before it.  This was in the evening; by morning it was gone, having probably taken flight at sunrise.

Miss Fosbrook listened with all the pleasure the boys could desire.  She had read natural history, and looked at birds stuffed in the British Museum, or alive at the Zoological Gardens, on the rare days when her father had time to give himself and his children a treat; and her fresh value and interest in all these country things were delightful to the boys.

It was a lovely summer evening.  The sun was low enough to make the shadows long and refreshing, as they lay upon the blooming grass of the wilderness, softly swaying in the breeze, all pale with its numerous chaffy blossoms, and varied by the tall buttercups that raised up their shining yellow heads, or by white clouds of bold-faced ox-eye daisies.

The pear-trees were like white garlands; the apple-trees covered with white blossoms and rosy buds; the climbing roses on the wall were bursting into blossom; the sky was one blue vault without a cloud.

Surely Elizabeth had no lack here of what was pretty.  Then why did she lag behind, unseeing, unheeding of all, but peevishly pushing off John and Anne, thinking that they always teased her worst on Sundays, and very much discomfited that Miss Fosbrook was not attending to her?  Surely the fault was not altogether in what was outside her.

“See!” cry the boys.  Miss Fosbrook must first look up there, high upon the side of the house, niched behind that thick stem of the vine.  What, can’t she see those round black eyes and little beak? They see her plain enough.  Ah! now she has them.  That’s a fly-catcher.  By and by they shall be able to show her the old birds flying round, catching flies on the wing, and feeding the young ones, all perched in a row.

Now, can she scramble up the laurels?  Yes, she hopes so; though she wished she had known what was coming, for she would have changed her Sunday muslin.  But a look of anxiety came on Sam’s face as he peeped into the clump of laurels; he signed back the others, sprang upon the dark scraggy bough of the tree, and Hal called out,

“Gone! has Ralph been there?”

“Ay, the black rascal; at least, I suppose so.  Not an egg left, and they would have hatched this week!”

“Well, Purday calls him his best friend,” said Harry.  “He says we should not get a currant or a gooseberry if it wasn’t for that there raven, as Papa won’t have the small birds shot.”

“Bring down the nest, Sam,” cried Susan; “Georgy will like to have it.”

The children behind, who never could hear of anything to be had without laying a claim to it, shouted that they wanted the nest; but Sam said Sue had spoken first, and they fell back discontented, and more bent on their unkind sport.  Miss Fosbrook was rather shocked at the tearing out the nest, and asked if the old bird would not have another brood there; but it was explained that a thrush would never return to a forsaken nest; and when Sam came down with it in his hand, she was delighted with the wonderful cup that formed the lining, so smooth and firm a bason formed of dried mud set within the grassy wall.  She had thought that swallows alone built with mud, and had to learn that the swallows used their clay for their outer walls, and down for their lining, whereas the thrush is a regular plasterer.

Sam promised her another thrush to make up for her disappointment, and meantime conducted her to a very untidy old summer-house, the moss of whose roof hung down loose and rough over a wild collection of headless wooden horses, little ships with torn sails, long sticks, battered watering-pots, and old garden tools.  She was desired to look up to one of the openings in the ragged moss, and believe that it housed a kitty wren’s family of sixteen or eighteen; but she had to take this on trust, for to lay a finger near would lead to desertion; in fact, Sam was rather sorry to be able to point out to her, on coming out, the tiny, dark, nutmeg, cock-tailed father kitty, popping in and out of the thorn hedge, spying at the party.

Now then for a wonder as they came out.  Sam waved everybody away—nay, waved is a small word for what he did—shouted, pushed, ordered, would be more like it.  He was going to give Miss Fosbrook such a proof of his esteem as hardly any one enjoyed, not even Hal, twice in the summer.

Everybody submitted to his violent demonstrations, and Christabel followed him to the back of the summer-house.  There stood a large red flower-pot upside down.

“Now, Miss Fosbrook!”

Sam’s finger hooked into the hole at the top.  Off came the flower-pot, and disclosed something flying off with rushing wings, and something confused remaining,—a cluster of grey wings all quill, with gaping yellow mouths here and there opening, a huddling movement always going on in the forlorn heap, as if each were cold, and wanted to be undermost.

“Tits, my tits!” said Sam triumphantly; “they’ve built their nest here three years following.”

“But how do they get in and out?”

“Through the hole.  Take care, I’ll show you one.”

“Won’t you frighten away the bird?”

“Oh dear no!  Ox-eyes aren’t like wrens; I go to them every day.  See!” and he took up in his hand a creature that could just be seen to be intended for a bird, though the long skinny neck was bare, and the tiny quills of the young wings only showed a little grey sprouting feather, as did the breast some primrose-coloured down.  Miss Fosbrook had to part with some favourite cockney notions of the beauty of infant birds, and on the other hand to gain a vivid idea of what is meant by “callow young.”

Sam quickly put his nestling back, and showed her the parent.  She could hardly believe that the handsome bird in the smooth grey coat and bright straw-coloured waistcoat, with the broad jet-black line down the centre, the great white cheeks edged with black, and the bold knowing look, could be like what the little bits of deformity in the nest would soon become.

“Ay, that’s an ox-eye,” said Sam.  “You’ll hear them going on peter—peter—peter—all the spring.”

But Sam was cut short by a loud and lamentable burst of roaring where they had left the party.

Miss Fosbrook hurried back, hearing Hal’s rude laugh as she came nearer, it was Elizabeth, sobbing in the passionate way in which it is not good to see a child cry, and violently shaking off Susan, who was begging her to stop herself before Miss Fosbrook should come.

Whatwasthe matter?

“Oh!  Betty’s nonsense.”

“Johnniedid—”

“Johnnie only—”

“Now, Hal!”

“Tell-tale!”  “Cry-baby!”

“She only cried that Miss Fosbrook might hear.”

So shouted the little Babel, Bessie sobbing resentfully between her words, till Miss Fosbrook, insisting that everybody should be quiet, desired her to tell what had happened.

“Johnnie—Johnnie called me a toad.”

The others all burst out laughing, and Miss Fosbrook, trying to silence them with a frown, said it was very rude of John, but she saw no reason why a girl of Bessie’s age should act so childish a part.

“He’s been teasing me, and so has Anne, all this time!” cried Bessie.  “They’ve been at me ever since I came out, pulling me and plaguing me, and—”

“Well,” said Susan, “I told you to walk in front of Miss Fosbrook, where they could not.”

“I didn’t do anything to her,” said John.

“Now, Johnnie!”

“He only pulled her frock and poked her ankles,” said Anne pleadingly

“Only—and why did you do what she did not like?”

Johnnie looked sturdy and cross.  Anne hung her head; and Elizabeth burst out again,

“They always do—they always are cross to me!  I said I’d tell you, and now they said Ida was a conceited little toad, and stingy Bet was another;” and out burst her howls again.

“A very sad and improper way of spending a Sunday evening,” said Miss Fosbrook, who had really grown quite angry.  “Anne and John, Iwillput an end to this teasing.  Go to bed this instant.”

They did not dare to disobey, but went off slowly with sulky footsteps, muttering to one another that Miss Fosbrook always took pipy Betty’s part; Nurse said so, and they wished Mamma was at home.  And when they came up to the nursery, Nurse pitied them.  She had never heard of a young lady doing such a thing as ordering off two poor dear children to bed for only just saying a word; but it seemed there were to be favourites now.  No, she could not put them to bed; they must wait till Mary came in from her walk; she wasn’t going to put herself out of the way for any fine London governess.

So Johnnie had another conquest over Miss Fosbrook; but Anne was uncomfortable, and went and sat in a corner, wishing she had had her punishment properly over, and kicking her brother away when he wanted to play with her.

As for Bessie, she only cried the more for Miss Fosbrook’s trying to talk to her.  It was a way of hers, perhaps from being less strong than the others, if once she started in a cry she could not leave off.

Susan told Miss Fosbrook so; and the boys tried to drag her on with a promise of a blackbird’s nest; but she thought them unfeeling to such woeful distress, and first tried to reason with Bessie, then to soothe her, till at last, finding all in vain, she thought bed the only place for the child, and led her into the house, helped her, still shaking with sobs, to undress, and was going to see her lie down in the bed which she shared with Susan.  Elizabeth was still young enough to say her prayers aloud.  The words came out in the middle of choking sobs, not as if she were much attending to them.  Miss Fosbrook knelt down by her as she was going to rise, and said in her own words,

“Most merciful God, give unto this Thy child the spirit of content, and the spirit of love, that she may bear patiently all the little trials that hurt and vex her, and win her way as Thy good soldier and servant.  Amen.”

Elizabeth held her breath to listen.  It was new and odd.  She did not like to say Amen; she did not know if the governess were not taking a liberty.  Perhaps it was a new way of telling her she was wrong—Christabel, whom she had thought on her side.

The bad temper woke up, and would not let her offer a friendly kiss.  She hid her face in the pillow, and as soon as Miss Fosbrook had shut the door, went off into a fresh gust of piteous sobs, because Miss Elizabeth Merrifield was the most miserable ill-used child in all the world.

She might be one of the most miserable, but it was not because of her ill-usage, but because she had no spirit to be cheerful, and had turned away from comfort of the right kind.  She was in such a frame as to prefer thinking everyone against her, to supposing that anything she could do would mend matters.

Christabel was much grieved at this unfortunate end to the Sunday evening.  She looked over all the boys’ birds’ eggs—they were allowed to keep two of every sort as curiosities—and listened to some wonderful stories of Henry’s about climbing trees, and shooting partridges, and she kept the remaining children quiet and amused; but she was not happy in her mind.

She thought she must have been wrong in not watching them more closely, and she felt more dislike and indignation against Johnnie than she feared was altogether right in his governess.  Also, she feared to make too much of Elizabeth, and was almost afraid that notice taught her to be still more fretful.  And yet there was a sense of being drawn to her by their two minds understanding each other, by likeness of tastes, by pity, and by a wish to protect one whom her little world oppressed.

Nurse Freeman could not be more afraid of Miss Fosbrook making favourites than she was herself.

All she could do in the matter was that which she had already done at Bessie’s bedside, and much more fully than when the little girl was listening to her.

WithMonday morning began the earning of the pig.  Miss Fosbrook’s first business after prayers was to deal out the week’s allowance—sixpence to each of the four elders, threepence apiece to the three younger ones.

“May there be no fines,” she said.

“I’ll not have the hundredth part of a fine!” shouted Henry, tossing his money into the air.

Little David’s set lips expressed the same purpose.

“Please let me have a whole sixpence,” said Susan.  “If I haven’t any change, I sha’n’t spend it.”

“You, Sukey! you’d better have the four farthings,” laughed Sam.  “You’ll be the first to want them.”

Susan laughed; and Miss Fosbrook, partly as an example to the plaintive Elizabeth, said, “You are so good-humoured, Susie, that I can’t find it in my heart to demand a fine—or—your hair; and there,” pointing to the stout red fingers, “did you ever behold such a black little row?”

“Oh dear!” cried Susan, in her good-humoured hearty voice, “how tiresome, when they weresoclean this morning, and I’ve only just been feeding the chicken, and up in the hay-loft for the eggs, and pulling the radishes!”

“Well, go and wash and brush, and to-morrow remember the pig,” said Miss Fosbrook, unable to help comparing the radishes and the fingers for redness and for earthiness.

It was a more difficult matter when, as Elizabeth put her silver coin into her purse, John must needs repeat the stupid old joke, “There goes stingy Bet!” and Bessie put on her woeful appealing face.

“John, I shall punish you if I hear those words again.”

“I don’t mind.  Nurse says you have no business to punish me!  She did not put me to bed; and I had such fun!  Oh, such fun!” and the boy looked up with a grin that set all the others laughing.

Christabel resolutely kept silence, and hoped her looks did not show her annoyance, as the boy went on, “I got lots of goodies, for Nurse said she had no notion of no stranger punishing her children.  Oh!  Oh!  Oh!”  For Samuel had hold of his ear, and was tweaking it sharply.

“There!  Go and tell Nurse, if you like, baby!”

“Sam, indeed I can’t have my battles fought in that way!” cried the governess, much distressed, as Johnnie roared, perhaps that old Nurse might hear, and, to all attempts to find out whether he were hurt, offered only heels and fists, till Susan came back and hugged him into quiet.

“Now Johnnie has cried before breakfast on a Monday morning,” said Annie, “all the rest of the week will go wrong with him.”

“Indeed,” said Miss Fosbrook, “I hope no such thing.—Suppose we try and show Annie she is wrong, Johnnie!”

But Johnnie was sulky, and even Susan looked as if she thought this a new and dangerous notion.  Sam laughed, and said, “I wish you joy, Miss Fosbrook.  Now he’ll think he must be naughty.”

“Johnnie,” said David solemnly, “the pig.”

The pig was a very good master of the ceremonies, and kept all elbows off the table at breakfast-time; and Bessie, who was apt to stick fast in the midst of her bread and milk, and fall into disgrace for daintiness and dawdling, finished off quietly and prosperously.

Then every one was turned loose till nine o’clock.  Susan had charge of Mamma’s keys, and had to go down to the kitchen, see what the cook wanted, and put it out, but only on condition that no brother or sister ever went with her to the store-closet.  Susan was highly trustworthy, but Mamma was too wise to let her be tempted by voices begging for one plum, one almond, or the last spoonful of Jam.  It took away a great deal of the pleasure of jingling the keys, and having a voice in choosing the pudding.

The two elder boys went to their tutor, the other children to the nursery, except Elizabeth, who was rummaging in her little box, and David, whom Miss Fosbrook found perched on the ledge of the window, reading a book that did not look as if it were meant for men of his size.

But Miss Fosbrook thought David like the oldest person in the house—infinitely older than John, who could do nothing better than he except running and bawling, and a good deal older than even Hal and Sam.  Nay, there were times when he raised his steady eyes and slowly spoke out his thoughts, when she felt as if he were much more wise and serious than her twenty-years old self.

“Well, Davy,” she asked, as at the sound of the lesson-bell the little old man uncrossed his sturdy legs, closed his book, and arose with a sigh, “have you found out all about it?”

“I have found out why a pig is a profitable investment,” he answered gravely.

“And why?”

“Because he will feed upon refuse, and fatten upon cheap food,” said David, in the words of his book; “only I can’t make out why.  Do you know, Miss Fosbrook?”

“I don’t quite see what you want to know, Davy.”

“I want to know why a pig gets fat on barley-meal, when an ox wants mange, and oil-cake and hay.  I asked Nurse, and she said little boys mustn’t ask questions; and I asked Purday, and he said it was because pigs is pigs, and oxen is oxen.  Why do you think it is, Miss Fosbrook?”

“I don’t think; I know it is because the great God has made one sort of creature to be easily fed, and made good for poor people to live upon,” said Miss Fosbrook.

David’s eyes were fixed on her as if he still had questions to ask, and she was quite afraid of her powers of answering them, for he was new in the world, and saw the strangeness of many things to which older people become used by living with them, but which are not the less strange for all that.

However, the trampling of many feet put an end to question and answer, and the day’s work had to begin with the Psalms, and reading the Morning Lessons.  Bessie was by far the best reader; and David did very well, though he made very long stops to look deliberately at any long new word, and could not bear to be told before he had mastered it for himself.  Even Susan was sadly given to gabbling and missing the little words that she thought beneath her attention; and the other two stumbled so horribly, that it was pain to hear them.

This beginning might be taken as the sign of how all would do their lessons.  It is only a child here and there, generally a lonely one, to whom lessons can be anything but a toil and an obligation.  Even with clever ones, who may be interested in some part of their study, some other branch will be disagreeable; and there is nothing in the whole world to be learnt without drudgery, so it would be unreasonable to expect lessons to be regarded as delightful; but there is one thing that is to be expected of any good child—not to enjoy lessons; not to surpass others; not to do anything surprising; only to make a conscience of doing what is required as well as possible.

Now do not many children seem to think that they are to receive as little as they can possibly take in without being punished; or that, if they make any exertion, their teachers ought to be so much obliged to them, that some great praise or reward is due to them?

Let us see whether anyone in Stokesley school-room was making a conscience of the day’s tasks.  It is not of much use to ask for any at present in Johnnie—not for a whole week, as Annie would declare; he does not know his single Latin declension; his spelling, is all abroad; his geography wild; yet though turned back once, he misses the fine by just saying his lessons passably the last time.  They perhaps ought, in strict justice, to have been sent back; but Miss Fosbrook was very glad to be saved the uproar that would have ensued, and almost wondered whether she were not timidly merciful to the horrible copy and the greasy slate.  But Johnnie had no fine, and was as proud of it as if he had been a good boy.  “She hadn’t caught him out,” he said, as if his kind governess had been his enemy.

As to Annie, her French verbs were always dreadful things to hear, and the little merry face, usually so bright, used to grow quite deplorable with the trouble she took not to use her mind.  Using her memory was bad enough, but saying things by heart was an affliction she was used to, and it was very shocking of Miss Fosbrook to require her to find outhowmany years Richard II. had reigned, if he began in 1377 and ended in 1399.  Susan prompted her, however; so she really got a triumph over Miss Fosbrook, and was quite saved from thinking.  Oh, but the teasing woman! she silenced Susan, and would have this poor injured Annie tell how old the tiresome man was.  “Began to reign at eleven years old, dethroned after twenty-two years; how old was he?”  Annie found bursting out crying easier than thinking, and then they all cried out, “O Nanny, the pig!” and Miss Fosbrook had the barbarity to call thatfoolishcrying!  What might one cry for, if not at being asked how old Richard II. was?  If the fine must be paid, there was no use in stopping; so Annie howled till Miss Fosbrook turned her out to finish on the stairs; and as Nurse Freeman was out with the little ones, there was no one to comfort her; so she cried till she was tired, and when the noise ceased, Susan was allowed to come and coax her, and fetch her back to go on with her copy, as soon as her hand was steady enough.  She felt very foolish by this time, and thought David eyed her rather angrily and contemptuously; so she crept quietly to her corner, and felt sad and low-spirited all the rest of the morning.  Now that thirty-three had come into her head, it seemed so stupid not to have thought of it in time; and then she would have saved her farthing, and her eyes would not have been so hot.

Maybe, too, Susan’s French phrases would not have been turned back.  Miss Fosbrook would have given a great deal not to have been obliged to do it, but she had prompted flagrantly already, and a teacher is obliged to have a conscience quite as much as a scholar; so the book was given back, and Susan spent twelve minutes in see-sawing herself, and going over the sentences in a rapid whispering gabble, a serious worry to the governess in listening to Bessie’s practising and David’s reading, but she thought it would be a hardship to be forbidden to learn in her own way at that moment, and forbore.  David was interrupted in his “Little Arthur’s History,” and looked rather cross about it, for Susan to try again.  She made all the same blunders—and more too!  Back again!  Poor Susie!  Once, twice, thrice, has she read those stupid words over, and knows less of them than before.  Davy’s loud voice will go into her understanding instead of those French phrases.  She looks up in dull stupefaction.

William Rufus is disposed of, and David, as grave as a judge, is taking up his slate, looking a little fussed because there is a scratch in the corner.  “Well, Susan,” says Miss Fosbrook.

Susan jumps up in desperation, and puts her hands behind her.  Oh dear! oh dear! all that the gentlemen on a journey were saying to one another has gone clean out of her head!

She cannot recollect the three first words.  She only remembers that this is the third time, and another farthing is gone!  She stands and stares.

“Susan,” says Miss Fosbrook severely, “you never tried to learn this.”

Susan gives a little gasp; and Elizabeth, who has said her French without a blunder, puts in an unnecessary and not very sisterly word: “Susan never will learn her French.”

Susan’s honest eyes fill with tears, but she gulps them back.  She will not cry away another farthing, but she does feel it very cross in Bessie, and she is universally miserable.

Christabel feels heated, wearied, and provoked, and as if she were fast losing her own temper; and that made her resolve on mercy.

“Susie,” she said with an effort, “run twice to the great lime-tree and back.  Then take the book into my room, read this over three times, and we will try again.”

Susan looked surprised, but she obeyed, came back, and repeated the phrases better than she had ever said French before.  She was absolutely surprised and highly pleased, and she finished off her other lessons swimmingly; but oh, she was glad to be rid of them!  Yes, they were off her mind, and so she deserved that they should be!  She flew away to the nursery, and little Sarah was soon crowing in her arms.

Elizabeth?  Not a blunder in French verbs or geography—very tidy copy.  French reading good; English equally so, only it ended in a pout, because there was not time for her to go on to see what became of Carthage; and she was a most intolerable time in learning her poetry out of the book of Readings, or rather she much preferred reading the verses in other parts of the book to getting perfect in her lesson, and then being obliged to turn her mind to arithmetic.  Miss Fosbrook called her three times; and at last she turned round peevishly at being interrupted in the middle of the “Friar of Orders Gray,” and repeated her twenty lines of Cowper’s “Winter’s Walk” in a doleful whine, though without a blunder.

It was one of the horrible novelties that Miss Fosbrook was bringing in, that she expected people to understand their sums as well as work them.  She gave much shorter ones, to be sure, than Mamma, who did sometimes set a long multiplication sum of such a huge size, that it looked as if it were meant to keep the victim out of the way; but who would not prefer casting up any length of figures, to being required to explain the meaning of “carrying”?

Really, if it had not been for the pig, that shocking question might have led to a mutiny in the school-room.  When it was bad enough to do the thing, how could anyone ask what was meant by the operation, and why it was performed?

What did Bessie do when her sum was being overlooked?  Miss Fosbrook read on: “4 from 8, 4; 7 from 1—how’s this, Bessie?  7 from 10 are—”

“3, and 1 are 4,” dolorously, as her 3 was changed.

“Now then, what next?”

“Carry one.”

“What did I tell you was meant by carry one?”

“The tens,” said Bessie, not in the least thinking “the tens” had anything to do with the matter, but only that she had heard something about them, and could thus get rid of the subject.

“Now, Bessie, what tens can you possibly mean?  Think a little.”

“I’m sure you said tens once,” said injured innocence.

“That was in an addition sum.  See, here it is quite different.  I told you.”

Bessie put on a vacant stare.  She was not going to attend to what she did not like.

Miss Fosbrook saw the face.  She absolutely shrank from provoking another fit of crying, and went quickly through the explanation.  She saw that her words might as well have been spoken to the slate.  Bessie neither listened nor took them in.  Not all her love for her dear Christabel Angela could stir her up to make one effort contrary to her inclinations.  The slate was given back to her, she wiped out the sum in a pet, and ran away.

Miss Fosbrook turned round, David, whose lessons had been perfectly repeated an hour ago, was sitting cross-legged in the window, with his slate and pencil, and a basket of bricks, his great delight, which he was placing in rows.

“Miss Fosbrook,” said he, “isn’t this it?  Twelve bricks; take away those seven, then—1, 2, 3, 4, 5—the twelve is only 5: the 10 is gone, isn’t it? so you must leave one out of the next figure in the upper line of the sum.”

Now Davy had only begun arithmetic on the governess’s arrival, but he had learnt numeration and addition in her way.  She was so delighted, that she stooped down and kissed him, saying, “Quite right, my little man.”

Davy rather disapproved of the kiss, and rubbed his brown-holland elbow over his face, as if to clear it off.

“Well,” thought Christabel, as she hurried away for five minutes’ peace in her own room before the dinner-bell, “it is a comfort to have one pupil whose whole endeavour is not to frustrate one’s attempts to educate him.”

Poor young thing! that one little bit of sense had quite cheered her up.  Otherwise she was not one whit less weary than the children.  She had been learning a very tough lesson too—much harder than any of theirs; and she was not at all certain that she had learnt it right.

Now, readers, of all the children, who do you think had used the most conscience at the lessons?

Whatan entirely different set of beings were those Stokesley children in lesson-time and out of it!  Talk of the change of an old thorn in winter to a May-bush in spring! that was nothing to it!

Poor, listless, stolid, deplorable logs, with bowed backs and crossed ankles, pipy voices and heavy eyes!  Who would believe that these were the merry, capering, noisy creatures, full of fun and riot, clattering and screeching, and dancing about with ecstasy at Sam’s information that there was a bonfire by the potato-house!

“A bonfire!” said the London governess, thinking of illuminations; “what can that be for?”

“Oh, it is notforanything,” said Susan; “it is Purday burning weeds.  Don’t you smell them?  How nice they are!  I was afraid it was only Farmer Smith burning couch.”

All the noses were elevated to scent from afar a certain smoky odour, usually to be detected in July breezes, and which reminded Miss Fosbrook of a brick-field.

“Potatoes!  Potatoes!  We’ll roast some potatoes, and have them for tea!” bellowed all the voices; so that Miss Fosbrook could hardly find a space for very unwillingly saying,

“But, my dears, I don’t know whether I ought to let you play with fire.”

“Oh, we always do,” roared the children; and Susan added,

“We always roast potatoes when there’s a bonfire.  Mamma always lets us; it is only Purday that is cross.”

“Yes, yes; Mamma lets us.”

“Well, if Sam and Susan say it is right, I trust to them,” said Miss Fosbrook gladly; “only you must let me come out and see what it is.  I am too much of a Londoner to know.”

“Oh yes; and we’ll roast you some potatoes.”

So the uproarious population tumbled upstairs, there to be invested with rougher brown-holland garments than those that already concealed the sprigged cottons of the girls; and when the five came down again, they were so much alike in dress, that it was not easy to tell girls from boys.  Susan brought little George down with her, and off the party set.  Sam and Hal, who had been waiting in the hall, took Miss Fosbrook between them, as if they thought it their duty to do the honours of the bonfire, and conducted her across the garden, through the kitchen-garden, across which lay a long sluggish bar of heavy and very odorous smoke, to a gate in a quickset hedge.  Here were some sheds and cart-houses, a fagot pile, various logs of timber, a grindstone, and—that towards which all the eight children rushed with whoops of ecstasy—a heap of smoking rubbish, chiefly dry leaves, and peas and potato haulm, with a large allowance of cabbage stumps—all extremely earthy, and looking as if the smouldering smoke were a wonder from so mere a heap of dirt.

No matter!  There were all the children round it, some on their knees, some jumping; and voices were crying on all sides,

“O jolly, jolly!”  “I’ll get some potatoes!”  “Oh, you must have some sticks first, and make some ashes.”  “There’s no flame—not a bit!”  “Get out of the way, can’t you?  I’ll make a hot place.”  “We’ll each have our own oven, and roast our own potatoes!”  “Don’t, Sam; you’re pushing me into the smoke!”

This of course was from Elizabeth; and there followed, “Don’t, Bessie, you will tread upon Georgie.—Yes, Georgie, youshallhave a place.”

“Sticks, sticks!” shouted Henry; while Sam was on his knees, poking out a species of cavern in the fire, where some symptoms of red embers appeared, which he diligently puffed with his mouth, feeding it with leaves and smaller chips in a very well practised way.  “Sticks, Annie!  Johnnie!  Davy! get sticks, I say, and we’ll make an oven.”

Annie obeyed; but the two little boys were intent on imitating Sam on another side of the fire, and Johnnie uttered a gruff “Get ’em yourself,” while David took no notice at all.

Perhaps Hal would have betaken himself to no gentle means if Susan had not hastily put in his way a plentiful supply of dead wood, which she had been letting little George think he picked up all himself; and there was keen excitement, which Christabel could not help sharing, while under Sam’s breath the red edges of the half-burnt chip glowed, flushed, widened, then went sparkling doubtfully, slowly, to the light bit of potato-stalk that he held to it, glowing as he blew—fading, smoking, when he took breath.  Try again—puff, puff, puff diligently; the fire evidently has a taste for the delicate little shaving that Annie has found for it; it seizes on it; another—another; a flame at last.  Hurrah! pile on more; not too much.  “Don’t put it out!”  Oh, there! strong flame—coming crackling up through those smothering heaps of stick and haulm; it won’t be kept down; it rises in the wind; it is a red flaring banner.  The children shriek in transports of admiration, little George loudest of all, because Susan is holding him tight, lest he should run into the brilliant flame.  Miss Fosbrook is rather appalled, but the children are all safe on the windward side, and seem used to it; so she supposes it is all right, and the flame dies down faster than it rose.  It is again an innocent smouldering heap, like a volcano after an eruption.

“We must not let it blaze again just yet,” said Sam; “keep it down well with sticks, to make some nice white ashes for the potatoes.  See, I’ll make an oven.”

They were all stooping round this precious hot corner, some kneeling, some sitting on the ground, David with hands on his sturdy knees—all intent on nursing that creeping red spark, as it smouldered from chip to chip, leaving a black trace wherever it went, when through the thick smoke, that was like an absolute curtain hiding everything on the farther side, came headlong a huge bundle of weeds launched overwhelmingly on the fire, and falling on the children’s heads in an absolute shower, knocking Johnnie down, but on a soft and innocent side of the fire among the cabbage-stumps, and seeming likely to bury Sam, who leant over to shelter his precious oven, and puffed away as if nothing was happening, amid the various shouts around him, in which “Purday” was the most audible word.

“Ah, so you’ve got at he, after all,” said Purday, leaning on the fork with which he had thrown on the weeds.  “Nothing is safe from you.”

“What, you thought you had a new place, Purday, and circumvented us!” cried Hal; “but we smelt you out, you old rogue; we weren’t going to be baulked of our bonfire.”

Miss Fosbrook here ventured on asking if they were doing mischief; and Purday answered with an odd gruff noise, “Mischief enough—ay, to be sure—hucking the fire all abroad.  It’s what they’re always after.  I did think I’d got it safe out of their way this time.”

“Then,” in rather a frightened voice, for she felt that it would be a tremendous trial of her powers, “should I make them come away?”

“Catch her!” muttered Hal.

There was horror and disapprobation on Susan’s face.  Annie stood with her mouth open; while John, throwing himself on the ground with fury, rolled over, crying out something about, “I won’t,” and “very cross;” and David lay flat on his face, puffing at his own particular oven, like a little Wind in an old picture.  Sam waited, leaning on the ashen stick that served him as a poker.  It was the most audacious thing he had ever heard.  Rob them of their bonfire!  Would that old traitor of a Purday abet her?

Perhaps Purday was as much astonished as the rest; but, after all, much as the children tormented his bonfires, overset his haycocks, and disturbed his wood-pile, he did not like anyone to scold them but himself, much less the new London Lady; so he made up an odd sort of grin, and said, “No, no, Ma’am, it ain’t that they do so much harm; let ’em bide;” and he proceeded to shake on the rest of his barrowful, tumbling the weeds down over David’s cherished oven in utter disregard; but the children cried with one voice, “Hurrah! hurrah!  Purday, we don’t do any harm, so don’t ever grumble again.  Hurrah!”

“And I don’t care forher, the crosspatch,” said Johnnie to Annie, never hearing or heeding Miss Fosbrook’s fervent “I am so glad!”

And as long as the foolish boy remembered it, he always did believe that Miss Fosbrook was so cross as to want to hinder them from their bonfire, only Purday would not let her.

Miss Fosbrook did not trouble herself to be understood; she was relieved to have done her duty, and be free to rejoice in and share the pleasure.  She ran about and collected materials for Sam till she was out of breath, and joined in all the excitement as the fire showed symptoms of reviving, after being apparently crushed out by Purday.  Sam and Susan, at least, believed that she had only spoken to Purday because she thought it right; but even for them to forgive interference with their bonfire privileges was a great stretch.

At last she thought it time to leave them to their own devices, and seize the moment for some quiet reading; but she had not reached the house before little steps came after her, and she saw Elizabeth running fast.

“They are so tiresome,” she said.  “Sam won’t let me stand anywhere but where the smoke gets into my eyes, and George plagues so!  May I come in with you, dear Christabel?”

“You are very welcome,” said Miss Fosbrook, “but I am sorry to hear so many complaints.”

“They are so cross to me,” said Bessie; “they always are.”

“You must try to be cheerful and good-humoured with them, and they will leave off vexing you.”

“But may I come in?  It will be a nice time for my secret.”

Christabel saw little hope for her intended reading, but she was always glad of a space for making Bessie happy, so she kindly consented to the bringing out of the little girl’s treasury, and the dismal face grew happy and eager.  The subjects of the drawings were all clear in her head; that was not the difficulty, but the cardboard, the ribbon, the real good paints.  One little slip of card Miss Fosbrook hunted out of her portfolio; she cut a pencil of her own, and advised the first attempt to be made upon a piece of paper.  The little bird that Bessie produced was really not at all bad, and her performance was quite fair enough to make it worth while to go on, since Miss Fosbrook well knew that mammas are pleased with works of their children, showing more good-will than skill.  For why?  Their value is in the love and thought they show.

The little bird was made into a robin with the colours in a paint-box that Bessie had long ago bought; but they were so weak and muddy, that the result was far from good enough for a present, and it was agreed that real paints must be procured as well as ribbon.  Miss Fosbrook offered to commission her sisters to buy the Prussian blue, lake, and gamboge in London, and send them in a letter.  This was a new idea to Bessie, and she was only not quite decided between the certainty that London paints must be better than country ones, and the desire of the walk to Bonchamp to buy some; but the thought that the ribbon, after all, might be procured there, satisfied her.  The little doleful maid was changed into an eager, happy, chattering child, full of intelligence and contrivance, and showing many pretty fancies, since there was no one to tease her and laugh at her; and her governess listened kindly and helpfully.

Miss Fosbrook could not help thinking how much happier her little companion would have been as an only child, or with one sister, and parents who would have made the most of her love of taste and refinement, instead of the hearty busy parents, and the rude brothers and sisters, who held her cheap for being unlike themselves.  But then she bethought her, that perhaps Bessie might have grown up vain and affected, had all these tastes been petted and fostered, and that perhaps her little hardships might make her the stronger, steadier, more useful woman, instead of living in fancies.  It was the unkindness on one side, and the temper on the other, that made Miss Fosbrook uneasy.

The work had gone on happily for nearly an hour, and Bessie was copying a forget-me-not off a little painted card-board pincushion of her own, when steps were heard, little trotting steps, and Susan came in with little George.  He had been pushed down by Johnnie, and was rather in a fretful mood; and Susan had left all her happy play to bring him in to rest and comfort him, coming to the school-room because Nurse Freeman was out.  Before Elizabeth had time to hide away her doings, George had seen the bright pincushion, and was holding out his hands for it.  Bessie hastily pocketed it.  George burst out crying; and Susan, without more ado, threw herself on her sister, and, pinioning Bessie’s slight arm by the greater strength of her firm one, was diving into her pocket in spite of her struggles.

“Susan, leave off,” said Miss Fosbrook; “let your sister alone.  She has a right to do what she likes with her own.”

“It is so cross in her,” said Susan, obeying however, but only to snatch up little George, and hug and kiss him.  “Poor dear little man! is Betty cross to him?  There! there! come with Sue, andshe’llget him something pretty.”

“Susie, Susie, indeed it’s only that I don’t want him to spoil it,” said Elizabeth, distressed.

“A foolish thing like that!  Why, the only use of it is to please the children; but you are just such a baby as he is,” said Susan, still pitying George.

“You had better put your things away, Bessie,” said Miss Fosbrook, interfering to stop the dispute; and as soon as Elizabeth was gone, and George a little pacified by an ivory ribbon-measure out of Miss Fosbrook’s work-box, she observed to Susan, “My dear, you must not let your love for the little ones make you unjust and unkind to Bessie.”

“She always is so unkind to them,” said Susan resentfully.

“I don’t think she feels unkindly; but if you tyrannize over her, and force her to give way to them, you cannot expect her to like it.”

“Mamma says the elder must give way to the younger,” said Susan.

“You did not try whether she would give way.”

“No, because I knew she wouldn’t; and I could not have my little Georgie vexed.”

“And I could not see my little Susie violent and unjust,” said Miss Fosbrook cheerfully.  “Justice first, Susan; you had no right to rob Bessie for George, any more than I should have to give away a dinner of your papa’s because he had refused a beggar.”

“Papa never would,” said Susan, rather going off from the point.

“Very likely; but do you understand me, Susan?  I will not have Bessieforcedout of her rights for the little ones.  Not Bessie only, but nobody is to be tyrannized over; it is not right.”

“Bessie is so nonsensical,” was all Susan said, looking glum.

“Very likely she may seem so to you; but if you knew more, you would see that all is not nonsense that seems so to you.  Some people would admire her ways.”

“Yes, I know,” said Susan.  “Mrs. Greville told Mrs. Brownlow that Bessie was the only one among us that was capable of civilisation; but Mrs. Greville is a fine lady, and we always laugh at her.”

“And now,” as Bessie returned, “you want to go out to your play again, my dear.  Will you leave Georgie with us?”

Susan was a little doubtful about trusting her darling with anyone, especially one who could take Bessie’s part against him; but she wished exceedingly to be present at the interesting moment of seeing whether the potatoes were done enough, and George was perfectly contented with measuring everything on the ribbon, so she ran quickly off, without the manners to thank Miss Fosbrook, but to assure the rest of the party that the governess really was very good-natured, and that she would save her biggest and best potato for Miss Fosbrook’s tea.

Christabel managed very happily with little George, though not quite without offending Elizabeth, who thought it very hard to be desired to put away her painting instead of tantalizing her little brother with the sight of what he must not have.  Miss Fosbrook could not draw her into the merry game with little George, which made his shouts of glee ring out through the house, and meet Nurse Freeman’s ear as she came in-doors with the baby, and calling at the school-room door, summoned him off to his tea, as if she were in a pet with Miss Fosbrook for daring to meddle with one ofherown nursery children.

Nothing more was heard of the others, and Christabel and Elizabeth both read in peace till the tea-bell rang, and they went down and waited and waited, till Miss Fosbrook accepted Bessie’s offer of going out to call the rest.  But Bessie returned no more than the rest; and the governess set forth herself, but had not made many steps before the voices of the rabble rout were heard, and they all were dancing and clattering about her, while Susan and Hal each carried aloft a plate containing articles once brown, now black, and thickly powdered with white ashes, as were the children themselves up to their very hair.

As a slight concession to grown-up people’s prejudices, they did, at the risk of their dear potatoes getting cold, scamper up to perform a species of toilette, and then sat down round the tea-table, Susie, David, and Sam each vociferous that Miss Fosbrook should eat “my potato that I did on purpose for her.”  Poor Miss Fosbrook! she would nearly as soon have eaten the bonfire itself as those cinder-coated things, tough as leather outside, and within like solid smoke.  Indeed the children, who had been bathing in smoke all day, had brought in the air of it with them; but their tongues ran fast on their adventures, and their taste had no doubt that their own bonfire potatoes were the most perfect cookery in art!  Miss Fosbrook picked out the most eatable bits of each of the three, and managed to satisfy the three cooks, all zealous for their own.  Other people’s potatoes might be smoky, but each one’s own was delicious—“quite worthy of the pig when he was bought,” thought Miss Fosbrook; but she made her real pleasure at the kind feeling to cover her dislike of the black potatoes, and thus pleased the children without being untrue.

“Line upon line, precept upon precept; here a little, and there a little.”  That is the way habits are formed and characters made; not all at once.  So there had been an opportunity for Susan to grow confirmed in her kindness and unselfishness, as well as to learn that tyranny is wrong, even on behalf of the weak; and Bessie, if she would take home the lesson, had received one in readiness to be cheerful, and to turn from her own pursuits to oblige others.  Something had been attempted toward breaking her habit of being fretful, and thinking herself injured.  It remained to be seen whether the many little things that were yet to happen to the two girls would be so used as to strengthen their good habits or their bad ones.

Itis not worth while to go on describing every day at Stokesley, since lessons were far too much alike; and play-times, though varied enough for the house of Merrifield, might be less entertaining to the readers.

Enough to say, that by Saturday afternoon John had not only forfeited his last farthing, but was charged with another into next week, for the poor pleasure of leaving his hat on the school-room floor because Elizabeth had told him of it.  At about four o’clock it set in for rain, catching the party at some distance from home, so that, though they made good speed, the dust turned into mud, and clung fast to their shoes.

David, never the best runner, was only in time to catch Johnnie by the skirt upon the third step of the staircase, crying out, “The pig!” but Johnnie, tired of the subject, and in a provoking mood, twitched away his pinafore, crying, “Bother the pig!” and rushed up after the four who had preceded him, leaving such lumps of dirt on the edge of every step, that when Miss Fosbrook came after with Elizabeth she could not but declare that a shower was a costly article.

“You see,” observed Susan, “when it’s such fine weather it puts one’s feet out of one’s head.”

While Sam, Henry, and Bessie were laughing at Susan for this speech, little George trotted in, crying out, “Halty man come, Halty man come; Georgie want sweetie!”

“The Gibraltar man!” cried John and Annie with one voice, and they were at the bottom of the stairs with a bound.

“Oh, send him away, send him away.  They’ll spend all their money, and there will be none left!” was David’s cry; while George kept dragging his eldest sister’s frock, with entreaties of “Susie, Susie, come.”

“They call him the Gibraltar man, because he sells Gibraltar rock, and gingerbread, and all those things,” said Henry in explanation.  “We have always dealt with him; and he is very deserving; and his wife makes it all—at least I know she makes ginger-beer—so we must encourage him.”

So Henry hastened downstairs to encourage the Gibraltar man; and Susan, saying soothingly, “Yes, yes, Georgie;—never mind Davie, we’ll make up for it; I can’t vex him,” had taken the little fellow in her arms and followed.

“Pigs enough here, without sending to the fair,” muttered Sam.

“Please, Sam, please, Miss Fosbrook, send the Gibraltar man away, and don’t let him come,” cried David quite passionately.  “Nasty man! he will come every Saturday, and they’ll always spend all their money.”

“But, my friend,” said Miss Fosbrook good-humouredly, “suppose we have no right to banish the Gibraltar man?”

“Idon’t wan’t him,” said Bessie; “it makes my fingers sticky.”

“You’re no good,” said David vehemently.  “I don’t like you, and I hate the Gibraltar man, taking away all our money from poor Hannah.”

“Gently, gently, Davie; nobody makes you spend your money; and perhaps the poor man has children of his own who want food as much as Hannah’s do.”

“Then can’t they eat the Gibraltar rock and bulls’ eyes?”

Sam suggested that this diet would make them sick; to which poor little earnest David answered, that when once the pig was bought, he would give all his money for a whole month to the Gibraltar man, if he would not come for the next four weeks.

And Christabel thought of what she had once read, that people would often gladly put away from their children friends the very trials that are sent by Heaven to prove and strengthen their will and power of resisting self-indulgence.  Before she had quite thought it out, the quick steps were back again, and Sam greeted the entrance of John thus: “Well, if that isn’t a shame!  Have you been and done Sukey out of all that, Jack?”

“It was only three bulls’ eyes,” said Susan, following.  “You know he had nothing of his own, and it was so hard, and Annie gave him some.”

“And Nurse some,” added Hal.  “Trust Jackie for taking care of himself.”  Well he might say so, considering how full were John’s mouth, hands, and pockets.

“And Davie has had nothing!” said kind Susan.  “Here, Davie!” holding out to him an amber-like piece of barley-sugar.

“I don’t want your stuff,” said David roughly.  “You’ve spent all away from the pig.”

“No, Davie, indeed, only twopence,” said Susan; “pray have a bit.”

“You might at least say thank you,” said Miss Fosbrook.

But how difficult is that middle road which is the only right one!  David, being too much set on one single purpose, good though it was, could see nothing else.  It was right and generous to abstain from sweets with this end in view; but it was wrong to be rude and unthankful to the sister who meant all so kindly, and was the most unselfish of all.  She turned round to Elizabeth with the kind offer of the dainty she had not even tasted herself, but was not more graciously treated.

“How can you, Susie? it is all pulled about with your fingers.”

This was a matter on which the Misses and Masters Merrifield were not wont to be particular; and with one of the teasing laughs that Bessie hated, Sam exclaimed as Susan turned to him, “Yes, thank you, Sukey,Idon’t mind finger sauce,” but not before John was stretching out a hand glazed with sugar, and calling out, “Oh, give it to me!” and as it disappeared in his brother’s mouth, he burst out angrily, “How cross, Sam!  You did that on purpose!”

“Yes,” said Sam, “I did; for though pigs on four legs are all very well, I don’t like pigs on two.”

“Here, Jackie, never mind,” said Susan, seeing him about to begin to cry, and offering him her last sugar-plum.

“I don’t want sugar-plums, I want barley-sugar,” said John devouring it nevertheless.

“I haven’t one bit more,” said Susan regretfully.

“Have you had any yourself, Susan?” asked Sam.

“No; but I didn’t want any.”

“Oh then, here Susie, I always keep a reserve,” said Henry.  “No, no, not you, Jack; I don’t feed little pigs, whatever Susie does.”

And in spite of Susan, both the elder brothers set on John, teasing him about his greediness, till he burst out crying, and ran away to the nursery.  Miss Fosbrook hated the teasing, but she thought it served John so rightly, that she would not save him from it; and she only interfered to remind the others that their fingers would bring them in for fines unless they were washed before tea.

“And how much have you spent?” reproachfully asked that rigid young judge, David; but all the answer he got was a pull by the hair from Hal, and “Hollo, young one! am I to give my accounts to you?”

David gravely put up his hand and smoothed his ruffled locks, repeating, in his manful way, “I want to know what you have left for the pig?”

Whereupon Hal laid hold of him, pulled him off the locker, and rolled him about on the floor like a puppy dog, crying, “I’ll tell you what, if you make such a work about it, I’ll spend all my allowance, and not subscribe at all.”

“Sam!” cried the tormented David, and “Sam!” cried the governess, really afraid the little boy would be hurt; but Sam only stood laughing with his back to the shutter, and Christabel herself hurried to the rescue, to pick Henry off his victim, holding an arm tight, while the child got up, and ran away to get his hair re-brushed for tea.

“Now, Hal, you might have hurt him,” argued the governess.

“Very good thing for him too,” said the brothers with one voice.

She was very much shocked; but when she thought it over she perceived that though Hal might be to blame, yet in the long run even this rough discipline might be more useful to her dear little David than being allowed to take upon him with his elder brothers, and grow conceited and interfering.

Miss Fosbrook was not surprised when, next morning, a frightful bellowing was heard instead of Johnnie being seen, and she learnt that Master John was in the hands of Nurse Freeman, who was administering to him a dose in consequence of his having been greatly indisposed all night.  It must be confessed that Christabel was not very sorry to hear it, nor that Nurse would keep him to herself all day; for bad company as Johnnie had been on the week-days, he had been worse on the Sunday.

And when John came out on Monday, he looked like a different boy; he had lost his fractious, rebellious look; he spoke as civilly as could be expected of a small Merrifield, and showed no signs of being set against his lessons.  To be sure it was a bad way of spending a Sunday, to be laid up with ailments brought on by over-eating; but even this was better than spending it, like the former one, in wilful misbehaviour; and John, who knew that Papa, Mamma, brothers, and sisters all alike detested and despised real greediness, had been heartily ashamed of himself, both for this and his forfeits.  A new week was a new starting-point, and he meant to spend this one well.  For indeed it is one of the blessings of our lives that we have so many stages—days, weeks, years, and the like—from each of which we may make fresh starts, feel old things left behind, and go on to lead a new life.

Besides, Johnnie was quite well now; and perhaps no child, so well brought up, could have been so constantly naughty the whole week without some degree of ailment, suspected neither by himself nor others.  For this is one of our real troubles, when either young or old, that sometimes there is a feeling of discomfort and vexation about us that, without knowing why, makes everything go amiss, causes everybody else to appear cross, and all tasks, all orders, all misadventures, to become great grievances.  Grown-up people feel this as well as children; but they have gone through it often enough to know what is the matter, and they have, or ought to have, more self-command.  But children have yet to learn by experience that the outer things are not harder and more untoward, so much as that they themselves are out of sorts.  This is poor comfort; and certainly it is dangerous to say to ourselves that being poorly is any excuse for letting ourselves be cross, or for not doing our best.  If Mrs. Merrifield had thought so, what miserable lives her husband and children would have led!  No, the way to use the certain fact that the state of our bodies affects our tempers and spirits, is to say to ourselves, “Well, if this person or this thing do seem disagreeable, or if this work, or even this little bit of obedience, be very tiresome, perhaps it may really be only a fancy of mine, and if I go to it with a good will, I may work off the notion;” or, “Perhaps I am cross to-day, let me take good care how I answer.”  And a little prayer in our hearts will be the best help of all.  Self-command and goodness will not come by nature as we grow up, but we must work for them in childhood.

When the Monday allowances were brought out, and the pig’s chance inquired into, David alone produced his whole sum, untouched by forfeiture or waste, and dropped it into “Toby Fillpot.”  Elizabeth had her entire sixpence; but a penny had been spent on a letter to Mamma, and she gave but one to the fund, in spite of the black looks she met from David.  Sam had lost a farthing by the shower, and had likewise bought a queen’s head, to write to his father.  The rest, fourpence-three farthings, he paid over.  Poor Johnnie! his last week’s naughtiness had exceeded his power of paying fines, and a halfpenny was subtracted from this week’s threepence; while the Gibraltar man had consumed all that fines had spared to little Annie, had left Susan only threepence, and Henry but twopence-halfpenny.  This, with twopence that Miss Fosbrook had found in her travelling-bag, made one shilling and fourpence-farthing—a very poor collection for one week.  David was quite melancholy.

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