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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78706 ***
+
+Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.
+
+
+
+                        _Such a_
+
+                        _Happy Day._
+
+
+                               BY
+
+                         CATHARINE SHAW.
+
+
+                            AUTHOR OF
+
+  "DICKIE'S SECRET," "NELLIE ARUNDEL," "SOMETHING FOR SUNDAY,"
+                    "SUNDAY SUNSHINE," ETC.
+
+
+
+                London: John F. Shaw & Co., Ltd.
+                                 3, Pilgrim Street, E. C.
+
+
+
+                           CONTENTS.
+
+                             ————
+
+Chapter.
+
+    I. Such a Happy Day
+
+   II. Such a Happy Afternoon
+
+  III. Such a Happy Evening
+
+
+
+                       _Such a Happy Day._
+
+
+                        SUCH A HAPPY DAY.
+
+                              ————
+
+"GOOD morning, Father!"
+
+"Good morning, my little son! Where have you been? Your face is as
+fresh and cool as my cucumbers, though your cheeks are not green, but
+are as rosy as apples."
+
+"I've been out with my mother!"
+
+"With 'your mother,' have you?"
+
+Cyril smiled. "We've been picking flowers, but you don't know what for—"
+
+"Do I not? Shall I guess?"
+
+"No, don't guess, Father, 'cause I like secrets!"
+
+"Very well. And what did my 'early birds' find when they were out?"
+
+Cyril's mother came in at the window with her basket of flowers in her
+hand. She looked down upon them with her gentle eyes, but left her
+little son to speak.
+
+"We saw—we saw lots of dew!"
+
+"Oh, so you did. I love dew; that shows how early you were up."
+
+"And we saw Eddie and Effie out picking flowers too. And then—What else
+do you suppose we saw?"
+
+"You have a great many 'saws' in your yard," said his father, laughing
+at him. "But go on."
+
+Cyril looked puzzled for a moment, and then meeting his mother's eyes,
+went on—
+
+"We did see a very funny thing! One of our hens wasn't satisfied with
+the hen-house for her nest, and has made one for herself under a hedge.
+Mother called it—"
+
+"Stolen a nest?" suggested Cyril's father.
+
+"Yes, but I do not see that. When Eddie and Effie went on, I sat down
+on a bank to think about it. I call it 'made a nest' not 'stolen.' The
+poor hen thought she could make it much better out there in the sweet
+air, than in that stuffy hen-house."
+
+"Did you see which hen it was?" asked his father.
+
+"Yes. While I was waiting and watching a frog that was jumping about,
+she came up through the hedge all wet and draggled, and got right on to
+the nice eggs: I thought she would spoil them."
+
+"That's what they do," said his father; "and they say it is what makes
+the eggs hatch so well."
+
+"Do they?" asked Cyril, opening his blue eyes very wide. "Anyway, she
+frightened away the frog that had come to have a look at me. It did hop
+so, Father."
+
+"I should think we had better hop in to breakfast, Cyril," said Mr.
+Forde, "for we have plenty to do before ten o'clock, early as we are."
+
+"Eddie and Effie are going by train at the same time as we are," nodded
+Cyril, getting off his perch and taking his father's hand. "'I' don't
+think they're old enough, but they said they were going to walk to the
+station and sit there till uncle and aunt came."
+
+"They won't hurt," said Mr. Forde. "If your sweet mother did not coddle
+you, Cyril, you could go to London by yourself! Boys always turn up
+right-side-up!"
+
+"Yes," said Cyril eagerly, "that's what I say. I'm six, and I should
+turn up all right, I know."
+
+Mrs. Forde did not answer her husband's quizzical look. As she moved
+towards the door, she was gazing on the little darling, who was the
+very light of her eyes.
+
+
+That day was to be a wonderful day to some people, for Cyril's
+grandfather and grandmother were to celebrate their fiftieth
+wedding-day, while all the children and grandchildren were to meet at
+the pretty house near London, to spend the happy day together.
+
+Plenty of people got up early that morning! Some of them, like
+Cyril and his cousins, Effie and Eddie, knew all about the Golden
+Wedding-day, and some knew nothing about it, and yet were preparing for
+it all the same.
+
+Far away in the country two boys were busy picking the sweet flowers
+for the London market. And when they had gathered a large basket full,
+one of them hastened to the station so as to catch the earliest train
+which steamed away to the great city.
+
+By-and-by, in one of the courts in that great city, a little girl
+raised her head from her couch, and said in a sleepy voice, "Good
+morning, sir!"
+
+"Why, child!" said her mother. "Do ye think ye're out in the street
+already! But get up, do; it's late, and if you're not there, somebody
+else will have the best flowers, that they will!"
+
+The child roused herself then, and with many a yawn, put on her little
+dress and apron, and after but a slight breakfast, hurried off to the
+market with her few pence, making as clever a bargain as any other
+little girl of her age.
+
+Then she went out into the streets, and made her way to the spot near
+the Bank where she always took her stand.
+
+Many were the "Good morning, sirs," which passed her rosy lips. But
+some were too busy to turn towards her, and some not inclined to buy,
+so that her basket did not get empty very fast.
+
+But Bella stood patiently enough. She did not thrust her flowers into
+people's faces, nor did she whine or beg.
+
+Well she knew that her brothers and sisters needed all she could
+earn for them; well she knew that her ailing father needed food and
+medicine, and that her mother "could" not work harder than she did
+already. But Bella had found out the best way to empty her basket was
+to keep a cheerful face and a sharp look-out. And among the many who
+passed her each day to their business near, there were some who made a
+point of buying of her rather than any one else.
+
+One young lady, who had just come from a visit to the happy country
+near Reigate, and had there picked flowers with her cousins, turned as
+she passed Bella's tasteful bunches, and paused for an instant.
+
+"I wish—" she said, and stopped.
+
+"Only a penny, miss!" said Bella eagerly. "The whole bunch, miss, just
+as it is. I don't cheat, miss!"
+
+"I was thinking," said the young lady slowly, "I wish I had brought one
+of my bunches with me from home."
+
+Bella looked inquiringly; she wondered why the young lady hesitated
+to buy. Such a sweet young lady, with such a bright, calm look, that
+somehow reminded the little flower-girl of a clear, cloudless sky on a
+summer day.
+
+"I think I will have one," was her final decision. Then her eyes met
+Bella's: "I was going to see a little sick boy on my way home, and I
+wished I had brought one of my own bunches of flowers. But I think
+yours will please him just as much."
+
+She did not add that the penny which she paid for it would have to
+come out of the money which had been set apart for her dinners; for
+her little income had to go a long way. When she took Bella's pretty
+flowers in her hand, she looked into the clear childish eyes with a
+soft expression, as she said,—
+
+"I shall give these to a little boy who is going to heaven very soon.
+Have you ever heard of heaven?"
+
+Bella nodded.
+
+"Do you know how we can get there?"
+
+Bella shook her head, then added quickly, "Ain't it by being honest?"
+
+It was the young lady's turn to shake her head.
+
+"It's just because the Lord Jesus died—instead of us,—bore our sins,
+and all the punishment of them, so that we can go free."
+
+Bella sat down and looked at her earnestly. "I never heard that afore,"
+she said slowly.
+
+"Shall you be here on Monday?" asked the young schoolmistress,
+preparing to hasten on.
+
+"Yes, I shall."
+
+"I'll come earlier, and tell you," she said; "I must not stop now. But
+you can think of this: 'Jesus' is the only way to heaven!"
+
+She hurried away, while Bella's eyes followed her curiously.
+
+It was no wonder that the young schoolmistress was loved so much.
+
+As she sat in her dull schoolroom that morning, with her flowers placed
+in a glass of water, she noticed one of her little pupils in the oldest
+class looking dull and listless.
+
+The rest were busy over sums, when the teacher's voice was heard
+calling,—
+
+"Nellie, my dear, come here!"
+
+The child looked up startled, and then hastened to her side.
+
+"Is anything wrong, Nellie? Are you not well?"
+
+"Yes, I'm quite well, Miss Archer."
+
+"Cannot you do your lesson?"
+
+"Yes, Miss Archer."
+
+"Then what is it, dear?"
+
+Now what it was, was this. The night before, when Nellie had been going
+to bed, her sister Mary had said,—
+
+"Miss Archer makes a favourite of you, so of course you get on with
+your lessons."
+
+"She doesn't!" Nellie had answered indignantly. "She never makes the
+least difference."
+
+"I know she does, for the other girls have noticed it," Mary had said.
+
+And then poor Nellie had knelt down to pray. But instead of being able
+to speak to God, all her sister's words had come over her again, and at
+last, she had crept into bed full of sorrow and resentment.
+
+So when Miss Archer asked her what was the matter, and looked so
+lovingly in her face, she remembered all this, and knew that the other
+girls would make up their minds more than ever that she was a favourite.
+
+"Cannot you tell me?" her teacher was saying.
+
+And then Nellie gave one shy glance at her and whispered,—
+
+"I don't think I can; but—it was my fault—being angry with Mary! I
+ought to have helped that."
+
+Miss Archer kissed her in silence, and then, as it was just the end of
+school, she asked Nellie to walk with her as far as their roads went
+together.
+
+Before Nellie had quite got through her story of her fear of being a
+favourite, Miss Archer came to the house where she was to take the
+bunch of flowers she had bought of Bella.
+
+So she wished the little schoolgirl good-bye, and ran up to the
+invalid, only waiting for one whispered word, before she flew
+down again; for to-day was a great day for her, and to her joy a
+half-holiday. For this was her grandparents' Golden Wedding-day, and
+like Eddie and Effie in the country, or like Cyril and his parents, her
+heart was full of plans and thoughts as to how the large party would go
+off.
+
+Only yesterday a man had come to the dining-room window of her London
+home, and had held up a pretty pot of flowers for her to buy. Then she
+had thought, "That will do for my present. It isn't much, but they all
+know I am not rich."
+
+For Miss Archer was an orphan, and she boarded with some friends, and
+kept herself by her teaching. Many a home had been offered her, but she
+always shook her head.
+
+To-day, her friend's little girl ran to greet her with her picture book.
+
+And as she took her on her knee, she said,—
+
+"Do you remember, Mabel, that, poor man who came to the window
+yesterday?"
+
+"I know," nodded Mabel.
+
+"Well, he said he had a little girl almost as young as you, who stands
+all day with a basket of flowers. He said that in the cold spring
+weather, when the palm first comes out, the poor parents make most of
+their living by what she sells."
+
+"Poor little girl!" said Mabel softly. "I'd like to give her my
+pudding!"
+
+But Miss Archer had not time to tell her the whole story just then,
+so she carried her up all the long flights of stairs to her little
+room at the top of the house, to watch her change her dress for her
+grandmamma's Golden Wedding-day.
+
+
+Meanwhile, some of the other grandchildren had been busy on this
+auspicious morning. Already the train was bringing Eddie, Effie, and
+Cyril, those happy children, towards London. While nearer the pretty
+house where the grandparents lived, there were other boys and girls who
+were up early too, and long before their elders were awake had picked
+baskets of fruit as a present from their father's orchard.
+
+Then what a grand changing of clothes there was, and combing and
+brushing, and tying and fastening!
+
+How the girls had to be arrayed in all their prettiest things! And how
+the boys were anxious about certain neckties, and took quite as long as
+the girls to turn themselves out as "spic and span" as they did!
+
+"How many will there be of us?" had been a frequent question in all the
+families. But there were so many to count, and so many to be counted,
+that one never seemed to come at the right number.
+
+"Well, there's Cousin Lily Archer—she's one at any rate," the boys
+said, and everybody was glad of that; for wherever she went, Lily was a
+great favourite.
+
+"Then there's all the boys from Reigate," said some one, regardless
+of his good English in his excitement; "and there's that fellow whose
+father is in India, who's staying with them, Claude Champion—he's
+invited. And there's—"
+
+But nobody would wait to hear. There were, all were agreed, seven
+families to bring their different members to the gathering, and their
+numbers varied from poor Lily Archer, who was the sole representative
+of her dead parents, down to the blooming twelve children of the eldest
+son and daughter.
+
+
+Many a "Good morning!" sounded that day as the parties began to arrive.
+And their dear grandmother had her cheeks kissed into a pretty pink, as
+one and another came up to her, bringing tokens of love and greeting.
+
+When the first excitement was over, there was a general assent to the
+proposal of the elders that as many as liked should go to meet the
+train by which the next party was expected.
+
+The girls ran for their hats, the boys sauntered out on to the lawn to
+wait for them, while the little ones eagerly said they should not be
+tired, and that the cool lanes would be better than the gardens.
+
+Though the elders smiled at this little fiction, it was allowed to go
+uncontradicted, and the troop set off in the best of spirits.
+
+"May I come too?" asked Claude, who was living with the Reigate family.
+
+"Of course you may!" said some one.
+
+Now their friend from India remembered the pleasant summer holiday he
+had just spent, and thought of the weeks when Lily Archer had been
+among them, and he considered the greatest attraction of the Golden
+Wedding-day was that he should see her sweet, quiet face. So he gladly
+availed himself of the boy's permission to go and meet her, and made
+himself so bright and interesting that he was the centre of attraction
+all the way to the station.
+
+
+When they returned with a fresh accession to their numbers, there were
+more greetings and more presents. Flowers, from far and near, seemed
+the order of the day.
+
+"Who is this?" said grandpapa roguishly, as one of his darlings came up
+to him with her frock filled with fruit and flowers. "Do I know this
+little girl?"
+
+"Please, I'm Effie," said a little voice, "and Eddie is here too—at
+least, he was in the conservatory just now; he's too shy to come in."
+
+"Shy, is he?" said her grandfather. "Then we must go and fetch him.
+Nobody must be shy on Golden Wedding-days, must they, Effie?"
+
+"I'm not shy at all," said Effie, at which everybody laughed.
+
+And then Effie turned shy in good earnest, and hung her head.
+
+But everybody was too busy and too happy to notice her, and in another
+moment, she found herself being led through the window at the end
+of the room into the pretty conservatory, where the profusion of
+the flowers nearly took away her breath. But her hand was in her
+grandfather's, and who could be as dear, as interesting, as loving as
+he?
+
+There they found Eddie gazing at a rose-coloured camellia which had
+grown far above his head.
+
+"Eddie, Eddie!" exclaimed his little sister. "Grandpa says you mustn't
+be shy on Golden days—'cause—I don't know why—but—here's grandpa come
+to find you. It's awfully nice in here, isn't it, Eddie?"
+
+"Yes," said Eddie shortly, looking as he would very much have preferred
+that they should have kept away. "Yes, it's nice when—when I can see
+all the flowers."
+
+"Can't you see?" asked Effie, opening her eyes.
+
+
+But the children soon found out where their grandfather was, and
+flocked round him begging for a story.
+
+"Hey-dey!" he said. "I can't make stories like I used when I was
+younger; I haven't the imagination now."
+
+"But you can tell us real ones, sir," said Claude Champion, who stood
+behind the rest arranging some flowers into a little posy.
+
+"Eh?" said the old gentleman.
+
+"Yes, something true, Grandfather," exclaimed one of the Reigate boys.
+
+So he sat down on a green iron seat and the rest crowded round; till
+the story-telling getting wind, everybody gathered near, filling in the
+doorways and drawing-room windows; such an audience as moved the old
+man to see.
+
+"All my own," he murmured, his observant eyes going round from one to
+another; "all my own, except Claude Champion,—and he's the son of a
+dear friend. Almost as good as my own anyway."
+
+A smile passed over his face, which no one understood, unless it were
+grandmamma, who understood most things!
+
+"Are you goin' to begin, Grandfather?" asked Cyril, who was seated on
+the knee of one of his cousins.
+
+The old gentleman hemmed and cleared his throat, and then began in good
+earnest:—
+
+   "Once upon a time—"
+
+"That's the way," murmured one of the Reigate boys, and got a punch in
+the ribs from another of them as a stopper.
+
+   "Once upon a time, not very far from here, in a great smoky city, there
+lived a happy young mother.
+
+   "Every day, when she had sent her little girl off to school, and had
+dressed her baby boy, she would take him to the window where she kept
+her flowers, and would water them and attend to them while she sang a
+bright, cheerful hymn.
+
+   "Presently, if her boy were very good, she would reward him with a
+bunch for his very own. Oh, what infinite joy it gave that mother's
+heart to do anything for her baby, to deny herself that he might have
+pleasure!
+
+   "When her little girl, whom we will call Minnie, came back from school,
+she would take her little brother for a walk or play with him in the
+court, where she chose the only corner on which the sun shone down; for
+like her mother, and the flowers and the canary (and like all of us!),
+she loved sunshine!
+
+   "But dark, sad days came upon those happy children.
+
+   "All at once Minnie discovered that her mother was sick. It came upon
+her with a blank despair she had never even dreamed of before. One
+morning when she got up, she found her mother was unable to rise from
+her bed.
+
+   "'Minnie!' said the panting voice of the fever-stricken woman. 'I'd
+thought we would all have met your father when he came home from
+his voyage—so happy—but—it's not to be. Minnie, we'll meet in the
+Home above; and God 'll take care of you somehow, though I can't see
+how. Minnie, take care of baby, and write to your grandfather and
+grandmother.'
+
+   "The poor mother paused there.
+
+   "'Minnie, you'll tell your father as I did my best for you, and always
+loved him, at home or away, just the same; and write—mind you write—to
+your grandmother.'
+
+   "Soon after that, she got too ill to arrange anything, and Minnie could
+only sit by and whisper what she had learned of the Home above, and
+say over and over again to her dying mother, the words which seemed to
+quiet her more than any others, 'I will never leave thee nor forsake
+thee.'
+
+   "Soon after that, she had need to remember those words for herself,
+for she was left alone in the world, with only her little brother and
+far-away father who had not been heard of for many a long day.
+
+   "She wrote, as her mother had told her, to her grandparents, and the
+poor old couple knew not what to say. They had hard work to keep a fire
+on their own hearth. While they were thinking it over, their son's wife
+came in, and she listened to all they had to say without any remark.
+But when she got home, she told her husband all about it, and how she
+had been watching her hen gathering its chickens under its wings, and
+how she had thought she should like to gather the little orphans under
+her wings till a home could be found for them.
+
+   "Her husband was a very bluff man, and he did not answer many words,
+but as he went off to his work, he gave her a rarely tender kiss as he
+said shortly, 'You may ask 'em for a bit—anyway—Pollie.'
+
+   "So Pollie wrote the letter of welcome, and poor little Minnie received
+it the next morning, just as she had come to her very last halfpenny
+after paying her week's rent.
+
+   "The letter contained an order for enough money to bring the two
+children into the country, and there were plenty of kind neighbours to
+pack up their few clothes and get them off.
+
+   "As one motherly woman took her leave of them, she said to Minnie,—
+
+   "'Well—anyways, my dear—you've cared for yer brother pretty near as
+well as his mother, and that's sayin' a great deal.'
+
+   "Almost as soon as Minnie's answer could get to Pollie, the two
+children had started, and were on their way.
+
+   "But Pollie was not surprised. She liked things done quickly. And when
+she had read the letter which the postman had brought, she just ran
+into her cottage and 'spun round,' as she called it, putting her little
+plans into execution which she had just formed while she sat thinking
+about them yesterday.
+
+   "Yes! She would keep some more hens, and Minnie should help her in
+the care of them. And the child should take the eggs round to some
+houses she knew, where the gentlefolks would have as many as she could
+spare them. And Minnie should sleep in the little attic with her baby
+brother, and should be made welcome till her father came home to see
+about her. And if he never came home—why, there was another Almighty
+Father who would help the orphans and find food and clothes for them in
+His wonderful way!
+
+   "That was what Pollie thought, while all the time she was 'spinning
+round' making her neat cottage neater still.
+
+   "So the children came. Minnie with her mournful eyes and thin,
+sorrowful face, and the baby with that pathetic, motherless look which
+went to Pollie's heart.
+
+   "But Pollie thought the best plan would be to take the baby into her
+heart instead of letting him make it ache. So the little fellow sat on
+her knee, was fed by her hand, and delighted her by growing stronger
+every day. She taught Minnie to make a frock for him, and out of her
+own pocket bought some new boots in which he could run about.
+
+   "After a few weeks of country sunshine had passed over their heads,
+the woebegone look went away from Minnie's face, and though she never
+forgot her mother—never, never,—she forgot her sorrow, and began to be
+the light of her uncle's home.
+
+   "How the baby learned to walk and play and dig! How he laughed all day
+long and gambolled with the dog! How he, by-and-by, trotted into his
+grandfather's cottage and lisped out 'Dood-mornin',' like all of you
+have done to-day!
+
+   "But Minnie did not get to be a selfish little girl, only anxious to
+enjoy herself. Of that you may be sure!
+
+   "When the Lord Jesus reigns in anybody's heart, He drives selfishness
+out, as surely as sunshine drives out darkness!
+
+   "By-and-by Minnie and her little brother sent up some country flowers
+to the neighbours who had been so kind to her. And then she saved up
+some eggs which Pollie gave her for her own, and sent them to another
+poor little girl, named Rose, who had no mother. And in a letter, she
+told her how nice it was to learn to grow flowers, and advised her to
+try to get a geranium for her window, and take care of it till there
+should be a flower-show for poor people.
+
+   "And Rose took her advice, and spent the next penny she had on a little
+plant, and so made a beginning.
+
+   "Then she took her baby-sister to a certain place where she knew some
+flowers were to be seen, and stood long and watched them, and then went
+home with fresh heart to save up for another larger pot, which in due
+time she obtained.
+
+   "Minnie's old grandparents thought there were never two such children
+as these loving ones who had dropped from the skies, as it were, at
+their feet. But they told their son that it was a good day that ever
+his young wife thought of such a thing, and they blessed her for it.
+
+   "As to Pollie, the blessing came to her, too; for her little poultry
+farm throve wonderfully, and as to the people that came far and near
+for her eggs, she said it was quite surprising!
+
+   "Then Minnie and Bobbie were so loving! They seemed to fill up her
+hungry heart, and she only wondered how she had ever got on without
+them.
+
+   "At last, their father did come back to London, but when he found his
+home broken up, his sorrow was very great.
+
+   "But the neighbours directed him to where his children were being
+sheltered, and he hastened down to Bickley."
+
+"Bickley!" interrupted a half-a-dozen voices. "Why, that's here!"
+
+"Does anything prevent it's being here?" said their grandfather smiling.
+
+"Well, don't interrupt," said the girl who held Cyril on her knee. "Do
+go on, Grandfather!"
+
+   "I've just done. When he came down to Bickley and found how happy the
+children were, and how Tom and Pollie did not want to part with them,
+he shed tears of joy, and went on his next voyage with less sorrow in
+his heart than he had had for many a long day."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The old gentleman paused.
+
+"Is that all?" asked some one.
+
+"Yes, all—except that the eggs which you will eat at tea to-night were
+laid by Minnie's hens!"
+
+"Oh!"
+
+There was a general move, and a general "Thank you, Grandfather—very
+much!" from at least twenty voices.
+
+Claude Champion had been making and remaking his bouquet all this time,
+and when the story was finished, he passed it to Lily with a smile.
+
+"Not for me?" she asked.
+
+"Yes—certainly; for whom else did you suppose?"
+
+"I'll have just one flower," she answered.
+
+
+It was almost dinner time. But all were waiting for one more train to
+bring the rest of the party from a distance.
+
+So once more, the garden was the scene of merry groups of bright
+colours flitting about among the trees. Some of the younger ones
+playing hide-and-seek, while some wheeled their aunt's dolls, where
+they could pace up and down undisturbed.
+
+The grandparents sat down under the great elm watching all with
+happy faces, their own children—the fathers and mothers of the
+party—gathering round them, enjoying and entering into it all in their
+different ways.
+
+"Who would have thought, my dear—fifty years ago—that we should have
+such a party as this?" said the grandfather, taking his wife's hand in
+his.
+
+She only shook her head, smiling peacefully. Whatever storms life had
+brought, sunshine had come at the end—the sunshine "which shineth more
+and more unto the perfect day."
+
+In the half-hour before the rest had arrived, Lily had been persuaded
+to accept the offer of a home, by some one who had set his heart very
+much upon it. So that grandfather was right, and Claude Champion did
+bid fair to be one of his own after all, on this Golden Wedding-day.
+
+
+
+                     SUCH A HAPPY AFTERNOON.
+
+                              ————
+
+IT was the afternoon of the Golden Wedding-day. All the seven families
+of children, and grandchildren, and great-grandchildren had arrived
+at Bickley, the great dinner-table had been set, and the great dinner
+eaten. The grandfather had tried to count the numbers, and had failed,
+and half-a-dozen at least of his grandsons had tried to help him,
+always with the same result, that everybody clamoured so, and had so
+many suggestions to make, that nobody ever got to the end.
+
+Grandmamma sat smiling and silent at the top of the table. It would
+have been useless for her to try to get a word in, and she certainly
+did not try. At last, when everybody had spent all the breath there
+was, it occurred to somebody to say to her,—
+
+"Perhaps you can tell us, Grandma! You look very knowing!"
+
+"I wrote all the names," she answered demurely.
+
+"Oh, aye! So you did," said grandfather; for there was a lull, and his
+voice could reach the top of the long, long table. "Pity we did not
+think of that before."
+
+"Why, Grandfather?" asked some one.
+
+"Saved a lot of breath," answered the old gentleman with a twinkle.
+
+"Then how many are there?" asked Claude Champion, who was seated by
+Mrs. Forde's side, as the greatest stranger. "Can you tell us now?"
+
+"I wrote fifty names," said Mrs. Forde, smiling.
+
+"And there are fifty here?"
+
+"Yes; all have come."
+
+She glanced down the long lines of faces, to where even her tiny
+great-granddaughter sat in her mother's lap, looking as happy as all
+the rest.
+
+"Let us go into the garden," she said, rising. "There will be shade
+under the elms, and I have promised my baby of babies to see her
+namesake, Daisy."
+
+She stretched out her arms to the youngest of the party, receiving her
+from her pretty young mother, and led the way to the lawn, where the
+shadows had already begun to lengthen enough to afford a delightful
+shade for those who felt inclined to rest there.
+
+She herself, however, took her great-grandchild to the iron fence which
+separated the smooth lawn from the little meadow, and called, "Daisy,
+Daisy, where are you?"
+
+How the baby turned her head, looking this way and that, when she heard
+her own name.
+
+But there was another gentle creature, who understood even better than
+the baby. At the sound of her mistress's voice, the Alderney cow turned
+her head from the sweet grass and walked towards them, followed by
+her calf, till she drew up at the fence and put her head over the top
+expectantly.
+
+"Give baby to me, Grandmamma," said the baby's mother, "while you see
+to 'your' Daisy; she seems to expect something."
+
+Mrs. Forde acknowledged that the cow did expect something. When her
+hand was free, she put it into a little bag she carried, and produced
+from a soft piece of paper three or four small carrots!
+
+"There, Daisy!" she said. "You must have your treat as well as the rest
+of us!"
+
+Then turning to the little boy who sat on the stile watching them, she
+added,—
+
+"Georgie, go into cook, and ask her for that cake I looked out for you.
+This is my Golden Wedding-day, you know."
+
+Just then the troop of grandchildren came down the path close to them,
+on their way to the farmyard, that wonderful attraction which had been
+saved "till after dinner" by everybody.
+
+Margaret gave her baby to the nurse and accepted the offer of a rest in
+the hammock; for proud young mothers find that, however delightful it
+is to show off their treasures, it is very fatiguing!
+
+As she rested there, listening to the voices going farther and farther
+away, the cawing of the rooks in the elms overhead soothed her into a
+sort of dreamy reverie. She fell to musing about the leafless trees in
+which they built their nests in the spring, and how she had heard that
+the same rooks came back to the same trees—year after year. Then she
+thought,—
+
+"And is there any place like home, winter or summer, for any of us? I
+do not wonder the rooks come back again to their old haunts."
+
+After that, Margaret's moralizing ended in dreams for about a minute,
+and when she opened her eyes again, the light wind was stirring the
+chestnut leaves all round her, and her husband's voice was saying,—
+
+"Why, Margaret, I had quite lost you! The rest are all off to the
+farmyard, feeding the donkeys and chickens and ducks and drakes, as if
+it were the business of life! Will you come too? It is no fun without
+you, and to-day we must have all the fun we can!"
+
+"All gone, are they?" she asked, springing out of her hiding-place,
+well pleased to be wanted.
+
+"I think so. I interrupted one of the Reigate boys begging his mother
+to let him climb or something. And I passed Dorothy tying on her hat
+in a great hurry; she was nearly crying, because she said the rest had
+gone without her."
+
+"Poor little girl! But I daresay she will catch them. Do you know,
+Harry, even to this day I cannot bear to be left behind. Perhaps you do
+not know that feeling?"
+
+Harry looked at her with a comical glance of mingled love and
+admiration, and they sauntered back to ask what the more sedate members
+of the party were going to do. But nobody would acknowledge to being
+sedate to-day. And in spite of the heat, they all decided to follow
+the fortunes of the young ones; for whatever interested them, would
+interest those whose hearts were always young.
+
+
+"Where's Jack?" asked that young gentleman's mother, perhaps somewhat
+doubtfully.
+
+She had not confessed to any one that up in a certain bag she had
+actually brought a second suit of clothes for her son, in case the
+first should by any misfortune come to grief.
+
+Now what Jack was doing was this. He had reached the farmyard the first
+of any one. And just reserving enough wits to turn up his trousers,
+he gave a great jump into the soft, springy straw which he saw in the
+middle of the enclosure, deciding while he was in mid-air that it was
+like jumping on the best spare room bed while the maids were making it!
+
+"Ugh! Oh!" But Jack had not counted on its being so very—very—soft, and
+springy, and warm—and ugh—wet!
+
+He plunged in and out with more speed than generally fell to the share
+of the best spare room bed; and his only hope was that no one had seen
+his disaster. He rushed into the doorway of a friendly cow-house, while
+he recovered his breath and could have time to decide what to do.
+
+He peeped out; the rest were coming in at the gate of the yard, and
+were already calling the hens to be fed. Then no one "had" seen him,
+that was his greatest hope.
+
+But what to do? He looked down at his clothes. Surely they were not so
+very bad! And yet—what was this constantly increasing impression of
+damp and cold behind him, and this odour which met his olfactory nerves
+whenever he turned his head down to his own shoulder?
+
+"I'll go right away home to Reigate," he said; "there's nothing else
+for it. It serves me right, for being so careless. I always 'do' get
+into a scrape, try as hard as I will. It's because I'm so thoughtless,
+mother says, but then—ugh! I wish they'd have done with those
+everlasting chickens; I shall be kept here all day. As if I'd never
+seen a farmyard before! I suppose they'd put some clean straw over
+there, to make it look nice for the Golden Wedding-day—ugh!"
+
+He was quite right about the party bidding fair to stay there all
+day. There were so many things to see, dear to the hearts of suburban
+children!
+
+There was Gipsy, the beautiful dog, with her puppies, who resented the
+chickens drinking her dish of milk. There was the favourite cock, who
+looked as if he were just going to accept the corn from Eddie's hand,
+and then walked off with a supercilious kind of air, which seemed to
+say, "Don't you wish you may catch me, young sir?"
+
+All this Jack saw through a peep-hole in the cow-house, but he was
+very weary of his situation. He was too impatient to be philosophical,
+or he would have considered that they must get tired some time, and
+then he could slip out. Instead of that, his busy brain was planning
+some brave, wonderful way of escape. If only he could devise something
+splendid to do!
+
+He looked up and down and around. If he could once get to the station,
+he shouldn't mind anything or anybody there, he thought; he would just
+get into an empty carriage and—
+
+But when his plans had matured as far as that, he thought of his
+mother, and of her anxiety at his disappearance; he thought of the
+party, which would be utterly spoilt should one be missing, and his
+heart misgave him.
+
+Then the thought of his disaster swept over him afresh. No, he could
+not face the jeers of his boy cousins, nor the pitying looks of his
+girl cousins, nor the raised eyebrows of some of his aunts and uncles.
+No, he must risk the anxiety of other people, and save himself the
+inevitable disgrace.
+
+Again he looked up. All around the cow-house were apertures for
+ventilation; he thought he could squeeze through one of these, and so
+away.
+
+He sprang on the manger, and in another moment, his lithe form was
+holding on to the rafters, and he was already half-way through.
+
+"Safe!" he muttered as he let himself lightly to the ground, but there
+he stopped.
+
+"I'm doing a cowardly thing, I do believe," he said, half aloud. "I'm
+actually running away from what I ought to bear, and leaving other
+folks to the annoyance of my fault! That's what I should call cowardly
+in any one else. Well—"
+
+He stood still and looked round. Close to him a goose and her goslings
+were sporting in and out of a favourite gutter, beyond them some
+country children were driving home a goat from the common.
+
+Jack had made up his mind.
+
+He gave a flying leap across the gutter and brought up in front of the
+cottage girl.
+
+"I say—" he began.
+
+"Yes, sir," she answered, looking somewhat slyly at his hot, bashful
+face.
+
+"I say; I've got into a mess,—see here," he added, turning round.
+
+"Oh my!" said the girl expressively.
+
+"Could you just go into the farmyard and ask 'em to tell you which is
+my mother?"
+
+The girl looked doubtful.
+
+"She's a nice sort of woman, with grey stuff in her bonnet, and a grey
+dress,—anybody 'ull tell you!"
+
+"What am I to say?" asked the little girl, still doubtfully.
+
+"Tell her Jack wants her! He's gone indoors. He's got into trouble—as
+usual. Tell her that."
+
+He turned off, and hurried to the house, while the cottage girl did
+his bidding as well as she could. Among the forty or more people
+who stood about watching the cows or feeding the chickens, she had
+great difficulty in finding which was the "nice" woman whom Jack had
+described. But she was a straightforward little girl, and she felt very
+sorry for the poor young gentleman's trouble; so she waited till she
+saw a lady who suited her ideas, and then she spoke,—
+
+"Please, mum, are you 'Jack's' mother?"
+
+"Yes, that I am!" said the lady in the grey bonnet.
+
+"Then he's tumbled down somewhere, and he wants you, ma'am; he's gone
+indoors."
+
+"Not hurt?" asked his mother with a sinking at her heart.
+
+"Oh dear no, ma'am!—Only in a mess," said the country girl, and moved
+off towards home.
+
+"Thank you, very much," said Jack's mother gratefully. And as she
+hastened back, that extra suit flashed across her with intense relief.
+
+"You 'are' a dear mother!" said her boy as, clean and fresh, he stood
+dressed, all but his socks and boots which were ready for him. "I do
+think you 'are' kind, never to even reproach a fellow. Well, it's like
+mothers—that's all I can say!"
+
+"I am glad you came to me, my boy," she said, putting her arm round
+him. "Mothers are generally the best friends to go to!"
+
+
+Meanwhile, the rest had left the farmyard and were making a call at the
+Dairy Cottage, that picturesque spot which in winter seemed the most
+snowy of any spot round, and in summer the most leafy.
+
+It was cool and leafy now, but while the elders looked at the butter
+and cream, and admired the cleanliness of everything, the young people
+sought the outhouses behind, where a certain donkey was known to reside.
+
+Here Jack, who had but just joined the party, and was in front of the
+others, recognised his friend of just now, the little girl who had
+helped him so kindly.
+
+"Good afternoon!" he said, unconcernedly, with his ready wit, always
+knowing the best thing to do at the moment, though he did get into
+scrapes so often,—"Good afternoon!"
+
+"Good afternoon, sir," she answered, blushing, on seeing who it was,
+and inwardly wondering at the transformation.
+
+"I'm much obliged to you for carrying that message," he said frankly.
+"I couldn't thank you then—but I wanted to afterwards, and didn't know
+where you lived."
+
+"Oh, I live here," said the girl, surprised.
+
+As the rest crowded out after the donkey and her foal, he added, "I
+wanted you to have this. Mother said I might, if I saw you. I haven't
+anything else!"
+
+He put into her hand his cherished four-bladed knife, which he had had
+for a whole month in his possession, without its being either broken or
+lost.
+
+"Ah no, sir," said the little girl; "I'd—"
+
+But Jack was half across the meadow, and the only wonder was he did not
+fall into a wide ditch full of water in his eagerness to escape her
+thanks.
+
+When he put his hand in his pocket that night to get his knife to cut
+something, he made a wry face at the thought that it was gone. But
+after an instant, he said to himself,—
+
+"Well, that was a brave little girl, and I'm glad she's got it! When I
+think that I sent her among fifty gentlefolks, with only a grey dress
+and her own kindness to guide her, I think I may say she was a very
+brave little girl,—considering all things!"
+
+Those who did not care for the donkey, or who had had their turn on
+his back, amused themselves with the turkeys, which were the especial
+charge of the dairy-woman.
+
+Her little children were at the very moment feeding them with some
+bread.
+
+
+At last, the children began to think that there were other pleasures to
+be found nearer home.
+
+Something had been hinted about some surprise at four o'clock, and as
+that time drew on, all the party began to collect on the lawn again.
+
+When the clock on the stable rang forth its four strokes, two
+labourers, looking very shy, came over the soft grass, and touching
+their caps to the grandfather said,—
+
+"Please sir, the hay's ready for the young ladies and gentlemen."
+
+"Hay!" shouted the boys. "Where, where?"
+
+"I have had a field reserved on purpose for this day," said their
+grandfather. "I thought there could not be a greater pleasure—"
+
+"Where?" asked everybody, for they had not noticed any grass cut on
+their way to the farmyard.
+
+"It is a field I rent on the other side of the lane. You can reach it
+in a moment through the garden gate."
+
+"Grandfather, you will come and show us," said Lily Archer, putting her
+arm through his, and leading him down the garden.
+
+"You don't want 'me,'" said the old gentleman, smiling.
+
+"Indeed we do," she answered earnestly. "You and Grandmamma seem the
+nearest I have to-day."
+
+Tears glittered in her eyes, which had been so bright and happy but a
+moment before. She was thinking of her own loneliness, without father
+or mother, the sole representative of those who were gone before.
+
+Claude, who was walking by her, guessed just a little of this from her
+words. And when her grandfather only squeezed her arm sympathisingly,
+he said,—
+
+"You would like them to be here, and I am sure I should too. You must
+miss them more than ever to-day!"
+
+That little speech was the most comforting thing, Lily thought, which
+had been said to her for many a long day.
+
+And yet was she selfish, that it was not only that her parents missed
+the Golden Wedding-day, but she so wanted them to share in her
+happiness, and to give their blessing to the step she had taken only
+this very morning?
+
+Almost the whole party collected in the hay-field, with the exception
+of an aunt and three children who were left behind. Even grandmamma was
+enticed to accept a very carefully prepared hay seat, and her husband
+came and sat down by her side, drawing Lily to another seat near.
+
+"How lovely it is!" she said.
+
+"I think it is," answered the old gentleman.
+
+"It is the happiest day I ever spent," said Claude.
+
+"The haymakers were up almost before it was light, turning the hay
+over, as we had a shower yesterday, and I was afraid it would be damp.
+But it is not in the least."
+
+"No, indeed," said Claude; "I never saw a nicer hay-field. I'm going
+to help those boys build a gigantic house. Will you come and visit us
+presently, and give your approval?" he added, turning to Lily.
+
+"'If' I approve," she answered, smiling archly.
+
+"Of course; we do not want you to be insincere! But we really are going
+to build a magnificent castle."
+
+He went off, and Lily sat with her grandparents under the shady elms by
+the hedge, well content.
+
+By-and-by one and another of the uncles and aunts gathered round, while
+their own boys and girls, or their nephews and nieces, made fresh hay
+seats for them, till there was quite a circle.
+
+"Are all here?" asked the grandmamma. "For I cannot count my fifty."
+
+"All but two or three of the little girls who have some project or
+other. I left them sitting demurely on a seat in the garden, only
+anxious for us to leave them, I fancy," said one of Mr. Forde's
+home-daughters.
+
+"Oh yes, so they were! I remember now, and they had got hold of their
+Aunt Rachel, and were whispering to her earnestly. What could they be
+wanting?"
+
+"Oh, if Rachel was there," said Miss Forde, "it will be all right."
+(Rachel was the other home-daughter.)
+
+So they forgot for a while about the little girls who were with Aunt
+Rachel, and gave themselves up to the pleasures of the hay, watching
+Claude and the boys rearing up the highest hay-castle that ever had
+been seen, or the younger children copying them in their smaller
+measure.
+
+When the grand erection was finished, Claude and his friends, the
+Reigate boys, came to fetch Lily Archer, and any of the others who
+could be persuaded to move, to see it.
+
+"I 'do' approve," smiled Lily.
+
+"Of course you do," said one of her cousins. "You'd have been a girl of
+egregious taste if you hadn't."
+
+"What a long word!" answered Lily. "Are you sure you said it right? I
+have heard of egregious blunders, but not so often of egregious taste!
+Perhaps you are thinking of the blunder I should have made if I had
+dared to disapprove?"
+
+The boys laughed; anything that Lily said or did was always right in
+their eyes.
+
+
+Meanwhile, Aunt Rachel had been taken to a certain very private
+verandah, and there had had a very private request made her—
+
+"May we go and see Cook?"
+
+"Is that so very particular," she asked, "that all those preparations
+of secrecy should have to be made?"
+
+"Oh, hush, Auntie!"
+
+"There is no one near; the rest are so far-away in the hay-field, that
+if you were to shout, they could not hear."
+
+"But if any one guessed, it would spoil our fun!"
+
+"Guessed that you were going to pay Cook a visit?"
+
+"Well—yes, Auntie, because, in the first place, we're her
+favourites—Elsie and I."
+
+"Oh, are you? But even then—"
+
+"And in the second place," interrupted Ethel eagerly, "we want Cook to
+let us do something—"
+
+"Oh, I see now. But do you not think that Cook is busy?"
+
+"If she is, we'll not ask her—there, Auntie, we promise you. We can
+soon tell whether Cook is busy, because if she is, she's so snappy!"
+
+"Is she?"
+
+"Yes; she's very fond of us, but if she's snappy, she's not at all
+nice."
+
+"I should think not," said Aunt Rachel, laughing. "I don't know
+anything that's nice to be snappy except gingerbread."
+
+"Oh, Auntie!"
+
+"What?"
+
+"You've guessed!"
+
+"Guessed what?" she asked, looking puzzled.
+
+"Hush!" whispered Frank. "It was only an accidental coincidence. If you
+don't say any more, girls, auntie will be quite in the dark."
+
+Having thus gained the permission that if cook were not busy, they
+might visit her, the little girls ran off, followed closely by Frank,
+who promised faithfully to be very quiet and only sit and watch them,
+did cook permit them to carry out their plans.
+
+"Bless your little hearts!" was her greeting, by which the children
+understood that she was not snappy.
+
+"We've come to see you," announced Frank boldly, while Ethel and Elsie
+wished he had said that they had come for something else too.
+
+"That's very kind of you," said cook. "I thought some of the young
+ladies and gentlemen would pay me a visit to-day!"
+
+"Did you?" asked Elsie. "Well, we wanted to see you, and we wanted—if
+you weren't busy—to ask you a 'great' favour."
+
+Cook looked so far from being snappy that they ventured to whisper in
+her ear.
+
+"Gingerbread!" she echoed. "Why, my dears, they've got heaps and heaps
+for tea!"
+
+The little girls' countenances fell.
+
+"But there," added cook, "it ain't the stuff, but the fun of making it
+in my kitchen that you want! I see that. Here, Jane, come along (to her
+little daughter, the kitchen maid), just you get out the flour, and
+the treacle, and the spice, and the butter. Oh! Deary me, to think of
+beginning cooking again in my clean kitchen!"
+
+"It 'is' clean," said Frank. "I like this kitchen the best of any I go
+into. It's the cleanest."
+
+Jane giggled, but cook accepted the compliment quite calmly.
+
+"You should ha' seen it this morning, when some one tore her dress on a
+nail, and came slopping the milk all over my floor."
+
+Jane bent her head, colouring, and Frank could not help smiling. Cook
+pretended to be so very unconscious of who it could have been.
+
+But the girls were by this time deep in the gingerbread, and Frank
+began to tire of what was to be seen inside, so he sauntered into the
+yard, and burst out laughing so loud that cook ran out to see what the
+fun was.
+
+"Here's a new kind of puppy!" said Frank.
+
+But by the time the gingerbread snaps were baked, cook was getting very
+busy indeed over the tea, and Frank, who had come back again from the
+yard, decided that it would be wiser for them all to disappear, as cook
+was now getting decidedly snappy.
+
+So the little girls, with many grateful thanks, and with many
+instructions to the maids to put what they had made on the tea-table
+without any remark, hurried off to the hay-field, where already long
+tables were groaning beneath the weight of tea, coffee, cakes, fruit,
+ham, chickens, eggs, and dainties too many to be counted.
+
+Everybody was moving to the table, and they were only just in time
+before the grace was said by their dear grandfather, standing
+bareheaded under the blue sky.
+
+The two little girls watched those four plates of gingerbread snaps
+with anxious eyes. Yes—people did take some, and took some a second
+time! But, what spoilt their fun most was, that Frank kept on begging
+people to try them, and pressed them so earnestly upon Aunt Rachel,
+with such knowing winks, that they were afraid their secret would be
+out, and they covered with confusion.
+
+But people were too busy to notice any two little girls of the party,
+and just then a diversion occurred in some one asking their grandmother
+whether those were not swallows wheeling about overhead?
+
+"Yes," she answered; "we have a great many of them. And as we have
+finished tea, if you will draw round a little nearer to me, I will tell
+you something very curious that happened under our own eaves. It taught
+'me' a great lesson."
+
+"You, Grandmamma?" echoed several voices.
+
+"Yes. You all know, I daresay, that swallows come to live here in
+summer, and then on a day near the middle of September they all fly
+back again to warmer climes. No matter what they are doing, when the
+call comes,—that mysterious call which only they understand,—off they
+go, and we see them no more till the next April.
+
+"You know how the swallows make nests for themselves up under the
+eaves, and I have heard they sometimes bring up two broods in the same
+year.
+
+"Now it so happened that a year or so ago, one pair had their second
+brood rather late in the season. And before the poor little nestlings
+were able to fly, the call came to the swallows to go south.
+
+"What do you think the little father and mother did? They left their
+little nestlings to starve, and flew away themselves to the warm
+countries! When the blacksmith came to mend the gutter the next spring,
+he found the little dead things huddled together in the forsaken nest.
+And when I heard it, I underlined that text in my Bible which I have
+always loved, that speaks of God's love as contrasted with a mother's
+love, great as that is—'Yea, they "may" forget, yet will I not forget
+thee.'"
+
+There was a moment's pause in the large circle, and then Margaret
+looked up from hugging her baby, and said softly,—
+
+"That is a very sad story, Grandmamma."
+
+"Yes, it is," answered Mrs. Forde, taking her great-granddaughter's
+tiny hand, and smoothing it up and down tenderly, "but it is well for
+us to be reminded sometimes!"
+
+"Reminded?" asked Margaret.
+
+"That God says, '"I" have loved thee with an "everlasting" love!'"
+
+
+Then there was a stir in the circle. Claude and the Reigate boys went
+back to their castle, while the bare mention of the blacksmith had been
+quite enough for some of the children. It was still light, so ever so
+many of them asked permission to pay a visit to the forge before going
+home.
+
+"Good afternoon, Grandfather!" said Jack, roguishly. "It will be almost
+evening before we come back!"
+
+The little ones ran to the wall to watch the party on its way to the
+village, only wishing they had been fortunate enough to be allowed to
+go with them; for after all, what is so entrancing to the childish mind
+as an unhindered peep into a forge?
+
+
+
+                      SUCH A HAPPY EVENING.
+
+                              ————
+
+
+"AUNTIE, Auntie! The dew is falling," called Frank, coming round the
+corner of the house to discover his Aunt Rachel taking a few minutes'
+rest with her favourite nephew by her side, amusing him with a picture
+book, and telling him such thrilling stories that he sat entranced.
+
+She had found him just now in great tribulation, for her dog Frisky,
+unused to children, had taken a particular fancy to the darling of one
+of the families assembled to celebrate the Golden Wedding-day, and had,
+true to his name, frisked round him in the most friendly manner.
+
+Little Kenneth, who had no dog at home, did not take these attentions
+at all in a friendly spirit. He felt sure Frisky was bent on doing him
+some serious mischief, and would end up with demolishing him! Poor
+little Kenneth!
+
+His mournful cry brought Aunt Rachel to his side very quickly. All day
+she had done little else than hover round among the little ones, making
+straight all that might have gone crooked, making smooth anything that
+might have been rough.
+
+She had said that morning to her parents, as they sat at breakfast
+talking over the arrangements for the grand day—"Mother! I shall leave
+all the food to Charlotte's care. 'I' shall devote myself to the little
+ones."
+
+Charlotte was Mr. Forde's other home-daughter. She laughed now a
+little, and said to her sister,—
+
+"Pray, who is to attend to the elder guests, as you have told me off to
+the 'food' all day. I hope you do not put me down as specially greedy?"
+
+"Not at all. I consider myself rather greedy to 'bag' the
+children,—they are the best share by half! But I thought the older
+people suited you best, Charlotte?"
+
+"Oh! I don't mind," she said. "But as to the food, with all our
+elaborate preparations, and so many maids to carry all out, I do not
+think I need concern myself about that. I'll amuse the older folks."
+
+Thus, it was settled. Happily for everybody, the preparations had been
+most complete, and the carrying out of them perfect; so that Charlotte
+had quite a free mind to give to the entertainment of her sisters and
+brothers.
+
+
+Aunt Rachel had been helping some of the little ones to dig in a corner
+of the pretty garden, where Mr. Forde had ordered a load of sand to be
+deposited. Here, after tea, she enticed those who seemed a little tired
+of the hay.
+
+"The big boys are so rough," she had heard one of them say, as she
+smoothed the hay out of her hair, and straightened her rumpled dress.
+"I don't like playing with big cousins at all."
+
+The sand had proved a most delightful exchange from the rather
+overpowering play of the older children, and while some of them dug
+with great energy, the rest of the little ones wandered a little
+further on in the garden, to a plane which was called by Aunt Rachel
+"the wilderness,"—a corner where things were left to grow as they
+liked, with only such cutting and training as was judiciously invisible
+to ordinary eyes.
+
+What a happy time it was for all of them, and not least for Aunt
+Rachel, who often declared it was impossible for her to have too much
+of children! Margaret, one of her elder nieces, married but a short
+year and a half ago, with a precious treasure of her own, quite agreed
+with her aunt that at any rate, she could never have too much of her
+little Daisy!
+
+While the sun was still bright, this indefatigable little mother was
+sure that her baby was sleepy, and leaving the happy party in the
+hay-field, she made her way across the lawns and carried her darling
+into the house.
+
+As she passed through the drawing-room, she met one of her cousins, a
+little girl named Mildred, who was always known as one of the greatest
+baby-lovers ever seen.
+
+"Oh, Margaret!" she exclaimed, springing forward. "'May' I take care of
+Daisy?"
+
+"If you like," answered Margaret, feeling that she was conferring a
+great boon. "Just hold her while I run up to find Mary. I wonder if she
+has her bed ready for her!"
+
+The cot was ready in the spare room, for Margaret was to sleep at
+Bickley that night. So Mildred was allowed to carry the baby up the
+broad easy stairs, and to superintend its undressing.
+
+Daisy had just learned to crawl, and was placed on the floor to show
+Mildred the new performance, when the door was pushed open a very
+little, and Master Frisky walked in to see what was going on.
+
+He did not quite like that any other four-footed animal, as he
+considered it, should be allowed to walk about in "his" spare room, so
+he laid himself down rather sulkily and considered the matter before he
+decided on any course of action.
+
+Margaret and Mildred and the nurse were very much entertained,
+especially as Daisy had no idea of fear, and made her way steadily
+towards the occupant of the mat, intent on a game if possible. Frisky,
+however, was almost too awed at the new quadruped to move. He hung his
+tail as if afraid.
+
+"Do you think he will snap at her?" said Mildred, shrinking.
+
+"Oh, no!" answered Margaret.
+
+But she would not risk it, so caught up her darling and placed her
+out of harm's way in the cot, where she was tenderly watched over by
+Mildred and the nurse, till she fell asleep.
+
+"That's the first 'Good-night!'" whispered Mildred, bending over
+her. "Little Daisy, you are the first to say good-bye to the Golden
+Wedding-day!"
+
+Then she noiselessly left the room, and went out into the still
+evening, listening for sounds that might guide her to some place of
+interest.
+
+Merry voices came from all sides, ringing laughter; so after an
+instant's pause, she decided on making a visit to the hay-loft, where
+she found three of her cousins having a grand frolic.
+
+On her way, she passed some of the neighbours' cottages. And there in
+the warm western sun, outside the door under shelter of the wall, lay
+the baby of the family, all clean and rosy, ready for her good-night.
+
+By the side of her watched her little sister, amusing herself meanwhile
+with feeding some tame sparrows, puss looking on, but restrained from
+touching them by the little girl's hand; while opposite stood the
+eldest boy, stripping a brier of its leaves to make a stick for himself.
+
+"How happy you look," said Mildred, and passed on towards the hay-loft.
+
+Soon she was in the thick of the fun, hiding in the dusky corners, or
+climbing up and down the ladder which led to the ground,—a pastime
+which all found particularly delightful, because there was just a
+little danger of slipping!
+
+
+Meanwhile, two more of the cousins were having another frolic somewhere
+else. Aunt Charlotte had been coaxed to let them into her studio, and
+in consideration of the interest of the day, to actually allow one of
+her brushes to be used on one of her canvases!
+
+"You've been a mighty long time!" remarked Eddie, who was standing
+patiently on the mat, acting as a model for one of his cousins.
+
+"Well, you can go!" she answered condescendingly. "I've got your hair
+exactly now, and your nose! I've made you quite handsome, Eddie!"
+
+"Do you call that like me?" asked Eddie.
+
+"Exactly! Don't you?"
+
+But Eddie did not wait to argue the point. Finding himself let off,
+he bounded away; for however pleasant it may be to paint, it is not
+such an enviable thing to be painted, especially when there are such
+attractions elsewhere as are to be found on Golden Wedding-days.
+
+
+Jack, finding nothing particular to do of an exciting nature,
+determined to amuse himself by climbing one of the high trees near the
+wall which separated his grandfather's grounds from the gardens of some
+cottages.
+
+He had been as far as he thought prudent, and for once had really kept
+within reasonable bounds, and now was descending (as he could not
+indulge himself by going higher!) when he saw a woman come out of the
+nearest cottage door, look quickly about, wring her hands, and call out
+in a very despairing tone, "Baby! Baby!"
+
+"What's the matter?" called Jack's blunt voice from the midst of his
+leafy shade.
+
+The woman stopped short, looked about in every direction, and then
+burst into tears.
+
+"What's the matter?" called Jack again. "I'm up here in the tree."
+
+He shook the branches, and she looked up.
+
+"What ails you?" asked Jack, for the woman's face was woebegone.
+
+"Why, the baby! Oh, do, my dear young master, come down and help me
+find her. She's all I have now, and my heart will break!"
+
+Jack could not make it out, but he descended to the wall, and then in a
+manner best known to himself, let himself down on the other side, and
+stood by the woman, again asking, "But 'what' have you lost? You can't
+lose a baby like that. She must be somewhere."
+
+His steady courageous tone quieted the mother's nervous apprehension a
+little. To her mind, nothing was easier than to lose her baby.
+
+"Where was she?" asked Jack.
+
+"Why, here," exclaimed the woman eagerly. "I'd been leading her about
+the kitchen; she's just begun to walk a bit, and we was as happy as
+could be. And then I put on her bonnet to take her out for a bit, and I
+ran upstairs to get my own things. I wasn't a minute, I do assure you,
+sir. And when I came down, the door was open and she was gone!"
+
+"She isn't far, I'll be bound," said Jack reassuringly. "I'll just run
+round and have a look about."
+
+"But you see it's getting dark," said the mother despairingly, "and if
+I lose her—"
+
+She threw her apron over her head and sobbed aloud.
+
+"Oh, come," said Jack, "you're wasting the time. You go that way, and
+I'll go this. She can't be far, and we'll call her."
+
+He ran off as he spoke, turning up the leafy lane with its shade of
+overhanging trees. While the child's mother, wiping her eyes, which
+were still almost blinded with tears, went in the direction Jack had
+pointed out, glad to have any advice to follow.
+
+The fact was the baby, a little independent morsel of humanity, finding
+that she was arrayed in outdoor garments, thought the most natural
+thing was to take a walk. It did not occur to her that she should wait
+for her mother, it rather occurred to her that it would be a fine thing
+to go without her mother.
+
+The door was fortunately ajar, and a touch of her tiny fingers pushed
+it open sufficiently to let her small form through. She trotted down
+the little garden, went out into the lane, looked this way and that,
+and finally turned in at the little gate which led into Aunt Rachel's
+wilderness.
+
+A lonely wilderness now, for the children had left the dewy grass, and
+were collecting indoors preparatory to going home.
+
+So Jack ran past the little wanderer and overshot the mark, as so many
+people do in this life. His fleet legs carried him over so far down the
+lane, till his good sense told him that no baby feet could have trotted
+as far as that in the few moments which must have elapsed between the
+child having gone out and his beginning to search.
+
+As he slowly retraced his steps, alternately calling "Baby!" and
+listening attentively, he heard a very mournful little voice wailing
+dolefully, somewhere very near.
+
+To his renewed calls of "Baby," no answer was made, but to his joy, the
+crying stopped.
+
+Then he was sorry it had stopped, for now he had no guide to the baby's
+whereabouts.
+
+He looked up at the fence and recognised the particular pattern of
+his grandfather's palings. He gave a spring over the little ditch,
+clambered up the flowery bank, no matter how many nettles and thorns
+were in his way, and grasping the top of the tall fence, peeped over.
+
+There, in the midst of Aunt Rachel's wilderness, sat the little lost
+wanderer!
+
+It did not take Jack a moment to clamber over the palings and to run up
+to the little sorrowful baby.
+
+His most gentle soothing, however, availed nothing to assuage her
+grief. So Jack lifted her up, took her by the hand, and led her
+toddling steps out at the door by which she had entered.
+
+Here they almost ran up against her mother.
+
+"Oh, sir!" she said, gratefully, but no more, for such a hugging and
+kissing as went on completely stopped her flow of eloquence, for which
+Jack was not sorry.
+
+At any rate, the baby had left off crying,—that was one good thing.
+
+"Come in, do, sir!" exclaimed the woman, throwing open the cottage
+door. "I feel I can never thank you enough."
+
+"Oh! I did not do much," said Jack. "You'd have found her right enough
+yourself, if you hadn't been so frightened. She was close by all the
+time."
+
+"Ah! Well, young sir, I daresay you are right, but I've had such trials
+that I'm afraid I ain't always as sensible as I might be."
+
+She seemed to expect Jack to inquire about her trials.
+
+And though he was longing to get back to his cousins, with ready good
+humour, he asked,—
+
+"Have you had such trials then?"
+
+"Me, sir?" she asked, astonished, as if any one could not have heard
+her story.
+
+Jack nodded.
+
+"Why, sir, I married a widower, that's his boy as minds your
+grandfather's cows, and I had one child of my own—such a beautiful boy!
+One day he was taken ill, I don't know how it was, the doctor said
+it must have been croup. Anyway, I saw he was poorly, and I took him
+down to the doctor's, but he was out, and it was a bitter day, that it
+was. So I went home again, and for all I could do, the baby got worse.
+George went and tried everywhere to find the doctor, but he'd been sent
+for somewheres at a distance, and wasn't expected home till morning.
+Long before that the life had gone out of my baby, and he lay cold and
+stiff. If only the doctor had been at home, I shouldn't have lost him!"
+
+She spoke bitterly, and Jack stood still, wondering what to say, for he
+did not like to leave the woman uncomforted, and yet he hardly knew how
+to comfort her.
+
+"You have this one now," he ventured at last, but the woman flashed
+almost angrily upon him,—
+
+"'That' don't make up," she said, though she hugged her little girl
+tighter at the thought.
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Jack, "and perhaps you wouldn't like me to
+say any more?"
+
+"My nerves is so bad," apologised the woman, looking into his open
+face, which had flushed a deep red.
+
+Though Jack had been brave once before that day, he was braver now.
+
+"I don't think I gave you the true comfort," he said. "I heard my
+mother telling some one, that the Lord Jesus when He was on earth loved
+people even when He had to stay away sometimes. Perhaps He lets us have
+troubles that we may trust Him better."
+
+The woman gave him a glance of surprise, and Jack, thinking he had
+leave to go, sped towards the house, little dreaming that after all
+with "that" Name, he "had" comforted the woman!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"We have been looking at the swans," said Eddie. "And mother says they
+are going home to bed, and that we must too!"
+
+"Oh!" said Effie. "I wish we could stay here always,—don't you, Eddie?"
+
+"For some things," answered Eddie candidly, "but we should want mother,
+you know."
+
+"Of course we should; she'd have to stay here."
+
+"But the servants could not do without her," remarked Eddie, as if that
+were conclusive.
+
+And Effie saw it was, and did not argue the point further.
+
+"We must put on our things," said their mother regretfully; "the fly is
+at the door, and the train will not wait for us."
+
+"No, that it won't," said Jack. "I can't bear saying 'Good-bye,' I'd
+rather say 'Good-night,' then you have the hope of meeting the next
+day. I wish we had!"
+
+"We must not make a regret out of our great happiness," said their
+grandmamma's voice behind them. "I never spent such a happy day! Let us
+say 'Good-night,' as Jack suggests, instead of 'Good-bye.'"
+
+So everybody took up the idea that there were to be no regrets, but
+only the loving word, "Good-night" was to be spoken, as each party had
+to leave.
+
+
+Eddie and Effie, with their parents, accompanied by Cyril and his
+parents, were nearly the first to go, and very very sleepy were the
+little people before they got to the end of the journey.
+
+In fact, there was some suspicion that the three little pairs of eyes
+had forty winks in the train.
+
+However that might have been, Eddie and Effie were quite awake enough
+to give their mother a great hug, and to whisper that they had had a
+very, very, "very" happy day.
+
+"If those cousins hadn't been so rough—" began Effie, but her mother
+stopped her with a kiss.
+
+"We will not remember one tiresome thing to-day," she said brightly.
+"It has been the best and loveliest day possible."
+
+"But then," said Eddie archly, "perhaps nothing tiresome 'did' happen
+to you, mother dear!"
+
+"I tore my dress," she answered, in a mock doleful tone; "I shall never
+get over 'that'—"
+
+"What?" asked their father, entering.
+
+"—that stile again, I was going to say," she answered, laughing, "only
+I wanted to shock Effie just a very little bit."
+
+So another "Good-night" was said, and the two pairs of eyes closed
+wearily, and Eddie and Effie left the Golden Wedding-day behind.
+
+
+Not two fields off, at that very moment, Cyril sat on his mother's
+knee, telling her all about his day. Not that she did not know all
+about it before, but she did not mind hearing it afresh from his lips.
+
+He was even wider awake than Eddie and Effie, for he had had more than
+forty winks in the train. His mother's knee had been a pillow for his
+curls all the time of his journey, and now he had reached home and had
+partaken of supper with his parents, he felt ready for anything, and
+chatted away as if sleep were a thing quite unheard of.
+
+"Tell me a story, mother," he pleaded; "then when you've told me one,
+I'll promise to go to sleep."
+
+"Say instead, that you will promise to lie still, and shut your eyes. I
+do not think you can make yourself go to sleep, Cyril."
+
+"Can't I?" he asked, his innocent eyes meeting hers with a surprised
+look.
+
+"I do not think so. There are some things we can do, and some things we
+can't."
+
+"Tell me a story about that!"
+
+"About what, Cyril?"
+
+"About what we can't do, and we can."
+
+His mother smiled.
+
+"I knew a little boy once who was left in a room by himself, and was
+told not to touch anything on the table."
+
+"Not me?" interrupted Cyril.
+
+"Not you, dearest; oh! no. Some other little boy. Well, he promised
+his mother, and when she was gone, he stood a long time listening to
+his mother's footsteps dying away in the distance. And then he turned
+to look at the table. He had not thought before anything about it. But
+now, just because he was told not, his mind went back to it, and his
+eyes felt as if they must turn that way and no other."
+
+"What a silly little boy," remarked Cyril sagely; "he should have shut
+them up tight."
+
+"Well, he didn't. He thought he would just walk over to the table and
+have a look. So he did, and as we often find, looking was not enough.
+There was a basin of something standing within reach.
+
+"'Mother meant this bread and milk for me, I am sure,' he said to
+himself, 'she always gives me some at bedtime. I wonder if there's
+sugar in it? Mother always puts sugar in it, if I'm good: I have been
+good all day, to-day. It's been a good day, I'm sure.'
+
+"He drew nearer; he would have peeped in it or even tasted it, but the
+table was too high. Having thus played with temptation, he put out
+both his hands and tipped the basin just a very little. The basin was
+slippery, and just as the little boy had a full view of its contents,
+over it tipped, pouring a stream of milk right down his chest."
+
+"Was he burned?" asked Cyril, horrified.
+
+"You may well ask that, Cyril. Fortunately, indeed, the milk had only
+been placed there ready for boiling, and was quite cold; or else that
+little boy would have been terribly scalded, and might have died! Now,
+Cyril, tell me—was what he did, one of the things he might have helped?
+Did he make a promise to his mother that he could have kept?"
+
+Cyril considered the matter soberly for ever so long, and then ended by
+flinging his arms tightly round his mother's neck.
+
+"Oh, you dear mother!" he exclaimed. "I s'pose it was! I 'am' so glad
+he wasn't scalded, but only nasty and wet! But now, mother, say my
+prayers, and then I'll promise!"
+
+So Cyril laid his head on his pillow, promising only to shut his eyes
+and lie very quiet, and his mother said "Good-night" with a happy
+heart, and ran downstairs to talk over the Golden Wedding-day with her
+husband.
+
+
+Meanwhile, another party had reached home, a large and rather tired
+party. For there had been too much talking and laughing in the train
+for the regulation "forty winks." And when they arrived at their house,
+the little ones were very sleepy, and it must be confessed a wee bit
+cross.
+
+But nurse and mother and elder sisters each took a tired child in
+charge, and went off with them to their respective rooms.
+
+One little boy was so fatigued that he threw himself on his bed and
+begged to be allowed to stay as he was! But a little management soon
+divested the tired young gentleman of his visiting apparel, and almost
+before they could tuck him up, he was in dreamland.
+
+"Nursie dear!" called Ethel from her bed in the night nursery. "I'm not
+a bit sleepy; can't you let me hold baby while you see to the others?"
+
+"Wait till I've undressed him then," answered nurse, "and we'll see
+about it. I declare I never saw such a lot of you to get to bed at
+once!"
+
+"No, because we don't generally go out all at once, and Golden
+Wedding-days don't happen very often."
+
+"I should hope not," remarked nurse, good-humouredly, remembering the
+bustle it had been to get them off in the morning, and how very early
+everybody had been awake, and what an array of garments had been laid
+out on a certain spare bed for days, so that not one thing should be
+forgotten or missing when the grand morning arrived. Oh, yes, she
+remembered it all, and was glad Golden Wedding-days did not happen
+every week.
+
+"But you liked going, didn't you, nursie?"
+
+"Oh! Yes, miss, it was very nice indeed. I'm sure, to see such a number
+of young ladies and gentlemen together, with all their papas and
+mammas, except poor Miss Archer's, of course, was a treat worth going
+fifty miles to see, that it was!"
+
+So the baby was undressed and given to Ethel to amuse, and then nurse
+turned to another of her charges, who was leaning on the table not
+making any attempt to prepare for the night.
+
+"What is the matter, Miss Elsie?" she asked.
+
+"I'm thinking," said Elsie, without looking up.
+
+"You're tired, I expect," said Nurse.
+
+"No, I'm not,—not in the least tired. I was thinking about that
+gingerbread that we made. I wish it had had some lemon peel in it!"
+
+"Is that all?" said nurse. "I thought it was something very serious."
+
+"That's all," said Elsie.
+
+But she said it with such a sleepy yawn, that nurse came gently
+behind her and unfastened her dress without any further remark. And
+though Elsie had a slight suspicion that she was being managed, it
+was so delightful to feel herself nearing her bed without any effort
+on her part that she yielded herself to the soothing touch, and said
+"Good-night" quite gratefully when nurse bent over her at last with a
+kiss.
+
+
+But before this, the last good-nights were being said at Bickley.
+
+"Lily is going home with us," said Frank, one of the Reigate boys.
+"Mother's asked her to stay till Monday."
+
+"I am glad of that," said her grandfather, laying his hand on Lily
+Archer's shoulder. "I was wondering where my little lonely bird would
+rest to-night?"
+
+"Were you?" asked Lily, looking up gratefully.
+
+"I thought they had asked you to stay here?"
+
+"So grandmamma did, but I thought I ought to go back to be ready for my
+school children on Monday."
+
+"And now?" asked her grandfather.
+
+"Now," interrupted Jack, "'we' want her. Some of us would be dreadfully
+disappointed if she went back to London to-night. We are going to
+telegraph to her home to say she'll be up by the first train on Monday."
+
+Every one seemed to think this a capital plan, and soon the Reigate
+party were on their way to the station, Claude Champion thinking that
+quiet walk under the stars the very pleasantest thing in that eventful
+day.
+
+By-and-by, they reached home, where they found a bright fire blazing,
+lighted by the maid to greet their arrival.
+
+Sitting round in a circle, they all compared notes of their experiences
+of the day's doings, each telling his or her view of the great event.
+Dorothy, the only girl, standing close to Lily's side, while Jack
+looked thoughtfully into the fire.
+
+Presently he told them the story of his cottager's trouble and relief,
+and ended up with a funny look as he said,—
+
+"I never can see why it is people are so immensely fond of their
+babies! Babies seem to me to grow on every hedge!"
+
+His mother, who was sitting opposite him, shook her head, smiling,
+however, to herself.
+
+"Eh, mother?" he asked. "Did you ever value us in that frantic sort of
+way?"
+
+"Not frantic at all," she answered; "but—Jack, I think I have had to
+learn that it is only as long as God keeps my dear ones for me that I
+can hold them."
+
+"I suppose it is," said Jack seriously, "but—"
+
+"It is the safest keeping of all—" said his mother.
+
+And then their eyes wandered to two pictures on the wall, at which they
+looked, often unconsciously, every day of their lives, and of which
+their mother had told them the story, which flashed on Jack now as she
+spoke.
+
+"Say us that lullaby, mother," he said.
+
+So his mother repeated,—
+
+   "Lying at rest, softly at rest,
+      Thus lies my child to-day;
+    Safe from fear, far or near,
+      Safe from the world's dismay.
+    Sailing at rest, sweetly at rest,
+      Thus sails my love to-day;
+    Safe from fear, God is near,
+      Safe from the heart's dismay.
+    Only at rest, always at rest,
+      In Thee, my Lord, to-day;
+    Safe from fear, Thou art near;
+      Safe in Thy care we stay."
+
+Then she told them if they did not say "Good-night" soon, the Golden
+Wedding-day would be gone, and they would have to wish each other good
+morning, which would not be at all nice!
+
+
+But before twelve o'clock strikes, indeed, an hour before that, the
+last of Mr. and Mrs. Forde's children were arriving at their home in
+London.
+
+It was late, and a hansom was the only vehicle which could be obtained
+at the station. But the two children thought this all the more fun, for
+to squeeze into it and to drive along with the cool night air blowing
+in their faces with the moonlight making everything almost as bright as
+day, was a treat such as they had never before enjoyed, and was a fit
+close to the day, to their thinking.
+
+Mildred sat on her father's knee, while her little sister Dolly stood
+up behind, and leaned over her mother's shoulder, kissing her softly
+every few minutes, and whispering happy nothings.
+
+At last, they drew up close to home, and their father hurried to the
+door to get it opened as soon as possible.
+
+But the servants were on the look-out, and so was Vixen, in her kennel.
+He had hardly touched the bell before the lighted hall was in full view.
+
+Mildred led her little sister in. And while her mother was putting
+aside her bonnet, she kept her amused, though she could not help
+yawning privately.
+
+She was not sorry to go straight upstairs when her mother came back,
+but was too much of a child-lover not to be interested in their little
+darling's sayings and doings while she was being undressed.
+
+"I've got a secret!" exclaimed Dolly suddenly. "Where's father?"
+
+"He is downstairs," said her mother.
+
+"He mus' 'tum up," said Dolly, decidedly.
+
+"Oh, Dolly, he's tired," said Mildred, who stood in her little pink
+dressing-gown ready for bed, but obliged to stay to hear what their pet
+had to say.
+
+"He isn't," said Dolly. "I've got what Grandma said, to say to him.
+Call him, Mildred!"
+
+"He will not mind, for once," said their mother; "he is such a dear
+father! But, Dolly, after that, you must lie down and go to sleep, for
+you were never up so late in your life before!"
+
+Dolly nodded, and Mildred ran out to the stairs and called, "Father,
+Father, Dolly has something very particular to toll you!"
+
+"Hey day! Has she? Then I must come, I suppose. What is it, Dolly? You
+do not want any more biscuits, I hope?"
+
+"I'se 'sick' of biscuits," said Dolly, shaking her curls.
+
+"Then what is it? Have you enjoyed yourself?"
+
+"She did," said Mildred, "and so did I. That's not what she wants to
+say."
+
+"Is it that you want to go to bed, like the stag in the picture
+downstairs, who knows that his time for rest has come?"
+
+"Well," began Dolly, with a bright look in her eyes, "I fink it is."
+
+"Or is it that you have blown away all your teeth with those bubbles of
+Lily Archer's?"
+
+Dolly laughed gleefully, while two rows of pearls, perfect and even,
+came into view.
+
+"Make haste and tell me then," said her father, smiling. "I'm going off
+to sleep."
+
+Dolly peeped up in his face to see if he were in earnest.
+
+"'Tum 'tose to me."
+
+"Don't strangle me then."
+
+"Shall I say it?"
+
+"Why, yes, Dolly, be quick,—that's what I'm waiting for."
+
+She put her soft little arms quite round his neck and her rosy lips
+touched his ear.
+
+"Grandma told us—" she said, and paused.
+
+"I'm quite ready for it—"
+
+"It's only 'Good-night,' father dear! Good-night!"
+
+
+
+                                   THE END.
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78706 ***
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+      Such a  Happy Day │ Project Gutenberg
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+<body>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78706 ***</div>
+
+
+<p>Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.</p>
+
+<p><br><br><br></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter" id="image001" style="max-width: 33.8125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/image001.jpg" alt="image001">
+</figure>
+
+<p><br><br><br></p>
+
+<h1><em>Such a&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</em><br>
+<br>
+<em>Happy Day.</em></h1>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p class="t3">
+BY<br>
+</p>
+
+<p class="t1">
+CATHARINE SHAW.<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<p class="t3">
+AUTHOR OF<br>
+</p>
+
+<p class="t4">
+"DICKIE'S SECRET," "NELLIE ARUNDEL," "SOMETHING FOR SUNDAY,"<br>
+"SUNDAY SUNSHINE," ETC.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br><br></p>
+
+<p class="t3">
+London: John F. Shaw &amp; Co., Ltd.<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 12.5em;">3, Pilgrim Street, E. C.</span><br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br><br><br></p>
+
+<p class="t3b">
+CONTENTS.<br>
+<br>
+————<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p>Chapter.</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p><a href="#Chapter_1">I. Such a Happy Day</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#Chapter_2">II. Such a Happy Afternoon</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#Chapter_3">III. Such a Happy Evening</a></p>
+
+<p><br><br><br></p>
+
+<p class="t2">
+<b><em>Such a Happy Day.</em></b><br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<h2><a id="Chapter_1">SUCH A HAPPY DAY.</a></h2>
+
+<p class="t3">
+————<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p>"GOOD morning, Father!"</p>
+
+<p>"Good morning, my little son! Where have you been? Your face is as
+fresh and cool as my cucumbers, though your cheeks are not green, but
+are as rosy as apples."</p>
+
+<p>"I've been out with my mother!"</p>
+
+<p>"With 'your mother,' have you?"</p>
+
+<p>Cyril smiled. "We've been picking flowers, but you don't know what for—"</p>
+
+<p>"Do I not? Shall I guess?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, don't guess, Father, 'cause I like secrets!"</p>
+
+<p>"Very well. And what did my 'early birds' find when they were out?"</p>
+
+<p>Cyril's mother came in at the window with her basket of flowers in her
+hand. She looked down upon them with her gentle eyes, but left her
+little son to speak.</p>
+
+<p>"We saw—we saw lots of dew!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, so you did. I love dew; that shows how early you were up."</p>
+
+<p>"And we saw Eddie and Effie out picking flowers too. And then—What else
+do you suppose we saw?"</p>
+
+<p>"You have a great many 'saws' in your yard," said his father, laughing
+at him. "But go on."</p>
+
+<p>Cyril looked puzzled for a moment, and then meeting his mother's eyes,
+went on—</p>
+
+<p>"We did see a very funny thing! One of our hens wasn't satisfied with
+the hen-house for her nest, and has made one for herself under a hedge.
+Mother called it—"</p>
+
+<p>"Stolen a nest?" suggested Cyril's father.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but I do not see that. When Eddie and Effie went on, I sat down
+on a bank to think about it. I call it 'made a nest' not 'stolen.' The
+poor hen thought she could make it much better out there in the sweet
+air, than in that stuffy hen-house."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you see which hen it was?" asked his father.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. While I was waiting and watching a frog that was jumping about,
+she came up through the hedge all wet and draggled, and got right on to
+the nice eggs: I thought she would spoil them."</p>
+
+<p>"That's what they do," said his father; "and they say it is what makes
+the eggs hatch so well."</p>
+
+<p>"Do they?" asked Cyril, opening his blue eyes very wide. "Anyway, she
+frightened away the frog that had come to have a look at me. It did hop
+so, Father."</p>
+
+<p>"I should think we had better hop in to breakfast, Cyril," said Mr.
+Forde, "for we have plenty to do before ten o'clock, early as we are."</p>
+
+<p>"Eddie and Effie are going by train at the same time as we are," nodded
+Cyril, getting off his perch and taking his father's hand. "'I' don't
+think they're old enough, but they said they were going to walk to the
+station and sit there till uncle and aunt came."</p>
+
+<p>"They won't hurt," said Mr. Forde. "If your sweet mother did not coddle
+you, Cyril, you could go to London by yourself! Boys always turn up
+right-side-up!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Cyril eagerly, "that's what I say. I'm six, and I should
+turn up all right, I know."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Forde did not answer her husband's quizzical look. As she moved
+towards the door, she was gazing on the little darling, who was the
+very light of her eyes.</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p>That day was to be a wonderful day to some people, for Cyril's
+grandfather and grandmother were to celebrate their fiftieth
+wedding-day, while all the children and grandchildren were to meet at
+the pretty house near London, to spend the happy day together.</p>
+
+<p>Plenty of people got up early that morning! Some of them, like
+Cyril and his cousins, Effie and Eddie, knew all about the Golden
+Wedding-day, and some knew nothing about it, and yet were preparing for
+it all the same.</p>
+
+<p>Far away in the country two boys were busy picking the sweet flowers
+for the London market. And when they had gathered a large basket full,
+one of them hastened to the station so as to catch the earliest train
+which steamed away to the great city.</p>
+
+<p>By-and-by, in one of the courts in that great city, a little girl
+raised her head from her couch, and said in a sleepy voice, "Good
+morning, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, child!" said her mother. "Do ye think ye're out in the street
+already! But get up, do; it's late, and if you're not there, somebody
+else will have the best flowers, that they will!"</p>
+
+<p>The child roused herself then, and with many a yawn, put on her little
+dress and apron, and after but a slight breakfast, hurried off to the
+market with her few pence, making as clever a bargain as any other
+little girl of her age.</p>
+
+<p>Then she went out into the streets, and made her way to the spot near
+the Bank where she always took her stand.</p>
+
+<p>Many were the "Good morning, sirs," which passed her rosy lips. But
+some were too busy to turn towards her, and some not inclined to buy,
+so that her basket did not get empty very fast.</p>
+
+<p>But Bella stood patiently enough. She did not thrust her flowers into
+people's faces, nor did she whine or beg.</p>
+
+<p>Well she knew that her brothers and sisters needed all she could
+earn for them; well she knew that her ailing father needed food and
+medicine, and that her mother "could" not work harder than she did
+already. But Bella had found out the best way to empty her basket was
+to keep a cheerful face and a sharp look-out. And among the many who
+passed her each day to their business near, there were some who made a
+point of buying of her rather than any one else.</p>
+
+<p>One young lady, who had just come from a visit to the happy country
+near Reigate, and had there picked flowers with her cousins, turned as
+she passed Bella's tasteful bunches, and paused for an instant.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish—" she said, and stopped.</p>
+
+<p>"Only a penny, miss!" said Bella eagerly. "The whole bunch, miss, just
+as it is. I don't cheat, miss!"</p>
+
+<p>"I was thinking," said the young lady slowly, "I wish I had brought one
+of my bunches with me from home."</p>
+
+<p>Bella looked inquiringly; she wondered why the young lady hesitated
+to buy. Such a sweet young lady, with such a bright, calm look, that
+somehow reminded the little flower-girl of a clear, cloudless sky on a
+summer day.</p>
+
+<p>"I think I will have one," was her final decision. Then her eyes met
+Bella's: "I was going to see a little sick boy on my way home, and I
+wished I had brought one of my own bunches of flowers. But I think
+yours will please him just as much."</p>
+
+<p>She did not add that the penny which she paid for it would have to
+come out of the money which had been set apart for her dinners; for
+her little income had to go a long way. When she took Bella's pretty
+flowers in her hand, she looked into the clear childish eyes with a
+soft expression, as she said,—</p>
+
+<p>"I shall give these to a little boy who is going to heaven very soon.
+Have you ever heard of heaven?"</p>
+
+<p>Bella nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know how we can get there?"</p>
+
+<p>Bella shook her head, then added quickly, "Ain't it by being honest?"</p>
+
+<p>It was the young lady's turn to shake her head.</p>
+
+<p>"It's just because the Lord Jesus died—instead of us,—bore our sins,
+and all the punishment of them, so that we can go free."</p>
+
+<p>Bella sat down and looked at her earnestly. "I never heard that afore,"
+she said slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall you be here on Monday?" asked the young schoolmistress,
+preparing to hasten on.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I shall."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll come earlier, and tell you," she said; "I must not stop now. But
+you can think of this: 'Jesus' is the only way to heaven!"</p>
+
+<p>She hurried away, while Bella's eyes followed her curiously.</p>
+
+<p>It was no wonder that the young schoolmistress was loved so much.</p>
+
+<p>As she sat in her dull schoolroom that morning, with her flowers placed
+in a glass of water, she noticed one of her little pupils in the oldest
+class looking dull and listless.</p>
+
+<p>The rest were busy over sums, when the teacher's voice was heard
+calling,—</p>
+
+<p>"Nellie, my dear, come here!"</p>
+
+<p>The child looked up startled, and then hastened to her side.</p>
+
+<p>"Is anything wrong, Nellie? Are you not well?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I'm quite well, Miss Archer."</p>
+
+<p>"Cannot you do your lesson?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Miss Archer."</p>
+
+<p>"Then what is it, dear?"</p>
+
+<p>Now what it was, was this. The night before, when Nellie had been going
+to bed, her sister Mary had said,—</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Archer makes a favourite of you, so of course you get on with
+your lessons."</p>
+
+<p>"She doesn't!" Nellie had answered indignantly. "She never makes the
+least difference."</p>
+
+<p>"I know she does, for the other girls have noticed it," Mary had said.</p>
+
+<p>And then poor Nellie had knelt down to pray. But instead of being able
+to speak to God, all her sister's words had come over her again, and at
+last, she had crept into bed full of sorrow and resentment.</p>
+
+<p>So when Miss Archer asked her what was the matter, and looked so
+lovingly in her face, she remembered all this, and knew that the other
+girls would make up their minds more than ever that she was a favourite.</p>
+
+<p>"Cannot you tell me?" her teacher was saying.</p>
+
+<p>And then Nellie gave one shy glance at her and whispered,—</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think I can; but—it was my fault—being angry with Mary! I
+ought to have helped that."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Archer kissed her in silence, and then, as it was just the end of
+school, she asked Nellie to walk with her as far as their roads went
+together.</p>
+
+<p>Before Nellie had quite got through her story of her fear of being a
+favourite, Miss Archer came to the house where she was to take the
+bunch of flowers she had bought of Bella.</p>
+
+<p>So she wished the little schoolgirl good-bye, and ran up to the
+invalid, only waiting for one whispered word, before she flew
+down again; for to-day was a great day for her, and to her joy a
+half-holiday. For this was her grandparents' Golden Wedding-day, and
+like Eddie and Effie in the country, or like Cyril and his parents, her
+heart was full of plans and thoughts as to how the large party would go
+off.</p>
+
+<p>Only yesterday a man had come to the dining-room window of her London
+home, and had held up a pretty pot of flowers for her to buy. Then she
+had thought, "That will do for my present. It isn't much, but they all
+know I am not rich."</p>
+
+<p>For Miss Archer was an orphan, and she boarded with some friends, and
+kept herself by her teaching. Many a home had been offered her, but she
+always shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>To-day, her friend's little girl ran to greet her with her picture book.</p>
+
+<p>And as she took her on her knee, she said,—</p>
+
+<p>"Do you remember, Mabel, that, poor man who came to the window
+yesterday?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know," nodded Mabel.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he said he had a little girl almost as young as you, who stands
+all day with a basket of flowers. He said that in the cold spring
+weather, when the palm first comes out, the poor parents make most of
+their living by what she sells."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor little girl!" said Mabel softly. "I'd like to give her my
+pudding!"</p>
+
+<p>But Miss Archer had not time to tell her the whole story just then,
+so she carried her up all the long flights of stairs to her little
+room at the top of the house, to watch her change her dress for her
+grandmamma's Golden Wedding-day.</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, some of the other grandchildren had been busy on this
+auspicious morning. Already the train was bringing Eddie, Effie, and
+Cyril, those happy children, towards London. While nearer the pretty
+house where the grandparents lived, there were other boys and girls who
+were up early too, and long before their elders were awake had picked
+baskets of fruit as a present from their father's orchard.</p>
+
+<p>Then what a grand changing of clothes there was, and combing and
+brushing, and tying and fastening!</p>
+
+<p>How the girls had to be arrayed in all their prettiest things! And how
+the boys were anxious about certain neckties, and took quite as long as
+the girls to turn themselves out as "spic and span" as they did!</p>
+
+<p>"How many will there be of us?" had been a frequent question in all the
+families. But there were so many to count, and so many to be counted,
+that one never seemed to come at the right number.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, there's Cousin Lily Archer—she's one at any rate," the boys
+said, and everybody was glad of that; for wherever she went, Lily was a
+great favourite.</p>
+
+<p>"Then there's all the boys from Reigate," said some one, regardless
+of his good English in his excitement; "and there's that fellow whose
+father is in India, who's staying with them, Claude Champion—he's
+invited. And there's—"</p>
+
+<p>But nobody would wait to hear. There were, all were agreed, seven
+families to bring their different members to the gathering, and their
+numbers varied from poor Lily Archer, who was the sole representative
+of her dead parents, down to the blooming twelve children of the eldest
+son and daughter.</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p>Many a "Good morning!" sounded that day as the parties began to arrive.
+And their dear grandmother had her cheeks kissed into a pretty pink, as
+one and another came up to her, bringing tokens of love and greeting.</p>
+
+<p>When the first excitement was over, there was a general assent to the
+proposal of the elders that as many as liked should go to meet the
+train by which the next party was expected.</p>
+
+<p>The girls ran for their hats, the boys sauntered out on to the lawn to
+wait for them, while the little ones eagerly said they should not be
+tired, and that the cool lanes would be better than the gardens.</p>
+
+<p>Though the elders smiled at this little fiction, it was allowed to go
+uncontradicted, and the troop set off in the best of spirits.</p>
+
+<p>"May I come too?" asked Claude, who was living with the Reigate family.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you may!" said some one.</p>
+
+<p>Now their friend from India remembered the pleasant summer holiday he
+had just spent, and thought of the weeks when Lily Archer had been
+among them, and he considered the greatest attraction of the Golden
+Wedding-day was that he should see her sweet, quiet face. So he gladly
+availed himself of the boy's permission to go and meet her, and made
+himself so bright and interesting that he was the centre of attraction
+all the way to the station.</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p>When they returned with a fresh accession to their numbers, there were
+more greetings and more presents. Flowers, from far and near, seemed
+the order of the day.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is this?" said grandpapa roguishly, as one of his darlings came up
+to him with her frock filled with fruit and flowers. "Do I know this
+little girl?"</p>
+
+<p>"Please, I'm Effie," said a little voice, "and Eddie is here too—at
+least, he was in the conservatory just now; he's too shy to come in."</p>
+
+<p>"Shy, is he?" said her grandfather. "Then we must go and fetch him.
+Nobody must be shy on Golden Wedding-days, must they, Effie?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not shy at all," said Effie, at which everybody laughed.</p>
+
+<p>And then Effie turned shy in good earnest, and hung her head.</p>
+
+<p>But everybody was too busy and too happy to notice her, and in another
+moment, she found herself being led through the window at the end
+of the room into the pretty conservatory, where the profusion of
+the flowers nearly took away her breath. But her hand was in her
+grandfather's, and who could be as dear, as interesting, as loving as
+he?</p>
+
+<p>There they found Eddie gazing at a rose-coloured camellia which had
+grown far above his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Eddie, Eddie!" exclaimed his little sister. "Grandpa says you mustn't
+be shy on Golden days—'cause—I don't know why—but—here's grandpa come
+to find you. It's awfully nice in here, isn't it, Eddie?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Eddie shortly, looking as he would very much have preferred
+that they should have kept away. "Yes, it's nice when—when I can see
+all the flowers."</p>
+
+<p>"Can't you see?" asked Effie, opening her eyes.</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p>But the children soon found out where their grandfather was, and
+flocked round him begging for a story.</p>
+
+<p>"Hey-dey!" he said. "I can't make stories like I used when I was
+younger; I haven't the imagination now."</p>
+
+<p>"But you can tell us real ones, sir," said Claude Champion, who stood
+behind the rest arranging some flowers into a little posy.</p>
+
+<p>"Eh?" said the old gentleman.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, something true, Grandfather," exclaimed one of the Reigate boys.</p>
+
+<p>So he sat down on a green iron seat and the rest crowded round; till
+the story-telling getting wind, everybody gathered near, filling in the
+doorways and drawing-room windows; such an audience as moved the old
+man to see.</p>
+
+<p>"All my own," he murmured, his observant eyes going round from one to
+another; "all my own, except Claude Champion,—and he's the son of a
+dear friend. Almost as good as my own anyway."</p>
+
+<p>A smile passed over his face, which no one understood, unless it were
+grandmamma, who understood most things!</p>
+
+<p>"Are you goin' to begin, Grandfather?" asked Cyril, who was seated on
+the knee of one of his cousins.</p>
+
+<p>The old gentleman hemmed and cleared his throat, and then began in good
+earnest:—</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"Once upon a time—"<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<p>"That's the way," murmured one of the Reigate boys, and got a punch in
+the ribs from another of them as a stopper.</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"Once upon a time, not very far from here, in a great smoky city, there
+lived a happy young mother.<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"Every day, when she had sent her little girl off to school, and had
+dressed her baby boy, she would take him to the window where she kept
+her flowers, and would water them and attend to them while she sang a
+bright, cheerful hymn.<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"Presently, if her boy were very good, she would reward him with a
+bunch for his very own. Oh, what infinite joy it gave that mother's
+heart to do anything for her baby, to deny herself that he might have
+pleasure!<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"When her little girl, whom we will call Minnie, came back from school,
+she would take her little brother for a walk or play with him in the
+court, where she chose the only corner on which the sun shone down; for
+like her mother, and the flowers and the canary (and like all of us!),
+she loved sunshine!<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"But dark, sad days came upon those happy children.<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"All at once Minnie discovered that her mother was sick. It came upon
+her with a blank despair she had never even dreamed of before. One
+morning when she got up, she found her mother was unable to rise from
+her bed.<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"'Minnie!' said the panting voice of the fever-stricken woman. 'I'd
+thought we would all have met your father when he came home from
+his voyage—so happy—but—it's not to be. Minnie, we'll meet in the
+Home above; and God 'll take care of you somehow, though I can't see
+how. Minnie, take care of baby, and write to your grandfather and
+grandmother.'<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"The poor mother paused there.<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"'Minnie, you'll tell your father as I did my best for you, and always
+loved him, at home or away, just the same; and write—mind you write—to
+your grandmother.'<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"Soon after that, she got too ill to arrange anything, and Minnie could
+only sit by and whisper what she had learned of the Home above, and
+say over and over again to her dying mother, the words which seemed to
+quiet her more than any others, 'I will never leave thee nor forsake
+thee.'<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"Soon after that, she had need to remember those words for herself,
+for she was left alone in the world, with only her little brother and
+far-away father who had not been heard of for many a long day.<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"She wrote, as her mother had told her, to her grandparents, and the
+poor old couple knew not what to say. They had hard work to keep a fire
+on their own hearth. While they were thinking it over, their son's wife
+came in, and she listened to all they had to say without any remark.
+But when she got home, she told her husband all about it, and how she
+had been watching her hen gathering its chickens under its wings, and
+how she had thought she should like to gather the little orphans under
+her wings till a home could be found for them.<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"Her husband was a very bluff man, and he did not answer many words,
+but as he went off to his work, he gave her a rarely tender kiss as he
+said shortly, 'You may ask 'em for a bit—anyway—Pollie.'<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"So Pollie wrote the letter of welcome, and poor little Minnie received
+it the next morning, just as she had come to her very last halfpenny
+after paying her week's rent.<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"The letter contained an order for enough money to bring the two
+children into the country, and there were plenty of kind neighbours to
+pack up their few clothes and get them off.<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"As one motherly woman took her leave of them, she said to Minnie,—<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"'Well—anyways, my dear—you've cared for yer brother pretty near as
+well as his mother, and that's sayin' a great deal.'<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"Almost as soon as Minnie's answer could get to Pollie, the two
+children had started, and were on their way.<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"But Pollie was not surprised. She liked things done quickly. And when
+she had read the letter which the postman had brought, she just ran
+into her cottage and 'spun round,' as she called it, putting her little
+plans into execution which she had just formed while she sat thinking
+about them yesterday.<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"Yes! She would keep some more hens, and Minnie should help her in
+the care of them. And the child should take the eggs round to some
+houses she knew, where the gentlefolks would have as many as she could
+spare them. And Minnie should sleep in the little attic with her baby
+brother, and should be made welcome till her father came home to see
+about her. And if he never came home—why, there was another Almighty
+Father who would help the orphans and find food and clothes for them in
+His wonderful way!<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"That was what Pollie thought, while all the time she was 'spinning
+round' making her neat cottage neater still.<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"So the children came. Minnie with her mournful eyes and thin,
+sorrowful face, and the baby with that pathetic, motherless look which
+went to Pollie's heart.<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"But Pollie thought the best plan would be to take the baby into her
+heart instead of letting him make it ache. So the little fellow sat on
+her knee, was fed by her hand, and delighted her by growing stronger
+every day. She taught Minnie to make a frock for him, and out of her
+own pocket bought some new boots in which he could run about.<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"After a few weeks of country sunshine had passed over their heads,
+the woebegone look went away from Minnie's face, and though she never
+forgot her mother—never, never,—she forgot her sorrow, and began to be
+the light of her uncle's home.<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"How the baby learned to walk and play and dig! How he laughed all day
+long and gambolled with the dog! How he, by-and-by, trotted into his
+grandfather's cottage and lisped out 'Dood-mornin',' like all of you
+have done to-day!<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"But Minnie did not get to be a selfish little girl, only anxious to
+enjoy herself. Of that you may be sure!<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"When the Lord Jesus reigns in anybody's heart, He drives selfishness
+out, as surely as sunshine drives out darkness!<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"By-and-by Minnie and her little brother sent up some country flowers
+to the neighbours who had been so kind to her. And then she saved up
+some eggs which Pollie gave her for her own, and sent them to another
+poor little girl, named Rose, who had no mother. And in a letter, she
+told her how nice it was to learn to grow flowers, and advised her to
+try to get a geranium for her window, and take care of it till there
+should be a flower-show for poor people.<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"And Rose took her advice, and spent the next penny she had on a little
+plant, and so made a beginning.<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"Then she took her baby-sister to a certain place where she knew some
+flowers were to be seen, and stood long and watched them, and then went
+home with fresh heart to save up for another larger pot, which in due
+time she obtained.<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"Minnie's old grandparents thought there were never two such children
+as these loving ones who had dropped from the skies, as it were, at
+their feet. But they told their son that it was a good day that ever
+his young wife thought of such a thing, and they blessed her for it.<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"As to Pollie, the blessing came to her, too; for her little poultry
+farm throve wonderfully, and as to the people that came far and near
+for her eggs, she said it was quite surprising!<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"Then Minnie and Bobbie were so loving! They seemed to fill up her
+hungry heart, and she only wondered how she had ever got on without
+them.<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"At last, their father did come back to London, but when he found his
+home broken up, his sorrow was very great.<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"But the neighbours directed him to where his children were being
+sheltered, and he hastened down to Bickley."<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<p>"Bickley!" interrupted a half-a-dozen voices. "Why, that's here!"</p>
+
+<p>"Does anything prevent it's being here?" said their grandfather smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, don't interrupt," said the girl who held Cyril on her knee. "Do
+go on, Grandfather!"</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"I've just done. When he came down to Bickley and found how happy the
+children were, and how Tom and Pollie did not want to part with them,
+he shed tears of joy, and went on his next voyage with less sorrow in
+his heart than he had had for many a long day."<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<p class="thought">
+*******
+</p>
+
+<p>The old gentleman paused.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that all?" asked some one.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, all—except that the eggs which you will eat at tea to-night were
+laid by Minnie's hens!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!"</p>
+
+<p>There was a general move, and a general "Thank you, Grandfather—very
+much!" from at least twenty voices.</p>
+
+<p>Claude Champion had been making and remaking his bouquet all this time,
+and when the story was finished, he passed it to Lily with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Not for me?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes—certainly; for whom else did you suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll have just one flower," she answered.</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p>It was almost dinner time. But all were waiting for one more train to
+bring the rest of the party from a distance.</p>
+
+<p>So once more, the garden was the scene of merry groups of bright
+colours flitting about among the trees. Some of the younger ones
+playing hide-and-seek, while some wheeled their aunt's dolls, where
+they could pace up and down undisturbed.</p>
+
+<p>The grandparents sat down under the great elm watching all with
+happy faces, their own children—the fathers and mothers of the
+party—gathering round them, enjoying and entering into it all in their
+different ways.</p>
+
+<p>"Who would have thought, my dear—fifty years ago—that we should have
+such a party as this?" said the grandfather, taking his wife's hand in
+his.</p>
+
+<p>She only shook her head, smiling peacefully. Whatever storms life had
+brought, sunshine had come at the end—the sunshine "which shineth more
+and more unto the perfect day."</p>
+
+<p>In the half-hour before the rest had arrived, Lily had been persuaded
+to accept the offer of a home, by some one who had set his heart very
+much upon it. So that grandfather was right, and Claude Champion did
+bid fair to be one of his own after all, on this Golden Wedding-day.</p>
+
+<p><br><br><br></p>
+
+<h2><a id="Chapter_2">SUCH A HAPPY AFTERNOON.</a></h2>
+
+<p class="t3">
+————<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p>IT was the afternoon of the Golden Wedding-day. All the seven families
+of children, and grandchildren, and great-grandchildren had arrived
+at Bickley, the great dinner-table had been set, and the great dinner
+eaten. The grandfather had tried to count the numbers, and had failed,
+and half-a-dozen at least of his grandsons had tried to help him,
+always with the same result, that everybody clamoured so, and had so
+many suggestions to make, that nobody ever got to the end.</p>
+
+<p>Grandmamma sat smiling and silent at the top of the table. It would
+have been useless for her to try to get a word in, and she certainly
+did not try. At last, when everybody had spent all the breath there
+was, it occurred to somebody to say to her,—</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps you can tell us, Grandma! You look very knowing!"</p>
+
+<p>"I wrote all the names," she answered demurely.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, aye! So you did," said grandfather; for there was a lull, and his
+voice could reach the top of the long, long table. "Pity we did not
+think of that before."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Grandfather?" asked some one.</p>
+
+<p>"Saved a lot of breath," answered the old gentleman with a twinkle.</p>
+
+<p>"Then how many are there?" asked Claude Champion, who was seated by
+Mrs. Forde's side, as the greatest stranger. "Can you tell us now?"</p>
+
+<p>"I wrote fifty names," said Mrs. Forde, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"And there are fifty here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; all have come."</p>
+
+<p>She glanced down the long lines of faces, to where even her tiny
+great-granddaughter sat in her mother's lap, looking as happy as all
+the rest.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us go into the garden," she said, rising. "There will be shade
+under the elms, and I have promised my baby of babies to see her
+namesake, Daisy."</p>
+
+<p>She stretched out her arms to the youngest of the party, receiving her
+from her pretty young mother, and led the way to the lawn, where the
+shadows had already begun to lengthen enough to afford a delightful
+shade for those who felt inclined to rest there.</p>
+
+<p>She herself, however, took her great-grandchild to the iron fence which
+separated the smooth lawn from the little meadow, and called, "Daisy,
+Daisy, where are you?"</p>
+
+<p>How the baby turned her head, looking this way and that, when she heard
+her own name.</p>
+
+<p>But there was another gentle creature, who understood even better than
+the baby. At the sound of her mistress's voice, the Alderney cow turned
+her head from the sweet grass and walked towards them, followed by
+her calf, till she drew up at the fence and put her head over the top
+expectantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Give baby to me, Grandmamma," said the baby's mother, "while you see
+to 'your' Daisy; she seems to expect something."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Forde acknowledged that the cow did expect something. When her
+hand was free, she put it into a little bag she carried, and produced
+from a soft piece of paper three or four small carrots!</p>
+
+<p>"There, Daisy!" she said. "You must have your treat as well as the rest
+of us!"</p>
+
+<p>Then turning to the little boy who sat on the stile watching them, she
+added,—</p>
+
+<p>"Georgie, go into cook, and ask her for that cake I looked out for you.
+This is my Golden Wedding-day, you know."</p>
+
+<p>Just then the troop of grandchildren came down the path close to them,
+on their way to the farmyard, that wonderful attraction which had been
+saved "till after dinner" by everybody.</p>
+
+<p>Margaret gave her baby to the nurse and accepted the offer of a rest in
+the hammock; for proud young mothers find that, however delightful it
+is to show off their treasures, it is very fatiguing!</p>
+
+<p>As she rested there, listening to the voices going farther and farther
+away, the cawing of the rooks in the elms overhead soothed her into a
+sort of dreamy reverie. She fell to musing about the leafless trees in
+which they built their nests in the spring, and how she had heard that
+the same rooks came back to the same trees—year after year. Then she
+thought,—</p>
+
+<p>"And is there any place like home, winter or summer, for any of us? I
+do not wonder the rooks come back again to their old haunts."</p>
+
+<p>After that, Margaret's moralizing ended in dreams for about a minute,
+and when she opened her eyes again, the light wind was stirring the
+chestnut leaves all round her, and her husband's voice was saying,—</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Margaret, I had quite lost you! The rest are all off to the
+farmyard, feeding the donkeys and chickens and ducks and drakes, as if
+it were the business of life! Will you come too? It is no fun without
+you, and to-day we must have all the fun we can!"</p>
+
+<p>"All gone, are they?" she asked, springing out of her hiding-place,
+well pleased to be wanted.</p>
+
+<p>"I think so. I interrupted one of the Reigate boys begging his mother
+to let him climb or something. And I passed Dorothy tying on her hat
+in a great hurry; she was nearly crying, because she said the rest had
+gone without her."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor little girl! But I daresay she will catch them. Do you know,
+Harry, even to this day I cannot bear to be left behind. Perhaps you do
+not know that feeling?"</p>
+
+<p>Harry looked at her with a comical glance of mingled love and
+admiration, and they sauntered back to ask what the more sedate members
+of the party were going to do. But nobody would acknowledge to being
+sedate to-day. And in spite of the heat, they all decided to follow
+the fortunes of the young ones; for whatever interested them, would
+interest those whose hearts were always young.</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p>"Where's Jack?" asked that young gentleman's mother, perhaps somewhat
+doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>She had not confessed to any one that up in a certain bag she had
+actually brought a second suit of clothes for her son, in case the
+first should by any misfortune come to grief.</p>
+
+<p>Now what Jack was doing was this. He had reached the farmyard the first
+of any one. And just reserving enough wits to turn up his trousers,
+he gave a great jump into the soft, springy straw which he saw in the
+middle of the enclosure, deciding while he was in mid-air that it was
+like jumping on the best spare room bed while the maids were making it!</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh! Oh!" But Jack had not counted on its being so very—very—soft, and
+springy, and warm—and ugh—wet!</p>
+
+<p>He plunged in and out with more speed than generally fell to the share
+of the best spare room bed; and his only hope was that no one had seen
+his disaster. He rushed into the doorway of a friendly cow-house, while
+he recovered his breath and could have time to decide what to do.</p>
+
+<p>He peeped out; the rest were coming in at the gate of the yard, and
+were already calling the hens to be fed. Then no one "had" seen him,
+that was his greatest hope.</p>
+
+<p>But what to do? He looked down at his clothes. Surely they were not so
+very bad! And yet—what was this constantly increasing impression of
+damp and cold behind him, and this odour which met his olfactory nerves
+whenever he turned his head down to his own shoulder?</p>
+
+<p>"I'll go right away home to Reigate," he said; "there's nothing else
+for it. It serves me right, for being so careless. I always 'do' get
+into a scrape, try as hard as I will. It's because I'm so thoughtless,
+mother says, but then—ugh! I wish they'd have done with those
+everlasting chickens; I shall be kept here all day. As if I'd never
+seen a farmyard before! I suppose they'd put some clean straw over
+there, to make it look nice for the Golden Wedding-day—ugh!"</p>
+
+<p>He was quite right about the party bidding fair to stay there all
+day. There were so many things to see, dear to the hearts of suburban
+children!</p>
+
+<p>There was Gipsy, the beautiful dog, with her puppies, who resented the
+chickens drinking her dish of milk. There was the favourite cock, who
+looked as if he were just going to accept the corn from Eddie's hand,
+and then walked off with a supercilious kind of air, which seemed to
+say, "Don't you wish you may catch me, young sir?"</p>
+
+<p>All this Jack saw through a peep-hole in the cow-house, but he was
+very weary of his situation. He was too impatient to be philosophical,
+or he would have considered that they must get tired some time, and
+then he could slip out. Instead of that, his busy brain was planning
+some brave, wonderful way of escape. If only he could devise something
+splendid to do!</p>
+
+<p>He looked up and down and around. If he could once get to the station,
+he shouldn't mind anything or anybody there, he thought; he would just
+get into an empty carriage and—</p>
+
+<p>But when his plans had matured as far as that, he thought of his
+mother, and of her anxiety at his disappearance; he thought of the
+party, which would be utterly spoilt should one be missing, and his
+heart misgave him.</p>
+
+<p>Then the thought of his disaster swept over him afresh. No, he could
+not face the jeers of his boy cousins, nor the pitying looks of his
+girl cousins, nor the raised eyebrows of some of his aunts and uncles.
+No, he must risk the anxiety of other people, and save himself the
+inevitable disgrace.</p>
+
+<p>Again he looked up. All around the cow-house were apertures for
+ventilation; he thought he could squeeze through one of these, and so
+away.</p>
+
+<p>He sprang on the manger, and in another moment, his lithe form was
+holding on to the rafters, and he was already half-way through.</p>
+
+<p>"Safe!" he muttered as he let himself lightly to the ground, but there
+he stopped.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm doing a cowardly thing, I do believe," he said, half aloud. "I'm
+actually running away from what I ought to bear, and leaving other
+folks to the annoyance of my fault! That's what I should call cowardly
+in any one else. Well—"</p>
+
+<p>He stood still and looked round. Close to him a goose and her goslings
+were sporting in and out of a favourite gutter, beyond them some
+country children were driving home a goat from the common.</p>
+
+<p>Jack had made up his mind.</p>
+
+<p>He gave a flying leap across the gutter and brought up in front of the
+cottage girl.</p>
+
+<p>"I say—" he began.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," she answered, looking somewhat slyly at his hot, bashful
+face.</p>
+
+<p>"I say; I've got into a mess,—see here," he added, turning round.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh my!" said the girl expressively.</p>
+
+<p>"Could you just go into the farmyard and ask 'em to tell you which is
+my mother?"</p>
+
+<p>The girl looked doubtful.</p>
+
+<p>"She's a nice sort of woman, with grey stuff in her bonnet, and a grey
+dress,—anybody 'ull tell you!"</p>
+
+<p>"What am I to say?" asked the little girl, still doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell her Jack wants her! He's gone indoors. He's got into trouble—as
+usual. Tell her that."</p>
+
+<p>He turned off, and hurried to the house, while the cottage girl did
+his bidding as well as she could. Among the forty or more people
+who stood about watching the cows or feeding the chickens, she had
+great difficulty in finding which was the "nice" woman whom Jack had
+described. But she was a straightforward little girl, and she felt very
+sorry for the poor young gentleman's trouble; so she waited till she
+saw a lady who suited her ideas, and then she spoke,—</p>
+
+<p>"Please, mum, are you 'Jack's' mother?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, that I am!" said the lady in the grey bonnet.</p>
+
+<p>"Then he's tumbled down somewhere, and he wants you, ma'am; he's gone
+indoors."</p>
+
+<p>"Not hurt?" asked his mother with a sinking at her heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh dear no, ma'am!—Only in a mess," said the country girl, and moved
+off towards home.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, very much," said Jack's mother gratefully. And as she
+hastened back, that extra suit flashed across her with intense relief.</p>
+
+<p>"You 'are' a dear mother!" said her boy as, clean and fresh, he stood
+dressed, all but his socks and boots which were ready for him. "I do
+think you 'are' kind, never to even reproach a fellow. Well, it's like
+mothers—that's all I can say!"</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad you came to me, my boy," she said, putting her arm round
+him. "Mothers are generally the best friends to go to!"</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, the rest had left the farmyard and were making a call at the
+Dairy Cottage, that picturesque spot which in winter seemed the most
+snowy of any spot round, and in summer the most leafy.</p>
+
+<p>It was cool and leafy now, but while the elders looked at the butter
+and cream, and admired the cleanliness of everything, the young people
+sought the outhouses behind, where a certain donkey was known to reside.</p>
+
+<p>Here Jack, who had but just joined the party, and was in front of the
+others, recognised his friend of just now, the little girl who had
+helped him so kindly.</p>
+
+<p>"Good afternoon!" he said, unconcernedly, with his ready wit, always
+knowing the best thing to do at the moment, though he did get into
+scrapes so often,—"Good afternoon!"</p>
+
+<p>"Good afternoon, sir," she answered, blushing, on seeing who it was,
+and inwardly wondering at the transformation.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm much obliged to you for carrying that message," he said frankly.
+"I couldn't thank you then—but I wanted to afterwards, and didn't know
+where you lived."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I live here," said the girl, surprised.</p>
+
+<p>As the rest crowded out after the donkey and her foal, he added, "I
+wanted you to have this. Mother said I might, if I saw you. I haven't
+anything else!"</p>
+
+<p>He put into her hand his cherished four-bladed knife, which he had had
+for a whole month in his possession, without its being either broken or
+lost.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah no, sir," said the little girl; "I'd—"</p>
+
+<p>But Jack was half across the meadow, and the only wonder was he did not
+fall into a wide ditch full of water in his eagerness to escape her
+thanks.</p>
+
+<p>When he put his hand in his pocket that night to get his knife to cut
+something, he made a wry face at the thought that it was gone. But
+after an instant, he said to himself,—</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that was a brave little girl, and I'm glad she's got it! When I
+think that I sent her among fifty gentlefolks, with only a grey dress
+and her own kindness to guide her, I think I may say she was a very
+brave little girl,—considering all things!"</p>
+
+<p>Those who did not care for the donkey, or who had had their turn on
+his back, amused themselves with the turkeys, which were the especial
+charge of the dairy-woman.</p>
+
+<p>Her little children were at the very moment feeding them with some
+bread.</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p>At last, the children began to think that there were other pleasures to
+be found nearer home.</p>
+
+<p>Something had been hinted about some surprise at four o'clock, and as
+that time drew on, all the party began to collect on the lawn again.</p>
+
+<p>When the clock on the stable rang forth its four strokes, two
+labourers, looking very shy, came over the soft grass, and touching
+their caps to the grandfather said,—</p>
+
+<p>"Please sir, the hay's ready for the young ladies and gentlemen."</p>
+
+<p>"Hay!" shouted the boys. "Where, where?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have had a field reserved on purpose for this day," said their
+grandfather. "I thought there could not be a greater pleasure—"</p>
+
+<p>"Where?" asked everybody, for they had not noticed any grass cut on
+their way to the farmyard.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a field I rent on the other side of the lane. You can reach it
+in a moment through the garden gate."</p>
+
+<p>"Grandfather, you will come and show us," said Lily Archer, putting her
+arm through his, and leading him down the garden.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't want 'me,'" said the old gentleman, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed we do," she answered earnestly. "You and Grandmamma seem the
+nearest I have to-day."</p>
+
+<p>Tears glittered in her eyes, which had been so bright and happy but a
+moment before. She was thinking of her own loneliness, without father
+or mother, the sole representative of those who were gone before.</p>
+
+<p>Claude, who was walking by her, guessed just a little of this from her
+words. And when her grandfather only squeezed her arm sympathisingly,
+he said,—</p>
+
+<p>"You would like them to be here, and I am sure I should too. You must
+miss them more than ever to-day!"</p>
+
+<p>That little speech was the most comforting thing, Lily thought, which
+had been said to her for many a long day.</p>
+
+<p>And yet was she selfish, that it was not only that her parents missed
+the Golden Wedding-day, but she so wanted them to share in her
+happiness, and to give their blessing to the step she had taken only
+this very morning?</p>
+
+<p>Almost the whole party collected in the hay-field, with the exception
+of an aunt and three children who were left behind. Even grandmamma was
+enticed to accept a very carefully prepared hay seat, and her husband
+came and sat down by her side, drawing Lily to another seat near.</p>
+
+<p>"How lovely it is!" she said.</p>
+
+<p>"I think it is," answered the old gentleman.</p>
+
+<p>"It is the happiest day I ever spent," said Claude.</p>
+
+<p>"The haymakers were up almost before it was light, turning the hay
+over, as we had a shower yesterday, and I was afraid it would be damp.
+But it is not in the least."</p>
+
+<p>"No, indeed," said Claude; "I never saw a nicer hay-field. I'm going
+to help those boys build a gigantic house. Will you come and visit us
+presently, and give your approval?" he added, turning to Lily.</p>
+
+<p>"'If' I approve," she answered, smiling archly.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course; we do not want you to be insincere! But we really are going
+to build a magnificent castle."</p>
+
+<p>He went off, and Lily sat with her grandparents under the shady elms by
+the hedge, well content.</p>
+
+<p>By-and-by one and another of the uncles and aunts gathered round, while
+their own boys and girls, or their nephews and nieces, made fresh hay
+seats for them, till there was quite a circle.</p>
+
+<p>"Are all here?" asked the grandmamma. "For I cannot count my fifty."</p>
+
+<p>"All but two or three of the little girls who have some project or
+other. I left them sitting demurely on a seat in the garden, only
+anxious for us to leave them, I fancy," said one of Mr. Forde's
+home-daughters.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes, so they were! I remember now, and they had got hold of their
+Aunt Rachel, and were whispering to her earnestly. What could they be
+wanting?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, if Rachel was there," said Miss Forde, "it will be all right."
+(Rachel was the other home-daughter.)</p>
+
+<p>So they forgot for a while about the little girls who were with Aunt
+Rachel, and gave themselves up to the pleasures of the hay, watching
+Claude and the boys rearing up the highest hay-castle that ever had
+been seen, or the younger children copying them in their smaller
+measure.</p>
+
+<p>When the grand erection was finished, Claude and his friends, the
+Reigate boys, came to fetch Lily Archer, and any of the others who
+could be persuaded to move, to see it.</p>
+
+<p>"I 'do' approve," smiled Lily.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you do," said one of her cousins. "You'd have been a girl of
+egregious taste if you hadn't."</p>
+
+<p>"What a long word!" answered Lily. "Are you sure you said it right? I
+have heard of egregious blunders, but not so often of egregious taste!
+Perhaps you are thinking of the blunder I should have made if I had
+dared to disapprove?"</p>
+
+<p>The boys laughed; anything that Lily said or did was always right in
+their eyes.</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, Aunt Rachel had been taken to a certain very private
+verandah, and there had had a very private request made her—</p>
+
+<p>"May we go and see Cook?"</p>
+
+<p>"Is that so very particular," she asked, "that all those preparations
+of secrecy should have to be made?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, hush, Auntie!"</p>
+
+<p>"There is no one near; the rest are so far-away in the hay-field, that
+if you were to shout, they could not hear."</p>
+
+<p>"But if any one guessed, it would spoil our fun!"</p>
+
+<p>"Guessed that you were going to pay Cook a visit?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well—yes, Auntie, because, in the first place, we're her
+favourites—Elsie and I."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, are you? But even then—"</p>
+
+<p>"And in the second place," interrupted Ethel eagerly, "we want Cook to
+let us do something—"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I see now. But do you not think that Cook is busy?"</p>
+
+<p>"If she is, we'll not ask her—there, Auntie, we promise you. We can
+soon tell whether Cook is busy, because if she is, she's so snappy!"</p>
+
+<p>"Is she?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; she's very fond of us, but if she's snappy, she's not at all
+nice."</p>
+
+<p>"I should think not," said Aunt Rachel, laughing. "I don't know
+anything that's nice to be snappy except gingerbread."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Auntie!"</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"You've guessed!"</p>
+
+<p>"Guessed what?" she asked, looking puzzled.</p>
+
+<p>"Hush!" whispered Frank. "It was only an accidental coincidence. If you
+don't say any more, girls, auntie will be quite in the dark."</p>
+
+<p>Having thus gained the permission that if cook were not busy, they
+might visit her, the little girls ran off, followed closely by Frank,
+who promised faithfully to be very quiet and only sit and watch them,
+did cook permit them to carry out their plans.</p>
+
+<p>"Bless your little hearts!" was her greeting, by which the children
+understood that she was not snappy.</p>
+
+<p>"We've come to see you," announced Frank boldly, while Ethel and Elsie
+wished he had said that they had come for something else too.</p>
+
+<p>"That's very kind of you," said cook. "I thought some of the young
+ladies and gentlemen would pay me a visit to-day!"</p>
+
+<p>"Did you?" asked Elsie. "Well, we wanted to see you, and we wanted—if
+you weren't busy—to ask you a 'great' favour."</p>
+
+<p>Cook looked so far from being snappy that they ventured to whisper in
+her ear.</p>
+
+<p>"Gingerbread!" she echoed. "Why, my dears, they've got heaps and heaps
+for tea!"</p>
+
+<p>The little girls' countenances fell.</p>
+
+<p>"But there," added cook, "it ain't the stuff, but the fun of making it
+in my kitchen that you want! I see that. Here, Jane, come along (to her
+little daughter, the kitchen maid), just you get out the flour, and
+the treacle, and the spice, and the butter. Oh! Deary me, to think of
+beginning cooking again in my clean kitchen!"</p>
+
+<p>"It 'is' clean," said Frank. "I like this kitchen the best of any I go
+into. It's the cleanest."</p>
+
+<p>Jane giggled, but cook accepted the compliment quite calmly.</p>
+
+<p>"You should ha' seen it this morning, when some one tore her dress on a
+nail, and came slopping the milk all over my floor."</p>
+
+<p>Jane bent her head, colouring, and Frank could not help smiling. Cook
+pretended to be so very unconscious of who it could have been.</p>
+
+<p>But the girls were by this time deep in the gingerbread, and Frank
+began to tire of what was to be seen inside, so he sauntered into the
+yard, and burst out laughing so loud that cook ran out to see what the
+fun was.</p>
+
+<p>"Here's a new kind of puppy!" said Frank.</p>
+
+<p>But by the time the gingerbread snaps were baked, cook was getting very
+busy indeed over the tea, and Frank, who had come back again from the
+yard, decided that it would be wiser for them all to disappear, as cook
+was now getting decidedly snappy.</p>
+
+<p>So the little girls, with many grateful thanks, and with many
+instructions to the maids to put what they had made on the tea-table
+without any remark, hurried off to the hay-field, where already long
+tables were groaning beneath the weight of tea, coffee, cakes, fruit,
+ham, chickens, eggs, and dainties too many to be counted.</p>
+
+<p>Everybody was moving to the table, and they were only just in time
+before the grace was said by their dear grandfather, standing
+bareheaded under the blue sky.</p>
+
+<p>The two little girls watched those four plates of gingerbread snaps
+with anxious eyes. Yes—people did take some, and took some a second
+time! But, what spoilt their fun most was, that Frank kept on begging
+people to try them, and pressed them so earnestly upon Aunt Rachel,
+with such knowing winks, that they were afraid their secret would be
+out, and they covered with confusion.</p>
+
+<p>But people were too busy to notice any two little girls of the party,
+and just then a diversion occurred in some one asking their grandmother
+whether those were not swallows wheeling about overhead?</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she answered; "we have a great many of them. And as we have
+finished tea, if you will draw round a little nearer to me, I will tell
+you something very curious that happened under our own eaves. It taught
+'me' a great lesson."</p>
+
+<p>"You, Grandmamma?" echoed several voices.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. You all know, I daresay, that swallows come to live here in
+summer, and then on a day near the middle of September they all fly
+back again to warmer climes. No matter what they are doing, when the
+call comes,—that mysterious call which only they understand,—off they
+go, and we see them no more till the next April.</p>
+
+<p>"You know how the swallows make nests for themselves up under the
+eaves, and I have heard they sometimes bring up two broods in the same
+year.</p>
+
+<p>"Now it so happened that a year or so ago, one pair had their second
+brood rather late in the season. And before the poor little nestlings
+were able to fly, the call came to the swallows to go south.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think the little father and mother did? They left their
+little nestlings to starve, and flew away themselves to the warm
+countries! When the blacksmith came to mend the gutter the next spring,
+he found the little dead things huddled together in the forsaken nest.
+And when I heard it, I underlined that text in my Bible which I have
+always loved, that speaks of God's love as contrasted with a mother's
+love, great as that is—'Yea, they "may" forget, yet will I not forget
+thee.'"</p>
+
+<p>There was a moment's pause in the large circle, and then Margaret
+looked up from hugging her baby, and said softly,—</p>
+
+<p>"That is a very sad story, Grandmamma."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it is," answered Mrs. Forde, taking her great-granddaughter's
+tiny hand, and smoothing it up and down tenderly, "but it is well for
+us to be reminded sometimes!"</p>
+
+<p>"Reminded?" asked Margaret.</p>
+
+<p>"That God says, '"I" have loved thee with an "everlasting" love!'"</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p>Then there was a stir in the circle. Claude and the Reigate boys went
+back to their castle, while the bare mention of the blacksmith had been
+quite enough for some of the children. It was still light, so ever so
+many of them asked permission to pay a visit to the forge before going
+home.</p>
+
+<p>"Good afternoon, Grandfather!" said Jack, roguishly. "It will be almost
+evening before we come back!"</p>
+
+<p>The little ones ran to the wall to watch the party on its way to the
+village, only wishing they had been fortunate enough to be allowed to
+go with them; for after all, what is so entrancing to the childish mind
+as an unhindered peep into a forge?</p>
+
+<p><br><br><br></p>
+
+<h2><a id="Chapter_3">SUCH A HAPPY EVENING.</a></h2>
+
+<p class="t3">
+————<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p>"AUNTIE, Auntie! The dew is falling," called Frank, coming round the
+corner of the house to discover his Aunt Rachel taking a few minutes'
+rest with her favourite nephew by her side, amusing him with a picture
+book, and telling him such thrilling stories that he sat entranced.</p>
+
+<p>She had found him just now in great tribulation, for her dog Frisky,
+unused to children, had taken a particular fancy to the darling of one
+of the families assembled to celebrate the Golden Wedding-day, and had,
+true to his name, frisked round him in the most friendly manner.</p>
+
+<p>Little Kenneth, who had no dog at home, did not take these attentions
+at all in a friendly spirit. He felt sure Frisky was bent on doing him
+some serious mischief, and would end up with demolishing him! Poor
+little Kenneth!</p>
+
+<p>His mournful cry brought Aunt Rachel to his side very quickly. All day
+she had done little else than hover round among the little ones, making
+straight all that might have gone crooked, making smooth anything that
+might have been rough.</p>
+
+<p>She had said that morning to her parents, as they sat at breakfast
+talking over the arrangements for the grand day—"Mother! I shall leave
+all the food to Charlotte's care. 'I' shall devote myself to the little
+ones."</p>
+
+<p>Charlotte was Mr. Forde's other home-daughter. She laughed now a
+little, and said to her sister,—</p>
+
+<p>"Pray, who is to attend to the elder guests, as you have told me off to
+the 'food' all day. I hope you do not put me down as specially greedy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all. I consider myself rather greedy to 'bag' the
+children,—they are the best share by half! But I thought the older
+people suited you best, Charlotte?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! I don't mind," she said. "But as to the food, with all our
+elaborate preparations, and so many maids to carry all out, I do not
+think I need concern myself about that. I'll amuse the older folks."</p>
+
+<p>Thus, it was settled. Happily for everybody, the preparations had been
+most complete, and the carrying out of them perfect; so that Charlotte
+had quite a free mind to give to the entertainment of her sisters and
+brothers.</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p>Aunt Rachel had been helping some of the little ones to dig in a corner
+of the pretty garden, where Mr. Forde had ordered a load of sand to be
+deposited. Here, after tea, she enticed those who seemed a little tired
+of the hay.</p>
+
+<p>"The big boys are so rough," she had heard one of them say, as she
+smoothed the hay out of her hair, and straightened her rumpled dress.
+"I don't like playing with big cousins at all."</p>
+
+<p>The sand had proved a most delightful exchange from the rather
+overpowering play of the older children, and while some of them dug
+with great energy, the rest of the little ones wandered a little
+further on in the garden, to a plane which was called by Aunt Rachel
+"the wilderness,"—a corner where things were left to grow as they
+liked, with only such cutting and training as was judiciously invisible
+to ordinary eyes.</p>
+
+<p>What a happy time it was for all of them, and not least for Aunt
+Rachel, who often declared it was impossible for her to have too much
+of children! Margaret, one of her elder nieces, married but a short
+year and a half ago, with a precious treasure of her own, quite agreed
+with her aunt that at any rate, she could never have too much of her
+little Daisy!</p>
+
+<p>While the sun was still bright, this indefatigable little mother was
+sure that her baby was sleepy, and leaving the happy party in the
+hay-field, she made her way across the lawns and carried her darling
+into the house.</p>
+
+<p>As she passed through the drawing-room, she met one of her cousins, a
+little girl named Mildred, who was always known as one of the greatest
+baby-lovers ever seen.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Margaret!" she exclaimed, springing forward. "'May' I take care of
+Daisy?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you like," answered Margaret, feeling that she was conferring a
+great boon. "Just hold her while I run up to find Mary. I wonder if she
+has her bed ready for her!"</p>
+
+<p>The cot was ready in the spare room, for Margaret was to sleep at
+Bickley that night. So Mildred was allowed to carry the baby up the
+broad easy stairs, and to superintend its undressing.</p>
+
+<p>Daisy had just learned to crawl, and was placed on the floor to show
+Mildred the new performance, when the door was pushed open a very
+little, and Master Frisky walked in to see what was going on.</p>
+
+<p>He did not quite like that any other four-footed animal, as he
+considered it, should be allowed to walk about in "his" spare room, so
+he laid himself down rather sulkily and considered the matter before he
+decided on any course of action.</p>
+
+<p>Margaret and Mildred and the nurse were very much entertained,
+especially as Daisy had no idea of fear, and made her way steadily
+towards the occupant of the mat, intent on a game if possible. Frisky,
+however, was almost too awed at the new quadruped to move. He hung his
+tail as if afraid.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think he will snap at her?" said Mildred, shrinking.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no!" answered Margaret.</p>
+
+<p>But she would not risk it, so caught up her darling and placed her
+out of harm's way in the cot, where she was tenderly watched over by
+Mildred and the nurse, till she fell asleep.</p>
+
+<p>"That's the first 'Good-night!'" whispered Mildred, bending over
+her. "Little Daisy, you are the first to say good-bye to the Golden
+Wedding-day!"</p>
+
+<p>Then she noiselessly left the room, and went out into the still
+evening, listening for sounds that might guide her to some place of
+interest.</p>
+
+<p>Merry voices came from all sides, ringing laughter; so after an
+instant's pause, she decided on making a visit to the hay-loft, where
+she found three of her cousins having a grand frolic.</p>
+
+<p>On her way, she passed some of the neighbours' cottages. And there in
+the warm western sun, outside the door under shelter of the wall, lay
+the baby of the family, all clean and rosy, ready for her good-night.</p>
+
+<p>By the side of her watched her little sister, amusing herself meanwhile
+with feeding some tame sparrows, puss looking on, but restrained from
+touching them by the little girl's hand; while opposite stood the
+eldest boy, stripping a brier of its leaves to make a stick for himself.</p>
+
+<p>"How happy you look," said Mildred, and passed on towards the hay-loft.</p>
+
+<p>Soon she was in the thick of the fun, hiding in the dusky corners, or
+climbing up and down the ladder which led to the ground,—a pastime
+which all found particularly delightful, because there was just a
+little danger of slipping!</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, two more of the cousins were having another frolic somewhere
+else. Aunt Charlotte had been coaxed to let them into her studio, and
+in consideration of the interest of the day, to actually allow one of
+her brushes to be used on one of her canvases!</p>
+
+<p>"You've been a mighty long time!" remarked Eddie, who was standing
+patiently on the mat, acting as a model for one of his cousins.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you can go!" she answered condescendingly. "I've got your hair
+exactly now, and your nose! I've made you quite handsome, Eddie!"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you call that like me?" asked Eddie.</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly! Don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>But Eddie did not wait to argue the point. Finding himself let off,
+he bounded away; for however pleasant it may be to paint, it is not
+such an enviable thing to be painted, especially when there are such
+attractions elsewhere as are to be found on Golden Wedding-days.</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p>Jack, finding nothing particular to do of an exciting nature,
+determined to amuse himself by climbing one of the high trees near the
+wall which separated his grandfather's grounds from the gardens of some
+cottages.</p>
+
+<p>He had been as far as he thought prudent, and for once had really kept
+within reasonable bounds, and now was descending (as he could not
+indulge himself by going higher!) when he saw a woman come out of the
+nearest cottage door, look quickly about, wring her hands, and call out
+in a very despairing tone, "Baby! Baby!"</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter?" called Jack's blunt voice from the midst of his
+leafy shade.</p>
+
+<p>The woman stopped short, looked about in every direction, and then
+burst into tears.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter?" called Jack again. "I'm up here in the tree."</p>
+
+<p>He shook the branches, and she looked up.</p>
+
+<p>"What ails you?" asked Jack, for the woman's face was woebegone.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, the baby! Oh, do, my dear young master, come down and help me
+find her. She's all I have now, and my heart will break!"</p>
+
+<p>Jack could not make it out, but he descended to the wall, and then in a
+manner best known to himself, let himself down on the other side, and
+stood by the woman, again asking, "But 'what' have you lost? You can't
+lose a baby like that. She must be somewhere."</p>
+
+<p>His steady courageous tone quieted the mother's nervous apprehension a
+little. To her mind, nothing was easier than to lose her baby.</p>
+
+<p>"Where was she?" asked Jack.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, here," exclaimed the woman eagerly. "I'd been leading her about
+the kitchen; she's just begun to walk a bit, and we was as happy as
+could be. And then I put on her bonnet to take her out for a bit, and I
+ran upstairs to get my own things. I wasn't a minute, I do assure you,
+sir. And when I came down, the door was open and she was gone!"</p>
+
+<p>"She isn't far, I'll be bound," said Jack reassuringly. "I'll just run
+round and have a look about."</p>
+
+<p>"But you see it's getting dark," said the mother despairingly, "and if
+I lose her—"</p>
+
+<p>She threw her apron over her head and sobbed aloud.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, come," said Jack, "you're wasting the time. You go that way, and
+I'll go this. She can't be far, and we'll call her."</p>
+
+<p>He ran off as he spoke, turning up the leafy lane with its shade of
+overhanging trees. While the child's mother, wiping her eyes, which
+were still almost blinded with tears, went in the direction Jack had
+pointed out, glad to have any advice to follow.</p>
+
+<p>The fact was the baby, a little independent morsel of humanity, finding
+that she was arrayed in outdoor garments, thought the most natural
+thing was to take a walk. It did not occur to her that she should wait
+for her mother, it rather occurred to her that it would be a fine thing
+to go without her mother.</p>
+
+<p>The door was fortunately ajar, and a touch of her tiny fingers pushed
+it open sufficiently to let her small form through. She trotted down
+the little garden, went out into the lane, looked this way and that,
+and finally turned in at the little gate which led into Aunt Rachel's
+wilderness.</p>
+
+<p>A lonely wilderness now, for the children had left the dewy grass, and
+were collecting indoors preparatory to going home.</p>
+
+<p>So Jack ran past the little wanderer and overshot the mark, as so many
+people do in this life. His fleet legs carried him over so far down the
+lane, till his good sense told him that no baby feet could have trotted
+as far as that in the few moments which must have elapsed between the
+child having gone out and his beginning to search.</p>
+
+<p>As he slowly retraced his steps, alternately calling "Baby!" and
+listening attentively, he heard a very mournful little voice wailing
+dolefully, somewhere very near.</p>
+
+<p>To his renewed calls of "Baby," no answer was made, but to his joy, the
+crying stopped.</p>
+
+<p>Then he was sorry it had stopped, for now he had no guide to the baby's
+whereabouts.</p>
+
+<p>He looked up at the fence and recognised the particular pattern of
+his grandfather's palings. He gave a spring over the little ditch,
+clambered up the flowery bank, no matter how many nettles and thorns
+were in his way, and grasping the top of the tall fence, peeped over.</p>
+
+<p>There, in the midst of Aunt Rachel's wilderness, sat the little lost
+wanderer!</p>
+
+<p>It did not take Jack a moment to clamber over the palings and to run up
+to the little sorrowful baby.</p>
+
+<p>His most gentle soothing, however, availed nothing to assuage her
+grief. So Jack lifted her up, took her by the hand, and led her
+toddling steps out at the door by which she had entered.</p>
+
+<p>Here they almost ran up against her mother.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, sir!" she said, gratefully, but no more, for such a hugging and
+kissing as went on completely stopped her flow of eloquence, for which
+Jack was not sorry.</p>
+
+<p>At any rate, the baby had left off crying,—that was one good thing.</p>
+
+<p>"Come in, do, sir!" exclaimed the woman, throwing open the cottage
+door. "I feel I can never thank you enough."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! I did not do much," said Jack. "You'd have found her right enough
+yourself, if you hadn't been so frightened. She was close by all the
+time."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! Well, young sir, I daresay you are right, but I've had such trials
+that I'm afraid I ain't always as sensible as I might be."</p>
+
+<p>She seemed to expect Jack to inquire about her trials.</p>
+
+<p>And though he was longing to get back to his cousins, with ready good
+humour, he asked,—</p>
+
+<p>"Have you had such trials then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Me, sir?" she asked, astonished, as if any one could not have heard
+her story.</p>
+
+<p>Jack nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, sir, I married a widower, that's his boy as minds your
+grandfather's cows, and I had one child of my own—such a beautiful boy!
+One day he was taken ill, I don't know how it was, the doctor said
+it must have been croup. Anyway, I saw he was poorly, and I took him
+down to the doctor's, but he was out, and it was a bitter day, that it
+was. So I went home again, and for all I could do, the baby got worse.
+George went and tried everywhere to find the doctor, but he'd been sent
+for somewheres at a distance, and wasn't expected home till morning.
+Long before that the life had gone out of my baby, and he lay cold and
+stiff. If only the doctor had been at home, I shouldn't have lost him!"</p>
+
+<p>She spoke bitterly, and Jack stood still, wondering what to say, for he
+did not like to leave the woman uncomforted, and yet he hardly knew how
+to comfort her.</p>
+
+<p>"You have this one now," he ventured at last, but the woman flashed
+almost angrily upon him,—</p>
+
+<p>"'That' don't make up," she said, though she hugged her little girl
+tighter at the thought.</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon," said Jack, "and perhaps you wouldn't like me to
+say any more?"</p>
+
+<p>"My nerves is so bad," apologised the woman, looking into his open
+face, which had flushed a deep red.</p>
+
+<p>Though Jack had been brave once before that day, he was braver now.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think I gave you the true comfort," he said. "I heard my
+mother telling some one, that the Lord Jesus when He was on earth loved
+people even when He had to stay away sometimes. Perhaps He lets us have
+troubles that we may trust Him better."</p>
+
+<p>The woman gave him a glance of surprise, and Jack, thinking he had
+leave to go, sped towards the house, little dreaming that after all
+with "that" Name, he "had" comforted the woman!</p>
+
+<p class="thought">
+*******
+</p>
+
+<p>"We have been looking at the swans," said Eddie. "And mother says they
+are going home to bed, and that we must too!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" said Effie. "I wish we could stay here always,—don't you, Eddie?"</p>
+
+<p>"For some things," answered Eddie candidly, "but we should want mother,
+you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course we should; she'd have to stay here."</p>
+
+<p>"But the servants could not do without her," remarked Eddie, as if that
+were conclusive.</p>
+
+<p>And Effie saw it was, and did not argue the point further.</p>
+
+<p>"We must put on our things," said their mother regretfully; "the fly is
+at the door, and the train will not wait for us."</p>
+
+<p>"No, that it won't," said Jack. "I can't bear saying 'Good-bye,' I'd
+rather say 'Good-night,' then you have the hope of meeting the next
+day. I wish we had!"</p>
+
+<p>"We must not make a regret out of our great happiness," said their
+grandmamma's voice behind them. "I never spent such a happy day! Let us
+say 'Good-night,' as Jack suggests, instead of 'Good-bye.'"</p>
+
+<p>So everybody took up the idea that there were to be no regrets, but
+only the loving word, "Good-night" was to be spoken, as each party had
+to leave.</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p>Eddie and Effie, with their parents, accompanied by Cyril and his
+parents, were nearly the first to go, and very very sleepy were the
+little people before they got to the end of the journey.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, there was some suspicion that the three little pairs of eyes
+had forty winks in the train.</p>
+
+<p>However that might have been, Eddie and Effie were quite awake enough
+to give their mother a great hug, and to whisper that they had had a
+very, very, "very" happy day.</p>
+
+<p>"If those cousins hadn't been so rough—" began Effie, but her mother
+stopped her with a kiss.</p>
+
+<p>"We will not remember one tiresome thing to-day," she said brightly.
+"It has been the best and loveliest day possible."</p>
+
+<p>"But then," said Eddie archly, "perhaps nothing tiresome 'did' happen
+to you, mother dear!"</p>
+
+<p>"I tore my dress," she answered, in a mock doleful tone; "I shall never
+get over 'that'—"</p>
+
+<p>"What?" asked their father, entering.</p>
+
+<p>"—that stile again, I was going to say," she answered, laughing, "only
+I wanted to shock Effie just a very little bit."</p>
+
+<p>So another "Good-night" was said, and the two pairs of eyes closed
+wearily, and Eddie and Effie left the Golden Wedding-day behind.</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p>Not two fields off, at that very moment, Cyril sat on his mother's
+knee, telling her all about his day. Not that she did not know all
+about it before, but she did not mind hearing it afresh from his lips.</p>
+
+<p>He was even wider awake than Eddie and Effie, for he had had more than
+forty winks in the train. His mother's knee had been a pillow for his
+curls all the time of his journey, and now he had reached home and had
+partaken of supper with his parents, he felt ready for anything, and
+chatted away as if sleep were a thing quite unheard of.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me a story, mother," he pleaded; "then when you've told me one,
+I'll promise to go to sleep."</p>
+
+<p>"Say instead, that you will promise to lie still, and shut your eyes. I
+do not think you can make yourself go to sleep, Cyril."</p>
+
+<p>"Can't I?" he asked, his innocent eyes meeting hers with a surprised
+look.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not think so. There are some things we can do, and some things we
+can't."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me a story about that!"</p>
+
+<p>"About what, Cyril?"</p>
+
+<p>"About what we can't do, and we can."</p>
+
+<p>His mother smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew a little boy once who was left in a room by himself, and was
+told not to touch anything on the table."</p>
+
+<p>"Not me?" interrupted Cyril.</p>
+
+<p>"Not you, dearest; oh! no. Some other little boy. Well, he promised
+his mother, and when she was gone, he stood a long time listening to
+his mother's footsteps dying away in the distance. And then he turned
+to look at the table. He had not thought before anything about it. But
+now, just because he was told not, his mind went back to it, and his
+eyes felt as if they must turn that way and no other."</p>
+
+<p>"What a silly little boy," remarked Cyril sagely; "he should have shut
+them up tight."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he didn't. He thought he would just walk over to the table and
+have a look. So he did, and as we often find, looking was not enough.
+There was a basin of something standing within reach.</p>
+
+<p>"'Mother meant this bread and milk for me, I am sure,' he said to
+himself, 'she always gives me some at bedtime. I wonder if there's
+sugar in it? Mother always puts sugar in it, if I'm good: I have been
+good all day, to-day. It's been a good day, I'm sure.'</p>
+
+<p>"He drew nearer; he would have peeped in it or even tasted it, but the
+table was too high. Having thus played with temptation, he put out
+both his hands and tipped the basin just a very little. The basin was
+slippery, and just as the little boy had a full view of its contents,
+over it tipped, pouring a stream of milk right down his chest."</p>
+
+<p>"Was he burned?" asked Cyril, horrified.</p>
+
+<p>"You may well ask that, Cyril. Fortunately, indeed, the milk had only
+been placed there ready for boiling, and was quite cold; or else that
+little boy would have been terribly scalded, and might have died! Now,
+Cyril, tell me—was what he did, one of the things he might have helped?
+Did he make a promise to his mother that he could have kept?"</p>
+
+<p>Cyril considered the matter soberly for ever so long, and then ended by
+flinging his arms tightly round his mother's neck.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you dear mother!" he exclaimed. "I s'pose it was! I 'am' so glad
+he wasn't scalded, but only nasty and wet! But now, mother, say my
+prayers, and then I'll promise!"</p>
+
+<p>So Cyril laid his head on his pillow, promising only to shut his eyes
+and lie very quiet, and his mother said "Good-night" with a happy
+heart, and ran downstairs to talk over the Golden Wedding-day with her
+husband.</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, another party had reached home, a large and rather tired
+party. For there had been too much talking and laughing in the train
+for the regulation "forty winks." And when they arrived at their house,
+the little ones were very sleepy, and it must be confessed a wee bit
+cross.</p>
+
+<p>But nurse and mother and elder sisters each took a tired child in
+charge, and went off with them to their respective rooms.</p>
+
+<p>One little boy was so fatigued that he threw himself on his bed and
+begged to be allowed to stay as he was! But a little management soon
+divested the tired young gentleman of his visiting apparel, and almost
+before they could tuck him up, he was in dreamland.</p>
+
+<p>"Nursie dear!" called Ethel from her bed in the night nursery. "I'm not
+a bit sleepy; can't you let me hold baby while you see to the others?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wait till I've undressed him then," answered nurse, "and we'll see
+about it. I declare I never saw such a lot of you to get to bed at
+once!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, because we don't generally go out all at once, and Golden
+Wedding-days don't happen very often."</p>
+
+<p>"I should hope not," remarked nurse, good-humouredly, remembering the
+bustle it had been to get them off in the morning, and how very early
+everybody had been awake, and what an array of garments had been laid
+out on a certain spare bed for days, so that not one thing should be
+forgotten or missing when the grand morning arrived. Oh, yes, she
+remembered it all, and was glad Golden Wedding-days did not happen
+every week.</p>
+
+<p>"But you liked going, didn't you, nursie?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Yes, miss, it was very nice indeed. I'm sure, to see such a number
+of young ladies and gentlemen together, with all their papas and
+mammas, except poor Miss Archer's, of course, was a treat worth going
+fifty miles to see, that it was!"</p>
+
+<p>So the baby was undressed and given to Ethel to amuse, and then nurse
+turned to another of her charges, who was leaning on the table not
+making any attempt to prepare for the night.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the matter, Miss Elsie?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm thinking," said Elsie, without looking up.</p>
+
+<p>"You're tired, I expect," said Nurse.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I'm not,—not in the least tired. I was thinking about that
+gingerbread that we made. I wish it had had some lemon peel in it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Is that all?" said nurse. "I thought it was something very serious."</p>
+
+<p>"That's all," said Elsie.</p>
+
+<p>But she said it with such a sleepy yawn, that nurse came gently
+behind her and unfastened her dress without any further remark. And
+though Elsie had a slight suspicion that she was being managed, it
+was so delightful to feel herself nearing her bed without any effort
+on her part that she yielded herself to the soothing touch, and said
+"Good-night" quite gratefully when nurse bent over her at last with a
+kiss.</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p>But before this, the last good-nights were being said at Bickley.</p>
+
+<p>"Lily is going home with us," said Frank, one of the Reigate boys.
+"Mother's asked her to stay till Monday."</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad of that," said her grandfather, laying his hand on Lily
+Archer's shoulder. "I was wondering where my little lonely bird would
+rest to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Were you?" asked Lily, looking up gratefully.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought they had asked you to stay here?"</p>
+
+<p>"So grandmamma did, but I thought I ought to go back to be ready for my
+school children on Monday."</p>
+
+<p>"And now?" asked her grandfather.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," interrupted Jack, "'we' want her. Some of us would be dreadfully
+disappointed if she went back to London to-night. We are going to
+telegraph to her home to say she'll be up by the first train on Monday."</p>
+
+<p>Every one seemed to think this a capital plan, and soon the Reigate
+party were on their way to the station, Claude Champion thinking that
+quiet walk under the stars the very pleasantest thing in that eventful
+day.</p>
+
+<p>By-and-by, they reached home, where they found a bright fire blazing,
+lighted by the maid to greet their arrival.</p>
+
+<p>Sitting round in a circle, they all compared notes of their experiences
+of the day's doings, each telling his or her view of the great event.
+Dorothy, the only girl, standing close to Lily's side, while Jack
+looked thoughtfully into the fire.</p>
+
+<p>Presently he told them the story of his cottager's trouble and relief,
+and ended up with a funny look as he said,—</p>
+
+<p>"I never can see why it is people are so immensely fond of their
+babies! Babies seem to me to grow on every hedge!"</p>
+
+<p>His mother, who was sitting opposite him, shook her head, smiling,
+however, to herself.</p>
+
+<p>"Eh, mother?" he asked. "Did you ever value us in that frantic sort of
+way?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not frantic at all," she answered; "but—Jack, I think I have had to
+learn that it is only as long as God keeps my dear ones for me that I
+can hold them."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose it is," said Jack seriously, "but—"</p>
+
+<p>"It is the safest keeping of all—" said his mother.</p>
+
+<p>And then their eyes wandered to two pictures on the wall, at which they
+looked, often unconsciously, every day of their lives, and of which
+their mother had told them the story, which flashed on Jack now as she
+spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"Say us that lullaby, mother," he said.</p>
+
+<p>So his mother repeated,—</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<br>
+"Lying at rest, softly at rest,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Thus lies my child to-day;<br>
+&nbsp;Safe from fear, far or near,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Safe from the world's dismay.<br>
+&nbsp;Sailing at rest, sweetly at rest,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Thus sails my love to-day;<br>
+&nbsp;Safe from fear, God is near,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Safe from the heart's dismay.<br>
+&nbsp;Only at rest, always at rest,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;In Thee, my Lord, to-day;<br>
+&nbsp;Safe from fear, Thou art near;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Safe in Thy care we stay."<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<p>Then she told them if they did not say "Good-night" soon, the Golden
+Wedding-day would be gone, and they would have to wish each other good
+morning, which would not be at all nice!</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p>But before twelve o'clock strikes, indeed, an hour before that, the
+last of Mr. and Mrs. Forde's children were arriving at their home in
+London.</p>
+
+<p>It was late, and a hansom was the only vehicle which could be obtained
+at the station. But the two children thought this all the more fun, for
+to squeeze into it and to drive along with the cool night air blowing
+in their faces with the moonlight making everything almost as bright as
+day, was a treat such as they had never before enjoyed, and was a fit
+close to the day, to their thinking.</p>
+
+<p>Mildred sat on her father's knee, while her little sister Dolly stood
+up behind, and leaned over her mother's shoulder, kissing her softly
+every few minutes, and whispering happy nothings.</p>
+
+<p>At last, they drew up close to home, and their father hurried to the
+door to get it opened as soon as possible.</p>
+
+<p>But the servants were on the look-out, and so was Vixen, in her kennel.
+He had hardly touched the bell before the lighted hall was in full view.</p>
+
+<p>Mildred led her little sister in. And while her mother was putting
+aside her bonnet, she kept her amused, though she could not help
+yawning privately.</p>
+
+<p>She was not sorry to go straight upstairs when her mother came back,
+but was too much of a child-lover not to be interested in their little
+darling's sayings and doings while she was being undressed.</p>
+
+<p>"I've got a secret!" exclaimed Dolly suddenly. "Where's father?"</p>
+
+<p>"He is downstairs," said her mother.</p>
+
+<p>"He mus' 'tum up," said Dolly, decidedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Dolly, he's tired," said Mildred, who stood in her little pink
+dressing-gown ready for bed, but obliged to stay to hear what their pet
+had to say.</p>
+
+<p>"He isn't," said Dolly. "I've got what Grandma said, to say to him.
+Call him, Mildred!"</p>
+
+<p>"He will not mind, for once," said their mother; "he is such a dear
+father! But, Dolly, after that, you must lie down and go to sleep, for
+you were never up so late in your life before!"</p>
+
+<p>Dolly nodded, and Mildred ran out to the stairs and called, "Father,
+Father, Dolly has something very particular to toll you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hey day! Has she? Then I must come, I suppose. What is it, Dolly? You
+do not want any more biscuits, I hope?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'se 'sick' of biscuits," said Dolly, shaking her curls.</p>
+
+<p>"Then what is it? Have you enjoyed yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>"She did," said Mildred, "and so did I. That's not what she wants to
+say."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it that you want to go to bed, like the stag in the picture
+downstairs, who knows that his time for rest has come?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," began Dolly, with a bright look in her eyes, "I fink it is."</p>
+
+<p>"Or is it that you have blown away all your teeth with those bubbles of
+Lily Archer's?"</p>
+
+<p>Dolly laughed gleefully, while two rows of pearls, perfect and even,
+came into view.</p>
+
+<p>"Make haste and tell me then," said her father, smiling. "I'm going off
+to sleep."</p>
+
+<p>Dolly peeped up in his face to see if he were in earnest.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tum 'tose to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't strangle me then."</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I say it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, yes, Dolly, be quick,—that's what I'm waiting for."</p>
+
+<p>She put her soft little arms quite round his neck and her rosy lips
+touched his ear.</p>
+
+<p>"Grandma told us—" she said, and paused.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm quite ready for it—"</p>
+
+<p>"It's only 'Good-night,' father dear! Good-night!"</p>
+
+<p><br><br><br></p>
+
+<p class="t3">
+THE END.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br><br><br></p>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78706 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for eBook #78706
+(https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78706)