"Yes, dear, have whom you please; but let your table be out under the trees, on the lawn."
"That"ll be splendid!" said Johnnie, running off.
They had ten or twelve little children at their party, and Dinah brought them sandwiches, cakes, and milk, and they had all the cherries they could eat. Edith taught them one of her Sunday-school hymns, and Johnnie made Luce perform all his most cunning tricks for their entertainment.
Mabel lent her new doll to the poorest girl, to take home for the night, on the promise that it should surely come home next morning.
The promise was kept.
When the company had gone, Aunt Maria called them in, and made them take a thorough bath, and put on clean clothes all the way through. Then she bade each sit down, in the room with her, and read a chapter in the Bible. As Mabel could not read, she gave her a picture Bible to look at.
She sat by, with so grave a face, and had so little to say, that they all began to feel uncomfortable, and wished themselves somewhere else.
Edith"s face was covered with blushes, Mabel began to swallow a lump in her throat, and Johnnie at last, growing angry, determined to stand it no longer. He shut up his Bible, and marched to Aunt Maria, who looked at him through her spectacles, and said:
"Well, sir? Who told you to shut up your book?"
"It does no good to read the Bible when anybody"s mad with you," said Johnnie. "What have we done, Aunt Maria?"
"I did not _say_ you had done anything."
"But you look so cross, and sit up so straight, and--who ever heard of reading the Bible, in the middle of the afternoon, on a week day?" said Johnnie with an air of a.s.surance.
"Well, Johnnie, to tell the truth, I did _not_ like your bringing all the riff-raff of the town to eat my nice cherries."
"But you said we might do it."
"I should think, Johnnie, you would have liked better to have such friends as Percival Lester and Reginold Randolph, or Maggie and Clara Vale, to play with. I fear you have low tastes, child."
At this charge, little Johnnie colored up, but he stood his ground.
"The reason we asked them was because they couldn"t buy any fruit, if they wanted it ever so much; and we thought it would please them and make them happy."
Edith had been thoughtfully turning over the leaves of her Bible, and now she said:
"Auntie, here are some verses I once read to mamma:
""When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbors, lest they also bid thee again, and a recompense be made thee.
""But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind; and thou shalt be blessed, for they cannot recompense thee, for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just.""
"There," said Johnnie, "haven"t we made a Bible feast?"
"Yes, my dears," Aunt Maria replied, "and I beg your pardon. The truth is, I have not been very much displeased with you, but thought I would try you a little. Now as you have had a good rest, you may all go out and play."
"I think Aunt Maria ith a naughty woman," said Mabel in a very low voice to Edith, as they left the room.
Rose, who had been present all the while, heard her, and so did Aunt Maria, but neither said a word, till the children were out of hearing.
Then Rose said,
"I"m afraid I agree with little Mabel. Dear Mrs. MacLain, what made you pretend to be vexed, if you were not?"
"I am not obliged to explain my actions to every one, am I, Rose?" said the lady. "Children are a sort of a puzzle to me, never having had any of my own; and I don"t believe I know how to bring them up. But these of Helen"s are pretty good, especially Johnnie."
Aunt Maria had some very stylish friends who occasionally visited her.
They sent word beforehand concerning their coming, and great preparations were made. On the day of their arrival, the little folks were arrayed in their very best, and Edith and Mabel took their dolls, and were seated in the parlor, that they might not get into the least disorder.
"Mrs. Featherfew is very particular," said Aunt Maria. "She will be sure to take notice, if you don"t behave splendidly."
"I"ll be glad when she"s been and gone," remarked Johnnie.
Mrs. Featherfew however was quite different from what the children had been led to expect. She was a slender pretty looking lady, who seemed to float down the long parlor, she walked so lightly and gracefully, her long silk dress trailing behind her. The next day the two little girls amused themselves by playing "Mrs. Featherfew," Edith putting on a long gown of her aunt"s for the purpose.
Two very elegant children came with Mrs. Featherfew, Wilhelmine and Victorine. They spoke very primly and politely, and seemed to our little folks like grown-up ladies cut down short. But when after dinner they all went out into the grounds to play, Mine and Rine, as they called each other, could play as merrily as the others.
The little girl to whom the dolly had been lent happened to be looking through the palings, just when the fun was at its height. She had rather a dirty face, and a very torn dress.
"Do look at that impertinent creature actually staring at us, as if she belonged here!" exclaimed Victorine, with amazement.
"Go right away, child," said Wilhelmine.
Now as these little girls were guests themselves, they were taking too much responsibility in ordering anybody off. Edith"s face flushed, and she felt vexed. She would have preferred, after all her Aunt Maria had said about it, to have the Alley children keep a little more distance; but she could not let anybody hurt their feelings.
"That little girl is a friend of mine, Wilhelmine," spoke out the loyal little soul bravely. It was not in Edith, to be ashamed of any friend, no matter how humble.
Wilhelmine looked surprised, and Johnnie went on to tell how they had gotten acquainted. Before he had finished, the little visitors were so interested in the ragged girl, that they each gave her a bright five-cent piece.
So Edith did good by her fearlessness. We never know how much good we may do, by speaking according to our conscience.
The Featherfew girls had a very nice time, and went away well pleased; but they told their mamma that the Evans children were very droll.
"It"s the way they have been brought up, I imagine," said Mrs.
Featherfew.
Two or three days after that, the children were in a part of the garden, in which was a bridge over a darling little brook, as Edith called it.
They were expecting their parents by the first steamer, and Johnnie had been gathering a basket of the ripest and reddest cherries he could find, to have them all ready for offering to mamma on her arrival. As he was running lightly over the bridge, his foot slipped, and he came near falling in, but Edith and Mabel flew to the rescue, and held him up by his cap, and his curls, and his arm, till he recovered his balance. One foot was very wet. It had gone "way, way in," and in that condition, splashed and barefoot, for he pulled off the wet boot and stocking, he went back to the house with the girls.
Just as they reached the front door, a carriage drove up. A gentleman sprang out, and lifted a lady next, and the servants began to take off the bags and trunks. Could that be mamma? It needed only a glance to satisfy the eager children, and in a moment all three were rapturously hugging and kissing her and their father.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
Mamma had grown quite plump and rosy. She was ever so much better, and Johnnie asked, the first thing, whether she could bear a noise now.
"A little noise, dear, I hope," she said smiling. It had been a great trial to Johnnie to keep so still as had been necessary when they were at home.
"She is not so very strong yet, Master John," said Mr. Evans. "I"m afraid an earthquake or a volcano would use her up. We"ll have to take care of her yet awhile."
But the children found that they had gotten their old mamma back. She was a great deal nicer than anybody else, they thought.
That night, when it grew almost bedtime, and Chloe appeared as usual at the parlor door, with the candles on a silver tray, and the great silver snuffers, ready to light the young folks up stairs, they went and kissed their father and mother and Aunt Maria for good night. But when they were undressed, and the little dresses and skirts were hung smoothly over the chairs, the little shoes and stockings set side by side on the floor, and the little nightgowns on, somebody came quietly in, somebody who sat down in the rocking-chair, and with one little white-robed figure in her lap, and another with an arm thrown around her neck, and another on a footstool at her feet, heard their hymns, and told them a little story, and listened while each prayed to the dear Saviour. The three little hearts were satisfied that night, because they had had their mother to comfort them and bless them again.
A few days after that, they bade good-by to the beautiful seaside home, and to Luce, and the black cat, and the horses and cow, the geese and the chickens. To Miss Rose and Aunt Maria they gave a very warm invitation to come and see them in their own home.