The Crown of Success

E-text prepared by Mark C. Orton, Linda McKeown, Jacqueline Jeremy, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)

MERRY life had Dame Desley and her four children led in their rural home. The sound of their cheerful voices, the patter of their little feet, the laugh, the shout, and the song, had been heard from morning till night. I will not stop to tell of all the daisy-chains and cowslip-balls made by the children under the big elm-tree that grew on their mother's lawn; or how they gathered ripe blackberries in autumn; or in the glowing days of summer played about the hay-cocks, and buried one another in the hay. Their lives were thoughtless and gay, like those of the sparrows in the garden, or the merry little squirrels in the wood.
But a time came at last when these careless days must end. Dame Desley had to take a long journey—she would be absent for many a month—and on the evening before her departure she called her four children around her.
My dear children, she said, I must leave you; I must give you up for a while to the care of another. But I have chosen a guardian for you who is worthy of all your respect. Mr. Learning is coming to see you to-morrow, just an hour before I start; and I hope that he will find you all good and obedient children during my absence. Whatever he may bid you do, do for the love of me, and when you attend to Mr. Learning, think that you are pleasing your mother.
When the four children were alone together, just before going to rest, they began eagerly to talk over what Dame Desley had told them.
I wonder whether I shall like this Mr. Learning, said Dick, a merry, intelligent boy, with bright eyes that were always twinkling with fun. None of his age could excel him in racing or running; he could climb a tree like a squirrel, and clear a haycock with a bound. He loved the free careless life which he had led in his mother's home, but still he wished for one more full of adventure and excitement.