As for Winnie, she had none of the feeling of some girls who are ashamed to be seen doing housework, for her mother had taught her, both by word and example, the folly and sinfulness of such a notion, and that it is the worker who degrades the work instead of the opposite; and as a very little girl, Winnie had learned Herbert's fine lines:
"Who sweeps a room as by God's laws,
Makes that and the action fine."
Now that she was working cheerfully, she even found a pleasure in dish-washing, as who should not, given plenty of hot water, clean towels, a pleasant kitchen with the sun shining in, and a little cherub of a brother chattering on with his cunning tongue, which finds so much difficulty in pronouncing the consonants?
So, when Mrs. Burton returned to the kitchen, everything was in fine order, and a bright fire had prepared the oven to do its share in the Saturday baking.
When noon came, Winnie really felt that she had had a pleasant morning, although it had been spent in beating eggs and grating lemons; besides, she had for once had her mother all to herself, and she sat down to the lunch she had prepared feeling quite happy.
She did not get an opportunity to leave the house all that day, except to do two or three errands in the neighborhood. She took Norah's toast and tea up to her, and spent the greater part of the afternoon in her room, trying to make amends for the morning's impatience by bathing the sick girl's head, changing her pillows, and moistening her parched lips.
CHAPTER IX.
RALPH'S BIRTHDAY.
A few days after the events narrated in the last chapter, a bright, sunshiny morning ushered in Ralph's fourth birthday anniversary, and a fine time he had receiving, in the first place, four little love taps and then four kisses from each member of the family in turn.