"I shall be more useful when I come back, mother."
"No, you won't. You'll be full of notions, like Marigold; and set on your own way. I know that. I like you a deal best as you are,—a girl that'll do as she's told, and ask no questions. Marigold is for ever meddling in what don't concern her; and I don't mean to stand it. I wish Mrs. Heavitree would just let folks alone."
Marigold presently stole away to an upstairs room; and Narcissus slipped after her.
"I'm glad to be going. I didn't feel sure at the first moment, but I'm glad now," said Narcissus. "Mother does worry so; and you say Mrs. Heavitree isn't hard to please."
"Never hard. She does expect the work to be done properly. She works a lot herself, and she means others to work. Oh, I don't mean that she sweeps and dusts, though she wouldn't be above that if there was need; but she's always seeing after everybody and everything, and thinking and planning, and doing kindnesses, and looking to the poor. Mrs. Heavitree's never idle; and she never gives in so long as she's got the power to go on. You like her now, and you'll like her ever so much better when you're in the same house."
"I don't mind if she doesn't scold. It's being scolded I mind."
"You won't have that to bear, for she doesn't scold. She'll tell you if you do wrong, but she don't scold. I only wish I was going too, and I would if it wasn't for father. He'd be miserable if he hadn't one of us. I can't think what in the world has come over mother in the last year. Why, when she first came, she was as different! She couldn't be just the same as our own mother, of course; but she did seem nice; and now—"
"There's no getting along straight," said Narcissus. "Everybody is wrong, and everything goes crooked. There! She's calling. One of us has got to answer."
"I'll go. Don't you mind. I'll run," said Marigold, suiting her action to the word. She had a peculiarly light way of going about, a quick noiseless step and capable manner, such as one sees in a well-trained servant. Mrs. Plunkett walked heavily, and Narcissus did everything in a limp style; but it was a treat to look at Marigold.
The first Mrs. Plunkett had been, before her marriage, a very efficient servant; and she had done her best to train her girls well. Nobody can do so much as a mother in that line. If the early home-training in cleanliness, order, diligence, good management, be absent, later training will seldom entirely take the place of it. When mothers carelessly allow children to waste their time, to grow into untidy and dirty ways, they little think how hard they are making it for those children to become afterward either good servants or good wives and mothers.