"YOU'D better! Sall, let that alone! What are you after, Will? Always teasing somebody. I never did see such children for quarrelling and mischief. Have done!"
Mrs. Gardiner dragged two struggling children apart, and shook them by turns.
"Plaguing one another, and making baby cry! Now you'll just keep quiet and hold your tongue, or you'll get it again."
This was the way in which Sunday morning began at Rose Cottage.
John Gardiner had not left his bed yet; nor Bess, the elder girl, who earned enough in the factory to clothe herself and pay for her board, and who counted herself at sixteen an independent young woman, free from control. Jem, Sally, and Will ought to have been now starting for the Sunday school; but dressing was barely accomplished, and breakfast had not yet been thought of. Little Tom and the baby were in night-dresses still; and Mrs. Gardiner hurried to and fro distractedly.
"Well, it's no good driving and scurrying," she said at length. "I shall just keep you all at home to-day."
Sally and Will set up a shout of approval; and Jem only remarked, "We shan't get tickets for the school-feast."
"If you like to eat a bit of bread quick, and have some milk and be off, I'm sure I don't care," said Mrs. Gardiner.
And this was the saddest part of the matter, that neither parents nor children cared. Even the thought of the school-feast did not decide Jem to follow out his mother's suggestion.
With the coming of Sunday morning there came, in the Gardiner household, no loving thoughts of the great Father in heaven; no wish to worship at the footstool of the King; no desire to ask pardon of that gentle Redeemer Who had shed His blood for them; no remembrance of the Holy Spirit, Who is promised as a Divine Gift to every one that will earnestly ask.