She was asleep when Rachel came up and it was past nine when she woke, drank her milk, and went to bed for the night.
How gaily the birds were singing the next morning, and the sunbeams were playing hide-and-seek through the branches that dance in the soft wind. All the air was sweet and the little girl couldn't help being light-hearted. She sang, too; not measured hymns of sorrow and repentance, but a gay lilt that followed the bird voices. And she went down to breakfast and said her good-morning cheerfully.
"That child has the assurance of the Evil One," Elizabeth thought.
Cynthia waylaid Cousin Chilian as he was going down the path.
"I meant what I said yesterday. I won't go to that school any more. If there was some other—only—only I wish you could teach me until I could get up straight in all the things, so the other children wouldn't laugh when I made blunders. I suppose it does sound funny;" and a smile hovered about the seriousness.
"We will consider another school," he returned kindly, smiling himself at the remembrance of the tempest of yesterday.
She persuaded Rachel to go out to walk and they went over to the bridge. She had been so interested in the story of it. Before it had faded from the minds of men it was to be splendidly commemorated as a point of interest in the old town.
"I like real stories," she said. "I don't understand about the war, but it is fine to think the Salem men made the British soldiers go back when all the while the cannon and other arms were hidden away. You don't mind, Rachel, if the Colonists did beat England, do you? I'm a Colonist, you know."
"That is long ago, and we are all friends now. I think the Colonists were very brave and persevering and they deserved their liberty. I have heard your father talk about the war."
"Oh, when do you suppose he will come? It seems so long to wait."