The children felt the blessed influences of all these lovely works of the great Creator in an increase (if such a thing were possible) of their happiness and joy.
You would have thought they were made of corks, so lightly did they skip here and there, running round the trees after each other, the boys turning somersets on the grass, and the girls declaring that they could get to the top of Crow Nest with only a hop, skip, and jump.
"Oh, delightful!" cried George, "to get up a mountain with three steps! you'll have to borrow Jack's seven-leagued boots. I wonder who lives on the top?"
"Why, the crows, to be sure," said Harry, "and they keep up such a talking; it is like a hail-storm all the time; you never heard any thing like the way crows can scold. If one crow is caught stealing, all the rest caw and croak at him, till he very nearly goes into fits, and then they all fly at him till he hasn't a feather left; I read all about it in my Natural History."
"Oh!" cried little Minnie, "how I like to hear stories about fishes! tell another crow story."
While the children were good-naturedly laughing and explaining to Minnie that a crow was a bird, their mother appeared at the cottage-door and said, "Breakfast, children."
In they all rushed, quite ready for the nice corn-bread, boiled eggs, and real milk—not milkman's milk—but they looked round in some surprise for Charley.
"He is still sleeping," said the little mother, "and smiling in his sleep; this quiet rest will do him so much good, I hope. Oh, my precious Charley!" she exclaimed, "if I could only keep you a little longer;" and her eyes filled with tears.
The children looked sad and grave, and two or three went round and kissed their mother, and patted her kind cheek, and said they were sure Charley was better. After breakfast they stole softly up stairs to look again at their darling brother.
Charley was sitting up in bed as they entered: a strange bewildered expression was upon his face, and he had his hands behind him, trying to feel his shoulders.