"In what, then, Daddy Dumbrick?"
"In tents and forests and fields and that like."
"As the gipsies do," cried Sally. "I've seed 'em. Mother took me to a fair once."
"Now we live in garrets and cellars, and sweet-smelling habitations."
Sally looked dubious. Many of the houses round about Rosemary Lane were far from sweet-smelling, and she could not realise the advantage of the present over the past of which Seth was evidently boasting. To live in a tent in forest or field was a dream of Elysium to her, with flowers growing around her home and green grass waving. Too good for earth.
"Once on a time," continued Seth, "we couldn't read; now we can. Once on a time we weren't civilised; now we are. We've much more to be thankful for than we know of. This is the age of enlightenment, Sally, and the best thing I can do is to give you your first lesson."
Sally hastily put aside her work, and kneeling by baby's side stooped and kissed her. Seth, who had risen in search of a book, looked down upon the children.
"Don't you forget, Sally, what I said about you're going off in a trance. No, no, Sally!" he cried, putting his hand to his side to restrain his merriment; "not now. Don't you go fainting dead away now; we've got something else to do."
"I wasn't going to, Daddy," said Sally timorously, and with something like a blush on her thin, sallow face.
"Bravo, Sally; there's some lessons you know without being able to read--to tell the truth when it's necessary, and to tell the other thing when it's necessary. You little sinner, you! You've the gumption of twenty grown-up women in that little carcase of yours. Here's a book with large print. It belonged to my mother."