I could feel Aunt Amelia's expression down my backbone.
Then daddy said,—
'Now, children, I will tell you a story.'
'A Sunday one?' asked Tommy, and when father said, 'Oh, yes, certainly,' he appeared to be about to take no further interest in the proceedings.
Father has a beautiful voice for story telling. He seems to fill it at will with fun and laughter, magic, mystery, tenderness, and tears. I wish I could put down on paper its beautiful tone and quality and show you the gentle softening of his strong face as he watched the little children sitting so contentedly in the meadow, listening to his tale.
Always after that daddy told them the old stories in a new way and the children were so interested and liked to choose the hymns. (They loved the ones for the burial of the dead). One day Tommy Vellacott sent daddy this note,—
'Please Mother says i can't go to church this afternoon and nor can emily she give me a green apple and i have got the dire rear and so has she so will you come to our house and tell us a story please your respectful tommy.'
And after the children's service, when daddy went down the village to see his two sick parishioners he had on his 'contented look,' as if what Ross calls his 'passion for souls' was somehow being satisfied by Tommy's desire to hear a Bible story. He is so dear and funny.
CHAPTER VIII
When Ross went to Sandhurst I got influenza, and then when I was better I got it again. Toby was very angry and said if I were going to turn into a trap for that bug he'd chuck up his profession and take in the village washing. By the time I had recovered the second time it was nearly Christmas, and Aunt Constance went to London, and I invited myself to lunch with Uncle Jasper on my seventeenth birthday, and oh! why I've got up to Chapter I again.... So the General Public can behold me now quite grown up, staid, and in my right mind, having been baptized, confirmed, and had the measles. But whatever else can I put in my novel? A little while after this I asked Uncle Jasper.