“You give it up! Why, I thought you belonged to the ‘never give up company.’ Oh, fy! Uncle Morris, I’ll get you turned out of the try company if you don’t mind. So you had better guess again,” and Jessie held up her fat finger and looked so funnily at Mr. Morris that the old gentleman’s heart warmed towards her, and giving her a kiss of fond affection, he said—
“Then I guess it is for your poor old uncle.”
“Beans are hot!” cried Jessie, clapping her hands. “You’ve guessed it at last. But see my work, Uncle! Isn’t it beautiful?”
“Very pretty, indeed, my dear,” replied the old man, who now put on a comical look, and added, “but I’m afraid I shall not live until it is finished.”
“Not live——!” Jessie was going to be alarmed, but her uncle’s laughing eyes checked her alarm, and catching his meaning from his expression, she pouted and was silent.
“Don’t put on that frightful pout, my little puss, for, really, I should have to live as long a life as an ancient patriarch if I do not die before you are likely to finish the handkerchief. There are the quilt, the slippers, the watch-pocket, the chair-cushion, and the handkerchief all begun for me, but nothing finished. That little wizard—his name is Impulse, you know—which led you to drop the quilt that you might begin the slippers, and the slippers that you might begin the chair-cushion, will soon tempt you to drop the handkerchief for something else. I wish I could catch the jolly little imp. I’d cane him smartly, and then I would lead him to Parson Resolution’s church, and marry him to that sweet little fairy, Miss Perseverance, who is breaking her heart for the love of him. Were he once thus married, I think his bride would teach him to help you finish all the little gifts you have begun for me, and there would be some hope that I should live long enough to sleep under your quilt, sit on your cushion, walk in your slippers, put my watch in your pocket at night, and blow my venerable nose in your embroidered pocket-handkerchief.”
The reproof so pleasantly given in these quaint words found its way to Jessie’s heart. Her face became sober, she bit her lips, a stray tear or two hung, like dew-drops in the web of a gossamer, on her long eyelashes, she sighed and after a few moments of silent thought rose, planted her right foot firmly on the floor, and said—
“Uncle Morris, I will conquer that little wizard! I will finish your quilt right away, and then all the other things in their turn—see if I don’t.”
Jessie had made just such a promise at least ten times, since Glen Morris Cottage had become her home. She had tried to keep it too, but, somehow, her habit of yielding to every new impulse which came over her, had hitherto led her to break it as often as it had been made. The little wizard, as Uncle Morris facetiously called her changeful impulses, was her tyrant. The jolly little rogue did, indeed, sadly stand in need of matrimony with the forlorn Miss Perseverance. For poor Jessie’s sake, Uncle Morris was very anxious to see the wedding come off speedily. Whether his wish was met or not, will appear hereafter.
To prove her sincerity Jessie put the cambric handkerchief in the bottom of her work-basket. The other articles she placed, in the order in which she had begun them, above it, and then sat resolutely down to her patchwork quilt. As her bright little needle began to fly with the swiftness of a weaver’s shuttle, she said to herself—