Then, having done something to please Mrs. Wilmington, they longed to do something to please some one else, and the Uncle was the only person they could think of doing anything to please.
‘Suppose we arranged all the books in the dining-room bookcase, in colours,—all the reds together and all the greens, and the ugly ones all on a shelf by themselves,’ Charlotte suggested. And the others agreed. So that the afternoon flew by like any old bird, as Caroline put it; and when tea came, and the floor and sofa and chairs were covered with books, and one shelf was gay with red books and half a shelf demure in green—
‘Your uncle isn’t coming in to-day,’ said Mrs. Wilmington, ‘and I’m sure it’s just as well. What a mess! Here, let me put them back, and go and wash your hands.’
‘We’ll put them back,’ the children said, but in vain. They had to go to wash their hands, and Mrs. Wilmington continued to put the books back all the time they were having tea. Patiently and carefully she did it, not regarding the colours at all, and her care and her patience seemed to say, more loudly than any words she could have spoken, ‘Yes; there you sit, having your nice tea, and I cannot have my tea, because I have to clear up after you. But I do not complain. No.’
They would have much rather she had complained, of course. But they couldn’t say so.
CHAPTER IV
IN THESSALONIANS
Now you may say it was Chance, or you may say it was Fate; or you may say it was Destiny, or Fortune; in fact, you may say exactly what you choose. But the fact remains unaltered by your remarks.
When Mrs. Wilmington placed a fat brown volume of sermons on the shelf and said, ‘There, that’s the last,’ she, quite without meaning it, said what was not true. For when tea was over the children found that the fat sermon-book had not been the last. The last was Shadoxhurst on Thessalonians, a dull, large book, and Mrs. Wilmington had not put it back in its place because she had not seen it. It was, in fact, lying on the floor, hidden by the table-cloth. If Charles had not happened to want his handkerchief, and gone down to look for it on the floor—its usual situation when it was needed—they would not have seen the book either.