There was no good school in the neighborhood, and as soon as under her care and rule the child's health warranted it, she had a daily governess come from the city to give her lessons; and finding she was fond of music, Maud's long-silent piano was opened, and the air was filled, now by the accomplished hand of the master, now by the unmelodious bang of the pupil. Things went better now; Gabrielle had no time for idling; every hour brought its own occupation, and regular exercise, wholesome diet, and agreeable occupation broke up the habit of picking and pecking at dainties, which had been so pernicious.
She caught, too, some of Margaret's tastes, and instead of thinking about dress as a matter of great import, would content herself to put on a woodland rig, quaint, yet not ugly, and go off with her in quest of the gems Nature is always flinging lavishly about. They came home from their expeditions with baskets running over with ferns, mosses, lichens, grasses, and nobody knows what not, till their rooms looked verdant with beauty. Margaret got up a mossy bank with red berries nestling in it here and there; Gabrielle must have one, like yet not like it, for no two hands work on one and the same line; and Margaret had a rustic basket hanging from every possible point, and Gabrielle hasted to do the same. Mrs. Grey looked on with delight at all this. No utterly spoiled character riots in such simple pursuits, and she who begins to love Nature, begins to grow cold to all that is artificial. While in that house personal neatness was made a law, dress was never talked about as much more than a necessary evil to be attended to twice a year, and then forgotten. And now that she had taken to ornamenting her room, Gabrielle found she must keep it in order, and learned, too, that she had not a little executive power in the matter of arrangement of furniture and clothing. She began to observe, too, that though grandmamma would not scold, she could and did punish, and that invariably, when infringement of a rule required it. Later on she perceived a regular system of rewards going silently on. After a week of exceptional docility, an invisible good fairy would leave tokens of her presence in her room; now it was a vase for flowers; now a little photograph; now a paper-weight; it was not always possible to tell who this good fairy was; but whoever it was, knew just what she wanted.
So the summer bloomed and budded and bore fruit, and faded into autumn, and autumn froze into winter. There was rarely a conflict now; Gabrielle was too busy to find time for them, and too fond of the deeds of the good fairy to run the risk of one when she could help it. Mrs. Grey was not in the least surprised when, one day, the girl came shyly behind her, put her arms around her neck, and whispered, "Grandmamma, I wish I was a Christian!"
"So do I, my dear child," was the reply. "And why not become one, this minute?"
"I don't know; I've tried ever so many times."
"Tried how?"
"To be good."
"Is it said anywhere in the Bible that being 'good' and being a Christian are synonymous terms?"